Lawyers in early frontier fiction

William Nelson Cromwell, attorney, 1904

A law degree was not always a guarantee of employment in the Old West as we find it in the pages of early frontier fiction. Before widespread settlement, vigilance committees dispense with malefactors, and lawyers are regarded as superfluous if not troublemakers themselves. 

But as the need grows to administer property rights and establish ownership of land and mining claims, lawyers begin to find a niche for themselves. An influx of other business interests then calls for the orderly settlement of conflicts, and we see the introduction of due process—generally referred to as “the coming of the law.” And the lawyer becomes a fixture of the frontier landscape.

The reputation of fictional frontier lawyers is pretty much the same as it is today. In novels set during the period, they’re either fighting bravely for justice or they’re in league with the villains. Here is a sample of lawyers of both kinds, as writers portrayed them at the turn of the last century.

In Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s The Squatter and the Don (1885) squatters enlist the services of a shady lawyer, Roper, to force a Californio ranchero off his land. Contemptuous of both fair play and legality itself, he’s in league with a crooked judge, aptly named Lacklaw, who hands down rulings favoring Roper. The state Supreme Court routinely overturns his decisions.

In Mollie E. Davis’s The Wire Cutters (1899) a gang of young men is jailed after a deputy is shot trying to stop them from cutting barbwire fences. Though they have scorned a local rancher, Roy Hilliard, for refusing to join their nighttime raids, he magnanimously comes to their defense, using his legal training to act as their attorney at their trial. After an impassioned plea, he gets a not-guilty decision from the jury.

Clifford G. Roe, 1911

Frank Fields, a high life-loving lawyer in Elizabeth Higgins’s Out of the West (1902), is banished by his father to a small town in Nebraska, where he gets into state politics. Riding a wave of populist sentiment against the railroads he eventually makes his way to Congress. There he is sorely tempted to cash in his principles for a return to the high life.

Pauline Bradford Mackie casts a lawyer in a love triangle in The Voice in the Desert (1903). Jarvis Trent finds the woman he once loved, Adele Lispenard, in a desert settlement in Arizona where she lives a spartan life married to a clergyman. Lawyering has made him a wealthy man, and he’s only partly successful in winning her away from her husband. She takes his money and heads back East with her two young sons—but without Trent.

A young lawyer, David Kent, takes a job as corporate attorney for the western division of a railway in Francis Lynde’s The Grafters (1904). A gang of corrupt politicians takes the governor’s office and engineers legislation calling for state regulation of the industry. Then, with the help of a pliable judge, they get Kent’s railroad thrown into receivership. The rest of the novel recounts Kent’s attempts to recover the railroad and put a stop to the “grafters” of the title.

One-sentence journal, Nov. 17-23

Costco, 11/20/13

Time marches on . . .

11/17, Sunday. Must be the full moon; all night I dreamed of Quanah Parker.

11/18, Monday. Koan for the week: The wise don’t strive to arrive.

11/19, Tuesday. There’s something satisfying about pushing a big cart through the aisles at Costco and filling it up while wondering at what other people are buying—like that huge, mouth-watering pecan pie I saw going by in another cart.

11/20, Wednesday. Everybody needs coffee once a month with an old college friend who rides a bright red Vespa, votes Socialist, and can explain the difference between high-, broad-, and low-church Episcopalians.

11/21, Thursday. The vagaries of Coachella Valley weather: we dress warm for an overcast morning walk with the dog, and 20 minutes from home the sun comes out, hot as ever.

11/22, Friday. In the margins of old maps, you can sometimes find a fierce face with wild hair and cheeks puffed out, blowing gusts of wind over land and sea—he’s out there today.

11/23, Saturday. The stormy weekend, with wind and spitting rain, is a replay of 50 years ago as the chapel bell tolled under a leaden sky at the university in Valparaiso, Indiana, and the TV was an endless recitation of assassination.

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Image credit: Ron Scheer

Coming up: Lawyers in frontier fiction

Glossary of frontier fiction: D(drench - dyke)

Below is a list of mostly forgotten terms, people, and the occasional song, drawn from a reading offrontier fiction, 1880–1915. Each week a new list, progressing through the alphabet, “from A to Izzard.”

drench = a drink or a dose of medicine. “When they had one of Doc Simpson’s drenches they haids was as big as Bill Williams’s Mountain.” Eleanor Gates, Alec Lloyd, Cowpuncher.

Bloomer dress, 

dress reform = a movement in support of women’s clothing more “rational” and comfortable than fashions of the time, e.g. the Bloomer dress. “‘I dare say,’ said Miss Crowley, ‘that his wife wears spectacles, believes in dress-reform or woman’s rights, or she has six babies.’” Elizabeth Higgins, Out of the West.

dressing case = a box or case fitted with toilet articles necessary for dressing oneself, arranging one's hair, etc. “In a curtained alcove was a French dressing-case that Mrs. Suffridge said was over a hundred years old.” Elizabeth Higgins, Out of the West.

Dressing case, 1840-1860

drill = to walk. “One mornin’ I noticed that I was dead broke; so I drilled down to the dock an’ sat on a post.” Robert Alexander Wason, Happy Hawkins.

drill / drilling = a fabric in various weights used for work clothing and uniforms, e.g. khaki. “Her short skirt of heavy drilling came only to her knees.” James Hendryx, The Promise.

drivers = the wheels of a locomotive that transmit the power of an engine or motor to the track. “Then the drivers gripped heavily and the engine surged ahead.” W. C. Tuttle, Thicker Than Water.

drop light = a portable gas lamp attached to the gas pipe by a flexible tube; an electric light suspended from the ceiling. “The judge pressed the button of the drop-light and waved his visitor to a chair.” Francis Lynde, The Grafters.

drop one’s watermelon = to make a serious mistake. “That’s where Coyote makes the mistake of his c’reer; that’s where he drops his watermelon!” Alfred Henry Lewis, Wolfville Nights.

druggeting = a heavy felted fabric of wool or wool and cotton, used as a covering. “Already the lights were being extinguished and the ushers spreading druggeting over the upholstered seats.” Frank Norris, McTeague.

drum stove = a stove made from a barrel-shaped container, e.g. an oil drum. “A cheery fire was burning in the stuffy little drum stove in the center of the common waiting room.” G. Frank Lydston, Poker Jim, Gentleman.

dry moon = a lunar phase when the points, or “horns,” of the crescent moon point downward toward the horizon. “Well, Slocum, he owned a third of everything, mind, an’ his expression flopped square over like a dry moon, an’ stayed points up.” Robert Alexander Wason, Happy Hawkins.

dub = awkward, unskillful person; a bungler. “‘Why, you old dub,’ cried Wade, ‘the wire is from Jim Hess, Clyde’s uncle.’” A. M. Chisholm, Desert Conquest.

John Reese, Texas Gold (1975)

This novel gave me a case of déjà vu. It’s almost a mix of two other novels I read recently. Take Larry Sweazy’s Austin, Texas, from The Coyote Tracker and add to it the central characters and a nasty villain from James Best’s The Return. You get something a lot like Reese’s novel about a private detective after an international counterfeiter.

Plot. This was one of ten Reese novels featuring detective Jefferson Hewitt, who is one of a pair of partners running a bonding and indemnity company based in Cheyenne. Hewitt does all the legwork while his partner, Conrad Meuse (whom we never meet), runs the bonding end of the business. They communicate by telegrams so cryptically worded you’re hardly able to make sense of them.

The plot is complicated and not easily summed up in a few words. The villain, a Fantômas-style count from some East European backwater, has dreamed up a scheme to throw the world’s monetary systems into chaos. He is threatening to swamp them with a truckload of phony $50 gold pieces, taking down governments along with their currencies.

Austin, Texas, c1885

When the pieces start showing up and a man is killed over them, Hewitt gets interested. He guesses that someone somewhere has been stung by the counterfeiter and needs help that he’s willing to pay good money for. Tracing the fake coins to a rancher and his son outside San Antonio, Hewitt begins putting the clues together.

His path quickly crosses that of three other investigators, all of them converging in Austin, and each of them, as it turns out, on the trail of the same counterfeiter. The four join up—but only after Hewitt gets a promise of $30,000 from the Treasury Department if he can deliver the crook, the fake coins, and the die used to create them.

Gold Eagle

One of the investigators is a woman, Mrs. Chaney, the bored widow of a Texas rancher. She’s an amateur, but Hewitt thinks she has promise, and the two become a duo. Reluctantly working with them is a railroad detective, Tommy Quillen, and Dennis McGucken of the Treasury Department.

Character. Hewitt is a curious creation, not exactly a warmly congenial man. At one time a Pinkerton detective, he’s now self-employed and always calculating the profitability of the cases he takes on. He is adept at sizing up people and situations, drives a hard bargain, and has killed four men in his line of work.

Rio Lobo (1970)

Even star power and a first-class director can’t always overcome a confusing script, and this western is a good example. John Wayne has top billing in this Howard Hawks film about a former Union Army colonel who revenges a wartime traitor and rids a Texas town of a corrupt sheriff. The twist is that he relies on the help of two Confederate officers he met during the War.

Plot. The movie tries to tell two—maybe three—different stories with mostly the same characters. It starts out as a war movie with a long, half-hour sequence involving a complicated train robbery and a chase after the thieves in which Wayne is captured by rebels. This turns out to be a set up for his meeting the two Confederates (Jorge Rivero, Christopher Mitchum).

Suddenly the War is over and we’re in Texas. There a girl (Jennifer O’Neill) has ridden 200 miles from a town called Rio Lobo to report the killing of a medicine show peddler she has befriended. Reenter Rivero, in time for a gunfight that erupts with some deputies who have followed O’Neill to arrest her. Soon Wayne, Rivero, and O’Neill set off for Rio Lobo to bring the peddler’s killers to justice. Already there’s romance brewing between Rivero and O’Neill.

The corrupt sheriff (Mike Henry) and his gang are in the pay of a villainous land grabber (Victor French). His MO is to have a rancher’s family member arrested for a hanging offense and then dropping charges in exchange for the deed to the ranch. Reenter Mitchum who gets beaten up and jailed for allegedly stealing horses.

Rivero, Wayne, and O'Neill

Wayne and Rivero are joined by Mitchum’s father (Jack Elam) to capture French, who is surrounded by a small army of armed guards. In a daring nighttime raid they overcome the guards and Wayne nabs French, who turns out to be the traitor who tipped off the Confederates about the train we saw robbed in the first reel.

Taking over the town jail and freeing Mitchum, Wayne sends Rivero for the cavalry, but Rivero is taken captive by Henry’s men. This situation results in a prisoner exchange that ends unhappily for the sheriff and his gang. Henry himself is gunned down by a girl whose face he has disfigured during an interrogation.

Four stars. A synopsis of the film makes it sound fairly coherent, but watching its nearly 2 hours is another matter. It rambles on in way that seems like it’s not sure where it’s going. Screenwriter Leigh Brackett also has writing credits for two other Hawks-Wayne collaborations, Rio Bravo (1959) and El Dorado (1966). As the plot of this film threatens to resolve into a jailhouse siege, you are reminded of those two far superior westerns, which are much more tightly focused and constructed.

Race in early frontier fiction

Huck and Jim, 1884

For readers sampling early frontier fiction, one of the obvious differences between now and then is how unembarrassed writers were in their treatment of race. We know the arguments about the use of the n-word in Huckleberry Finn (1884), and that novel turns out to be a useful benchmark in the subject of race as it appears in the writings of others.

In Twain’s novel, the slave Jim is actually a full-fledged character, and Twain ascribes to him dignity as a member of the human race. You can’t really say that about most of the nonwhite characters in the novels of other mainstream writers. On the occasions when they appear in popular fiction, African-Americans, Native Americans, Asians, and Mexicans are typically peripheral characters portrayed in caricature. They may not even have names.

White supremacy is simply assumed in most novels, and there are degrees of whiteness. To call a man “white” carried the meaning of “decent,” “honest,” “generous,” and “honorable.” The word also meant “respectable” and “civilized.” Obviously, not all white men were. The connotation survives today in phrases like “that’s white of you.”

Occasionally one finds white supremacy actually voiced as a doctrine. Jack London’s A Daughter of the Snows (1902) applauds the survival of the fittest and sermonizes about the superiority of the white race. Rarely are notions of this caliber openly questioned or challenged by other writers, but the few examples that exist are worth noting.

Native Americans, 1900

Native Americans. In her novel Ramona (1884), Helen Hunt Jackson attempted to write an Uncle Tom’s Cabin to draw attention to the plight of Indian tribes in Southern California. Simple and trusting folk, her Indians are powerless against the unscrupulous land grabbers who are swarming into California. Confused like children in a suddenly alien and hostile world, they are ennobled by Jackson, who makes them patiently accepting of their fate.

The title character, Ramona, is the orphan daughter of a white father and Indian mother. Falling tragically in love with her is a young Indian, Alessandro, a gentle soul who has learned to speak Spanish and can also read and write.

Seeking sympathy and understanding for Indians, Frederic Remington takes a different tack in John Ermine of the Yellowstone (1902). The hero of this novel is a white man raised by Indians who attempts to reenter the white world as an Army scout. As he falls in love with an officer’s daughter, he is caught in a collision of cultures, and his story ends tragically, as well.

One-sentence journal, Nov. 5–16

Oak Glen, 11/13/13

For a long time, I’ve been noticing how impersonal this blog has become over the months and years. There is something in me reluctant to post personal news, photos, birthdays observed, holiday greetings, and so on. The closest I’ve come lately to articulating an opinion about anything but western fiction and movies was a carefully worded “rant” on misuse of the term “political correctness.”

Reading and enjoying blogger Chris LaTray’s weekly one-sentence journal got me thinking I should do something to break out of the self-imposed silence a bit. So after more than a one-week trial, I’m posting a one-sentence journal installment of my own. Now that I’ve started, we’ll see how it goes.

11/5, Tuesday. A sliver of moon hangs over San Jacinto in the evening sky, the air so clear you can also see the dark side of the moon, while the Valley below becomes a carpet of lights.

11/6, Wednesday. The day starts at 5:20, dawn light silhouetting the ridge of hills against the northeastern sky as I step outside the garage door, the cool air stirring the branches of the palo verdes.

11/7, Thursday. Making final changes to draft 5 of the book with an old tape of Pat Metheny and Spyro Gyra on the stereo.

11/8, Friday. Awake at 4:45 a.m. with the dogs next door yapping and my dog wanting out to scold them until they run back indoors, and I’m standing there in the patio—Orion sailing serenely overhead.

11/9, Saturday. These days have been that brief perfect season in the desert when neither air conditioning nor the furnace is needed to keep the indoor temperature just right, and you can leave the doors and windows open all day.

11/10, Sunday. More than three years ago it began to dawn on me that blogging was turning into a book, and this morning, as the sun was coming up, a draft of the MS for that book finally went to an editor who wants to read it.

11/11, Monday. Veterans Day: after the usual search, I find our big flag neatly folded in the top drawer of the buffet—where it’s supposed to be—and hang it on the side of the house facing the street.

11/12, Tuesday. As usual, I awake with a song running through my head, this morning’s selection “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You,” and I’m wondering, “Now what’s that about?”

11/13, Wednesday. A golden autumn day at the vintage apple orchards in Oak Glen, walking the footpaths in the fallen leaves and dodging around excited groups of well-behaved school children.

11/14, Thursday. Enough of political chicanery, school shootings, and typhoons; I’m giving myself a vacation from the nightly news shows.

11/15, Friday. Each evening as the sun sets, Venus is a super-bright spot of light, high over San Jacinto in the southwestern sky.

11/16, Saturday. Time (disturbingly) flies—all these posts seem like yesterday.

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Photo credit: (c) Ron Scheer

Coming up: Race in early frontier fiction