Cowboys and all
Don Coldsmith
Originally published 02:04 p.m., November 26, 2007
Updated 02:04 p.m., November 26, 2007
Well, it happened again, a few weeks ago, at the Kansas Book Festival. I didn’t even bother to correct the man who had introduced a couple of us writers to a roomful of students. Maybe I was wrong not to say something, but it would have embarrassed him terribly. He had told me that he was reading one of my books, the Viking book, “Runestone,” and enjoying it greatly. That book has drawn a lot of attention and took eight years of research. It has been translated into several languages, including Danish and Russian.
I have a couple of self-imposed rules in my writing. Any scene that I write is an actual place and I could take you there to experience how it might feel to be there in my story.
The other is simply this: I want to guarantee that no one can prove that my story did NOT happen, within known historical fact. But, back to the book festival.
“If you like the West, and cowboys and all, you should read some of Don’s books,” said the moderator. There’s a problem or two in that. Basically, I haven’t written any books about cowboys. I have nothing against cowboys. I’ve written about them in magazines, sometimes in the column. I have known a lot of them. I’ve BEEN one, in fact, and hauled our kids around a few states, hauling a horse or two for the horse show competition. That’s not really cowboying, but pretty close.
But the books I’ve written, about 40 in all, are mostly in the historical West. The cowboy era is a part of that and we still treasure it. It’s still going on. However, that’s not what my Spanish Bit Saga books are about. They begin about 500 years earlier, with the first European entry into the tallgrass prairie. No cowboys, yet, for another 400 years.
This recent misunderstanding ignited a train of memory from about 30 years ago. I had been doing a considerable number of lectures around the state, with the Spanish Bit books coming out at least one or two a year.
They can be read in any sequence, but at that time, the newer releases were in a historical era of about 700 A.D. Hardly “cowboys and Indians”; more like various native cultures discovering the use of the horse.
I don’t remember the occasion or the sponsoring group. It was, however, a chance for some publicity and a writer will seldom turn down such an opportunity. My books were becoming popular in the area.
We arrived at the appointed building and found the appropriate entry. We were comfortably early as we stepped inside. Tables were set and a few young women were scurrying around, putting last minute touches on the table decorations. But their clothing was somewhat unique. Every girl wore identical cowgirl uniforms, with cowboy hats, boots and identical shirts and jeans. The room, the dining tables and the stage with the speaker’s podium were all camouflaged with bales of hay.
Now, remember, at this time I had never written a book with a cowboy in it.
They greeted us warmly with “howdy-podner” handshakes and continued with the last-minute touches as the crowd began to trickle in.
It was a great audience to speak to. At that time we were quite active on the horse show circuit and I was writing for the horse magazines. That’s actually how I started writing. So, the ranch theme, cowboys and all, was completely appropriate.
But, I was there mostly to talk about the Spanish Bit books, which had very little to do with cowboys and the ranching culture, several generations later. But, we were “horse people,” and so was the audience. I managed to approach it by raising a question: What would you do if you had horses, but no “tack”? That is, no saddles or bridles or reins. You’d have to improvise, right? The natives would have plenty of rawhide and knew how to tan leather, tough or soft. It didn’t take long until the natives were superb horsemen. I was able to point out some of this, and how the natives applied their technology to become some of the greatest horsemen the world has ever seen.
See you down the road.
Author and columnist Don Coldsmith lives in Emporia.