March 2020 publication date for Louis Kraft’s Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


More’s a comin’ …

Gordon Yellowman’s art symbolically shows the Sand Creek village on November 28, 1864, and then on November 29, 1864.

More’s a comin’ … and this has been a comin’ for a long-long time. The University of Oklahoma Press will publish Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway in March 2020. The book cover design has been completed, and the art is the only image I ever considered for the dust jacket. In 1999 I met Cheyenne chief Gordon Yellowman, when we both spoke at a major event at the Fort Larned National Historic Site in Kansas. During the conference Gordon and Cheyenne chief Lawrence Hart blessed the Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village, which is some 35 miles to the west of the fort (it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 17, 2010). During the day of the talks, Gordon was selling prints of his painting, “Sand Creek.” I bought one, framed it, and it has been displayed at Tujunga House ever since. He was thrilled when I called him to ask if I could use his art on the cover. When he said, “yes,” I was more thrilled.

Gordon Yellowman’s art symbolically shows the Sand Creek village on November 28, 1864, and then on November 29, 1864. The book is now listed on Amazon; it includes the dust jacket copy, which gives you a good idea of what the book is about: Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway on Amazon for pre-order.

To keep this short, … I show, that is show and not tell, the story from all sides. Cheyennes and Arapahos, whites that married into the tribes, their offspring, whites that coveted Indian land, and whites who spoke out against the massacre at Sand Creek (Colorado Territory). There are no good guys and no bad guys; they are all just people. I use their actions and words to show you who they were …

The scope and the problem that it presented

LK portrait of Chuck Rankin, which is based upon a photo of him that Pailin took of him at the WHA convention in Newport Beach, Calif., on 17oct2014. (art © Louis Kraft 2014)

From the beginning when former OU Press editor in chief Chuck Rankin and I were working on trying to come up with a story idea that that both of us would agree to, this has been pure hell. To begin with, I didn’t want to write the book. However, if I did, the scope would be large and not focus on an attack on Cheyenne and Arapaho village circles camped on Sand Creek in Colorado Territory on November 29, 1864. These people thought that they had been removed from the 1864 Cheyenne war, and were at peace until they heard otherwise from the U.S. military. This I made clear to Chuck, and we talked and then talked more and more. I’m one lucky cowboy to have had Chuck in my corner, for without him I would have never have agreed to write this book. Egotism aside, and regardless of what anyone thinks of Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, it will be the most important book that I ever write. Chuck, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

The Sand Creek manuscript status …

I don’t know. I hate to say it, but this is the story of my life—I don’t know.

This photo was taken in early 1980. Shortly after the time of our mother’s death (4jan1980) my brother Lee and I, along with some of his friends (all of whom I knew), created a ball team—the Kool-Aid Kids. It was the beginning of a golden decade for both of us as we eventually had three seasons and played year round. We had always been close, but these years linked us forever. This ended on 6mar1990 when Lee died in a car wreck (he was a passenger). This day was, and still is, the most devastating day of my life. (photo © Louis Kraft 1980)

I know what I’m doing to try and make something happen in 2020. Will I hit a home run (we’re talking baseball here)? My batting average is pretty good, so whenever the opportunity is in front of me I swing for the fence. Sometimes I hit a home run, and sometimes I strike out. There’s a saying in baseball, and it is important. If you don’t come to the plate and bat, you can’t strike out. At the same time, you can’t hit a home run. The risk of striking out is worth the chance of hitting a home run.

The copyedits of the Sand Creek manuscript

The day before Pailin’s birthday (July 5), we hosted our second annual July 4th party. I began my edit of the first Sand Creek copyedit on the evening of her birthday and delivered it on deadline (August 5). This wasn’t easy for I was blindsided by an editor who was clueless (and I’m being very kind here). Without communication or warning, I received all the pieces of the entire copyedited manuscript in one delivery—and faced the massive task of fixing what was initially correct in my draft but was now was a massive collection of errors. Trust me when I say that this copyeditor pushed me to the boiling point. I actually called University of Oklahoma Press managing editor Steven Baker and screamed at him: “Does she know anything about the Cheyenne Indians or the 1860s Cheyenne wars?” “No,” he replied, “but she’s a good copyeditor.”

I insisted upon a second copyedit and got it. By this time I had no trust in what might happen, and my seven-day weeks have been long with no end in sight. But this is little more than a two-headed dragon, for sometime—hopefully no later than now late-October—I will complete my work on the second copyedit. At that time my future will be before me.

I can’t begin to tell you how important the copyedits of my books are.

I do a lot of research, and luckily have a wealth to explore from my family (trash to others but luckily given to me; much of which I never knew existed). I created this art from a totally degraded b&w negative that could never be restored or printed that dated to 1972, and better I used it as the feature art for a blog that dealt with me being trapped in the bathroom on 18jun2013.  I played it for laughs, and if you choose to look at it (A gunslinger in a bathroom), I hope that you chuckle. For the record, I don’t think much of writers who view their writing as God’s gift to the world. This said, methinks I should use this art whenever I again talk about them. (art © Louis Kraft 2013)

Believe it or not, I know writers that are clueless to what a copyedit is, or worse writers who aren’t open to constructive criticism to improve their work—if we can call their writing work—for the simple reason that they claim that they are brilliant. For the record I have never completed reading a book by a self-proclaimed “brilliant” writer, and all of their tomes that I unfortunately bought (or they gave me) have either been trashed or donated to the Vietnam Vets. All of them.

Back to the copyedit; my editor did improve my manuscript when she stuck to copywriting and stopped spouting nonsense and crap about people, culture, and facts that she knew nothing about and located haphazardly on the internet. This is exactly what copyediting is supposed to be—improving the delivered manuscript’s word usage and paragraph structure. While fine tuning my wording, she questioned events and facts (which is good), presented ideas, and so on. … Some I accepted, some I rejected; but I always shared my reasons for what I did. Always. This is what a copyedit is all about—fixing, improving, polishing. There is one goal for the copyeditor and the writer, and that is to make the final book as good as possible. … As far as I’m concerned, every writer who disses this has his or her thumb stuffed where the sun doesn’t shine.

The blurb for the dust jacket

Let’s be clear here: the dust jacket blurb, and it doesn’t matter if it is on the back of the DJ or on the inside flaps—it is a selling tool. … A major selling tool, and a good one can sell additional books while a not-so-good one will not help sales (and may perhaps hurt them).

LK is easy going. I am also intense with a take no prisoners attitude. I’m sorry for this, but it’s just me. I have a vision for everything that I write, and I want to see it through to print. This said, I love my editors and my art directors, but will always challenge them whenever I think it necessary. The photo for this image was taken at Tujunga House on 30may2013. (image © Louis Kraft 2013)

This moves us into the land that I have invaded time and again as I insist in taking a major role in the entire production process of my books (and articles). Editors and art directors do not like this, for, I believe, that their view is that the writer’s work is complete when the final edit is accepted—meaning that the writer fades into the background. Not so with this writer. Good or bad, the book or article is my vision and I want t do everything possible to insure that my vision will see print.

In August I received the draft of the blurb for the dust jacket flaps. It was a good draft with only 10-plus words that were vague or I objected to as they were off target or erroneous. I completed my edits before my August deadline, and am happy with the prose. The final draft is on target and it hits home for the entire book. Luckily I have a get out of jail ticket, for all of the writing and copyedits. Done deal, and the dust jacket blurb will grab potential readers as much as the great dust jacket cover will.

I really want to share what I consider the final dust jacket blurb, but it must be a surprise come March 2020. Regardless of what you think about what is on the dust jacket flaps, I do believe that it will generate book sales to anyone who reads it. Yes, it is that good.

The maps

The three maps are complete, and again Bill Nelson created them from my drafts. Magnificent work by him, and I’m thrilled. Two are similar in design to the maps in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. The third map was a major challenge for me and for Bill. It is complete, it will be two facing pages in the printed book, and it will be an eye-opener.

My bro Glen Williams (left) and his brother Joe Franklin Williams during a September 1976 road trip in his 1974 Pontiac TRANS AM (400 cu inch V-8). A cool photo taken during one of their trips, and as Glen told me, on “dirt and gravel backroads of the Arizona desert making frequent trips … in Apache territory [while] search[ing] old towns, railroad track beds, Apache sites and generally spent our week exploring Indian land and points of interest.” I wish I could have joined them, and more, had known Joe (who was 16 months older than Glen). (photo © Glen Williams 1976)

My great bro, Glen Williams, you are going to like this third map—it’s for you.

Sorry folks, but no mas here (meaning in English, nothing more is going to be said about this map on this blog). I do love being a tease. Buy the book and see the map, for it will not appear in my blogs.

The designed Sand Creek book proof and the index

The designed Sand Creek book is in my near future. I had thought that I would see it in mid-September. That has turned out to be wishful thinking, to my disappointment.

The first draft will include where I have indicated that the photos, art, woodcuts, and maps will be placed in the printed book. I will, if lucky, now see this draft sometime in late October, but I’m getting antsy on this. Originally I thought that I would see it before now—this isn’t on me, as I’m making my deadlines to get Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway published in spring 2020. This reason is not for these blogs, although there may be a small LK headline in the future that I don’t want to happen. The page numbers for the book will be in place and firm. This means two things. I will review the text, but with all edits not increasing or decreasing line flow of the draft. At the same time I will begin to create the index (something that I have done for all of my nonfiction books). I currently have a 26-page mockup index that is ready and waiting for me to complete. If, and as with previous books, I will then see one final proof, wherein I can still make small corrections before the book goes to publication.

The LK 2020 Sand Creek future … 

There are three things in LK’s Sand Creek future: talks, articles, and a major delivery to the Louis Kraft Collection in Santa Fe.

Five speaking pitches are underway

I am only going to pitch five talks for 2020. All will require my usual salary and all expenses (except for LA—it won’t have expenses, as I live seven miles from the location). All are major destinations, and I am taking my time to make certain that the proposals are specific to each venue and are clear why a talk is important. I am only considering speaking about two subjects next year:

  • The attack on the Sand Creek village on November 29, 1864
  • The life and times of Cheyenne chief Black Kettle

Photo of LK (left) accepting the 2012 Western Heritage Award in Oklahoma City in 2012. I’m good at talking engagements. I’m also good when accepting awards, which are much more impromptu. This mounted cowboy bronze (you can  barely see him in the lower left of the photo) weighs about 18 pounds (and I kissed him during the talk, which garnered me a nice laugh).

How I’ll handle both talks (Sand Creek and Black Kettle) have been in place for a long-long time. Both will be unique, and I hope to develop them into long features for magazines (minimum of 3600 words). These article pitches are not yet in development.

One of the talk proposals was a verbal pitch to Kevin Mohr, chief of interpretation & operations at the Washita Battlefield NHS (see Gordon Yellowman below), and two written proposals have been delivered (the other two written proposals will soon be sent).


Believe it or not, this September 2013 Gatewood/Geronimo talk in Tucson was the last that I ever gave. Good times for LK, but times long gone—times I hope to bring back to life. Time will tell.

Those of you who follow these blogs know that I stopped giving talks in 2013. This was because of two reasons. I needed to complete the research and writing of my Sand Creek manuscript, but also, and just as important, I had stopped writing for software companies in April 2012. … But there’s more here, and I should say something about this. In 2012, I earned a lot of money. This meant that I could talk anywhere I wanted that year and the next. Some of these talks pulled in my requested salary and all expenses, but others did not and cost me a lot to appear. This was fine, as I felt that the venues and my subjects were important and I wanted to do them. So much so, that I did them while knowing that they would impact my bank account. This was how I felt then, and this is how I still feel today. All those talks in 2012 and 2013 are good memories for me (and will forever be so). Life goes on, but today is not yesterday. The past is the past, and it will never be the future.


This Sun Microsystems badge was the only software badge that I ever ever scanned. My relationship with them ended in January 2009 when the company spiraled toward end of life.

I can’t understate the impact this has had on my life. No matter how good, or how bad, or how much I totally enjoyed the thrill-ride to deliver accurate prose on deadline for companies on the cutting edge, there was a bottom line. They allowed me to travel for research and deliver talks to my heart’s desire. I can’t begin to tell you what a loss this was, and how it has affected my entire writing life.

It’s September 2019, and I know where I would like to speak in 2020. Oh heck, silence isn’t golden here. My cities of choice are Los Angeles, Denver, Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, and Cheyenne. Cheyenne? Cheyenne? Where the hell’s Cheyenne? For those of you who don’t know, Cheyenne (Oklahoma)—or more precisely the Washita Battlefield NHS—has been a destination of mine for a long-long time.

Jerry Russell relaxing on the private land that would eventually become the Washita Battlefield NHS (Cheyenne, Okla.). (photo © Louis Kraft 1987)

The first visit was in I believe 1987 when Jerry Russell’s Order of the Indian Wars ended their yearly meeting by visiting the Washita battle site that was then on private property. At that time I was tracking George Armstrong Custer in the north for articles. I called Jerry and asked if I and my family could join him for the trek to the Washita and then attend the banquet. We had a good relationship, and he said, “yes.”

My daughter and I flew to Oklahoma City before the 1991 Western Writers of America convention and drove to Cheyenne to get the lay of the land. The Washita battle site was still on private land, but I wanted to get a feel for it, and approached it from various angles. Binoculars gave me detail, but I didn’t know what I was looking at. I saw the hills, the valley, bits and pieces of the river, but none of it was usable. As we began to return to OKC a rainstorm pounded the earth. It was so bad that the windshield wipers were useless and there was zero visibility—a long 30 minutes waiting on the side of the road wondering if we’d be rear-ended by a driver pressing onward when he/she should have waited while Mother Nature thrashed the land. … I had previously been there in 1970 when I was a member of VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). I lived in a converted garage owned by a single mother who had a teenaged daughter on the east side of the city. I was assigned to work with African Americans (they weren’t called this then), and two VISTA recruits also lived in the garage with me (one white and one black; we had had four female coworkers, one of whom was black, but they they lived elsewhere). I quickly learned that Blacks had no love for cowboys. I wore cowboy boots, but luckily brought a pair of black laced shoes; my supervisor—Cheetah Gates, who had a large Afro—told me that if I wanted to live I had better ditch the boots. I did. More importantly, I became one with the Black community. I walked the streets day and night; safely. I hung out in bars, restaurants and front porches, spoke with everyone, and bonded with the people I worked for, as well as some American Indians. Good memories here—memories that would influence my future, although at this time I was clueless of what my life would become.

After the WWA convention my daughter and I drove to Kansas to see Medicine Lodge Creek, and most importantly the Fort Larned NHS. This trip was one of the keys to my entire writing future, although again I didn’t realize it.

This photo of George Elmore (left) and Leo Oliva dates to 28apr2012. I was again speaking about Wynkoop at Fort Larned, and on this day we had walked outside the perimeter of the fort to the building that Agent Wynkoop rented from the post trader for his Cheyenne and Arapaho agency. George was one of the key players in recreating the building on its exact location. Leo has also been key to restoring and retaining Kansas history, and this includes the Pawnee Fork Tsistsistas-Dog Man-Lakota village that Maj. Gen. Hancock destroyed in April 1867. Both have been major players in my writing life. (photo © Louis Kraft 2012)

We met then ranger—now chief ranger—George Elmore. It was the beginning of a friendship that is ongoing to this day. He gave us a complete tour of the fort, which I photographed and was key for The Final Showdown (Walker and Company, 1992). He asked if we could stay at his home and revisit on the following day. We couldn’t, as we had a flight to catch in OKC.

The last pitches are slowly moving forward. They will be long, detailed, and specific to the venues. If I land one, great; three, much better; all five, and I’ll be in talk heaven (at the moment I’m considering adding sixth pitch, as I know that one no longer has funding). I’m treating them with the same seriousness as I present my book proposals. Although two had been discussed on the phone multiple times (and one has been followed up with a full-blown written pitch), they aren’t a slam-dunk (a basketball term) for the people who opened the door to me must make a decision (see below).

True West and LK’s magazine writing future

My relationship with True West magazine ended when my article, “The Good Ol’ Boys,” was published in June 1990 (see the below caption for details). Before the article was published the then owner/publisher killed it until one of the featured people in it was purged from my story. I considered the owner’s decision heinous and never wrote for True West again. Yeah, I’m clear on who I will write for, and they are my decisions. I pitch them, they contract my stories/books, but the bottom line is that they work for me. This has been in place for a long time and has caused a lot of anger directed at me by them.

Early on then True West editor John Joerschke and I became friends. I pitched him on this article about people who presented history to the public in different ways, and he bought it. It dealt with four people: Gary Helms and his re-enactor cavalry regiment; Jerry Russell, who created the Order of the Indian Wars (and it is as we still know it today); Jim Court, former superintendent of the then Custer Battlefield National Monument; and Mike Koury, who is one of the best speakers I’ve ever listened to and current head of the Order of the Indian Wars. Yes, back in the day, this magazine was little more than newsprint and the pages bled. I had many pictures in this article to illustrate the stories, but just prior to publication, and, repeating myself, the then owner of the magazine—who, for some reason didn’t like Mike killed the section on him. The article was printed two issues after Mike had been purged from the story. This didn’t sit well with me, and again repeating myself, I never again wrote for the magazine again until Meghan Saar approached me in 2011 (see below). For the record LK knows how to ride a horse, and has for decades. (photo of Jerry Russell on the first page of the article & LK on horseback © Louis Kraft 1987 & 1989)

Hey, I write for me. My subjects are mine, and when I buy into them they are a marriage until death due us part. The books have beginning and ending lives, but articles and talks (whenever I am lucky to land them) can continue until I’m 130 (this is a joke, and yet it isn’t, for I’m doing everything possible to make this happen—the key is my brain, and it functions with my Corvette pedal to the floor every day). Don’t believe me? I have tinnitus, which is nasty. Since July 5, 2019, when I began the Sand Creek copyedit, and until September 22, my brain has been so-keyed into what I’m doing, the twenty-second of this month was the 17th day wherein my tinnitus was gone—totally gone. You don’t know what this feels like until you experience it. … The clear sound you hear, and that is without a buzz. Let me tell you that It’s heaven. How? Why? For me, total focus!

But, but, when Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011) was published the then True West managing editor Meghan Saar pitched me on doing a one-page article that would be printed along with a a surprise for me (good stuff by her). She came through big time, even though we never hit it off. She’s gone, for whatever reason, but I am forever grateful to her for reaching out to me.

LK art of Wynkoop that has been published in numerous books and magazines over the years. (art © Louis Kraft 2007)

The best part of the two 2011 True West pages was historian R. Eli Paul’s paragraph review of the Wynkoop book: “Louis Kraft’s special skill as a biographer is taking a figure from Western history—one whom the general public should know but does not—and telling the story of a meaningful, significant life. He did this expertly with Lt. Charles Gatewood of the Apache wars and now has repeated the feat with frontiersman Edward Wynkoop. In an American history that trumpets great ‘last stands,’ Wynkoop spoke out against the mistreatment of the Plains Indians and made his own stand of conscience, one to be studied, remembered and admired.”

Hey folks, no Wynkoop book; no Sand Creek book. The connection is huge,
and inter-linking connections have been key to my entire writing life.

True West editor Stuart Rosebrook and I connected in May via emails and a good phone conversation, and the focus was LK writing for True West. My daughter and I traveled to Tucson, Arizona, in June for much-needed R&R for both of us, a chance to just be us and hang out, and for LK to do some work. We succeeded on all fronts, but the key to this trip to Tucson was Stuart. We didn’t attend the Western Writers of America convention in Tucson, but Stuart did. On one of the evenings we got together in the convention hotel’s bar. I was prepared for pitching a series of articles on “The Key Players of the Sand Creek Saga.” Some of them definitely interested Stuart.

That was then; this is now (24sept2019)
Stuart and I spoke about my Sand Creek article proposal for True West’s 2020 schedule that he has been preparing, and about our working relationship moving forward. Let me say this: LK is one happy cowboy as he dances around Tujunga House.

(LK art of Black Kettle © 2015)

Starting with what we had shared in May, June, and then my official August 29 proposal for a series of articles, we discussed the direction of the magazine next year and how I might fit into it on an ongoing basis. Hey friends, this is good stuff for me. Let’s put this another way—I’m looking forward to partnering with Stuart and True West in 2020 and beyond. The offer is there, and it is something that I want to happen.

I know some of the details, and certainly about the various pieces that I’ll be writing in the future. Some will be based upon my proposal, and some will not (they’ll be from my book-writing past). We discussed True West becoming a home, a base, with an ongoing relationship with me as a correspondent, contributor, and editor. This is a win-win for me and hopefully for Stuart and True West. I know some of the early details of what we’ll be doing, but now is not the time to share them. One thing is certain, Cheyenne chief Black Kettle will be my first feature for True West.

Gordon Yellowman

Gordon and I have known each other since 1999, and we respect each other.

Photo of Gordon Yellowman (left) and Harvey Pratt. Both are Southern Cheyenne chiefs, and I took this photo of them on the Washita Battlefield NHS overlook on 11nov2011, after Harvey spoke about Cheyenne warriors in the past and during modern USA wars, and Gordon blessed the Washita village site. … You know my relation with Gordon, but I also have one with Harvey, due to his great friendship with historian Dee Cordry. There was, and is, key documentation that I had but in the 20th century Oklahoma blocked it from researchers. Harvey had this documentation and kindly allowed Dee and myself to use it. Harvey’s action is one of the kindest that I’ve experienced during my entire time as a writer. (photo © Louis Kraft 2011)

As said above, Gordon’s “Sand Creek” painting is key to Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, and to repeat myself, I’m thrilled. This has opened the door to hopefully a friendship, and perhaps the possibility of us talking together and doing signings. He originally pitched me on joint signings; I countered him on doing joint signings and talks. He agreed, and we’re doing what we can to make this happen.

Major update!

Kevin Mohr, chief of interpretation and operations at the Washita Battlefield NHS, called me on 19sept19 regarding an oral pitch I had presented to him a while back. Yes!!!! He wants Gordon and I to talk at the Washita in November 2020. Their bookstore will handle ordering the books (which I love, as I don’t have to do anything to get them to Cheyenne) and they already have prints of Gordon’s magnificent art of the Sand Creek village. … Ladies and gents, next year I will re-emerge from my forced retirement from giving talks. And honestly, I love doing talks more than acting on the stage, as I know what I’m going to talk about (and only attempt to memorize quotes), and it is a one-shot occurrence wherein my focus cannot waver. For me, talks are a big part of my life, and returning to doing them is long overdue.

Better, I am absolutely thrilled that this event will happen with Gordon and myself.

Gordon Yellowman and LK (right) after the completion of the Washita Battlefield NHS symposium on 7dec2011. (photo courtesy of the Washita Battlefield NHS)

I can’t say enough about Kevin’s efforts to help me obtain permission to use two details from artist Steven Lang’s magnificent mural of the attack on Black Kettle’s village on 27nov1868 that is displayed at the battlefield; a tragic day, for on it the chief and his wife (Medicine Woman Later) died (my opinion is a little stronger than “died”). The two details will add great value to the Sand Creek book, and I will forever be grateful to Kevin for his efforts to make this happen, as well as bringing Gordon and myself to the Washita next year.

Oh, I’ll be talking about Black Kettle in November 2020.

LK’s book-writing future is out there

I have certainly discussed my writing future on these blogs and elsewhere on the internet. It is my proposed future. … But as the legendary New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” This is a paraphrase of his great quote, but in regards to LK’s writing future, it is right on the money: “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

This LK portrait was taken in August 2018 when OU Press Marketing requested photos for the dust jacket and publicity. Pailin shot them on the 4th, and they were exteriors on the Tujunga House back porch with a hat as well as interiors in front of a bookcase without a hat. She captured a lot of a great shots, but this was not one of the closeups that I delivered to OU Press (perhaps as it was my favorite and I wanted to use it elsewhere). I have since sent it to them, but without a response. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2018)

This means one thing: what I said in the recent past, what I say here, and what I say in the future may change for one simple reason—Kraft is fickle as he travels that road where the research and words lead him. My future is before me, and I’m going to walk into it with open eyes.

At the moment, and this has been since beginning the Sand Creek copyedit on the evening of July 5, I have been working seven days per week every week. This has caused health problems, and I’m worn out, but these days are not about to end in the near future. I have a lot that I must complete for Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway to see publication. Trust me, for this is number one in everything that I do at this time. Number two is setting up articles and talks, for this is major for my 2020 life. Finally I intend to put my future book writing in place, and it will not supplant my Sand Creek talks and articles in 2020. At the same time it will dominate my book writing future.

Finally, and for those of you who don’t know who I am or what I do

I am simply a person who has followed my winding trail to today. I have always had focus, but when I have been faced with a projected goal that is beyond my grasp, I have never—never—continued on a path that has no chance of success. Again, never!

My entire life has been interconnected since I was a boy. Everything was in place by the time I graduated from the sixth grade, although I didn’t know it until perhaps two decades later. Everything. The key was my parents, both of whom were open to all people regardless of race, color, or religion.

Doris & Louis Kraft in their Reseda, Calif., home in 1972 (photo © Louis Kraft 1972)

The house I grew up in was an open door to everyone. I never realized this until many years later.* My mother and father also supported every choice I made during my growing years. It didn’t matter if they agreed with what I wanted to do or not, for they backed me 100 percent. But not with money, for here I was on my own. I learned the importance of greenbacks early on. My first paying job was delivering newspapers (the Los Angeles Daily News; think it had another name back then; the Green Sheet????) while in elementary school. I would eventually be laid off when the paper decided to transition from bicycle delivery to automobile delivery, but then worked throughout high school and collage as I wanted a university education. Early on, my father had told me that he couldn’t and wouldn’t pay for my education. Back in the dark ages obtaining a good education was doable (we all know how times have changed and the cost of education is now obscene). I wanted it, and although working, I graduated in four years, and without checking completed between 16 and 18 extra credits. In my final semester there was an upper division anthropology class on American Indians. I had not had any anthropology classes, and this bothered the professor. I told her that I didn’t need it for graduation, and that I wanted to learn about Indians. She allowed me to join the class. However, near the end of it she shook her head and smiled. “Anthropology is nonfiction, and your term paper is fiction.” “The class description and your handout on the term paper didn’t mention the word, ‘fiction’ or ‘nonfiction.'” She wanted to grind her teeth; she wanted to rip me to shreds. She didn’t. “I’ll accept your paper, but it will cost you a grade.” “Thank you.” I received a “B” for the paper and a “B” for the class. My paper was about an Apache teenager who was on a journey to become a man (based upon facts). In spring 1969 I was clueless of my future.

Shortly after my family migrated from New York to California, Doris Day had a song that my parents bought on 78rpm, “Que sera, sera, what will be will be.”* They played it all the time in our new home in sunny SoCal. They loved it, and so did I. This could be my theme song. I don’t have it. … Maybe I should get it so that I could listen to it again.

A hint of the future

Years back I had stopped listing future blogs, for the simple reason that some of them never happened. Today is special for I’m going say a little about the next blog.

I based this art of Olivia de Havilland and myself from photos taken at her Paris, France, home in 2009. When I posted it elsewhere on social media I was accused of creating it from scratch, and the reason was that I had not spent time with OdeH (the implication was clear—I did not know her and had never met her). For the record, I never say I do or did something if I didn’t do it. She is a wonderful person, and I’ve been lucky to be a part of a small portion of her life. (art © Louis Kraft 2013)

I know exactly what the next blog will discuss—my writing future. It is going in directions that have been in place for decades. This is no surprise for me, but it may be a major shock for some of you. As always I’ll mix and match subjects that are of importance to me. Pailin pitched me on a subject she wanted me to photograph and document. It was right up my alley, and I immediately agreed to her request, but health and deadlines prevented this from happening. My loss (and certainly Pailin’s, for I let her down). At the same time some of what is ongoing scares the hell out of me. This blog will go live at the end of December. Hopefully it grabs your interest.

Until then, vaya con dios, amigos y amigas.

Sand Creek Massacre update, SoCal fires, P-64, & Christmas

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


The next blog is tentatively scheduled for late March, and will feature Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway and Errol & Olivia updates. My apologies for moving the LK top 60 film list from this blog but there is still too much study that must be completed before my opinion on these films can go live.

’Tis the time of peace on earth
and goodwill to all

Christmas, like Thanksgiving, are now quiet gatherings with my family. It is a day to count our blessings and cherish each other as we pray for peace on earth and equality for all on the day that represents the birth of Jesus. Pailin and I will welcome in the New Year at the Thai Temple in North Hollywood on the evening of the thirty-first.

Pailin created this Christmas image of us for social media. The photo is from 2016 and it was from the last Christmas party we have hosted. It was mostly in the backyard until everyone moved inside after nightfall. That day was nippy, as was this Christmas. Both wouldn’t have been so cold if the wind hadn’t increased as each hour passed. … Just for the record I’m freezing when temperatures drop into the low 60s (no comment is needed). The last thing that I want to do is live in a winter wonderland. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2016)

I talk to the little boys and girls who live next door. A large hedge along my 80-foot driveway separates us but clipping and removing branches that die during heat spells creates openings wherein we can see each other (and this includes a little boy who lives two doors farther south). They are Latino, but unlike some of their parents they are bi-lingual and speak terrific English. But if not, we’d still be friends. … I walk a lot, often to various stores, and see them in their front yards and when they walk with their parents. I’m almost always around, I have a car they like a lot, they also like my shaggy hair (compliments of yours truly) as theirs is neatly clipped. It matters not if they only had a handful of English for we’d still be able to communicate.

We talk almost daily, and it is enjoyable for us, as we are curious about each other. They had their Christmas tree at least a week and a half before the twenty-fifth. They wanted to know if I had mine. “No.” “When are you going to get it?” “I’m not.” “Why?” “I don’t have any children like you.” “Doesn’t your girlfriend want a Christmas tree?” I chuckled. “She’s my wife, and she’s okay without one. Actually, I haven’t had a tree since my little girl grew up.” “Oh.” There was disappointment in his voice. His simple “Oh” touched me and my memories drifted back to Christmas days long gone but not forgotten.

This card is a major update to a Christmas card that I created in 1992. There were three printed words inside the card: “life … love … peace …” These words are still with me today. May they be with you today, tomorrow, and forever … LK. (image © Louis Kraft 1992, 2018)

I’ve missed giving talks …

Probably the major piece of my life that Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway forced me to walk away from years back were giving talks. They almost always got me on the road, and I love to travel. More important was/is the thrill of doing one-time presentations before audiences while not knowing what was going to come out of my mouth.

LK talking about “Cheyenne Indian Agent Edward Wynkoop’s 1867 Fight to Prevent War” at the Chávez History Library (Santa Fe, N. Mex.) on 15sept2004. BTW, this talk dealt with the destruction of the Southern Cheyenne-Dog Man-Sioux village on the Pawnee Fork in Kansas. It is a key piece in the Sand Creek manuscript Epilogue, which shows “the tragic end of a lifeway.” I shouldn’t say the following, but heck these blogs are for LK publicity (and hopefully offer a little entertainment). … The Chávez houses the Louis Kraft Collection of his work, photos, and correspondence (AC 402 and ACP 010 for the photo archive). Tomas Jaehn created it at the beginning of this century. He has moved on to become the Director,
Special Collections/CSWR University of New Mexico Libraries as well as becoming a great pal of LK. (photo © Louis Kraft 2004)

I’m prepared, always, but I refuse to read or use slides. I know what I’m going to talk about and I do work on it, but the only thing that I attempt to memorize are quotes.

Sometimes quotes walk out the door of my memory at the most inopportune moments. Paraphrasing usually saves the day, but not always. A number of years back I was talking about Errol Flynn’s performance as George Armstrong Custer in They Died with Their Boots On (Warner Bros., 1941) and comparing the fictional Custer with the real Custer. My favorite scene in the eight films that Flynn made with Olivia de Havilland was at the end of Boots. Olivia, as Elizabeth (Libbie) Custer, helps Flynn pack before he marches to his destiny at the Little Big Horn in Montana Territory on June 25, 1876. During the talk (in Hardin, Montana, in 2011) I used some of the dialogue between them in this scene and of course went blank when I got to my favorite line that Flynn’s Custer said to Olivia’s Libbie—”Walking through life with you, ma’am, has been a very graceful thing.” There’s one thing when you perform live, and that is you keep going. I did but in a different way, I asked the audience for the line and one of the fellows in the front row or near the front row knew it. Think it might have been Gary Leonard, an Indian wars historian from England, whom I met a year later when Custer and the Cheyenne won an award in Oklahoma City, and who has since become a good friend.

Back on focus

Due to the massive undertaking of the Sand Creek story (not to mention The Discovery, 2016, which I wrote to pay for an operation that I didn’t know about until after the fact—money I didn’t have), everything went on hold. As mentioned above, talks were no longer on my schedule. Ditto articles, plays, and believe it or not this year’s blogs (my last one was posted in May).

Talk about a disappearing act. …

LK and Pailin on the evening of 22nov2018 (Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday). We are in the dining room at Tujunga House but due to the glare of lights in widows and mirrors (yes, mirrors—that’s a mirror behind Pailin and not an entry to the dining room) what is behind us is not behind us. Make sense? No? I didn’t think so. … See, I’m not a total outcast; I have a social life with my small family. (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2018)

At times it is easy to create an outline or a proposal, but in the Sand Creek manuscript there was a massive problem and it wasn’t the research (but in my case the research doesn’t end until no more changes can be made, and this isn’t a joke). It was the massiveness of the players from all points of view. After mining the facts the question became how do I pull all their stories together seamlessly in a linear way and make it work with the larger picture of what was affecting their lives? This is a hell of a lot easier said than done, and certainly when the scope of the manuscript is huge. For those of you who don’t know I have done everything possible to be in the players point-of-view (POV, a film term) when dealing with them. The reason is simple, I want to show what they did and what they said for this will allow the reader to make their decisions about the Cheyennes and Arapahos, the whites who married into the tribes, their offspring, the whites who coveted Indian land, and those who spoke out against the massacre of people who thought that they were removed from the 1864 Cheyenne war in Colorado Territory.

I know, it’s a mouthful but an exploration that has become a big part of my life. Honestly, I’m one lucky cowboy to have it in my life.

Fire, fire, and more fire, … and which blog goes live

Fire has become the new normal in California and in other western states. Unfortunately it is not going away. The year 2017 was the worst fire year in California history, but 2018 surpassed it by late spring. By fall 2018 destroyed the 2017 figures.

This Los Angeles Times photo (12nov2018) isn’t as dramatic as the multitude of photos that pictured lines and lines of destroyed vehicles that did not escape from Paradise in the Camp fire, but it has massive importance. The San Fernando Valley (SFV) has a population of 1.75 million. If the Woolsey fire had continued east through Calabasas, Bell Canyon, and West Hills the number of destroyed vehicles would have been in the 10s of thousands. I know, this sounds like a ridiculous disaster movie plot, but someday it could become reality. This is the second year in a row when raging fires invaded the SFV. In 2017 fire struck the northeastern and eastern sides of the Valley (and both of those were within five miles of my house), and every effort was put in place to stop them.

Certainly the Woolsey fire in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties (November 2018) has affected me and many other people (and most of them much-much-much worse than me and for many of them their lives will never be as before). … So has my breathing clinic, my Sand Creek manuscript, and my film blog, which preempted this Sand Creek blog, only to get preempted in return (fair is fair). Even though the work on Sand Creek has been ongoing for what seems like a lifetime (read never-ending) things change. …

The Woolsey fire, its devastation, is an example of daily life in California.*

There is a mostly-unpublished fact that has recently come to light
(regarding Northern California). The Camp fire, which wiped
out the town of Paradise (November 2018) and quickly
became the worst and deadliest fire in the Golden
State’s history has a statistic that is frightening.
Between 2003 and 2018 this portion of
Northern California had permits to
build 24,000+ houses. During
this time fire has destroyed
20,000+ homes.

* See https://www.louiskraftwriter.com/2018/01/01/louis-kraft-socal-fires-earthquakes-sand-creek-massacre-an-errol-flynn-tidbit/ for details about the 2017 SoCal fires.

The nightmare is ongoing. A study just released pointed out that over 1.1 million buildings are at fire risk in California, according to the Los Angeles Times (“A million buildings facing fire risk stir cries for action,” 22dec2018; see the map at left and drag it onto your desktop to expand it), that is “roughly 1 in 10 buildings.” The largest number of these buildings are in Los Angeles County: 114,000, “including tens of thousands of Westside and San Fernando Valley houses in the Santa Monica, Santa Susana and San Gabriel mountains”. … The Times went on to state: “The findings follow a fire season of unprecedented destruction—more than 20,000 homes lost, more than 100 people killed—that showed what damage can be done if Californians fail to address a widespread risk.”

The real SoCal

California rainfall season is from October 1 until September 31. For the rainfall season ending on 31sept2018 for Los Angeles the rainfall was 4.74 inches.* … Regardless if SoCal has a lucky year of rainfall as we did between 1oct16 and 31sept17, which was about 18 inches (an anomaly), SoCal suffered through the worse year on record for fire destruction in California in 2017. …

* As of December 26 the rainfall for the season that began on October 1, 2018, is 4.26 inches (three months into the year and we have almost reached last season’s entire output). Fingers are crossed.

Even though the destruction during recent fire seasons has increased this century everyone thought that 2017 was an anomaly. It wasn’t. By late spring 2018 the fire season (which now almost feels like it is year round) surpassed 2017. That year two fires came within five miles of Tujunga House (one from the east and one from the north).* What do you take if you must run? Pailin and I know what documentation is mandatory, and we have more than most people for Pailin has gone through multiple processes to obtain permanent residency, obtain a Social Security number, driver’s license, and of major importance pass the required testing to obtain a certificate that she is one of the top massage therapists in California (it is illegal to work in the state if you don’t have this license and raids are ongoing).

* I would need a large U-haul to get my research to safety (not a comforting thought) or a year to digitize it (not going to happen), and this doesn’t include a lot of artifacts, posters, photos, and books).

As of 17nov2018 over 98,000 acres have burned in the Woolsey fire. … The Griffith Park fire started on the morning of 9nov2018 where Victory Boulevard crosses over the 134 freeway just east of I-5 at the southern entrance to the Los Angeles Zoo and the Autry Museum of the American West. The brush fire was totally extinguished by the next morning with only 30 burnt acres. Luckily there were no Santa Ana winds on the east side of the San Fernando Valley for the cities of Glendale (east and northern border) and Burbank (to the north and northeast) while the town of North Hollywood was northwest (about seven miles to Tujunga House), … all highly populated areas. (To view a larger rendition of the map drag it to your desktop and open it.)

On 7nov18 fires again struck SoCal with an intent to destroy and kill (a day after the Camp fire in Northern California destroyed most of the town of Paradise (population of approximately 26,000). …What has happened during the Camp fire in Butte County (where the town of Paradise once stood) has been an ongoing nightmare. As of 17nov2018 9,800 homes have been destroyed, the death count currently is 71 (this number is now over 100, but it includes some deaths in SoCal) with 1,001 people still missing (this figure has dropped, but they’ll never find all of the missing). I don’t know what you see outside of California but I see it all. The story of Sand Creek and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians is a tragedy; so is the story of the people who once lived in Paradise. Some died in their homes, others died in their cars as they attempted to flee, while even more died after deserting their cars in a last-gasp effort to survive.

This image of Llamas on a beach in Malibu, Calif., on 9nov18 (© Wally Skalij for the Los Angeles Times) is worth 10,000 words for it shows the horror that has become a yearly occurrence in California. The two llamas, Thunder and Luke (called alpacas in a later edition of the Times), and the horse, Gidget, are west of the Santa Monica Mountains and they are as far west as they can go for just beyond them is the Pacific Ocean. They symbolize not only the destruction of property but also the massive loss of animal life (wild and not). Luckily Thunder and Luke were evacuated to Ojai, a gorgeous valley/small city north of the city of Ventura (Ventura County), and Gidget to a stable in Glendale (a city in LA County; I-5 is its western border and the Ca. 134 freeway cuts through it as it begins to climb the mountain on its way to Pasadena).

My time is short, and the fires in California have again become the fires from hell. I don’t have time to keep writing about this ongoing disaster, so perhaps this social media post will give you some indication of the immensity of the threat: Woolsey fire as related to Los Angeles county on 12nov18. The fire that has ravaged Ventura and Los Angeles Counties was contained around November 19. Some 300,000 people were evacuated in California since these fires broke out in early November; 177,000 lived in Los Angeles County. It could have been worse—much worse—if the Woolsey fire had completed its invasion of the San Fernando Valley, it had the possibility of forcing an additional 1.75 million evacuations.* So what’s the big deal? This example should give you an idea. One of my physician’s office is on Ventura Blvd. in Encino. It is a 10 mile drive. To arrive at a nine o’clock appointment on time I need to be on the road by seven-twenty.

* If the SFV was a city it would be the fifth largest in the USA (only NYC, LA, Chicago, and Houston would be larger).

When the Santa Ana winds strike their speeds can quickly grow from 40 mph to 60 to 75 and more. The firefighters, some of whom at times worked 36 hours straight, had to deal with not only the power of the Santa Anas but also the sudden change of direction.

Many people lost everything but their lives. Everything. Already many know that they can’t rebuild for what they had originally paid for their homes is peanuts in today’s market and unfortunately many could not keep increasing their fire insurance.

My house before moving to Tujunga House was in Thousand Oaks. A very safe and gorgeous city in Ventura County (just north of LA County). It was on a hill, had a courtyard, swimming pool (swimming is my favorite individual exercise; I’ve been a fish since elementary school), and a half-block walk into the Santa Monica Mountains. The house survived as the fire was farther south.

An LK reality

Art of LK and his pistol-packing lady that I began several years after I began pitching the idea of bringing Johnny’s novel to the stage (see the paragraph to the left of this image). I’m a chameleon but this is an image that reappears in my life time and again. … Pailin? She is my lady for all time, and as such she is with me in all my incarcerations. She backs me at all times no matter deep I immerse myself in my projects, no matter how far I drop out of society. She is with me and I am with her. (art © Louis Kraft 2015-2018)

My life is what it is, and it has been this for way for a long time. My world is simple: Protecting three women, surviving, and living to see my Sand Creek manuscript published. This doesn’t sound like much but for me it’s a big deal.

The LK reality is the book projects and the people in my life. Relax for this blog will focus on Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway past, present, and future. Long time comin’. … But first I need to get a little personal with the recent past, present, and future. Not that long back I had pitched two friends on me writing a play based on East of the Border, a novel by Johnny D. Boggs, wherein James Butler (Wild Bill) Hickok tours the theatre circuit in the East with Buffalo Bill Cody and Texas Jack Omohundro. Wild Bill feels awkward treading the theatrical boards, is bored, hates what he is doing, and is often drunk. He discovers that when he fires his revolver too close to extras playing dead Indians that they leap to life when the blank firing burns them. He loves this. Type casting for LK? Probably. I’ve wanted to play Wild Bill since the first time I read Johnny’s novel.

LK, a former friend, and John Goodwin at a Galaxy Press event in Hollywood, Calif., in June 2010. I designed two of the hats (center and left), the buckskin coat, and moccasins years back.

This desire goes back years, and as I’ve said in previous blogs Lisa Smith, Johnny’s wife, said it would make a great play. Still Johnny had been silent (probably because he didn’t want me to adapt his book for the stage). The other key person in this triangle was Tom Eubanks. He had directed all of the Ned Wynkoop one-man shows in Kansas, California, Colorado, and Oklahoma. He, also, wasn’t interested. Eventually I gave up on what I thought would make a good play, and better a great character for LK to play. They probably thought I’d embarrass myself. … I never get embarrassed, and certainly not when I’m wearing a wide-brimmed hat, buckskins, moccasins, and packing an 1860 Colt. Are you kidding?

See https://www.louiskraftwriter.com/2016/09/17/the-tom-eubanks-louis-kraft-ned-wynkoop-errol-flynn-connection/ for images of the Wynkoop one-man shows and Cheyenne Blood, plus more on Tom Eubanks.

I believe in reaching for the stars, … and if I get lucky and my wish/prayers become reality to reach for another impossible dream—that is many more years with my ladies and perhaps yet another book, and another, and another, … and another. Yep! I’m a greedy ol’ dog.

Since the end of May it has been an ongoing string of Sand Creek edits, dealing with the peer reviews, adding new information, checking and double checking citations, searching for key information that I need in the manuscript, reaching out for help with other experts on my subject (which, believe it or not I’ve been living with since the 1980s). This is always a good time for it is totally creative. It’s also a scramble as the manuscript must now come together and flow smoothly between people and events as the story races toward conclusion.

My great friend George Carmichael took this image while we enjoyed the Pacific Ocean in northern San Diego County in March 2001. I met George at a fiction class at UCLA in 1990. We were both writing western novels: His was traditional, mine was modern day on the Navajo Reservation. We didn’t see eye-to-eye, but somehow became great friends until the end of his life on 2apr2014. He was an engineer turned published fictional short story writer while I focused on becoming a novelist. Although I have two published novels I’m proud of (The Final Showdown, 1992, and The Discovery, w/Robert S. Goodman, 2016), I reached an intersection in the road, yanked the wheel to the left, and became a writer of nonfiction. (photo © Louis Kraft 2001)

Sound like fiction? Maybe. Sound like a film plot? Perhaps. … For LK it is nonfiction with many intricate pieces that must merge in a linear fashion and not jerk all over the place. … Been there and done that. But that doesn’t count for the scope of this manuscript is massive and I must connect all the players and events in a manner that makes the reader turn pages.

That’s right—turn pages. I believe that nonfiction is just like fiction, plays, film, articles, talks, and blogs. It must grab the reader’s (or viewer’s) interest at the beginning and hold it until the end. Will I succeed at this? You’ll have to read Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway to learn the answer.

Ladies and gents, the question of the Sand Creek manuscript being published in my lifetime is now passé. I’m one tired and skinny cowboy but I get up between four and five with a big grin on my face almost seven days each week.

A big grin, for my tablespoon of organic apple cider vinegar in a glass of water and then a cup or three of coffee begins my days of exploration and confirmation and word-crafting and polishing. … This is a golden time for LK and it gets better as the days pass, for this is just the beginning. See below.

The reality of this time

I don’t want to say that it was bad. At the same time I don’t want to say that it was good.

As I floated for months in a no-man’s zone that hovered between success and failure I was totally alive as each day merged into the next and the next and the next. One edit became the next edit and then the next, with each a challenge all its own. I’m social, very social, and get along with all people (two exceptions being racists and sexual predators that hit on me and other people; perhaps I should add habitual liars to the list). I’m also a loner. Although I want a special person in my life at all times I can thrive in a solitary environment. … Although I have many people that are a major part of my literary/creative world (these people are my best friends), and I spend a lot of time with them via the phone, email, social media, as well as in person whenever I get lucky. When it gets down to the writing it is me, my computer, pens, and paper. Zero days pass without work, and this drives me to the next day and the one after. I live and breathe my work.

This is my lady praying at Tujunga House on 9sept2018. We have two different upbringings, two different cultures, two different languages, and two different religions. When we met we took our time and slowly got to know each other, to respect each other, to trust each other, to explore each other’s lives, and to love each other. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft, 2018)

I am with my lady 100 percent of the time day in and day out no matter what our work schedules are. One hundred percent of the time. If someone badmouths her or hints that I should cheat because they have an open relationship I don’t run to the bathroom and vomit. Still you do not want to
hear my opinion of these slimballs for it isn’t printable in this blog or elsewhere. AND I don’t talk about them with friends either. For me
people like this aren’t worthy of mentioning. They are dirt, they mean nothing, and I remove them from my life.

Add racism to the formula, and I can say one thing and it is important—I grew up in a racially-tolerant family at a time when racism was rampant in the USA. Over the years all of us have seen a massive amount of progress to alleviate this hateful and harmful blot on the world. Unfortunately something evil took center stage in 2015 and people embraced a man who has no respect for humankind or women or the truth. This opened a door and racists crashed through it. It is the here and now, but like all evil that has thrown a dark shadow over the world in the past it will be pushed to the side and a humanitarian light will once again shine.

LK (right), Linda Kraft (left, d. 2006), and our mother Doris (center, d. 1980) in 1955 at the Van Nuys trailer park, our first permanent home in Los Angeles after parking the trailer in rural backyards for a long period of time. The car was a 1950 Hudson Commodore and it pulled the 35-foot trailer in the background to California. My dad owned the car from when he bought it in 1950 until 1998, a year before his death (and I had many happy memories driving it). (photo © Louis Kraft 1955)

My first best friend was a Latino (in a time when the word wasn’t used). I was seven and he was five or six. I was Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett and he was my sidekick (actually, he was also Davy Crockett for we were equals, even at that age and time) as we climbed the man-made mountain on the west side of the trailer park where we lived in Van Nuys, California, in 1955. We climbed it and slid down into the wonder of the Los Angeles River that flowed on the other side of what would become the infamous Ca. 405 freeway. We were explorers as we followed the flow of the river on the sandbanks below the trees that lined the water flow. It was a mystical time. Others—not many—also skirted the river; some adults and others younger. Not once were Jesse and I ever threatened. Try to do this in our 2018 world and Jesse Carrera and I would have become easy targets.

A Little about how I write and the Sand Creek peer reviews

Although I write my books from proposals and outlines there are no preconceived directions, and it doesn’t matter what the writing medium is, for I go where the research and the words lead me.

For the record I over-write everything and I don’t care what my subject or genre is. The reason is simple: The more facts, anecdotes, quotes, events, people’s actions the better for when it is time to cut, edit, add, polish, and bring the words together the better chance I have of creating the manuscript that I envision. … At same time I’m totally aware of the contracted word count.

Pailin on the bluffs to the west of the Sand Creek village at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site (NHS) on 3oct2014. Our wonderful friends John and Linda Monnett, whom we had been staying with, drove us there that day. This is one of my favorite images of Pailin, as she is an explorer and as at home in the field as I am. She’s also like me in that she is a little goofball. (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft, 2014)

I had begun editing the manuscript in June 2018 in the hope to deliver a polished manuscript by 15sept2018—an impossible deadline, and especially so when I received the two peer reviews in early August. As expected they were professional, well done, and with a lot of good comments and questions. As it turned out neither said a word about the huge word count and both highly recommended publication.

One of the reviewers had the following to say about the Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway manuscript: “Kraft … purposefully devotes nearly two-thirds of his manuscript to that time before conflict [meaning before the Sand Creek Massacre]. That portion of the work is delightfully original and a marvelous setup to the final third of the book, when for the Southern Cheyennes their world changed forever.”

LK with Scott Gillette, chief of interpretation at the Sand Creek Massacre NHS administration building in Eads, Colo., on 3oct2014. Scott has always been open and friendly to me, and he has time and again aided my research. Thank you, Scott. … Oh yeah, they sell Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft, 2014)

He went on to say, “Kraft has a fine way with words. … There are any number of Sand Creek histories, some good, some atrocious. Kraft’s point is not to refight the episode but to use it as a defining moment in the telling of a multi-generational history of the Southern Cheyennes, from their earliest appearances through Sand Creek and slightly beyond to the coming of the reservation era. No other Sand Creek history contextualizes this story as he does. Equally if not more important, this reader is unaware of any comparably detailed history of the Southern Cheyennes told within the same broad timeframe that Kraft embraces. That alone makes this work a gem.” Finally this reviewer said something that blew me away: “Kraft knows this story and its primary and secondary sources intimately. He utilizes his sources soundly, challenges in his notes various source shortcomings, contradictions, and nuances; notes where sources have been misused by others; and in all fashions a story destined to be deemed, I believe, definitive on the subject.”

Whew! …

Heady words, kind words, and I didn’t expect them. I hope that they prove out to be true. Time will tell.

I had miles to walk and thousands upon thousands of words to cut while fine-tuning the story line and polishing.

A return to the Woolsey fire destruction

I can’t walk away from the Woolsey fire and its destruction of film history. In July 2016, I traveled to Lasky Mesa, a massive mountainous and valley area (in the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve), an easy 35 minute drive from my house on Victory Boulevard). I met companion at his apartment on that day, and he drove. After parking in the lot where Victory Boulevard dead-ends at to the eastern entry to the Open Space Preserve you have perhaps a two-mile hike around and over hills as you work your way to an open area surrounded by hills and in the distance mountains—Lasky Mesa. Dirt roads and paths meander through the area and down into small canyons. That July there was a lot of dried grass up to my knees.

On 13jul2016 LK stood where Errol Flynn’s Seventh Cavalry rode to their death in They Died with Their Boots On (Warner Bros., 1941). (photo © Louis Kraft 2016) … For the record three of the eight Flynn-de Havilland films were westerns, and all had back stories that will be dealt with in detail in Errol & Olivia.

This mostly-ignored hilly area has been seen in many major films from the Golden Age of Cinema. This includes Errol Flynn’s glorious death as George Armstrong Custer (They Died with Their Boots On) that was shot in fall 1941. That day I saw the tree near where Errol Flynn and Alan Hale sat upon their horses as the coach with Flynn’s then wife Nora Eddington approached at the end of Adventures of Don Juan (Warner Bros., 1948), … as well as the tree from a famous scene from Gone with the Wind (Selznick International Pictures/MGM, 1939). I have this film on DVD but have not seen it in decades (and never in one complete screening) as the film bores me to tears. However, for Errol & Olivia (and sooner than I now expect) it will become a film that I study in detail while I decide what I’ll say about Olivia de Havilland’s performance.

Hours of 100+ temperatures put me in trouble by the time my research on Lasky Mesa neared conclusion. I had a backpack with a lot of water but the heat soared to 105-106 degrees (as I knew it would). By about three in the afternoon I headed back to the parking lot where the car was parked. One problem. I still had a long walk in front of me. Would I make it was not only on my mind but a true threat. I climbed a hill only to continue to meander to the right and left as I descended, climbed, and worked my way back to the vehicle.

Lasky Mesa is north (or east) of the Ca. 101 freeway as it slices northwest and skirts the Pacific Ocean. Soon after one can exit the 101 and drive west on Kanan Dume Road toward the Santa Monica Mountains until it reaches the Pacific Ocean. To the north of the road as it begins to enter the mountains is/was the Paramount Ranch (a back lot for a major film studio in Los Angeles during days gone by).

Fire devastation beyond human tragedy

But by no means has this been only humankind’s loss. The devastation has been beyond belief throughout California over the last few years, and not just to the families that have lost everything (many of whom won’t be able to rebuild as the cost has become prohibitive), but also for the loss of the trees and grasses and plants that are native to Southern California (actually all of California). And I cannot forget the wild life, many of whom have been forced to share their land with invading humans. I’m certain that this has not been an easy adaptation for them.

Lizards

I have pet lizards. I call them pets as I talk to them and often they listen, but they aren’t pets. I walk carefully when they are present as I don’t want to frighten them for they are wild. … I don’t know their view of me, but I consider them friends.

I took this photo of Tujunga House at 4:41 am on 6feb2018. It is a photo, not art, and it is full frame. There was an early morning fog and I took advantage of it and captured some great images. The foreground light was provided by a telephone pole that is just south of the driveway. The front yard is a good portion of the lizards’ homeland, and it is a wonder to watch them enjoy their environment. (photo © Louis Kraft 2018)

I don’t feed the lizards, but Pailin and I have created a home for them on the north side of the driveway with two pieces of granite near a huge bougainvillea in a plantable area that I cleared except for one white rosebush. The lizards discovered that the granite provided shelter from the elements and they have made the area their home. Tujunga House is surrounded by mostly desert vegetation. I don’t water often, but when I do it is for my lemon trees, bamboo, and roses (Pailin makes rose tea). Every so often I’ll water a plant that needs it, only to give one of the lizards a shower. It darts away, stops, turns and stares at me, almost as if saying, “What the hell are you doing?” … They know that we keep two monsters (a Vette and an M-B), and when they come to life and growl the lizards get off the driveway to where they will be safe and watch until the beasts come to a halt or leave their land. …

How many lizards died in the Woolsey fire? I could never venture a guess, but I know that it was way-too-many.

P-64

Here I’m also talking about an animal that is my favorite as it is so sleek and graceful (more so than wolves or horses or coyotes or doberman pinchers, my other favorite animals). They are sometimes called panthers, but much-more often pumas. They are mountain lions that live in Los Angeles (city and county). When caught, and they are never harmed, they receive a GPS collar, tagged, and given a name designated with a “P-” and a number. They are then returned to their habitat, tracked, observed, but never fed or pampered. If sick, and cameras are set up in areas they frequent, and their condition is captured, they are medically treated and returned to their homeland that ranges through the Santa Monica Mountains that separate downtown Los Angeles, the Westside, and the beaches from the San Fernando Valley (SFV) and the Ca. 101 freeway that connects downtown Los Angeles with the SFV (population of 1.75 million) to Agoura Hills, Malibu, Westlake, Thousand Oaks, Oxnard, Ventura, and onward to Santa Barbara and beyond.

Above is P-64 in the photo (courtesy: National Park Service). He was captured in February 2018 in the Simi Hills, Ventura County (northwest of LA County) and fitted with his collar and tag in his ear. This image shows him exiting a blind culvert that is in total darkness as it zigzags under the Ca. 101 freeway. The day after he was set free he became the second puma to be captured on film crossing the 101 freeway (I don’t believe that it was this image). Since that time he crossed not only the 101 but also the Ca. 118 freeway that slices through the northern portion of the SFV and into Simi Valley. It is not known how many times he crossed these freeways risking death by dodging speeding autos during night hours (unfortunately numerous mountain lions have lost their lives doing this), but he was tracked doing it forty-one times since he received his collar.

P-64 was a pathfinder and adventurer in that he expanded his habitat while trapped inside civilization. This was how it always was for him; the only life he ever knew. Then fire, fire, and more fire that increased time and again over recent years. But this time it wasn’t beyond the next hill—it was all around him. On November 26, and again on the twenty-eighth his GPS tracked him. But Jeff Sikich, a wildlife biologist who tracked the four-year old, said he was caught between the avalanche of blaring sirens, an army of firefighters, and frantic humans, and moved back into the burnt area near Oak Park and the Simi Hills in Ventura County. Glen Williams and I discussed P-64 in detail on December 10 and decided he was terrified and chose the best of his two options.

I believe that this is Jeff Sikich displaying two of P-64’s paws. Sikich located him near a streambed on December 3, 2018, about two or three days after he died. He wasn’t burned by flames but was forced to cross hot embers. The burns were severe, which would have hindered his hunting. It has been surmised that the burns might have led to infection. (photo courtesy: National Park Service)

The pumas have adapted to the massive encroachment upon their homeland. They cross freeways and range north and east and west of the San Fernando Valley. Some are in the San Gabriel Mountains that are on the northern side of the San Gabriel Valley (the next valley to the east of the SFV, where I wrote for software companies for 12 years). Mountain lions are predators and they do live off the land. Thus one must be careful when in their territory.

Our mountain lions are famous and often the Los Angeles Times prints articles of births, status, activity, and accomplishments of those we have come to know (and in my case, and friend Julie McHam) care about. Unfortunately the Times also shares their end of life.

Another piece of Hollywood lost to flames

This is one of the photos that Glen Williams shot at the Paramount Ranch on 25may2012. (photo © Louis Kraft & Glen Williams 2012)

To the north of Kanan Dume Road as it moves west from the Ca. 101 freeway and toward the Santa Monica Mountains is/was the Paramount Ranch (Paramount Pictures was a major film studio in Hollywood during the glory days long gone; so many mergers and purchases have happened I don’t know who owns it now). I worked at the studio in the ’70s and early ’80s; Nice place to work. My bro Glen Williams and I did a photo shoot at the western town on the Paramount Ranch (just building fronts for all interiors would be shot on sound stages) in May 2012. A good day for LK. In the dark ages I earned money as a model. Hated it! But the money paid bills. This modeling with Glen (as was other great excursions with him) was for companionship, as well as photos that might be used for publicity or for artwork. … Sadly the Paramount Ranch no longer exists. It had provided locations for films and now it is a piece of California history.* Just thinking about this brings tears to my eyes.

* Friend Dennis Clark saw in his local newspaper that the western town would be rebuilt within the next 24 months. My fingers are crossed that the article he read is accurate. If yes, Glen, ol’ bro, we need to do a Paramount Ranch photo shoot 2. If yes, I want our ladies to join us and make it a foursome.

Wynkoop and the Sand Creek manuscript

Errol Flynn’s portrayal of George Armstrong Custer (They Died with Their Boots On, Warner Bros., 1941) brought me to Custer, a lot of articles, talks, and Custer and the Cheyenne: George Armstrong Custer’s Winter Campaign on the Southern Plains (see Custer and the Cheyenne wins the Jay D. Smith award for its contribution to the study of Custeriana), Upton and Sons, Publishers, 1995).

LK with Chuck Rankin at the Western History Association convention in Oakland, Calif., on 15oct211. Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek premiered at this event. The poster in the background is now displayed at Tujunga House. (photo © Louis Kraft and Chuck Rankin, 2011)

Mr. Custer brought me to the Cheyennes and a fellow named Ned Wynkoop. When I started writing and talking about Wynkoop in the 1980s (and he had a lot to do with Colorado Territory history in the 1860s) I never dreamed that he would lead me to a major player in my writing life that I didn’t meet until the beginning of this century—Charles (Chuck) Rankin, the former editor-in-Chief of University of Oklahoma Press (OU Press). Chuck played a big part in the development of Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apache Wars Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2005). We spent many years talking about Wynkoop as we developed a proposal that would work for both of us. When we got together in Oklahoma City in 2006 he said to me that the beginning of a manuscript draft I sent him was a little light in content. “… And I’m 15,000 words over my contracted limit,” I replied. “Why don’t we spilt the manuscript into two books?” “Let’s think about this,” he said. During the next month or two he agreed to increase the manuscript from the contracted 90,000 words to 125,000 words.

Shortly before Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011) went into production Chuck asked me if I’d like to write a book about the Sand Creek Massacre. I told him, “No. I write about people and not war.” Chuck refused to walk away and over the next year or so we talked in person, on the phone, and via email. We worked on a proposal that was suitable to both of us. The contracted word count was 125,000-135,000, and I needed the higher number (and more) as the scope was huge to show and not tell what happened.

That was then … this is now

In April of this year I was informed that for the Sand Creek manuscript to be published in 2019 I needed to submit a completed draft for peer review, deal with the peer reviews, and deliver a polished manuscript no later than 15sept2018. As I didn’t have a completed rough first draft … on May 31 I delivered an incomplete but huge draft for review. I don’t gamble with cards or money but I do gamble with my projects. This was a big-time LK gamble for one and certainly two thumbs-down reviews would end my relationship with OU Press.

LK image shot by Pailin on 4aug2018 by request of the OU Press Publicity Department. There were exteriors with a hat and interiors w/o a hat. This photo I like (as I’m happy) but it is slightly out of focus (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2018)

It was an impossible task, and one I knew would never happen. … Still I dug in and pressed forward. In early August I received the two peer reviews. Both were positive and provided first-class comments (which required additional words), and more important neither mentioned that my incomplete manuscript was huge or that I should trim the word count (which was then 204,000+).

Hey Kraft, this mess is your creation.

I know. … and as I said above the more words, events, and character development I have the better it is to cut, add, edit, rewrite, and polish. In other words I am now in LK heaven (or perhaps LK hell). My days and nights merged—became one. Sleep was a delicacy that I no longer had. Days passed and September 15 loomed. Delivering a polished manuscript that was close to the required contracted word limit vanished. Current OU Press Editor-in-Chief Adam Kane upped the word count to 150,000. This was impossible and I told him I needed 160,000 words or more.

On September 14 I emailed Adam and told him that I would not make the 15th deadline (meaning there would be no publication of the book in 2019). A big loss as I don’t want to be like Errol Flynn and have my last book published after my death, a scenario that walks with me more often than desired. Back to the positive, missing that deadline was a godsend.

September 15 came and went, and I pounded the keyboard. A hundred words gone, a thousand words gone, five thousand words gone, and more and more. As I knew it would, the manuscript tightened and flowed.

An example of a long-gone Laser Disc cover of The Time Machine (MGM, 1960) signed by Rod Taylor and supporting player Alan Young. The film  was extraordinary in 1960 but it hasn’t survived time well, mainly because special effects have seen lightyears of improvement since the ’60s. Taylor’s performance was decent, but this film is not close to being in my upcoming top 50 LK films blog (tentatively scheduled for late March 2019), which will also feature Valley CORF (Tarzana, Calif.), a breathing, balance, and strength clinic that has done wonders for LK. … There is a good chance that Taylor will have three films on the list.

It was almost as if I was Rod Taylor in his star-making film The Time Machine (MGM, 1960) as I sat in front of my computer for the days flashed forward at lightening speed and words changed, sometimes to grow while often many disappeared in an ongoing merge of days, weeks, months.

This was my now while it was also my then. A vast desert of sweltering heat that I’ve walked time and again. Familiarity beckons confidence. Been there! Done that! … and I know the outcome. We’re talking about my freelance writing, but we’re also talking about my twenty-plus years writing for the software world. ZOOOOOMMMMMM!!!! I’m Rod Taylor riding his time machine … NO! I’m LK sitting tall in my chair as my fingers dance over the keyboard and my monitor flashes the changes in real time. I’m alive in my world. …

My world! …

Two hundred four thousand plus words fade into history for it has become 197,000, 191,000, 185,000, 179,000, 173,000, 168,000, 165,000 … and counting.

Today’s Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway

The “was” brought me into the “now.” On 15nov18 I delivered my “last” rough Sand Creek draft to Adam Kane. Actually by an email mistake, but that didn’t matter as I had anticipated making the delivery on November 16, which would have been the same draft minus a few files that were meant LK’s eyes only.

I will deliver the maps to cartographer Bill Nelson and Adam on January 7, 2019, and my polished Sand Creek draft to Adam on the fourteenth.

I have been collecting possible events and locations for the maps as I have worked my way through my manuscript polish. At the moment there are a fair amount of choices but most will be eliminated as space is limited. I don’t want to tell you what the selections are but those chosen will be based upon what I consider primary locations and actions during the flow of the text.

As stated elsewhere in this blog I do everything possible to show and not tell in my books. I can’t begin to tell you how important this is—at least to me. When Chuck and I created the 37-page proposal for the Sand Creek manuscript “show and don’t tell” was forever front and center. This takes more words but the extra words are worth their weight in gold a thousand times over when the book is published. This is as it should always be. Words are mandatory but it is the showing that must grab the readers and never let go. If done correctly the reader will turn pages, and more than they anticipate. From my POV this is how all books should be written. … Honestly, any book that puts you or me to sleep after two or three pages is a piece of crap and I don’t give a bleep about its reviews or awards or how many books have sold. In some cases all are valid and well earned. However, sometimes they are not. If you live in LA you would know that we suffer through a film/TV awards season that begins in the early fall and doesn’t end until the last Oscar is presented the following year (next year’s presentation is on 24feb2019). The amount of money spent stuffing “created” contenders down our throats on a daily basis is obscene. You don’t want to hear my views on this for they aren’t printable. It’s a part of the world, … just not my part. Pardon my English, but ass-licking or paying big bucks to win an award is something I refuse to do.

Maps

Until the Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek I had created the maps for my previous books. Believe it or not over the years I improved my skill at creating them.

This map from Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apache Wars Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2005) was reprinted in Lt. Col. Paul Fardink’s (USA-Ret.) article, “Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood: Premier Cavalry Soldier of the American West,” in On Point: The Journal of Army History, winter 2014. Paul had interviewed me for the article and had wanted it at the end of his prose. The editor disagreed and moved it into the flow of the text and it worked out fine for Paul and myself. Paul’s article is terrific and I’m proud to be part of it. (map © Louis Kraft 2004)

Two of my maps have been reprinted. The Custer and the Cheyenne (1995) map that illustrated Custer’s attack on Black Kettle’s village on 27nov1868 appeared in Sandy Barnard’s A Hoosier Quaker Goes to War: The Life & Death of Major Joel H. Elliott, 7th Cavalry, 2010). The lone map from Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apace Wars Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2005) illustrated Gatewood’s search for Chiricahua Apaches Geronimo (war leader and mystic) and Naiche (the last hereditary chief of the tribe) and the remnants of their people in Sonora, Mexico, in July-August 1886, and then talked them into returning to the United States and surrendering for the last time.

Chuck Rankin wanted me to use a cartographer for the Wynkoop book and this request began my association with Bill Nelson, whom I hired to create the maps from my rough drafts. The entire creation and review process was a total pleasure, and his maps are first class.

Adam had requested rough drafts of the Sand Creek maps, and all was a go with me supplying them to him and Bill Nelson (who I again contracted) by the end of December, which I have since moved out to January 7, 2019. … On 10dec2018 Adam told me, “We are fans of Bill’s work here so look forward to seeing the new ones for this latest book.”

I’m not going to tell you how I’m prepping the new maps, or what’s going to be in them but if all goes well they will include some locations/actions usually not seen on maps.

This was the rough draft that I submitted to Wild West for my feature on the Chiricahua Apache war leader Geronimo (“Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude,” October 2015). Not to brag but some of the locations had never before been placed on a map. A lot of work, and although the magazine’s cartographer created the final map from my draft Editor Greg Lalire and WW, both of whom have always been kind to me, paid me for this draft. (map © Louis Kraft 2015)

I have been selecting possible locations and actions for the map drafts as I work my way through what will be my polished draft of the Sand Creek manuscript. I had pitched a third map to deal with the Sand Creek village at the time of the massacre. All of the printed maps that deal with the massacre are incomplete at best and misleading at worse. I’m not going to reprint any of them or create a new map based upon them. There is current information that I am not privy to, and if I cannot learn the details that are available but not shared there will be no Sand Creek village map in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. … Not my choice, but I’m not going to print a map based information that I don’t consider valid. If this becomes reality—and I pray not—there will be no third map unless I have a replacement map that I’m not yet completely sold on (but on the plus side it might dip into Old Mexico).

How can this be Louis? Simple; about 8,000 words deal with the massacre, making it a small piece of my Sand Creek story. Not to worry for the SC massacre section is explosive and graphic. The goal here has always been to grab the readers and not let go (we’ll see if I succeeded when the book is published). Still, I want a map with the most up-to-date information about the Sand Creek village circles if indeed they are known, and I don’t think that they are. If so, they are a well-hidden secret. For the record I know the names of 15 Cheyenne chiefs who were present on that tragic day. I have been told that there were 20 Cheyenne chiefs present with no names or documentary proof that I’ve seen. I would love to have this information and the order of the chiefs’ village circles (if it exists).

Photo at right shows Southern Cheyenne Chief Harvey Pratt (left) on 30mar2017 near El Reno, Oklahoma, when he was honored by the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes for his service to the tribal community. He is with his friend Dee Cordry, an historian and former police officer, on the day of the ceremony. Eleven chiefs of the Cheyenne Tribal Council of Forty-four were present, as were the tribal governor and lieutenant governor. (Good friend Dee Cordry shared this image with me.)

Major information that is currently denied LK that must be in the Sand Creek book

I have information from Dee Cordry, who is writing a book that deals with a lot of people I deal with in my manuscript. I’m sorry, but I must remain vague here to protect Dee’s manuscript as well my mine, but what he shared is absolutely mandatory to see print, and Adam Kane totally agrees.Phot

This information when published by Dee and myself will destroy ongoing errors that have been propagated for decades and often reprinted without citations or ones that are error-riddled at best or created simply to disguise what doesn’t exist/never existed or worse create a lie based upon a writer’s premise (which some writers refuse to change regardless of where their research leads).

An example of lies in the real world

Many years back, but soon after Custer and the Cheyenne was published, a preeminent Little Bighorn/Custer historian called me and said he was writing a review of my Custer/Cheyenne book. He read about a quarter of his review (which, when published was over a page and a half in an 8″ x 11″ publication). Great stuff and I loved his words. He got me to talk about the young Cheyenne woman Mo-nahs-e-tah (phonetic spelling of her name); a major mistake by LK, and for all of you who write books when someone calls and states that he/she is writing a review about your work think carefully about who they are and what their motivation is for calling you. If there is just hint of a scam slam your phone down on the receiver. Do it! If you don’t you may regret what follows. … I did.

A year or so later this historian/cum-reviewer and I both spoke at a symposium in SoCal. I called the host and told him that if the historian attacked me verbally that I would retaliate. The historian kept his mouth shut and we actually enjoyed spending time together and talking.

This photo was taken on Christmas day, 2018. Do I look “snarky”? Perhaps, … or maybe I’m simply “cocky.” (photo © Louis Kraft 2018)

Two things that need to be said

Ladies and gents, I want to make something absolutely clear right now—people and archives play major roles in all of my published work. I am forever grateful for their contributions.

I have pointed out errors in books published over the last 50 years. Some of them are heinous but have been reprinted time and again (and often without any documentation). One of my peer reviewers tore into me big time for pointing out published errors; he even stated that I was “snarky.” Snarky? Maybe he’s correct. I don’t care for I’m sick and tired of seeing old errors repeated ad nauseam. This reviewer rightfully stated that I needed to temper my comments (hopefully I’ve been able to follow his suggestion). At this point in time much of my proof of erroneous documentation has been purged from the manuscript. In its place I have inserted notes that mention the errors without pointing the finger at published works, and simply warning readers to be wary of documents that use the previously published errors.* Hopefully historians and readers who read these words heed them.

* Of course a few instances existed where this was impossible to do. I guess I’m still “snarky.” Sorry.

LK writing and life in his world

I don’t view myself as a liar, for sometimes I need a break from almost continuous seven-day weeks for what seems like forever. The blogs are fun for me, while being time intensive. More important they are research for my nonfiction or that memoir I usually ignore when I talk about my writing projects. If ever I finish the memoir, and it is doable as I have a ton of research in house, I will never see it published. Errol Flynn never saw his final book published (My Wicked, Wicked Ways, Putnam and Sons, 1959), and no one was able to sue him for telling what I believe were truthful words about some of the people he knew well. … Let’s carry the LK memoir one step forward. It is completed and placed with a publisher. At that time I will make certain that we are in sync when it can be published, and that time will be right after I’m dancing with angels. Am I joking or am I serious? Be patient for time will give you an answer.

Throughout our early life together I moved Pailin’s car out of our long driveway so that I could use my car; that is moving her car onto the street, moving my car onto the street, moving her car back onto the driveway, and then walking to my car on the street. She suggested parking her car under a carport that we didn’t use as it had been blocked by a fence I installed about 2009 and a huge orange tree that had died about 2013. A great idea! In December 2015 I removed the steel fence, chopped down the tree, removed its root system, filled in the hole, pounded the earth, before the Vette pressed down the earth. This photo was taken in the late afternoon on December 9 after quitting work. (photo © Louis Kraft 2015)

On 24jun2018 my life took another detour. That Sunday the sole of one of my yard-work moccasins came loose and caught on the small red stones I installed in 2015 for the drive to Pailin’s carport (the Vette lives in the garage), and I took a flying dive forward. There was a pole in front of me—I had to protect the pacemaker—and twisted to my left to avoid a head-on collision or worse, nailing the pacemaker. While knowing that the impact wouldn’t be pretty I had to make a perfect landing. Acting and swashbuckling training provided what I needed to know—that is, how to fall. Still, my flying body was like a biplane crash-landing during WWI. Add deep-deep gashes, huge bruises, and burns along the left side of my body. But it was a good day for my noggin’ didn’t slide along the stones and neither did the pacemaker. Nevertheless I saw my heart specialist pronto. The moccasins were exiled to the black trashcan.

This has been my life for years now, and yet I’m alive. They say that the good die young. If so, what am I? … Evil? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Still, there are some people that will agree with this. For the record there’re not my friends.

I’ve discussed cracked skulls and trips to the emergency room, I’ve detailed the perfect storm that resulted in me continuing walk our earth, and I’m not repeating this here. (If interested see: Louis Kraft perfect storm and the Sand Creek Massacre).

I’m not going to tell about this book, except to say that it is one of the best books I’ve ever written. The reviews have been kind. If you want to see some background on the book, along with a few of the reviews, see: Books 2/The Discovery tab. Believe it or not, a number of the reviews state that it would make a good film or mini-series. This said, beware if you decide to read it for there is extreme violence, as well as sexual intimacy, and a darkness that at times is overwhelming, and would give the story an extreme “R” rating if ever produced as a film (perhaps stronger depending upon the script and director). A good friend, Tom Eubanks, read about 30 pages and stopped. He told me he knew where book was going. All I can say is that he was clueless, for the two leading players are on the book cover and he never met the newborn as an adult, and that is where the medical, judicial, intense character-study thriller begins. Begins. … BTW, the title is misleading while being dead on target. (art and book cover design © Louis Kraft 2016)

This said, my time has been questionable ever since I made a habit of cracking the back of my skull open. Other than a partnership on The Discovery with Robert S. Goodman that began at the time I needed to pay for a surgery that I didn’t know about until after the fact (oh yeah LK has gone from someone with wads of cash in his pockets to someone who picks up bottles on the street). This began in 2012 by my choice. At that time I endured a practice that was totally illegal, totally unethical, and yet a manager I saw only three times in my life not only backed the policy he salivated while supporting it. I doubt that I will ever write about it (although it is well documented; perhaps I should add it to my archive in Santa Fe). Alas, today truth in the USA is a dangerous thing to share. Money almost always wins out.

Regardless, I decided to never again write for the software world, and at that time I was pulling in six figures.

For the record, I believe that writers must move between different genres and push themselves to the limit as they explore and improve their craft.

The Discovery was a detour and at the same time the most important one in my writing life

Bob Goodman has been my physician for almost 30 years, and he along with another five specialists keep me living a good physical life. In 2002 Bob saw something that if not fixed would have led to my death in 2003 or perhaps early 2004. I owe him a lot. Add that I like him a lot, and when he approached me to partner with him to write his terrific story idea (folks, his premise was magnificent). More, as it was an historical piece that spanned over 20 years between the early 1950s and the early 1970s with a huge cast of players (read the Sand Creek story for scope and cast list), and I knew that it could give me what I needed for my nonfiction manuscript—learning how to make a story with many people whose actions are all over the place work in a linear progression. At this time the Sand Creek manuscript didn’t flow forward smoothly. Read that it was hackneyed at best; I’m sorry but that wasn’t acceptable.

A work in progress of LK and Bob Goodman (even though it carries a 2017 copyright). He hasn’t seen it yet. I had hoped to complete it this year and give it to him. Nope! Story of my life: A day late and a dollar short. … I will finish this painting hopefully in 2019 for I will be seeing him then. (art © Louis Kraft 2017)

The Discovery gave me what I needed to pull Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a LIfeway together and become reality. Hell, I’ve been a professional writer for decades and I was having trouble. I still had a massive amount of word crafting of facts and time in front of me to make the tragic end of the Cheyenne and Arapahos’ lifeway move forward in an acceptable manner. But now I was in the driver’s seat. God love you, Bob! I cherish our relationship and our partnership.

The other influences on my writing life

Technical writing had been a terrific experience. It is fast, demanding, and the deadlines are deadly. DEADLY. … When I worked in the film world you worked eight hours. After that it was time and a half and then after 10 hours more dollar bills flowed out of a fountain. On feature films I didn’t experience that much overtime but in TV it was a different story. On the last day of a medical TV pilot (read an hour and a half and shot in 15 or 17 days; can’t remember) the limited shoot (my guess at this late date as I didn’t keep the “call sheets,” which gave you a start time each day and what was being filmed that day) was get what was absolutely necessary and discard the un-shot script pages. That last day and night we worked 23 hours. My eyes turned into dollar signs. Often there were previews; I never saw one for this pilot, never saw the pilot on TV, and it never became a TV show. Not the first time or the last time.

Since we’re dealing with film and TV and that other money-maker I hated but did when I needed money—modeling, let’s touch base with the entertainment world in the 1970s and 1980s.

LK art of Bob Ellenstein. His son, David, also an actor and director, saw it in a blog years back, contacted me, and asked if he could have a copy. Of course; I sent him copies set to print as an 8×10″ and various versions for the internet. It was good catching up with him (he was a little boy when I spent a lot of time with Bob and his mother Lois at their home on the Westside of LA). Bob and Lois also had an in-house bookstore, and they were able to get me all of the classic works published on the pirate Francis Drake in the early 1970s including many that were simply primary-source documents. You can bet that both nonfiction and fictional works dealing with Mr. Drake are a comin’. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

Actually more important is me clarifying what I learned from Bob (Robert) Ellenstein, an actor/director I met in college when he was the professional guest directing professor during my senior year at CSUN. Actually I learned it after graduation when I studied acting with him. This time, beginning in summer 1969 and continuing for a number of years led to a friendship between us that extended long after I stopped studying acting under his guidance. … At one point Bob told the small acting class that I took with him in the early ’70s (between eight and ten people), “Whatever you do, make sure you can live with it.” This was the absolute best advice I have ever received in my life. The absolute best! … And I have lived by it ever since.

This doesn’t mean that I’m a good person; it means that I have never done anything that I could not live with. Put another way, I have never sold my soul or body for money or advancement.

The year 2020 is front and center as long as LK doesn’t mess it up

Although I’ve spent a fair amount of time dealing with writing extra words above I’m totally aware of my contracted word counts. This guarantees that I’ll never place myself in a situation wherein I’m below the word count, need more, but am clueless where to dig for more facts and events simply as a filler as this not a good way to complete a manuscript.

But this isn’t the problem. Actually, it shouldn’t be a problem for when I buy into a project it is for 100 percent. Simply, this means that I’m not just the writer. I have a vision for my print projects, and I do everything possible to insure that the final product is as close to what I originally envisioned. This means that I am present throughout the production process with my input. Sometimes this isn’t appreciated. Too bad. It is my project and my input will happen. What I say, do, or insist upon is not egotistical. Not at all—it is simply to improve what is published.

I originally created this art of Ned Wynkoop for an article of mine (“Ned Wynkoop’s Lonely Walk Between the Races”) in Custer and His Times, Book Five (2008). It has appeared in I think three (perhaps four) additional publications including two (three?) magazines. Originally it was an oval portrait but has also been landscape. This image was last printed in Symphony in the Flint Hills: Field Journal, Volume V (2013), and it provided me with my best payday with this portrait. (art © Louis Kraft 2007)

Often I submit my photos/art for publication. It brings in money (sometimes four or five times when I get lucky and an image is resold). This is good for it helps pay bills. Sometimes my art is used to reduce the cost of the image in university press books wherein I am responsible for assembling all the photos and art for the publication. I negotiate with artists and owners of historical images (often offering a book in exchange for using their art/images). I think that this is fair for I save money, they get a copy of the first edition of the book as well as the publicity.

Regarding using my images in publications, at times I’ve been pinged as some people don’t like writers creating art for their words. Honestly, I don’t understand the reasoning behind this and have refused to respond to these comments.

In the past I have publicized photos and art in consideration for Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. The process has been ongoing for years, and I have been negotiating for a good part of this time with artists, private collections, as well as National Historic Sites.

Jerry Greene and Mr. Scott’s book (OU Press, 2004) is one of the better books published dealing with the massacre. The cover is a cropped version of Robert Lindneux’s Sand Creek Massacre art. The painting is landscape, so almost every book cover that features it has been cropped on one or both sides. This isn’t a problem when it is used in magazine articles. Jerry is a good friend whom I enjoy hanging out with whenever opportunity presents itself.

At the moment I am considering pushing two pieces of art for the cover, but I know as 2019 races toward summer that this number will increase. One thing is certain, the cliché art that has appeared on way-too-many Sand Creek books (some of which have nothing to do with the massacre) will not appear on my dust jacket—including Robert Lindneux’s painting (left), which is housed at History Colorado.

Want to read a terrific book dealing with the Cheyenne wars, read Jerry Greene’s Washita: The U.S. Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1867-1869 (OU Press, 2004). While the book and dust jacket design were in production (I saw a proof of the cover art). Anita Donofrio, who kindly volunteered to do sound and lighting for an over-sold-out Wynkoop one-man show at the former Colorado Historical Society that year invited me to stay with her and her son (a totally delightful young man) the following week while I did research. She was/is a good friend of Jerry’s. I told her that if she invited him to dinner one night I’d cook. My reason: I wanted to meet him, and that evening, which went deep into the night, created a friendship.

Regarding LK’s cooking—don’t snicker. I’m a terrific cook, and have been for decades. … Gents, here’s a tip worth its weight in gold: The way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach (and I can prove this).

The here is now, … or is it put up or shut up?

I deliver my polished draft of Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway to Adam in two weeks. If this draft passes review—fingers are always crossed—it is all uphill from here. Meaning: LK will have a Cheshire Cat grin on his face until 2020.*

* Lewis Carroll created this cat and its mischievous grin in his book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865).

This Sun Microsystems badge was the only one I ever bothered to grab, and I had no clue at this late date why I did this. In 2005, when the company purchased Seebeyond Technology Corp., they had over 40,000 employees worldwide. by late 2008 that figure had dropped to 24,000 employees. Poor management had doomed the company, whose stock plummeted to obscene levels when in January 2009 69 percent of the former Seebeyond employees then in Monrovia, Calif., were laid off. Often they talk about loyalty in sports or the lack of. Take a quick look at the technical world and you’ll see that they make the sports world look like amateurs when it comes to eliminating personnel.I participate in all of my projects in every way possible. At times—and this is a major understatement—production teams from art directors to editors and everyone in between would love to lock me in a cell until the book is published. … And I’ve heard the comments (or read them) to know that this is a true statement. They’re professionals, and most of them are very good at what they do.

I participate in all of my projects in every way possible. At times—and this is a major understatement—production teams from art directors to editors and everyone in between would love to lock me in a cell until the book is published. … And I’ve heard the comments (or read them) to know that this is a true statement. They’re professionals, and most of them are very good at what they do.

Alas, so am I, and I have done what they do. I’ve designed books, dust jackets, newsletters (wherein I was the editor and designer), created art, maps, and know that I must pay close attention to what is happening during every step of the production process or things can and might happen that are bad (or worse), and this isn’t on the production team. It’s on me. My name is on the book or article, and that means one thing: If there are errors (anything from a note that is no longer accurate or apropos, inaccurate captions, quoted text blind-edited, whatever) there is only one person to blame—LK. I’ve missed changed captions, notes that no longer deal with what they supposedly confirm, and I cringe when I realize that a quote has been altered. This list is ongoing, including index entries that vanish, even though I thought they were important.

My manuscripts receive two copyedits and they usually take about a month each (but that was back when I wrote for software companies and often had two-plus hours of drive time and overtime almost every day). This is no longer the case. Although the Sand Creek manuscript has a larger word count I think that the copyedits will take only a month each to complete.

LK acceptance of the Wrangler Award for “When Wynkoop was Sheriff” (Wild West, April 2011) at the Western Heritage Awards banquet in Oklahoma City in April 2012. Yeah, Kraft does dress up sometimes. On this evening I was wearing Cheyenne beaded moccasins. For the record, Cheyennes wore low moccasins (unlike the Apaches and the high moccasins shown above). To cover and protect their legs the Cheyennes wore leggings, which are described in detail in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway.

I want to say something here and it is of major importance. … I love my editors and copyeditors. Actually I consider myself one lucky SOB as I have been associated with OU Press and the University of Nebraska Press for they create first-class publications and are the two best Indian wars publishers in the world. In the world!

Unfortunately I think they and their production teams cringe when an LK manuscript arrives on their desks. Folks, I’m a historian, but I’ve also a teller of stories. This means I want character development. This isn’t easy in nonfiction. In the past I’ve had to fight to keep my character development. For example in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011), his wife Louise is alone in their hotel room at La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory, when rats enter the room. She steps onto a chair and is still standing on it when Ned enters the room. Of course the rats scattered when he opened the door and he didn’t see them. He chides her, she gets angry and tells him to sit down. He does, and the rats return. Wynkoop leaps onto his chair, yanks out his Colt and begins shooting at the rats. This brings the hotel manager, who quickly moves them to another room. … The scene shows character, but the copyeditor cut it. I reinserted the scene and told her that it stays.

This image of LK was taken on the old Route 66 that sliced through a good portion of the USA back in days long gone. Alas, so are the towns, and some are little more than skeletons of what once was. My bro Glen Williams took this photo in front of a long-abandoned gas station in fall 2011 on the day after he and I delivered an LK archival package to Tomas Jahen (then of the Chávez History Library) and his family in Williams, Az. I really like Glen’s photo as it captured the destruction of a past that will soon vanish if not recorded. Ladies and gents, history will quickly fade into nothing if not recorded—Lost to time. Our grandparents, parents, and children (and that is all the personal history I have) will vanish without a trace if I don’t write about their lives. This is personal, and so is a memoir. (photo © Louis Kraft & Glen Williams 2011)

Many nonfiction books are stuffed with fact upon fact upon fact stringed together in—please forgive me good nonfiction writers for I’m not talking about you—long sterile sentences and paragraphs that can put me to sleep in two pages. I often must suffer through these, … these, … these, … what are they—Oh yeah, pages! Often they offer nothing that I need but I don’t know that until I read the last page. Wasted time? No, for I must know the answer. To borrow from the long departed TV show (which should have been left in peace) The X Files, “The Truth is Out There,” and I need to know it.

Long answer short. Good times are on the horizon for Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is about to move into production (if accepted), a process I love for it is a collaboration of many people working together to make the published book as good as possible. There are many steps, many reviews, many changes, and many suggestions to make the final product of value to those who read it. For me it is a thrilling time.

In closing Global Warming is here to stay

… and it will only get worse if action is not taken during our lifetimes.

It is unbelievable how many nay-sayers there are to this statement. Conspiracy stories abound. I know people who insist that the fires in California and elsewhere in the American West, the hurricanes that assault the East Coast, the Southern Coast, the Caribbean, and Texas, as well as the typhoons in other portions of the world are nothing more that disasters created by the “government.” “The government? Who? Trump?” “No, the government. The Clintons, Obamas, and Bushes.” … Beachfront property in SoCal is losing the war with the Pacific Ocean as the waves increase in velocity and pound the cement barriers that protect these over-priced houses in LA and San Diego Counties. Eventually the sea will destroy them, and the process has already begun.

This image of Pailin and LK doesn’t belong here. This said, I have no images of Climate Control for its future is still unknown. The LK/PSK future is known, and this end of Christmas 2018 photo shows this. We are together and we are one until the end of our time of walking Mother Earth. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2018)

Those that deny the changes of weather conditions, the melting of icepacks, spout vehemently that it is all fake news. Some have even told me that the violence and mass murders across the USA never happened. They claim that it is “government” false news to spread hatred and violence and that these “fictions” are filmed performances using actors. They claim that the reason is to reduce the population and eliminate the middle class. … I agree that the USA is becoming a world of the super rich and the poor (who will soon become homeless—at least in LA, the homeless capital of the USA).

What about the recent report on global warning by the Federal Government? “Fake news!” … Maybe I’m old fashioned, maybe I’m not in line with today’s world, but I have a lot of trouble with slogans—such as Fake News. Don’t believe me see the Los Angeles Times 24nov2018 article “Climate report warns of bleak future”.


Since May and my last blog the following seven months have been a blur.
At times I didn’t know if I was sleeping or awake. I was focused solely on the
Sand Creek manuscript and the health of the ladies in my life. That’s it; that’s all that mattered. I became Rod Taylor as he sped between centuries in H. G. Wells’ novel turned into the classic 1960 film
The Time Machine (which would have blasted the 2002
adaption to kingdom come if it had the special effects capabilities available
during the first decade of the 21st century). Beginning in 2011 I have
been on a joyride without end, a joyride that at times descended
into the depths of Hell, but is not yet complete and won’t be
until 2020 when the book is printed.

There is one LK truism for the upcoming year—There will be more blogs.
The question is when?

Firm Sand Creek delivery date, Louis Kraft massacre views & a future update

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


It’s probably best to start with a little LK fun.

The Loikathong River is celebrated in Thailand every November. Good friend Pete Senoff used it as a backdrop when he created this dancing image of Pailin and myself in 2014. … Without words it is a simplistic entry into our relationship.


The above is a hint to what I cryptically advertised elsewhere on
social media early this year.

Unfortunately I’ve become Mr. Unsociable

I’m a recluse (but luckily I’m not one of the 58,000+ homeless in LA and some I know personally as I talk to them while I walk the streets, or the 139,000 homeless in California, and boy do I have a lot to say here but not in this blog), … actually I prefer “loner” for what I do is a one-man job that takes a lot of research, concentration, and time. I have been working seven days per week since last fall (I did take Thanksgiving off, and most of Christmas). The amount of hours increased big time last December, and I now know that it will continue until September 15. I seldom work less than 10 hours per day but way too often it is closer to 13 or more. … Worse, I know for a fact that the next four and a half months are going to be hell. Pure hell … There will be no room for me to get lazy, for each and every day must push toward September 15.

I saw my pulmonary specialist this week and we discussed a clinic that would be helpful (I’m already a member of a heart clinic). After he shared the benefits and the time commitment, I brought up the drive time. As the clinic is about 12 miles from home; a 9:00 am appointment would mean at least an hour and a half drive, while a 1:00 pm appointment approximately 45 minutes (double those drive times for a round trip). I told him that I’m really interested and he said he’d put through the prescription, but then I told him that I can’t lose those hours until September 15 passes. Yeah, parts of my health are on hold.

Pailin and LK at the one-year anniversary of The Massage Place in Santa Monica, Ca. (and also the birthdays of owner Marut  Manorat and his manager Amber) on 18apr2018. There have been many people that have played major parts in Pailin’s emergence as a successful contractor in Los Angeles. Marut, along with his wife Whitney, are two of these people. Oh yeah, LK does take time off for special occasions with his lady. Pailin made Thai tea for the party (heaven); that’s what we were both drinking in the red cups. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2018)

Unfortunately most of my local relationships are on hold and have been since my last two trips to the emergency room (July and August 2017), but this hold was not because of what I now view as the two luckiest months of my life (July and August 2017), but because of the crimp they put on my Sand Creek delivery deadline.

My lonely road may be costing me friends locally but there is nothing I can do about it other than infrequently touch base with them on social media or the phone. … It’s a two-way street and I need to do my share. Unfortunately I’m not good at this. Once my work begins in the morning (before Pailin gets up and then after she sets out in the AM/if she only has a PM shift after I have made our juice I’ll return to work until we eat together).

I’m not the world’s best husband, but my lady and I have something between us. Call it love, call it craziness, call it what ever you want but we have it, … and it is key to my future (see below).

Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway

This manuscript is the culprit, the villain, perhaps the death of me. It is also the most important book I’ll ever write. I must complete it.

Errol Flynn was a great writer, and I don’t give a bleep what anyone has said about his writing. My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1959) is a masterpiece. I’ve already talked about some of what the envious-baloney cretins have written about his last book, and I’m not going to repeat it here. Flynn saw the galleys, but he never had the pleasure of seeing My Wicked, Wicked Ways in print. … I will see Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway in print?

Simply, LK is moving toward the conclusion of his Sand Creek manuscript. If you accept that this has been a major part of my life for a long time you’ll understand.

A three-fold problem

Paying the bills, health, and completing the Sand Creek manuscript. … There is a lot to say here, and I want to keep it as positive as possible.

Surprise of surprises, my view on most of the leading players have changed (and some of the changes have been massive), as well as my view on the attack on the Cheyenne and Arapaho village on 29nov1864 on the Big Sandy (Sand Creek) in southeastern Colorado Territory. For many years I thought of it as a battle but this changed when I wrote Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (University of Oklahoma Press, 2011). But the scope of what happened during the lead up to the massacre, the massacre, and the aftermath is what I now consider heinous.*

* I’m talking about decades here.

Pailin with John and Linda Monnett at Bear Lake (Rocky Mountain National Park) on 2oct2014. We had an absolutely wonderful time with them during our visit. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft, John Monnett, Linda Monnett, and Louis Kraft 2014).

Recently I updated two terrific Indian war friends—John Monnett and Layton Hooper—of my current status on the manuscript, … including that I had the two final sentences in the epilogue in place and that they would not be cut. And that’s final; they stay, … editorial can cut the rest of the manuscript but the final words stay. John wanted to know the words, but bad friend Kraft didn’t share them or their background.

My view on humankind is simple: You, me, and almost everyone else believe that what we do is right when we do it (it may not be, but we didn’t realize it at the time). This, ladies and gents, was how Chuck Rankin and I agreed on how I would write the manuscript—people-driven. Honestly, this has been the most difficult manuscript that I have ever written.

Sand Creek deliveries …
LK’s schedule for the next four and a half months

On January 31 I delivered the first eleven chapters of Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway to Adam Kane and Chuck Rankin (current and former editors-in-chief at the greatest Indian wars publisher in the world—the University of Oklahoma Press). On April 30 I delivered chapters 12 through 15 to them. … I will deliver the epilogue, updated 15 chapters, and the preface to them by the end of this month.

Adam has updated me on what must happen for the manuscript to make the University of Oklahoma Press Fall 2019 catalog and be printed by the time that the Western History Association meets in Las Vegas that October. … I need to have a reviewed, revised, and final manuscript to the press no later than September 15 of this year. This deadline schedule is huge in scope and it is demanding of my time. It is one that I will make.

I’m done talking about the struggle to complete the manuscript, I’m done talking about the ongoing research, for everything from this day forward will be about delivery.

An LK view: A massacre is a massacre is a massacre …

In Nashville on 1apr1971 a singer who has played a major role in my life since I was a little boy recorded the “Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley.”* The singer was Tex Ritter, and he was extraordinary (someday I’ll do an entire blog about him, and this will be an easy blog to write).

* But this date seems wrong as all hell had broken out when the 5dec1969 issue of Life Magazine hit the newsstands.

When this young LK rode the pony he was already glued to a green TV screen as he watched the heroic Tex Ritter (who did most of his own stunts and that easily included 90+ percent of the riding on White Flash, and there were multiple White Flashes until Tex bought a white horse that would become his White Flash until the end of time). I would meet Tex, and his music and B-western films are still with me. … and they will be until the end of my time.

Tex was religious and loved the USA. At the time that he recorded this song if not the U.S. press at least a major portion of the U.S. population still praised Lt. William Calley, Jr’s victory over the Viet Cong in the foreign war that was seemingly without end. And why not? The lieutenant was a hero, a major hero to many.

A former high school friend Dennis Riley captured this image of LK. He had become a photographer’s mate in the U.S. Navy in the late 1960s, and took this photo in June 1969. It would become a key image in the LK acting and modeling world for years. (photo © Louis Kraft 1969)

I was a villain.

Actually my view on race was firmly in place by the time I exited high school, and it would never waver in the coming years.

Villain? What are you talking about Kraft?

I’m not going to dig into my past, but I was truly a villain in 1970. There was a war going on—a heinous war—and I didn’t volunteer to kill people—civilians—regardless if I did not agree with their country’s politics.

I was a villain. There were many of us across the United States at that time.

When my university days ended in spring 1969 I no longer had a free pass on the mandatory U.S. military draft, and it was just a matter of time before I would be forced to make a decision that would impact the rest of my life. During WW II my father had enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps as he didn’t want to be drafted into the Army. By this time I had college friends who had turned their backs on America and had taken asylum in Canada and elsewhere.

What would I do?

The USA has always been my country. Will it always be my country? That was a million dollar question in 1970 as I had no intention of deserting my homeland. Is it again a million dollar question?

LK’s history world has had a lot of people of interest

I discovered history in elementary school, and I met two people at about the same time—soldier George Armstrong Custer in the fourth grade and the pirate Francis Drake in the fifth grade. Over the course of my life I have learned a lot about both of these men. Like all of us they had faults, they had highs and lows, but that is what makes them interesting. They were also able to step beyond race and hatred of their enemies.

I met Custer on TV when I saw Errol Flynn’s They Died with Their Boots On (Warner Bros., 1941) for the first time back in the dark ages. Custer would appear in many films, TV shows, one TV series, and documentaries. I saw the pilot and a few of the episodes of the short-lived Custer TV series (17 episodes in 1967 with Wayne Maunder as Custer). You do not want to know my opinion of this TV series, even though Maunder looked great as Custer.

LK art of Errol Flynn as George Armstrong Custer in They Died with Their Boots On (Warner Bros., 1941). (art © Louis Kraft 2013)

Drake appeared a year later when he was featured in my school history book (words and cool images; I’ll share them someday). To my knowledge Drake appeared in two films, one TV series, and various documentaries (most of which are forgettable). I saw a few of the twenty-six episodes of Sir Francis Drake (1961-62 with Terence Morgan in the lead role …You need a multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view this series in the USA today. I wasn’t impressed (and I’m being kind here, even though I haven’t seen it in decades).

History and times have been fairly kind to Drake over the centuries and much less so with Custer. Two books are planned on Drake (and I have much of the primary source material  in-house) but nothing published to date other than a blog that features him: The pirate Francis Drake and Louis Kraft. Upton and Sons published a book I wrote on Custer in 1995 (Custer and the Cheyenne). There have been numerous articles in such publications as American History, Wild West, Research Review, and talks on Mr. Custer have ranged from Texas to Missouri to Kansas to Montana to Arizona to California. The links on Drake and Custer give you an idea of how I view these two men. BTW, depending upon word count limitations in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway (vagueness is golden here), Custer may have a fairly large presence in the epilogue (at least he does at this time).

History got me to Drake and Flynn got me to Custer

… and Drake got me to studying Elizabethan England and piracy while Custer got me to the American Indian wars. Everything was a go beginning with junior high school.

Still, there’s one more piece. Tex Ritter and then Errol Flynn got me to acting. I took acting classes in junior high school, high school, and majored in theater (focused on acting and directing) in college. You know where this is going, and so do I. But then something happened in 1976 when I was doing a summer of dinner theater in Lubbock, Texas; something I would have never guessed in a lifetime. The first play was a generation-gap comedy. Two actors, the director, and I were hired in Los Angeles. The rest of the cast were hired locally. The two other LA actors and the director were also writers.

The Hayloft Dinner Theatre was in the round, which allowed for a fairly large audience while keeping the acting intimate. (photos © Louis Kraft 1976)

Long story short: Texas Tech is in Lubbock, and it was a wild town back in the ’70s. Racism was rampant, drug busts were all over the place, the theater department at the university had two cliques that wanted to kill each other. Add patriotism and by the time I finished the second play I was thrilled to put the Lone Star state behind me.

But, that summer led to me writing screenplays and landing an agent. By the mid-1980s I knew I wanted to write full time. I had parted company with my third screenwriting agent about 1984 and started writing and selling articles. In 1985 I quit the acting world cold turkey and the next year talked my way into a corporate insurance brokerage firm without ever touching a computer. I knew they were the future for writers and I wanted to learn while getting paid to do so. The vice president at Jardine, Emmett, & Chandler liked me, put me in a room with a computer with pay, and told me that if I learned how to use it in two weeks I had the job.

Massacre no. 1

Sand Creek was a massacre, and it will always be the number one massacre in my view. But I didn’t have this view until this century.

The Sand Creek manuscript has become the most difficult assignment I’ve ever had (and that includes everything I wrote in the software world). The days have been long while the progress has been slow. The reason is simple: I’ve focused on using a number of people to propel the story toward conclusion. Yes, there have been health problems (my life should have ended in August 2017), but the ongoing research and the struggle to mix this grouping of people together in a linear way has become the biggest challenge of my life. For the record some have smaller roles than anticipated while some have seen their participation in the events grow.

LK as Ned Wynkoop viewing the hacked-to-pieces remains of the Cheyennes that had been murdered at Sand Creek on 29nov1864 during a dress rehearsal for one of the performances of the Ned Wynkoop one-man shows at the Washita Battlefield NHS in 2008. (photo © Louis Kraft and Johnny D. Boggs, 2008)

After signing the contract with Chuck Rankin in 2013 I knew that this project would push me to the extreme, but I never dreamed what I would face over time. … This said, I’m thrilled that Chuck took the time over several years to bring me on board to write the manuscript. … For me it is the creation process from the beginning of the research through the publication of a book. I know that when I look back on these years that I’ll have fond memories.

Col. John Chivington was a hero. Don’t believe me? Just read the Rocky Mountain News in December 1864, all through 1865, and for years to come. Chivington commanded the 29nov1864 attack on Black Kettle’s village on Sand Creek. Butchery of children, women, and men happened on that day and the next. Butchery of men, women, and children who thought that they were under the protection of the U.S. military until it decided if the 1864 Cheyenne war would end or continue. In Chivington’s two official reports on the massacre he stated that he killed between 500 and 600 Indians. These numbers were inflated. Still, the good colonel, the war hero, was wrong, for easily many more Cheyennes survived his butchery count than died on that bloody ground.

My terrific friend and great Cheyenne Indian wars historian John Monnett took this image at the end of our time (that is his, mine, Linda M, and Pailin’s) on the Sand Creek Massacre NHS on 3oct2014. We had been walking along the bluffs to the west of the village site in southeast Colorado. (photo © Louis Kraft and John Monnett, 2014)

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway when it is published. If you do, I guarantee that you will become ill. If not, you will have a very foul taste in your mouth.

Still, Chivington would years later state: “I stand by Sand Creek.” This quote is now in the manuscript. It took me years to locate it and figure out how to get Chivington’s most famous quote into the manuscript.

The LK view on race

LK speaking about Lt. Charles Gatewood and Geronimo at the Festival of the West in Scottsdale, Arizona. Over four days (18-21mar2004) I spoke about Gatewood and Geronimo twice, Custer and the Cheyennes once. (© Louis Kraft 2oo4).

In 1970 I volunteered to serve in Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), which was like the Peace Corps but in the United States. Early in 1971 President Richard Nixon had a national draft lottery, and on the night that it was televised my eyes were glued to the TV set. I got lucky. My number was 273. This meant that every male of draft age (that is, between the ages of 18 and 35) with a lower number than mine would be drafted before me.

This eliminated me from the draft. … Even so, that June I reported for duty with VISTA. My life and view on race was already in place, but my time in VISTA would confirm what I already knew, … LK was not and is not a racist and accepts all people as human beings.

This statement has played a major part in my life. Both in my view of humankind and what I write about. My first novel dealt with race relations, as have my first four nonfiction books (my Sand Creek manuscript will be my fifth nonfiction book that deals with race relations). The following manuscripts (fiction and nonfiction) will also mostly focus on race relations. I’m a person. You’re a person. Every other person walking our earth is a human being. We’re all equal. Nothing else needs be said.

Back to Lt. Calley and massacre no. 2

I learned, as all of us did in the USA, that Calley’s victory was not a victory—it was a massacre of men, women, and children that were non-combatants. That’s right, they were just like you and me, … people who were not soldiers fighting a war. Five hundred four Vietnamese civilians were murdered, and that included 200 who were less than twelve years old.

This image was reprinted in the Los Angeles Times on 16mar2018. (The photo & copyright credit goes to Ronald L. Haeberle and the Associated Press, 1968) … This image is worth 1000s of words. Make your own decision of what happened on 16mar1968. … Sgt. Ron Haeberle was a photographer for the U.S. Army. The photos that he took for the military were black and white and they were vanilla-flavored. He shot color photos using his personal camera, and these he didn’t hand over to the Army. This image, although printed in black & white in the Times, was originally in color.

Kraft, why are you writing this? … If you don’t know why by now, don’t ask—just move on.

For the record Lt. Calley, and more important Capt. Hugh Thompson (I’ve also seen Thompson listed as a warrant officer), played important parts in my life. Calley for being a hero and then a murderer of innocent people (sound familiar to those of you who know what my Sand Creek massacre manuscript is about?). You bet!

On 16mar1968 Army photographer Sgt. Ron Haeberle had reached the hamlet of My Lai near the northern coast of South Vietnam. He came upon U.S. soldiers who pointed their weapons at mostly women and children. “Guys were about to shoot people,” Haeberle told Life Magazine (5dec1969 issue, p36). “I yelled, ‘Hold it,’ and shot my picture. As I walked away, I heard M16s open up. From the corner of my eye I saw bodies falling, but I didn’t turn to look.” This was the caption for the photo at right, which was on p37. (© Ronald L. Haeberle and the Associated Press, 1968; and Life Magazine, 1969)

But heroes in the USA have always been honored and set upon a pedestal. Lt. Calley initially joined this elite group. A man who was my first hero—a B-western star of the 1930s and 1940s who became one of the main people who made country and western music coast-to-coast in the USA beginning in the 1940s. Over the decades Tex Ritter honored the USA, religion, relationships, and heroes in song, and many of his recordings are classics. As soon as Tex and his producer at Capitol Records realized the truth of what happened the record’s release date was canceled. Without knowing the facts I am certain that the recording session that made Calley a hero has long since been destroyed.

A side story that is major …

You want to know my favorite storyline? Do you? It’s simple: Boy meets girl, girl doesn’t like boy, boy doesn’t give up, eventually boy wins over girl, and they live happily for the rest of their lives. … I’m not joking here.

This is what I want for me and what I want for you. I have it, and I am the luckiest man you know.

This LK art is based upon a photo that was totally useless, while showing that I am a decent cook. The image was also taken after I met the most fantastic person in my entire life. Yes, Pailin. She is unlike anyone I have ever met, and that includes a multitude of people from all walks of life. My meeting her was totally unexpected and it changed my life forever. This Wedgwood stove that dated to the 1950s is gone after years of great service. It is history, like just about everything I write about. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

I have lived my life turning my back on false relationships and charlatans. Not good times for LK. This continued until 15jun2013 when I met Pailin (that day/evening changed my life forever).

LK and his beautiful wife, Pailin, on 2dec2014, just before we boarded the first of two planes on our return flight to California from Bangkok, Thailand. For the record Thailand is in my past and in my future. (photo © Louis Kraft and Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

If you have read any of my blogs you know her. If not, look to the right.

Unfortunately my upbringing guaranteed that I could never write the above storyline. More important this year saw the 50th anniversary of what happened on 16mar1968. Like Sand Creek, we should never forget My Lai.


I know that a lot of you have bad thoughts of California and Los Angeles. How’s this for a sudden change of topic? Other than high taxes, high cost of living, and jealousy of people like me who enjoy great weather year round, I’m clueless why? Let’s talk about Los Angeles. There are more languages spoken in LA than any other city in the USA, there are more American Indians in LA than any other city in the USA, and there are more Thai people in LA than all of the rest of the USA put together. I live in the melting pot of the USA—I have it all; museums, theater, music, art, any food you want to eat, any film you want to see (and that includes numerous Errol Flynn films on the big screen every year), and most important any race, religion, and culture you may want to mingle with.

Flight commander Hugh Thompson’s actions

Helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, and his two-man crew (which included Glenn Andreotta, his crew chief, and Lawrence Colburn, his door gunner), supported the USA attack on 16mar1968. However, this day would not be as he assumed, for when his helicopter swooped low over enemy lines he saw wounded children, women, and men spread across the ground. After marking their position, he called for medics, and returned to base to refuel.

This Associated Press © 1971 image of Thompson was published in the LA Times on 16mar2018.

When Thompson returned to the war zone he again flew the helicopter in low over the scene of the wounded civilians. They were no longer wounded; they were dead. Worse, it was obvious that they were not the Vietcong, they were not soldiers standing firm against an American assault on their homeland. No. They were civilians, simply people trying to flee while their country’s soldiers confronted an invasion of their land.

Thompson then saw a group of mostly women and children running from U.S. soldiers. He acted immediately—WITHOUT ORDERS (sound familiar with Wynkoop and my 1864 writing?)—for he saw what he needed to do. Act, now, or watch the murder of women, children, and men who were non-combatants. He landed the helicopter between the advancing soldiers and the fleeing Vietnamese. He told Colburn and Andreotta that if the soldiers didn’t halt or shot him to shoot them. He stepped from the ‘copter and confronted a portion of actually Capt. Ernest Medina’s Charlie Company (1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Infantry Brigade), to whom Lt. Calley reported.

If Thompson did this on 29nov1864 he probably would have become a casualty of friendly fire or he would have cashiered out of the military, … not to mention major racial hatred directed at him. Luckily the USA—our country, my country, your country—has progressed to the point that it recognized murder (at least with the My Lai massacre and hopefully more and more with the Sand Creek massacre as we age).

Actually my wish list on this subject is quite large.


Hugh Thompson’s name is right there with Gatewood and Wynkoop, as well as Capt. Silas Soule and Lt. Joseph Cramer. His actions mimics theirs. This is not an overstatement; it is fact. He was an American hero, as they were. For the record Thompson, Andreotta (posthumously), and Colburn received the “Soldier’s Medal for acts of extraordinary bravery not involving contact with the enemy” twenty years later.

Also for the record, William Calley apologized for his actions against the Vietnamese people in August 2009; Something that John Chivington was incapable of doing.

I live a simple life of fun and goofiness

If you have followed these blogs you know that Pailin and I are gunslingers … with our fingers, and that at times we attempt to surprise each other. This is pure fun. For us it is being five years old, or six, or seven again. Maybe older.

On one night when Pailin returned home after a long day of massages I didn’t open the back door, which forced her to enter the house through the front door. Immediately she focused on where I was. In a closet? Hiding behind a door? In the bathroom hidden behind the shower curtain? She cautiously searched the house.

No LK. It was after ten that evening, and suddenly the game became one of concern.

Not for yours truly, for I sat under the dinning room table. It had a table cloth, which cloaked my hiding spot. No notes, which I usually leave if I’m not home or are already in bed. Pailin entered the kitchen, which leads into the dinning room. She set her massage bag down and prepared to relax. I pushed the chair to the side and appeared from under the table. At the same time I fired a bullet from my finger gun. “BANG! BANG!” I yelled. She grabbed her midriff as she sank to the kitchen floor, laughing all the way down. I stepped from under the table, and, also laughing, crossed to her and pulled her to her feet. Point LK! We hugged.

Pailin is my lady, my love, my life. … And we do play games, as they keep our lives fluid and alive.

Pailin is as different from me as I am from her, and yet our interests and views on life (and remember that she is Thai and I’m American) are night and day. Somehow, without consciously attempting to create a world for Pailin and LK, … we have done just that.

We have connected between race and culture and created our own world that thrives in two worlds, two religions, two cultures.

Our world also includes an openness to just being ourselves. She and I have learned who we are in this mixing of culture and religion and lifeway. I met Pailin on 15jun2013 at a dinner party I hosted for five people; two couples and myself. One of the ladies insisted that she bring a coworker for me as I had been at that time girlfriend-less for two years. I refused. The lady—Pailin—also refused, but eventually we both gave in.

What happened was quiet magic, for I found a beautiful woman who knew few English words but was totally alert to what was happening around her. Before the day/evening ended I knew that I wanted her in my life.

This is my lady in the front yard of Tujunga House. (photo © Louis Kraft and Pailin Subanna 2013)

Much has happened. Her first visit to my world, our marriage, her first Green Card, her first Indian wars talk, and the following year her first Indian wars trip and meeting my friends, my first visit to Thailand and her family (who are now my family), her California drivers license (no easy task as the written test is in English), her passing the California Massage Council massage therapy test and receiving her license (this English test was 10 times tougher), her becoming a massage therapist in major demand on the Westside of Los Angeles (and this is an understatement as she could work 15 hours a day ten days a week if she desired as she is in that much demand), her receiving her 10-year Green Card extension, and now in place to obtain her U.S. citizenship. This is a mouthful, but I thought that you needed to know who my lady is. Bottom line: She is special, and I haven’t mentioned any of her personal traits that far outweigh her professional life.

Sadness and my future … a future never imagined

This is the first announcement of this (although I did hint elsewhere on social media that a large change was coming, even offering 100-1 odds that no one would guess it). Pailin returned to Thailand this February due to the death of a special person in her life. Her brother, my brother-in-law, who she loved with all her heart and a brother I thought the world of. I couldn’t go due to an overdue Sand Creek manuscript delivery and a physical problem that, honestly, made me fearful of flying. Palin totally understood.

Pailin shared this video that she taped on 27feb2018 early during her trip, and I believe often. It increased my fame, or infamy, in Thailand. Anyway, everyone saw it and commented, and I think it indirectly helped what was about to happen. … I say “rich” in it, but I don’t mean rich in dollars; rather rich in knowledge.

It seems silly to describe LK wearing black shorts and a T-shirt while dancing to a tune without music,
but the video’s coding will not allow the image to appear in a PDF file and a description is needed.

Pailin and I video-talked almost every day (6:00 am LA time/9:00 pm Thai time). I knew a lot of our relatives, but not all. No matter. Magical minutes for LK and his lady, but also pure gold for me as I was able to connect in real time with my extended family. These calls made me realize how much a part of my life they were and are. During this time I met a colonel in the Thai Army and his beautiful wife (I had known about them since 2014, but had never met them). At different times during Pailin’s trips she has spent great time with them and her brother and sister-in-law. This led to my introduction to them, cemented a friendship, and opened the door to an offer I never expected.

Last year the colonel and his wife (a dentist who has three offices) shared with Pailin (and I believe they have been close for a long time), a wonderful piece of information—their first children will enter the world in the future. During our California/Thailand video time the officer and his lady decided to approach me with a proposal. And through Pailin they did, they asked me if I’d consider teaching their still unborn children English as a first language.

LK’s office in Uttaradit, Thailand, on 26nov2014. Pailin and I spent a lot of time at her sister and brother-in-law’s home, and Not and Font have certainly become my sister and brother. Great memories, and good work on my last Geronimo article for Wild West as well as making decent progress on my book projects. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

Wow! A magnificent offer I never expected. Believe it or not, my brain still functions and quickly when necessary. I replied positively; at the same time I made it clear that all my Sand Creek deadlines would have to be made. They shared an approximate starting date, and as of today I think that this is doable. The basics are in place; the what, where, when, and how are still to come (but won’t be shared).

This is Font Subanna and LK on his 27nov2014 birthday. This man is my brother, and so much more, … he is one of my best friends on this earth. I had met him after my arrival in Langpang, Thailand, but our friendship didn’t begin until days later when he picked Pailin and I up and drove us to his home in Uttaradit. During the drive he told Pailin, “I don’t know what to say to him.” My mastery of the Thai language and his of the English language isn’t very good, but over many great days we had no trouble communicating. During one of our joint dinners at his home he said to Pailin, “Why don’t you teach him Thai so I can talk to him?” Everyone laughed. At another dinner a few nights later, and again at his home, opportunity presented itself. I said to Pailin, “Why don’t you teach him English so I can talk to him.” Everyone laughed. Some of the best days in my life. (art © Louis Kraft 2016)

I already know that I can work in Thailand, for I wrote almost daily in 2014. This said, and with proper preparation I can work on nonfiction, fiction, articles, and talks (if not a thing of my past). While in Thailand my focus will be the children; when not with them my writing, research, and spending time with family and friends.

A neighbor’s 2017 Harley Davidson. (photo © Louis Kraft 2017)

I had broached the subject of buying a Vette in Thailand. “Are you crazy?” Pailin asked. “They cost more in Thailand than in the U.S.!” Oops! I suppose a Harley Davidson Sportster, which I have been considering buying in the USA, is also out of scope. BTW, Thailand is a motorcycle wonderland. Alas, easily 95 percent of them are small.

Actually much of what I saw of the Thai people is similar to the Cheyenne people, who are totally separate for they, even though they also originated in Asia, migrated south and then west into a land that would become Southern Europe. Their aimless wanderings continued north and then west and resulted in them crossing an ice-packed tundra and reaching what would eventually become North America. Carrying this thought farther, I compare the Thai and Cheyenne people in the Sand Creek manuscript to make a major point that impacted the Called Out People (Cheyennes) and Cloud People (Arapahos) in a major way.

This is Phraya Phichai Dub Hak. It is a small bronze of the huge statue of him in Uttaradit, Thailand. It originally belonged to my brother Font Subanna, but he sent it home with Pailin in 2016 as he was very aware of my interest in this great man. Phraya Phichai joins me at work every day as he guards my computer. (photo © Louis Kraft 2018)

When I visited Thailand in 2014, I first stayed at Pailin’s sister’s house (she had retired as a colonel from the Thai Army). After days Daranee Kostin, who is a special lady, finally said to Pailin, “When are you going to tell him I’m not your sister?” If you know anything about the Cheyennes you know where I’m going. … Daranee and Pailin are childhood, school, and adult friends (to this day).

Sitting on the top of a small cabinet near the front door of Daranee’s house was a bronze statue of Phraya Phichai Dub Hak (the soldier with the broken sword; actually he was a general). He intrigued me, grabbed my attention, and eventually I asked about him. What I learned about him was mind-boggling. My brother Sophon and niece Lek introduced him to me in Uttaradit, and Font, although not present, was front and center with this world of discovery (see the above caption). … Phraya Phichai was close to his king in a major time of woe, for Burma was invading Siam. The enemy was winning. During a major battle, and like George Armstrong Custer, he was at the front of his troops in battle. The sword in his right hand was broken by an attacker, but instead of retreating he charged forward. He and his soldiers won the battle, and eventually the invasion of Siam ended.

There is much more to Phraya Phichai Dub Hak. I have seen a handful of pages here, paragraphs there, and they all say basically the same thing—and as far as I’m concerned none of it is confirmed. I am certain that there is a ton of primary research in Thailand that is available and I want to see it. … Obviously my translator will become a close friend.

My future is before me and it is mine

I am in good shape with Errol & Olivia and can complete the manuscript anywhere in the world. The first Kit Carson book will be a novel and I can also complete it anywhere.* There is also going to be a nonfiction book on Kit, but I have more research to complete (this will happen before year’s end). Both books are major for me; so much so that if I don’t find enough primary source material to write the nonfiction manuscript, I will merge that information with another portion of his life. As said above there will be two books on the pirate Francis Drake; one nonfiction and one fiction. I began a novel on El Draque in the mid-1970s when I had an acting manager, and it is my intention to complete it. There is also a Chinese/western novel set in Monterey, California, waiting in the wings (researched and outlined), as well as a modern-day story that deals with the Anasazi and cannibalism in the American Southwest (this will be based upon one of my screenplays, and it will be a thriller). Once Errol & Olivia is published I will ramp up my research on the second nonfiction Flynn book (this can only be done in the USA). (There had been hope for a partnership on a Flynn book but this is no more—LK’s loss, and perhaps yours).

* The novel will deal with Kit Carson and the Diné (the Navajos). I have a draft that was agented and contracted but then the publisher decided to eliminate their western line. It was genre, meaning 65,000 words; I plan to expand it and make it into an historical novel. Like The Final Showdown (1992), most of the characters actually lived, but the two leading Navajos will be fictional: an old warrior and his granddaughter.

That’s about it in a nutshell. …. Yikes! Actually it’s a mouthful.

 

Louis Kraft, SoCal fires, earthquakes, Sand Creek Massacre, & an Errol Flynn tidbit

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


For starters Pailin and I hope that the day we celebrated Jesus Christ’s birth was a peaceful and loving one for you with your family and friends. … Also that you had a safe and uneventful New Year’s Eve. Ours was at Wat Thai (Thai Temple of Los Angeles in North Hollywood) praying and seeing some friends as we welcomed in 2018.

On 20dec2017 Mimi took this image of us at Jantana (pronounced Jan-ta-na) and Richard’s (pronounced Ri-chard’s) apartment in Northridge, California. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft and Louis Kraft 2017)

The year 2017, more than any other, has made me realize how
fragile life really is. For the record, I have a family of four—three ladies
and yours truly. I’ve survived some horrific car crashes, I’ve had guns
pointed at me, a knife at my throat, I’ve taken a motorcycle over a
a cliff, I’ve been knocked cold (I don’t know if this counts), and
I’ve survived cracking my skull open more than once as
well as surgeries that had to succeed or I would I have
been dancing with Angels long before now.

My view: I love walking on Mother Earth.

Fire, wind, more fire, & more wind … a SoCal story

Elsewhere I’ve documented the frightening Los Angeles and Ventura County fires of December 2017. It’s rough when you can watch flames billow into ever-growing puffs of brown smoke that obliterate the sky. You know that property is being destroyed and animals are dying.

This image in the Los Angele Times dates to December 6, 2017, and is of a man attempting to calm a horse during the Sylmar/Creek fire. These fires in SoCal were absolutely devastating on horses and over livestock. My great friend and Apache scouts expert Layton Hooper commented numerous times about this image (as he also cares about animals). I couldn’t agree more with Layton’s views on horses and how they are innocent bystanders to man’s destruction of our world.

But often the men and women who combat these horrific Santa Ana winds that range upwards to 80 MPH and fuel the fires that ravage SoCal year-in-and-year-out fall under the radar. These people, these heroes, risk their lives on a daily basis. During the recent Sylmar/Canyon fire in the San Fernando Valley that put Pailin and I at risk (a December 6 LA government text read: Strong winds over night creating extreme fire danger. Stay alert. Listen to authorities.”), they worked 24-hour shifts to combat an enemy (wind and fire) that is a hundred times more devastating than the earthquakes that are associated with SoCal. These brave human beings deserve all our respect and thanks. Believe it or not, they aren’t alone for volunteers joined them along with fire fighters from other states as well as people serving jail time in California.

All of them are magnificent!!! Perhaps some of these heroes serving jail time should see the remainder of their sentences commuted.

… and the Thomas fire continues to burn (as of 30dec17).

I have favorite animals. Just five: Mountain lions (pumas), horses, wolves, coyotes, and doberman pinchers, The last are dogs, and they are the most gentle animals I have ever known. The Pumas are beyond belief, and they are a major part of my life as I follow their struggle to remain free in SoCal. Today, tomorrow, and always. These photos are from an article in the 27Dec2017 issue of the LA Times. This young Puma was burned while attempting to flee from the Thomas fire. It has been rescued and is on its way to recovery.

Ye-ough!!! (a sound) … For California 2018 will be back to normal if what the LA Times just published is accurate, mainly that this winter would be one of the driest in California history. If true next year’s fires will again ravish the Golden State. Pailin’s and my home was at fire risk twice in 2017 (June and October).

This image of a condor (left) and its chick was on the front page of the LA Times on 1jan2018, as it featured a story on endangered species chick no. 871, who should have left its cave and flew for the first time in December. It didn’t as the Thomas Fire ravished the Los Padres Sespe Condor Sanctuary. Scientists have recently seen its parents near the cave and hope that the chick has survived.

If fires attack Los Angeles in 2018 it is not going to be 1,000 homes destroyed, it is not going to be 2,000 homes destroyed, … it will be thousands upon thousands of homes destroyed. The homeless count in LA is currently 55,000 (how large is the city you live in?). If, and I pray God this never becomes reality, … if the 2018 fires destroy the San Fernando Valley (one of numerous valleys in the county of Los Angeles) 1.3 million people will become homeless; the threat was ominous in 2017. … Will it become reality in 2018?

Earthquakes? What are they? Fire is the numeral uno enemy to the Golden State.

Oh, I forgot to mention that global warming is little more than fiction. My view on this: Everyone who thinks global warning is little more than a left wing piece of baloney have got their fingers firmly stuffed somewhere.

The year 2017 is one for the California record books

It is official, 2017 has been the hottest year on record for California. It has also been the worst fire year on record, and the Thomas Fire that started in Ventura County (which borders Los Angeles County) and has raged north and into Santa Barbara County is the largest fire in California since they began keeping accurate records in the early 1930s. This fire began on December 4; it was still burning on December 30 (but although it is supposedly 65 percent contained … homes are still threatened).

Something needs to be said about earthquakes

I have lived through the last two major earthquakes in SoCal: 1971 and 1994. I can’t tell you how often I have been quizzed about the horror of an earthquake when outside California. People I have met when giving talks or performances or on research trips are forever interested (some of them are terrified of experiencing one). … Let’s start this conversation with LK isn’t keen on living through a hurricane or a tornado.

I guess it’s all about perspective.

Let’s start with tornados. In 1974 I flew to Missouri to buy a 1951 Hudson Hornet, a great automobile that ruled NASCAR racing during the first half of the 1950s (I even wrote a screenplay about them cleaning up at the racetrack called Hornet; unfortunately my agent couldn’t sell it).

The Missourian picked me up at the airport. After checking out the Hornet and taking it for a test drive I bought the car. Tornado warnings were live on Missouri TV that morning. He and his family didn’t want me to leave. I ate his wife’s homemade ice cream and then allowed the family to show me the house where future U.S. president Harry Truman was born. I am a patient and polite cowboy. During this time I had visions of Judy Garland’s classic film The Wizard of Oz (1939) dancing around in my brain. If you don’t know the film, a tornado transports Judy’s character to the land of Oz. It was 1974 and I was picturing me and the 1951 Hudson Hornet being transported to the land of Oz.* Honestly, this was a living nightmare for me. When the seller’s family finally gave me a tearful goodbye about eight-thirty that morning I pushed the Hornet’s accelerator pad to the floor, … and hightailed it out of Kansas as quickly as I could.

Time is short, and this blog is about four months late. Thus this old collage. This picture of the Hudson that came from Missouri was taken in the still-rural Northridge in the San Fernando Valley. The photo of the Camaro was taken overlooking the Pacific Ocean in northern San Diego County. … BTW, bets were out that I wouldn’t make a wedding in Tucson, Arizona, which was a little over a week after I bought the car. I covered the bets and won.

From left: Hattie McDaniel, OdeH, and Vivian Leigh in Gone with the Wind. Olivia was nominated for a supporting Oscar in this film. She didn’t win. At first she was angry, but later was thrilled for Hattie’s win. I couldn’t agree more with her view. (photo in LK personal collection)

* The Wizard of Oz should have won the Oscar for best film of 1939 (I know, heresy). Gone with the Wind did. I have a large connection with Gone with the Wind due to Ms. Olivia de Havilland. Writing about her connection with this film will take up quite a number of pages in Errol & Olivia, and these words have and will flow speedily forward on the keyboard. Her story here is good stuff. No-no-no; it’s great stuff! All I want to say here is The Wizard of Oz, which took me decades to accept and like, is a great film, while Gone with the Wind, which I’ve hated since the first time I attempted to see it is not. For the record, I have never seen this film completely in one screening (and that includes seeing it in a movie theater; I walked out before falling asleep). I doubt this is a high recommendation.

Let’s get back to earthquakes. On February 8, 1971, I needed a place to sleep. My then girlfriend. Joan McGirr, was living with her father. I parked my motorcycle next to her car in the apartment building’s underground parking lot and slept in it that night.

This image of LK was taken just months before the 9feb1971 earthquake. I’m sitting in my office just north of the apartment building where my then-girlfriend lived with her father. (photo © Louis Kraft 1970)

The next morning I was awake and reading the newspaper in her car when the earthquake struck. I was out of that parking structure in a flash and as far as I could be from the surrounding apartments. In front of me was a large swimming pool with tidal waves pounding the sides. The surrounding complex consisted of three-story apartments. They looked like old-time cartoons as they swayed back and forth in rhythm with the pool’s pounding waves.

The 1994 Northridge earthquake caught me asleep in bed in North Hollywood. It struck about four-thirty in the morning on January 17. Let me say one thing here. When a fairly large earthquake hits there is no guesswork. You know immediately what is happening. Get away from windows and anything that can collapse or fall on you.

Earthquakes don’t last long. One minute, two minutes, maybe three minutes and it’s over. There are after shocks that can go on for days.

Front and center in an unbelievable story

LK image choices are now being selected for Sand Creek and the Tragic
End of a Lifeway, and they will add great value to the book.

Pailin took this photo of me relaxing at home with guests on 13sept2017. This is one of the last images of me as I looked like this. A joke? I wish, but alas, no. (photo © Louis Kraft and Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2017)

I know, I know, I’ve always known (nothing new here). For the record I’m working on the Sand Creek manuscript seven days a week until I deliver a first rough draft to the great editor-in-chief of the University of Oklahoma Press, Chuck Rankin at the end of January. He has always been my friend since we met years back. By that I mean that he has done everything possible to see that my manuscripts saw publication, … and this was long before we signed the Wynkoop contract. Folks, in case you don’t know, OU Press is the largest and best publisher of Indian wars books in the world. In the world! They are my publisher, which makes me one of the luckiest guys in the world.

At times events happen and they affect all of our hearts in different ways. …
31dec2017 was one of those days, but with life there’s always hope.
Pain over the loss of a cherished person is always private. … Life
can be fickle. One day we’re here and healthy, but there is
no guarantee for tomorrow (I’m not talking about me).

A bashed-face and worse … that’s me!!!

Ouch! … for it is worse, and I hate to say it but this is the story of my life.

Christopher Juarez at the central Los Angeles Public Library in downtown on 19nov2017. I cannot begin to tell how much this young man helped me during my two days at the library studying the Nancy Morton microfilm from the Nebraska State Historical Society. (photo © Louis Kraft 2017)

On 11nov2017 I took the subway from the North Hollywood hub (the Red line) to the main LA Public Library. My bad from the beginning, but it was worse than that for good ol’ LK got lost. What should have been three miles of total walking turned into six + miles of walking. Huh??? Take one guess. LK was clueless and got lost. If you know downtown LA there are good places and there are bad places and I got to see all of them, including a male urinating in pure daylight (I know, this is not a major selling point for Los Angeles). When I finally reached the library I was in for a shock. It was November 11—Hello cowboy! … Veteran’s Day—and the library had shut down Friday, the 10th, through Sunday, the 12th, for the Veteran’s Day weekend. What can I say other than keep your views to yourself. That’s right, I don’t want to hear them.

My day excursion, which began at nine in the morning ended at 12:25 in the afternoon with roughly two and a half hours spent as LK walked as fast as he could. Again, and by my calculations, it was over six miles. … You do not want to know what my feet felt like that afternoon, for all you’ll get from me is a bunch of XXXs and !!!s.

See below for the continuation of this story. …

The creation of history

If I chose to list all the historians who have shaped history in their image you would be shocked. I know a very good Indian wars historian who once told me that he wanted to turn history upside down. Say what? Basically this person wanted to push Indian wars history to the extreme.

That’s right, and more often than you would ever guess historians do this. Facts don’t drive what they write, sensationalization does. Most of the time they choose people who are no longer with us as you can’t be charged with defaming the dead in the USA. This is not hard to do when you write about the American Indian wars or the Golden Age of the Cinema.

LK at Tujunga House on 5mar2017. (photo © Louis Kraft 2017)

This blog, as most in the near future, features events that led to the attack by Colorado Volunteers on people who thought that they were under the protection of the U.S. military on 29nov1864.

For the record I’ve been giving talks based upon reality for thirty years, since 1987. These are talks wherein I know my subject matter and I don’t read. At the moment I’m on self-imposed sabbatical. The reason is simple: I have a book to complete that is of major importance to me.

Believe it or not, I have been persona non-grata for more years than I’d like to count. You do not want to know about people who turn their back to me when I walk past them. What’s their problem? Hell, I don’t know. I’ll say this, they ain’t my friends.

Barbara Hershey and a film I like

What can I say about Ms. Hershey other than I’d like to know her well enough that we could share our views on the world, living, and creativity. Given decent parts in film or class TV productions she has time and again proven how good of an actress she is.

Last of the Dogmen

Barbara Hershey played an anthropologist whose expertise was the Cheyenne Indians in Last of the Dogmen (Savoy Pictures, 1995). In this film, which always makes my top 50 (now 60) film list had a great quote that Barbara said. But first she had to deal with a modern-day bounty hunter played by Tom Berenger.

As stated some of Barbara Hershey’s performances are top-notch, and certainly  in Last of the Dogmen and Defenseless. Also she is someone that I wish I knew. This, in the Kraft world, is a high recommendation for more reasons than one. (photo in LK collection)

Berenger had found evidence that points to Cheyenne Indians from a time long gone killing escaped criminals, and he’s trying to learn if people from the mid-nineteenth century could have survived undiscovered into the mid-1990s. Hershey finds his quest ludicrous. And it is, but it opens a door to explore race relations between people from a time dear to my heart with those living in the mid-1990s. From the get-go the film is fantasy for the simple reason that there were few Cheyenne Dog Men (whites called them Dog Soldiers) at the November 29, 1864, massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians on Sand Creek, Colorado Territory, an attack that saw children used for target practice, an unborn child cut from its dead mother’s womb and scalped, … it gets worse, much-much worse. … Before the story can take off Hershey gives Berenger a history lesson on the Cheyennes along with their struggle to retain their freedom, land, and lifeway before again making it clear that Dog Men could not and did not murder the escaped convicts as there were no “Dog Men” from the 1860s living as they had in 1864 in modern times. Lordy-lordy, you have got to love this premise as it is a good one. Barbara’s quote in the film was great, but you’re not going to read these words in this blog. See the film, … and when Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is published read the book. Here’s a big hint: Barbara’s quote is the final two sentences in the book.

Sand Creek players have been pounded time and again …

Certainly Ned Wynkoop has been labeled a “traitor” to his race, and an Indian-lover. This pounding centers on his acting without orders (not cool when you are in the military) to save white prisoners and bring seven Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs to Denver to discuss ending the 1864 Cheyenne war with John Evans, the second territorial governor of Colorado. One premise holds that the massacre at Sand Creek would have never happened if he had not done this.

LK as Ned Wynkoop in an one-man show seeing the sexually dismembered bodies of the Southern Cheyennes months after the butchery at Sand Creek on 29nov1864. (photo: Johnny D. Boggs during a dress rehearsal for performances at a Washita Battlefield National Historic Site symposium in 2008).

Really? All I’ll say here is that illogic follows and stampedes its way into the foreground.

This isn’t worth talking about, other than to say there were many participants in the events that led up to the attack on a Cheyenne and Arapaho village on Sand Creek in November 1864. It was not just one player, it was a combination of multiple players and all their actions. People make choices. You make choices; I make choices. So did Evans, Wynkoop, Colonel John Chivington, Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle, Arapaho Chief Left Hand, and on and on.

The tragedy of Sand Creek is much more than an officer (Wynkoop) acting without orders to rescue four white children and bring seven Indian leaders to Denver to discuss ending a war. If illogical thinking rules the day, why not say that the Sand Creek village was “easy prey,” like some of those hunting estates where macho men with big guns can hunt big game that can’t escape as they are trapped within the preserve?

These people had their vaginas cut out, their penises hacked off. Their children had their skulls bashed in. The term “war crime,” didn’t exist in 1864, but it does now. What happened in 1864 was a war crime regardless of what it might have been called then. Pure and simple. You do this today, and you happen to be an American soldier, you will be tried for war crimes. … I’m not certain when this came to pass but it was certainly in place at the end of World War II when Nazis were charged with heinous crimes of genocide against the Jewish people. BTW, “genocide” became a word in 1945.

These crimes live into the twenty-first century when on March 12, 2006, an American soldier (Specialist James Barker) raped and murdered a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl, Abeer Qassim al-Janabi. He and five soldiers with him then murdered her father, mother, and six-year-old sister in Mahmoudiya, twenty miles south of Baghdad. They burned the bodies in an attempt to cover up their crime.

… and the Cheyennes?

For starters there were a number of Southern Cheyenne bands trusting Chief Black Kettle’s efforts to remove them from the on-going war. Unfortunately their approximate location was known, making them an easy target. Chivington’s goal was never to fight Cheyenne Dog Men and Lakotas who rode the war trail farther north. Instead, he wanted a target that never expected to be attacked. That’s right, he wanted “easy prey.” Chivington would claim a lopsided victory with a huge death count that perhaps exceeded the total number of people that could have possibly been living in this Sand Creek village, and for a short time became a great Indian fighter.

From left: Leo Oliva, LK, and Fort Larned Chief Historian George Elmore. We are walking the on the parade ground, and we are heading toward the building that Wynkoop rented for his headquarters when he was a U.S. Indian agent, which was just outside the perimeter of the post. Good friends Leo and George have helped me oh-so many times over the years. Both have been instrumental in getting me to Kansas time and again to speak and perform, as well as aiding my research. … I can’t begin to tell you how much George has aided my Sand Creek research. This photo was taken on 20sept2012. Two days later Leo and I spoke on the now protected Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village that Major General Winfield Hancock destroyed in April 1867. … This part of Kansas is in my blood. It is one of my homes away from home.

What can I say. My Sand Creek proposal was 37 pages long. I presented a detailed outline of what I thought the final manuscript should include. It also stated that nothing was set in stone, that my research would define the flow of the manuscript. … Boy, is this a true statement.

Actually Chivington is going to have a smaller role than planned. Such is life. This said, his impact on the story is huge.

On 24apr1999 Cheyenne Peace Chiefs Gordon Yellowman (kneeling) and Lawrence Hart (standing right-center) blessed the Pawnee Fork village site. The lady with the robe wrapped around her is Connie Yellowman, Gordon’s wife. This was the first time that I spoke at Fort Larned. That’s George Elmore in the sergeant’s uniform at the left of the image. (photo © Louis Kraft 1999)

Fort Larned plays an important role in the Sand Creek story. Black Kettle, Neva, Left Hand, Little Raven, William Bent, George Bent, John Smith, and Wynkoop all spent time there. The destruction of the Pawnee Fork village (about 35 miles west of the post) was a continuation of what began in the early 1860s.

Territorial governor John Evans has been pounded

But should he have been? I’m not so sure, and although I hate to admit this, I don’t totally agree with the University of Denver’s study of Evans, and his part in the disaster. Still, they uncovered key information regarding the governor ducking the issue while in Washington D.C., and he didn’t return to Denver until spring 1865.

As I didn’t use an image of John Evans in the Wynkoop book, and have not decided what image(s) of him that I’m going to use in Sand Creek, this color portrait of Black Kettle is good here. The chief and the governor met at Camp Weld on 28sept1864, and both walked away from that meeting with totally different views upon what had been decided. For all the chief’s efforts to avoid or end war he has been pounded as hard as the governor. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

Let’s be up front, some of John Evans’ words and actions led to his downfall (which has been frighteningly similar to the racist backlash we have seen against the Southern states fight to remove themselves from the United States of America in the 1860s. Yikes!!!! How can the USA banish and remove one of the most important pieces of our history, the war between the states? Without a doubt slavery was (and is) heinous, and it has always been so. Owning another human being and playing god with his or her life is evil (but I’m talking from a modern POV). Times have changed in regards to racism for the better, but from what we have seen in 2017 we still have a long way to go.

Some of Evans’ proclamations are damaging. However, his attempts to avoid or end war were something he tried to do. More important, he left for the east on November 10, that was nineteen days prior to Chivington’s massacre of men, women, and children, and he didn’t learn of the battle until days afterwards. Evans wanted war and wanted the Cheyennes and Arapahos removed from the territory but he had no clue that this would happen to the people who tried to end the war.

Art of Mr. Carson dating to about 1845. (LK personal collection)

Evans’ fall from grace is similar to Kit Carson’s. … Folks, Kit was a good friend to the American Indians. He spoke seven languages: English, Spanish, and five native languages. If he were the butcher that modern times attempts to label him, why would he speak (at least partially) the words of the Navajos, Mescalero Apaches, Cheyennes, Arapahos, and Utes? Oh, I forgot to mention that he had three wives: Arapaho, Cheyenne, and a Latina of Spanish decent. One more fact, he converted to Catholicism to marry his Spanish wife. Does this sound like a racist? I think not. … Pray God I live long enough to complete two books that deal with Carson and his relationship with American Indians. … One fiction; one nonfiction.

John Evans has become an evil person. … Really? Guess what? John Evans was a human being who thought he was doing right when he did it. I’m not going to tell you that he was a good person or an evil one. If I do my job his words and actions will allow you to make your own decision of who he was.

Ditto everyone else, and this includes John Chivington. BTW, he will be the last piece of the manuscript to be completed. Oh, he has a presence now, but it is not close to being finished. Like Evans and everyone else, it is my job is to show what he said and what he did. There is nothing worse than an author (history or fiction, it matters not) who has a preconceived premise on an historical personage and will stay the course regardless of how much discovery disproves their premise. God forbid they shy away from their damnation of a human being because they see facts that shoots arrows into their task of destroying a person’s life. And especially people who are gone and cannot defend themselves. Yep, folks you can defame the dead in the USA (but be careful if you attempt to defame the living, for then you might set yourself up to join the homeless wandering the streets of LA).

Back to the reality of our times

Is it ethical to sell out truth for greater book sales? Honestly, you don’t want to know my opinion on this. Many writers have done this over the years, and it isn’t confined to the Indian wars. The most infamous—in my opinion—was Charles Higham. Higham, a film biographer, printed despicable lies about two of his subjects (see below), for the simple reason that he wanted to sell books. Other biographers and historians in modern times have mimicked Higham’s practice of creating false facts that bleed red for the same reason, to pocket as many greenbacks as possible. There’s one difference, these hacks of recent times (that is post 1980) stoop so low with their fictional creations that they are little more than cockroaches that run rampant in their readers’ minds as they spread filth that has no basis in reality.

In his 1980 best-selling piece of slop called Errol Flynn: The Untold Story, without proof Higham wrote that Flynn was both homosexual and a Nazi spy. Over the years real historians have debunked all of Higham’s falsehoods. Still the general public, if they remember anything about Flynn, it is that he was homosexual Nazi spy. Hell, the media still sells this as there is nothing better than trashing a star’s name for the simple reason that the public gobbles it up. As said above there is no punishment for defaming the dead in the USA. Not so in Canada; Higham’s book was also published in the land of our neighbors to the north. Flynn’s daughters Deidre and Rory went after Higham in Canada. To avoid going to court and potential prosecution Higham never set foot in Canada for the rest of his life. … I can’t speak about Higham’s other film biographies save one—Sisters: The Story of Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine (1984). I presented Olivia with a lot of questions about this book in letters and in person. Olivia made one reply in writing in which she dismissed Higham with three words (and none were profane). In person the only thing she said about him and his book on her and Joan was that he never contacted her, never asked her one question.

Was Higham a charlatan? Are other historians charlatans? I believe in challenging history. I also believe that it must be done ethically and not by presenting outrageous statements that are fiction-based on preconceived premises with the lone goal of destruction.

Another story

He was flesh and blood, had a deep baritone voice, was a college professor, had lived through the revolution of the 1960s, had evolved into the 1970s, and when I met him in the 1980s he had fine-tuned his persona. Oh, I forgot, he was also a writer. Charm oozed from him. He instantly became a friend (think 1989 in San Diego).

Years passed. It was now 1995 and we were at the Western Writers of America (WWA) convention in Cheyenne, Wyoming (I’m foggy on the location but think the timing was with the publication of Custer and the Cheyenne).

I’m going to pull from a major lesson I learned from Errol Flynn’s magnificent memoir, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, which was published shortly after his death in 1959. Mainly, that at times one must remain vague to protect friends, former lovers, and yours truly. I hope that what I share here is okay. I’m back to the writer that evolved from 1960s to the 1980s. He was working on a book wherein he claimed his subject—Billy the Kid—outlived his death by decades. “Do you believe he wasn’t murdered?” I asked. He honestly replied that he did believe that the Kid was murdered. “Why are you writing this manuscript?” He again honestly answered that it would sell books. This author’s name was W. C. Jameson.

Kudos to him for his honesty. At the same time his words now mimic the truth of today’s world. If the truth gets in the way of your preconceived premise, dismiss it. If someone confronts you on your lie, one-up them and call them “little Billy,” or “bullshitting Johnny,” or “sex stalker Alex,” or “lying Donald.” The new key words here are: “Fake News.” Point your finger at them, scream, and if possible see that your hateful rants explode all over social media.

Luckily for me the Dennis the Menace cartoons continue to live in the Los Angeles Times (this cartoon appeared in the 22nov17 edition of the paper). Although cartoonist Hank Ketcham is long gone, his wonderful creation continues to live at dennisthemeance.com and in various newspapers. The North America Synd. holds the 2017 copyright.

Good Lord, is this really today’s world? If yes, I need say no more.

The struggle to bring the Tsistsistas (Cheyennes) into their new world

Ladies and gents, separating myth and fiction from fact is an hellacious task, and one I’ve struggled with for years now. Also, unfortunately, no one is ever going to get all the facts straight. It is an impossible task.

Believe it or not the Cheyennes have been mostly painted as villains throughout their history. Their views and their facts have been almost totally ignored as little more than lies. There’s an adage, and it is that the conqueror writes the history books. … The vanquished are savages or worse and the winners are heroes who have saved mankind.

… and this includes some mixed-blood Cheyennes

I’ll mention two here: Julia Bent and her step brother Charles (Charley) Bent. Their father was trader William Bent, who plays a fairly large role in my Sand Creek manuscript, but surprisingly wasn’t as I expected him to be (this statement should have a few exclamation points as the William Bent I now know is not the William Bent I thought I knew). … I can’t begin to tell how many hours I’ve spent on Julia and Charley. I know them somewhat, but I wish more. She is little more than a beautiful image that appears and disappears during the tumultuous times of the 1860s while Charles has been pounded to hell as little more than a vicious killer.

George Bent was Julia’s older brother and Charley’s older step-brother. He lived well into the twentieth century and left a wealth of information for anyone willing to dig into and understand, and by that I mean cross-reference and closely check what he wrote.

If you believe just half of the recordings of supposed Cheyenne raids between 1864 and 1867, Charley Bent was named way-too-many times as a traitorous leader of perhaps thirty percent of these raids, and yet when he died he had not yet reached his twentieth year, and this is an easy fact to prove regardless of David Lavender’s fanciful words without a drop of proof in Bent’s Fort (1954) or Halaas & Masich’s tons of research citations in Halfbreed (2004), which simply muddies the water while providing little support for important text in their biography of George Bent.

I don’t have much on either Julia or Charles, but what I do have will be in the book for both were exceptional young people during a time of death and destruction. I won’t come close to sharing who they really were, but I will present them to you in an honest way while at the same time destroying some of the undocumented baloney that has been printed and reprinted about them ad nauseam.

There is Sand Creek Massacre research coming that will open some eyes

The misinformation and out-and-out fabrications of reality in the Sand Creek story is mind-boggling. These ongoing fabrications range from Laura Roper becoming Black Kettle’s sexual object to Isabelle Eubanks being five when the Cheyennes gave her to Wynkoop on September 12, 1864 (a date that is erroneously documented easily sixty percent of the time).

A wonderful research surprise in Downtown LA

A young wife was captured one day after the Cheyenne raid that captured Isabelle, her mother, younger brother, a relative, and Laura Roper. This young woman, like those taken with Isabelle, also plays a key if small role in the story. I had seen most if not all of the published documentation about her. Her name was Nancy Morton. During an horrendous string of a few days mostly along the Platte River Route she, along with many other whites, survived while seeing her family murdered and hacked to pieces. Traveling settlers, ranchers, station employees were attacked, many murdered, while a small number of whites were taken prisoner. There is an old cliché, “Save the last bullet for yourself,” as death or captivity by Indians was not something anyone wanted to experience. … Nancy and a boy named Daniel Marble survived the attack on their wagon train.

I have spent a lot of good time with Marty Vestecka Miller, of the Nebraska State Historical Society, who secured the interlibrary loan of a microfilm reel on Nancy Morton for me. As the only library in the 100-library system of Los Angeles that still had microfilm readers that could also print was the central library in downtown Los Angeles I had to set up the loan there as the microfilm could not leave the library.

The west entry to the Central LA Public Library in downtown Los Angeles on 18nov2017. The library is a treasure, both inside and outside. (photo © Louis Kraft 2017)

On November 18 I got wise and looked at a map of the subway exit and the downtown library. They looked shockingly close to each other. On this day I used the Hope Street exit from the subway, looked to my left and could see the library two and a half blocks distant. On this day I worked closely with Christopher Juarez (pictured above), who not only got me set up on the microfilm machine but made me aware that I didn’t have to pay for printouts of the pages, but could scan them and email them to myself free of charge. Folks, when you are looking at over 250 images this is a pretty cool savings. Christopher worked closely with me on this day and then the next day as he ensured that I obtained every image that I needed. I have nothing but kudos to say about Christopher. The city of Los Angeles should give this young man a pay raise, and I’m not joking here. Los Angeles is lucky to employ him. Good work needs to be rewarded. Mayor Eric Garcetti, if you see this post or if you hear of this post, know one thing: Christopher Juarez is an extraordinary employee and the city is lucky to have him.

LK’s workstation at the Central Los Angeles Public Library in the History Department on 19nov2017. Cool times for LK. (photo ©  Louis Kraft 2017)

The people of Sand Creek

The major players range from the second territorial governor of Colorado Territory, the chief editor and co-partner of the most successful newspaper in Denver during the 1860s and beyond, the commanding colonel of the District of Colorado, the official U.S. interpreter for all four major treaties with the Cheyenne Indians between 1851 and 1867, a major partner of the most successful trading post who married into the Cheyenne tribe, one of his mixed-blood sons, and the one man who dared to act for he thought was for the good of mankind and has since been termed a traitor to his own race. They were ambitious, had views of success in their dreams, but like you and I had to survive in a world beyond their control.

I know. Where’s Cheyennes Black Kettle, Lean Bear, or Bull Bear; and Arapahos Left Hand, Neva, and Little Raven? Trust me, for they are a comin’ to life, … I want them to be surprises; I want them to explode off the pages. Actually Black Kettle and Little Raven will surprise you, but unfortunately I simply don’t have enough on the others to allow them to also dominate. Still Left Hand was a person I wish I could have known in life.

More important, and like most of us, they thought that what they did was right when they did it. … What I’ve learned is not what I wanted to know. I’m writing the manuscript as a biography through the eyes of (currently) nine people. I’m doing everything I can to be in their point-of-view (POV), a film term.

This is my lady, Pailin, on the bluffs to the west of the 1864 Sand Creek battlefield. Our terrific friends John and Linda Monnett took us to the isolated site in 2014. You want to read good history pick up some of John’s books that deal with the Cheyennes. … Pailin and I are totally different in all phases of our lives, and yet she supports everything that I do. I pray to my God that I am capable of supporting everything that she does. Life and love is a two-way street. You won’t believe what is in our future. (photo © Louis Kraft & Palin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

Where the hell am I? Simply, I’m treading water in the middle of pure hell. Does this sound negative? Probably, but it shouldn’t be as I’m inching closer to completing perhaps the most important manuscript of my life. If true, I must see Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway through to print. Folks, I can’t see this happening before 2019. This means I need to live another two years. Doable? I think so, … I hope so. Time will tell.

This is the OU Press dust jacket for the Wynkoop book; I’ve had some great covers over the years but this jacket is by far my favorite. It was an image that I requested, and the art director turned it into a terrific duotone.

Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway has 37 contracted images. Three will be maps; that leaves 34 photos or art. Good times for LK to fill in the blanks. At this moment I have chosen 16 (as I don’t own the rights to all these images the process to purchase and determine the use fees is under way. Actually several have already been procured, and all that needs to happen is working out the publishing details and paying the use fees. I hate to say it but at this point in time I must become secretive. Of the 16 I’ve previously used six of them. This is more than I hoped to use, but the images that will again be used are mandatory to telling the story of the events that led up to the Sand Creek attack and its aftermath.

For the record Chuck Rankin had requested I place as many women in the manuscript as possible. My research leading to the creation of the proposal and its acceptance was less than sparkling, meaning that there were no women who would be in the manuscript. Over the last three years of research this view has changed. I mentioned a couple of young ladies above. This is, for me, great news. Hopefully they will come to life when the book is published, even if their presence is small, for they are oh-so important to the Sand Creek story.

A small repetition

My Sand Creek proposal was a very-detailed thirty-seven pages, but it also included a “get out of jail” pass. This simply means that as a writer-historian I track all the usual suspects and try to follow where the trail leads. That is, the documentable facts. Actions and words define character. My job is not to create villains and heroes; rather it is to present people to you. If I do my job correctly you will make your own decisions of who they were and what happened.

As said above, this is a seven-day-a-week job. I’m up between four and four-thirty and often don’t get to bed until nine, ten, or later. … You guessed it. Sometimes I have to crash. But even on these days I must research and/or add word count.

I love what I do.

An Errol Flynn tidbit

I want to go off course here while still tiptoeing the straight and narrow. Thank you, Mr. Flynn. I’m not being sarcastic here, for Flynn’s My Wicked, Wicked Ways is the best book that I’ve ever read. His book dealt with time and memory, it dealt with good and bad, success and failure, and protecting the innocent in more ways than one (for example: Not saying much about a person or event, changing a key fact or two, or names of people that Mr. Flynn did not want to hurt, or perhaps because he did not want to be hurt). But sometimes it also included that his memory failed him, or worse a publisher changed facts or names.

The Flynn photo used on the dust jacket for the first printing of My Wicked, Wicked Ways. (photo © Esquire, Inc. 1958)

For the record, a successful writer named Earl Conrad was hired by Flynn’s publisher (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) to spend time with him at his home in Jamaica. Flynn had received a good advance to write his memoir, but he was almost at the end of his time on earth, was having trouble completing the manuscript, and needed help. Flynn was self taught, literate, and well published. He always had a story to tell, forever stood firm for what he believed, and never shied away from anything in his life. Without checking, and perhaps it is in Conrad’s memoir of his time with Flynn or in Thomas McNulty’s Errol Flynn: The Life and Career (by far the best biography on Flynn), but I think Flynn shared about 200,000 words during a handful of weeks with his guest Conrad. Flynn would see and sign-off on the galleys of his memoir but then died before seeing his last book published. (I’ll deal with this in my third book on Flynn; perhaps my second if I get lucky and something I want to do happens.)

My friends, … those of you who fear that I’ll never complete the first book
on Errol Flynn (and Olivia de Havilland), relax, for that book is closer
to publication than you think. Moreover, the two other planned
books on Mr. Flynn will happen. The second or third
books—there is no order here—will blow you
away in many ways.

Closing thoughts

There are pieces of my life, and luckily they didn’t deal with life and death on a major scale or decisions that would affect hundreds and thousands of people. Luckily I’ve lived in the shadows of time. Honestly, I think that this is a better place to be … for if I lived in earlier times when I would have had a target on my back as I would not have stepped in line and said, “Yes sir!” Luckily I didn’t live in the 1860s, for if I had, I’m certain that I would have been murdered on the streets of Denver as Captain Silas Soule was.

Still things have happened and they have affected my life in more ways than I’ll ever admit. During those times I wasn’t smiling. Looking back I can’t stop chuckling.

The little angel sitting on my right shoulder just whacked me in the face. The little devil sitting on my left shoulder simply snickered and said, “You wimp, you deserved that!”

What it all comes down to is life—my life.
My view is simply that you and I have different views of
our lives. … I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sand Creek Massacre, Errol & Olivia, Louis Kraft, and a perfect storm

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


Rod Taylor, Michael Parks, Sam Shepard. OUCH!
Three actors who have played roles in my life are
all gone in one godawful 2017.
Who’s next? Me?

Parks* and Taylor have been favorite actors since I discovered them, and this has continued throughout my life even though some of their films and appearances on TV weren’t in top-notch productions.

In LK personal collection.

Still, fully ninety percent of their performances that I saw shined.

Michael Parks also has the distinction of being my favorite singer of all time.

* Kevin Smith directed Red State (2011), a film in which Michael Parks delivered one of my favorite performances of all time. If you don’t know anything about Parks see Kevin Smith’s memory of Michael Parks. Warning: There are some foul words, but the interview is from the heart of a director who viewed Michael Parks as a good person and an acting genius—something I agree with. Better, Parks’ performance shows how a person can play evil on screen while being charming, charismatic, and certain that everything he does is absolutely for the good when he does it.

I haven’t seen all that many of Shepard’s films and I don’t think I’ve seen any of his TV work. Still he always adds intense credibility to every performance that I’ve seen.**

** All three have films on my top 60 film list.

**********

Time moves forward at lightening speed, and as the years have passed I have had a few-too-many encounters with the grim reaper.

As the body grows frailer, and as it is harder and harder to swing a blade with deadly intent I have come to cherish life. Shockingly, this is new to me as I have always been “charge forward with guns blazing.”

Two projects that are a long time coming

  • Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway
    I plan on delivering a first rough draft to my editor, Chuck Rankin (OU Press), in December or January 2018, and the final draft in 2019.
  • Errol & Olivia
    Research is continuous, and every so often when I have a few spare minutes I open the draft and add information. Right now I’m trying to confirm if Flynn’s first wife, Lili Damita, earlier had married the great film director Michael Curtiz or not. This must be confirmed without a doubt.

Below is an update on both.

Wandering through a life rife with change

High school friend Dennis Riley, then a photographer’s mate in the U.S. Navy, took this image a few days after my last final at SFVSC (now CSUN) in June 1969. That day was my first acting publicity shoot, and this image represented how I often dressed while earning my BA. I had picked up the god-awful nickname of “Tex” in college as I often wore a cowboy hat. “Tex”? Yee-ough! (a sound; not a word) (photo © Louis Kraft 1969)

I’ve been walking between the races since 1970 (but really it had been earlier as my parents had an open door policy no matter what a person’s race was). That year I joined Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), which is/was like a continental Peace Corps. I had wanted to work with American Indians (even at that age), and the two other possibilities were African Americans (Blacks back then) and Latinos (Chicanos then). There was a lot of training at the University of Texas in Austin, … and afterwards we—the other candidates and I—partied. Big time. We were housed in tall a dorm (ladies on one floor and guys on another), and the celebrations went deep into the night in various dormitory rooms (two rooms that shared a bathroom).

One night in the wee hours I said something to a married couple that they enjoyed but a Chicano who would eventually select people to work with Latinos didn’t like. Suddenly I had a knife at my throat as he grabbed me from behind. I was scared to death but had my wits and kept calm. In between his bursts of rage I pointed out that he had fifteen and perhaps twenty witnesses. Did he intend to kill them too? I also pointed out that if he killed me his cause was DOA (dead on arrival).

He let go of me, and let me tell you that I was one happy cowboy to see the sun rise that morning. Surprisingly at breakfast, which began at six, I had become a celebrity. This was stupid, and I hated it. From my view I was damned lucky to be alive. … A few weeks later the American Indian, Black, and Chicano group leaders chose their candidates a la choosing a sandlot football team. I was chosen early by a Black group from Oklahoma. A week of living with a Black family in Sapulpa (Oklahoma), more training in Austin, back to Sapulpa, and back to Texas before being assigned to Oklahoma City. My supervisor in OK City, Cheetah Gates, told me to ditch the cowboy boots when he saw them. I asked why. “The brothers don’t like cowboys,” he said. “If you want to live don’t wear the boots.” I took him at his word.

During the summer of 1976 girlfriend Kitty Moore (and she was one of the most gorgeous ladies I’ve ever known) was playing one of the leads in a Texas Tech theater department play (Lubbock, Texas). She was about to begin her junior year in college. … What I saw that summer was an eye opener. Lubbock was a mass of racial inequality and hatred, it struggled with what appeared to be a drug culture that grew by the day, and a theater department that was split by two different cliques. Some of my not so-good  experiences in Lubbock initiated the writing of my first screenplay, and surprisingly it landed me my first screenwriting agent. I based the female lead on what I viewed as the essence of who Kitty Moore was (she eventually read a draft of Laird Francis and liked it). … All I can say about Kitty is that she was an exceptional human being and that I was lucky to have known her. I wish that our relationship could have continued. It couldn’t, and all I have are my memories.

This was just the beginning. By the mid-1970s I was writing screenplays and a number of them dealt was race (this came about after a summer of dinner theater in Lubbock, Texas, a place I was lucky to put in my rearview mirror without being tarred and feathered as racism in the city and factionalism in the Texas Tech theater department was rampant at that time). Most of my screen plays were current day, or at least historically based in the 1970s. The two exceptions included 1) Wonderboat, an epic tragedy that dealt with U-boats during WWII, and 2) Corsair, which dealt with the Englishman John Ward who became a feared Tunis pirate during the early seventeenth century.* By the mid-1980s I was writing and selling baseball articles, but soon changed focus to the American Indian wars (writing for periodicals and speaking at symposiums).

* Drafts of my screenplays are housed in the Louis Kraft Collection at the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library (Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe). For more information about Wonderboat see Louis Kraft’s top 13 Errol Flynn films … a personal view.

In 1999 I wrote for a space industry firm that had one customer: Hughes. My major deliveries usually consisted of about 1,000 pages of documentation (and you would choke if I told you what Hughes paid for it). My editor worked in the company’s headquarters in Herndon, Virginia, as did my manager. Most of the documentation department was in Herndon except for one writer in Colorado, one in Northern California, and yours truly in the South Bay of Los Angeles County. That summer all of us attended week-long (wrapped between two weekends) demonstrations at headquarters that dealt with using code-based software to create documentation that could be delivered to multiple types of output while discussing the difficulty of such a massive change while still making our deliveries on deadline.*

* This didn’t happen during my time in the space industry, but I later experienced moving from WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) book design to code-based production tools that could deliver documentation in various formats at the now defunct Sun Microsystems and later at Oracle.

The editor and I had a great long-distance working relationship before my nine days in Herndon. During the evenings after code-based software demos she became my tour guide, dinner companion, and more. On one day when we got off early she drove me to Leesburg where I spent time with Wild West editor Greg Lalire at Primedia’s headquarters (they then published a great grouping of about 12 history magazines). Greg and I have been friends for decades.

This editor, Jeanne Dodge-Allen, played an important part in my life—ranging from friend, lover, and a nightmare beyond belief. If I ever write my memoir she’ll be in it.

While Primedia’s headquarters I verbally pitched and sold an article on Ned Wynkoop and the Cheyennes to the then editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History (it was published as “Between the Army and the Cheyennes” in the Winter 2002 issue).

Being so close to Washington D.C. I had negotiated remaining in the lodging provided for me over the weekend and not flying home until Sunday. That Saturday Jeanne and I took the subway system from Herndon to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and we worked together on Indian wars research. She was petite while perfectly formed, with a great mind that connected with mine, but also soft and caring. Everything seemed perfect. I thought. Unfortunately she had a dual-personality that I didn’t know about until later. She had told me about the “good ol’ boys” at headquarters, and what they were supposedly doing to her. The truth? What she told me, even if only partially true, was horrifying. I’ll never know. Shortly after I flew back to Los Angeles I became one of the “good ol’ boys.” I think that this was all in her head, but that doesn’t matter. She began calling my home phone but her voice was no longer soft and friendly. It had turned demonic and threatening. Eventually I received and unmarked package. Inside was an oversized mailing envelope with one word written on it in bold red ink: SHAME (there was long dark hair inside the envelope).

Creepy. I kept it for DNA evidence.

My father Louis Sr. (left), brother Lee, and me. I’m on a 1970 Triumph Trophy 500. The bike survived both accidents described below, although the collision with the girl that outweighed me turned me into a gimp for a couple of months and the Triumph required a lot of work to fix. For the record I was wearing a helmet during both crashes. (photo © Louis Kraft, 1972)

While racing around turns on a narrow mountain dirt trail, the motorcycle in front of me suddenly stopped when the path ended. To avoid ramming the motorcyclist I attempted to slide around him as I braked. I almost pulled it off, but instead took my Triumph over a cliff. On another occasion an oversized girl who was running hit me broadside as I exited a driveway at low speed. My hand jerked the accelerator, the Triumph shot into the street, jumped a curb, and left me knocked out and hanging from a chainlink fence. Car wise, the worse was hitting the center divider of the CA 134 freeway headfirst at high speed, the car spun and took out the left side on the center divider, spun in the opposite direction and destroyed the rear end, and this is where the car stopped. Shockingly I walked away from the crash (what helped was that it was two days before Christmas 2010 and traffic was light).

Being vague has become a way of life to protect numero uno—yours truly

LK and Pailin on 2sept2016. It was just minutes before I would be prepped for throat surgery. (photo by Pailin Subanna-Kraft and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2016)

I’ve been coy, or rather vague, elsewhere on social media. That’s just me, but the horror of an end stares me in the face, and for multiple reasons. … I have three ladies to protect, three lives to see long into their futures. You know one of the ladies but the other two will remain unknown. I also have multiple books to complete. This is a massive task but I have every intention of completing it. Unfortunately there are pointers that hint that the future may not be as I envision it.

Actually I’m staring at something that I cannot possibly complete today as the story is ongoing and without end (unless …?). This leads me to a place that I have ignored, been vague, or worse I have refused to discuss. I’m going to try and do that in this blog, and hopefully with a minimal number of words while still talking about Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway and Errol & Olivia status.

LK joking while waiting to be prepped for throat surgery on 2sept2016. I was relaxed and enjoying myself. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2016)

In September 2016 I had my second operation that year (both were in my ear, nose, and throat specialist’s surgery center in Northridge, California). It was the twentieth surgery to date and was a throat operation (in April I had my second sinus surgery there). As advertised it would improve my breathing. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprising as I had been warned that the recovery would not be fun, it easily took two weeks of pure hell as the drugs to mellow the pain flat out didn’t work.

Two previous operations had eliminated cancer, and if they had not happened I would have long ago begun dancing with angels. One removed a portion of my spine, and if this didn’t happen I would have stopped walking fourteen years ago. … I have other problems now, for earlier this year breathing again reared its ugly head, but this time he brought his pals with him. Walking had been making great strides between late September 2016 and the beginning of June 2017 as I averaged fourteen miles per week. … The phrase, “all things must pass,” has been around forever, but for me this couldn’t happen soon enough as it began to get scary in mid-spring 2017. By this time isolated incidents slowly began to become ongoing events to the point of concern. Worse, I hadn’t been able to figure out why this was happening and neither could my specialists.

I know … still vague! Sorry, but I have to ease into this.

I’m a fighter. I have three aforementioned ladies to protect,
I have books to write, and I have every intention of willing myself to do this.

A quest for truth

Many books contain errors that have been perpetrated for decades or longer. Sometimes this is because the “so-called” fact has been printed so often that it is accepted as truth. Other times it is because of laziness, or worse because it propels a writer’s story forward even though he or she knows that the fact is fictitious. This leads directly to writers who ignore proven facts simply because it blows holes in their set-in-stone premise. And it gets worse than this, for sometimes writers create facts and quotations and cite obscure material figuring that most readers don’t have the source, and the handful that might have the documentation won’t bother to check the citation. … The above is a mouthful, but not my point. Like medicine, history is not an exact methodology and the reason has always been in place. Simply stated, if five people participate in a specific event there is a good chance that their views on what happened differ. Sometimes slightly but at times considerably. Occasionally a known fact can confirm truth in a documented event while at other times deciding upon what really happened is not an easy task.

A couple examples follow:

LK speaking about Errol Flynn, Olivia Havilland, and the Santa Fe Trail (1940) at the Festival of the West, Scottsdale, Arizona, on 19mar2005. (photo by Johnny D. Boggs)

Olivia de Havilland is a good case in point. Fortunate enough to spend time with her I know firsthand that she is a warm, kind, and caring person. She is also charming and very intelligent, and can easily shift from topic to topic without hesitation, such as moving from being cast in Gone with the Wind to Jack Warner to modern-day USA politics. To be precise she specifically told me how well she knew Warner (great stuff here, but not in agreement with what has been published). In regards to Gone with the Wind, she had a “take no prisoners” stance. On the visit wherein we talked about her landing the role of Melanie I was well prepared for the conversation. By that I had notes with me relating to her landing the role including the points-of-view of fired director George Cukor and producer David O. Selznick, along with additional storylines. She listened intently to what I shared, and then proceeded to inform me what really happened. Like most primary sources—and I don’t care if it is 1860s Colorado Territory or 1930s Hollywood—everything must be considered in an attempt to piece together what happened. At times I have placed conflicting, but just as valid, points of view of an event in my notes. I’ll give you one guess of what is going to happen here.

Edmund Guerrier and Julia Bent were two mixed-blood Cheyennes who were young at the time of the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado Territory on 29nov1864. They were both in the village on that tragic day, but luckily both escaped death and sexual dismemberment. Some books have them married on that tragic day, but without any proof. Actually they weren’t married, and wouldn’t be for many years in the future (and I can prove this).

An Active Person am I

Always! I learned how to duel with a foil with the great Ralph Faulkner, who won the World Amateur Sabre Championship in 1928, and represented the USA at the Olympics that year and in 1932. He had come to Hollywood to become an actor in the early 1920s (even playing Woodrow Wilson in a silent film) but soon began his great career as a stunt double and as a choreographer of duels for decades, as well as having has own Falcon Studios on Hollywood Boulevard where he taught fencing for over fifty years.

My partner parries an LK slashing sabre lunge to her midriff at North Hollywood Park in December 1981. Although mostly cropped, our coach and the cameraman dominate the foreground of this image as they taped the workout. (photo © Louis Kraft 1981)

I grew up with a pool, swam in the Pacific, and up until early 2013 swam (the last years in 24-Hour Fitness pools, which are great!). A lot of sandlot football, and this resulted in my first real injury in the late 1960s. Ditto sandlot baseball (my parents refused me playing on a Little League team), but between 1980 and 1990 I played ten years of year-round softball (for the Kool-Aid Kids), but this ended in early 1990 with a knee operation and my brother’s sudden death (the most shocking event of my life then and it still is today). At that time I had also been running since the late 1970s, usually doing three and a half miles or seven miles per day. Let me tell you that running and swimming (and I was doing thirty-plus laps at 24-Hour Fitness without a break when I ran out of time) keep you in shape. Think the 24-Hour Fitness pools are Olympic sized (they were certainly the same size as the pool that I used in college). Oh, I also learned swashbuckling, or stage dueling, in the early 1980s ( and fought and choreographed duels for the stage), and I still work out with a blade when all is well.

A change of pace

In fall 2015 I redid the front yard during my spare time (I had previously removed the grass and already had a lot of drought-resistant vegetation growing in the yard). I leveled the ground, put in walkways of rock and stones and wood chips, and created a maze of cactus, aloe vera, and other plants that provide beauty (at least to my eyes). Every time I stand or sit in the front yard I feel as if I am in New Mexico or Arizona or the original SoCal. This was easy work and I never broke a sweat.

Still, a lot of the work was on my knees, and this is where I discovered a problem for in this position I began to huff and puff. I completed the work about the second week of December but the breathing problem bothered me. I began searching for answers, and the only one I came up with of pointed to my heart.

My heart has always skipped a beat and my cardiologist and I have tracked it for decades without any problems. Early in January 2016 I visited him (he’s also my internist), and he ran all the usual tests and everything came up negative.

How? Why? Something was going on. … Finally he had me blow into a breathalyzer. I failed—twice. He prescribed an inhaler and pills to control blood pressure, which he felt would climb (my blood pressure had always been good, but soon it would become a challenge).

Final LK art of my internist/cardiologist of over twenty years, and writing partner on The Discovery. (art © Louis Kraft 2017). If I ever complete The Discovery page on my website I intend to use this image on it.

Late on January 16 while using the inhaler for the night dose I fell backwards into the bathtub and cracked the top of my skull open. Blood flowed onto the wall and into the tub. My legs were hooked over the side of the tub, my ass was in the tub, and my back and head propped against the back of the tub and the wall. The blood was slippery and it continued to flow. I couldn’t get a firm grip with my hands and had become a turtle stuck on his back. Pailin, who had had just gone to bed, heard the crash, and rushed to help me get out of the tub. Afterwards she cleaned me up and I cleaned the bathroom. She asked if should go to the ER. … I shook my head. My brain functioned and I had performed a few simplistic concussion tests. I felt I okay, but told her I’d go to the internist/cardiologist in the AM. Before going to bed I called my PPO’s nurse line, and she recommended a night in the ER. … Pailin had a long day in front of her and I didn’t think the injury was that bad.

The following morning in my doctor’s office the nurse cleaned the wound as well as possible. She told me that I’d need staples. After checking me over the doctor asked if I was dizzy, felt faint, or had passed out before I fell. I told him no, that I was wide awake when I hit. He confirmed the nurse’s view, I walked across the driveway that separated the medical building from Providence Tarzana Medical Center, and checked into the ER. … The wound required six staples.

Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway

Pailin took this image of LK and Chuck Rankin at the Western History Association Conference in Newport Beach, California, on 17oct2014. (photo © Louis Kraft & Chuck Rankin 2015)

Folks, this manuscript dominates my days. As said above a delivery is due to my editor in December 2016 or January 2017. Alas, the word count grows and grows and grows. This is similar to the situation I had with the Wynkoop book contract. I luckily had then Editor-in-Chief Chuck Rankin behind me then, and he was again responsible for the Sand Creek contract. Actually Chuck pitched the story to me. I refused, but he refused to accept “no” for an answer. It took us two years to work out a proposal that was acceptable to both of us. … It is still acceptable to me, but this story has been pure hell to write. The research is ongoing, and as I’ve said elsewhere I put in about eight hours of research to about two hours of writing. And this is probably an understatement on the research side.

Pailin studying David Mann’s painting, “First of Five Thousand,” at the then Autry National Center on 7mar2015. Unfortunately the Plains Indians are not identified, something that I would have liked. The painting’s story is about a raid that is returning home to Canada with horses stolen in Mexico. Two thoughts: 1) That was one hell of a raid, and 2) That was a long trek to complete and return to their village safely with 5,000 horses. Considering that unknown Indians have successfully driven 5,000 horses from Mexico to Canada sounds like a movie plot and not reality, I like this painting. (photo © Louis Kraft 2015)

Although Chuck Rankin was pleased with the Sand Creek fight that was in the 37-page book proposal years back, it too has changed considerably as I know more now. Better, a lot of people are coming to life in what is currently chapter 13 as the fight turns into a scramble of single events that merge together to create the whole. …

Right after I learned of Sam Shepard’s death I again watched his and Barbara Hershey’s film, Defenseless (1991). It has been on my top 60 film list, off it, back on it, and off it ad nauseam. When you have a chance, do yourself a favor and see this film. Nice performances by Hershey and Shepard.

The DVD cover for Thunderheart (1992), another film I watch often.

I can’t begin to tell you how much I learn by studying film that I respect. For one thing, and this is important to Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, as decent film constantly provides ideas on how to smoothly move from one event to the next.

Val Kilmer, Graham Greene, Shelia Tousey, Ted Thin Elk, John Trudell, Fred Ward, and Shepard are the key players in Thunderheart, a thriller that deals with a murder on a Sioux reservation around the time of the 1973 takeover of the town of Wounded Knee (27feb1973-8may1973) and the standoff with the U.S. government. For the record, and in stark contrast to Defenseless, this film has constantly been in my top five. On Thursday, 17aug2017, I asked Pailin if she’d like to join me in the Kraft Theatre and watch Thunderheart with me. She accepted and was glued to the screen.

For the record, the Cheyenne storyline is now jumping forward in leaps and bounds. John Chivington and John Evans move forward at a good clip. As do Black Kettle and Arapaho Little Raven. These two chiefs are coming to life through their actions and words. But these four aren’t the only ones: Ned Wynkoop, Rocky Mountain News owner and editor William Byers, and John Smith are also beginning to shine. Alas, William Bent is a little behind schedule, but this should end soon.

Earlier this year the manuscript lost a chapter when I decided merge chapters 1 and 2 together. The reason was simple: The manuscript is people driven regardless if they are major players, supporting players, or simply players who appear and then are never seen again. Too much time was being spent before I introduced a Cheyenne who emerged from the mists of time. Unfortunately his life ended tragically. And of course I’m struggling to confirm his presence at an early meeting with William Bent or reject it.

As in the past I take my time and challenge what I write and what I consider required for the manuscript. And time is ticking, … tick, tick, tick. It is time to walk the walk, that is it is time to put up or shut up.

Better, the Cheyennes and Arapahos are moving forward. We’re talking about raids and treaties and death and peace. We’re talking about a people who were led by chiefs that stood firmly for peace to save their people from murder as well as chiefs that stood firm for freedom at any cost.

Back to the healthy world of Kraft

This heading sounds facetious, or at best a big fat lie, … but this isn’t so. I have taken good care of myself over the years, and even more so after the cancer and spinal surgeries. As stated the first cancer surgery was to keep me among the living and the spine surgery (some four and a half months later) to hopefully keep me walking.

Dejah Thoris (named after the princess of Mars in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter/Martian novels). Fully grown in this 1978 photo, she was the kindest and sweetest animal I have ever known. (photo © Louis Kraft 1978)

After I fainted the morning after this cancer surgery when three nurses attempted to help me to a chair by the window all hell broke out. A neurologist at the hospital (not one of mine) thoroughly examined me and afterwards proclaimed that I would not walk in the near future … to which I told him to F-himself and get out. Additional testing continued deep into the night, and without checking I remained in the hospital nine days.

Not all was well when I returned home from the cancer surgery on a Saturday for on the next evening the catheter fell out of position and required a trip to the Encino Hospital Medical Center. The ER doctor told me he didn’t know how to put the catheter back in place. I told him to look it up in a medical book, which didn’t please him. Too bad! I then insisted he call my surgeon (who is also my urologist, who I’ve seen every three months since fall 2002) and he replaced it in less than a minute. The catheter was finally removed twenty-one days after the surgery. No fun.

There would be additional surgeries over the coming years, including an implant of animal tissue. I never asked, but have since hoped that it was Doberman tissue and not rat tissue.

The next biggie …

My sister, Linda Kraft-Morgon, lived in Lake Arrowhead with her husband Greg. They were supposed to come to my house for Christmas 2005 but I was under the weather and Linda’s immune system could not be put at risk. The second week of January Linda called and told me that she would soon die of the cancer that she had been fighting for several years. On the fifteenth I drove to Lake Arrowhead and we celebrated Christmas. On that day she told me that she had six more weeks to live.

Sunday, January 15, 2006, was a day that I’ll never forget. (photo © Louis Kraft 2006)

Sudeshna Ghosh, my documentation manager at Sun Microsystems, did one of the kindest things anyone has ever done—something I’ll never forget—for she allowed me to take a few hours off to drive to Lake Arrowhead two-three times a week during weekdays to see Linda, which gave me three to four days each during the remaining weeks with my sister. Sudesha’s compassion gave me a lot of memories captured in a handful of stolen hours, and they will be forever cherished.

During drives up the mountain to see Linda a sharp pain in my head became so intense that on numerous occasions I had to pull to the side of the road until it subsided. I didn’t think much about it as I figured that it was stress. … It wasn’t, for after Linda died on March 1 it continued in Los Angeles. That April I had my first sinus surgery, and I was lucky I did for if not I would have been heading for big trouble. Greg was right there for me, as was Diane Moon, my former girlfriend and her son.

The years continued

I swam laps at 24-Hour Fitness, worked out with sabres, wrote for companies (Yahoo! and Oracle), did my research in the field as well as in archives, spoke about the Cheyenne and Apache Indian wars as well as Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, saw articles published, finished a book (Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek), and signed a new contract (Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway).

March, Pailin’s good friend Daranee’s son, took this image just before we went through security at the Thailand International Airport on 1dec2014. We had spent the previous evening with Pailin’s great friends (Noi and Wichen) in Bangkok. Two of her brothers Pum and Mana, and Mana’s wife Pen, who had taken care of me during the wee hours before dawn when I arrived in Thailand weeks before and made sure I made my next flight, also joined us (along with other friends). Mana, Pen, and Pum took us to the airport the next morning.

Life was good. …

And on June 15, 2013, it got better. On that day I hosted a dinner party for five at Tujunga House. I invited a good friend and Errol Flynn expert and his beautiful wife (Robert and Annette Florczak) and another twosome. The other couple brought a lady for me. She was petite, pretty, quiet, and yet totally aware of her surroundings. Oh yeah, she was born in Thailand. Before that afternoon and evening ended I knew that I wanted her in my life. Yes, “That Lucky Old Sun” (my favorite rendition was Frankie Laine’s, released for the first time in 1949) is about long days and struggle while the sun shines. I find this very positive. Soon Pailin Subanna entered my life permanently—making me the luckiest guy in the world. And this feeling has easily quadrupled over the years.

Errol & Olivia is reality

I know that by now many of you think that my book on Flynn and de Havilland is little more than a pipe dream. Not so. I’ve been researching Errol & Olivia since 1996. The research is ongoing although the writing is light (but that is only because of what has been going on in my life and the major task of completing Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway).

In spring 2013 I spoke about Ned Wynkoop at the Order of Indian Wars symposium in Centennial, Colorado. I think that the trip was eleven days, and most of them I spent with Layton and Vicki Hooper in their then Fort Collins home (it was my pleasure, although most of the time we were snowed in). Before the symposium I enjoyed a great morning, lunch, and afternoon with Mike and Dee Koury. Before leaving I pitched Mike on a Gatewood/Geronimo talk in Tucson for the OIW’s 34th Annual Assembly, and he kindly said yes. This image was taken in Tucson on 26sept2013. This was Pailin’s first Indian wars event (and to date her last).

For the record my last article, “Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude,” was published in the October 2015 issue of Wild West. At that time I informed editor Greg Lalire that there would be no more articles until the Sand Creek manuscript was in production. In September 2013 I delivered my last talk, “Gatewood’s Assignment: Geronimo,” before the 34th Annual Assembly of the Order of the Indian Wars in Tucson, Arizona. Again, this is related to the writing that I must complete (Sand Creek and E&O).

You’ve waited this long, a little while longer will only build your anticipation and that might be good. I can’t begin to tell you what I have found about Flynn and Livvie (Flynn’s pet name for Olivia) over the decades but it is massive. When Errol & Olivia is finally published it will be an eye-opener for numerous reasons (and this is not braggadocio). There is a lot of new information to present, there are egregious errors that need to be corrected, and the presentation will not be like any book you have read about either of them before.

This is a publicity shot for They Died with Their Boots On (1941). It won’t make into Errol & Olivia.

Hint: If you have read one or more of my biographies you have an idea of what is coming. Continuing this thought, if you have read any of my nonfiction books you know that I don’t just tell one side of a story. While saying this, I must add that I don’t take on long-term projects (Charles Gatewood, Geronimo, and the Apaches as well as Wynkoop, Cheyennes, and Sand Creek) without being 100 percent behind my topics. By that I mean that I do not explore major players in my writing without a deep commitment to write the best book possible. Also, I never write a book or article with the intention of trashing someone. As far as I’m concerned just about everyone (and there are exceptions, such as Charles Manson or Ted Bundy—both of whom were mass murderers) believes that they were right when the did something. Sometimes events overwhelm them and they act rashly, but this isn’t often.

A staff artist for American Classic Screen, John Tibbetts, created the art of Flynn and de Havilland in Captain Blood in 1978, and it graced the cover of the Jan/Feb 1979 issue of the journal (right). Tibbetts’ art grabbed my attention decades ago. However, as the journal is long gone it might be difficult to track down who currently owns the rights to the painting or more important obtain a good digital copy of the original art.

If you’ve missed it, Errol & Olivia deals with their arrival in Hollywood, landing the leading roles in Captain Blood (1935), their life and times during their eight films together (1935-1941), and an epilogue. Like my Indian wars research I question a lot of what is generally considered fact for way-too-often information that has been sold as truth for decades is taken as truth, when in fact it isn’t. Ten, twenty, even a hundred printings of a supposed fact doesn’t guarantee anything if the source is unknown. Heck, it could have originated in a Daffy Duck cartoon. … I’ve seen numerous photos and a handful of paintings that feature Flynn and de Havilland together that would work for the cover of the book. Currently I’m leaning toward images dating to the 1940s.

For the record two other books are planned on Flynn. I already have the art that I want for the cover of one of these books.

A year of uncertainty—2017

The year began as any other, and for the most part I felt good. Walking the fourteen or so miles each week had done wonders for me. I even had different routes (half mile, mile, mile and a half, two miles, two and half miles, and three miles), and with this range I could take care of a lot of errands from grocery shopping to needed items at the drug store to dealing with the post office and the public library.

And this includes Sand Creek progress

Research and writing of Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway has made decent progress. Actually it finally started to have a life of its own as certain historical personages began driving the manuscript. I let them take control and followed leads until they revealed events and more important certain players’ roles in these events in ways I never imagined. But sometimes the leads led to dead ends, but this is always good as it lets me know what I thought happened never did. I can’t begin to tell you how valuable this is to know.

But for me there’s always that bleepin’ BUT

I stopped walking two or three days before July 5, 2017, as my left heel hurt. Worse, during the last handful or so of walks I often began to breathe heavily. At times I felt dizzy. Each time I halted until my breathing returned to normal. Also, if there was still a hint of dizziness or lightheadedness I remained stationary until it also passed.

As July 4th fell on a Tuesday our trash pickup was the following day. The first trashcan was picked up about 6:30 but I didn’t retrieve it immediately for on this day I felt dizzy and was wobbly on my feet after taking my one medication and using the prescribed inhaler. This had happened before (but sometimes it was later in the day). At these times I sat down until the feeling passed (sometimes at the computer). By seven that morning I felt great, and went outside to put the trashcan away. When the trashcan was in place I let go of it and looked west toward the garage. Without warning I fell over backwards, crashed onto the driveway, and cracked the back of my skull open.

I took the photo that I based this art on nine hours after the fall. I was only a handful of inches from a huge prickly pear cactus that a friend gave me in 1992. I shudder when I think about landing on that cactus. (art © Louis Kraft 2017)

I had difficulty rolling onto my stomach. Luckily Pailin had taken the day off as it was her birthday. Hoping  that she was still relaxing in the dining room I called for her. She heard me, rushed to help me roll onto my stomach, stand up, and into the house. A bloody trail followed us all the way to the bathroom, where she cleaned the wound. Without her I’m certain that it would have been a struggle for me to get off the asphalt. Nervous, she called my daughter and ex-wife, and the three of them took me to the Providence Tarzana Medical Center emergency room.

This is how I felt when admitted to the ER. This photo of me was taken on 14dec1979 while in makeup at Universal Studios. (photo © Louis Kraft 1979)

Surprisingly, and certainly after a holiday where firecrackers and other nasty things light up the sky deep into the night, there was no waiting line. The wound continued to seep and I quickly stained the sheet behind my head. After I was cleaned up more, the ER doctor examined the damage while she asked all the usual questions: Did I feel faint, dizzy, or light-headed before the fall. I didn’t feel anything before the fall, absolutely nothing. This was just the beginning as hours would pass while tests were performed and studied. The doctor finally returned and informed me that the test results (including a CAT Scan) were good. She left and my scalp was cleaned yet again. The doctor reappeared and inserted three staples into my head. I was released, but before leaving I asked the attending nurse to clean my scalp and wrap my head. “Why?” I held up my right hand; my fingers were red with fresh blood. “So I don’t ruin the car seat.” She did as requested.

It was pushing three in the afternoon when I was released from the ER. No one had yet eaten, and everyone asked if I was up to a food break on the way home—something quick? “As long as it isn’t McDonald’s, Carl’s Jr., or something similar, I’m okay.” We settled on Sharky’s Woodfire Mexican Grill. Until seeing this image by my ex-wife I didn’t realize how red I was at that time. (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2017)

The head healed slowly, but the dizziness increased and the blood continued to seep. Over the next week or so I saw my internist/cardiologist and my pulmonary specialist and presented them with detailed notes and told them the highlights. My pulmonologist told me that my one medication could cause dizziness (I already knew this per the prescription’s documentation but was happy to have a verbal confirmation) but my internist/cardiologist would have to change the prescription. The inhaler was his and he told me that it didn’t cause dizziness. “What about the potency of it?” When I had tested several inhalers in May they had a higher dosage. Since I already had another appointment with him early in September he suggested we discuss it in more detail then. I agreed. … My internist/cardiologist didn’t think that the medication caused my dizziness.

I still didn’t know what was going on, but I knew that I wouldn’t be doing any walking in the near future, and that my six-plus hours of yard work would be less. … On the plus side I had more time to research and write.

The Sand Creek tragedy is in my blood

Oh yeah, you can bet it is! Yesterday, today, tomorrow, and now forever. I’ve known Ned Wynkoop intimately for decades. This meant that I knew something about Black Kettle, Little Raven, John Evans, John Smith, George Bent, John Chivington, Bull Bear, Left Hand, Silas Soule, and on and on, but not as much as I would have liked as I had previously focused on their connections to Wynkoop. This is no longer the case, for now I need to know them as much as I possible. Some of this has been easier said than accomplished.

In this “hunting party” image Rocky Mountain News editor William Byers is standing at the right (as printed in “When Wynkoop was Sheriff,” Wild West, April 2011). From the moment I saw the photo during a research trip I have liked it. Alas, Byers is the only person in the photo that has been identified to my knowledge. I had suggested the image to Editor Greg Lalire, but then had second thoughts about using it as at the time I was considering it for the Sand Creek book. When more room was required at the beginning of the article for a portrait that I had done of Ned Wynkoop that was smaller than I felt it should be and suggested to Greg that he cut the “hunting party,” he emphatically said,”No.” “Why not?” “Because I like it.” I could understand his view as I still like it. However, I have decided that it isn’t for Sand Creek as it dates to the mid-1870s (which is interesting as Byers looks younger here than in the 1860s).

At one time the word “survival” was in the title of this blog. It no longer is as it appeared to relate just to me. Nothing could have been further from my intension. For most of the leading players, including everyone listed above, and a good number of the supporting players in the Sand Creek story, dealt with survival often. For the Cheyennes and the Arapahos it was a part of their daily life, be it food, the weather or tribal enemies, such as the Pawnees. When the white man—the vi’ho’ i—came they were presented with an even greater danger to their survival. It was no easier for the Anglo Americans who were lured to their world by the dream of golden riches, or those who followed and discovered a magnificent land. They too, were at risk, but not only from the people whose territory they craved, but each other while experiencing the same daily problems as the people they wanted to eliminate (food, weather, and so on). Doubt not that those who survived in the land that became Colorado Territory were strong, focused, and had no intention of ignoring what they saw as their future.

Byron Strom, custodian of the Anne E. Hemphill Collection, graciously allowed me to use this image of Captain Silas Soule on 1apr1865 (his wedding day) in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. Actually he had given me permission to use two images, but the other I failed to restore in a timely manner. My skills have improved over the years and with Byron’s permission I plan on taking another attempt at an image that is terrific although terribly deteriorated.

The Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway contract states that the book will contain 37 images. Three will be maps and I’ll deal with them when the manuscript is in production. I’ve been looking for images for the book for years now. I prefer to use images that date to the time period of the manuscript. Hopefully there are photographs that will support the text, but in some cases I have used them in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. I really don’t want to duplicate many of these images but know that some will be reprinted as they are key to the storyline unless I can locate similar images. At this time there are four photos that I’ll probably reprint, including the great portrait of John Chivington.

I’ve often used art (woodcuts, paintings, or line drawings). Also I have no problem with creating collages, as they count as one image. … I’ve been looking at the work of Cheyenne artists, and some of their work is descriptive and tells a story. If I decide to approach any of them, they will have to understand that I’m just a writer who would like to use their art and that I will provide them with a first edition of the book.

The cover for the October 2015 issue of Wild West. Really nice work by the art director.

There’s a story here (there’s always a story). I did two books on Lt. Charles Gatewood (Sixth U.S. Cavalry), Geronimo, and the Chiricahua Apaches’ struggle to remain free in the 1880s over a ten-year period. During a longer spread of time Wild West printed two stories of mine dealing with this subject. One of Gatewood finding Geronimo in Sonora, Mexico, and talking him, Naiche, the last hereditary Chiricahua chief, and the remnants of their people into returning to the United States and surrendering (“Assignment Geronimo,” October 1999) and Geronimo’s struggle to remain free (“Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude,” October 2015). Both magazines featured the great painting by Howard Terpning (“Legend of Geronimo”) on the cover.

Guy Manning’s Geronimo painting (El Prado Galleries, Sedona, Arizona).

For both articles I recommended Guy Manning’s terrific oil painting of an alert and squatting Geronimo as he watches for trouble in a night scene with blue dominating the painting. Both times either Editor Greg Lalire or the art director went with my suggestion. … The point of this story is that I contacted El Prado Galleries in Sedona, Arizona, and inquired about using Manning’s Geronimo art in Lt. Charles Gatewood & HIs Apache Wars Memoir. “Sure,” the person I spoke with said. “The cost is $2,000.00.” “No thank you,” I replied as I chuckled. … The above image is from the 1999 Wild West article. Unfortunately the text bled through from the following page. The presentation in the 2015 issue of Wild West was terrific but it took up the first two pages of the article (and I didn’t feel like taking the magazine apart to scan the image).

Images already in place for Sand Creek

I have several images long in public domain that I own and they will be in the book when published. I also intend to use two images of white captives, and one of a Cheyenne girl captured at Sand Creek. I’ve also seen an earlier portrait of John Chivington that I might use. … In regards to large art there is a painting of the Battle of the Washita (27nov1868), that although stiff in presentation, features Black Kettle and Medicine Woman Later attempting to escape death.* I plan on looking into the rights to use it but only if it can be printed as a detail as the entire painting is way-too large to be of any use in the Sand Creek book.

Chief Yellowman (left) and Southern Cheyenne Peace Chief Harvey Pratt near the battlefield overlook during the first day of the Washita Battlefield NHS 2011 Symposium on November 11. On this day Gordon blessed the sacred ground and Harvey spoke about what it was like to be a Cheyenne warrior in the 1860s and to fight on foreign battlefields in modern times. (photo © Louis Kraft 2011)

The Battle of the Washita is in the scope of the Sand Creek as the manuscript concludes at the end of the 1860s.

There will also be a new portrait of Black Kettle. A good friend of mine is Jeroen Vogtschmidt, an artist and historian who lives in the Netherlands. He specializes in American Indians. He does a lot of portraits of especially the Plains tribes, and he has written books that also deal with them. Unfortunately they are in Dutch, although he told me that he is trying to get one of his books translated into English. Earlier this year he asked some of his friends which Indian portrait they would like to see him paint next. Motor-mouth Kraft jumped at this: “Black Kettle!” Jeroen liked the idea and completed the portrait. I liked his art, especially BK’s eyes which are focused on someone who is slightly to his left. Not shy I pitched him on allowing me to use the image in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. Jeroen immediately agreed. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of Jeroen, and I need to rectify this.

Those of you that have read my Sand Creek blogs know that I like a painting that Southern Cheyenne Peace Chief Gordon Yellowman painted years back (a framed print is displayed in one of the rooms in Tujunga House). When the manuscript nears production I plan on sharing it along with other paintings for the book cover (to date only Chief Yellowman’s art on the list, and honestly I don’t think that this is going to change) with Chuck Rankin and current OU Press Editor-in-Chief Adam Kane to hear their thoughts on the painting.

A perfect storm

I saw my neurologist near the end of July 2017. As the CAT Scan had been negative at the Providence Tarzana Medical Center on 5jul2017 and a Brain MRI and X-rays of my lungs had been negative in May, he remained concerned and ordered a Brain EEG. After the EEG test on August 8 (in the medical building across the drive from the medical center) the technician told me that my brain looked fine. He then called me to his monitoring device and showed me that my heart rate was low. It ranged between mostly 35 and 36, and at times it dropped as low 30 while never reaching 40.

For the record, this was the first time I was aware that I might have a heart problem.

Knowing that my neurologist wouldn’t see the results for two or three days I took the elevator up to my cardiologist’s office and told him the Brain EEG results. His nurse did an EKG (my heart rate was 39), and then attached a device on me that would record my heart rate for the next 24 hours. The next day when I returned it I was told to call the following morning for the results.

After the surgery, and until just before I was released, my vitals were watched closely. (photo by Pailin Subanna-Kraft and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2017)

The next four images
precede the flow of text but
do not ruin the telling of what
has recently impacted my life.

I had heart problems, but my cardiologist was totally in the dark.

About 11:30 AM on August 10 I called for the test results, but there were none yet. I called back at 11:55 AM. “You have severe heart blockage, and need to get to the ER immediately,” my cardiologist said. “Do not drive.” He also told me the name of my surgeon. My surgeon?

Why didn’t he call me as soon as he had the results?

As Pailin was en route to West LA, I called my daughter and ex-wife. They didn’t answer but returned my phone call within minutes. They arrived at Tujunga House at one and drove me to Providence Tarzana Medical Center ER. … In the ER my heart rate remained low while my blood pressure shot off the charts (for me) hovering around 240 and sometimes reaching 250 or more. After about two hours of the ER doctor studying my medical records and speaking to at least one of my specialists I was admitted to the hospital.

About 4:30 I met Dr. Dave Kim, who would be my heart surgeon. He showed me the printout of the 24-hour heart study. … My heart rate was skipping three and four and five heart beats at a time, and these were not isolated instances. The hospital had been monitoring my heart rate and blood pressure since my admittance, and I’m certain that the gap between these two readings increased considerably.

Pailin took this image of me holding the device that captures and displays my heart rate in realtime early on the morning of 12aug2017. At that moment it was 74. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2017)

Through all of my surgeries I had been calm and collected except for two cancer surgeries, and they frightened me. The calmness has mainly been because I have always had full trust in my surgeons and surgical crews. I’m forever curious with everything that happens as events move quickly toward the anesthesia entering me. Knowing that when everything is over I’ll wake up, … or perhaps not. Surprisingly this is soothing to me.

If not, I’ll never know what happened. Trust me for I am aware of potential disaster as Dr. Robin Cook’s medical thrillers scare the hell of me (am currently reading Charlatans, which was just published). Still he is my favorite novelist. … We can now add a third surgery to my nervous list as I had entered the unknown world of the heart—my heart.

Pailin, who visited me at ten the previous night was back at seven on the morning of the eleventh. She had taken the day off. Her company was a godsend. As the day dragged by with uncertainty, my heart rate remained low, and the thought of my heart continuing to miss three and four beats at a time kept my blood pressure out of sight. … The unbearable sluggishness continued. I was supposed to be in surgery at four, but an hour passed without a peep out of anyone. I rang for the day nurse and asked for an update. She left but returned shortly and told me that the surgeries before mine proceeded slower than anticipated.

Breakfast with my lady on the morning of 12aug2017. (photo by Pailin Subanna-Kraft and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2017)

Long story short I was wheeled to surgery a little after six and my procedure began around six-thirty but moved slowly as my blood pressure remained high (I was not told what my heart rate was while under the knife). A bi-ventricular pacemaker was attached to my heart.

I had never seen what a pacemaker looked like until Pailin brought me home on August 12. Not a pretty sight but a thousand times better than the alternative. Pailin took this image of the pacemaker and scar above it as sunlight blasted through a bay window early on 27aug2017. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2017)

Like the previous night I barely slept as the night nurse kept on top of my vitals. Again, a device that read my heart was attached to me (the same one as the previous two days) and it was plugged in as soon as my bed/gurney was back in place. The intravenous line was again attached and I was again put on air. My blood pressure remained high until four-thirty on the morning of the twelfth, and from that point on it slowly returned to normal. The monitoring continued all day, but I was finally released at four-thirty. Like the day of surgery—and it was a terribly long day for Pailin—she was back with me at seven on Saturday morning. On this day, which she again didn’t work, she informed her various managers that she would be taking the next six days off.

Free at last, and with hopefully a new outlook on life. Although I didn’t realize I was in big trouble until August 10, I am absolutely thrilled that a perfect storm set me in motion to get the pacemaker before something terrifying happened. I’m one lucky fellow.

The future?

Mine is now.

LK on the morning of 27aug2017. I’m getting a little stir crazy, and there’s weeks more of this, but I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am. (photo by Pailin Subanna-Kraft and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2017)

I had met with my heart surgeon (Dr. Dave Kim) on 18aug2017 and had a lengthy description of what had happened between August 10 and 12, and what I had experienced since. The bi-ventricular pacemaker is currently set to 60, meaning that ideally it will trigger my heart to function whenever the heart rate drops below 60. However, I have atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart beat. As I had shared that I had some chest pain and slight lightheadedness, he told me to use Aspirin to thin my blood and that I would probably be put on a blood thinner. The mild chest pain continues off and on, at times my heart races*, and my breathing is heavy, but the lightheadedness is gone. The next two weeks will be key.

* My heart surgeon is mainly concerned about my lower heart chambers not having a regular rhythm and beating faster than they should, which could cause clot-related blood flow problems. Honestly, so am I.

Dr. Kim has become my heart specialist. On September 14 I’ll enroll in a heart monitoring clinic at his office. Once set up, the clinic will be able to monitor my heart 24/7 when I’m at home.

My neurologist (Peter-Brian Andersson), who I have a sparkling relationship with (medically, life interests, and personally), has kept up with what is going on with me via the phone (he has the surgeon and hospital records). I also see him in early September.


Will I live to see our future, our country’s future? My friends, the answer is yes!
On May 31 I told my pulmonary specialist that I planned to live to 130.
He chuckled and said that he did, too.

Sand Creek and a Louis Kraft book update

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


Kraft is slow because he wants to research
everything that makes it into his books. This takes time,
a lot of time. At times it is an ungodly amount of time
and yet it must happen before l can deliver a
manuscript to my editor.

I’d like to make a lot of money on my freelance writing, but that
isn’t the objective. What I really want is to write books that have value
and will outlive me. This is my goal, and it has always been my
goal. … The future will decide if I succeed or fail.

You may ask why I have so often talked about time.
The answer is simply that it is key to all of our lives.
For me, the clock is ticking at lightning speed.

I have work to complete …
and Ladies to protect.

This blog features Rocky Mountain News editor William Byers & Ned Wynkoop

Oops!!!! Sometimes it seems that nothing is easy in my life.

Dumb ol’ Kraft thought that William Byers would be a slam dunk. Since I just used a basketball term I guess that I should continue with the sport that has given me a lot of pleasure during this century. Let’s just say that I thought that Byers would be an easy layup. No-no-no!!!

This image was taken on 5mar2017. My face was lighted by a bay window while the two images on the wall were in almost total darkness. The top image is the poster for the publication of the Wynkoop book. My friend and editor Chuck Rankin gave it to me in 2011. The bottom image is of me as Wynkoop in Ohai, Calif., in 2002. … I have been ripped by a supposed friend, a supposed good writer friend originally from Ojai, Ca., for only writing about one subject—Ned Wynkoop. Pure BS!!!! I’ve written two books about Gatewood and the Apaches and one about George Armstrong Custer and one about Wynkoop. Nothing else needs to be said, other than I need to address this accusation by this oh-so-great writer friend (yes, I’m being sarcastic) who pounded me for not congratulating him for his most recent move from Williams, Az., to the Phoenix area, while asking me what happened to my Thai girlfriend. He failed to not only remember Pailin’s name, but also that I had sent him a long email about our marriage. That was the final straw for I could take no more from this egotistical prick. I had read all of his clichéd crap over the years (and was kind, an understatement), but no mas. I pounded his piss-poor subjects and inferior writing and said, “adios.” (photo © Louis Kraft 2017)

When I started my current inter-library loan request I was shocked. The Los Angeles Public Library system is huge (100 branches, and the main branch in downtown LA is magnificent). There were no biographies on Mr. Byers, who was one gutsy fellow, and better one of the most important figures during Denver City’s birthing years. He knew what he wanted for the city, for Colorado Territory, and eventually for statehood. Byers shot for the moon and he had no problem going after his competition or those who opposed him. … I have a T-shirt that simply says: pen > sword. I agree with this, and I think that William Byers would have also. Byers was not a man who carried a gun and shot people, but he had guts and then some. I think that if I had had the chance to have met him that we would have gotten along as long as I didn’t oppose his plans. If I did, woe to Kraft for whatever good press he might have given me would have gone up in smoke quickly.é

Art of Rocky Mountain News editor William Byers in later life. Louis Kraft Collection.

Those of you who have read Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (University of Oklahoma Press, 2011) know who William Byers was. For those of you who haven’t read my book on Wynkoop and who are clueless of who Byers was I hope the following introduces you to him. … I hope that the following introduces you to a magnificent man who had decided to publicize the new land that also happened to be to east of the Rocky Mountains in an area that would eventually become the boom town of Denver City. He, like Ned Wynkoop, would face many adversities for his views and, like Wynkoop, this could have led to a violent death on numerous occasions.

Byers and Wynkoop began their relationship when they met in Omaha, Nebraska Territory, in early January 1859. At this time Wynkoop provided details about the gold fields near the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek, but these details were mostly based upon rumors as mining was then on hold until the following spring when temperatures warmed. Byers gobbled up what he heard as he was then writing a book that publicized the so-called “Pike’s Peak Region.” It and other books would send hordes of men west in the hope of becoming rich. Most would fail.

This is a variation of an image that I created of Wynkoop for an article I wrote for Custer and His Times Book Five. “Ned Wynkoop’s Lonely Walk Between the Races” was published in 2008. The art has appeared in four or five publications since then, with the most important being an article that I wrote for Wild West magazine, “When Wynkoop was Sheriff,” which was published in April 2011. Again, this is a variation, for the image printed in Wild West was an oval and it wasn’t a duotone. (art © Louis Kraft 2007)

Byers and Wynkoop hit it off that January of 1859. It wasn’t long after their meeting that Byers would set off for the gold fields; he arrived in Denver City in April 1859 and began publishing the Rocky Mountain News soon after. Wynkoop, who had braved the dead of that 1858-1859 winter reached civilization shortly after meeting Byers. He presented the Denver City Town Company’s claim only to fail and not secure the reason for his trip. There was one thing about Wynkoop. Like Byers, he never turned his back on what he thought right, and he refused to quit even though the bid had failed. Wynkoop continued to push for the town company; he also negotiated with the St. Charles Town Company, whom his land group had claim-jumped. Even at this early age Wynkoop was good with words, had charm, and prevailed in merging the two land development companies.

Upon his return to Denver City in fall 1859 Wynkoop and Byers became friends even though Ned survived by the seat of his pants while Byers and his wife Elizabeth socialized with the elite of the booming town.

This would soon hit the fan when Byer’s wife went ballistic with Wynkoop’s future lady. For some reason Byers refused to take sides in this altercation. Actually Byers often allowed Wynkoop to get away with his transgressions wherein if someone else had done what Ned had Byers would have attacked that person in print. To me it appears that the two men had a good friendship to the point that Byers mostly turned his back on his friend’s actions and mostly kept those wherein he stepped outside the law out of the press. But then that terrible event of November 1864 happened, and Wynkoop, then an officer in the First Colorado Volunteer Cavalry but not present when Chivington’s command attacked the Cheyenne and Arapaho village circles at Sand Creek on 29nov1854, refused to keep his opinions silent. Byers had been able to turn his back to a lot of his friend’s antics and indiscretions but not his vocal view that innocent men, women, and children had been murdered and butchered.

This image dates to April 2012 and the Western Heritage Awards extended weekend in Oklahoma City. My article, “When Wynkoop was Sheriff” (Wild West, April 2011) won a Wrangler, which is a cool bronze statue of a cowboy on a horse. This was a fun time with friends and people that I just met. Even though my connection with Wynkoop is deep and ongoing (and I do publicize our connection), to claim that he is the only un-racial person I write about is a joke. I’ve written two books about Charles Gatewood, one about George Armstrong Custer, and when I complete my trilogy on Errol Flynn I will have written more about him than anyone else. To date I have written one book about Wynkoop (although he will be a key player in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway). Two books are planned on Kit Carson and two on the pirate Francis Drake. Those of you who have no clue of what you talk about—and I’m pointing my finger at a writer who runs off at the mouth without knowing anything—you need to get educated, you need to do a little research, you need to prepare before you say a lot about nothing. Period! (photo © Ownbey Photography & Louis Kraft 2012)

Friends—good friends—became enemies. For all time. LK has been there and done that. Why? How? I don’t know the answer, but with the drop of a quarter good friends, people who I thought were friends until the end of time changed colors, and attacked with a vengeance and a hatred beyond imagination. They were friends of long standing and suddenly they bared their fangs and struck to kill. …

I have not yet survived the shock, or have recovered from their vicious verbal and written attacks of hatred. Most likely I never will. There’s a hole in my life that can never be repaired, never become whole again.

NEVER!

What I have experienced I am certain that Ned Wynkoop also experienced. The shock in my life was not as extreme as the shock that he lived through for he knew people who were murdered and I only deal with egotism, stupidity, and love turned into venom. How can a person I liked and respected for decades turn into a viper whose sole goal was to belittle another’s writing career? How can people that I have been close to create lies and then believe them as truth? How do I—or they—survive this? … We don’t. It’s just like seeing fresh roadkill lying in a broken clump with blood seeping onto the pavement. An innocent life had ended for no reason other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

LK as Ned Wynkoop viewing the butchered remains of the Sand Creek dead when he visited the massacre site in 1865, as photographed by my good friend, writer, historian, and editor Johnny D. Boggs in December 2008 during a dress rehearsal in Cheyenne, Oklahoma. (photo © Johnny D. Boggs & Louis Kraft 2008)

These are scenes that I have experienced and I have never forgotten. I’m certain that Wynkoop’s and Byers’ experience was much harsher on both of them than mine has been.

Wynkoop was not me, … nor am I him, yet we are joined across the centuries because of our views on race and racial equality (and not because we had good relationships that flamed out and burned). Does that make him evil … or me evil? Without blinking an eye—No!

Research is mandatory to writing a good book. No real research and a “so-called” nonfiction book is basically bullshit. That is crap, and let me tell you that there are a ton of these pieces of shit published every year. All I can say is: “Shame on these authors!” … “Shame on them!” for their goal was book sales and to hell with truth or reality. You do not want to know my opinion of these cretins for it really isn’t printable. … Ditto the publishers that printed their travesties.

Where am I headed? I’ll tell you …

Suddenly what should have been easy research on Editor Byers has gone belly up. This cannot be for William Byers must be a leading player in my manuscript, even when he is AWOL in book print. He was a major part of my pitch and I have no intention of deserting him or his cause. Trust me. This man had a vision for a new land, and it was a good vision if we view his roadkill attitude of taking no prisoners in print from his point-of-view.

Know this, I don’t give up. I want Arapaho chief Left Hand to be as large as possible. I also want William Byers to be a major presence in the Sand Creek manuscript. … Hint, hint, hint. Ha-ha-ha. … I know the answer but I ain’t a tellin’.

OU Press editor-in-chief Chuck Rankin speaking at the Western Heritage Awards banquet in April 2012. (photo © Ownbey Photography 2012)

Last December I had a great phone conversation with Chuck Rankin, who had initially pitched me on writing about Sand Creek. It took us two years before we agreed upon a vision for the book and then more years  for me to create a 37-page proposal (that Chuck reviewed in progress and in which he had massive input) before we finally signed a contract in 2013. … Going into the project I knew I had bitten off a huge bite, but that would be worth all the wrong turns, dead ends, and honestly the struggle to use a select group of players to drive a non-biography to conclusion. … I don’t get headaches; never. That was then. Now is now, and now I get headaches. But then perhaps this is only because I have fallen on my head and cracked my skull open way too often.

I have an angle to follow. It is not where you might think. It is not where I would have ever guessed. But it is close to LK’s desires. My fingers are crossed that I can make my pitch and that my arrow splits the arrow dead center in the target. I’ll soon know, but not you for you, for regardless if it is an LK win or yet another failure you will have to wait—most likely years for an answer. Sorry, but that’s just life in the real world.

But an unforeseen problem

As mentioned above, I failed to locate a biography of William Byers in the Los Angeles Public Library’s 100 branches. Abebooks.com, which I often use for research, also had no hits. Ditto Amazon.com. At the moment I have a zero mark on landing a major biography on one of the most important players in Denver and Colorado Territory’s early years. Why? WHY?

I have some great primary sources on Mr. Byers. Hell, a week doesn’t go by when I don’t have my nose pressed against my computer screen reading an issue of the Rocky Mountain News. Someday this will cause me to go blind. Don’t believe me, read the sucker, that is the RMN, without glasses or a magnifying glass. Byers’ paper that he used to conquer all who opposed his vision is a magnificent document. Magnificent as long as you understand the paper’s stance and viewpoint. … That’s right, for sometimes you must read between the lines or more important question what you have just read.

Heck, the Los Angeles Times is a magnificent newspaper—today, in 2010, and in 1941 or 1937 or before. This does not mean that I buy what the paper has printed in well over a century sight unseen. Actually, just like I challenge the Rocky Mountain News, I also challenge the LA Times, and I do use it for historical research, today’s events, and even the paper’s selection of cartoons, which are first class (and often hit the target dead center).

This is an artistic rendering of the west coast of Costa Rica. It could have been the southern coasts of Spain or France, or, if I eliminated the water and changed some of the colors, New Mexico. … I love Los Angeles. It has more culture and artistic events than anywhere else in the USA, and that includes NYC and Santa Fe, which is my favorite city in America. Moreover, and much more important, Los Angeles has more people of ethnic origin than any city in the USA, and even more important has more Thai people than any city in the USA (and if you add all the Thai population in the other cities stretched across our great country together LA still remains number one). This is a major fact for my lady, and the major reason for us to not leave this great city. Put mildly, Los Angeles is our home and we don’t want to move. That said I constantly study Costa Rica and New Mexico. The future? Someday we’ll know. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

On 20mar2017 the Los Angeles Times led with “Trump’s immigration plan faces obstacles,” by Don Lee (pA1+). If you read the article and dig, just a little, you will see that the threat is much more than to just immigrants without papers and to immigrants with no criminal records and are in the U.S. as it offers them a much better life. … Actually the threat is frightening and it is much larger than you might expect.

This is one of my favorite images of my cowgirl, my lady, my best friend, my love, and my wife (although she wasn’t my wife when I took this photo in the front yard of Tujunga House on 7nov2013). This photo is framed and is placed in a prime position on my desk. (photo © Louis Kraft and Pailin Subanna 2013)

In my freelance writing I try to challenge everything that I discover and read and discuss with my network of writers, historians, editors, artists, and other creative people. The thoughts and ideas are lively. Many have helped me, and I hope that I have helped some of them. I use my network to not only widen my knowledge but to keep up our friendships. Besides some of what I learn or now understand might eventually make it into a talk, article, or book. … I also try to do this with my every-day life and world, but most of this I do on my own. I believe that eventually the United States will regain its senses and most of this ugliness that is currently in vogue will begin to fade away. If perchance it doesn’t make a major U-turn, most of my adult life will have been lived in vain and all that you and I have seen change for the good will have been for naught. What does that say about our time walking this earth? Without naming names my current view of our future is frightening.

A William Byers strikeout

At the moment I feel like one of the Major League Baseball players that whiff (that is strike out) 200 or more times every season while justifying their failure to hit the baseball and their piss-poor .245 batting average means nothing as they belted 37 balls over the fence (that is 37 home runs). Give me a break! I’ve seen great ballplayers perform on TV and in person, and there aren’t many that are great. One was Duke Snider of the Brooklyn Dodgers (who, and luckily for me, moved to Los Angeles when the Dodgers deserted Brooklyn, New York, after the 1957 season).

The signature to LK was on the cover of a magazine that printed a feature on the Duke by yours truly. I would write numerous articles about him, but when I pitched him to co-author his autobiography I stuck out for he had already contracted with writer Bill Gilbert. … I spent a fair amount of time with the Duke during a few years in the 1980s. He was a good man, gracious, and I treasure our time together. Not bragging, and I’m not a big fan of celebrity signatures, but I’ve got a lot of the Duke’s. (A side note on another great player, Barry Bonds: His swing was so compact and smooth. Regardless if he took drugs or not and I’m not going to state what I believe about this, he belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Yes, he certainly grew larger during the second half of his career, and the extra muscle certainly helped his home run output. But he still had to hit the baseball, and if you’ve never attempted to hit a ball that is coming at you at 90+ miles per hour you have no idea of how difficult it is to do.)

I hate feeling like that ball player who hits .245 when he’s lucky. And I’m not talking about money or poor performance. Rather I’m racking my brain trying to figure out how I’m going to make Byers fully dimensional. … At the moment I have more strikeouts than hits, and this isn’t acceptable.

I know that a Byers’ bio exists and I hope that I’ll be able to see it. If not, Mr. Byers won’t get too much press in future LK blogs. A shame, for it would be fun to challenge him at times. And especially so, since I already know that he wouldn’t meet me on the field of honor at 10 paces with revolvers in our hands—something that John Simpson Smith would not have blinked an eye before making or accepting such a challenge.

This image was published in “When Wynkoop was Sheriff” in the April 2011 issue of Wild West. William Byers is standing in the upper right. This article was almost never published. When I saw a proof I wasn’t pleased. It had but two images of Ned Wynkoop in the feature, and the portrait on the first page of the article was dinky. I had suggested most of the images in the article, including two of William Byers. I spoke with the person in charge of the images and told her that I wanted the above group shot removed so that the portrait of Wynkoop on the first page could grow in size. She told me that the design was complete and nothing could be changed. I restated what I wanted. She refused to budge and the phone call went downhill. Finally I said that if the portrait wasn’t enlarged it wouldn’t appear in the magazine. She told me to talk with Greg Lalire, and then hung up. Greg L is a great editor, and probably the major reason behind Wild West’s success for decades. He is also my friend. I didn’t call him. Two days later he called me and asked if I had a problem? “No,” I said, “but one of your coworkers has a problem.” He already knew what was going on; still we talked it through. … I want to say this up front, Greg has done everything possible to print my stories over the years, and he didn’t desert me at this critical time. … A few days later he called again and said that he had cut the other image of Byers. I saw another proof. My art had grown but not completely—still I was pleased. The Wynkoop article saw print and out of nowhere it won a major award, the Wrangler.

Does this make Byers a coward? Absolutely not! He was a brave man who put his life at risk day in and day out. … A little change of subject: Los Angeles has returned to its modern-day version of Dodge City. That is people are again gunned down or knifed to death at an alarming rate. I haven’t been saving these articles in the LA Times for it seems that almost every day another one or two or three or more people die violently (and many of them are innocent bystanders, and that includes infants, children, women, and men). Will their murderers be apprehended, brought to trial, and convicted? The answer is sadly not always yes.

This is a sad state of affairs, but this is nothing when compared to the dark-dark days that California will soon face. Although the Golden State isn’t a country I’ve seen it listed as the sixth richest economical area in the world. Well that bold claim may not hold up too long if the presidential prejudice and anger that is aimed at destroying its economy becomes reality. … That said, I’m totally against California becoming a separate country (as many idiots are proposing and pushing to get onto an upcoming ballot).

I have a lot of favorite images of my lady, and some of them are two-shots. This photo is one that I really like (it is framed and in our living room). This image dates to 13nov2013. We were enjoying the opening of the Lily Pad Thai Spa & Massage in Sherman Oaks, California. For the record, we were sitting on the floor. (photo © Pailin Subanna and Louis Kraft 2013)

Folks, the country of California is a joke. It is also a frightening possibility for those of us who love the USA and are thankful that we live in the United States regardless of how bad and racist our land has become in just a blink of time.

A return to the Sand Creek manuscript in a totally different direction

The young Cheyenne woman (she was in her early-to-mid-teens at the time of Sand Creek) Mo-nahs-e-tah, and this is the phonetic spelling and pronunciation of her name (I say this for often her name has been written as Mo-nah-se-tah (and other variations), which is/are wrong). Dr. Henrietta Mann, a Southern Cheyenne, who’s entire career has been one of exceptional achievement, including being one of the founders of the Cheyenne [and] Arapaho Tribal College in Weatherford, Oklahoma, shared this with me in 2012.

Dr. Henrietta Mann speaking at the Washita Battlefield NHS symposium on 6de2008. (photo © Leroy Livesay 2008)

I met and became friends with Dr. Mann—Henri to me—at the Washita Battlefield NHS in December 2008. … In April 2012 we smiled and joked, we shared gifts, and we talked about serious subjects when I drove to Weatherford to visit her in her office at the college. She ordered lunch in and our time together continued with a mix of good and bad.

The Cheyennes are unfortunately on the bad side (if you’ve read my writing or heard my talks or seen my plays you know why). I’m not on that “bad” side; actually I’m on the opposite side. The Cheyennes in the 1850s, 1960s, and beyond, were on the good side. Although the word wouldn’t exist until the end of WWII, they faced “genocide.” Genocide! White people craved their land, and they did whatever they could to secure it (a better word is “steal” it). … And this included murder. Of course, when the Cheyennes and their allies fought back they were reported as “vicious savages who murdered and raped.”

The lady 2nd from the left is Mo-nahs-e-tah, and I am certain of this. She is holding her child who was pure Cheyenne. Prior to when this image was created she accompanied George Armstrong Custer on his mission of peace on the Staked Plains of the Texas panhandle. Her child, which was then an infant, did not accompany her. I have used a full view of this image in Custer and the Cheyenne and in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. … My great friend and bro for all time, Glen Williams (who is one-quarter Cheyenne), gave me this print of Mo-nahs-e-tah, and it is now part of the Louis Kraft personal collection. … During my visit with Henri in 2012 I asked her how she would phonetically spell and pronounce Mo-nahs-e-tah’s name. She gave me the above information.

When your total lifeway is at risk, and that includes your lives, what are you going to do?

FIGHT! Or in the case of Arapaho Left Hand, and Cheyennes Black Kettle, Lean Bear, and White Antelope they would do everything possible to keep the peace between the races with words and not weapons.

Does this make them a “savage?” Or did this make those who refused to fight for freedom without weapons traitors to their own race? The answer to both questions is: No!

LK art of Bull Bear, the great Dog Man chief, and of Black Kettle, who, in my opinion was the greatest Cheyenne chief of all time. (art © Louis Kraft 2013)

Until Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway goes to press I will struggle to define and document the Cheyennes (and to a lesser degree) the Arapahos lifeway and history. This time in their lives, this critical time in their lives must be recorded. And it must not be forgotten. … Also it must be recorded with an unbiased opinion.

I know that Mo-nahs-e-tah was at Sand Creek on 29nov1864, and I know that she escaped, but that was it. Now, thanks to my good friend, Gary Leonard, who is very knowledgable about this lady and the Cheyennes, I now know that she did not make her run for freedom that winter day before a soldier’s ball wounded her. Do I have enough to write about this? That is a big question at the moment. Perhaps Gary and I will be able to open a conversation wherein we can share and discuss, confirm some facts, and learn more about her. I hope so; otherwise this would be a tragedy for me.

I can’t begin to tell you how difficult this is to realize. Unfortunately this problem is generally the case, and that is that the victors write the history, and the losers’ stories are forgotten or ignored or buried. This should not be; it should never be!

As previously stated … 

I have to complete Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway and Errol & Olivia. Fear not for I will do this. Know also that I am one tough cowboy. I will outlive my ladies for I must protect them, I must keep them safe (especially Pailin and Marissa). … This means that you will endure decades more of my writing. Smile, for you have good—or bad—reading a comin’.

Sand Creek, Louis Kraft, and pushing to step out of the box

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


You know me, or you don’t know me.
If I dared to publish a memoir right now and you read it you
would proclaim: “No! Absolutely not! Kraft writes fiction, for what he has
written could never have happened!” … At the same time you might fall out of your
chair as you were laughing so hard. And again you would proclaim: “No!
Absolutely not! Kraft writes fiction, for what he has written could
never have happened for it is too funny to be true!”

I’m not a clown, but at times I think I need to paint my face.

I knew this lady, an actress, but please accept my humble-humble apologies for I don’t remember her name; one thing is certain, … she is not John Smith. We were working out in North Hollywood Park in preparation for a series of sword-fighting one-act plays that would be performed in 1982. Actually I’m lunging with a slashing attack to her breast and she is parrying my saber. … If John Smith and I meet up in the afterlife and he isn’t happy about what I have written about him I’m certain that he’ll attack me (not with sabers; more likely Bowie knives, which I also know how to wield). … Going in another direction I need to say something. I have been accused way too often of being intimate with ladies when nothing happened. We were friends. Friends! I hate to say it, but men and women can be friends without being intimate. This lady is a great example. Don’t believe me? I can provide a long list of ladies who have been my friends over the years and nothing else. Enough said. (photo © Louis Kraft 1982)

A return to John Simpson Smith

As I claw and struggle to figure out who I am, I am attempting to figure out who the leading players are in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. The research is ongoing and relentless. Hours and hours sweep by while I try to figure out what happened in a flash of time. I am about to get my paws on a letter that John Simpson Smith would deny, hate, and swear vengeance upon me if ever we meet in the hereafter if the information ends up in my manuscript. The information in that letter will see the light of day in my Sand Creek book (and it is in place now and will remain so regardless how much a copyeditor might want to delete it).

… So if Mr. Smith and I do meet, I had better be ready to parry (that’s a sword-fighting term; see the above image) his assault on my person as it won’t be pretty.

If you have read any of my writing, heard any of my talks, or seen any of my plays about Ned Wynkoop that deal with Mr. Smith you know that they weren’t bosom buddies.

I’m not picking on John Smith here. Actually my appreciation of him has grown ten-fold in the last year. He was one-tough dude, and believe me he was light years ahead of his time and place. … He did some things that I view as heinous. Heck, perhaps I’ve done some things that he might consider in a less than positive light, or perhaps even laughable (and I’m not laughing here). A better word for both of us looking at each others lives might be “cringing.” What he did and what I have done will not nimbly move back and forth between two different times and place.

AND …

It is a done deal that John S. Smith will play a leading role in my Sand Creek book, for the simple reason I can’t stop researching him (my apologies for much of the text in this paragraph previously saw life elsewhere on social media). This is a mouthful, but fear not for Black Kettle will have a large roll and Left Hand will be as large as possible. The incomparable Ned Wynkoop will play his part as will Colonel John Chivington, Editor William Byers, and Governor John Evans. Mixed-blood Cheyenne George Bent has given us so much with his letters over the course of decades as he filled in the blanks with what he saw or with what his Cheyenne friends saw and shared with him. … Back to Mr. Smith: He performed perhaps the most heinous event I’ve ever documented and to repeat myself it is now in the manuscript. Rape, murder, sexual butchery is certainly there big time but not performed by Mr. Smith. By now I have experience dealing with the dark side, and if I didn’t the world that I immersed myself in during the writing of The Discovery finished me off, for it got dark, real dark, and perhaps too explicit. Nevertheless Mr. Smith has landed himself a place in infamy for doing something that at least to me is unthinkable.

This is a detail from the great art of the 1939 USA one-sheet for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington with James Stewart and Jean Arthur. (one-sheet © Columbia Pictures Corporation 1939)

… And yes, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (this is actually the title of a 1939 James Stewart film but Jimmy S. wasn’t playing John S.). John Smith took Indians to the capital city at least three times (and maybe four). Actually there is a novel by Bruce Cutler, The Massacre at Sand Creek: Narrative Voices (University of Oklahoma Press, 1995) that is also poetry when dealing with the Cheyennes. Believe it or not way too often historians have quoted and cited this work of fiction as fact. I’m chuckling here for this is totally absurd. Near the end of the novel John Smith has an eight-page conversation with the Devil while returning to the frontier after his last trip to Washington, D.C. I wish that I could cite this book as it has a lot to offer on Smith and other Sand Creek players, but I can’t for the reason already stated.

Huh?

Can John Smith document Louis Kraft’s life? Can Louis Kraft document his? At the moment I’m the only one who will be called onto the carpet to produce fair and unbiased prose about Mr. Smith (for he doesn’t get his chance to talk about me until I join him sometime in the future). Ha-ha! Upper hand: Kraft!

What I’m talking about in this blog is simply that it isn’t easy to piece together mini biographies of eight or ten people (and at this moment this list is shrinking) and merge them together and tell the story of an event in November 1864 that reverberates to this day (and long beyond).

Add Left Hand to “Why John Simpson Smith?”

What has the Arapaho Chief Left Hand have to do with John Smith? Actually he had a lot to do with Smith, but much of it is in a very grey area. By that I mean that this connection raises more questions than the few answers it supposedly confirms.

I’m certain that you are wondering why I have spent so much time in these blogs dealing with Mr. Smith. The reason is simple: He was part of the Sand Creek story before there was a Sand Creek story. And better he walked on both sides of the Sand Creek story, and that includes being in the village when it was attacked.

This is Margaret Coel’s cover page on Facebook. Very nice! She is a long-time writer who has focused on fiction. Her work should be honored, and I do honor her for her fiction and for her groundbreaking work on the great Arapaho Chief Left Hand. (art © Margaret Coel 2017)

A novelist/two-time nonfiction (?) writer Margaret Coel labeled Smith as “Lyin’ John” in her biography of Arapaho chief Left Hand (Chief Left Hand, Southern Arapaho, OU Press, 1981). I have problems with her book, including her research, her citations, and information that was created without any supporting evidence. My copy of her book (and it is the only biography to my knowledge that deals with Left Hand, or Niwot, and for this reason alone it should be in every library that deals with the Arapahos, the Cheyennes, and the 1860s), which is paper, and will not survive my Sand Creek manuscript. By that I mean that it will fall apart in the not-too-distant future. This is good for it means that I am using it and trying to understand it and challenging it.

For the record there are no photographic images of Left Hand (a terrible shame).

With luck someday I’ll meet Ms. Coal. If so I have every intention of giving her a big hug for she chose to write about a very important person (that shockingly many historians have ignored). Why? WHY? Left Hand was a major player in the Sand Creek story. A MAJOR PLAYER! Regardless of my view of her book on Left Hand, kudos to her for writing it!!!!! Ms. Coel, I hope that someday I am lucky and that in our future we do meet.

The piss-poor art of John Smith that I used in 2016 continues to grow (and darken). He’s coming closer to reality, and I still have a lot more work in front of me (light paint strokes, more dark?, and his eyes—I need to bring his eyes to life), and there’s even more for if I choose to use this portrait of him in the Sand Creek book my color art must transfer to grayscale decently (this means the contrast of dark and light must work well together). (John Smith art © Louis Kraft 2017)

But I’m wandering from John Smith, and I shouldn’t be. Ms. Coal’s Left Hand is of major importance to Smith as it paints him in a not-so-good light. To date the two things I take away from her book is that Smith lied and that Left Hand, who spoke English, knew this. What I have just said has launched me on perhaps a wild goose chase (similar to a bitty at Arizona State University (Tempe), who, while supposedly aiding my Lt. Charles Gatewood research (for Gatewood & Geronimo, University of New Mexico Press, 2000) plotted a misdirection and wasted my time and money looking for key information in a state where it never existed).*

 * I found the needed information before I completed work on second book dealing with Gatewood (Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apache Wars Memoir, University of Nebraska Press, 2005) and it was roughly a two-hour drive from my home in Los Angeles.

But in the case of John Smith, and I must learn the truth about him (and this is also so for Left Hand) for much of what I currently know about him is totally illogical (and the “illogical” is also true for Left Hand). I raise my own questions and track the answers until I find them or realize that 1) There is no answer, or 2) I’m searching in the wrong place.

Yeah, I’m slow, but that’s just me.

Smith and Left Hand’s roles will be as large as possible. Smith has become a leading player; I’m worried about Left Hand’s presence in the manuscript.

“I Stand By Sand Creek!”

Supposedly Colonel John Chivington said these words sometime after the 29nov1864 attack on the joint Cheyenne-Arapaho village and the booming proclamations of “Great victory” had begun to lose its luster and “Indian massacre” tainted Chivington’s fame.

The Sand Creek manuscript flies forward, and this makes me one happy cowboy. … This blog won out over a blog that again deals with racism in my life that is also close to publication. … John Chivington, that is Colonel John Chivington, who led the attack on the peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho village on Sand Creek, Colorado Territory, on 29nov1864, plays a role in the upcoming book. I needed an image of him. This is it, and it represents him near the end of his life. Not to worry for it won’t be in the book unless I can figure out how to improve it. Fat chance; this is awful. (Chivington art © Louis Kraft 2017)

Actually Chivington’s quote, “I Stand By Sand Creek!” became the title of a book about him (“I Stand By Sand Creek”: A Defense of Colonel John M. Chivington and the Third Colorado Cavalry by Lt. Colonel William R. Dunn, The Old Army Press, 1985). I didn’t remember my impression of the book until I looked at it for Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (University of Oklahoma Press, 2011), wasn’t impressed, and didn’t use anything from the book. … The search is under way for finding the colonel’s quote, and I believe it was later rather than earlier. Good friend and terrific Indian wars historian John Monnett suggested that I check the Rocky Mountain News during the 1890s for the quote.

This is on my to do list.

I’ve been discussing the Sand Creek manuscript with Steve Schmidt, a knowledgeable and literate person I met in Kansas a number of years back. Steve has kindly been offering me leads to research and raising questions that are valid. One, pertaining to Mr. Chivington, is right on target. He put it in my head, and let me tell you it “ain’t a goin’ away.” My dear colonel, you and I will be walking hand-in-hand for the unforeseeable future. This said, John Chivington, I have no comments to say about you. You are who you have proven to be, a man of guts, a man who reached for his own future, a man who was totally in-tune to his own world. Mr. Chivington, you are a great challenge for me, and I must—absolutely must—walk in your boots, get into your head, and present you as you viewed your life. Anything less will be subpar and little more than crap. … However long this takes me I must do it. And, … and if, … OU Press bashes me in the head for taking too long—shame on them for I must become one with you, John Chivington.

Luckily it ties in with the Methodist angle on the Sand Creek story, which is the basis for Gary Roberts’ latest book on Chivington’s attack on the Cheyenne-Arapaho village in 1864.

Other media and this blog

Although what I share on these blogs are the real LK, I have placed a lot of background information elsewhere. This said, the “elsewhere” destination is clean cut, meaning the Walt Disney version. On the blogs I have at times pushed to cross a line that perhaps I shouldn’t cross. But still I haven’t gone any farther than an “R” rating (in other words, not appropriate for anyone below the age of 17 without their parents’ permission). Duh!! I know, I’m still doing a balancing act between goody-two-shoes and a real “R” rating (which someday may be pushed to perhaps “NC-17” in other formats).

LK in the living room at Tujunga House on 5jan2017 just before nightfall. Egotism aside, I like this photo for I look alive and happy. (photo © Louis Kraft 2017)

What can I provide for you here? Actually nothing, for LK censures LK.

Actually I’ve made great strides into moving into the “R” zone (and beyond, and again I have toyed with going beyond this rating in both my fiction and art). If you think that I’m joking here—I’m not. For the record I constantly attempt to push the limits of my creativity in all directions whenever I can. This is not just for creativity’s sake but for me forever trying to expand my capabilities in the various medias in which I work. Be it words or art I must be true to myself. At the same time I must observe the limits of the various media that publishes my work; meaning that at times words or art that is acceptable in one media (let’s say fiction) is not acceptable in another media (such as nonfiction). This is a juggling act for me with the center point being my blogs, but not completely, for no matter how much I push myself on the blogs there are words and art that I cannot share with you (at least not today). … I’d like to, but I’m frightened of the response.

For the record I paint portraits of human beings (including myself). I view them as art. … For a long time I have debated what I can share on the blogs. LK nude? I could share this. Will I? Don’t know, but most likely never. The ladies in my life? … Not the major ladies in my life (Anglo American, Japanese, Korean, and Thai) for they would not want this (and I am in total agreement with them). That said, others who will remain nameless shed their clothes and posed for my camera, but even if I created art of them it would not appear here.

LK at the Louvre Museum in Paris on 1jul2004. I visited the Louvre twice (2004 and 2009). This is what I looked like on the first visit (photo © Louis Kraft 2004)

This brings me to a great piece of art that I have seen twice at Musée D’Orsay in Paris, France (2004 and 2009). It had to have been shocking when Gustave Courbet created and first displayed his “L’Origine du Monde” over a century ago. I could describe the painting, but I won’t. This said, I think that it is magnificent and deserves its permanent exhibition at Musée D’Orsay, which is by far the best museum of art in the world that I have ever been fortunate to visit. The painting is still shocking to this day. This said, it is glorious and should have not been hidden from the world for years and years. Is this painting, which I’m not describing or sharing, art? Yes! Yes, and yes without a doubt. What does this say about Courbet? What does this say about Kraft? What does this say about you?

I know what this says about Courbet and about me. I don’t know what it says about you, and honestly I don’t care. Obviously—or not obviously—I’ve been talking about sexuality and nudity in my life. I don’t know about you, but sexuality and nudity has played a large role in my life. This huge part of perhaps many of our lives has given my life the energy and the desire to survive and cherish each and every moment I have walking through our so-called “world of woe.”

Am I evil? No, I don’t think so.

The LK blogs …

The purpose of the LK blogs from the beginning in early 2013 was to push my writing capabilities beyond what they had been in the past. That goal is still front and center as you and I move forward in 2017 and beyond. Why? This is a simple question but without an answer, at least not an answer that I can provide at this time.

All I can say is that I need to be true to me, true to my vision of nonfiction, fiction, and art. I actually have a major question that is front and center every day. Mainly, Kraft, how many days do you have left? What can you complete before the end? What do you have to do? In a nutshell I must protect my beautiful wife and daughter (and my daughter’s mother), and this includes living for as long as I can to accomplish this. So you know, I work at this every day (and often this is three to four hours of my time every day). I have one other reason for living, and that is my writing. Without blinking an eye I must complete Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway and deliver the manuscript to my great friend and editor Chuck Rankin; I must also complete Errol & Olivia.

The reason for completing these two manuscripts is simple: They will be the most important books that I write in my lifetime (while my favorite has already been printed by the University of Oklahoma Press, Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek). LK’s writing world does not end with these two manuscripts, for I will have a long life as I move forward in my writing (this includes two additional nonfiction books on Errol Flynn; two books on Kit Carson, one nonfiction and one fiction; two books on the English pirate and knight Francis Drake (again one nonfiction and one fiction). Ladies and gents, this is a mouthful. But—BUT—on the plus side it will ensure that I live a long life as I protect the women in my life.

The above is my future, and it is a good one.

Back to the Sand Creek manuscript

All I can say here is that I need to walk with the leading players in the Sand Creek manuscript as they move forward with their lives. I’m getting close to Mr. Smith, perhaps a little too close (but I’m thrilled with what is current in the manuscript). I’ve known Ned Wynkoop for decades, and even though I’ve written about Black Kettle for the same length of time I’m only now doing what I can to walk in his moccasins. This is not a small comment about BK, for he was an extraordinary man and I need to know him intimately before the Sand Creek manuscript goes to press. I need to repeat these words in another way—I need to bring Black Kettle to life, something that has still never happened in my books or any other books.

Add Left Hand to my list, but here I’m fearful that I won’t find enough primary material (or accurate information) to fill out his life.

This woodcut of the Camp Weld 28sept1864 meeting is a total joke. It is a available in numerous archives. From left to right: Black Kettle (in clothing and with a hairstyle that he never wore or had; a bearded John Smith (I have all of the known photos of Mr. Smith, including the famed 28sept1864 image with Wynkoop, Black Kettle, Bull Bear, and other key players at Camp Weld, and in all of them he is clean shaven). Finally, Wynkoop never dressed in this totally fictional uniform. Worse, none of these three players look like the artist painted them. I have toyed with using this art in the Sand Creek manuscript, but only to list all the errors in it. I have 37 contracted images for the Sand Creek book, three of which will be maps. Time will tell, but at the moment using this image is doubtful.

As the days pass numerous players cement their positions as leading players while others continue to fall by the wayside. Fear not, for John Chivington, John Evans, William Byers will all play their parts. As will George Bent. All I can say about George, other than “God bless him for what he has given us—you, me, and every other person that gives a hoot about the Cheyenne and Arapaho people while writing about their history during the 1860s owes Bent one hell of a lot. George Bent was one special human being and I pray that I do him justice.” His brother Charles was just as noteworthy but unfortunately his life was way-too-short and poorly documented (other than volumes of fiction; that is naming him leading raids and killing a lot of whites). If a white person under attack (or captured) by a war party heard a warrior speak the English language who do you think they named even though they had never seen that person before (or later) in their lives? You got it: A name they had heard once or twice or nine times before, … George or Charles Bent or Edmund Guerrier or Jack Smith. Without knowing what these young men looked like (by 1864 two were teenagers and two were in their early twenties), but still they were named for killing and raping again and again. All four were accused of many “crimes”* that most likely they never performed. …

* Crimes? A lot of these so-called “crimes” happened in retaliation for military actions that included, among other “crimes,” attacking peaceful villages and murdering Cheyenne leaders who attempted to speak to the soldiers (one of the attacks, that on Sand Creek, also included killing Arapahos, and especially Left Hand, who, like Cheyennes Lean Bear, White Antelope, and Black Kettle who also died violently, did all he could to keep the peace between the races). … Yes, the Cheyennes, Arapahos, and their allies the Sioux (Lakotas) fought to save their families and loved ones, the buffalo, their land, their religion, their language, and their freedom. CRIMES???? Let’s call it war, a war of survival with the end result never in doubt.

As this blog is hopefully giving you yet another taste of what is coming …

… Lets mention the ladies? A few will have supporting (unfortunately small supporting) roles, but they are key to the Sand Creek story. Chuck Rankin and I have discussed bringing them into the story, but there just is not enough information to make any of them full supporting players (much less leading players). This said, there will be a few surprises in the Sand Creek manuscript—good surprises (I promise).

This is artwork for the mini series Centennial (which premiered on American TV in the late 1970s). From left Richard Chamberlain, Robert Conrad, Sally Kellerman, Michael Ansara, and Barbara Carrera. I decided to use this art because there were two-mixed blood Cheyenne brothers in the early episodes of the mini series that represented George and Charles Bent. Played by Stephen McHattie (as the mixed-blood Cheyenne Jacques Pasquinel, and an actor that I thought would become a star as every performance of his that I have seen has been exceptional, including playing the acting legend James Dean) and Kario Salem as the mixed-blood Cheyenne brother Marcel Pasquinel). Their characters were totally fictional, but the two actors and the parts they played were riveting. I want to say a little more here. Richard Chamberlain was a pretty-boy TV star in Dr. Kildare in the early 1960s, but refused to be who he was and studied acting (including classical theater) and recreated himself as a very good actor and he became the king of the mini series. My favorite actress of all time is Gong Li (who is Chinese), and the reason is that she is totally in the moment—she listens, she thinks, and she responds (just like Errol Flynn). There are a lot of actresses that I like, including Barbara Hershey, Olivia de Havilland, Meryl Streep, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Barbara Carerra, among others. Carerra, who is Nicaraguan, was a model, and she is beautiful but not a good actress except in two mini series, Centennial (as the Cheyenne Clay Basket) in 1978-1979 and in Masada with Peter O’Toole (as the Jewish woman Sheva) in 1981.

And this is the same for others who play specific parts but are only fleeting in the flow of the story before they unfortunately exit the story. I have learned how to do this when I wrote The Discovery between January 2014 and April 2016. Some of these players are mixed-blood Tsistsistas (Cheyennes) Edmund Guerrier (mentioned above and an all time favorite of mine), who will soon move into the forefront with an upcoming book on him by a good friend of mine named Dee Cordry (and I do not want to share any information about his his work until he gives me the okay to do so) as will Jack Smith (John Smith’s son, and also mentioned above). Trust me, for there are others.

I’m not ignoring my Indian players, but other than Arapaho Niwot (Left Hand), who, as I said above, I am struggling to find real documentation to confirm his life (don’t ask, for you won’t like what I say), and Arapaho Little Raven. Others who I thought might be leading players are slipping through the cracks of my research. I still hope Dog Man Bull Bear plays a larger role than now anticipated, and ditto Cheyennes White Antelope and Lean Bear. My favorite Dog Man is Tall Bull, but to date I have very little of him during the 1863-1865 timeframe. … Suggestions of where to research these gentlemen are always welcome.

Silas Soule’s wedding photo in April 1865 as restored by LK per the permission of Byron Strom for publication in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. Hopefully Byron, who controls the Anne E. Hemphill Collection in Des Moines, Iowa, will again agree to me restoring yet another great image of Silas Soule that must see print.

One white man that I hope whose role can grow is Captain Silas Soule. The reason is twofold: Much that has been written about him to date is bogus. More important he refused to fire his weapons at the Cheyennes and Arapahos camped at Sand Creek on 29nov1864, as did Lieutenant Joseph Cramer, and those of their men who obeyed their orders not to fire on the Indians (as documented in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek). … Cramer would survive his damning testimony and letter to Wynkoop; Soule would not for he would be murdered on the streets of Denver weeks after his marriage at the beginning of April 1865.

Colonel George Shoup of the Third Colorado Volunteers is a mystery. Can I bring him to life? My fingers are crossed. As they are to bring some of the whites to life in supporting roles who held firm with Chivington’s proclamation: “I stand by Sand Creek.”

William Bent, one of the founders of Bent’s Fort, and more importantly a leading player in the development of the Cheyenne and Arapaho domination of the central plains, their lifeway based upon the buffalo, and their trading to the south, the north, and the east, and their horse-based culture that had evolved less than a century before Sand Creek. A lot of work is coming here, for this man’s life and world is a major part of the story.

These players and the tragic events of November 1864 affected a lot of people during the 1860s, they have affected a lot of people since that tragic day of 29nov1864, and they have affected me for decades.

These people, along with Martin Luther King, Jr., African Americans, Geronimo and the Chiricahua Apaches, and believe it or not the English pirate Francis Drake have played major roles in my writing decisions and my chosen path in my writing life and future.

It is what it is

… And my life is good.

A Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway update

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


 You should know that when I write blogs I’m not writing plays,
articles, talks, or books. When drafting a blog I function as a journalist.
I have points to make. Sometimes I deal with the past but often I deal with
the present. The goal is to present an opinion on events (past and present) while getting my facts straight. When I deal with the past I’m researching an LK memoir or I’m trying to understand historical people from Black Kettle to George Bent to
John Chivington to Olivia de Havilland to Errol Flynn and on and on. When I
deal with the present I’m focused on events that affect my life, and I talk
about them as they are important to me. Regardless if I write about
the past or the present the goal is to inform and entertain you.


The times are boiling …

One of my best friends of all time went under the knife on September 23. A wonderful friend of mine in Thailand has just lost her brother. …

An anticipated call did come on September 23 from a
wonderful lady who is my best friend’s sister.

A language translator totally messed up reality
as to my Thai friend’s brother’s situation
and tragically he died.

Life is precious and I make an effort every day to cherish the time I still have.

As promised in a previous blog I’m keeping my Sand Creek project up front with status updates. Ideally these will be shorter blogs (and not books, as my friend Vee has often reminded me about many of my posts). What follows will mostly deal with the trials and tribulations of LK attempting to make progress on an Indian wars book that dominates his life. All I have to do is complete the manuscript and then work closely with my publisher to ensure that the printed book is as good as we can make it.

You should know that when I draft a document I
have an idea of what I hope to present. When I write fiction
the characters take over and move the plot, but in the blogs
it is the subject matter that controls the flow of the text.

A return to Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway

During 12 days in June 2014 I performed intensive primary Cheyenne research at the Braun Research Library at the former Southwest Museum in Los Angeles, California. I had been promised my extensive photocopy request in September 2014. And don’t ignore the word “extensive,” for it was. Read a massive amount of work for Research Services Assistant Manola Madrid, who had worked with me closely on previous visits to the Braun. There would be a delay, but this was not Manola’s fault, and I truly believe that the delay was not caused by the Braun. …

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The Southwest Museum in Los Angeles, Calif. (art © Louis Kraft 2014)

Changes at the Autry National Center, to which the Southwest Museum merged with in 2003, were about to become reality. In July 2014 people that had landed research grants (if that is the correct term) would dominate the Braun staff’s time, and then the reality of the closure of the Braun and ultimately the final closure of the Southwest Museum (which still hasn’t happened as it is still open on Saturdays for people to visit).WestResearchTripMontage_sept-oct2014_wsSeptember 2014 came and went. Actually the rest of 2014 came and went; great times for LK as I was able to take Pailin on her first research trip to the West in the Vette. Almost 4,000 miles in 19 days. She researched Sand Creek in Colorado with my good friend and great Cheyenne wars historian John Monnett and his wife Linda (they kindly welcomed us into their home). In Santa Fe, New Mexico, she got to hang out with my wonderful friend Tomas Jaehn, who is responsible for creating the Louis Kraft Collection at the Chávez History Library, which is part of the New Mexico History Museum (if you saw the historic artifacts that the history museum has hidden away you’d faint). Pailin was again put to work at the Chávez and then locating the last place that Ned Wynkoop lived at in Santa Fe (this last thanks to Tomas’s right-on tips on how to find the building), and again came through with flying colors. We next headed for Texas to see my great friends Glen and Ellen Williams (and Glen’s pretty sister LInda), and like Mr. and Mrs. Monnett, the Williams opened their home to us.

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This is a detail of a painting that is one of many placards at the Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner in southeast New Mexico (unfortunately I don’t know the name of the person that created the art). Here Col. Christopher “Kit” Carson (right) is agreeing to command Gen. James Carleton’s (left) Mescalero Apache campaign in 1863. The Mescaleros would be removed to the Bosque Redondo before Carson’s burnt earth campaign against the Navajos began later that year. BTW, the Bosque Redondo Memorial is magnificent. If you have any interest in the Apaches or the Navajos’ forced confinement in a deadly environment a visit to the memorial is well worth your time. If you are a Mescalero Apache or Navajo cultural or Indian wars historian-writer it is mandatory that you visit. … BTW, Kit Carson was not the racist-butcher that so many uninformed people stuff down our throats. For starters he had an Arapaho wife, a Cheyenne wife, and a Spanish wife. He also spoke six or seven languages: English, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Spanish, Ute, Mescalero Apache dialect, and I believe Navajo. Not bad for a person who is now often slandered and libeled as a butcher and racist by people with their thumbs stuck where the sun doesn’t shine.

On the way to Texas we visited the Bosque Redondo in southeast New Mexico where the Navajos were incarcerated after the “Long Walk” in 1864 when they surrendered to Kit Carson’s burnt earth campaign that had few fatal casualties (I believe under 30 deaths). This area now thrives but in the 1860s it was a land of pestilence and death. This was must see for my next nonfiction Indian wars book will feature Carson’s relationship with Indians (but most likely not the Navajo campaign or its aftermath).

Yeah, I’m up to my usual evasion tricks. Sorry.

Back to my line of thought. January 2015 arrived and I still didn’t have any of my Cheyenne research that I had been promised in September 2014. If you know me well you know that in the past (actually my dark past) I had a short fuse. Time has mellowed me, but at the beginning of this year I needed to calm the rest of me down (not a small task).

lizaPosas_3rdFloorStacks_1115_20jun14_ws

Liza Posas, who is archivist and head librarian of the Braun Research Library, played a major role in my 2014 research time within the George Bird Grinnell Papers held by the Southwest Museum. She is professional, open, helpful, and kind. I have enjoyed every moment working with her, and look forward to when we again work together. In this image of her on 20jun2014 she is showing me the scope of the George Bird Grinnell Collection. (photo © Louis Kraft & Liza Posas 2014)

On August 6, 2015 (13½ months after I made the request), I picked up photocopies for what amounted to a little over a third of my order at the Autry National Center (a short surface-street drive as opposed to a three-freeway potential nightmare). Email communication at that time stated that the rest of my research had been digitized. I was quoted a page cost for the digital pages and told that I would hear more in a week. The week passed. Actually over a month passed. Believe it or not I have deadlines, but worse it takes me at least five times as long to write a page of nonfiction than it does a page of fiction (to be honest, I believe that this is an understatement for I’m thrilled when I get a full page of Sand Creek text written in a day (granted that day may only be five or eight hours, but heck sometimes I can crank out two or three pages of fiction in an hour). Remember that none of this writing is polished for I’m only talking about rough drafts. That said, nonfiction polishing easily takes a lot longer than fiction polishing as I’m again concentrating on facts and dates and making sure that a polish doesn’t turn the nonfiction into fiction.

psk&lk_541_12sept15_SIGuseBorder_ws

This image of Pailin and LK is now from a time long gone (although the art is based upon a photo taken a handful of days ago). I’m playing with it and trying to use it to figure out how I’ll create a piece of art that is required. It is an ongoing search for me to figure out what I need to do to create artwork in the very near future (and believe me it has nothing to do with gunfighters or frontiersmen). I’m a firm believer in doing plenty of research before a word is written, or in this case playing with color, line, and technique before doing anything (other than researching the subject) before attempting to create art for a book cover. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

The Sand Creek manuscript deals with five types of people: Whites that saw an opportunity in a new land (Colorado Territory) and did what they could to secure the land and their fortunes at the cost of the American Indians that claimed the land as theirs; the Cheyennes and Arapahos who called this land theirs; the whites that married into the tribes; the mixed-bloods that walked between two races; and the whites that dared to speak out against the butchery of Cheyennes and Arapahos who thought that they were under the protection of the U.S. military. … Add females whenever I have enough information to bring them to life. … Oh, I should add that racism was rampant in the 1860s.

Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is not an easy manuscript to write. The research is massive, and worse I have to bring the leading and major supporting players to life with a minimal amount of primary information. And just as important I need to make the text flow seamlessly between the various people groups and their actions, while at the same time attempting to keep all the players’ points of view (POV) in focus. The goal is to have the reader make their decision on all the players’ actions.

Doable? You bet! Can I do it? I don’t know, but I hope that I can.

For the story to work the people must be real. They must live and breathe and have objectives as they react to their life and times.

Back to the immediate present

ManolaMadrid_1101_18jun14_ws

Manola Madrid working on the first floor of the Braun Research Library for LK in June 2014. She’s a hard worker, very knowledgeable on the subject matter, and most important an absolute delight to know and call friend. For what it is worth, Manola and I can talk about anything. That’s a real nice feeling, and worth keeping. With all the massive changes that the Southwest and the Autry are undergoing she has chosen to walk away and retire in mid-October 2015. I’m thrilled for her, … my lone hope is that our relationship can continue and that someday I’ll meet her husband and that she’ll meet Pailin. (photo © Louis Kraft & Manola Madrid 2014)

In mid-September my fear threshold began to reach its eruption peak. The Sand Creek manuscript is due at OU Press on October 1, 2016. Hell, I’m light years away from completing a rough first draft, a first draft that I’m still collecting primary source material to complete (again, I did my research at the Braun in June 2014).

LK is thrilled (and angry) but thrilled is the bottom word. I’m writing a book about the end of the Southern Cheyenne lifeway. This primary research; useable or not is mandatory by me. There was so much to see in just one archive that there was no way I could get through all of it in 12 days. Thus my costly research request, which—and to repeat myself—was due in September 2014. September 17, 2015, arrived and I again complained. I was told that my complaint was confusing. Confusing? Well maybe, but I wasn’t obscure. More important my complaint garnered results for on September 21 I picked up a CD with the remainder of my research request of June 2014.

This was a joyous occasion for I got to spend two hours with Manola Madrid, a long-time research service assistant at the Braun Research Library at the former Southwest Museum in Los Angeles.

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Marva Felchin, director of libraries and archives at the Autry National Center. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

I also spent prime time with Marva Felchin, director of libraries and archives at the Autry National Center. I met Marva while researching obscure and yet mandatory primary source material for Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. She would attend an Errol Flynn talk locally in Burbank, Calif., soon after (I think in 2008). On September 21 I delivered a promised Geronimo magazine article, as well as two Ned Wynkoop articles that I knew that the Autry didn’t have to Marva for the Autry Resources Center (ARC). I believe that the ARC, a 105,000 square-foot research center that will house the former Southwest Museum archive and research material (over 500,000 artworks and artifacts + archival material) and the Autry’s library and archive (not sure how large this is). Although the private opening might be in late 2016 most likely the public opening won’t happen until 2017. On this day Marva told me that if needed I could perform research before the ARC opens.

That was very kind of Marva. I don’t think I’ll need to do any research before the opening, but it is good to know that the door will be open to me if I need to do additional research. This is a good feeling. Thank you, Marva (unfortunately I have no images of Marva to share).

Autry National Center is magnificent … almost

The Autry National Center is magnificent, but it doesn’t compare to similar facilities, such as National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. Not too many years back when the Autry decided to merge with the Southwest Museum, this action opened the door to major respectability. Do not under estimate this, for the Southwest’s holdings are a major coup for the Autry.

InventingCuster_Autry_1996_ws

Over the years the Autry National Center has had many names (Why? I have no clue why, but can guess that the rich and famous continued to spout their view and progressively have worked to remove not only the westering experience from the museum’s name but also—God forbid—have tried to push the legendary Gene Autry, who is responsible for the museum, into the dark shadows of a long-gone time). I’m not a fan of Gene’s one-hour B-westerns, his 1950s TV show, or his singing. That said, he was a major influence on his world and if it wasn’t for him there would be no Autry National Center. The “Inventing Custer: Legends of the Little Bighorn” exhibit was brilliant and was by far the best exhibit that I have ever seen at the Autry (or elsewhere). It ranged from Custer and his times (artifacts, including his hair, which his wife Libbie had clipped prior to an expedition on the Plains and BTW he was a strawberry blond and nowhere close to being “Yellow Hair,” to photos, to Custer in afterlife, which included film, toys, and memorabilia). As already stated I have never been a fan of Mr. Autry, but more recently (22Jun2007 through 13Jan2008) the Autry presented a marvelous exhibit that focused exclusively on “the Singing Cowboy’s” life and times (“Gene Autry and the Twentieth-Century West: The Centennial Exhibition, 1907-2007”). Unfortunately I have inside information that confirms that many of the elite members of the Autry were unhappy with the exhibit and refused to support it. SHAME ON THEM! This was by far the second best exhibit I have ever seen at the Autry, and in the future it should be repeated! Unfortunately “Inventing Custer” was pieced together with artifacts, photos, toys, books, and film memorabilia from multiple archives and private collections (and would be almost impossible to bring back for an encore). (photo of “Inventing Custer” banner © Louis Kraft 1996)

Still you need to realize that people who light their cigarettes with $1,000 dollar bills, shall I call them the “major” Autry donors, bitched. As far as they were concerned money counts, such as their designer clothes, their $10,000 necklaces, the glitter of the Autry … I used to attend 2nd (or was it 3rd) tier openings at the Autry. Those days are history. You want to attend an opening, fork up $1,700 or perhaps $1,800. I wouldn’t call these openings ones that the general public can attend. What can I say? You get the picture, other than these elite people don’t give a bleep that the Southwest goldmine is now part of the Autry. … American Indian culture and artifacts mean little to them. “Why are we wasting our money on an institution that was dying?” (this is a quote based upon words that I recently heard but wasn’t able to jot down exactly for prosperity). Lucky them! Bottom line, they don’t give a bleep about the wondrous treasure that the Southwest (and its now dead and gone Braun Research Library) once was.

You want to know the truth? The Southwest Museum (which includes the Braun) was special. The Autry has always reeked of money, and the facility has always been gorgeous. Unfortunately when compared to other institutions of a similar type it can’t compare. Now it can, for regardless of rich bitching it now controls the massive collection of American Indian artifacts and research that the Southwest once owned. Ladies and gentlemen I have been off and on (at the moment off) a proud member of the Autry. To quote one of only three TV series that I have liked (The X-Files), “The truth is out there.” And it is for the Autry National Center.

The Autry National Center is poised to claim its position as one of the great western history and cultural museums in the United States. I certainly believe that the person leading the way, President and CEO W. Richard (Rick) West, Jr., will ensure that this happens.

Some views; wanted or not …

Los Angeles is currently divided between the extremely rich and everyone else, who struggle to pay bills.* The middle class? What’s that? Actually it is a name that represents a dead and departed race of people that has ceased to exist and that is the middle class. Worse, and I’m not talking about racism; rather I’m talking about the future that has, alas, arrived. Specifically to the Autry’s major donors, the extraordinary and exceptional artifacts housed at the Southwest don’t count. What is at risk here is the American western experience, which includes the Plains Indians, Southwest Indians, Pacific Coast Indians, Alaskan Indians, and the massive conquest of their homelands and destruction of their cultures.

* This statement is simplistic at best. What isn’t simplistic or overstated is that the city of Los Angeles (North Hollywood is a town in LA)  is quickly becoming a modern-day Tombstone, Arizona. Los Angeles had a confirmed murder count of 39 in August (LA Times, “Deadliest August in Los Angeles in 8 years,” 4Sept2015). This past weekend (September 26-27) 19 people were shot and five died (LA Times, “19 Shootings, A Call for Help: LAPD appeals to community after new bloodshed,” 30sept2015). Although I have had guns pointed at me I have yet to witness shootings in North Hollywood. That said, I no longer walk at night for violence often stalks the streets of NoHo.

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I don’t have an image of Kevin Tighe as Miles (damn!!!). Tighe, along with Wes Studi (who was at least 30 years too young to play Geronimo) were the two outstanding performances in Geronimo: An American Legend. I don’t know either man but shortly after the release of Dances with Wolves (1990) I spent good time with Studi in an American Indian shop in Tarzana, Calif. Unfortunately the shop is long gone and I never met Studi again. My guess, both men did their homework, … something Bob Duvall (who I worked closely with for about four months in the 1980s) didn’t do. This image of Miles is in the LK personal collection and was published first in 1886. It has since been published in Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apache Wars Memoir (2005) and in “Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude” (Wild West, October 2015).

This is America and it must not be forgotten! American Indian lifeways count, and so do the racial interactions between invading whites and the people that initially welcomed their presence. During this time very few whites accepted American Indians as human beings, and those that dared to are American heroes; not those that stole, incarcerated, and if need be butchered people that they felt were below them on the evolution scale. … If I am even close in my opinion I am predicting a “Pandora’s Box” that when it is opened will initiate the end of America’s heritage. As Kevin Tighe, who played General Nelson Miles, says to Matt Damon’s Lieutenant Britton Davis (who BTW had resigned his military commission in 1885 and lived in Mexico at the time of Geronimo’s and Naiche’s surrender in September 1886) near the end of Geronimo: An American Legend (Columbia Pictures, 1993): “Lieutenant, you’re more worried about keeping your word to a savage than to fulfilling your duties to the citizens of this country. We won and that’s what counts. It’s over with Geronimo, the Apache, and the whole history of the West, except for being a farmer.”

You want my opinion? Honestly, you don’t want to hear my opinion for much of it isn’t printable.

I’ve been cramming on the digital files from the September 2015 Braun delivery since I’ve received the CD from Manola. I’m looking at the files to ensure that they are readable. I’m also spot reading and searching for primary information that might be included in the Sand Creek manuscript. Let me tell you that this is slow going.

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This is Black Kettle, and for the record I constantly attempt to create portraits of him; this image will not appear in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway (and you can take this to the bank). … It looks like Black Kettle, Little Raven, John Chivington, John Evans, William Byers, Ned Wynkoop, William Bent, William Bent, and George Bent are my leading players. Left Hand is also but no images of him exist (my loss). There are other Cheyenne and Arapaho players who could become leading players such as Bull Bear and Tall Bull (and I hope that they can; alas, no images exist of Tall Bull). … Back to Black Kettle. Folks, he was not an elderly fellow that dropped out of the most important time of his life or his people’s lives. He was up front and center, and he had more guts and courage than any of the Cheyenne warriors that fought the overwhelming might of the United States. His life was always at risk, by both his own people and the invading whites. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

However, when I do find a jewel I’m right into the manuscript and adding the information. The other day I found pure gold on Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle that I had no idea existed. Honestly, this is what I’m looking for as Black Kettle is one of the leading players in the Sand Creek manuscript and I’m desperately trying to find events that happened in his life to fill in the gaps. This is directly related to my view that actions define who people are and not what someone says about them.

Again, I’m thrilled. … But the purpose of this post is threefold: Bitch, which I’ve done; praise, which I’ve done; and alert Indian wars writers to wake up to a massive archive in SoCal that will reopen in a blink of an eye (hopefully 2017, but this is questionable) that there is material available that can be added to your manuscripts in ways you wouldn’t believe. If you are a historian doing Plains or Southwest Indian research wake up and add validity to your writing. … The former Braun Research Library (at the former Southwest Museum) along with the former Autry National Center library and archives will provide you with a research center that will blow you away (American Indian research and including the Indian wars).

I’ve again been harsh, and believe me I have been pounded in the past by companies that I write for that I’m an ingrate that bites the hand that feeds him. True? Probably. … Know that I care about everything that I do. This means that I can’t take prisoners, that I must fight for the best product possible at all times and that includes receiving requested documentation when promised and not being forced to complain again and again until I receive a comment that I’m unclear in what is owed me. I have deadlines and I can’t afford to miss too many of them or I won’t be hirable.

For the record

“There’s gold in them ‘thar’ hills!” I have no clue if this is a real quote of not. And, by God, I have struck it! Mining the Cheyennes at the Braun Research Library in June 2014 has already proved worth every hour I put in, every complaint I had to make to receive requested documentation, and every dollar that it has cost me (and it wasn’t cheap).

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This image is from 1997’s Titanic. Here Leonardo DiCaprio (as Jack Lawson) proclaims at the beam of the mighty vessel on its maiden voyage: “I’m king of the world!” Danny Nucci (as Fabrizio, Dawson’s friend), joins him. When this film was released it was storied to become the largest financial disaster in film history. Instead it became the largest grossing film worldwide ever (to that point in time). Almost everyone I knew loved the film, which went on to win a ton of awards including the Oscar for best film. Many of these people have since dismissed the film. … For the record I have two film lists: a top 13 Errol Flynn films (and The Adventures of Robin Hood isn’t on the list) and a top 60 films which does not include Flynn films. For what it’s worth, my top 60 films list (which isn’t close to being completed) is not based upon the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ Oscar for best picture, director, actor, actress, script, and so on. Perhaps Kevin Costner’s magnificent Dances with Wolves (1990) should be on my list but it isn’t, and never will be. I believe that Costner’s Open Range (2003) with Bob Duvall and Annette Bening is a much better film, and it has a chance of making my top 60 films list. … Even though I work on “The Song Remembers When” blog whenever I have free time there is a chance that a short blog, like this one, can sneak in. And I’m going to announce it here: “Errol Flynn & Louis Kraft, the connection and a view” will be my next blog. Be warned that it will include prose that might anger you, hopefully enlighten you, but certainly will be based upon a long-time film knowledge combined with a deep-seated gut-feeling that is present whenever I view film. For what it is worth I study film four to five times a week as it a great way to understand how dialogue; plot; script; editing; direction; cinematography; film scores, which is my favorite type of music; and good production values influence every word that I write for print (and that includes these blogs).

At the moment my every waking hour is dominated by one thought: Kraft, when are you working on the Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway manuscript? The short answer is daily. Research takes time; comprehension takes more time. Once both connect, my fingers pound the keyboard. At those times, and to again quote Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, “I’m king of the world!”

A tease for The Discovery and a return to Sand Creek

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


  • Those of you who read my Indian wars writing will be shocked.
  • Those of you who know me but not my writing will also be shocked.

Kraft, what the hell are you talking about?

The Discovery

The Discovery fell into my lap while I wrote for Yahoo! and functioned as a consultant for the beginning of a medical malpractice-legal thriller by a physician I’ve known for 25 years—Robert S. Goodman.

… From the early 1950s until shortly before his death in 1987 my father-in-law was my
physician. 
He was one of the top doctors in the San Fernando Valley, and
had—believe it or not—been my family’s doctor since 1954 (I didn’t
meet my first wife until I was a junior in college). And let me tell you
there were perks. I guess that the major one was that after the
marriage and until after his death I never had to buy health
insurance. Other doctors didn’t charge me, and neither did
my dentist. My daughter’s birth had a total cost of zero
dollars. Yes, early in my adult life I learned of the
benefits of befriending one’s doctors.

Not that I use my doctors (all of whom are specialists), for I never have. I have befriended them, but this has always been a patient-doctor relationship. We talk about medicine, health, insurance, play scripts, fiction, nonfiction, their writing, my writing, and I share. They learn a little from me and are even open to learning more while I learn a lot from them (my side of the learning basically deals with my health).

A short diversion with my father, violence, and earning a living

Just before my father died (1999; 19 years after his wife/my mother died) he said to me, “If I knew I’d live this long I’d have taken better care of myself.” (All I can say to that is, “Me too.”)

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In the late 1940s and into the early 1950s my father climbed the Esso gasoline world. By the 1950s he appeared to be a person on the rise in the company. The Esso Gasoline Corporation did a round of publicity shots that they used in their advertising with him as the leading model. At that time he managed three Esso gas stations in Yonkers, New York. What the company didn’t realize was 1) My father hated being told what to do (shades of LK Jr) and 2) he hated the weather in New York. In the 1940s my mother and father, who had explored SoCal at least twice, did it once again in 1949 with your truly (but unfortunately I remember nothing). That trip ordained their and my future, and it wouldn’t be in New York.

On February 13, 1999, the last day I saw my living father as I knew him, he said to me as I left, “I love you, Louis.” Two of the words he had never used before: “love” and “Louis.” I had chosen to use “Louis” when I became an actor (he along with others struggled with this). As far as “love” goes, he always loved me, even when we didn’t get along, which stretched all the way to my mother’s/his wife’s death and decades before. The last 10 days of her life put us together during all of our waking hours. My mother/his wife’s last hours on earth gave us a relationship, that is her passing ended his quest to rule my life and accept that I would not march to the beat of his drum.

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LK at the time of these bullets. Actually this image was pulled from a three-shot of LK, Santa Claus, and another person. I have four of these photos. One is definitely the first of the four and dates to the end of the 1960s but the other three can be shuffled and all date to the early 1970s.

For example:

  • Once my father knocked me cold at home when a friend visited.
  • Soon after a girl who perhaps outweighed me by 50 to 100 pounds ran me over while I was going about three or four miles per hour on my motorcycle when she was running and broadsided me and hit me in the face with her hands. She broke my sun glasses which cut her fingers, but that was it—she didn’t even fall down. This was in Woodland Hills, California (then a rural area). The motorcycle shot across the street, jumped the curb, and went through a chain link fence that blocked entry to a field and hills. I was left hanging knocked out on the top of the fence (thank God for helmets!). I didn’t walk for weeks, and my father was there for me.
  • Another time I became a little too angry (the last day I ever lived at home) and aggressive (I’m being kind to me here), and I frightened him. He called the police. Within minutes three or four squad cars arrived with sirens blasting and guns in evidence when the officers stepped from their vehicles. I exited the house with hands raised. My father was right behind me and he talked the officers out of making an arrest. Even though there seemed to be a bloodlust pushing us toward a not-too-good ending he stood behind me, protected me, and pulled me to safety. (That night I slept in my girlfriend’s car in a parking garage below her father’s apartment. The next morning the infamous February 1971 earthquake destroyed portions of the San Fernando Valley. Jerked awake I ran out of the parking structure to see tidal waves washing out of the pool. The three-story apartment complex buildings waved in the breeze like 1930s cartoons. The view was unreal.)
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LK & LK Sr. in the back yard at Tujunga House on Thanksgiving 1995 (three years two and a half months before his death). He loved the garden at Tujunga House, and I’m certain he’d be shocked if he saw it now. This day is special to me, as are all Thanksgivings and Christmases (and I cook traditional meals). Christmas is the celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth and Thanksgiving is the celebration of the Pilgrims’ first harvest of crops with the Wampanoag Indians in Plymouth in 1621. They are not the extravaganza of sales that is currently stuffed down Americans’ throats today. Unfortunately business greed has overwhelmed America and has done everything possible to negate these special day’s true meaning. I’ll be damned if I’ll stand in line and elbow strangers to buy, buy, and buy more as publicity departments pound the American public to do from every direction that it is almost demoniacal. … On this 1995 Thanksgiving, perhaps 10 minutes after this image was taken, my father observed for the first time a grand mal seizure to one of the most special person in both of our lives. It shocked him, as it would you. There is a lot of harsh reality in this world, and much of it most people don’t experience. (photo © Louis Kraft 1995)

Eventually time would change even though we still had clashes, while I survived in a world that was different from his. He saw this, and although it would take years he accepted it. The point of this section is simple. My father gave me the strength to be me, and although at times it looked as if one of us could have killed the other we didn’t. If not for him I’m certain that my life would not have been as it has been. Our battles pushed me to challenge him. They also gave me the courage to follow my winding trail of life. I do as I please and my profession is what I choose. I have no regrets for everything in my life happened for a reason. You can bet that I believe in cause and effect. That said my life always has goals prominently leading the way. Someday the end will come and a goal or two won’t have been reached but if that is how it ends I’m good with it.

Back to The Discovery and physicians

This simple formula of how I relate to my physicians has opened doors to my life. It has given me friends in a world in which I haven’t known other than how it applies to my health. Bob Goodman is directly responsible for me walking this earth for the last 12+ years (as is urology specialist Malcolm Cosgrove, who performed a surgery that continued my life in 2003).

Trust me, these two gentlemen, along with other physicians, are people that I have befriended and helped whenever possible.

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One of many clipart images that symbolize medicine. This will not appear on The Discovery cover. It is here as I must soon begin thinking of cover art. I think that the doctor whose life spirals toward an explosive end must dominate the cover. I also think that a 1952 incubator needs to be on the cover as well as the doctor’s wife who is an essential key to the plot (but both she and the incubator must be secondary to the doctor. Looming behind the doctor must be a shadow that symbolizes the court system. Just like my studying whatever I read and every film that I look at I also study book covers. Simple is better, but it cannot be vague nor can it mislead the reader.

At the end of November 2013 Bob Goodman asked me to partner with him on The Discovery (read: I write the manuscript based upon his rough draft and great idea). I was hesitant as I write seven days a week on my books and blogs. He offered upfront $$$. I told him I’d think about it. I decided to turn down the offer (which I knew would hurt him), but then I received a bill for an uninsured operation that I didn’t know about until after the fact. This was a big ouch as I then earned about 20 percent of what I earned when Oracle and I parted company in 2012. The up-front money paid for my half of that unexpected operation. I accepted the partnership in his updated but still incomplete novel sight unseen.

That was a big mistake by me, but at the same time it eliminated a bill that I couldn’t afford to pay.

To repeat myself accepting the partnership was a big mistake, but it did eliminate a bill that I couldn’t afford to pay. I’m still putting in a lot of hours on The Discovery project (a recent week logged over 70 hours). But—BUT I’m in control and I’m working on a manuscript that I think will be one of the best that I ever write (the story spans over two decades, has multiple players, and yet I’ve figured out how to pull everything together and make it work while keeping it believable).

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This is the cover for the Variety section of the Thousand Oaks News Chronicle (15may1992). The Final Showdown was published in April 1992 and my divorce was final in April 1992. At that time I owned with my ex-wife two houses (one in Encino and one in Thousand Oaks), and she got both houses. The TO house, which is in Ventura County, was a gorgeous two-story home a half block walk into the Santa Monica Mountains. Swimming has always been my favorite sport and at that time I swam 70 laps (no big deal when compared to the 30+ laps I used to swim at 24 Hour Fitness in an Olympic-sized pool). Nevertheless I loved living there. When the News Chronicle contacted me for the interview/article I lived in Tarzana (in Los Angeles County). The writer wanted to interview me at home. At that time I wrote for a telecommunications firm in El Segundo (south of LAX). I asked him to drive to El Segundo. He didn’t want to, so I talked him into two phone interviews. At the end of the interviews he told me that a photographer needed to take pictures of me at my TO home. “Why?” I asked. He said, “If you don’t live in Venture County we won’t print the story about you.” I called my ex-wife and explained the situation. She told me that as long as I didn’t enter the house I could take as many photos outside that I needed. Good for me. On the day of the photo shoot I arrived early at my former home and met the photographer outside. We shot images in the courtyard. He then wanted to go inside. I asked if he wanted to take pictures of me at my computer and he said “yes.” “I have a better idea,” I told him. “What’?” “Let’s shoot on the hill after you exit the 101 freeway and drive south into the Santa Monica foothills.” He loved the idea, and the Variety cover is the result. BTW the Thousand Oaks News Chronicle at that time was just like the LA Times. It even mimicked the Times’ entertainment section and was folded in half and opened like a magazine. (© Thousand Oaks News Chronicle 1992)

BTW, I’m not a novice at writing fiction. For almost a decade beginning in 1976 and extending to 1985 a screen writing agent and a TV writer/producer took me under their tender tutelage. Under their care I learned how to write dialogue, create characters, and design plots that move forward. By the late 1980s I moved on to fiction. The Final Showdown was published in 1992, and I had a follow-up contract for a Kit Carson/Navajo story (if you’ve read previous blogs you know what happened here and what my future became). Don’t doubt me, folks, my move to nonfiction has been the best working (not writing, but working) decision in my life for it directly led to my writing for the software world and eventually earning over six figures). It also gave me the best writing that I’ve ever done in the Indian wars nonfiction field, and believe me there are nonfiction books on the horizon that will be better than anything that I’ve written in the past.

All the above said, and as of the beginning of September 2015, I’m thrilled that I partnered with Bob Goodman. We will have a good story, and I think that it will be a page turner. What more could a writer ask for?

Bob Goodman had a great idea for The Discovery, but he had/has no clue on how to write characters, dialogue, plot, or a novel. Actually his spelling sucked and his research was worse. My new partner had told me that he had polished what he had and in which I had reviewed and had included my major suggestions on how to improve the story. I don’t want to say that his words were an understatement but they were. He had no chapters, just pages—some with one paragraph and others with a half page of text. Sometimes scenes would be repeated, … You get the picture. That said Bob Goodman’s idea for The Discovery was terrific.

My work was a challenge but one I embraced. And best, I had no restrictions. The manuscript will be published, and I know that I’ll take a lot of negative heat, and if you ever read the book you’ll know why. But The Discovery will open the door for my return to fiction. Fiction is a touchy subject to a number of people including me. Why me? Because I still have to complete Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, would like to do a nonfiction book on Kit Carson, and must finish Errol & Olivia (which is the first of a planned trilogy on Flynn). That’s a lot of nonfiction writing staring me in the face. In case you don’t know it nonfiction takes a lot longer as almost every day I’m studying the known facts (that is primary source material). It probably takes me at least five times as long to write a page of nonfiction than it takes me to write a page of fiction. For the record I use secondary nonfiction material only when necessary (for many-many reasons).

My first novel after The Discovery will deal with the Navajo Indians (or as they were called and as they call themselves, the Diné).

A return to Sand Creek

As hinted at in this blog The Discovery has absolutely killed me time wise (and there are other reasons that I’ll probably never mention). I’ve also said that I’m thrilled with the manuscript, and that’s good. … But Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is my main book project and it has been so since the contract was signed. It is now and must remain my number one priority until it is published. What I still need to do on The Discovery has now been regulated to extra work, by that I mean that it will happen after hours (just like these blogs are created; at night and after I’ve completed my day’s work).

Although I’ve said it in the past I’m saying it again here. When I work on nonfiction I write from primary source (and secondary source when necessary) information. I study the primary source information and compare to other primary source information that I’ve been able to locate and obtain from archives or from historian friends that share their primary source documentation with me. I make every effort to confirm what I think is what happened. For me this is a slow process, and it gets even slower when I attempt to write what I believe happened from my understanding of my research.

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The LK portrait of Gatewood was first published in Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apache Wars Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2005). Over the years it has been printed three times. (art © Louis Kraft 2004)

The Charles Gatewood books and the Ned Wynkoop book were new territory as no one in the past had written about them with them as the focus of the book. Most often they received a paragraph here or a paragraph there or once in a while a few thousand words. Often much of what was said about them had already been printed and that mostly in anthologies. Primary resource books, especially for Gatewood, have contained nuggets about them that are invaluable but they were far too little (and often in obscure books that didn’t advertise their presence in the volumes). One of the reasons for this is that both stood up to authority: That is to the military, the U.S. government, and the press when they thought that they were correct in their beliefs.

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The LK portrait of Wynkoop was first published in “Ned Wynkoop’s Lonely Walk Between the Races,” Custer and His Times, Book Five (The Little Big Horn Associates, Inc., 2008). Over the years it has been printed five times. (art © Louis Kraft 2007)

Both men accomplished extraordinary feats during the Indian wars—not feats in war with notches on their revolvers but feats of preventing war or ending war or attempting to end war. They actually accepted the people in conflict with the United States as human beings and not vicious subhumans that were capable of little more than theft, rape, and murder. This was not a popular view in the 1860s (Wynkoop) or the 1880s (Gatewood) and as such the press, the military, and even the U.S. government chose to ignore their efforts and exile them (Gatewood) or better yet bury them (Wynkoop) in an avalanche of negative press and criticism by a military ordained to control American Indians as the United States basically stole their land through treaties that the Indians didn’t understand and worse didn’t represent the agreement by most of the tribe (Cheyennes). For the Apaches it was different, for they had been forced onto reservations and when portions of them fled being little more than prisoners of war they were treated as if they were outlaws … and not people who were losing their homeland, their religion, their language, their children, the lifeway and their freedom.

When the colonists revolted against British rule in the eighteenth century they became patriots, but this was not the British point of view (POV), which is a film term that I explained in Custer and the Cheyenne: George Armstrong Custer’s Winter Campaign on the Southern Plains (Upton and Sons, Publishers, 1995). Why not the Apaches and the Cheyennes? Wasn’t their revolt similar? The soon to be Americans fought to free themselves from a tyrannical overrule while the Apaches and Cheyennes fought against a massive enemy that wanted their land at all costs.

Sand Creek is turning into becoming the most difficult book that I have ever written. Why? Simply put I’m attempting to tell the story through a handful of major players from five distinct categories. I want to bring the leading players (as well as major secondary players) to life through their actions and words. This is considerably more difficult than it sounds. Not because I’m viewing the lead-up to the attack at Sand Creek, the attack at Sand Creek, and the aftermath of the attack through the eyes of the players but because there isn’t a lot of primary source material on these players (and often secondary sources are light on information, or worse heavy on mis-information).

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After the speakers and music completed at the Washita Battlefield NHS overlook on 11nov2011 I captured this image of Moses Starr of the Red Moon Singers & Drum Group (left) and W. Richard (Rick) West. I met Rick for the first time before the event began and then spent a lot of time with him on the 12th, when we both spoke at the symposium and also lunched together. We had plenty of time to talk. Rick is a Cheyenne peace chief. He is also the founding director and director emeritus of the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. Recently he became president and CEO of the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, Calif. (I believe in December 2012). To date I have held off contacting him about my problem with the Southwest Museum. (photo © Louis Kraft 2011)

For the book to work I must find the required information, and this hasn’t been easy and especially so since the George Bird Grinnell archive at the Braun History Library at the Southwest Museum (Los Angeles that I mined in June 2014 for 12 days has still not delivered  material that I requested and was supposed to have received no later than September 2014. One might say, “Kraft, tell them to keep the damned material!” Believe me I’ve thought of this more than once, and it’s pretty bleeping hard to keep a civil tongue each time I approach the archive on the status of this important delivery. My guess, I’ll probably receive the material in 2017 (which is beyond my manuscript delivery date). I should know better, for the archive had missed a deadline for a single image permission I needed to use one photo (that’s right, one photo permission for an image that I had already used in Gatewood & Geronimo) for the second Gatewood book (and they had about six months to create the permission). That wasn’t enough time, and the Southwest didn’t deliver, … my deadline came and passed and I used another image from an archive that knows what deadlines are. Yes, I am well aware of their less than sparkling track record (and yes, there is a hint of sarcasm here). But It is now magnified as I’m trying to present the Cheyennes in a way that I’ve never done before, and here I must succeed for the manuscript to have any chance of working as I envision it.

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Regional National Park Service ranger Jeff Campbell (right), LK, and John Monnett on 3oct2014 at the Sand Creek Massacre NHS. Campbell, a former police officer, is writing a book about the Sand Creek Massacre as a murder investigation. On this day, he, John, and I enjoyed a good round-robin conversation. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

Research is ongoing until the book will be published. The University of Oklahoma Press, my publisher, and I are well acquainted with each other and how we both work. My comment here? I’m one privileged cowboy for OU Press is the top Indian wars publisher in the world and I’m lucky to write for them. We are brothers (and sisters) in war. That is we both want the best possible product published and as such we push for this to happen, … and this means at times that we are in conflict. I wouldn’t have it any other way, for this is the only way to produce a product that has value.

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This is John Derek, a film star in the 1950s and early 1960s. Like Errol Flynn he had to deal with the “gorgeous” image, which he hated (like Flynn). Unlike Flynn he walked away from film stardom and became a director-producer-photographer. This image is from Massacre at Sand Creek (1957). I believe that he played the lead role in the film, but it isn’t currently available and I have not seen it. Sometime shortly after Derek walked away from his acting career I met him at his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif., south of Ventura Blvd., in the San Fernando Valley, when I tried out for one of his independent films. His home was macho, and featured major animal game kills and trophies on the floors, furniture, and walls (it was the third such home I had seen like this among the Hollywood crowd, and if you’re into big-game hunting it was impressive). His wife was Bo Derek, and she was one of the stars of the major release hit 10 (1979) with Dudley Moore in the lead role. Derek was preparing for his next film. It wasn’t Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981?) and if my memory is accurate it was Bolero (1984). During my three visits I saw sides to the script, and easily spent six or more hours in Derek’s home during a two-week span). Bo was present at all three tryouts. During my first two interviews, which were more like visits, I hung out mostly with Derek as we spent time chatting and getting to know each other. On my final interview/visit I spent most of my time with Bo while she showed me nude slides of herself as we chatted. When I finally interviewed and read with Derek she went for a nude swim in the pool. A beautiful picture. Unfortunately I didn’t land the part. … That’s life—move on.

For the record I’m approaching the leading and supporting players in the Sand Creek manuscript through their POV. That is I’m attempting to present them through their actions, and honestly I believe almost everyone who has lived or lives believes that what they do is good (at least from their POV). Of course there are people, such as Charles Manson and Ted Bundy, who were massive murderers (I almost had contact with Manson as a place he at times lived at I used for a motorcycle stop and I worked on a mini-series on Bundy called The Deliberate Stranger, 1986). Oh, for the record, Los Angeles has returned to days long gone. August 2015 has a confirmed murder count of 39 per the Los Angeles Times (“Deadliest August in Los Angeles in 8 years,” 4Sept2015). Until 2015 the Times had been bragging about the decline in heinous crime in Los Angeles. I guess they spoke up too soon, and gulp, need to swallow a little of their misrepresentations.

Do not doubt it
The lead up to the massacre at Sand Creek was bloody from both sides, and a lot of innocent people died. The tragedy at Sand Creek in November 1864 is perhaps the most important event of the Cheyenne Indian wars on the central and southern plains for it made the Indians realize that the white man had one goal—To kill them and take their land. This single event marked beginning of the end of the Cheyennes’ freedom. It was an intense time for Indians and whites alike, and many innocents would die horribly. Lives and careers (of both races) would be put on the line. These people made decisions that were popular and not popular among their own race. Some of these decisions led to a loss of prestige, power, and at times death. Heroes would become villains and villains would be vindicated. … And still people would die. By the end of the 1860s the Cheyenne lifeway had come to an end.

Jerry Russell did everything possible to advance my Indian wars writing career, including inviting me to speak at the Order of The Indian Wars 1st Annual West Coast Conference, Fullerton, Ca., on 28feb87 (it would be its last in SoCal). Unfortunately Jerry is now long gone, but luckily the OIW continues to live.

Jerry Russell relaxes above where it was originally thought that the Sand Creek Massacre took place, which was then on private property. I had been doing George Armstrong Custer research in the north, called him up and asked if I and my family could join the tour and then the banquet that night. Without missing a beat, he said, “yes.” He would praise a Flynn/Custer article of mine that had been published, and a number of years later invited me to again talk at an OIW event. Unfortunately I later learned that my daughter’s graduation from high school would happen during the same weekend as the convention and I canceled the talk. Jerry’s response: “I’m glad that someone has their priorities in place.” (photo © Louis Kraft 1987)

Back to The Discovery

The manuscript moves toward production at an increasing pace. Two polishes have been completed. I’m excited. … Although I have kept the plot a secret I want to share a few lines of dialogue that deal with the first meeting of two key players in the story, and it is exploratory. Moreover it gives away nothing of the plot. Character development is usually created with action and dialogue, and in this example it is almost totally through dialogue.

I must again warn you, for I do believe that fully 60 percent of you that read The Discovery when published will be offended by the text. If true, I apologize. … But if not I hope that the text grabs you, holds you, excites you, but more I hope that it captivates you and that you aren’t able to set the book down.

The above is the hope of every writer.

A first meeting in The Discovery

The following is just a sample of how some of the dialogue flows in the working manuscript. This scene (of which only a portion is presented below, is the initial meeting between Greg Weston, who was born blind, and Gail Gordon, a lady eight years older than him. Both are key players in uncovering a discovery 20 years after the fact. It will lead to malpractice, infidelity, a court case, murder, and the destruction of major character’s lives. I have written story as a thriller. Sample text from The Discovery (© Louis Kraft & Robert S. Goodman, MD, 2013-2015) follows:

As Greg continued to talk to the waitress a young woman burst into the deli and raced to Ethel at the cashier station. “Could you tell me whose dog that is?” she said as she pointed at Boots, who was clearly visible through the front window.

“Sure, sweetie.” Ethel pointed at Greg. “See that handsome hunk in the second booth on the right?”

The woman nodded. “Yes.”

“It’s his seeing eye dog.”

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This LK portrait dates to 1973 when I was a member of the Melrose Theatre Company, a professional theater group on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood (Paul Kent ran the company). I worked on a lot of scenes with a redhead with kinky hair (whose mother then worked on Broadway in NYC). We hit it off in our personal lives and on stage. She was sexier than hell and I not only liked her I desired her. At that time I was married, meaning that intimacy could never happen. I know that this hurt her (and this would hit the fan about two years later, and what happened on that day ended our friendship and working relationship). Before the end we had spent a lot of time working on a then popular play called Butterflies are Free. It dealt with a blind man and the lady in his life. I learned a lot about blindness at that time and I used it in The Discovery. (photo © Louis Kraft 1973)

“Thanks,” she replied over her shoulder as she walked quickly toward Greg. When he didn’t look at her she tapped his shoulder. “Is that your dog outside by the fire hydrant?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

“No—YES!” She inhaled deeply. “Please don’t get upset, but I hit him with the bumper of my car while I was backing out of my parking spot.”

“Was he in the street?”

“No.”

“Then how did you hit him?”

“I guess I turned the wheel too sharply and my right rear wheel climbed the curb.”

“Good driving.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt him. Look, I checked him over and he seems fine but maybe you should come out with me and take a look at him.”

Greg stood and waved his hand, but didn’t move toward the door.

“Are you coming?”

“In a minute.”

The waitress Molly reached his table. He recognized her by her perfume. “Yes, my dear boy, what do you need?”

“I need to check Boots. Please keep my breakfast warm for me.” He turned to the woman. “Let’s go.”

She took his hand and began to lead the way. He pulled his hand free. “Whoa! What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t … I saw your … cane … and I thought that …” she stammered.

“Never mind. It’s an easy mistake. Look, I’m totally capable of walking to my dog.” He led the way using his cane and she followed him out the door.

Boots leaped up and gently nudged against Greg when he reached the fire hydrant. He smiled. “That’s a good sign,” he said to the woman. “Sit,” he ordered and the dog did. Greg began to examine his care keeper, pet, and best friend beginning with his snout. He then moved to his chest, abdomen, and back before moving to his legs and paws. “He seems fine,” he said over his shoulder.

The woman sighed. “Thank goodness! He must be one tough dog.”

“He should be. He spent two years in the army; he worked with a combat unit of the First Airborne Division. … I’ll check him again at home.”

“Can I take both of you to a vet?” she asked anxiously.

“No!” Although he couldn’t see her, he sensed that his sharp reply stung. “Boots is so damn smart that he would go there on his own if he felt hurt,” he continued in a soft voice.

She laughed but not loudly. “Can I at least take you to breakfast?”

“I was about to have it before you interrupted.”

“I meant …” she began, but couldn’t finish. “I mean, can I pay for your cold breakfast?”

He nodded and smiled smugly. “That you can, providing you join me.”

“I just ate—here as a matter of fact.”

“Understood. I still want you to join me … at the table.”

She smiled and nodded.

He waited but heard nothing. “Are you going to reply?” he asked.

“Oh! I’m sorry. I did, but I didn’t. Yes, I can join you.”

“Good. Lead the way.”

The woman opened the deli door, entered, and Greg followed her. As they sat down the waitress Molly appeared with Greg’s breakfast and coffee. “Now that’s what I call fast service,” Greg said.

“All of us poor waitresses here strive to please you, handsome boy.”

“Molly, give it a break.”

“Humph,” she mumbled as she walked away.

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LK at Tujunga House in the late afternoon on 29aug2015. The hair is long and I have become a shaggy dog. What can I say, other than that’s life and that I need photos with long hair for various reasons. Pailin says that I look like a hippie. My view: Like an ugly hippie. (photo © Louis Kraft 2015)

“She’s been hustling me for over a year now.”

“I know why. You are handsome.”

“Enough of this!” He took a slice of toast and broke off a corner, which he dipped into his semi-hardened egg yoke. “You know a little too much about me. Tell me about yourself.”

She gulped in a small breath. “I’m—I’m a little over …” She paused and then started again. “I’m forty-seven years old, overweight, divorced, with two kids in college, and unemployed.”

“Right,” Greg said dryly. “Now give the real sales pitch.”

She chuckled. “Okay, but remember that you asked for it.”

“I like this.”

“Hold on to your seat, handsome boy.

“I will. But first your name.”

“Gail Gordon. I’m twenty-eight years old, …”

“…and are speaking the truth this time?”

A few thoughts about The Discovery and my world

The above incomplete scene is innocent. I assume that all of us have had innocent times in our lives regardless of the end result. More often than not—at least for me—a lot of good beginnings never went anywhere. With hopefully not sounding too cliché everyone’s lives are different. Things happen and those happenings often direct the future of our lives. Sometimes we’re in control of those changes but often we aren’t. Decisions and events are key to our everyday life but also to the flow of our lives. Did I choose the right course for me? If not, where did I go astray? Could I have done better or did my past life seal my future? We live in a violent world; hell, I live in what could possibly called the vicious world of Los Angeles in 2015. People die violently every day in LA. Robberies are ongoing as are rapes against innocent victims. How many children in their yards, homes, or cars need to die by bullets meant for someone else? I can dig much deeper into the dark area where the last few sentences head, but I won’t (or perhaps I’d silently place a target on my back). … I grew up in a much more innocent time, and those were the good old days (of course, where I lived didn’t deal with racism; actually it wouldn’t have mattered for my parents had no racist thoughts). Those of you that have read my books and these blogs or know me personally know my stance on racism.

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I took this image of Pailin on 3oct2014 as John & Linda Monnett and she and I walked along the western ridge that presents a good view of the land where the Cheyennes and Arapahoes camped along Sand Creek in November 1864. It is a long walk just to reach the southern portion of where the village once stood. She is doing what she loves to do and that is documenting the people, events, and happenings in her life. Not too long ago she asked when our next research trip would happen. I know for a fact that it won’t be this year as our work loads are too large (and hers now includes six months of classes). When the time arrives I know that she’ll be ready to hit the road. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

The coming novel doesn’t deal with racism but there are hints of it on the edges of the pages. Rather it deals with a physician who has had a pristine medical career. Suddenly an event so far in his past that he can’t remember it triggers events that may end his life as he knows it. For someone who has always been in control he must now face a future in which he has little say. It’s more than frightening as his entire world disintegrates before his eyes. There’s really only one question: Will he and what is most important to him survive?

The Discovery is a medical malpractice thriller that is both intimate and truthful. It deals with subject matter that once was taboo in poplar fiction but perhaps is no longer so. That said it is harsh, to the point, and it will shock many of you. … I hope that you read it for it deals with real people in real situations. If not I understand.

Geronimo preempts the Sand Creek manuscript

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blog


I thought that I had completed my work on my “Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude” article for the October 2015 issue of Wild West magazine until I would proof the design layout. No! The article now requires more work. As must be expected the World History Group, which now owns the former Weider History Group’s stable of history magazines, is making major changes to the look and feel of the magazines. … This affects the entire publishing staff in Leesburg, Virginia, as well as the freelance writers that contribute to the magazines. This blog not only preempts my work on Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, it has also preempted my ongoing work on upcoming blogs.

Just for fun, a quick change of pace …

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Sudeshna Ghosh, my friend and former manager at SeeBeyond Technology Corporation and Sun Microsystems liked this image of LK (at left). Russ Williams, a writer, screenwriter, novelist, and friend dating back to the early SeeBeyond days and beyond also liked this image, which was taken earlier this year. I actually don’t like what I look like, and this simply means that my appearance constantly changes. That said I do like this image, which has appeared on other social media. Both Sudeshna and Russ liked the long hair (and long hair is decades in my past). Still pirates and frontiersmen wore their hair long, as did the Cheyennes and Apaches. Perhaps it is time for LK to belly up to the people he writes about. Ned Wynkoop, Kit Carson, George Armstrong Custer, Black Kettle, Geronimo, Bull Bear, Roman Nose, if I want to walk with you perhaps it is time that my hair is as long as you wore your hair. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2015)

I’m okay with birthdays except for mine, which I absolutely hate. Since mine is long past I feel safe mentioning it here. Most of you probably think that I’m a motor mouth. Not true. Actually there are many things that I keep very secretive. One happens to be my birthday. This is my least favorite day of the year. Mainly because it loudly proclaims: “Kraft, the clock is ticking and now you have XXX days left.” Not my favorite thought. … All this negativity finished, and since my BD is now far in my rearview mirror, I feel safe to post an image that was taken on that dreaded day at Tujunga House. I’m wearing the cool shades that Pailin had given me (the first non-prescription sunglasses that I’ve owned in 35 years). The new LK? Maybe. For how long? That is a great question for I don’t have a clue. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, or maybe next month. Flip a coin for any date beyond the end of May.

Life moves forward & as Ernest Hemingway proclaimed the sun also rises

All of my proposed blogs haven’t gone live. Why? There’s a reason, but I hate excuses for they are BS. Sorry, but ’tis the truth. Read to the end of this blog and you’ll have at least a hint of the upcoming blogs’ status.

Music plays a large part in my writing world (although I never used it while writing software documentation). … Alan Jackson, Michael Parks, Waylon Jennings, John Lennon, Rhiannon Giddens, Rihanna, Patsy Cline, Elvis Presley, Tex Ritter, John Anderson, world music (especially Andean, Chinese, and Native American), but perhaps my all-time favorites are film soundtracks (classic music too, but to a much lesser extent).

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An LK rendering of the final duel in Flynn’s Adventures of Don Juan (right). Something needs to be explained here, and it is very important. To succeed film duels must have three pieces in place: Choreography, performance by the actors and stunt men, and a great editor. If not, the film audience yawns and mumbles “ho-hum” before they fall asleep. I hate to say it but this most often happens, and especially in modern times. Trust me on this view. I learned how to fence while as a teenager I studied under Olympic competitor and film stuntman and choreographer Ralph Faulkner, fought saber competition in college, and as a professional actor learned stage combat and choreographed and fought duels. (art ©  Louis Kraft 2015)

This week Hugo Friedhofer’s musical adaptation for the film version of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (20th Century Fox, 1957, which has a great cast including Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, who I luckily interviewed before his death, Errol Flynn, Eddie Albert, and Juliet Greco) shares time with Blue, the obscure Manos Hadjidoakis score for the Terence Stamp Paramount Pictures western film (1968); Ernest Gold’s magnificent score for the 1960 Paul Newman film Exodus; Klaus Doldinger’s score for Das Boot (Columbia Pictures, 1981, which I saw on the day that it opened in San Francisco while playing Miles Hendon during a 135-performance tour of The Prince and the Pauper. … I accepted the role as it included me choreographing and fighting the duel, and better yet getting to say much of the dialogue that had been stolen from Flynn’s 1937 Warner’s film of the same name); and Max Steiner’s magnificently composed and conducted score of Errol Flynn’s Adventures of Don Juan (Warner Bros., 1948).

Progress on the Sand Creek manuscript

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In 1990 I moved to Thousand Oaks, California, and was soon after under contract to write The Final Showdown (Walker and Company, 1992). I had always excelled at art in school (no collage classes) and had even contracted artwork and attempted (“attempted” is the key word here) during the 1970s and 1980s to experiment. Nineteen-ninety was a key year for me as I decided to play around with pen and ink. This image of Ned Wynkoop (based upon an 1867 woodcut) was the result. It saw publication in Custer and the Cheyenne (Upton and Sons, 1995). (art © Louis Kraft 1990)

Ouch!!! I thought that perhaps I’d talk about progress writing about Colorado territorial governor John Evans, Rocky Mountain News publisher and editor William Byers and his wife Elizabeth, Episcopal Father John Kehler (the correct spelling of his last name) and Ned Wynkoop.

Nope. Not today.

Oh heck, … I don’t want to be a killjoy. At this point in time, Evans is standalone in the manuscript, but I know that he’ll have connections with Wynkoop and I’m certain with Byers. In one way or another, Byers, Elizabeth, Kehler, and Wynkoop are already connected or will be connected with each other. The question here is, what scenes of them together; especially between Byers and Wynkoop will make it into the draft and not be edited out of it by the time of the final delivery? Arrival timing in Denver for Byers, Elizabeth (different dates), and Kehler have proved problematical but I’m now good to go with them. Progress is good … and maybe even great (from my point of view).

For what it is worth, Byers, Wynkoop, Black Kettle, Little Raven, Colonel John Chivington, Evans, mixed-blood George Bent, and his father trader William Bent will most likely be the leading players in the manuscript. Hopefully others will also play leading or major supporting roles (my research is key here). At the moment Elizabeth Byers is by far my leading lady (unfortunately I just don’t have enough about her, the Cheyenne woman Mo-nahs-e-tah, or even Wynkoop’s wife Louise).

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LK & OU Press Editor-in-Chief Chuck Rankin at the Western History Association (WWA) convention in Newport Beach, Ca., on 17oct2014. (photo by Pailin Subanna-Kraft; © Louis Kraft, Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Chuck Rankin 2014)

OU Press editor-in-chief Chuck Rankin and I both want to highlight the women as much as possible. To do this, I need to find the information (if it exists). A fellow writer-historian Linda Wommack has offered to help with Elizabeth. I told her that I wanted to get what I knew about Elizabeth in place first, so that I don’t waste any of her time. Am looking forward to our upcoming (alas, long distance) time together. I have located a great image of Elizabeth that I want to use in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, but have seen it dated to both the mid-1860s and mid-1870s. Fingers are crossed that it dates to the 1860s, for if it is from the the 1870s it is out of the scope of the book and I won’t use it. Although I had purchased a low-resolution copy of the image I do not have the permission to post it. Too bad, for it is a great image.

What you see here is an invitation to speak up if you can share information about other key players in the Sand Creek story, including, but not limited to, trader and Cheyenne interpreter John Smith; Major Scott Anthony; Captain Silas Soule; Chivington’s subordinate officers in the Third Colorado (especially George Shoup); as well as other Cheyennes and Arapahos, such has Tall Bull, Bull Bear, Stone Forehead, Lean Bear, Little Raven, and Left Hand (BTW, a bio on Left Hand at times uses notes that are either inaccurate or don’t support the text, which makes the research questionable); Wynkoop’s subordinate Lieutenant Joseph Cramer; and Cheyenne mixed bloods Edmund Guerrier, Charley Bent, and Jack Smith. Over the years I’ve mined Anthony and Soule heavily at History Colorado and at the Western History Department at the Denver Public Library, but I’m certain that there is more on them that I haven’t seen.

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This image of Black Kettle was also an early LK attempt at illustrative art. It also was published in Custer and the Cheyenne. I placed it here just to grab your attention, as I want to bring the chief into the Sand Creek book as soon as possible and I don’t have much on his early life.

The goal is to bring the people in the manuscript to life. It is easier to do with participants that were verbal and left a lot of documentation in letters and other writing or had their actions constantly reported in the press. Guerrier was literate but didn’t leave much behind while George Bent left a goldmine of letters (all of which I have in house, either in his hand or in typescript form).

I know that I have said the following before, but it is worth repeating. I don’t write about good guys and bad guys. My opinion will not be in the book, but if I do my job properly the actions of the people I write about will allow you to form your own view of them. The following is also worth repeating: It is what a person does and not what he or she says about themselves that defines who they are or were.

Kit Carson is in LK’s future

I don’t think that Kit Carson is a supporting player in the Sand Creek story (he is minor at best), but he will be a major player in my writing future (anything you can share about Kit is of great interest to me, and at all times). As far as Kit goes, be warned for I believe that I have all of the books published about him in the 20th and 21st centuries. I also have the bio (in hardbound) based upon what he told DeWitt C. Peters in 1859, as well as a few other 19th century volumes that were accounts of a piece of time spent with Kit and not bios or dime novels. I’m especially interested in his relationship with Indians (yes, the plan is to follow how I wrote about Custer, Gatewood, and Wynkoop).

The World History Group flexes its muscles and takes a bite out of my ass

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LK art of Geronimo based upon the cover art that I created for Gatewood & Geronimo (University of New Mexico Press, 2000). This is just LK playing around with color and line. It isn’t very good and it will never be published. I view art as a learning process, and that is experimenting and trying to create an image that is decent. This is an ongoing process.

No, no, … no … NO!!! I received the World History Group contract for “Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude” (October 2015 issue of Wild West, and soon to go into production) on 27apr2015.

Editor Greg Lalire and I had already gone through our copyediting (which usually gets tweaked while in production) and we were good to go with the 3800-word feature. Just like in the IT software world, the times they change and to survive a writer must dodge and duck and go with the punches while standing upright. It’s called survival. Greg and I began our working relationship 20+ years ago. Over this time we have become good friends, and we help each other out when needed. Greg is doing what he can to survive the change happening with the 11 or 12 great history magazines that the World History Group now owns (I’ve been there and have done that way-too-many times in the software industry). Greg is a great editor, and he’s also a damned good writer. He will survive.

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I created this map for the “Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude” October 2015 Wild West article. If it is used, the contractor for Wild West, Joan Pennington, will create the final artwork (and she does good work). Back in 1999 I submitted one of the final pieces of art that was published in Gatewood & Geronimo to Wild West, it was recreated and published in the magazine with no credit (or payment to LK). I complained this time around, and if the map is published I will receive a “based upon” credit. Good, for this is the first time I have ever seen the Valenzuela ambush location and the Gatewood/Geronimo confrontation with Smith & Wood added to a map, and both are major pieces to the Geronimo story. (map © Louis Kraft 2015)

I study my contracts, and anything that is questionable, is not in line with what I want, or what has suddenly become a concern I confront immediately. The contract stated 3800 words. The “3800” was marked out in ink and replaced with “3200.” What? Did I lose 600 words and didn’t see the edit? I called Greg. My timing was perfect. He was typing an email to me that explained what had happened—and it got worse. The “3200” words is now “3000” words, and this word count would now be the maximum for a feature.

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Gregory J. Lalire’s dust jacket image for his novel: Captured: From the Frontier Diary of Infant Danny Duly (Five Star, 2014)

World History Group wants to mimic the Cowboys & Indians magazine, that is they want to obtain better advertisers. I consider the feature content in Cowboys & Indians as little more than fluff (which I can’t stand; oops, I shouldn’t have said that—disregard what you just read). Cowboys & Indians is big on color and images, and even bigger on good advertising. … That, ladies & gents is the future of Wild WestAmerican History and MHQ (three key magazines in my life) while keeping the same historical content these magazines have always had in the past.

My opinion doesn’t count here, for the publisher has every right to do what they think they need to do to stay in business. I agree with this, and as it was with the IT software companies, they need to survive to employ me.

While work is in progress Greg and I always keep good phone or email contact with each other. “Believe me,” he wrote me yesterday, “I know all about the pain of cutting, but as I found out in August, a story can still be strong at a shorter length.” (He is talking about the August 2015 issue of Wild West.)

I have 800 words to cut from a 3800-word article (that is a little over 20 percent of the word count). I will do what is required, and we’ll find out if the article still retains its impact. Hope so.

A few words on long overdue blogs …

For those of you who are wondering about upcoming blogs here’s an update. A blog dealing with what could be a major change in my writing world is ready to post (I just need reality and the future to merge in the present). …. Don’t ask, for I ain’t talkin’. The Thai walkabout blog continues to be written (and it will be an eye-opener, for you and for me, if I ever post it), and I have finally begun to draft the unscrupulous writer-historians blog (and it will not be vague, but to be honest this being posted is iffy at best—and you know the reason why). Trust me, for if I ever post the unscrupulous blog—and again, “if ever” are the key words—I will forever sit with my back to a wall with two Colts crossed over my chest like Wild Bill Hickok. People will be gunning for me and ifGod forbidmy life ends in violence it will be because someone is angry over what I have posted. This is not how I view my end so I hope and pray that my dark vision of my future never comes to pass.

A few people that know me believe one, and only one thing, about methat I’m good at dramatics. I don’t agree, but my fear of the future is out there, for knowing my past I am aware that unsavory events can and do happen.