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).

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

Writing, swords, Michael Parks, Errol Flynn, George Custer & gunfights with a pretty lady

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

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


Whoa baby, does time fly. Already we’re racing toward the end of June. By now I’m certain that some of you think that I am too harsh on writers, editors, art directors, and other people who play a part in my writing life. You may be right, but I must stand firm for my vision of my work. At times this means speaking up. And here all I’m talking about are my writing and art projects.

Unfortunately I live in a world that doesn’t take prisoners. … and I have friends—good friends—who also live in this world. Unfortunately there are people in our 2015 world that thrive by destroying writers and publications that don’t agree with their views while creating books and articles that aren’t even bad fiction.

Yes, I am harsh. The reason is simple: What I write I want to be as accurate and as good as possible. I’m slow, and this is one of the reasons why. Is this acceptable? I don’t know, but for me it is.

My life is busy. I have multiple projects, but as you have seen from the last blog I have eliminated time-consuming projects from my writing life.

A writing life

For what it’s worth my writing life has a schedule with deadlines. These deadlines all have long timeframes, and this is an absolute must for me for the reason stated above. Ladies and gents I have learned over many years the effort that is required for me to write hopefully a decent book. … That’s right, I’m only talking about myself here. I’m slow and my editors know this. They also know that I question everything. If I don’t agree with something that has been changed in my text I challenge it (and there’s always research first to confirm what I challenge).

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This Charles Gatewood painting is dated (art © Louis Kraft 2004). It has been printed four times, and it has earned needed dollars. Ladies and gents, we both know that I’m not a very good artist, But I keep trying. My best seller, believe it or not, is a portrait of Ned Wynkoop. It has been printed five times, and it has brought in a lot more money. I don’t give up for the simple reason that the efforts can earn additional money, and more important they can illustrate an event that is totally lost to the mists of time. For the record, I gave actress Olivia de Havilland an 8×10 print of this Gatewood painting and she liked it.

I do have a fuse, and at times it is a short one. I love my editors, every one of them except the clown assigned to Gatewood & Geronimo (University of New Mexico Press, 2000). His edit of the book put me into cardiac arrest. I wrote the manuscript and I do like simple language (short sentences when I get away with them, for the simple reason that they help making books page-turners. This edit of G&G angered me so much that I called the editor-in-chief, Durwood Ball, who had jumped upon the book query and stood behind the book every step of the way. Durwood listened to me, he would survive my demands, and we became good friends. For example, this copyeditor assigned to G&G took four or five of my paragraphs and merged them into one. Shorter sentences became long sentences. I wrote the manuscript, but now I couldn’t understand what I supposedly wrote. I had told Durwood that I was going to edit the copywriter’s edit. He accepted this, and I did. Some historians still believe that G&G is the best book that I have written. Maybe, but it’s not my choice. That said, I’m proud of the book for it placed Charles Gatewood on the map; that is it pulled him from the obscurity that General Nelson Miles damned him to for eternity. For the record (and I love the Cheyennes) if I could spend an hour, a day, a week, a month, or a year with an American Indian that I have written about, … It is, and it will always be, Geronimo. He was a magnificent human being (and I don’t give a damn about other people’s opinion of him). I wish I could share the portrait I recently painted of him. I can’t, for the October 2015 Wild West magazine may print it. Honestly, my fingers are crossed that they do. Until I do, and if it is positive, the image is off-limits until the magazine is printed and distributed.

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This is the Pailin that I see every morning (and this morning happens to be 17jun2015). Happy, sexy, and ready for anything that I might toss at her. I’m convinced that she thinks that I’m crazy. That’s okay, for crazy is good if it doesn’t hurt anyone. Maybe, just maybe, she’ll give in and learn to swing a blade. Maybe. Hope never flickers out. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2015)

Although I don’t write for companies any longer, my life comprises a lot more than just research and writing—It also includes four-to-five hours of yard work per week; doing housework (I’m home; why not?); most of the grocery shopping; completing the process of turning the front yard into a desert (ongoing for a long time); creating the new driveway to where Pailin now parks her car (good progress); and finally working on my health (a multi-leveled process that I created over the years, along with recommendations from my physicians; currently this takes close to four hours average per day—I’ll discuss it in the Thailand blog).

For the record, I’m not complaining for Pailin does more than her share of chores. More important, she had negotiated two days off, Wednesday and Thursday (a few weeks back she worked 21 hours on her two days off, and yes I was cursing). Wednesday and Thursday turned into Tuesday and Wednesday. Last week she worked on Wednesday and as of now she only has Tuesday off. This Tuesday (June 23) she goes into work at noon! I use off-color words, and we both know it. I’m biting my tongue, but not hard for there’s no blood squirting. The only plus is that she has made it clear that she really doesn’t want to go into work until the afternoon, and this seems to be working. At least so far. This cuts into my writing time, but it also gives me additional time with my lady.

Yeah, my days are long. They are also very fulfilling and I enjoy each and every minute.

“Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude” nears publication

Wild West editor Greg Lalire and I have a draft of the article that we are both good with, and fingers are crossed that there is enough space for the words.

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My daughter Marissa Kraft at the Fort Bowie National Historic Site in Arizona on 25jul1996. At the time I was writing Gatewood & Geronimo and she joined me on a 16-day research trip in Arizona and New Mexico. Great times. (photo © Louis & Marissa Kraft 1996)

In late May I completed three edits of the map that Wild West contract cartographer Joan Pennington created from the map that I submitted. I okayed the third draft the last week of May. I have nothing but kudos to say about Joan’s work. She accurately added what I considered key locations in Geronimo’s life that have never before seen the light of day in map form (see the map that I created for Joan to work from: Geronimo preempts the Sand Creek manuscript). It took hours and hours for me to pinpoint three of the locations: 1) The Valenzuela attack on Geronimo’s camp, 2) The Geronimo and Prefect of Arispe near shootout, and 3) The Gatewood confrontation with Lt. Abiel Smith while Geronimo watched.

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On 25jul1996 my daughter Marissa Kraft and I walked to the Fort Bowie National Historic Site in Arizona. If my memory is decent it was about a mile and a half walk each way. The previous night after she went to sleep the news announced that a mountain lion was seen in the area. That morning I wore a knife and when we started the walk I picked up two large branches from the ground. She asked me why and I told her that the branches could help us walk if needed. “What about the knife?” “I just felt like wearing it today.” It’s a great walk, but I remained alert the entire time but saw no evidence of the cat. We saw this memorial to Geronimo’s two-year old son as we neared the fort ruins. I never checked on the little boy, but if the dating is accurate he most likely took part in the final Chiricahua Apache outbreak from Turkey Creek in spring 1885. (photo © Louis Kraft 1996)

As everything is new with the World History Group and the Los Angeles design group that are calling the shots on the photos, art, and maps there are no guarantees of what will make it into “Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude” for the October issue of Wild West. I feel confident that Joan’s map of key Mexican locations in Geronimo’s life will make the issue. Fingers are crossed that my portrait of Mr. G will also be printed.

I have seen the August 2015 issue of Wild West (this is the first issue published by the World History Group) and I want to say up front that the August issue is one giant step forward. I love the look and feel of the magazine! More below on the new Wild West magazine.

I’m working on a bucket list in reverse order, as follows:

  • My last play, Cheyenne Blood, ran for five weeks in 2009. Although nothing has been officially pitched this is one place where I’ll never say “Never.” Here are two big reasons why:
    •  I have a great idea for a play on Errol Flynn.
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Johnny B. gave me this first edition of his story of Wild Bill Hickok joining Buffalo Bill Cody and Texas Jack Omohundro on the stage for one season when we got together in Santa Fe in 2005. It is a great character study. What I really like is when Hickok realizes that the flame from his revolver burns the dead actors on the stage. After that whenever possible he bends near a “dead” actor and fires his revolver so that the flame burns the deceased and brings them back to life on stage. Hickok finds his ad-libbing a hoot. It’s a funny bit and I’d like to do it too. I’m not sadistic; just fun-loving, especially with the knowledge that no actors (dead or alive) would be harmed.

•  Johnny D. Boggs wrote a terrific story about Wild Bill Hickok joining Buffalo Bill Cody’s theatrical troupe in East of the Border (Five Star, 2004). Since I read Johnny’s novel I’ve wanted to play Hickok. Most of my writing ideas take forever to become reality. For this to happen will take a miracle of selling on my part. Johnny Boggs and director Tom Eubanks if you read this open your ears to me.

I have ceased giving talks. My last talk dealt with Lt. Charles Gatewood finding Geronimo in Mexico in August 1886 and talking him into returning to the United States and surrendering for the last time (Order of the Indian Wars, Tucson, Az., September 2013). See Gatewood’s Assignment: Geronimo.

At the moment it appears that “Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude” may be my last article. No others are in progress and I have stopped pitching stories to magazines.

I’m good with the above, and trust me I never hold my breath for something that may never happen. There have been a lot of projects over the years that have gone belly up or never happened. Not because of me, but because of others. When I commit, I commit and deliver. In the acting and writing worlds much happens with great aspirations, but then far too often—Poof … Nada.

The new Wild West magazine, books & changes

First and foremost, the look and feel of the August 2015 Wild West magazine is terrific. This is the first issue of Wild West with the new design since the World History Group purchased the Weider History Group and its stable of history magazines earlier this year.

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The August 2015 issue.

I like the cover paper and interior paper, which have a different texture (the gloss is gone from the cover). Love the cover makeover! Simple design with a cool new Wild West banner, including “The American Frontier” subhead. I really like the cover art of the young outlaw Jesse James. Artist Robert Hunt created the portrait based upon a 10jul1864 image of the teenager.

The August issue contains five features, and they are well designed with photos and art. A portion of a Thomas Hart Benton mural the artist created for the Missouri state capitol building in 1936 covers the first two pages of “The State of Jesse James” by Jim Winnerman, and shows the James gang robbing a train and a bank. Another feature, “Allan Pinkerton: ‘They Must Die'” by Ron Soodalter also begins with an image (Pinkerton on horseback in 1862) covering the first two pages of the article. But in this article, which deals with Pinkerton’s efforts to end the James-Younger gang’s lawlessness Soodalter’s text begins on the first page in white ink over the dark shades of the image behind Pinkerton’s horse. I think these two pages are really pleasing to the eye. The magazine also prints images that cover a full page. For example: In the Pinkerton article there is three-shot of Frank James sitting between Jesse and Fletch Taylor, who posed for the image in a studio (perhaps in 1867).

I know a number of historian-writers that focus on the Indian wars, and on social media some of them have been critical of the change of hands of Wild West from the Weider History Group to the World History Group. What will happen to their articles? What will be the word count, and it has shrunk for features? Will their articles see print? Heck, what about the Weider History Group staff in Leesburg, Virginia? Will they survive? At the moment it looks as if they will, which is great news for all of us: Them, the freelance writers, and the readers of the magazine.

A few thoughts on change

Change is always nerve-wracking, and I know of what I say for I have lived through it way too often in my writing career. Sometimes I survived and sometimes I didn’t survive. The following are a few examples.

What should have been my first published nonfiction historical piece was accepted by a British history magazine, and it was a feature on George Armstrong Custer. This came about when the magazine did an article on Custer which included publicity photos from the Robert Shaw star turn in Custer of the West (1967) and I wrote the editor telling him that I didn’t write letters to the editor. I then banged the hell out of the article while pitching an article about “The Real Custer.” The editor jumped on the story, but the magazine went belly-up before publication and I had to track him down to get my photographs back. There’s a lesson here; if one publication was interested in a written piece most likely another publication will be interested in it—the writer just has to find another buyer. “The Real Custer” saw print in the December 1988 issue of Research Review. (At that time Research Review paid $100, which was a large reduction from what I would have made from Britain magazine, but the layout and design was much better than the British magazine was capable of doing.)

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LK with Jackie Johnson in Jackson, Wyoming, at the Western Writers of America convention in 1993 (Jackson Hole is the valley between the Snake River and the Teton Mountains). She liked the idea for The Final Showdown in Oregon in perhaps 1989. I was so dumb that when some three months later my agent asked if I had drafted three sample chapters. Oops! No. Jackie became friends with Marissa and I. We ate together at conventions, saw a play, And I spent good time with her at her office in Manhattan just before the first novel was published. (photo © Louis Kraft 1993)

My second novel was under contract but the publisher decided to drop their western line. I threatened to sue, but my then-agent talked me out of it as she was afraid that she’d be blacklisted and did what she could to convince me that I would be also. I consented but weeks later we parted company. This was a genre western that dipped into Navajo culture and history. I liked it (I still like it), but I never attempted to resell it. Reason: I felt that the story needed more than 65,000 words to tell it properly. It has since waited until I decide when that the time is right to expand it into a full novel. That time is still in the distant future.

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LK with a former coworker at Sun Microsystems. Actually I am sitting at the coworker’s desk but he wasn’t present. One or more of my coworkers, people I enjoyed knowing and respected, created this life-sized cutout of this fellow, who might have been on vacation on this day. I believe that the year was 2007, and one of three fellows took this image but I don’t remember who. BTW, I chuckled the entire day. Talk about being vague, … just one of my talents.

The software world is ever changing. Companies appear and succeed or fail, and often they sell out to larger companies (which usually makes the owners rich) or merge with larger companies or large companies purchase smaller companies (a reverse of the above). When this happens, often jobs disappear, and even more so in the 21st century when one job—let’s say a writing job—in the USA becomes two or three or four writing jobs in India or elsewhere. Or perhaps the USA job transfers to only one job in India, and the U.S. company pockets the rest of the salary (and perhaps makes a killing in benefits savings).

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Sun Microsystems bought SeeBeyond Technology Corporation in 2005. If my memory is correct this badge was created that year. Every software company that I worked for had tight security—something that I’ve always appreciated.

When this type of change happens it creates a nervous time, and I don’t care if it is in the space industry or elsewhere. I’ve seen huge cheers when a satellite is shown blowing up on TV news footage and the staff realizes that it wasn’t a satellite that they worked on and that their jobs are safe. In case you don’t know, space failure (and sometimes other IT failure) means that heads will roll as millions upon millions of dollars suddenly vaporize.

Don’t forget that when a company begins to flame out and spiral toward oblivion such as Sun Microsystems, or when a powerhouse (no example, … to protect the innocent—yours truly) operates on lies (I have proof but have no desire to go to war, a war I could never win regardless of what the documentation proves), heads roll and these deaths are not based upon quality of performance.

Back to Wild West magazine and other publishers

My hopes and prayers are that the staff in Leesburg, Virginia, survive the magazine transition from the Weider History Group to the World History Group. At this point in time it looks good for all concerned.

Will any of the above affect me? Doubtful. Life is what it is, and it always moves forward. Do I lose? Probably. No more publicity wherein I receive money for my efforts. Will I regret my decision as I move forward? Probably. Hey guys, I like magazine articles and have always done whatever was necessary to make the articles as good as they could be.

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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. The reason I have used this image here is because my views on race and Wynkoop have garnered me anger and hate over the years. At times when I’ve appeared—let’s say in Colorado—people will turn their backs to me. The Discovery isn’t about racial hatred, but there is a crime in the story that isn’t racial, and yet it is. Bob Goodman and I are happy with our manuscript. At the same time we are aware that the content may anger people. The story of my life. Hell, ladies & gents, if I can’t push you as far as I can, why bother? (photo Louis Kraft 2004)

Yes, but I have always angered staff members at publications. It wasn’t because I wanted to upset or threaten staff members but rather because I wanted to challenge them and myself to create the best story and design possible. Egos are involved, and often people don’t realize that I have a lot of experience in what they consider their expertise. They don’t like being challenged, for as far as they are concerned they know what is acceptable. They don’t want to push words or a design layout to the extreme; they just want to get their job done and go home.

I’m sorry, but for me this isn’t acceptable.

And the above isn’t limited to magazine articles, for it extends to talks (which I believe must turn on listeners and not put them to sleep) as well as books (which for me are my main focus). Book production teams think a lot less of me than magazines or those who have been brave enough to allow me to speak for their events.

The bottom line, and I’m talking about anyone and every speaking engagement, magazine, or book publisher that has hired me. All I care about is the best product possible. That’s it; I’ve never said or done anything to hurt you. Never. The final product, be it a talk, article, or book is and has always been all I care about.

For those of you who have hired me. Thank you, and I say this from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.

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Pailin and LK returned from an extended research trip to the West on 16oct2014. The next day we drove to the Western History Association convention in Newport Beach, Calif. I knew that John Monnett would be there (John and his wonderful wife Linda welcomed us with open arms at their home in Colorado during the trip). I wanted to see him. I also wanted to see Chuck Rankin (editor-in-chief at OU Press), had hoped that Durwood Ball who is now editor of the New Mexico Historical Review and a good friend would be present (he was), and spent prime time with Clark Whitehorn (current editor-in-chief at U of NM Press). … Pailin saw the Wynkoop book, which Chuck and OU Press still push, and she snapped this image. … Good news to report from OU Press. Managing editor Steven Baker recently contacted me and Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek will be published in paper in mid-July. (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

As for my book publishers present and in the future, you know me. But if you don’t, it’s on you for not doing your research and learning. I’m certain that you want the best book published, and I’m with you on this 100 percent. Know that when you contract with me that I intend to do everything possible to ensure that the book that you and I have partnered on will be the best publication possible. You need to know that I will take an active part in the entire publishing process. There are no shortcuts for me, and I do know the process (and have lived it for some twenty plus years in the software publishing world, and I’m not just talking about my freelance publishing experience, which is thirty years). I have actively made the choice to eliminate pieces of my writing life as I consider books the major part of my artistic world. The future is out there and I have made my decision of what my future is.

Book publishing departments I’m not your enemy; I’m your friend for my goal is the same as yours. Don’t get upset and don’t attack, for I’m working with you to get the best possible product printed. This has nothing to do with ego and has nothing to do with me trying to show you up. I’m a part of your team, and everything I write, submit, or suggest is to improve the final product. That’s it, … that’s all.

TV, swords, Michael Parks, Errol Flynn, and George Armstrong Custer

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In the pilot for Then Came Bronson Michael Parks sang “Wayfarin’ Stranger,” which is my favorite song of all time, with Bonnie Bedelia singing backup. BTW, the pilot for the TV series was released in Europe as a feature film. The producers quickly realized that they had another element in the development of a loner coming to terms with life as he explored the western USA on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, and that was adding a Parks’ song to each episode. It worked, for Parks sang country blues like no one before him (and to my knowledge no one since). Michael apparently prefers blues linked to jazz (moving away from the music that I love). This image of Parks, which was taken on 22may1970 (and is completely copyrighted, and trust me you don’t want to steal it for in court you will lose) was shot at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. I had paid good money for what I thought would be good seats. No! We were halfway back in the auditorium. I had a bright idea, and suggested to my guest that we kneel down in front of the first row and lean against the stage. We did this, weren’t asked to leave, talked with Michael, and obtained some great images from his concert. I would luckily work with Parks in the future, and got to know him. (photo © Louis Kraft & Joan McGirr 1970)

I’ve been around for a long time, and over the years I haven’t been impressed with TV shows. There are only four TV shows that have caught my interest over the years. Michael Parks’ Then Came Bronson (1969-1970); The X-Files with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson (1993-2002); The Mentalist with Simon Baker and Robin Tunney (2008-2015) may be my favorite of all time, but this is a toss up with Then Came Bronson; and The Musketeers (2014-2015) with Luke Pasqualino (as d’Artagnan) and Santiago Cabrera (as Aramis). Other than Then Came Bronson (which I tried to watch, but unfortunately couldn’t catch all of the episodes), I haven’t watched any of these programs when they aired. I saw a handful of episodes of The X-Files and maybe four or five episodes of The Mentalist. My viewing TV count of The Musketeers is zero. Great plots, actors, and series, but luckily none of them had (or have) counted upon my loyalty to survive.

Something needs to be said right here. I’m only writing about one actor, Errol Flynn (and in the first volume Olivia de Havilland is a major supporting player). If ever I were to write about another actor, it would be Michael Parks. He was a rebel who could act, and best yet he dared to stand firm for what he believed. His story should be told. I luckily got to work with Michael in 1978 on a TV film that hoped to lead to a series (Turnover Smith, Turnover Productions). It aired in 1980, but didn’t lead to a series, and that is too bad. Good times for LK, and there are stories to be told here, among which is the rap against Parks for what I saw it was pure bullshit. … Michael is still working and looks physically great. That said if ever I am to follow up on this book idea I need to get off my rear end and re-connect with him. Now.

I presume that by now you know that I love the sword and swashbuckling. At the beginning of this year I was in a Best Buy (which I think may disappear in the not-too-distant future; another victim of changing times) and saw the first season for The Musketeers on sale for ten bucks. It’s a BBC production and I hadn’t heard of it or any of the actors.

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DVD cover for the second season of The Musketeers. From left on top image: Santiago Cabrera, Howard Charles (as Porthos), Luke Pasqualino, and Tom Burke (as Athos).

But how can you go wrong with Alexander Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. The story is a classic. Although Errol Flynn did a recording of one of the ongoing plot lines he never played d’Artagnan on film. Too bad, for at the time of Flynn’s The Prince and the Pauper (Warner Bros., 1937), he would have been perfect casting for this role. Ten bucks. Hell, if it was the worst TV show that I ever saw it would certainly be worth the expense just to study the swordplay (good or bad). This comes from a cynic, for easily 90 percent of the swashbuckling productions that I’ve seen on film or on TV are little more than jokes. Poor scripts, bad or low budget production values, and worse—piss-poor acting and swordplay. Yeah, I’m a cynic for easily nine out of ten films or TV productions that I have seen are an embarrassment. They aren’t classic, they aren’t good, and I don’t give a damn how much money they earn, or don’t earn (for profits mean nothing when talking about quality). Apples and oranges, no more and no less.

And this carries over onto the stage. After Dr. Kildare (1960s TV series) Richard Chamberlain went off and studied acting. He became a good actor, and since he chose to be classically trained he would soon play leads on stage and in historic films, TV movies, and mini-series. A number of them would be swashbucklers and eventually he landed the role of Aramis in Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers. Two films shot at the same time but then split into two films. That’s right two films for the price of one. The actors didn’t agree, took the producer to court and won a second salary for their efforts. I agree with this judgment. Chamberlain, Oliver Reed, and Michael York, among others, excelled. The films are exciting, and I like them. However, if any of these actors attacked me and thrashed around with their swords as they did on film I would have simply stood there and watched them slash and swoosh with their rapiers and then would have simply extended my arm and pierced their hearts without raising a sweat. Adios amigos. Ve con Dios (Go with God).

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A publicity photo from Chamberlain’s less than spectacular performance as the world’s greatest duelist at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in 1973.

The bottom line: I saw Chamberlain play Cyrano de Bergerac on stage at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles (eighth row center) in October or November 1973 (I also saw Mr. C play Henry IV in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I in 1972 at the Ahmanson). Cyrano has a big nose; he is also the greatest duelist in France. This is a classic play, and every actor who swings a blade wants to play Cyrano. The key duel in the play begins and it is fought as if the actors hold foils (parry and thrust; no slashing) even though it looks as if they hold rapiers. It is boring (and I’m being kind here). Chamberlain’s blade is broken. Oops! I don’t know if we call performers who have zero lines or only as few extras on the stage or not. Anyway, an extra or an actor with a minimal role walked to Chamberlain and handed him his blade so that Richard could continue the duel. Hell, he should have flipped his blade to Chamberlain and Mr. C. should have caught it with a flourish before charging his opponent. No such luck. The dull duel continued and ended as expected and I wanted to go to sleep. I can name two Chamberlain performances that I think the world of; as mountain man Alexander McKeag in the miniseries Centennial (1979) and as Father Ralph de Bricassart in the miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983). Chamberlain is a good actor, and he has proved this time and again. Unfortunately I never worked with him.

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Wayne Maunder as George Armstrong Custer in Custer (or The Legend of Custer, 1967; 20th Century Fox pilot plus 17 episodes). The pilot was a joke. I don’t think I’ll waste any words talking about it and the TV series was worse. That said Maunder played the ideal Custer, as this newspaper clipping from the 1960s shows. Maunder is wearing a cool hat; methinks that perhaps I need Baron Hats in Burbank, Calif., to create it for me, … or should my next hat be Flynn’s hat used in the early scenes of Dodge City (Warner Bros., 1939)? Decisions, decisions. What’s a writer to do?

What do I mean? Simply, most productions have B-film scripts and most of the actors aren’t A-actors. Forget the production value, for often there isn’t/wasn’t any. Swinging a blade (like riding a horse on film) requires that the actors learn how to do it. Unfortunately most don’t. A perfect example of this is Gary Cole playing George Armstrong Custer in the mini-series based upon Evan S. Connell’s The Son of Morning Star (Republic Pictures Television, 1984). Connell’s book was loaded with factual errors (Over 150 and counting in the first printing; I believe that most of them were fixed in subsequent printings), but he was a good writer and could tell a story. His book, published by an obscure publisher, became a national best seller and did wonders for Custer and the American Indian wars. What can I say about the mini-series? Many of the supporting actors were much better than Cole, who had no clue of who Custer was. Ditto Rosanna Arquette, who played Libbie Custer. She actually stated that she didn’t respect the historical figure she portrayed. Too bad, but hell I don’t respect her, and I spent perhaps four weeks working with her and Richard Thomas in a TV film remake of Johnny Belinda (1982). Good money for me, plus Thomas and I became friends, which would almost impact my screenwriting career—almost, but no cigar. And Thomas tried, for he liked several of my screenplays but didn’t have the clout to get enough money people interested to raise what was needed to move the scripts into production.

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Errol Flynn’s They Died With Their Boots On (Warner Bros., 1941) and Robert Shaw’s Custer of the West (Cinerama Releasing Corporation, 1967) played at the Beverly Cinema on Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles on June 14 & 15, 2015 (and this was the theater’s ad).

They Died With Their Boots On (Warner Bros., 1941) is one of Flynn’s best films and it constantly juggles with Adventures of Don Juan (Warner Bros., 1948), The Sea Hawk (Warner Bros., 1940), and Gentleman Jim (Warner Bros., 1942) for EF’s best performances on film. His role as George Armstrong Custer links with the boxer Gentleman Jim Corbett, the lover and swordsman Don Juan de Maraña, Captain Geoffrey Thorpe (read the pirate Francis Drake), and the aristocratic Soames Forsyte (in The Forsyte Woman, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1949) as roles that he wanted to perform.

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I had taken some photos of the Beverly Cinema in daylight as the box office opened at six o’clock (got one or two good daylight shots  that I will use in the future), but decided that I wanted a night image. More dramatic. (photo © Louis Kraft 2015)

They Died With Their Boots On (TDWTBO) is a great film that played a major role in my future. I’ve always liked Robert Shaw, and he made some good films, including Jaws (Zanuck/Brown Productions, Universal Pictures, 1975), and The Deep (Columbia Pictures, 1977). Unfortunately Custer of the West isn’t a good film. Let’s just flip that statement, Mr. Shaw played Custer in a bad film.

On Sunday, June 14, 2015 I saw TDWTBO the Beverly Cinema. A good time as I got to hang out with a friend, something that time and circumstances often prevents. We saw Flynn’s Custer on the large screen for the first time in a long while (for me, at least a decade and maybe more). Afterwards we talked about Custer and Flynn, and as we got trapped in a major traffic jam after seeing Flynn’s Custer (we didn’t stick around for Shaw’s Custer) it gave us more time to chat. Actually Highland Avenue was a total mess and we detoured to the south before moving east to attempt getting out of LA via Laurel Canyon.

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The February 2008 issue of American History.

BTW, I hate this 1941 Warner Bros. one-sheet of TDWTBO. In February 2008 American History published a feature of mine (“Custer: The Truth Behind the Silver Screen Myth”) that compares Flynn’s Custer to the real GAC, and the findings are surprising (this was the best of three articles I wrote about the comparison: Errol & Olivia will deal with this in detail). The art director for American History clipped an oval of Flynn from this one-sheet (see image above) and used it in the article. I hated it and fought to have it removed. I lost. That said this is one of the best articles I have ever written.

Let’s pick on Johnny Depp and his Captain Jack character.

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Signed photo of Depp from the first Pirates of the Caribbean film (2003) in LK personal collection.

Johnny’s a good actor, and he takes chances. Period. Unfortunately he didn’t learn how to swing a blade for what will probably be the character we remember him for playing (and he’s made four Pirates of the Caribbean films, and there’s a fifth on its way to release). I like the first film a lot for it was inventive, had a few good (and non-cliché characters), and it grabbed my interest. Depp couldn’t sword fight, and neither could the insipid young actor who played the love interest (he’s not worth mentioning). It would get worse in the following three Pirates films (and it is painfully obvious that Depp isn’t doing any sword fighting). I’m picking on Depp, but he’s not alone. We can go back to a pretty big film star from the golden age of film (the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s) and look at Robert Taylor’s swashbuckling films. Guess what, Mr. Taylor wasn’t doing much with a blade either.

Hey, the bottom line on film is: If you can’t see the actor’s face on the screen,
the actor didn’t perform what you are watching. I don’t care if they are
naked or are riding a horse or are swinging a blade. To repeat, if you
can’t see their face they didn’t act in the scene (or at least not all of it)
that you are watching. Simple; a film double or a stunt double
played the scene (and I know what I’m talking about).

Ladies and gents, there are only a handful of actors (heroes and villains) who could wield a blade. This is a very short list. Of the actors from the golden age of film (Errol Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Stewart Granger, Basil Rathbone … four fellows; and maybe the dancer Gene Kelly and heartthrob Tyrone Power; I’ll have to check Kelly but other than The Sun Also Rises, 20th Century Fox, 1957, I have none of Power’s films in-house). That’s it. From the 1960s to the time of Richard Lester’s series of swashbuckling films in the 1970s, zero. Lester’s actors, who were mostly English (Oliver Reed, a good actor at all times; Michael York, Frank Finley, and Christopher Lee) and the American Richard Chamberlain worked at preparing for the Lester films.

Basil Rathbone said in a recorded interview that, “I could kill Mr. Flynn anytime I wanted.” (I don’t know if this quote is accurate but it is close.) Really? I chuckle over this every time I hear or read the quote.

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Mr. Rathbone is stiff on film, and it is obvious that he is/was concentrating on what he learned in his fencing lessons (and according to him, he studied the sword for years away from the studios). Sword fighting—real sword fighting—is considerably more than learned technique. It is taking what you have learned and using it to not only stay alive but to disable or kill the person attacking you. In film, the actor must sell this to the audience, and Flynn could do this. Knowing Flynn’s life cycle intimately I’ll take him any day in a real duel to the death with Rathbone. … But Rathbone does hit the mark with his words of his capability to kill a fellow actor but we must wait until the 1970s and Lester’s swashbuckling films for here the movements by the swordsmen are so large and exaggerated that Mr. Rathbone could have easily eliminated Chamberlain and the other heroes without breaking a sweat.

Too bad, … I guess, as I like Lester’s two Musketeer films and have nothing but praise for his Crossed Swords (a much better retelling of Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper than Flynn’s 1937 version with Oliver Reed playing Miles Hendon). I like Reed’s acting, and in my humble opinion his Miles Hendon is the best role he played. Totally convincing.

Gunfights with a pretty lady …

I hope that my schedule as listed above doesn’t throw you off or give you the wrong impression. I’m thrilled with my life. I have Pailin, hopefully Marissa, and my writing. That’s a lot. I’m thrilled and very happy. What more could a man ask for?

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Oh yeah, this is LK’s pistol-packin’ lady at Tujunga House. This is not a Photoshop enhancement. I’ve been seeing a lot of people on social media blame this great program for doing things that it didn’t do. Just so you know, I’ve been using Photoshop since the mid-1990s and it is my favorite program. This image was created in the camera and is a total operator error by LK. That’s right, yours truly messed up big time. I had no intention of turning the 1860 Army Colt into a canon or of shrinking Pailin into a dwarf. That said, I had to share this image as Pailin and I laugh every time we look at it. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2015)

Pailin is game for almost everything. Almost everything, but not sword fighting. Never say “never.” Trust me, for I have no intention of giving up trying to get her to cross blades with me. Someday I’ll get my way. When that time arrives I’m certain that she’ll enjoy herself and ask what took me so long to get her to change her mind.

How many of you have a shootout deep in the night when your lady returns home? Sometimes she shoots me; sometimes I shoot her. … With our fingers, which become pistols when we see who has the quickest draw or who exhibited the best stealth on any given night.

“Bam, bam, bam!” Pailin yells. “I got you!” I grab my chest and fall against the wall before sliding to the wooden floor, or Pailin grabs her stomach and slumps onto Saltillo tiles. This gunfight could have happened on a boardwalk in early Denver or in a former hacienda outside of Santa Fe.

psk_lk_fingerColtMontage_4jun15_wsRecently, after working on balance and strength while studying The Mentalist, I sat in a leather chair beside the piano, which is to the left of the front door, while I iced my feet. The night was early; before ten-thirty. I heard a click. Or did I? All it took was a split second. Too late—too late … before the sound registered. I fired with my left hand, but Pailin had opened the door, saw where I sat, and shot before I did. She smiled as she added another notch to her revolver.

It is always different, always. Not long back I prepared for bed and I heard her car pull into its new parking place behind the house. I raced for the kitchen and waited in darkness. A minute, perhaps two or three passed before I heard Pailin enter. She entered the computer room and carefully leaned through the archway. What she saw confirmed that I wasn’t in one of two possible locations. She slowly stood upright from her crouched stance. I stepped from the darkness behind her and fired, “Bam-bam-bam.” She turned around, laughed, and dropped onto the tile.

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PS-K gunning for LK in Tujunga House on 17jun2015 (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2015)

My favorite happened not too long back. I had already gone to bed, but always leave a light on in the bedroom so that Pailin can see. I hadn’t gone to sleep when I heard the front door open. I didn’t have much time and quickly stuffed a bunch of pillows under the blankets to hopefully represent where I slept. I then tiptoed to the right of the door entry into the bedroom. Leaning against the wall I waited for when I would shoot my pretty wife. HA!!! … And for those of you who live in dangerous areas or who write fiction (or fact) take note for what follows. I heard Pailin move through the archway and slowly, carefully step toward the bedroom. Seconds ticked by, but there was no sound, and yet I knew that she had to be moving forward. No matter, for as soon as she stepped through the doorway I’d shoot. So much for best laid plains, for Pailin leaped into the bedroom as she whirled to her left and shot me. Afterwards I asked her how she knew where I was. She pointed at the mirror above a small table that faces the doorway. She had seen me lurking and waiting to ambush her as soon as she stepped into the hallway. … Talk about feeling like a tenderfoot. How would I have survived in Dodge City? Probably not. I would have been an easy mark for John Wesley Hardin.

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LK turning and fanning his revolver at PS-K in Tujunga House on 18jun2015 (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2015)

One more gunfight. At the time of this shootout I do believe that Pailin had more notches than I did. I’m the man. I’m Wild Bill Hickok, I’m Doc Holliday, … I’m supposed to win. And I wasn’t. I decided to plan our next engagement. When Pailin hadn’t arrived home by eleven and I was still awake, I decided what I’d do when she arrived. I pulled one of the chairs out from the dining room table and went back to bed. I dozed but couldn’t drift into a good sleep. Nearing the midnight hour the headlights of Pailin’s Honda caught my attention. I reacted slowly. Finally it registered that she had arrived. I stumbled out of bed and hustled to computer room, just as I heard a key in the front door. I ran to the dinning room and struggled to get under the table. I waited in the darkness. Minutes passed. Where was Pailin? I knew, while not knowing. She stalked me but everything came up blanks for her. Finally she walked into the kitchen and turned on the light. She then stepped into the dining room and placed one of her packages on the table before returning to the kitchen. I knew that she intended a careful search and didn’t want to wait. I pushed the chair with its back to the kitchen and opened fire. She turned, took the blanks and fell backwards against the archway to the laundry room before slowly dropping to the tiles. “You’re bad,” she whispered as she laughed. “You’re bad.”

After all our gunfights we laugh and hug and kiss. Great fun, and best of all it adds another level to our relationship.

Upcoming deadlines & comments

The Discovery still dominates my life (and will for some time yet), but some of my tasks on my plate have become inflated, and they shouldn’t be (see below). I had initially misjudged how long it would take me to write a character-driven medical-legal malpractice thriller (based on Dr. Robert Goodman’s story). As the plot stretches from the early 1950s to the early 1970s, the novel is a period piece, and as such has required a lot of research on my part to keep the place and time accurate. For example, the California 101 freeway, that begins east of downtown Los Angeles, cuts through the Cahuenga Pass and into the San Fernando Valley (BTW, if you don’t know the “Valley” is a major piece of both the city and county of LA), before moving northward to Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Bob had the lady who would give life to a major player in the plot riding on this freeway in 1952. One problem, the freeway hadn’t been completed yet.

The Discovery

Before talking about The Discovery, I want to say something about Bob Goodman. I’ve known him for almost 25 years and he has played a major role in my health. Over time we realized that we liked each other and our time together began to include subjects other than medicine. Beginning in 2010 I began doing writing consulting for Bob, and in November 2013 he asked me if I wanted to partner on The Discovery. Although I didn’t know where his manuscript was heading I was familiar with the first 100 pages. I liked the story idea and its potential and agreed (but there was an extra incentive—I needed money to pay for a surgery I didn’t know about). This decision has cost me a lot of time in the last year and a half but I’m thrilled that I accepted Bob’s offer for I think we have a unique story that will be a page-turner. … I had been considering a major return to fiction and The Discovery has become the perfect starting point. I couldn’t be happier with our collaboration, and what I now know is getting close to the final product.

Disclaimer: If The Discovery were a feature film it would carry an R rating.

**********

I thought I had begun my polish of The Discovery on 21may2015 (I had hoped to start it in April but I had not yet collected the reviews I requested). That said, I figured I had an outside chance of finishing my polish early in June.

No!

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LK walking on the San Diego coast when the sea and beach are fogged in. This is one of my favorite things to do—having  the California coast almost to myself. The beach is empty as it usually is in early morning (and sometimes in the evening), and my companions are the roll and sound of the incoming sea. I’m at one with me, and this is where I want to be. I can smell and watch and think, and this is a glimpse into my writing and real world. A great friend of mine, George Carmichael, took this image. I lost George in spring 2014, and I still struggle with his moving on. We met at a fiction writing class at UCLA in 1997 and we were at loggerheads. Who could have guessed that for the rest of his life we’d become great friends. I need to talk about George. Soon. This image is full frame and is as George shot it in March 2001. (photo © Louis Kraft 2001)

On 23may2015 I began to slowly polish chapter 9, which is the introduction to Greg Weston, who is a key player in the story. The chapter heading states Motor Avenue, but on the first page Weston is walking toward the deli that he often visits with his dog. He is walking on Pico Boulevard, which is a major east-west street in Los Angeles.

Yikes! How did I miss this? Motor Avenue starts at (or dead-ends at Pico Boulevard, at the Fox Studio, which was formerly 20th Century Fox). Moving south Motor Avenue cuts through a golf course and then turns west before meandering west and south. When a street name that Bob had created and I discovered didn’t exist anywhere south of the golf course he told me that he knew the area and it was perfect for the story. We decided to go vague on the street name for Weston’s house. But the house and its location (as is key in later chapters) was two short blocks from a deli where Weston is a semi-celebrity (again, this is on LK, for I totally missed Weston walking on Pico Boulevard at this point in the story, and Pico was in Bob’s text that I used as an outline for the manuscript).

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A George Carmichael portrait of LK at Tujunga House in 1994. Two images from this session would be used in Custer and the Cheyenne: George Armstrong Custer’s Winter Campaign on the Southern Plains (Upton and Sons Publishers, 1995). This image, along with others, has been exiled to obscurity for decades only to be recently found. It was taken in the Tujunga House computer room, and the desk still exists. If the photo was taken today, framed images would be seen on the wall in the background. (photo Louis Kraft 1994)

On that same May 23rd it finally sank in that Weston walking on both Motor and Pico was wrong as it was just too long of a walk. This realization sent up a red flag and I started to study maps again. Maps showed no businesses and I moved to the Google maps that are aerial photos. The entire area is totally residential. No businesses, and I kept moving south and west, … and I passed the Beverly Hills Country Club.

Before saying what I saw, I had sometime in 2014 questioned people watching golfers while eating at the Beverly Hills Country Club and Bob confirmed that this was true and that they could. Beginning with chapter 8, the Beverly Hills Country Club plays a major set piece in the story, and it is often listed as the “Beverly Hills Country Club, Cheviot Hills, California” in the three-line subheadings to the chapters. The Beverly Hills Country Club is instrumental to the story, and it has been in place since I partnered with Bob. I can’t tell you how many reviews Bob Goodman has performed, but there are a lot—five, or maybe six.

When I discovered the Motor/Pico error I began looking for information. … The Google aerial photo of the Beverly Hills Country Club shows that this club offers tennis and swimming. Going to their website I learned that it opened in the mid-1920s and that Errol Flynn, among other film celebrities, often frequented the club. This makes sense as Flynn was a great tennis player and often paired with Bill Tilden and other tennis pros of the 1930s and 1940s or played against them in single competition. Also, Flynn loved to swim and did until his death.

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This is John McGirr, MD. He became my family doctor when my parents moved from New York to California and settled in Reseda about 1954. His office was originally in Encino but would eventually move to Tarzana, named after novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs most famous character, Tarzan of the apes. He was a physically fit man who loved golf, and was a good golfer. This image of him was taken at the Calabasas Country Club. I knew the club intimately as Dr. McGirr would become my father-in-law (1971) and would remain so until his death in 1987. I don’t know who the other two people in this photo are. (photo © Joan McGirr 1970s)

You can’t watch golfers while eating at the Beverly Hills Country Club. Period!

More digging, and guess what—sometime in the past the Beverly Hills Country Club partnered with the Calabasas Country Club, which is in the hills south of Ventura Boulevard on the west side of the San Fernando Valley. I know this country club, as my father-in-law, John McGirr, MD, was my family physician since the mid-1950s. Dr. McGirr remained my physician until shortly before he died in 1987.  He was a major physician in the San Fernando Valley until his retirement about a year before his death. He was a great golfer and a member of the Calabasas Country Club (which opened in 1968). The club had a minimum amount that a member had to spend in the restaurant each month. I don’t know what that minimum was, but probably six times a year my ex-wife and I would join McGirr and his wife for dinner at the club. Great food.

The above was not a small blip on what I thought would be a polish of the manuscript, for it now required a major rewrite by me, which also included Doris Goodman’s three comments: 1) Make one of the doctors 62 and not 52, 2) Reduce the amount of the Spanish dialogue, and 3) Allow the leading player to have two drinks at the end of the story. Doris’s comments are valid. The doctor aged by 10 years, but I had to be careful that this played forward smoothly. The Spanish I dealt with as I saw fit. My reason: I didn’t want to write cliché gang members (read: Evil people). Instead, I wanted the golf pro to deal with his situation and a foreign language, which in itself can be frightening when a person doesn’t know what is being said. As for the leading player drinking at the end of the story, it meant a major rewrite of his wife and unfortunately not a satisfactory answer to alcoholism. I came up with what I considered a decent fix here, and hopefully Bob and Doris will agree.

Two deadlines with dates

I have a contract with OU Press to deliver the Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway  manuscript on 1oct2016 (and it included a nice advance). Luckily progress is being made with both research and writing.

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Art of the tower of the great building that became the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles, California. (art © Louis Kraft 2014)

That said, photocopy requests of the research I performed at what will soon be the former Braun Research Library at the Southwest Museum in June 2014 still hasn’t arrived. Although staff worked on my copy requests during my 12-day visit, the estimated date of delivery is now August 2015. That says it all, other than to add that my thoughts aren’t printable. This is not good for me, but that’s life and I must roll with the punches (and excuses). I have another delivery almost a month earlier—Pailin’s and my application for her permanent Green Card. This will require a lot of work by LK and Pailin, and there is no room for error. I know how much effort it took both of us to land Pailin’s initial two year (but temporary) Green Card in September 2014, and I know how much of our time will be devoted to the September 2016 meeting with U.S. Immigration. Failure is not an option. … Unfortunately, when Immigration set the second Green Card deadline, the Sand Creek deadline was already in place (honestly, I don’t think I’ll be sleeping the entire summer of 2016).

Back to The Discovery

I’m sorry, but I’m not the happiest person at the moment for during the rewrite, which was supposed to be a polish I made the Beverly Hills Country Club discovery (which unfortunately has been in place since before I came on board). This, along with a vodka discovery, which like the Beverly Hills Country Club I didn’t research as I had mistakenly thought that Bob had his facts correct here. … I checked a lot of the words and locations for historical and factual accuracy but I didn’t check the club or the vodka. That’s on me (hell it wouldn’t have been more than an hour or two of work, but I didn’t do it). I’m glad that I discovered the country club error and that Bob’s daughter-in-law, who wasn’t on the reviewing list (a surprise to me) pointed out that the vodka in the manuscript didn’t exist yet. If ever I meet her, she is going to get a big hug from me.

I still need to perform a polish, and that will begin on July 3 as I need time and space before reviewing the manuscript again. With luck I’ll get through 50 pages per day, which means that the polish will take approximately 10 days. … Fingers are crossed that there are no more surprises.

The mists of reality dance in and out of my writing world

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

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


LK is pounding the keys on Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, but as usual I juggle my major projects. The Discovery has demanded a lot of my time over the last year and a half, but now that the novel’s prose has reached the polishing stage it demands less (although I still have a lot to do before it sees publication).

I plan on spending some time dealing with writing hacks and technical writing.

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A publicity photo taken on 24mar2002 for the first Wynkoop one-man play. I had the hat designed from an 1867 woodcut of Wynkoop that appeared in the 11may1867 issue of Harper’s Weekly. (photo © Louis Kraft 2002)

This means that Black Kettle, Tall Bull, Lean Bear, William Byers, John Evans, John Chivington, Charley, George and William Bent, John Smith, Silas Soule, and of course that ol’ blackguard Ned Wynkoop will dominate my mind for a long time to come. They will remain the number one consumer of my time until Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is published. Of course not too far back “Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude” dominated my life. Heck, it only took five days for me to edit, rewrite, and cut 900+ words from the October 2015 Wild West article earlier this month (see Geronimo preempts the Sand Creek manuscript). WW editor Greg Lalire then edited my changes and added a little less than 100 words to the story. Unfortunately he got creative and added some errors, which my second review fixed. I think Greg is correct, a shortened word count can still produce a good story. I won’t be happy until the article is published for then, and only then, will I be able to read it and decide if it is decent or a piece of crap. This isn’t a negative view by me, for this is how I view all of my written work—I must read the published piece before I can judge it.

Moving into my writing world

Damn, but Kraft is dancing on air. No more articles; at least none are planned or pitched. No more talks (although I have an idea for one on Errol Flynn that would be perfect for New Mexico). No more anything but writing books (and blogs). I’m in hog heaven. Or should I say Harley-Davidson heaven? Now there’s a thought. …

krafts&PailinMotorcycleMontage_wsPailin has ridden motorcycles in her homeland as have I in my dark ages. … If ever we made Thailand our homeland (Pailin, please don’t growl if you read this) and we had a Vette (and they sell them in Bangkok) or a Harley (and I’m certain that they sell them in Bangkok) we would be noticed wherever we cruised in Thailand. … Oops! No–no Kraft! This is a taboo subject and not open to discussion (sorry; don’t ask).

Back to the point … my writing world

I have finally reached my present life. Believe it or not, it has taken me three years to reach this point in time. A lot of thinking and decisions led the way to this rainy May day late last week.

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LK art of Tujunga House on 14may2015 due to me trying to capture a photo on this early morn after rainfall (something that doesn’t happen often in SoCal). Unfortunately I tried to get artsy-fartsy and took the image from behind growth in the foreground, which threw the subject matter out of focus. I had to play around to make the image usable. What you are seeing is a long-term project to turn the jungle into cacti and other vegetation natural to the SoCal climate. This project (which isn’t complete) began over two years ago when I realized the future. … Moreover, and more important, it was my attempt to deal with the LA Department of Water and Power (I’d like to say some truths here but don’t dare). I’ll let the Los Angeles Times, which has been pounding all sorts of issues within the LA DWP for a long time, do it for me. Here are two features in the 20may2015 issue of the paper: “Bill For $51,649.32: Couple were charged for using 6.7 million gallons of water” by columnist Steve Lopez (This elderly couple were basically ignored when they inquired about the bill, but were eventually told that they had a leaky toilet.), and “DWP hints at raising rates” by Matt Stevens (Nothing new here, for the DWP, and again I don’t want to say anything that will garner me a $50 thousand bill, need an additional $270 million for the next five years to cover their costs. There is more to this story than in the article. I know what has been going on for years and so do many Angelenos, but silence is golden.)

Undoubtedly, or perhaps unfortunately, this blog will go live on a sunny May day.

I need to do another rain dance outside … to break up the monotony of blue skies with nary a rain cloud in sight.

For the record, I love talking in front of an audience, I love acting on stage in plays that I write (and fingers are crossed that I can eventually play Flynn on stage), and I love writing magazine articles, but something had to give. Something had to be jettisoned to ensure that my ship doesn’t capsize.

Two major pieces to this puzzle are finances and time.

If I want to place the blame on anything, my mentalist capabilities point directly at these two villains, finances and time.

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Simon Baker is The Mentalist in this superb TV series that includes a cast that has a connection with each other, and there are backstories on all them. More to come on this show. This image is the cover for the third season.

BTW, The Mentalist is a great TV show. Well-crafted scripts and good production values, and the five leading actors play well off each other. For me the show is an absolute delight to watch, especially Simon Baker as Patrick Jane, a consultant to the California Bureau of Investigation (CBI). As I’ve stated before, when I exercise I study film. Currently The Mentalist is my partner in crime. While it thrills me, grabs me, and has involved me, it allows me to work on my strength, my balance, and hopefully my capability to walk.

Back to the point … my current projects

  • Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway
    Research and writing continues, and as mentioned above, this manuscript is now my prime project (no more detours!). When completed, this will be the most difficult book that I have ever written. Ladies and gents, I’m a biographer; I write about one or two people and their actions dictate the flow of the text. I write about people, and my friend and great editor-in-chief at OU Press Chuck Rankin bought into this. He has enough trust in me to deliver a manuscript, and I will, that shows the events through the eyes of the players in the story—leading and major supporting (and they will be determined by what I have, what I find, and by what writer-historian friends have kindly supplied me with that I wasn’t privy to).

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    My Sand Creek manuscript is again dominating my life (and has for days). Yes!!! (Alas, this is not the forthcoming announcement that I mentioned in the previous blog; the link is above). … In my people-dominated Sand Creek manuscript I’m currently dealing with William and Elizabeth Byers. Good stuff, especially for Elizabeth, as I want as much about the ladies as I can possibly get into the book. William was publisher and editor of the Rocky Mountain News, and he played a huge role in the Sand Creek story. I’m also moving forward with John Evans, the second governor of Colorado Territory. He was instrumental to the events that led up to the November 1864 attack on the Cheyenne and Arapaho village on Sand Creek. There is a big smile on my face … and it is growing by the minute as the word count grows. I chose to show this image of Byers as it will never make it into the Sand Creek story. Reason: This image is long out of the scope of the book, but more important I have three images I want to use of him. As my image contract count has expanded (without checking I believe it has grown to 37 including maps), I’m seriously considering two images of Mr. Byers. BTW if you don’t know Byers, he was one tough hombre in a harsh land. He was opinionated and had no problems sharing his views. This made him a marked man, and yet he never backed down from what he thought was right. His connection to Wynkoop dates back to early 1859 when he and a partner were preparing a book on the Colorado gold fields. Byers and Wynkoop began their long-term relationship as friends, but it didn’t end that way.

    Moving the story forward through people’s actions sounds easy, but it isn’t. I’ve got facts and figures, and there is still more that I’m researching, but they—reports, letters, statements—don’t add up to a readable book that will keep readers turning pages as opposed to falling asleep after ten or fifteen minutes. My goal is to bring these players to life and allow them through their actions to breathe life into this story. The scope is huge for there are numerous leading and supporting players (and don’t forget minor players), and they all lived through a turbulent time where violence could strike without warning. One day you could be fine and enjoying life and the next day your family could be dead. Fear, hatred, a need to seek revenge are normal and in no way make people in this situation evil.1 They react. We all react.

    War has never changed, for it is basically kill or be killed.

    However, sometimes actions go beyond kill or be killed, and I’m not talking about a bloodlust. What I’m talking about is stepping beyond the limit of what a person knows is wrong and yet still does it. It is action, that is what a person does as it shows who he or she really is and it negates what they say they are. For example, during George W. Bush’s Iraq war U.S. soldiers in a war zone discovered a girl, and if my memory is good she was 13 or 14 years old. They desired her. One day after she returned to her home these soldiers entered it. They murdered her family, they raped her and then they killed her. To hide their crime they set the house on fire. This wasn’t bloodlust in the middle of a firefight, … this was rape and murder and it was plotted. This was a heinous crime, and I have nothing good to say about those U.S. soldiers.

    What about the major and supporting players in the Sand Creek story? I don’t believe any of them viewed themselves as an evil person. Not one of them. If I do my job properly, the reader will be able to make their own decisions.

    1 There is a heck of a lot more to the Sand Creek story, and it includes culture, land, politics, and the struggle to open a new land while at the same time to retain a lifeway and freedom. This, and more, is also a part of the Sand Creek story.

  • Errol & Olivia
    In 1995 or 1996 I decided to write the first of what I envisioned as three books on Errol Flynn. Like my first book on Lt. Charles Gatewood, it took me awhile to realize that this first book needed a supporting player. For Gatewood it was Geronimo; for Flynn it is Olivia de Havilland. This manuscript has had starts and stops, and I can blame them on too much overtime in the software world, other freelance project deliveries, but most important is that I still haven’t completed what I consider mandatory research (this research is massive when compared to my Indian wars research, which is huge). I absolutely refuse to create false quotes and notes that are inaccurate at best and totally fictitious at worst. … A writer-historian has facts told to him (or her) by someone living—let’s say Olivia de Havilland (OdeH)—but if that person (for example, OdeH) can’t, or won’t, confirm when the event happened this creates a major problem. Did the event happen in 1940? In June 1940? Or did it happen in 1942? September 1942? If when the event happened can’t be confirmed and the writer—read LK—writes inaccurate facts, guess what? That’s right, this error, which might be considered major, now places a dark-dark cloud over the rest of the book’s accuracy. … I have some great stories from OdeH, but when I questioned her on when they happened, she stated: “You figure it out.” Not the correct answer. Unfortunately this answer, along with a book of fiction posing as fact in which I had no input to in any way (and you can guess what book that was), severed my inside track with this beautiful person. I feed her information when requested but it is no longer a two-way street. …eoImage_whiteAboveBottom line: I must confirm actions and tie them in with dates and locations. Until I can do this, and this deals with what I consider valid information that shows who Flynn and de Havilland were/are I can’t complete the manuscript. I absolutely refuse to create a nonfiction manuscript that includes fiction (a future blog will deal with books that do this, and the errors in those books weren’t mistakes and I can prove it). Not going to happen. For me it has been searching dark alleys in an attempt to confirm what I think is the truth. To date I have followed a lot of leads that have proved fruitless.


    When Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is totally back on track and humming toward completion, Errol & Olivia will again move forward as the search for truth and reality continues. … But if those dark alleys continue to lead to dead ends the 2nd Flynn book will become the 1st Flynn book. That doesn’t mean that Errol & Olivia won’t be finished, it will but it won’t happen until supposed facts are confirmed (or dropped). Simple, and that’s life. I live with it. OdeH needs to live with it.

  • The Discovery
    This is the first time that I have ever partnered on a freelance writing project. Let me put it this way, I could not have had a better experience.

    lk_BobGoodman_Flemings_26jan14

    LK with Bob Goodman, MD, at Flemings in Woodland Hills, Ca., on 26jun14. I’ve know Bob for almost 25 years, and over that time we have bonded on two levels that goes beyond medicine: Friendship and writing. That said his discovery and recommendations in 2002 set in motion many events that have affected my life to this day, … the most important being that I’m still walking the land. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft and Bob Goodman 2014)

    Bob Goodman and his beautiful wife Doris have done so much to help me bring this story to completion. For the record, and I want to say it right here, when published this story will be one of the best books I’ve ever written. I still have a lot of work to do (and some of it deals with design), but I’m proud to have partnered with Bob. This book is major in my life, for it will be the first book published after I have used the LK blogs to discover my writing world voice. But, as stated elsewhere in this blog, it marks my return to fiction. For what it is worth, this is a story of people (read a character study) and their lives but I have written the text as if it is a thriller. A thriller? Surprisingly, perhaps shockingly, but certainly joyfully (from my perspective) for this story is a thriller. It will be published in early 2016 in paper and as an eBook.

    ps_doris&bobGoodman_26jun13

    At Flemings on 26jun14, Doris and Bob Goodman didn’t allow Pailin’s vocabulary or shyness to hinder this first meeting (for the record, Pailin works on her English every day and it shows). Doris was absolutely marvelous and within half an hour she and Pailin had bonded big time. And Bob was right there with Doris in opening up to Pailin’s charm. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft, Doris & Bob Goodman (2014)

    A book isn’t a book until it is published. The Discovery, which I’ve often shied away from saying anything about the plot as I didn’t want to give it away, is a good story. My partner, Dr. Robert Goodman, had a great idea, and we have worked hard to bring the story to life. It is not the time to say anything, … but soon. All I can say at this point is that the story is different. If you read fiction before bed and early in 2016 you obtain The Discovery there is a chance that you will be cursing Bob and I for keeping you awake. Years ago I had approached film legend Olivia de Havilland to help her complete her memoir (a manuscript that I hope and pray that she finishes, but don’t think she will). Livvie had asked me if ever I partnered with anyone on my books, and I had told her that I didn’t. She smiled and told me that was how she felt about it. … I never asked her again, but hopefully she has someone in mind if, God forbid, she can’t finish her story of her life. Bob Goodman has played a major role in my life, and if it wasn’t for him and other physicians I would have already been dancing with the angels for a long time. Years passed and Bob and I talked more and more about writing. Beginning in 2010 I acted as a consultant, edited some of his work, and provided detailed information on how to improve it. During this time our friendship grew, and in November 2013 Bob asked me if I’d like to partner on The Discovery. I was already intimate with this project and provided him with a proposal. In The Discovery things happen to real people in real ways, and best of all—and just like my Indian wars writing—there are no bad guys even though bad things happen. I don’t want to say that I’ve been there and I’ve done that, for I haven’t. … Hell, I’m not a physician and I’ve never been on trial. That said, things happen and the events affect lives. … I know that my life has traveled a rocky and very winding path. I don’t wallow in sorrow. At the same time I’m thrilled to be alive (the forever upcoming walkabout in Thailand blog will actually deal with this in some detail).

Back to the point … my future projects

Ladies and gents, fiction will play a large part in the rest of my life. No more 20+ year gaps between published novels. Actually, after The Final Showdown was published in 1992, I thought I would be a novelist while keeping my nonfiction focus on articles and talks throughout the western states that dealt with race relations during the Indian wars (and Errol Flynn, in believe it or not five states to date). My agent and I sold a follow-up book idea to the publisher of The Final Showdown. It focused on Kit Carson and Indian relations. But just before I delivered the completed manuscript to the publisher, they dropped their western line. When I confronted the agent about suing she told me that the publisher would blackball me and I’d never sell another book. Although I listened to her and agreed with her, I think her main concern was that she’d also be blackballed. Soon after we parted company. Over the years that agent and I have seen each other twice or maybe three times, and we have gotten along, but there will never be another agreement between us. Never.

This gets me to the next grouping of lk book manuscripts after Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, Errol & Olivia, and The Discovery. Like the above subsection I think it is best to bullet the book ideas (and that’s all they are at this point in time).

  • Kit Carson nonfiction (one or perhaps two books)
    kitCarson_dating_to1845ART_LKCollection_ws

    Carson art in LK’s personal collection that pictures him in the mid-1840s.

    I have a lot of primary source information on Mr. Carson in-house, and I have located missing primary source information. I have all of the valid secondary books from the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as what I consider valid books dating to the 19th century. Yep, I have a lot on Carson, and he is someone that I’ve been tracking for decades. Why? And especially so since he has been pounded for the last 15-20 years. The reason is simple: Most of the people that pound him (including the cretins in Taos, N. Mex., today) don’t know what the bleep they are talking about. The reason why these people are wrong is simply because they listen to, and buy into, bullshit that has no basis in reality. You do not want to know my opinion of these people, but let me just say this—their fingers are stuck where the sun doesn’t shine.

  • Kit Carson fiction
    This novel, if I do complete it, will be based upon a genre novel that I wrote in the early 1990s, but was killed when a publisher broke its contract with me. There is one major difference: It will no longer be genre fiction.When this rewrite/expansion is completed the manuscript will grow to between 100,000 and 125,000 words.It will be both a character study of Carson and an historical thriller that also features a Navajo warrior and his granddaughter. It will deal with race and race relations and it will deal with the human element during Carson and the two Navajos lives during this short piece of time.

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    Marissa Kraft w/Navajo Fortress Rock in the background (Canyon del Muerto, which is part of Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona—the only national monument not on U.S. property) on August 7, 2012. Fortress Rock is one of the major set pieces of Navajo Blood, for it is here that fictional Navajo warrior Pedro Hueros must make a decision that will impact his and his granddaughter’s lives. … If you don’t know how I write about the Indian wars—fiction or nonfiction—I must walk the land. I must feel the sun, the wind, … I must experience how hard it is to walk. I must rub shoulders with those who came before me. The next day a Navajo guide took Marissa and I to Fortress Rock in her four-wheel drive and we studied it from all sides. It was just the three of us. Our guide requested that we not share her name or her image (and I have photos of her) on social media. Marissa and I don’t go back on our word; this lady’s name and image won’t be shared on social media. (photo © Louis & Marissa Kraft 2012)

    Carson was not the racist that he is currently being portrayed as by people who base their views on sound bytes, repeated statements in the media, and secondary books by writers who are wanna-be historians that don’t do primary research but repeat what has been printed time and again by previous writers who don’t do primary research. DUH!!! Carson was illiterate, but he did learn how to sign his name. That doesn’t mean that he was stupid for he wasn’t. Carson could speak six or seven languages: English, Spanish, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Ute, and most likely Mescalero Apache and Navajo. Why? These people of all these languages were his friends and they played a major role in his life. … The fictional Navajo warrior Pedro Hueros and his granddaughter will interact with key Navajos who lived during this tragic time.

  • 2nd Errol Flynn book
    Unlike the first book, which has the added person of Olivia de Havilland, this manuscript will focus solely on Flynn. I can’t tell you anything about this book other than it will be the best book that I write.
  • lk Memoir
    I have certainly talked about this manuscript in blogs and in other social media. This is an important book for me, for I want to delve into my psyche as well tell a truthful story of my life. To do this I must obviously deal with facts and details as I don’t want to create a whitewash, which is something many memoirs do.I learned a great lesson a long time ago: If you want to tell the truth you had better be dead when the book is published for then those who don’t want the truth known can’t sue you. Those are hard words to say, but they hit the target dead center. I have boxes of notes and documents that will back up anything that I dare to say. Hopefully when I deliver this information to the Louis Kraft Collection, this important documentation will be added to my archive. … I need to make something clear here—I’ve enjoyed my life, and would not change anything. I had a long first marriage that ended in divorce and then long-time relationships with two women. These three relationships failed, but I loved these three ladies and they me (at least for a while). From my point of view the good in these relationships far outweighs any of the bad. I do not hate these people. Far from it. My ex-wife is a friend, and I harbor no ill feelings toward the other two ladies.

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    LK leans against the archway that separates the first courtyard from the second at the Martinez Hacienda in Taos, N. Mex. I’m at home in New Mexico and I could live here, but due to recent happenings the chances of me living in Taos have about as much chance as me living in Arizona (and that is close to zero). (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

    I also need to say that in Pailin I have found my soulmate and my life partner. I also need to let you know that my daughter Marissa is forever a major piece in my life. This manuscript will be truthful, and although it will deal with the bad it will be very positive.

  • A novel dealing with modern-day Anasazi in the Southwest
    This novel, which was plotted in the early 1980s, deals with modern times, people, and racism. The three leading players are a male, his daughter, and a lady. It is a thriller that will deal with mysticism, cannibalism, and love. Trust me, for it will be a be a page turner.
  • A Ned Wynkoop novel
    Originally my OU Press contract for Ned Wynkoop and the Tragic End of a Lifeway specified that I could not write about Wynkoop in the future. I refused to sign the contract with this clause and Editor-in-Chief Chuck Rankin removed it. Later Chuck explained to me that he was concerned about me writing a competitive nonfiction book about Wynkoop for another press. He also told me that what he originally wanted in the contract did not include Wynkoop in fiction. … After the Sand Creek nonfiction book I’m certain that I will walk away from Mr. Wynkoop. That said, and if I live long enough, I may attempt to deal with him in fiction but for this to happen I must double my life expectancy.
  • The pirate Francis Drake
    “El Draque,” the dragon, as the Spanish called Drake joined my life in the 5th grade and he never left. I don’t have as much primary source material on him as I’d like, but book-wise I have it all.
    lkDrakeGH_websiteHis shockingly passive attitude toward England’s deadly foe, Spain, allowed him to deal with captives in a humane way. In a time of extreme religious war Drake did not butcher. Instead he treated his captives as welcomed guests, which made him an extraordinary person during the 16th century, a time of hatred and mass killings. Back in the mid-1970s I had an acting manager, a very talented and good person whom I liked. Eventually we teamed on what would have been my first novel, but it was never completed. It dealt with Drake. I don’t know if I’ll return to this manuscript, which I have, but I will return to Drake. Certainly in fiction and hopefully in nonfiction. Yes, you are reading me correctly, for both Flynn nonfiction and Drake nonfiction could eventually impact my Indian wars nonfiction world in a major way.
  • An Errol Flynn play
    My favorite role that I ever played on stage was as Charley in Eat Your Heart Out.

    In this scene of Eat Your Heart Out, I leaped upon the chair and lunged to impress actress Robin LaValley, who played my soon-to-be girlfriend in the play. The chair always rocked and I always had to do a balancing act, … but it was fun. (photo © Louis Kraft 1976)

    I played Charley in a dinner theater in Lubbock, Texas, in 1976, and in Inglewood, California, in 1977. I luckily landed a great part in a great play. Eat Your Heart Out is about an actor trying to land acting work while waiting tables. There are four other actors in the play: Two women and two men who play various roles.

    Richard Steel-Reed, who directed Eat Your Heart Out in Lubbock and who would soon become my manager, brought in a photographer to shoot a rehearsal of the play.

    The first time I swung an imaginary blade on stage was in high school in a play called Teach Me How to Cry. Miss Victoria Francis, my acting teacher/coach, directed that play. Although I had studied under the famed U.S. Olympian, stunt man, and fencing coach Ralph Faulkner in junior high school I had trouble choreographing and performing the duel. She told me that if I didn’t get the action to look believable she’d cut the scene (it wasn’t cut). She is a special person that I know to this day.

    How Eat Your Heart Out was set up will work for the Flynn play, but I intend to increase the actors to six: Flynn and another actor with two women and two men who play various roles. I think that this will work on stage. Tom Eubanks, my good friend and great director, take heed, for this could be a great production for your theater company. Hey my friend, we need to partner one more time. Yeah, if I can sell you on another play idea this is the one.

  • A nonfiction book on Phraya Phichai
    Phraya Phichai was the Thai soldier with the broken sword. Actually this is not quite true, for he was a nobleman, a general, and close to his king. From what little I have learned of this man’s story, he was amazing (Bless you my brother Sophon and Pailin’s wonderful niece Lek for making this happen).

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    This attempt at art was based upon a statue of Phraya Phichai at Not and Font Subanna’s house in Uttaradit, Thailand, in November 2014.

    Alas, I need primary source material in the Thai language. Enter Pailin, for when I secure the primary source material, her command of the English language will be pristine and will allow me to learn the details of this exceptional man’s life. This will a book for both the USA and Thailand.

By now you know that Pailin is my lady, my best friend, and my wife. She has done Sand Creek research, Wynkoop research, and Kit Carson research.

Is she my research assistant?

According to Pailin, … “No!”

But just the other day she asked when our next research trip to the West would happen. Unfortunately I had to tell her, “Not in 2015.” On the bright side, it will happen again, as she and I love the experience of discovery and the experience of people. Our future is still to be written. Some of it will be intimate and most likely never to be shared. But there is a lot of our time together that can be shared. Yes, the times they are a changin’ and lk is loving every minute of it.

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Pailin in the front yard of Tujunga House, shortly after she moved in (17nov13). In 2013 I published a blog called Who says they don’t raise cowgirls in Thailand and other stories of Sand Creek, and I featured this image. As soon as I took this photo of her it became one of my all-time favorites, and it is on my desk. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2013)

Another nonfiction book floats in the mists of time until reality happens

Actually there hopefully is another major nonfiction book in my future. It has never been discussed or named, but it has been hinted at. It is a book that I am capable of writing and it is a book that I really want to write. My potential partner needs time, somewhere between two and three years (maybe longer). This is vague, but it is all that I can say. I had cryptically mentioned it in the previous blog, and as I said then, “Don’t ask, for I ain’t talkin’.” If this story becomes reality, it will not only be a page-turner, it will change history. With or without me this is going to be a great book. My fingers are crossed that it happens and that I’m a part of the project. Time will tell. At the moment it is a go for me. Will it be the same in three years? The future has the answer, and I’m good with whatever that answer will be.

The LK future is now

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An early publicity image for The X-Files with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.

As The X-Files used to proclaim: “The truth is out there,” and I’m ready for it (BTW, beginning on January 24, 2016, there will be six new and special episodes of The X-Files on Fox). I wonder if David Duchovny (as Fox Mulder) and Gillian Anderson (as Dana Scully) will grab me and not let go as they had in years past.

As I hope you can tell by what you’ve read, books (and my lady) are my future. There is one additional ingredient here, my daughterMarissa. But regardless of how I view my future with Pailin or Marissa, or of my remaining time in the U.S., and I must remain in the states to complete a major portion of the Errol Flynn research (preferably in LA). Ditto Kit Carson, but a lot of my primary research on him is already in-house. I think I could complete Carson research living outside the U.S., but Flynn research is questionable at best for the cost to return to LA (and elsewhere in the USA) would be astronomical. Regardless, the clock is ticking. How fast—how fast!!?? … Still, the USA is my homeland and I love it here (I actually love LA, even though I pick on it more than I should). My first, and as the minutes speed by, most likely my only real possible destination in my homeland is Santa Fe, N. Mex. Actually I’m at home in the entire state. I always feel welcome, and there is so much of me that is already at home there. The search to move to the Land of Enchantment is ongoing, and if I never move there, it will remain ongoing until the day I die. ‘Course I’ve got to convince Pailin that this is the land for us (she was impressed in fall 2014). I think she also liked Colorado and Texas.

ellen&glenWilliams1_14oct14tight_ws

This image is of Ellen & Glen William in October 2014. Good times for PSK and LK for Pailin got to meet two of my great friends and we had a good time in Texas. I’ve had bad, read “very bad,” times in Texas and good times. During the summer of 1976, which I spent in Lubbock, tornado warnings were a daily occurrence but I never saw a tornado. Most of the time I’ve spent in Texas (six plus months) the weather has been good if you ignore the wind and the humidity. Ellen, luckily, was able to spend good time with her sister and mother at this time. I met her mother during this trip and she is a special lady (I’m glad that I met her). Ellen, like Pailin, is a little pixie, and like Pailin, she is full of life. (photo © Louis Kraft, Ellen & Glen Williams 2014)

My great friend Glen Williams, who with his gorgeous wife Ellen, opened their new home to us in Denton, Texas, in October 2014. They have been my friends since sometime in the early 1990s when Glen and I linked up while at Infonet Services Corporation (now British Telecom Infonet). Glen and Ellen had had enough of the California bullshit (read taxes, taxes, and more taxes along with the escalating cost to pay for everything else). California is truly the land of the rich. Everyone else, grab your crotch for you are speeding straight toward poverty. The middle-class will soon be extinct in California. Believe me, in California you can earn over six figures and not save much, I did this, and I know it is true. At that time I worked two jobs: Writing for the software industry and freelance writing and easily put in 70 hours per week when I wasn’t getting killed with overtime by by the technology companies that hired me. For the record, Oracle paid time and a half for overtime (but I worked with a great crew of people, both engineers and management, and kept the overtime to a minimum). Some of the other companies (especially two that are long dead) were a joke. They paid great money, but you do not want to hear my opinion of them. … Someday after I spend a lot of time with a lawyer discussing details, maybe I’ll write an expose. It would be a page turner … writing about the past but still something I’m certain continues to this day. I won’t, for if I want to write an expose it will deal with my life, and in it the software companies I wrote for didn’t mean anything to my life, other than guaranteeing that I could do what I wanted on the freelance side without starving to death. They used me, and I used them. A manager I had at Sun Microsystems (a long-dead company but not lamented) asked me what I thought of my writing position. I told him, “If McDonald’s paid me more to cook hamburgers I’d work for them.”

He didn’t much care for my answer.

A short while later when Sun Microsystems resembled an airplane that had lost power and was spiraling toward a fiery impact with land this manager held a meeting to inform the writing staff (I think about 13 or 14) that a layoff was coming, a major layoff. Most didn’t believe him. I had inside information, for I spent a good amount of time with upper management and product and program managers and I had a clear picture of the future. This was supposedly illegal, but I had it. During the meeting the manager asked how the group would remember him. “As the executioner,” I proclaimed. People laughed, but several asked me if I were crazy. “No.” … On a fateful, and an oh-so publicized, day in January 2009, 69 percent of the staff in the Monrovia, Calif., office were laid off.

That afternoon a good portion of us gathered at a restaurant in Arcadia, Calif., to celebrate. To quote Martin Luther King, Jr. from his 28aug1963 speech, “I Have a Dream”: “Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

The nether world

Years back a clown I knew, that is a so-called novelist, questioned why I wrote for major companies. I told him, “the money.” Moreover I didn’t want to write clichéd genre novels each month, of which most were published under pseudonyms and often in numbered series that had a stable of writers hacking out the required 65,000 words. If you read one of these volumes you would run to the toilet to vomit. Or perhaps you’d enjoy the fluff that had you turning pages. I read a lot of this stuff. Hell, I studied this stuff. My decision: No way in hell am I going to write bullshit prose that is an embarrassment to me. BTW, and for the record there are some great western novels being written. My personal favorite is Johnny D. Boggs. If you want to read good western fiction, buy one of his books.

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LK at a Joni Blair catalogue shoot in 1974. The car is a 1931 Model A Ford (owned and restored by Hank Sorni). (photo © Louis Kraft & Joan McGirr 1974)

… I survived for years in the entertainment world doing just that; that is crap jobs that meant nothing. Talking only commercials here, I played a dancing sock (product???), and a tennis athlete with Micky Dolenz of Monkees’ TV fame (it may have been Kmart but I don’t remember, and I didn’t keep modeling resumes) commercials that played forever in LA in the late 1970s. There were many, but my favorite was a string of Jantzen sportswear commercials for Japan (I had the “American” look, whatever the hell that was). We shot at Union Station in downtown LA and had at least two days of shooting on the University of Southern California (USC) campus. During the shooting of a shower scene in the men’s locker room, my bathing suit apparently showed and the director called my female Japanese interpreter in from outside the locker room. After he spoke with her she asked me if I would strip. I had no problem. She stepped outside and the shooting continued. My back was to the camera, but by this time I had learned that I could have my face in profile. I don’t want to call myself a method actor, but hell, I’ve got to rinse soap off my back. I turned around. The director suddenly started jumping up and down as he screamed and pulled his hair. One of the male crew members ran to me and wrapped a towel around me. In the meantime one of the other male crew members ran to get my interpreter. After she listened to the director scream at her for a full five minutes, she calmly told me that I couldn’t face the camera.

lk_8jun80_plazaDelOro_EncinoCA_3_wsOver those years I had a lot of commercial agents, and some of them handled print work … which I absolutely hated, although at times it meant receiving nice clothes for free not to mention the salary. One thing I always made clear up front: “No ramp work!!!!” “Why not?” “Because I will hit the closest person to me when I learn I have to do this and demean myself.” “It isn’t demeaning, and you can earn good money.” “I don’t give a F—!” “That’s not a good attitude!” “Listen to me, for I will hit someone and they will land on the floor.” … I never had to hit anyone, but print work was pure hell.

The above image was taken on 8jun1980 at Plaza del Oro in Encino, Calif. (photo © Louis Kraft & Joan McGirr 1980)

Back to my writing world

There’s a wealth of Flynn research at my fingertips, as is much more Indian wars material than you’d ever guess. I write and I talk to myself as I wander about my 1928 lath and plaster house as I work on my day’s writing schedule. Write, research, write, read, write, research, edit, write some more (and if need be talk to my plants before I bang my head against a wall that won’t give, which isn’t quite true—see A gunslinger in a bathroom for a humorous story of when I locked myself in the bathroom). My writing world is mine. It is personal, and I never buy into a subject that I can’t marry for years or decades. I don’t write about good or bad, but rather I strive for a reality based upon what a person or people did. Their actions define who they are. If I do my job I provide you with their actions, and it allows you to make your decision about them. This is not easy, and takes a lot more time then you’d guess. For the last several weeks I’ve been pounding the keys on the Sand Creek manuscript. Good stuff, but only the beginning for this portion of the story for I’ll eventually need to figure out how to translate the facts to action. … I need to make a confession here; during these same three weeks I’ve been doing the same thing with Kit Carson. “What?” “Yes.” “Meaning?” “Meaning I constantly study the facts as I attempt to figure out what happened and what Carson did.” “Are you working on Carson?” “No, no work on the nonfiction Carson until I have a contract. The fictional Carson already exists, and although I haven’t done any rewriting other than on the beginning of the story, research is ongoing.” … It is research that I’m looking at. I should add that I have begun to polish The Discovery (as the reviews are in-house).

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LK & Pailin at Glen and Ellen Williams’ home in Denton, Texas, in fall 2014. Good times for the four of us and Glen’s wonderful sister, Linda Williams. I love this photo, which Glen shot at the entry to their home, for it captures PSK & LK’s life in one simple image. (photo © Louis Kraft, Pailin Subanna-Kraft, & Glen Williams 2014)

At the moment my world couldn’t be better. On 14may2015 Pailin told me how happy she was that I accepted her life. And I do, although I growl at times. She was bouncing, as she was so happy. She always is, and moreover so positive and thrilled with life. I told her that I was happy too, and as happy as she was for I was thrilled over how she has accepted my life.

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.

National Park Service, Ned Wynkoop, & a bad taste

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

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


Warning: This blog is different than previous blogs

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LK (right) reciting a poem per the organizer’s request at the beginning of a symposium in El Segundo, Ca., on 24mar2001. A so-called Little Bighorn battle expert had contacted in the mid-1990s and read a part of his review of my Custer/Stone Forehead book. It was good and he duped me big time. I answered his questions. If a reviewer ever again contacts me with questions I will hang up or delete the email. This man was full of deceit; a hard lesson to learn. This blowhard would speak with me at this symposium. I told the man who organized it to keep him quiet or i would attack him with words. There was no confrontation. This was the beginning of me realizing that what I wrote about would sometimes garner a hostile response. Oh, I spoke about the Custer-Stone Forehead confrontation in March 1869. (photo © Louis Kraft 2001)

Although I get along with people I’m not the biggest joiner. Actually I’m a loner. I’m good all by myself, and I never get bored. Ask anyone who knows me in Los Angeles or anyone I know in the Indian wars world: Writer/historian/speakers, editors, the people that live these tumultuous times today working in museums and at National Historic Sites (NHS) or are what might be considered re-enactors.

Let’s not forget the multitude of fabulous organizations that deal with this time period. They range from professional organizations such as Western Writers of America and the Western History Association to smaller groups that are more focused on specifics of the Indian wars such as the Fort Larned Old Guard, Order of the Indian Wars, and the Little Big Horn Associates (I’ve named a few; there are many-many more similar organizations).

I often help friends and people I don’t know when I can. That is, when I have knowledge  of something, or access to someone, that might help their research and writing. See, I’m not a total mercenary. That said, I need to earn money. The reason is simple: My earning power is now about 25 percent of what it once was. Besides I like to eat once in awhile, and my car loves to gulp gasoline.

For those of you that don’t know how I choose my freelance writing subjects, it’s quite simple. Race relations is the joining thread. Certainly with my Indian wars writing (although Errol Flynn seems a strange choice to be one of my subjects, he was the most un-racial person I have ever written and spoken about—no one comes close to him, no one). In case you don’t know, I basically write biographies while moving easily into other writing formats when I feel like it.

This is Ivan Hankla. He is a Southern Cheyenne who opened his lodge and heart to me in 2004 when I spoke at a two- or three-day event at Fort Larned NHS, Kans. Other than time required for my participation in the event I spent all my time with Ivan and James Coverdale, a Kiowa. This cemented a lasting relationship with Ivan (who, unfortunately, died a few years back). His tepee was a fully functional lodge as it would have been in the 1860s. He allowed me to photograph it and him over these days. My talk was on the last day and it dealt with George Armstrong Custer riding into the still warring Cheyenne village on Sweetwater Creek in the Texas panhandle in March 1869. More specifically it dealt with Custer’s meeting with Stone Forehead, the Southern Cheyenne chief, mystic, and keeper of the Cheyenne medicine (or sacred) arrows. Custer had an adjutant with him. At any time the Cheyennes could have killed him (and perhaps they might have died for doing it, but I don’t think so for the soldiers’ horses were as jaded as the Southern People’s mounts). I invited Ivan and James to the talk. Ivan told me that they weren’t paid participants of the event. I told him not to worry, that he and James were my guests. If they weren’t admitted to the talks and I couldn’t fix the problem that I wouldn’t speak (oh boy, there’s black mark against the Kraft name). There were no problems and they attended in full regalia. A good day for LK to be alive. (art © Louis Kraft 2014)

I think I should mention the images in this blog. There will be three types:

  • Cheyennes and Indian wars people: Friends, acquaintances, but with one ongoing link and that is our connection started with and/or continues because of what I write about the 1860s Cheyenne wars.
  • Collages that hopefully present background that I know a fair amount about Ned Wynkoop, Cheyennes, the 1860s, and the Wynkoop/Cheyenne connection.
  • Publicity for my writing (sorry).

The goal of these images is simply to show with as little words as possible who I am and my connection to Wynkoop and the Cheyenne people.

Before moving forward I want to make the following clear.
Two national historic sites have been good to me over the years:
The Washita Battlefield NHS (Okla.) and the Fort Larned NHS (Kans.). What
follows has nothing to do with them. I’m proud to have spent hours walking
their grounds and hanging out with their staffs (some of whom have
become good friends). They have been responsible for bringing me
to Oklahoma and Kansas over and over again.
Good times; some of the best in my life.

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Dr. Henrietta Mann is the founding president of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College in Weatherford, Okla. Her resume is amazing and it covers the entire spectrum of education, including lecturing throughout the United States and the world. In 1991 the magazine Rolling Stone named her one of the top 10 professors in the U.S. She has served as technical consultant on numerous documentaries and a film I like: Last of the Dogmen (1995), which had the premise of Cheyenne Dog Men surviving the Sand Creek Massacre and living as they had in 1864 undiscovered into the 20th century. On 6dec2008, Henri listened to a talk I gave on Wynkoop and his relationship with the Cheyennes. She told me that I was her hero (let me tell you that after I heard her talk that night about the Cheyennes she became my heroine). Anyway, after I spoke on that December 6 morning we spent a lot of time together (and it cemented a friendship that continues to this day). We posed for this image right after we finished our lunch. I had met Henri the previous day (5dec2008) when she saw a performance of my Wynkoop one-man show at the three-day Washita Battlefield NHS symposium. (Photo © Leroy Livesay 2008)

Early April 2014 and a request

A friend sent me a draft of a National Park Service (NPS) two-page Ned Wynkoop brochure and asked if I’d review it. Wow, what a great idea: a Wynkoop brochure specifically created for the Sand Creek Massacre NHS and the Fort Larned NHS. I jumped at the chance with the hope that I could offer assistance to help the brochure shine.

Boy, was that ever a lofty ambition. Poof! Gone, long-time gone in a matter of minutes.

After reading only a handful of sentences I realized that the people who wrote the Wynkoop brochure didn’t do any real research (although I heard that the person who drafted the “Final Years” section did research Mr. Wynkoop). My guess is that the other writer(s) got most of their information off the internet (Oh nooooooo!!!). Put kindly the two pages were little more than error-riddled prose that would be lucky to receive a passing grade in a high school English class. And those leading the project put it out for review! What were they thinking? … Oh, and if I didn’t mention it, I assume that the purpose of the brochure was and is to introduce Wynkoop and his relationship with Cheyennes and Arapahos to the general public. If yes, this brochure has failed terribly. Other than needing facts that are accurate, it needs focus. From my point of view (POV) the writers, the editor (was there an editor?), and those leading the effort didn’t put much time into the project. The draft sent to me showed little interest in the subject. Did the people assigned the project care? From my POV … No!

Let me tell you a little secret about earning a living as a writer in the
software industry: You had better deliver accurate and readable prose
on deadline. If you don’t you are in deep “caca.” Let me say that another
way: Hell hath no fury like program and product management
with upper management serving as executioner.

I worked on the Wynkoop brochure for three solid weeks. I had 30 pages but they were not to my satisfaction. Even though I think I had been given a June deadline, that didn’t matter for I had run out of my time. Ready or not I submitted my last draft on May 1.

At this late date I can only assume that my 30-page review went directly to the circular file. There was no response. Nada. Not even, “We read it and we disagree with everything you wrote.” … So much for working for free. Yes, there is a bad taste in my mouth.

A change of focus

I accepted the assignment to review the Wynkoop brochure sight unseen. Once I had read it I wanted to improve the less-than-sparkling prose and the alarming number of errors presented on the two pages.

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The Wynkoop talk focused on his relationship with the Cheyennes. For the first time I used descriptive words in a talk to describe how the Cheyenne and Arapaho women, children, and men were sexually hacked to pieces at Sand Creek. I had previously used descriptive words in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (University of Oklahoma Press, 2011). When talks have value and I like the subject matter they change and grow as they see life in my future. This was one of those talks.

Those of you that know my writing, know that I live with my projects for what might seem like forever and that over the years the people and projects I write about grow and expand as time passes. I prefer to know a lot about a little (by that I mean a lot about only a few people and the events in their lives) as opposed to a little about a lot. My delivery to the NPS included:

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LK w/Principle Cheyenne Chief Gordon Yellowman (he is one of four principle chiefs). We met in 1999, when he and I spoke at a convention at Fort Larned NHS, and he and Cheyenne Chief Lawrence Hart blessed the Cheyenne-Lakota village site on the Pawnee Fork west of the fort. Since then we have talked at least twice at other events. This photo was taken at the end of a Washita Battlefield NHS two-day symposium on 12dec2011. Gordon, like Dr. Mann, has an impressive resume, which includes teaching art as an adjunct professor at the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College, and as the language director for the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes’ Department of Education. It is always good times when I am in the presence of this gentleman. I have a poster based upon artwork he created prior to our meeting in 1999 that represents the Sand Creek village before and after that fatal 29nov1864 attack upon people that thought that they were at peace. I framed his art and I treasure it. I hope to use it on the cover and inside the Sand Creek book. This will depend upon Chief Yellowman, OU Press editor-in-chief Chuck Rankin and his art director. (photo © Washita Battlefield NPS 2011)

  • Kraft qualifications: This was probably overkill, but I have been writing articles, talks, plays, and books about Ned Wynkoop and the Cheyenne Indians (and that includes when they weren’t in the same article, talk, or book) since the mid-1980s. Reason: I figured that those working on the Wynkoop brochure had no idea who I am.
  • Reading suggestions:
    Totally distraught at the less than pristine research, I suggested a number of places to learn about Wynkoop and his relationship with the Cheyennes and Arapahos.
  • Review of the two-page Wynkoop brochure:
    I’m certain that teeth clamped tightly (and perhaps tore flesh inside their mouths) and curses directed at me flowed loudly in a blue-tainted color when my documented words were read.
  • A suggested brochure rewrite:
    At first I began offering rewriting suggestions in the various sections. It didn’t take me long to realize that these suggestions would be ignored, not read, or discarded (probably all). I rewrote the entire two-page draft and submitted it with the review (probably a major mistake).
  • Suggested brochure images:
    I also had a big problem with the images in the brochure draft sent me. Again, the NPS is selling Ned Wynkoop in two pages, but the park service drifts so far away from Wynkoop in most of their images that I almost fell asleep when looking at them. I placed my suggestions in the brochure rewrite section, and the images include the reasons why I suggested them over the images in the draft I reviewed.

Unfortunately my optimism blinded me from governmental reality (which I don’t know much about, but what little I do know dips alarmingly close to the dark side).

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Most of the characters in the novel lived, including Ned Wynkoop, Black Kettle, Stone Forehead, Bull Bear, and on and on. At this point in time (1992) it looked as if I would be a novelist (even though I had nonfiction articles published since the mid-1980s and I had been talking about my subjects at events in the western U.S.A. since the end of the 1980s. My next contracted novel dealt with Kit Carson and the Navajos. But—damn do I hate that word “but”—but the publisher decided to drop their “Western” line. I had an agent and she almost had a heart attack when I stated that I’d sue. She talked me out of it by insisting that I would be blacklisted (I know all about the blacklisting in the film industry). She was probably right, but I know that her main concern was her literary agency. Still I bought into what she said, but we soon parted company. Believe it or not, this opened the door for me to work out a deal with Dick Upton (Upton and Sons, Publishers) and begin writing nonfiction books. Bottom line: LK was one lucky frontiersman.

Those in power had plenty of time to read and digest the Wynkoop brochure review I submitted.

That’s it. End of story. As I said above I heard nothing. I still haven’t heard anything, and at this late date (and approaching September 2014) I don’t expect to hear anything …

… until I make an appearance on a National Historic Site and am recognized. If the review didn’t end my relationship with the NPS, this blog will. I’m certain that I’ll be escorted off the property by armed guards and told never to return (John Monnett, do you realize what’s in your future?).

In June a friend who was aware of my Wynkoop brochure review, and who offered suggestions, asked what had happened to the review. Heck, folks, The X-Files still lives (BTW, it, and Michael Parks’ Then Came Bronson, are the only TV shows I have ever liked), for I am certain that the review I submitted was shredded or locked in a vault.

Regardless what people think of me and my writing, and there are people that have actually turned their back to me at conventions and symposiums after I have spoken about Ned Wynkoop and/or the Cheyennes. I guess they consider Wynkoop a traitor to his race and hell, man, the Cheyennes are Indians. You know, the villains of the American story of conquest. I must be a cretin—an un-American—that refuses to go away and die. Regardless of this anger by me directed at a backlash propagated by people that walk through life wearing blinders, my plays, articles, talks, and books that deal with Wynkoop and/or the Cheyennes speak for themselves.

There are two sides to every story

  • A fellow and gal fall in love, marry, and later divorce.
  • Two westerners packing revolvers draw on each other.
  • An army invades a foreign land and the people that call this land home fight back.

Another story

A few years back I appeared as the lone guest on one of the many LA talk radio shows. This station actually has two shows airing concurrently. I arrived early and while chatting with the radio host that would interview me I met the other radio host (a talkative fellow). After the hour interview ended (the interview focused on Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland) the host who interviewed me asked if I’d join him to eat a late dinner at a restaurant (it was now 10:00 PM). I agreed.

Before we got out the door the other radio host caught up to us and asked if he could join us. At the restaurant the radio host sat across from me while the other host sat next to him. The other host (vagueness is important here) never shut up while we ate. The host that interviewed me remained mostly quiet. This meant that I had to respond to an ongoing diatribe against the Germans during WWII. How the hell did this subject come up?

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Against All Flags (Universal, 1952). The publicity for the film looked great, especially the American posters, but alas, the film didn’t. This is an Argentina one sheet.

Of course it moved to the genocide of the Jewish people (this genocide happened and it was heinous, but I didn’t want to talk about it). Was this fellow trying to bait me (you know, the false allegations against Errol Flynn). I’ll never know for I didn’t bite. Without warning the other host moved to the actress Maureen O’Hara. I’m not a fan of her films; actually I’ve never seen one of them that I liked (realize that there are many that I haven’t seen). I will say this, the pirate film she did with Flynn (Against All Flags, 1952) is the only swashbuckler of the nine he made that I have nothing positive to say. That said, I read her autobiography, which is a whitewash of her life and a waste of time. Why do people write this clichéd crap that means nothing, and if they didn’t write it why do they allow their name to appear below the title?

That said, I know a fair amount about Ms. O’Hara as I have done a fair amount of study of John Wayne and John Ford and she pops up often.

Whew!!! This SOB other host tore into Ms. O’Hara as a heinous Nazi supporter.

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This image of my daughter Marissa and I was taken on 25jun2011 after a Custer Battlefield Historical and Museum Association symposium in Hardin, Mont., where I talked about Errol Flynn’s Custer and the real Custer (not my best talk on the subject). After the event ended Marissa and I traveled to the LBH Battlefield National Monument with good friends Bob Williams and Linda Andreu Wald. Rain had pounded Montana before our arrival and the Yellowstone River had overflowed. But everything was green. A great time with Marissa, who has traveled extensively with me and knows my view on racism. This image was out of focus and has never had enough bytes for me to fix it, …. thus this line art quick fix (which is still lacking). That’s life; so be it.

Let me tell you racism has played a big part in most of my life. Give me five minutes with a person and I can tell you without batting an eye if they’re a racist or not. What he said about Maureen O’Hara I had never read or heard.

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On September 22, 2012, I spoke about Wynkoop’s efforts to prevent Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock from destroying the Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village on the Pawnee Fork, about 35 miles (40 by auto) west of the Fort Larned NHS. Leo Oliva, who spoke on the village site with me on that day, had asked me to represent Wynkoop when he was inducted into the Santa Fe Trail Association Hall of Fame. The induction of Wynkoop and others took place during a huge dinner on the 21st. My friend George Elmore, chief ranger at Fort Larned, loaned me the buckskin coat for the three-day rendezvous jointly hosted by the Santa Fe Trail Association, Fort Larned NHS, and the Santa Fe Trail Center. He also took this image of me leaning against Wynkoop’s home and Indian agency at Fort Larned on the 22nd. My film was black & white and I colorized the image. (photo © Louis Kraft 2012 & 2014)

I smiled. The other host continued, eventually asking me to comment.

“I know a fair amount about this lady and I have never seen anything close to what you say.”

He refused to shut up, even though my eyes relaxed into my coolest Clint Eastwood glare. … The other host rattled onward.

My smile grew.

“What’s your problem?” he almost screamed.

Violence is violence and it should never happen. I have learned a lot over the years. One is of major importance: If you are going to be in a fight, you have two choices—win or run like hell. This man was a blowhard; actually a bully with words. This man was short and it didn’t look like he exercised. I said nothing. He stood and repeated the question.

I turned on my charm. “You. You’re a racist.”

“I’m not a racist!” My smile grew bigger yet. It unnerved him and he sat down. … After we paid the bill at the table he leaped up but kept his distance from me as he ran for the exit.

I was never invited back to this radio station, even though the host claimed over and over again that he would do a follow-up interview when Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek was published. No comment.

A July 25 email and the response

One of my best friends for many-many years is someone I met in the technical world in 1990. We’ve done a lot together and there is a bond between us that is special. He is quarter Cheyenne, although that has had nothing to do with our relationship. I trust him and often he offers me more than support and friendship for he gives me opinion, review, and advice. Alas, a couple of years back he left SoCal to return to his homeland.

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Although not stated in the collage, Stone Forehead plays a leading role in Custer and the Cheyenne (Upton and Sons, Publishers, 1995). As noted above, he played a role in The Final Showdown. He had a smaller role in the Wynkoop book, but he will have as large a role as possible in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway (contracted with OU Press).

On July 25, 2014, I sent a long email to a business associate who has become my friend over the years.

One of the paragraphs read: “In the spring I reviewed a proposed two-page brochure on Wynkoop for the National Park Service. The two pages were a joke. Often a sentence contained one or more errors and I don’t think any of the paragraphs were error free. It took three weeks to submit a 30-page document that pointed out the errors with citations that backed up the commentary along with documented facts and suggested rewrites. The response: Zero. Not even a ‘we received it.’ Recently a friend asked what happened, and I told him nothing. ‘Hell, if they trashed what you sent, some of what you submitted would make good copy for one or more blogs.’ (He was privy to what I submitted.) Good idea, and I’m considering it.”

The friend’s response: “Yes, why not post your neglected response to the NPS?

What to do?

lk_computer_2014Ahhh, for there’s the rub. Obviously this blog will make me public enemy No. 1 to the NPS. Just like the racist radio host, I’ve gotten to that age in life where I’m not going to be a good boy and “Yes sir” people to death with views to which I don’t agree. The reason: I don’t care what they think of me, I don’t care if they hire me again, but more important I need to be true to me.

LK the thinker (left). Yeah, I hate to say it, but this is the real me and it is totally focused on my writing projects. I don’t want to say 24/7 but it’s close.

“What to do?’ … yeah I sometimes vacillate

What I can’t or won’t do: Give you my background, post the NPS two-page Wynkoop brochure, and I’m not going to give you the cited documentation to my critique. That leaves me two choices: Drag my rewrite of the two-page brochure into this blog or mimic their draft with my words and image suggestions in place. The second idea is easily doable but it will cost me many hours to duplicate the NPS design. Why waste my time for an organization—the NPS—that doesn’t give a bleep in the first place? I will provide my rewrite of the NPS draft along with a discussion of some the NPS statements, omissions, and errors that bothered me. I’m going to include my image suggestions to the NPS document in the section of the blog that contains my suggested rewrite to the NPS embarrassment.

NPS Wynkoop brochure errors & omissions

Errors are errors and the blatant ones directly related to Wynkoop shouldn’t be repeated ad nauseam in print. They should be pointed out. Also, the NPS also lost focus of their topic and because of this (or perhaps because the writers had no clue what Wynkoop did and/or way-too often omitted what Wynkoop did). Some of these omissions are as large and glaring as the errors. Fear not, for I have no intention of pointing out the NPS’s poor English or spelling errors in this blog (at least I hope not). The brochure headings are listed as in the original NPS Wynkoop brochure draft supplied me.

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LK with Leo Oliva (left) and George Elmore at Fort Larned NHS in April 2012. These two fellows over many years have been responsible for bringing me back to Kansas time and again. A good relationship that has led to friendship.

Early Years (1836-1861)

LK note: I had a lot of problems with this section, but most of them dealt with writing and focus.

  • I asked that the statement that Wynkoop was good with a Bowie knife be removed. Reason: There is only one quote that I have seen that stated he carried a Bowie knife. This does not mean that he was “good” with this weapon. There are images of Wynkoop with firearms but none with a Bowie knife. There is documentation that backs the premise that Wynkoop was “good” firing guns, but other than that one sentence that says he carried a Bowie knife, there is nothing.

ERROR: Wynkoop didn’t move to the “small mining settlement of Denver” for the simple reason that it didn’t exist yet.

He had no duties to perform as sheriff as there was no town or city, no laws, and no jail. Wynkoop’s title of “sheriff” meant nothing; it consisted of words on a piece of paper that the men in the area refused to accept. Of interest: Wynkoop might have named the proposed city that would someday occupy the land that he and other members of the Denver City Town Company, including William Larimer, claim-jumped from the St. Charles Town Company in November 1858: “Denver.”

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I met Deb Goodrich Bisel in 2008 when she invited me to give a couple of Wynkoop-Cheyenne talks in Kansas in May of that year. During the week that I stayed with her and her family, which also included her interviewing me on her radio show in Topeka, we became friends. Good friends. Whenever I see this talented person it is just like the last time was the previous week. She is a bright, funny, and caring writer-historian. This image was taken by Frank Bodden at the Centennial, Co., Order of the Indian Wars symposium hotel on the evening after I talked about Wynkoop lashing in to the U.S. government for what he considered the murder of innocent people in April 2013 (sorry Frank, but I didn’t have enough bytes and played around with the image). I call this my snow trip as I spent eleven days in Colorado and on at least six or seven of them I was snowbound and grounded.

ERROR: Wynkoop didn’t perform any “duties” as sheriff until after he returned to Denver City in late1859.

At that time the budding Denver City still had no jail, he reported to no one, and actually his position dealt with criminal events that happened outside the city limits. No real law existed in Denver or the surroundings and most of the rough and tumble crowd that then occupied the area ignored Wynkoop’s assignment as “sheriff,” which only paid upon arrest and conviction by a “people’s” court (that’s right, no judicial system existed in 1859-1860). This meant that Wynkoop went hungry more often than he feasted. It also meant that he had a lot of free time to figure out other ways to earn money.

Wynkoop did sell some property (mostly within Denver City limits) that he owned as he had been one of the founding members of the Denver City Town Company. He earned extra and much-needed money tending bar in Charlie Harrison’s Criterion Saloon in Denver beginning in1860.

ERROR: Wynkoop never earned money as an actor.

Almost all (if not all) professional actors arrived in Denver as members of acting troupes. Usually there might only be one, two, or three professional actors performing in a play. The rest of the actors that performed on the Denver stage at this time were “amateurs” and they acted without pay. Beginning in late 1859 and extending through 1860 and into pre-Civil War 1861 most of the acting was performed in drinking and gambling houses. During the winter months often many of the men had nothing to do as harsh weather prevented mining. Wynkoop went on the stage simply as he wanted to meet and woo Louise Matilda Brown Wakely.

LK comment: I think you should totally drop all references to Wynkoop’s acting career to create additional room for Wynkoop’s relationship and interactions with the Cheyennes.

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ERROR: Major misspelling of Wynkoop’s future wife’s first name plus an erroneous middle initial.

Currently her name is listed as LOUIS B. WAKELY. “Louis” is a man’s name; her name was “Louise” with an “e.” Also, using a “B” as her middle initial is WRONG. If you want to use a middle initial, use “M” for “Matilda” as that was her middle name. “B” stands for “Brown,” which was the name of her mother’s first husband and her father.

LK suggestion: List Louise as “Louise Wakely” (my preference) or as “Louise M. Wakely.” BTW, “Wakely,” the name that Louise used at the time she met Wynkoop was her stepfather’s last name.

ERROR: Louise Wynkoop was not a singer and didn’t sing on stage. This comment should be deleted.

LK comment: I have seen nothing that states that Louise sang on the stage. However, since one of her sisters sang on the stage (yes, there were three sisters) and she constantly was recognized as a singer while there were no mentions of Louise singing, this seems like a no-brainer. Check the index in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011) for Flora Wakely, Louise’s youngest sister, or do your own research.

Civil War Years (1861-1865)

Although this section is listed as “Civil War Years (1861-1865)” it is totally mislabeled for Wynkoop’s involvement with the Civil War basically ended in fall 1862 when he returned to Colorado Territory, and perhaps you can extend it to 1863 (as the Colorado military continued to watch for another invasion). When this section moves to 1864 (and even though the Civil War was still in progress, the focus has moved to the Cheyennes and Arapahos. More importantly it has moved to the lead-up to the tragic attack on the Sand Creek village in November 1864. As currently labeled the Sand Creek section should be part of this section and as currently listed the “Sand Creek” heading should be removed and the text from that section should be moved into this section.

I totally disagree with what I said above. The Sand Creek section (as you originally created it) needs to remain standalone. That said, portions of this section should move into the Sand Creek section and this section should be re-dated.

Charge this section to: “Civil War Years (1861-1862)” or perhaps “(1861-1863),” for this can be justified as Wynkoop remained on the alert for a second Confederate invasion (but I don’t think this should be discussed as it would take up precious space in your document).

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Glen Williams & LK at Mission San Xavier del Bac on 15jan2012, which is west of Tucson, Ariz. I needed this trip with my good friend (really a brother whom I met shortly after my brother died in 1990). Our relationship grew slowly but over the years he has become a great friend who is an adventurer with a great interest in the world we live in and in our Indian wars past. If you have paid close attention to some my experiences in the blogs you are aware that at times I am capable of getting myself into trouble. Glen is a calming influence as we explore the present and our American heritage. (art © Louis Kraft 2014)

We will obviously miss Wynkoop’s 1863 Ute Indian campaign (thus a gap in your heading dates, unless you use the second dating, which is my choice in the previous paragraph). You have two pages (front and back of one piece of paper) to state what is important and the focus must remain true to what you want to sell: Wynkoop’s relationship with Cheyennes (and to a lesser degree his relationship with Arapahos). This has got to be the focus, and I don’t think you should deviate from it.

The above is editorial opinion, and I sincerely hope you are
not offended by it but agree with it.

ERROR: Wynkoop became a 2nd lieutenant on July 31, 1861, and not in August.

ERROR: “The Coloradans joined New Mexico’s Union forces and defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Glorieta Pass…” No. There were no New Mexican forces at this battle. However, there were troops from the 1st and 3rd U.S. Cavalries present.

ERROR: As currently written, the regiment returned to Colorado and then Chivington and Wynkoop were promoted and the regiment became a cavalry regiment. NO! The Glorieta victory didn’t stop the Confederate threat and the invasion hadn’t ended. This didn’t happen until the Battle of Peralta near Los Lunas, New Mexico Territory, in April 1862. Also, that April, and while still in New Mexico Territory Chivington became colonel of the regiment, which then had a “name change” and not a reorganization (that came probably in November). The 1st Regiment of Colorado Infantry became the 1st Regiment of Colorado Cavalry (I’ve also seen 1st Colorado Cavalry Volunteer Regiment), perhaps as early as April but certainly by November 1862 (as you state). Wynkoop received his promotion to major on April 14, 1862. The next day, April 15, the Battle of Peralta ended the Confederate invasion as the Rebels now hustled to get out of New Mexico Territory. There were New Mexican Union soldiers at this battle.

LK comment: I have seen many names for the newly named 1st Colorado Cavalry, and I’m probably good with whichever name you decide upon.

LK comment: Move the third and fourth paragraphs to the “Sand Creek Massacre (1864-1865) section.

Sand Creek Massacre

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I like this image of my daughter Marissa. It hangs on a wall at Tujunga House. Using it here is mainly a reminder to me that I have a lot of research images on 35mm slides but no projector and need to get the slides digitized. We had been tracking Custer when Jerry Russell’s Order of the Indian Wars 1987 tour would end at the supposed Sand Creek Massacre site on private property. I called Jerry and asked if we could join the trip to Sand Creek and following banquet. He graciously said yes. This actually turned into an article on modern-day historians for True West (1990). While the tour assembled on the bluffs, Marissa and I explored the land below. (photo © Louis & Marissa Kraft 1987)

LK comment: This section has no dates. I suggest adding “(1864-1865)” to the title of the section to retain consistency with the rest of the document: “Sand Creek Massacre (1864-1865).”

LK comment: I moved paragraphs three and four from the Civil War section to this section and these paragraphs are now paragraphs one and two in this section (see the suggested LK draft, below). BTW, I had problems with both paragraphs and commented upon the NPS text within the paragraphs (this you won’t see in the blog).

LK question: Was Left Hand’s band part of Little Raven’s band? If not, I believe that you should feature Left Hand as he and a small number of Arapahos were at Sand Creek and Little Raven wasn’t at the time of the November 29 attack.

LK request: I’ve recently heard (without seeing documentation) that Left Hand is being removed from the Sand Creek Massacre NHS. If so, why? If Left Hand wasn’t at Sand Creek and didn’t receive wounds that ended his life there I would like to see proof. This is a major request from me for if true it needs to be in the Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway manuscript that I’m currently writing.

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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 Signers & 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 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). (photo © Louis Kraft 2011)

LK comment: You have repeated Black Kettle’s quote, “This white man is not here to laugh at us…but, on the contrary, unlike the rest of his race, he comes with a confidence in the pledges given by the red man,” which is in the subtitle of the brochure, and quoting it a second time is redundant. To save space I suggest cutting it here.

BTW, the George Bent quote in the subtitle is not redundant at the end of the document as he sums up what Wynkoop meant to the Cheyennes and Arapahos.

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As you know I take photos and create art. The reason is twofold: 1) Often there are not enough historical images to tell a story (and publishers rightly don’t like to keep printing the same images over and over again), and 2) They can bring in much-needed money. I created this portrait of Wynkoop in 2007. Since then it has appeared in two anthologies and two magazines. (art © Louis Kraft 2007)

ERROR: You called John Evans a “new” territorial governor, which implies that he was a novice and didn’t know what his duties were. By late summer/early fall 1864, Evans, who was the second territorial governor of Colorado Territory, had served as governor longer than William Gilpin had during his entire tenure as the first territorial governor.

ERROR: You state that the Cheyennes and Arapahos that moved to the Big Sandy and were involved in the Sand Creek Massacre made the move in mid-October 1864.

The Cheyennes and Arapahos that were attacked at Sand Creek on November 29, 1864, didn’t make the move until after Anthony replaced Wynkoop as commander of Fort Lyon in November (at least Black Kettle, Little Raven, and Left Hand didn’t; for Left Hand and Little Raven met with Anthony and Wynkoop in November, and later Left Hand and Black Kettle met with Anthony and Wynkoop. Anthony reached Fort Lyon on November 2 but didn’t inform Wynkoop that he was replacing him as commander until November 5 (see below for the reason why Anthony replaced Wynkoop). After being replaced by Anthony, Wynkoop and Anthony met with Little Raven and Left Hand (their village, which was about a mile from the post consisted of 113 lodges and 652 people.). At this meeting, Left Hand said that he “was willing to submit to anything; that the whites might place him in irons, or kill him, but that he would not fight them.” A short while later, Anthony, Wynkoop, Capt. Silas Soule, Lt. Joseph Cramer, and Lt. William Minton (Minton was a member of the First New Mexico Volunteers) met with Black Kettle and Left Hand at the commissary on the hill above Fort Lyon (this was the former Bent’s New Fort, which William Bent had sold to the military). It was at this meeting that Anthony told the Indians that if they moved to Sand Creek that they would be under the protection of the military. And, AND they didn’t move away from the post until Anthony insisted that they move away. According to Anthony, Black Kettle and his band reached Sand Creek on about November 17, as he placed it 12 days before Chivington attacked the Sand Creek village on November 29.

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Wynkoop’s home & Indian agency was located just outside the perimeter of Fort Larned, and southwest of officer’s row on the western side of the post and just south of the bend in the Pawnee Fork (this view is from the east/slightly northeast). The southern wall of the Wynkoop agency/residence (photo left, and not seen in this image) had two wooden walls with stones between the walls to protect against ride-by shootings. When Cheyennes (such as Black Kettle, Tall Bull, Stone Forehead, and Roman Nose) visited Wynkoop at the agency they and the people that then traveled with them camped to the south and west of the building. (photo © Louis Kraft 2012)

MISSTATEMENT, and as Stated, an ERROR: Wynkoop set out for Kansas to assume command of Fort Riley (although he would command it for a few days in December 1864).

Wynkoop had been removed from command at Fort Lyon for being absent from his post in time of war and had disobeyed orders, risked his command, and met with warring Indians in September 1864, and it looked as if he would face a court-martial. Anthony informed Wynkoop that his orders were to investigate officers (meaning Wynkoop) that fed hostile Indians in violation of orders. The military wanted to get rid of Wynkoop, and as quickly as possible as it viewed him as little more than an embarrassment. Hell, a war was going on; you don’t try to make peace and end it and that is exactly what Wynkoop attempted to do.

ERROR: You state that Col. John Chivington and his combined First and Third Volunteer Cavalries departed Fort Lyon on November 29. Actually Chivington’s command left Fort Lyon on the evening of November 28 at 8:00 PM.

MAJOR ERROR: Wynkoop didn’t visit the Sand Creek village site before he wrote his January 15, 1864, Sand Creek report on the massacre. Although he might have traveled to the site before June 1865 when he took Joint Special Committee members Senators James Rood Doolittle, Lafayette S. Foster, Edmund G. Ross, and Gen. A. McDowell McCook to see the bloody ground, this isn’t confirmed. We know that Wynkoop visited the site with Doolittle in June 1865. FYI: They saw the skeletal heads of small children with bullet holes through the top of their sculls showing how they might have died.

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Leo Oliva speaking about the events that led up to the April 1867 destruction of the Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village on the Pawnee Fork by Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock on 22sept2012. This three-day rendezvous co-sponsored by the Fort Larned NHS, Santa Fe Trail Center, and Santa Fe Trail Association was a marvelous affair. It included talks, re-enactors, book signings, and historic personages being inducted into the Santa Fe Trail Association Hall of Fame. Leo gave his talk from the east side of the Cheyenne village site. As you can see, I was to his left and slightly behind him. The crowd also circled to his right, with some behind and above him where the main portion of the village had been located. Leo and I were the only two speakers at the village site on that day. (photo © Louis Kraft 2012)

Timeline for Wynkoop’s Sand Creek report: Wynkoop arrived at Fort Lyon on the evening of January 14, 1865, assumed command the next day, interviewed participants and non-participants of the attack, and on that same January 15th day submitted his Sand Creek report.

LK comment: The investigations into the attack on the Sand Creek village were exploratory for information on the tragic event; they never were investigations that would lead to a trial as Chivington had mustered out of the military before the investigations began, which placed the colonel beyond military court-martial.

Indian Agent (1866-1868)

ERROR: Wynkoop was not an Indian agent at the Little Arkansas River peace council in fall 1865. He commanded the military escort for the peace commissioners.

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The day is April 24, 1999, and it was a special day, for on this day Cheyenne chiefs Lawrence Hart and Gordon Yellowman blessed the Cheyenne-Lakota village site that Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock destroyed in April 1867. Cheyenne Chief Lawrence Hart stands just right of center with his hands folded. Cheyenne Chief Gordon Yellowman is praying at the right of the image. About four people to the left of Chief Hart (as we look at the image) is Connie Yellowman with the robe wrapped around her, Gordon’s wife. I met her early on the first day of the Fort Larned Old Guard event when both of us went to the office of our lodging to get coffee. She had read Custer and the Cheyenne, knew I’d be present, and brought her copy of the book for me to sign. Ladies and gents, in case you don’t know it I have written extensively about the Southern Cheyennes and have always been true to my view that people are people and that there are always two sides to a story. Connie loved what I had written about the Cheyennes. The sergeant at the far left of the image is George Elmore. At this time he was chief historian at Fort Larned NHS (he is now chief ranger at my favorite destination, which always includes the Pawnee Fork village site). I met George in 1990 or 1991 when I researched the novel The Final Showdown. He gave my daughter Marissa and I a private tour of the fort. I have photos, but unfortunately they are slides and were never printed and now reside in boxes and long unseen—I need to do something about this, and soon, as I have many images dealing with my research that are on slides. (photo © Louis Kraft 1999)

OMISSION: Wynkoop renegotiated the 1865 treaty agreement in spring 1866 with Cheyennes, Dog Men, and Arapahos that had mostly avoided the peace council. Wynkoop was on detached duty from the military at the time. Wynkoop arrived at the Bluff Creek, Kans., camp on February 25. Black Kettle was present, as was Stone Forehead, Keeper of the Sacred Arrows (a coup for Wynkoop). The next morning Dog Men waited for Wynkoop outside his tent, and they weren’t friendly. On February 28 Wynkoop held an initial meeting with Cheyenne and Dog Men leaders. That night he learned that Dog Man Porcupine Bear threatened to kill him if any Cheyennes or Dog Men touched the treaty paper. Nevertheless a nervous Wynkoop held his main council with the Cheyennes and Dog Men on March 1. Bull Bear and Black Kettle helped Wynkoop, who kept calm and got most of the Indians to agree to the changed treaty. However, Dog Men threatened Black Kettle if he touched the updated treaty paper and the chief didn’t make his mark on the paper. And there’s more. Wynkoop spoke with Little Raven’s Arapahos on March 2, and later yet had a second meeting with other Dog Men. Wynkoop also received a young woman whose freedom had been purchased while he was still at the first council site.

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This is one of my favorite photos of all time (so much so that it is the header for my website/blog). I took this image on 23apr1999 when Leo & Bonita Oliva and George Elmore took me (and my then girlfriend) on a private tour to the Pawnee Fork village site and then an exploration of the site. Some of the Cheyenne re-enactors had set up their lodges on the Cheyenne portion of the village site. One of them invited us to spend time in his lodge. During our visit with him and other Cheyenne re-enactors he boiled buffalo tongue over the open flame at the center of the tepee. For me this was a very cool experience. (photo © Louis Kraft 1999)

OMISSION: In 1867 you attempt to deal with Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock’s destruction of the Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village on the Pawnee Fork but you have totally missed Wynkoop’s participation in the events that led up to the destruction of a peaceful village, which started yet another Indian war as Wynkoop warned.

OMISSION: What happened at the meeting at Fort Larned, with Cheyenne leaders including Dog Man Chief Tall Bull? Wynkoop was present and mixed-blood Cheyenne Edmund Guerrier interpreted when Hancock threatened the Indians with war. What about Tall Bull asking Wynkoop to stop Hancock from moving toward the Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village as the Indians feared another Sand Creek? I’m afraid you are missing a major point here.

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I had created this montage before I began to piece together this blog. In Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek I used the word “Sioux” to represent the people I was writing about, mainly because the primary source quotes called these people Sioux. Words that represent people have changed as language usage has changed. In the blog I chose to call these people “Lakotas.” I don’t know which word I’ll use in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. However, I know that the primary source quotes will still say “Sioux.” This is a problem that I’ll think about right up until I deliver my polished manuscript. That said, I should say something else here. I use Cheyenne words in my writing whenever possible, and believe me the spelling of these words has matured and changed quite a bit since the 1980s. That said, this is an ongoing quest for me for I want to know the Tsistsistas’ words, I want to know how to pronounce them. and believe me I use the spoken words in talks and plays. It is a living language, and it must never die. I’m sorry, “Tsistsistas” means “Cheyennes” (a white word); it means “The People.” There is much more to the Tsistsistas’ name, much more. Simply, it represents the Northern and the Southern Cheyennes, and the Dog Men military society (remember, “Dog Soldiers” is a white man word) that for all intensive purposes functioned as a third segment of the tribe by the 1850s. There is much more I can say here. I have said a lot in past books and in some articles, and will say more in the Sand Creek book.

OMISSION: The fear of another Sand Creek attack was already in place long before Hancock reached the village (and as pointed out above, Tall Bull told Wynkoop of this fear after the meeting with Hancock). … You’ve missed another dramatic situation. Why not highlight the Indian battle line that confronted Hancock’s army miles before it reached the Pawnee Fork village? Wynkoop rode between the lines and prevented a battle that day. This is well documented.

ERROR: The Pawnee Fork village was occupied when Hancock’s army set up camp near it. This is well documented.

OMISSION: What about Wynkoop’s massive efforts to save the village from destruction after the Indians fled their village in fear of their lives? You’re writing about Wynkoop and yet you ignore this. Unbelievable.

LK suggestion: Read the chapter on “Hancock’s War” in Kraft, Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011), 178-201, and William Y. Chalfant, Hancock’s War: Conflict on the Southern Plains (Norman, Oklahoma: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 2010) for information on what happened at the Pawnee Fork in April 1867.

LK comment: Obviously I have major problems with the Hancock 1867 expedition to confront the Cheyennes and Wynkoop’s participation in the events. You miss what happened, you miss the dramatics of what happened, and you exclude Wynkoop from the events, even though you are supposedly featuring him in this brochure.

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Principle Cheyenne Chief Gordon Yellowman (left) and traditional Cheyenne Peace Chief Harvey Pratt (who I met for the first time) on 11nov2011 at a Washita Battlefield NHS two-day symposium. On this day Gordon blessed the Washita village site and Harvey spoke about Cheyenne warriors of the past and today. On the 12th Gordon talked about what it is like to be a Cheyenne chief. (photo © Louis Kraft 2011)

LK comment: The NPS allowed three paragraphs for this section, and here is the final paragraph: “In September 1868, after a series of Cheyenne raids in Kansas, Major General William T. Sherman declared war on the Southern Cheyenne. Sherman’s winter campaign punished all Indians, both friendly and hostile. When Wynkoop realized that he could no longer protect the peaceful Indians, he resigned as Indian Agent in protest. He wanted no part in the murdering of innocent Indians.”

LK comment: Yikes!!! The above paragraph is true. But you have missed Wynkoop’s attempt to end the war, and worse Custer’s destruction of Black Kettle’s Cheyenne village on the Washita River on November 27, 1868, is ignored. In case you didn’t know it Wynkoop spoke before a standing room only audience at the Cooper Union in New York City damning what he considered the murder of innocent people. This is a very short paragraph and room must be made to rewrite and increase the word count.

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Craig Moore leads a group of people on a tour of the upper Washita Battlefield NHS trail. Moore is a ranger at the Sand Creek Massacre NHS and helped out on this last day of the three-day event (December 4-6, 2008); I gave two performances as Wynkoop on the first two days and on the third spoke about his relationship with the Cheyennes. When Moore passed Custer Hill, the location from which Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer observed the battle of the Washita (27nov1868), a tragic day for on it Cheyenne Council Chief Black Kettle, his wife Medicine Woman Later (Voh-is-ta), Cheyenne Council Chief Little Rock, and others who did everything possible to remain at peace with the United States died. It was here that Custer learned that soldiers shot at women and children. He rushed to stop the outrage. Ben Clarke (yes, that is correct for I have seen over 500 pages in Clarke’s handwriting including signed letters and he always signed his last name with an “e”), Custer’s chief of scouts confirmed this, and Clarke was no friend of Custer. Three years later Moore spoke of Cheyenne lineage as related to the Sand Creek Massacre in November 2011. I spoke on Wynkoop’s outrage on that day, but he wanted nothing to do with me. Perhaps because I inserted a running commentary during his 2008 tour of the upper Washita, including comments about Stone Forehead. He allowed me to do it, but I don’t think he was pleased. (photo © Leroy Livesay 2008, and he gave me full permission to use this image)

LK comment: Wynkoop will forever be remembered for his attempt to end the 1864 Cheyenne war, but the Wynkoop that should forever be remembered is the Wynkoop that did everything he could to prevent innocent people from being killed for the actions of the guilty in 1868. Although this won’t be in the brochure, it should be a highlight in the brochure.

Later Life (1869-1891)

LK note: The below paragraph is in response to this final section in the NPS brochure.

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Ivan Hankla had set up his tepee at the Washita Battlefield NHS three-day symposium in December 2008. Ivan is at the left in his lodge. The fellow on the right is his nephew, Jake, who helped him at the event. The day was 6dec2008, and it was the last time I saw my friend on this earth. (photo © Leroy Livesay 2008)

LK comment: This paragraph discusses information in detail that drifts far from Wynkoop’s Indian years, and although nicely written doesn’t add value to the brochure. John Chivington didn’t become Wynkoop’s “nemesis,” for Wynkoop simply ignored the man after Sand Creek. Chivington had become a symbol to Wynkoop, the man responsible for the butchery of people that had been guaranteed safety. For the rest of his life Wynkoop refused to acknowledge Chivington other than in relation to the attack at Sand Creek, which he considered a criminal act. Yes, Chivington played a key role in getting Louise Wynkoop Ned’s pension after his death, and he said kind words about Ned.

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There’s always a damned “but.” … But your words have redeemed Chivington at the end of the brochure and leaves the reader with a positive final view of him. It’s good that Wynkoop was “honest and always a gentleman,” but I think here if you are going to use a quote by far the best choice is to repeat George Bent’s quote about Wynkoop. Reason: Not many white men tried to help American Indians. Wynkoop was one of the few whites that truly worked for American Indians, and Bent’s handful of words recognize this. I firmly believe that you should eliminate all reference to Chivington in the final section and go with Bent’s quote.

LK sitting near the bay window in the living room of Tujunga House (8may2004). Ivan Hankla made and gave me the parfleche above my head that April. It is a treasured gift. (photo © Louis Kraft 2004)

LK suggested rewrite of NPS Wynkoop brochure

The following is the suggested LK rewrite of the NPS Wynkoop brochure

This brochure is about Wynkoop. Often—way too often—the focus ignores this. If you want to bring his name to the fore of the Cheyenne Indian wars and point out what he did to walk between the races and work for Cheyennes and Arapahos you must maintain focus throughout the entire brochure. This can be done.

What follows isn’t egotistical. Rather it is an attempt to help you create a brochure that is not only true to who Ned Wynkoop was but will give the public that read the brochure a solid vision of who this man was and what he meant to the Cheyennes and Arapahos. … I am submitting a rewrite for this brochure (below). I hope you look at the words and decide if they present to the public who Ned Wynkoop was and why he was important to our Indian wars past.

LK note: I listed both my word count and the NPS brochure draft word count below each paragraph.

Wynkoop brochure heading

Edward W. (Ned) Wynkoop

Wynkoop brochure subheadings

“Best friend [the] Cheyennes and Arapahos ever had.”
Mixed-blood Cheyenne George Bent

“This white man is not here to laugh at us…but on the contrary, unlike the rest of his race, he comes with a confidence in the pledges given by the red man.”
Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle

Early Years (1836-1860)

While growing up in Philadelphia Edward “Ned” Wynkoop (born June 19, 1836) acquired a strong sense of duty, loyalty to country, and racial tolerance from his mother and older siblings. Intelligent, Wynkoop excelled at school and possessed a sound understanding of politics and diplomacy.
(LK paragraph word count, 44; NPS paragraph word count, 45)

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The NPS chose the 1861 standing portrait of Wynkoop by his father-in-law that was created shortly after he became a captain in the 1st Colorado Volunteer Regiment as their leading image in the brochure. Wonderful choice! My editor at OU Press, Chuck Rankin, wanted to use the great image of Wynkoop, Capt. Silas Soule, Black Kettle, Bull Bear, John Smith, and others that was taken after the September 28, 1864, Camp Weld conference ended. I spent days trying to crop the image and make it work on a dust jacket and failed. I told Chuck that I wanted the 1861 portrait on the Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek dust jacket. I also said that I wanted it colorized. The art director didn’t colorize, but did do duotones. I couldn’t have been happier (even though he might have a different opinion). I’m certain that when I finally deliver the Sand Creek manuscript that he will begin to have heart palpitations, and cry out: “Oh Lord, no more Kraft!” That’s right, I have a sparkling reputation with production teams.

In 1856 Wynkoop followed his sister Emily and her husband to Lecompton, Kansas Territory, to seek his fortune. At this time violence predominated as Free-Staters and pro-slavery Border Ruffians battled for supremacy. To survive Wynkoop became skilled with weapons.
(LK paragraph word count, 39; NPS paragraph word count, 50)

LK note: This shortened paragraph may allow the Wynkoop portrait to move up slightly on the page.

Two years later Wynkoop migrated to the gold region to the east of the Rocky Mountains that would eventually become the city of Denver. At this time there was no town, law, or government. Although Denver began to thrive by spring 1860, Wynkoop, like many, struggled to survive as he worked as miner, land speculator, sheriff (which paid only upon conviction), and bartender. On the wild side, Wynkoop hung out with a rough crowd and became known as a “bad man from Kansas.” A professional actress named Louise Wakely caught his eye and he wooed her.
(LK paragraph word count, 96; NPS paragraph word count, 97)

Civil War Years (1861-1863)

An Act of Congress created Colorado Territory on February 28, 1861. Less than two months later the Civil War began. Rumors swirled of a Confederate invasion of the Southwest. With the gold region threatened, in June the first territorial governor, William Gilpin, created the 1st Regiment of Colorado Volunteers even though he had no War Department authorization and no funds. Although Wynkoop still fluctuated between law and lawlessness Louise had calmed him down. He enlisted, and on July 31 received a commission as second lieutenant of Company A. On August 21 Wynkoop married Louise, and before month’s end a promotion made him captain and reporting to Major John M. Chivington.
(LK paragraph word count, 109; NPS paragraph word count, 110)

In January 1862 a Confederate brigade entered New Mexico Territory and defeated Union forces at the Battle of Valverde. Orders sent Wynkoop and the 1st Regiment south to confront the invasion. The Coloradans defeated the Confederates at what has since been known as the Battle of Glorieta Pass (March 26-28). When the regiment’s commanding officer resigned in April promotions made Chivington colonel and Wynkoop major. On April 15 Chivington, Wynkoop, and the Coloradans, along with New Mexico Volunteers, defeated Rebel forces at the Battle of Peralta, near Las Lunas, and ended the Southern invasion. By November 1862 the regiment became the 1st Regiment of Colorado Cavalry. (LK paragraph word count, 106; NPS paragraph word count, 101)

Sand Creek Massacre (1864-1865)

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The second NPS image in the brochure is the done-to-death line art of Black Kettle by John Metcalf (without giving the artist credit). It is a poor choice as dramatic events confronted Wynkoop at this time, including facing the Cheyenne and Arapaho battle line on September 10, 1864 (this image represents Wynkoop seeing the battle line). He not only kept his cool but he maneuvered through potential death without violence that day. This art appeared in Wild West magazine (August 2014) and I will use it in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. I offered this art free of charge to the National Park Service to use in the Wynkoop brochure for the Fort Larned and Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Sites with the stipulation that it uses this credit: (art © Louis Kraft 2013)

Wynkoop assumed command of Fort Lyon on the Santa Fe Trail in early May 1864. On September 3 he saw two letters from Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle, who wanted to end the war that raged all summer. Wynkoop led 127 officers and men toward a large Cheyenne-Arapaho encampment on the Smoky Hill in Kansas to discuss peace. On the morning of September 10 Wynkoop faced a massive Indian battle line. He thought he and his command would die, but instead Black Kettle prevented violence, and he met Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal leaders in council. Although threatened with violence by Dog Man Chief Bull Bear Wynkoop remained calm (Dog Soldiers is a white-man term). Wynkoop received four white children and seven chiefs accompanied him to Camp Weld, below Denver, to discuss peace with second Territorial Governor John Evans. During the council Wynkoop and the chiefs thought that war had ended pending the decision of the U.S. government.
(LK paragraph word count, 156; NPS paragraph word count, 155)

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The NPS’s third image is on page 2 in the Indian Agent section. It is an “Image of a typical Cheyenne village in the 1860s.” I might as well say this here: This is a brochure on Wynkoop. It has four images and only one is of Wynkoop, and it was taken long before Wynkoop met or worked with Cheyennes and Arapahos. Hello???? I don’t think I need to say anything else about the poor choice of images. This image appeared on page 124 of Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011). As it has many of the leading participants in the events that led up to Sand Creek, the attack, and the aftermath it is a major image and belongs in Wynkoop’s brochure. Partial caption from the Wynkoop book: “Kneeling in the foreground are Maj. Edward Wynkoop (left) and Capt. Silas Soule. Sitting (from left) are White Antelope (Southern Cheyenne), Bull Bear (Dog Soldier), Black Kettle (Southern Cheyenne), Neva (Arapaho), and No-ta-nee (Arapaho). Standing (from left) are unidentified, Trader Dexter Colley, Trader/Interpreter John Smith, Heap of Buffalo (Arapaho), Bosse (Arapaho), Secretary of Colorado Territory Samuel Elbert, unidentified soldier. Note that Neva has sometimes been identified as One-Eye (Southern Cheyenne), Heap of Buffalo has sometimes been identified as White Wolf (Kiowa), and that Bull Bear has sometimes been identified as the fourth sitting from the left, which is incorrect as a close examination of the many images of him in later life conclusively prove.” Courtesy: History Colorado (Scan #10025492)

On November 5, 1864, Maj. Scott Anthony relieved Wynkoop of command at Fort Lyon for acting without authority and feeding warring Indians. Wynkoop set up meetings and introduced Anthony to Black Kettle and Arapaho Chief Left Hand. Anthony demanded that they move away from the fort but promised military protection. By November 17 Black Kettle’s Cheyenne village camped on a bend of the Big Sandy. A small band of Left Hand’s people also camped there. Expecting to be court-martialed Wynkoop set out for Kansas on November 26.
(LK paragraph word count, 87; NPS paragraph word count, 88)

On the morning of November 29, 1864, Chivington and approximately 675 soldiers of mostly the 1st and 3rd Colorado Volunteer Cavalries attacked the Cheyenne and Arapaho village on Big Sandy Creek. The soldiers showed no mercy and killed women, children, and old people. Many horribly. Almost all the bodies were scalped and mutilated. Somewhere between 160 and 200 Cheyennes and Arapahos died in what has become known as the Sand Creek Massacre.
(LK paragraph word count, 72; NPS paragraph word count, 80)

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This is a detail of a woodcut that shows the chiefs that traveled to Denver and Camp Weld with Wynkoop in September 1864. It was created in the 19th century and is part of my collection. I colorized this image and offered it to the NPS as an alternate to the Camp Weld photo (the Camp Weld photo belongs in the Wynkoop brochure much more than the 1861 Wynkoop portrait). This image shows Bull Bear (left) and Black Kettle, both of whom played large roles in Wynkoop’s relationship with the Cheyennes. (Colorization © Louis Kraft 2013)

When Wynkoop learned of the attack his shock gave way to rage. He demanded an interview with Maj. Gen. Samuel Curtis, who commanded the Department of Kansas. Curtis listened to Wynkoop, who damned Chivington for the murder innocent people. Exonerated for his actions, in late December Wynkoop received orders to resume command of Fort Lyon and report upon the attack. He interviewed participants and leaned that “three-fourths of [the dead] were women and children, among whom many were infants.” Wynkoop’s report along with other reports of the massacre resulted in two Congressional investigations and launched a U.S. Army Commission investigation. Chivington’s attack was officially condemned, but as he had previously resigned his military commission he was never court-martialed.
(LK paragraph word count, 118; NPS paragraph word count, 118)

The Sand Creek Massacre resulted in an Indian war of revenge that began in January 1865. Hoping to end the war peace commissioners met with tribal leaders on the Little Arkansas River in Kansas in fall 1865. Wynkoop commanded the military escort. Instead an arrow in the back as Wynkoop expected, Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders asked he be named their agent.
(LK paragraph word count, 61; NPS paragraph word count, 58)

Indian Agent (1866-1868)

While on detached duty from the military in 1866 Wynkoop met Cheyenne and Dog Men leaders in council at Bluff Creek, Kansas (February 28-March 1) to get them to agree to railroad tracks crossing prime buffalo hunting grounds. Although threatened if Cheyennes touched the changed-1865 treaty paper Wynkoop, with Black Kettle and Bull Bear’s help, obtained needed signatures. In June Wynkoop, who now considered Indians human beings, resigned his military commission and applied to become an Indian agent. As a special agent Wynkoop fed hungry Cheyennes before President Andrew Johnson appointed him U.S. Indian agent in September 1866.
(LK paragraph word count, 97; NPS paragraph word count, 100)

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The fourth and final NPS image is a long-distance image of Fort Larned, Ks. Who cares! The Fort Larned NHS brochure features a magnificent color artistic rendering of the fort. What value does a long shot of the fort provide to the Wynkoop brochure? Nothing, absolutely nothing. This image shows U.S. Indian agent Ned Wynkoop (left) with interpreter Dick Curtis, one of the interpreters accompanying Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock’s massive army as it approached the Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village on the Pawnee Fork (about 35 miles due west of Fort Larned, Kans., in mid-April 1867). Wynkoop, with mixed-blood Cheyenne Edmund Guerrier, whom Wynkoop often used as an interpreter, rode between the lines and prevented violence between perhaps 400 Tsistsistas, Dog Men, and Lakotas and about 1400 soldiers under the command of Hancock. Later, after Hancock’s army camped close to the Indian village, the Indians deserted it in fear that they were about to be butchered. Wynkoop fought with Hancock for days to protect the deserted village as these people had done nothing wrong, other than fleeing in fear that they would be sexually murdered and desecrated as the Cheyennes and Arapahos had been at Sand Creek. Theodore R. Davis artwork. (Restoration © Louis Kraft 2009; in author’s personal collection)

Wynkoop established his agency near traditional Cheyenne hunting lands at Fort Larned in southwestern Kansas. The fort’s isolated location afforded an opportunity to protect his wards that desired peace. In spring 1867 Maj. Gen. Winfield Hancock, with 1400 soldiers, threatened perhaps 12 leaders of the “Dog band,” as Wynkoop called the Dog Men, during a night meeting at Fort Larned on April 12. After the council Dog Man Chief Tall Bull told Wynkoop he feared another Sand Creek. Late that night Wynkoop tried but couldn’t stop Hancock from marching toward a Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village on the Pawnee Fork on the next day. When an Indian battle line confronted Hancock’s army Wynkoop rode between the lines and prevented violence. Soon after Hancock’s arrival at the village the Indians fled in fear of their lives. Wynkoop fought to save the Indians’ lodges and property, but Hancock refused to listen to him, destroyed the village, and as Wynkoop predicted started what has been called “Hancock’s War.”
(LK paragraph word count, 162; NPS paragraph word count, 163)

In August 1868 a Cheyenne-led war party killed settlers in central Kansas and started another war. Wynkoop could not stop it and resigned his commission in protest. After his friend Black Kettle (whom he called “Make-tava-tah”) died in a dawn attack on November 27, Wynkoop lashed out at U.S. government policy for what he considered wanton murder of innocent people in New York City on December 23.1
(LK paragraph word count, 67; NPS paragraph word count, 61)

1 See Kraft, Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011), for variations of Black Kettle’s name including what Wynkoop called him, 111.

Later Life (1869-1891)

In 1869 Wynkoop applied to become Superintendent of Indian Affairs, but because he spoke out against government policy and dared to suggest that Indians become U.S. citizens his application was denied. Wynkoop lived another 22 years and more than once attempted to again work with Indians but the U.S. government refused each request. During these years Wynkoop performed numerous jobs as he provided for his family. He died in Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory, on September 11, 1891. George Bent, who as a Cheyenne mixed-blood, lived through the violent 1860s and beyond, called Wynkoop “the best friend [the] Cheyennes and Arapahos ever had.”
(LK paragraph word count, 103; NPS paragraph word count, 103)

LK note: Wynkoop suggested making Indians U.S. citizens at the Cooper Union in New York City on December 23, 1868. See “Indian Affairs,” New York Times (December 24, 1868), 1. When Johnny D. Boggs reviewed Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek, he wrote (in reference to Indians becoming citizens), “No wonder Wynkoop wore a gun.”

Obviously when LK next appears at a national historic site
he will be escorted off the premises by an armed guard.
Hell, that’s not so bad for he’ll soon have another life
experience that will be a first. The future is out there
and I can’t wait to walk into it.

Cheyennes, George Bird Grinnell, & the Braun Research Library, Autry National Center

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

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


The best place to start is with a little background of something that doesn’t exist anymore (at least not as it was, and sometime in the not-too-distant future never again). As I type these words I’m sad. The city of Los Angeles had something special.

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The Southwest Museum of the American Indian, which is now part of the Autry National Center of the American West. (art © Louis Kraft 2014)

Writers of history and especially the American Indian shame on you. The diverse population of the city of Los Angeles, which I believe still has the largest Native American population not living on the Rez (most likely the Navajo Reservation, as it dwarfs the other reservations), I’m ashamed of you too. But more I’m ashamed of the city and the county of Los Angeles, for you had a treasure and you didn’t support it. Shame on you!!!!

Los Angeles, you constantly brag about the quality of culture that exists within the city and county borders. We have everything. Great museums, great theaters, great restaurants (I think every food possible, sans one—American Indian; how many times do I have to say that damned word, “shame”?). And let’s not forget the mountains, surf, and weather that are to die for. Yes, we do have a number of days during summer and a number of them string together and the temperature is an ungodly 100+ degrees, but these have shrunk in number over recent years. We don’t compare to Phoenix and the rest of the Valley of the Sun; for unlike the residents of that sprawling metropolis the people of LA don’t fry their eggs on the pavement (that’s right; lk isn’t seeking any kissy points from Arizona; the only establishment that welcomes him back is Guidon Books in Old Scottsdale). Oh, I should add that Christmas time is shorts and broad-brimmed hats, and if you still have your American football legs (mine were during the days of the late-great Johnny U. and Joe Montana) a round of competitive tossing and catching the pigskin after a Christmas dinner under blue skies in mid-70 to low 80 degree weather with 20 or so buddies often happened.

Charles Lummis, the American Southwest, and well you know, … the future

Charles Lummis (1859-1928) earned a living as a journalist, but without doing due-diligence research I wonder how much family money he had.

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This image for this magnificent exhibit that the then Autry Museum of Western Heritage presented for a little over three months in 1996 represents what the Autry had been and what the 2003 merger with the Southwest Museum can become. Friend Paul Andrew Hutton played a major role in this exhibit coming to life. It was by far the best exhibit that I have ever seen at the Autry or the Southwest. Let us hope that the merged museums can again recreate this type of excellence. I saw the exhibit twice; first with my good friend writer/historian Eric Niderost and later by myself. … Over the years the Autry would create another masterpiece, but I believe most of it came from in-house—they paid a long-overdue homage to Gene Autry a few years back. Alas, it is long gone, but it should have been made into a permanent exhibit, and this is coming from someone who didn’t like Gene’s singing, B-moves, or what is now called the “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.” Hell, I guess that I now live in Anaheim of North Hollywood, Los Angeles. (photo © Louis Kraft 1996)

I’ve not met many rich journalists. In direct relation to what he would do, Lummis stood for Indian rights and historic preservation. He was also an historian, photographer, ethnographer, and archaeologist. He had a passion for the Southwest and the Indian people that called this land home.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Charles Lummis, who was the driving force behind the Southwest Society, saw the creation of a museum that would house art, history, and science of the American Southwest. The Southwest Museum opened in downtown Los Angeles in 1907. Seven years later it moved to its current location at Mount Washington on the western side of the Arroyo Seco, and in which in the coming decades the 110 freeway would snake through and connect downtown Los Angeles with the city of Pasadena in the San Gabriel Valley. Sumner P. Hunt designed the original structure in the style of Spanish Colonial Revival that climbed the hillside. Over the years additions would be added. The Braun Research Library opened in 1979. If one doesn’t drive up the hill to the parking lot, he or she can walk from the subway just below the famed institution to a tunnel that leads to an elevator that rises 150 feet to the bottom floor of the original structure.

The Friends of the Southwest Museum claim that the museum houses 238,000 Indian artifacts. True? I don’t know, but that’s a pretty impressive figure. Over the course of his life Lummis amassed a large and impressive collection of American Indian artifacts that mostly focused on the Southwest, and quite a number of them along with his photos, papers, and documents are housed at the museum. Other notable papers and/or collections include those of Edward S. Curtis, Frederick Webb Hodge, and George Bird Grinnell, among others.

There has been a lot of planning and politics since the merger of the Southwest Museum and the Autry in 2003. It is not my intent to comment on that here other than to say that even though the historic Mount Washington site may someday be history, the oh so-precious collection it houses will continue to live in a 200,000 square foot building in Burbank, Ca.

The Braun Research Library is one of the premier archives that I have spent many hours, days, months, and more visiting in an attempt to learn what is hopefully the truth. Other than the Braun here are other classy archives in which I’ve researched:

  • The Fray Angélico Chávez History Library (Santa Fe, N. Mex.)
  • USC Warner Bros. Archives (Los Angeles, Ca.)
  • Arizona Historical Society (Tucson, Az.)
  • Western History Collection, Denver Public Library (Co.)
  • History Colorado (Denver; I have not researched there since the new facility opened)
  • Fort Larned National Historic Site (Larned, Ks.)

Of course, there is a disclaimer here, and it is as follows. Sometimes it is more economical to order research. National Archives (various locations) and Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. are two such library-archives.

A long and winding road to the Braun Research Library

Let’s drift back to the dark ages. In 1987 I spoke at the Order of the Indian Wars (OIW) “First Annual West Coast Indian Wars Conference” in Fullerton, Ca. (alas, it was the first and only OIW SoCal conference).

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Jerry Russell holding court on private property above the supposed Sand Creek village massacre site in 1987 (see photo of Marissa Kraft, below, for more about this visit). (photo © Louis Kraft 1987)

This event cemented my relationship with Jerry Russell, who ran the OIW and who always had my back covered.

Jerry is long time gone, and I still miss him. At that conference I met Mike Koury (The Old Army Press), a great speaker (he should do it more often), who took over the Order of the Indian Wars after Jerry’s death. Mike and I became friends and for years and years he has done everything possible to help my writing. I also met Chris Summit, former historian at the Custer Battlefield National Monument (since renamed to the Little Bighorn National Monument). He was round and perhaps short. I thought that he would make an impact on Indian wars writing, but he dropped from sight (don’t know why; hope he is well). The reason I mention him is because during the two-day event (February 28-March 1) he told me that I should check out the Braun Research Library at the Southwest Museum for it would be a boon to my Cheyenne Indian research.

I never forgot Chris Summit’s words.

Years passed and believe it or not, with the publication of Custer and the Cheyenne (Upton and Sons, Publishers, 1995), a quirk of fate thrust me into a 10-year quest to understand a long-forgotten 6th U.S. Cavalry officer named Charles Gatewood and his involvement with White Mountain and Chiricahua Apaches. A Custer book signing at Guidon Books, in Old Scottsdale, Az., alerted me to the Gatewood Collection at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson. The following month resulted in a nine-day trip to view the Gatewood Collection (over the years I would spend another three+ months at the archive).

Enter Kim Walters

Gatewood had preempted what I thought would be my next Indian wars book (soldier/Indian agent Ned Wynkoop and his relationship with Cheyennes and Arapahos). In the late 1990s I took off the Gatewood/Apache blinders and heeding Chris Summit’s suggestion contacted the Braun about doing Cheyenne research as related to my longtime project on Wynkoop.

This is when I met Kim Walters.

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Kim Walters doing research at the Braun on June 18. I hadn’t seen Kim since the Wynkoop book had been published and it was good to see her again. Her current title is: “Ahmanson Curator of Native American History and Culture—Autry National Center.” (photo © Louis Kraft and Kim Walters 2014)

At that time Kim’s title was “Director, Braun Research Library,” a title she held from 1990 until 2011. She quickly became my go-to person. My sole interest during these visits to the Braun was the Cheyennes in Wynkoop’s life. With Kim’s terrific digging I became privy to prime Cheyenne research in the George Bird Grinnell Papers. At the time I didn’t know of a 77-page document that lists Grinnell’s Papers (and don’t think it existed in its current state then).

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Head Librarian Liza Posas shows lk where the George Bird Grinnell Papers are stored in the Braun’s stacks. Liza and I have discussed me submitting suggestions that will aid the 77-page listing of Grinnell’s papers, among other things that are not for this blog. The suggestions will not be egotistical; simply constructive comments that will hopefully aid researchers in the future. (photo © Louis Kraft and Liza Posas 2014)

I would not see this extended list until Braun Head Librarian Liza Posas supplied it to me earlier this year (see below for more on Liza). Good digging by Kim!!! And especially so since the key documents she located for me are not listed in the contents of the Grinnell Papers. That said, they are in the folders listed in the 77-page Grinnell Papers document (I checked to ensure that they were still located in the same folders). The information that Kim found for me saw print in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011).

Soon after completing the Cheyenne Indian research for the Wynkoop manuscript I returned to the Braun to search for images for Gatewood & Geronimo (University of New Mexico Press, 2000), and again I struck gold in various collections with Kim’s help. The images included:

  • A little Apache girl about four years old holding a small puppy (perhaps my favorite image ever in any of my publications for I could write a book about her)
  • A studio portrait of Gen. George Crook (1880s)
  • The Chokonen Chiricahua Apache chief Chihuahua
  • The Chihenne Chiricahua Apache war leader Kaytennae w/Benito
  • The mixed-blood Mexican-Apache Mickey Free
  • The Chihenne Chiricahua Apache Mangus

Moving forward

The Custer book tossed my name into the hat, but it was Gatewood & Geronimo that made me a player. Kim Walters and the Braun helped make this happen. Thank you, Kim.

Custer and the Cheyenne had been contracted but G&G was spec. I figured I didn’t have a good enough name to move away from regional presses and submitted the manuscript to Westernlore Press (Tucson, Az.). It was immediately accepted, and I said I wanted a contract. “I’ll get to it, when I finish one of my books,” Lynn R. Bailey told me (he was also a writer). I gave him three months and repeated my request. He told me he’d get to it when he was ready. I fired him, and that day sent a query letter to the University of Arizona Press. I waited a week. Nothing happened. I sent a query to the University of New Mexico Press.

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(left to right): Bonita & Dr. Leo Oliva (more on good friends Leo & Bonita in an upcoming blog), and Dr. Durwood Ball. After Leo and I spoke at the Pawnee Fork village site (he about the events that led up to Gen. Winfield Hancock destroying a Tsistsista, Dog Man, Lakota village on the Pawnee Fork in Kansas in April 1867 and I about Wynkoop’s effort to save the village), Durwood followed us back to Fort Larned so he could see the hill that Hancock’s army climbed on April 14, 1867, only to halt when they saw the battle line of Cheyennes and Sioux in the valley. Wynkoop asked permission of Hancock to ride between the lines and sooth Indian fears. Edmund Guerrier, a mixed-blood Cheyenne, rode into the valley with him. Durwood spoke that night about Col. Edwin Vose Sumner, the subject of his next book. BTW, the photo is black & white, and with the late afternoon sun everyone was in deep shadow. I turned the image into a duotone and lightened it. (photo © Louis Kraft 2012)

Durwood Ball, then editor-in-chief at University of New Mexico Press, contacted me immediately; he wanted the G&G manuscript (the U of A Press contacted me a week later; am sorry—too late). Durwood, like Jerry Russell, always had my back, especially during the production process which had a few bumps. I don’t see him near enough, but whenever we are together it is like we are neighbors and hang out on weekends.

A quick return to the Braun, but not in person

I had less success at the Braun with the second Gatewood book, Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apache Wars Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2005). I had wanted to use the same Apache girl image again in this book, and started the process perhaps three months before my deadline but due to problems with the Southwest’s schedule (nothing to do with Kim) I couldn’t secure the needed documentation to proceed with the publisher. The deadline arrived with nothing from the Southwest. No big deal for I always have another 10 or more images that I want to use with documentation in place if an alternate is needed. Problem immediately solved. I wrote fully two-thirds of the text and the remainder is my editing of Gatewood’s long-winded and very passive prose. This volume is by far my best-selling book (I think in large part as the publisher promoted it aggressively).

Chuck Rankin, the Cheyennes, and the tragedy of Sand Creek

For me writing nonfiction, real nonfiction, is a long-term process. Put another way, it is not wham bam, thank you ma’am. What does this less than satisfactory statement mean? I must put in the time and walk the walk to know what I’m writing about.

This section needs to lead with a major disclaimer. Chuck Rankin, editor-in-chief at OU Press, is a good friend. He has also played perhaps the most key role in my Indian wars life, and this includes my writing not with OU Press. He liked my last blog with a lone criticism; he did not like the image I posted of him. Chuck has told me many times now that he prefers to reside in the shadows and not in the limelight. I do my best not to talk about him, but damn!, if you could only use one word to describe me as a writer it would be biographer. Chuck, I can’t help myself. It’s what I do.

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lk with Chuck Rankin on 15oct11 at the Western History Association convention in Oakland, Ca. Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek became available to the public in Oakland. Chuck gave me the book poster behind us. I framed it and it resides in my living room at Tujunga House. I know Chuck doesn’t like this type of publicity, but he does great work and any writer who works with him is damned lucky. This should not remain in the shadows; it should be proclaimed! (photo © Louis Kraft & Chuck Rankin 2011)

Right around the time that Chuck and I signed the contract for the Wynkoop book (without checking, I think 2005), he started pitching me on writing a book about the Sand Creek Massacre. I said, “No, I don’t write books about war. I write about people.” He pitched again and eventually we began to talk about the possibility of a book. Sometime before the Wynkoop book was published I pitched him on a “people” book, and the conversation continued. We came to a verbal agreement on the storyline about the time the Wynkoop book saw print. It took me almost another two years to create a 36-page proposal that was satisfactory to both myself, Chuck, and OU Press. During the entire time Chuck supported the project 100 percent. His input and patience were exceptional. Two reviewers also provided constructive criticism (one being good friend and great Indian wars historian John Monnett).

Unfortunately I won’t tell you about the storyline.

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My daughter Marissa and I had been tracking Custer when Jerry Russell’s OIW traveling tour ended at the supposed Sand Creek Massacre site on private property in 1987. I called Jerry and asked if we could join the trip to Sand Creek and following banquet. He graciously said yes. This actually turned into an article for True West (1990). While the tour assembled on the bluffs, Marissa and I explored the land below. There were rattlesnakes, including babies. She isn’t looking at one here. (Photo © Louis & Marissa Kraft 1987)

Without telling you anything I need to pull the Tsistsistas from the mists of time and into their golden age, and as soon as possible I need to make the story people driven.

More, I must interlink people story lines. When you have one or two lead players this isn’t a hard task. However, when you increase the major player count to 10 or more, this task becomes complicated. To make this work I must know the leading (and supporting) players intimately, for only then will I be able to move about in the story smoothly. Research, research, and more research is the key (and this is mixed with writing and rewriting every step of the way).

For all my research and writing dealing with white/Cheyenne relations and history (and this dates back to the dark ages), there is still a lot that I don’t know about the Cheyennes (and to a lesser degree about the whites and mixed-blood players). This is a no-brainer; I must increase my knowledge about the Cheyennes and others.

The Braun becomes a major player

Liza Posas, Head Librarian

When I contacted Kim at the beginning of the year regarding revisiting Mr. Grinnell’s Papers she informed me that she had moved on at the Autry. She pointed me to Liza Posas, copied Liza on the email, and suggested that she send the 77-page Grinnell listing. This marked the beginning of my relationship with Liza (I believe that it was in February).

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John Monnett at The Fort on 10apr13, a cool restaurant in Morrison, Co., that serves venison, rattlesnake, buffalo, and so on. He may look like a dreamer, but he’s actually a very good listener. (photo Louis Kraft & John Monnett 2013)

My friend John Monnett constantly has Cheyenne manuscripts in progress, and we had talked about my return. When he learned of the extended list he asked to see it, and Liza sent it to him. Months would pass before I could visit the Braun and meet Liza and Research Services Associate Manola Madrid (more about Manola below). Liza and Manola prepared to work closely with me to ensure that I saw what I wanted/needed to see.

No Kim. Shock, pure shock? No, not at all. This might have been my first reaction to a change that I didn’t expect, but it vanished beginning with Liza’s first contact with me.

During our initial emails she partnered with me to ensure that I was primed for a successful search regardless of the final outcome. What? What does “I was primed for a successful search regardless of the final outcome” mean? Just this: If I find documentation I can use, great; but if not, and I am certain that I have looked at everything that is related to my search and found nothing, I have also succeeded. Huh? That’s right, I have succeeded for I no longer need to worry that I missed something because the search was not complete, that is I didn’t look at everything.

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Liza Posas at her desk at the Braun. (photo © Louis Kraft and Liza Posas 2014)

To repeat, and I’m talking about Liza here, her lone goal was to help my research succeed. And when I met her late on that first day—wow! I met a person who was not only involved and interested but would be available (even though she had to spend time at the Autry across town). And more, she’s a fun and positive and bright individual. The Braun has a first class person performing a needed task of ensuring that our history—yours, mine, and specifically in this case, the lifeway and history of the Cheyennes will continue to survive.

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This is my MacBook Pro on the first floor of the Braun at the beginning of the day on 18jun14. You can see the open balconies of the second floor. I spent a good amount of my time at this table and to a lesser extent the other tables in the room. Intense work is about to begin. My kind of workplace! (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

Liza okayed some research for John Monnett, and it happened. The year 2013 gave John and myself time to cement our relationship thanks to our mutual friend Layton Hooper, who only became my friend that year when he and his wonderful wife Vicki opened their home to me in Fort Collins, Co. I think it was for nine days (or somewhere close). Good times, times I want to repeat (if not in their new home in Arizona then at Tujunga House). Ditto you John M.

I will say this; I have always put in the time and have walked the walk. More important, none of my books are based on a preconceived thesis that I must prove at all costs. You would be shocked if you knew how many so-called historians work from a set premise and everything they write and every citation they use only sees print because it supports what they are selling. Worse, some of these historians cite fiction, create quotes, and facts that don’t exist. This discussion is not for here but will appear in a future blog.

Manola Madrid, Research Services Associate

Manola Madrid greeted me at the guard station in the Southwest Museum on my first day back at the Braun. She had worked with me in the past and we had an instant connection. On this day we worked on the third floor.

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Manola Madrid on the third floor of the Braun. On this day, June 9th I worked at the table facing the Braun’s stacks. During a break she and I chatted. I asked if I could snap a few photos and she was open to the idea. It was at this time that we discussed John Wayne and his portrayal in John Ford’s The Searchers (1956). Photo © Louis Kraft and Manola Madrid 2014)

Like Liza, Manola was and is a delight to work with (Liza spent her morning at the Autry but returned to the SW Museum that afternoon and we officially met). Manola is a wizard with the archival material and she always had what I wanted to view ready upon my arrival. We have a lot in common and often when I came up for air from my prolonged and intense viewing of pages we chatted. And our subjects freely drifted and swirled about in what caught our interest at that moment. Overall I think highly of John Ford’s film The Searchers for how it explores racism on the frontier. John Wayne is brilliant; I only like one other of his performances (She Wore A Yellow Ribbon). Manola had a different take on the film, and that was the portrayal of the Comanches wasn’t very good and that over the years Ford did not portray the American Indians in a positive way. I agree with Manola.

Still, Manola’s view doesn’t diminish Wayne’s brutal portrayal of a man who lives on hate but who must find his own soul or murder his kin whom he spends the entire film searching for as she has been tainted living in captivity. For me the film works because of the murderous hatred that drives Wayne’s search but more importantly because an ingrained love for a child now an adult is strong enough to prevent murder. This story premise is strong and overrides the clichéd portrayal of the Comanches (but then the story is told through Wayne’s racist eyes). A strong-strong piece of storytelling.

If you haven’t seen it, you must.

Hanging out with Liza and Manola at the Braun

When I research I become a predator; that is I’m a hunter for information.

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Manola Madrid working on Kraft’s photocopy request on 18jun14 (this will easily take her deep into July). One thing I learned a long time ago, a researcher must “work smart.” That is, he/she must document what they see while ensuring that they request copies of what they can’t transcribe error-free during their allotted time at the archive. (photo © Louis Kraft and Manola Madrid 2014)

I’m searching for people and actions and I’m not locked into Tsistsista Chief Black Kettle or Northern Tsistsista warrior Roman Nose or Dog Man Chief Bull Bear (although anything that I can find about them that I don’t know is gold). Dog Man Chief Tall Bull is always on my wanted list but he is good at avoiding detection. There is a fifth player who has appeared in three of my books, Stone Forehead. But this search at the Braun (and it will continue at least three-fold in the future) I’m open to experiencing a people and lifeway that I don’t fully know. To date the Braun hasn’t provided much on High-back Wolf (at least not yet). His death, although I think I know how and why it happened, is shrouded in mystery (read: stories that don’t coincide).

Early on I became overwhelmed with letters from George E. Hyde, who wrote A Life of George Bent written from his letters (OU Press, 1968). I requested (I thought) one folder of letters, and that was all I expected. There were more. Four, five, six, more (?) … I didn’t count, and all with the same folder number but with a letter or number extension (Hyde pops up throughout Grinnell’s papers). The letters are a marvel. There are copies of Grinnell’s letters to Hyde (but few in comparison). Ladies and gents, in case you don’t know it Hyde worked as a writer-editor for Grinnell (not once, but at least twice over the years).

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The lk hardbound of the seventh printing of the OU Press reprint (1983) of Grinnell’s 1915 classic book.

Here’s my humble opinion on what I saw: George Hyde should have had a writing credit on Grinnell’s book The Fighting Cheyennes, and I believe he should have had the leading credit. How’s that for a piece of heresy? Why? How? I’m sorry, but this was not what I searched for (I took only a few notes from this for a book that I’ll never write unless I live to 100).

… Obviously Hyde functioned as a ghost writer (and he provided ranges in his negotiated fees). What follows are paraphrases from what I saw of Hyde’s work for Grinnell (and they did not come from what I saw in the original Hyde folder I viewed):

  • Hyde informed Grinnell that the 17 page chapter he provided was loaded with errors, all of which he corrected. He then rewrote the chapter and it grew to 23 pages.
  • Hyde submitted a chapter that he wrote from scratch upon Grinnell’s request (and this was not a lone instance).

I wonder how Hyde felt about with how Grinnell recognized his contribution to The Fighting Cheyennes: “Mr. George E. Hyde has verified most of the references and has given me the benefit of his careful study of the history of early travel on the plains.” That’s it. The quote is from: Reprint 1915. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, seventh printing, 1983, x.

If I were George Hyde, I wouldn’t have been pleased.

A question for thought: How many of the words in The Fighting Cheyennes are Hyde’s and not Grinnell’s?

I must state that I’m not belittling Grinnell. He was adventurous and went after what he considered important, and by so doing carved out a highly successful and extraordinary life and career.

**********

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The lk copy of volume 1 of the hardcopy reprint of Grinnell’s 1923 two-volume classic (New York, Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1962), The Cheyenne Indians: Their history and ways of life. Of course Grinnell adds firepower to the misspelling of Ben Clark’s name (see “A surprise discovery”) Even though Grinnell received letters and invaluable help from the Indian wars scout and Cheyenne interpreter, he misspelled his name in the Preface (I’ve seen what I’m about quote in more recent paperbound versions of the book, in an Introduction). Grinnell wrote (p. xv), “In the South, Ben Clark helped me.” Three paragraphs later (xvi) he stated, “I owe much” to my interpreters, which included Clark, among others. … I can’t see Grinnell making this blatant spelling error; could it have made it into the printed book due to erroneous editorial insistence upon spelling Ben Clarke’s name without an “e”? Probably.

That first day I moved away from Mr. Hyde (he would pop up again and again, and sometimes in a totally surprising location). Manola was cool with this, making it clear that she would provide whatever I wanted to see.

And see I would do. And this would include early Cheyenne life and migration that I had not seen in book form. I would also see tidbits of key players that I didn’t know.

A surprise discovery

Ben Clark was Custer’s chief of scouts during the attack on Black Kettle’s Cheyenne village on the Washita River in Indian Territory on November 27, 1868. Ben Clark and George Armstrong Custer did not get along, but I have seen primary source information that Clark provided and it was key to me writing Custer and the Cheyenne for Upton and Sons, Publishers. Guess what? The primary source information was listed as Ben “Clark,” as has been every reference in book form that I have seen on Clark. Oops!!! Ben Clarke—that’s right “Clarke”—was a very literate man. He not only could write good sentences that are intelligent, his handwriting was extraordinary and is easy to read. I’ve seen letters that Ben Clarke wrote, and trust me, each letter was signed by Ben “Clarke” and the handwriting is consistent. As stated every book that I have seen, including Custer and the Cheyenne, has misspelled his last name. Talk about an uphill fight to correct the spelling of a man’s name. Shameful.

A tip

My opinion of and respect for George Hyde and his interest and knowledge of the Indian wars is large. Grinnell could not have hired a better writer-editor. What I saw blew me away. If someone wants to write about the Grinnell-Hyde relationship and throw in George Bent, the mixed-blood Cheyenne who moved between the races and who worked with both Hyde and Grinnell, you might have one hell of a story to tell. A story that focuses on the three men during the time that they tried to document Cheyenne history, culture, and lifeway.

BTW, Grinnell did not limit his research to the Cheyennes. He also spent a lot of time meeting, befriending, and interviewing Pawnees that lived through the tumultuous times dating from at least 1830 and through the reservation years. There were other tribes that he also had an interest in (the Blackfeet, Sioux, Apaches to name three), but to what extent I currently don’t know.

“Success or Failure?”

I had announced this upcoming blog with the words: “Success or Failure?” Bad boy Kraft for there is no success or failure research—all is successful. Reason: If I find something, great! If I don’t, I now know that where I’m searching is a dead end.

If you are researching Cheyennes, do yourself favor and take a long-hard look at the George Bird Grinnell Papers.

The Man Who Walks With His Toes Pointed Out … 

I used the word “Cheyenne” in the title of Custer and the Cheyenne as opposed to the proper word usage of “Cheyennes” as I’m not talking about a group of people but a single person. The title points to one person, a Cheyenne person.

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This Upton and Sons, Publishers’ book cover is here as it makes this article publicity for the book (published in 1995 and still in print), which in turn makes the next image, which is from the book also publicity. You’ll see the importance of this below.

From 1849 until his death in 1876 he was the keeper of the Cheyenne Medicine (or Sacred) Arrows. As such, he was probably the most powerful person on the central and southern plains, and when he traveled to the north, there too. He had been a warrior, but now he was a chief, a mystic, and a man of peace. The arrows had been given to The People (the Tsistsistas, or as most of you know them, the Cheyennes), and they gave the Tsistsistas power over the hunt and their enemies in war. Ma?heo?o, their one God, their All Father, using the Tsistsistas’ profit Sweet Medicine, provided a set of rules for the arrows that must always be followed at all times. Otherwise a darkness would cover The People and tragedy would haunt them.

What I have just told you is an absolute key for the Sand Creek book working. And let me tell you this is no small task to pull off.

In three of my previous books the keeper of the arrows has played an important part. In the Custer book he is that lone Cheyenne of the title. You can bet that he’ll again play a role in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway.

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I had seen a lot of Mr. Reedstrom’s illustrations over the years and I contacted him about this and other images for Custer and the Cheyenne. He was gracious and allowed me to use the requested images, and in this instance he allowed me to change the title of his artwork. I will forever be grateful to him for in 1995 and continuing to this day I have zero photos of Stone Forehead. If you know of any, please contact me. (BTW, magazine and book publishers I designed this book along with over 250 books and countless newsletters and ad material over the years.)

He was known as Stone Forehead or Rock Forehead or the Man Who Walks With His Toes Pointed Out. He was also known as Hohonai´viuhk´tanuh, Nan-ne-sa-tah, Nan-ne-sat-tah, and by the white man Medicine Arrow or Medicine Arrows (and by the way, I have found yet another Tsistsistas’ name for him).

One online review ripped the Wynkoop book for specifically listing Stone Forehead’s various names. That was this reviewer’s major peeve: Why waste paper space listing crap that no one gives a shit about (there goes my “GP” rating; I’m back up to “R.”). I’ll tell you why … I’ll tell you why. Recently a book dealing with the Cheyennes talks about two different people: Stone Forehead and Rock Forehead. The author had no clue that he was writing about the same person. DUH????

I need not write any more about this, other than to say, “Hey, online reviewer sharpen your teeth, for my next Indian wars book will give you plenty to bitch about.” I can see his words now: “This tragedy of a writer refuses to learn. Instead of reducing the number of names for a stupid Indian, he has increased them. Un-f—ing believable!”

And the search goes on …

Liza and Manola pulled what I needed to see. They figured out ways to keep me working when they realized that I didn’t take lunch but simply sat at a table outside the Braun and continued to work. Actually on an online interview that is long overdue, is long-winded, and at the moment unsatisfactory. Worse, it isn’t close to being completed. At the moment I’m working at cutting and cutting and cutting. I owe a letter to Wild West, as well as an article on Geronimo, and let’s not forget the malpractice novel, Sand Creek, or everything that must be  in place by September for a date with U.S. immigration (that might determine my continued residence in the U.S.).

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lk spent prime time with Rick West at the two-day event without really knowing much of his background (dummy me didn’t know who he was other than he played a prime role the creation of the Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C.). I discovered an open, kind, and interested person. A good listener and someone I enjoyed getting to know, if only slightly. In case you don’t know, he is a full-blooded Southern Cheyenne peace chief. Also, in case you don’t know, he is president and CEO of the Autry National Center. I believe he assumed this position in December 2012. Earlier that year I had parted company with the technical world and didn’t want to approach him for fear that it might look like I was hustling him for a job. In 2011 I had approached him on a five-part documentary that would have been costly on Wynkoop and the Cheyennes. He wasn’t interested, even though I had key people lined up (including Indian wars historian Jerry Greene and Cheyenne Chief Gordon Yellowman; both spoke at the symposium).

Yes, I juggle projects. I must, for most projects take years to complete and no writer can disappear from the public for that long and expect his readers to return. That means articles must be written, talks (and this is now a sorry subject, and one from which I’ll not bend—when I go on the road I will receive my full salary and all expenses, as I had as recently as September 2012, or no talk). Look on the bright side; I have more time to write.

The days are busy, but on the plus side they keep me out of trouble.

Sand Creek Massacre, The Discovery, Errol & Olivia and Ned Wynkoop Updates

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

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


Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway

The Sand Creek manuscript differs from my previous nonfiction work in that it features multiple leading players as opposed to one or two.

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LK in costume as Billy the Kid (sans the revolver and gun belt). A 1969 publicity photo taken by Dennis Riley, who was then a photographer’s mate in the U.S. Navy. This photo session was the first of many over the years. Dennis and I became close during our high school years and this lasted through my four years of college, his college and military service, and after. We were constantly in trouble but he was always there for me and me for him. Those days are long gone. (photo © Louis Kraft 1969)

This includes my written plays in which I have performed. They date back to 1969 with Lew and Billy (Billy the Kid’s meeting with New Mexico Territorial Governor Lew Wallace); 1982’s The Fencing Lesson (a man and a woman cross sabers with deadly intent in a battle of the sexes); the Wynkoop one-man plays that have played in four states, and 2009’s Cheyenne Blood, which again featured two characters—Ned Wynkoop and the Cheyenne woman Mo-nahs-e-tah, who survived bloody attacks on Cheyenne villages (Sand Creek, 1864; and Washita, 1868). This is the phonetic spelling of her name.

Yes, Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is going to be a stretch.

How do I bring the leading players to life? How do I mix and connect the leading players’ story lines? And how do I create text that flows while remaining true to the facts and not putting the readers to sleep?

These are big questions, and they live with me every day.

And of course there are welcome interruptions

In 2001 Fray Angélico Chávez History Library (part of the New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe) curator Tomas Jaehn (pronounced “Yen”) began the process to create “The Louis Kraft Collection.” A number of years later my then girlfriend Diane Moon wanted to know why Tomas was interested in my work and associated documentation? I told her I didn’t know. “Didn’t you ask?” “No.” “Why not?” I told her that I had been associated with the library since the 1980s, Tomas was interested in my work and letters, and that was good enough for me.

Good enough for me, but not for her.

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I met Tomas Jaehn shortly after he replaced Orlando Romero at the New Mexico History Museum. Eventually the archival portion of the museum would be renamed the Chávez History Library. We hit it off immediately. There’s really nothing more to say here other than I’m lucky to know my good friend.

In 2006 I did a 10-day road trip to the Chávez to make an archive delivery and near the end of the trip talk about “Gatewood’s Administration of the White Mountain Indian Reservation” (during the 1880s Lt. Charles Gatewood, 6th U.S. Cavalry, commanded a troop of Apache scouts and administered the Apache reservation headquartered at Fort Apache, Arizona Territory). Diane flew to Albuquerque on July 2 and spent a few days in Santa Fe before flying home on July 5. She met Tomas when I made the delivery on the third.

I knew what was coming. “Why him?” she asked Tomas when he gave her a tour of where and how the collections were preserved. She insisted upon seeing the Louis Kraft Collection. I wasn’t sure what was about to happen, but knew something would. As it turned out Tomas liked my body of work. More important he felt that since a good portion of my work dealt with Gatewood and the Apache wars and Ned Wynkoop and the Cheyennes that it was ideal for the Chávez, which houses the most complete Edward W. Wynkoop Collection.

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LK in front of the original entry to the NM History Museum (4jul2006) during the trip to Santa Fe to make a delivery to the archive. This entry still exists but is no longer used to enter the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library. Times have changed, and I think for the better. (photo © Louis Kraft 2006)

Before and since the creation of the archive Tomas has done everything to aid my writing and speaking efforts, as well as help me obtain documents and primary source images. Over the years he and Audrey, his wife, have become good friends.

That July Tomas told me about a primary source Sand Creek battle participant document that the Chávez was considering purchasing from a private collection. I reviewed it for Tomas. During the course of our conversations he said I could use this to-date unused view of events in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway (if the library buys the document; and if not, he thought he could convince the document owner to allow me to use it). Fingers are crossed, as there is information worth sharing. I should know the final outcome soon. Unfortunately I can’t share any details at this time.

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George Bird Grinnell completed a massive amount of research over his life documenting American Indians (mostly Cheyennes and Pawnees, but other tribes also). His papers are at the Braun Research Library, Southwest Museum, which is now part of the Autry National Center, Los Angeles, California. The Grinnell Papers take 77 pages to list the folders and diaries. I have 12 days booked at the Braun in the future and have submitted the first round of documents that I must read. Twenty-seven folders and diaries, and this is just the beginning of what I will view before completing my Grinnell research for the Sand Creek manuscript. Earlier I had mined the Grinnell Papers for Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek, but that research centered on Cheyennes that played roles in Wynkoop’s life. I have a fair amount of Grinnell’s writing in-house, but from past experience his research notes are where the gold will be found.

A glimpse into the LK creative world

Add my ongoing high wire act while juggling a life that is so crowded that at times it feels as if I’m being yanked in four directions at the same time.

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Pailin at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, Ca., on 15may2014 for a screening of Errol Flynn’s last A-film (and his next to last film), the 1958 release of director John Huston’s The Roots of Heaven. I caught a great shot of her here for I was able to eliminate the crowd (the screening was co-sponsored by the French Consulate in LA).  Pailin is very aware of my Flynn/de Havilland writing, and this wasn’t my choice for her first complete Flynn film (she had caught the tail end of Adventures of Don Juan and San Antonio when she arrived home from work earlier than expected (and was glued to the TV screen), for I had been carefully plotting her initial introduction to Mr. Flynn’s screen persona. That said I couldn’t refuse seeing Roots on the big screen. At this time Pailin prefers adventures (and is certainly drawn to the American West), but the film has scope and didn’t bore her. BTW, I study film five nights a week. Reason: a writer can learn a lot about plot, character, and dialogue viewing good films. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

Pailin’s application for a Green Card has been filed and moves forward. This means that I have begun preparing an extensive photo album that shows that she and I are who we claim. At the same time she and I need to prepare carefully for our immigration interviews.

Let’s not forget my writing projects: The Discovery, Errol & Olivia, Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, and that Geronimo article I owe Greg Lalire at Wild West. It now has firm deadline and publication dates. (I will make the deadline if it kills me; unless he takes aim at me first.) In addition to the article I need to complete a portrait of Geronimo that I promised. To date I’ve created two of Mr. G, but don’t like either. This means back to the drawing board. The Flynn projects (E&O + the second book on EF) are major pieces in my life. They must be completed and published. Like Wynkoop, Charles Gatewood, and the Indians and their lives, Mr. Flynn has influenced my life. Actually EF, his film roles and life, have played a major role in my life. Certainly he opened the world of the Indian wars and racism to me.

As the subtitle of my website reads, “Follow the winding trail of a writer as he walks a solitary road …” implies I have spent a lot of time alone. At the same time I’ve never been lonely. Boy, talk about two sentences that state opposites. My friends are good and they are always with me even though most don’t live nearby.

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LK at the 2012 Western Heritage Wrangler Awards in OK City. An article of mine, “When Wynkoop was Sheriff,” won a Wrangler. A cool and fun three-day event. (photo © Ownbey Photography 2012)

For me writing is a fight and a struggle. This is a constant, and it is every day. If it weren’t a fight and a struggle why bother? Creativity and finding what is hopefully close to truth doesn’t happen with reading a few facts and then typing a few paragraphs. That’s just the beginning. What has been read may be wrong, which in turn makes my paragraphs wrong. The creativity results from years of not buying into “the easy” or worse “the set premise that must be confirmed at all costs,” but by maintaining an open mind and allowing the discovery of truth and often this isn’t what I expected to find. And this must dictate the story line. Writing, and I don’t care if it in nonfiction, fiction, or whatever, needs a number pieces to work together seamlessly. We’re talking facts, hard cold facts combined with prose that propels the story and doesn’t put the reader to sleep. Sometimes I’ll spend hours on a single paragraph, and if not satisfied more hours. Merging the facts with writing style takes me years to complete, and knowing this has made it mandatory for me to buy into my subjects 100 percent before I write a single word of the manuscript. If I don’t buy into my projects 100 percent, I would walk away from them long before they reached completion.

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The Santa Barbara, Ca., art was created in 1977 for my then theatrical manager, Richard Steel Reed. This was a commissioned work (for $300.00), but eventually the art would return to me. The sketch of Patric Spann, was one of many I created for Infonet Services Corporation in the late 1990s when I served as editor-in-chief, art director, designer, staff writer, photographer, and artist for an engineering newsletter that I pitched and created, and which was distributed to Infonet’s offices in 68 countries. A cool job that I had one hell of a lot of fun doing (art © Louis Kraft 1977 & drawing © Louis Kraft 1997)

Over the years I have learned that there are additional ways to add value to the story and bring in extra cash. Money is a necessity. In the past I lived in a world that handed me bags of greenbacks. This allowed me to do whatever I pleased whenever I pleased. Extended research trips with stays in first-class hotels (when available) were the norm.

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These images represent my wanderlust without a money care. The top image is of me at the helm on the half deck of the pirate Francis Drake’s Golden Hinde II, a replica of the vessel that he circumnavigated the globe in between 1577–1580. Originally the helm had a whipstaff; the wheel didn’t exist in Drake’s day. I’ve been aboard this vessel three times (its maiden voyage to San Francisco, Ca., in 1976, it’s voyage to Oxnard, Ca., in 1985, and in London, England, in 2009). I’m one with the sea and hope that I will live long enough to write about Drake. The black & white image was shot by my great friend George Carmichael, whom I met at UCLA during the early 1980s. Initially George and I butted horns in a fiction class, a clash that resulted in a 30 year friendship. George died at the age of 90 on April 2, 2014. I’m still struggling with his passing, as he was one of the major players in my life. (photos © Louis Kraft 2001 & 2009)

Mr. Shakespeare aptly said in his soliloquy about the phases of life:–

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players … “

… and I have entered one of the later stages of life. This point of my life has changed my entire outlook and has made my focus not on money but on what is important to me.

I don’t write for companies anymore. I only write for me and the companies that contract my freelance writing. The select few publishing companies that I choose to write for will continue to pay me as long as I write cutting-edge prose that is hopefully close to truth, prose that moves and doesn’t put their readers to sleep, and of course don’t piss them off too much. As long as I can do this, my publishers (and they are top notch) will continue to print my words.

They may cringe at my opinions, and at my blogs (when they read them), and even worse when I commit heresy and submit my art while questioning their designed layout that is considerably less than sparkling (I’m being kind here). Although rough around the edges (and I’m being kind to myself here), my art (no matter how juvenile or simplistic, or worse) has brought in money dating back to 1976. … In 1996, and while still an employee of the first software company that I wrote for, Infonet Services Corporation (now British Telecom Infonet), I watched the documentation department disappear (similar to the dreadful play, and worse films, Ten Little Indians). But as I wasn’t ready to become history I reinvented myself and created a web-based system that documented one of Infonet’s major tools for in-house consumption. As I already had design and newsletter experience in a hands-on and managerial capacity I pitched a glossy newsletter to Mike Watson, director of Information Services (Research & Development), and he bought it. This wasn’t ego-based, rather it was simply keeping me employed and earning the almighty buck. More important, I learned to go after what I wanted (or in this case what I needed). It bought me a couple of years, good years, until I decided to move over to the space industry.

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This image is a work in progress. It displays Cheyenne warriors talking before setting out to hunt. Although I may use it in a publication someday, I am almost 100 percent certain that it won’t see print in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. But then again, who knows? (art © Louis Kraft 2014)

This leads to creating art for publication, which can lead to multiple printings in various formats (and extra cash). Of course there is a downside. Sometimes snide critics frown upon a writer using art that he created in his written works. I guess they support the system of using often used images (which is unfortunately the case) one more time as opposed to adding something new to a publication. I’m big on collages too, for collages count as one image in book or magazine form. More important, they can visually support the text and add value to the printed work. Another no-no? Probably, but I’ve moved beyond nitpicks that are based upon a long in-place vision on how nonfiction should be presented.

Currently I’m considering using art for illustrating Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. When I restored and fine-tuned (with documented permission from the various archives) all the images and photos for my submission to the University of Oklahoma Press for Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek, my friend and editor-in-chief Chuck Rankin told me that I didn’t need to do this. Moreover, he said that he wanted his writers to write. I ignored him. If he reads this blog I hope he’s sitting. That said, Chuck, at the moment the above is just a consideration for the image delivery. Will it happen? Probably not. Of course I’m a firm believer in never saying “never.”

When it comes to writing progress is king

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Celebrating Olivia de Havilland’s 93rd birthday in her Paris garden on July 3, 2009 (her BD is on July 1). She is a pure joy to know: Bright, funny, sexy, political, and oh-so caring. In this image she is looking at her birthday card. Two of her gifts are on the table (others included flowers, photos, and various writing). As every time I’ve been with her, this day and evening did not disappoint. (photo © Louis Kraft 2009)

Errol & Olivia
At the moment Errol & Olivia lags behind. For those of you interested in this book on Ms. Livvie and Errol, don’t worry. It doesn’t matter how far I may fall behind in word count, for whenever I write the fingers dance over the keys. This book has two goals: Bring Mr. Flynn and Ms. de Havilland to life while detailing their life and times between 1935 and 1941. The manuscript includes a prologue and an extensive epilogue. I am attempting a biographical approach that I’ve never seen before. Most of the writing about Flynn and de Havilland in book form (fully 60 percent) is repeated cliché, by that I mean that often the tomes merely repeat what has already been written. Truths and errors, and sometimes out-and-out lies, are repeated over and over again. Flynn and de Havilland were not, as unscrupulous writers have proclaimed, who you think they were (or in OdeH’s case, as she is). This book, and the following book on EF, will be the best two books I write. Patience is the key.

The Discovery
As the readers of my blogs know, I have partnered with Robert S. Goodman, MD, to produce a malpractice novel. The Discovery is Bob’s story idea and Bob has done a lot of work on the plot, including creating first class medical and legal detail. My job is to wordsmith and bring the characters and plot to life.

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Robert S. Goodman, MD, in his office on 30may2014. Bob & I had a good review/update meeting on May 28. We spoke on the phone on the 29th and per my request he was answering questions I had and reviewing the manuscript. I told I wanted additional photos of him and we agreed on the following day. On the 30th he had his review and answers ready for me. I have never partnered before, and I can’t tell you how happy that I have with Bob for I think that between us we can create a good novel. (photo © Robert S. Goodman & Louis Kraft 2014)

To do this I’m approaching it as if it were a thriller. That means that I must make the pages turn and hopefully prevent our readers from going to bed at night. For this type of writing to work, really work, and capture a reader’s imagination it must have a voice. To do this I’m using an approach I’ve never done before: I’m writing as I read and mark-up Bob’s text. Before each time I meet with Bob to discuss status, I read my current draft and edit and rewrite it. The early chapters have been rewritten twice and the latter chapters once to date. This process will continue as I work my way through Bob’s manuscript. On May 28 Bob and I met for the second time to discuss the manuscript’s current status and to ensure that we are in agreement on how I’m proceeding and re-imagining his characters and plot. Currently my draft of The Discovery is 236 pages, and there’s still a long ways to go before I have a completed first draft. But trust me for my goal is doable and will happen.

Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway
As stated above work is ongoing on Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, and the month of May has seen the best research and writing to date.

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OU Press Editor-in-Chief Chuck Rankin at the 2012 Western Heritage Wrangler awards in Oklahoma City. Chuck has always been there for me, and over the years he has had the patience to listen to me. He has taken the time to discuss matters in which we don’t agree and has given me the room to experiment and grow. Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek was the runner up this year. (photo © Ownbey Photography 2012)

And, like The Discovery, the story is character-driven, and as such I’m approaching the writing as much as possible as if the story is a thriller. Obviously the writing can’t be totally that of a thriller, but the goal is again to not put the readers to sleep. Although this has been ongoing for a while a good portion of the text doesn’t reflect this yet. The reason is simple. Facts must be in place and hopefully as close as possible to what actually happened. If facts must be deleted or fixed there is no point in rewriting them until they are as close to truth as I can make them.

Fingers are crossed that the upcoming time spent digging through the George Bird Grinnell Papers at the Braun Research Library will prove to be a goldmine for my Cheyenne research.

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I hope the above provides an update to my writing progress and gives you at least a hint of my creative world. …  There is only one constant in my life and that is Pailin. She is my life, and as a good friend of mine named Veronica Von Bernath Morra in Massachusetts said, “Pailin is your muse.” She is, and as long as I do everything possible to ensure that our relationship thrives and grows my writing will continue to thrive in its “golden age.” Reality? I don’t know. Probable? Bet on it.

A publicity blurb

The August 2014 Wild West magazine will reach newsstands in early June.

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People often ask if I win all my battles with editors and art directors. The answer is, “No, I don’t.” I lost a big battle with the Wynkoop art, for the art director insisted that it could spread over two pages without affecting or destroying the reason why I created the painting. I fought to keep my art on one page but lost. I had the option to kill the article; yes, the anger directed at me was strong and hateful (and I had faced it in the past) but I didn’t want to do this and luckily production moved forward. I had given into what I knew would ruin the image I created, and unfortunately my previous 20+ years of design work proved correct. Egotistic incompetency would never survive in the software world (too much money is involved; for example, the cost of my documentation suite in the space world was $100 Gs). Wynkoop’s face is so close to the spine of the magazine that the curled brim of his hat is lost which destroys the effect of his dramatic gaze toward the Indian battle line. That’s life. There’s a big lesson here for me and believe me I will never forget it: The essence of the work is always more important than the money it can earn. Always. (art © Louis Kraft 2013)

Egotism aside, “Wynkoop’s Gamble to End War” is perhaps the best magazine article I’ve written. I pitched it to Greg Lalire in 2012, and he later pitched me on two short pieces for the August issue. I agreed as long as I could write what I wanted. “Must See, Must Read” is usually a plot summary of five films and five books. Greg agreed that I could deal with what the films and books meant to me. The other is ‘Wild West’s Top 10 List.” Usually this list is one column and less than a full top to bottom page. I counter pitched why Wynkoop was a major player during the 1860s Cheyenne wars, and he agreed to the idea. You know by now that I’m wordy. It’s two columns top to bottom of page and Greg needed to point to the Wynkoop/Gamble article to make it fit.

Cheyenne High-back Wolf, Errol Flynn, Pailin, The Discovery + a Greg Lalire bonus

 Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020
Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blog


Cheyennes have been coming to life every morning for over a week.

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Greg Lalire has been a good friend of mine since the dawn of time. He’s charming, understanding, and a good fellow to know (not to mention that he is a great editor). Jennifer Berry of the Weider History staff took this photo. I like that Greg chose to display the Wild West cover with Red Cloud. (photo © Greg Lalire 2014)

I don’t have writers’ block. I never have writers block; it’s just a matter of finding the time and regulating it accordingly.

I’m certain good pal and great editor at Wild West Greg Lalire might have a few words to say about this (but I’m not going ask him to share). Probably something like, “Hey Kraft, get the lead out and do some real work, work that’s actually usable in a Weider History Group publication.” Everything I promise Greg (well almost everything) is a dollar short and I hate to say it but sometimes years late. At best I’m the little boy who cried “wolf” one time too many.

My great friend Glen Williams, upon seeing Greg’s (I assume) dust jacket portrait for Captured: From the Frontier Diary of Infant Danny Duly, said he looks like a gentleman. Greg does and is. He is a class act over and over again and I count myself lucky to know him.

For more on Mr. Lalire and his immediate future see below.

“Better late than never”

As Don Juan de Maraña once said (actually this is what Errol Flynn as Don Juan once said in Adventures of Don Juan, 1948): “You know what they say, ‘Better late then never.'” Of course Mr. Flynn’s Juan had just been caught again. But this time he was innocent and tried to protect the offending lady and avoid a duel.

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Errol Flynn as Juan de Maraña in the final duel (Adventures of Don Juan, 1948).

Sorry, but I couldn’t help myself. If you haven’t seen Flynn’s Don Juan, do yourself a favor and see it. I guarantee that it will be a very enjoyable two+ hours of your life.

Errol Flynn? Look at the above Don Juan image—that’s Flynn. Who was Flynn? He was a combination of a graceful athlete and a natural actor. He lived his characters long before Monty Clift, Jimmy Dean, and Marlon Brando claimed the limelight in the 1950s. Of course Flynn got pounded for this.

Again, look at the Flynn Don Juan image above. We’re talking sword fighting ladies and gents, and it isn’t easy to do. It’s strenuous. Sword fighting for the stage or screen is done without protective gear (other than perhaps knee or elbow pads). One slip, one misplay, one loss of concentration can mean the loss of an eye.

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This is a late-1940s German one-sheet for The Sea Hawk.

Sword fighting for screen or stage is by the numbers just like dance. You know what your partner is doing and they know what you are doing. If you mess up and don’t back off (or your partner messes up and doesn’t back off) someone is going to get hurt and blood—real blood—will flow. I’ve been there and done this and I guarantee that the blood is red and afterwards sparks will fly.

Stage combat for the screen or theater is different than competition dueling, which is boring to watch. I had front row seats at the 1984 Olympics in LA and was bored to death. Slash, thrust, parry, lunge, point. Ten seconds. Ready. Fight. Nine seconds and another point is scored. This is not dramatic.

To create a dramatic duel on film is a multi-talented grouping of people: a director, duel choreographer, director of photography, actors, stunt men, and most important an editor to piece the filmed cuts together. Without this combination you have nothing. And with it, you have the makings for an exciting duel. This doesn’t happen often. When you see a good duel, give credit to where credit is due.

A Flynn film list

Some people are big on creating lists. I’m not, but here’s a short list that I can live with. Not the end of the world, but let’s say this: “Kraft, pick five Errol Flynn films; everything else will be destroyed.” I can do this. In no order the five films are:

  • Adventures of Don Juan
  • They Died With Their Boots On
  • Gentleman Jim
  • The Sea Hawk
  • Uncertain Glory

All five films were released in the 1940s. You want to see Flynn, see these films. I can name a top 10 film list and neither  Captain Blood nor The Adventures of Robin Hood make the list. I don’t buy into the cliché, Flynn, Indian wars, or anything else, and never have. For this blog I had originally drafted, “Email me if you want to know my five films that round out my top 10 Flynn films.” That’s a cheat and I don’t cheat (here or in my life). My bottom half on my top ten follow (and they may never make it to the top five or remain in the top 10):

  • Virginia City
  • Dodge City
  • Objective Burma
  • Four’s a Crowd
  • The Dawn Patrol

Two are westerns, one a comedy, and two war films. Three date to the 1930s and two to the 1940s. All five are great films and again they demonstrate Flynn’s acting ability. If you want to enjoy Errol Flynn’s performances on camera see these films. You will not be disappointed.

A typical day

Let’s just call this day or any day a typical day. Actually all my days are typical except for Thursdays for that is when my lady is off (our days together are different, but, alas, do include writing). I hate to say it but sometimes it feels like I write 15 hours per day seven days a week (on average). Typically I’m up between 4:00 and 5:00 AM and writing within 15 minutes. I have three hours and sometimes four hours before Pailin gets up.

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Although this image was taken on 15feb2014, which wasn’t a typical day, it certainly represents Pailin’s mornings. She is full of energy and constantly doing something. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

Depending upon when she leaves for work, we have three hours and sometimes a little more together. She makes breakfast (everything from soup that is to die for to fish to fried rice w/veggies, tofu, and perhaps chicken or fish and it isn’t fried). We enjoy each other’s company and discuss the future. I do the dishes and make the day’s juice. We then do some chores (from yard work and the place is an overgrown jungle to cleaning before she prepares to leave. The time is easy, fun, special. The parting is tender and sometimes sad for way-too-many hours pass before I see her again.

The minute she’s out the door (and sometimes before) I’m back at the computer pounding keys (some of this is business and not manuscript related). Believe it or not I plot my days and know exactly what I’ll write on any given day. My work load is set: Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, Errol & Olivia, The Discovery, the LK blog, and magazine articles (yep Greg, I do think of you once in a while). I finish the morning with that day’s manuscript. Early afternoon is on the second project (let’s say E&O if Sand Creek had been first), the current blog, and then in late afternoon-early evening medical malpractice (believe it or not I have put in 10 straight hours on the novel more than once).

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The hours that Pailin and I spend together in the mornings are special. … A decade or so ago, I relaxed on a hotel bed and switched channels on the TV until I stumbled upon former president Bill Clinton preparing a sack lunch for wife Hillary. By the time he had the lunch ready and packed she had rushed outside to start the car. He grabbed the sack lunch and darted out the front door. His timing perfect he gave her the bagged food as she backed out of the driveway and sped off to work. He waved at the vanishing car. All in fun this short film is hilarious. I wish I knew the title so that I could see it a second time. … Off the top, this is close to how I view Pailin’s exits to work. I make sure she has what she needs for the day, help her carry everything outside, and wave as she drives off. Am I the spitting image of Bill Clinton in the long-lost short as my lady heads off to work? I doubt it. But if yes, I’m good with it. (photos © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

The Sand Creek manuscript has come to life; research (and there is still a ton to do!), constant thoughts, and actual writing. BTW, just because something is on paper it doesn’t mean that it won’t be changed, corrected, or perhaps deleted in the future. As the great NY Yankees baseball catcher Yogi Berra used to say, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” (BTW, I’ve seen this quote many times and it changes; I’m not sure if this is the correct Berra quote.) Translation: “The writing ain’t done until it’s published (and it could still need more work).” I hate to say this, but my editors and their publishing teams cringe as my projects move into production for they don’t know what’s going to come out of my mouth, and honestly don’t want to hear it. I firmly believe that the writer should take part in every step—EVERY STEP—of the creative and production cycle.

I once knew a Custer expert who now walks with angels (at least he claimed to be a Custer expert, and I’m guessing that he now walks with angels). His ego was 10 feet wide, and he came off as a blowhard. I never read his books (a short one was perhaps 250,000 words), most of which were privately printed (and you can guess why). One day I asked him if he felt his books could be improved if he edited and wrote them a second time. “Why?” he responded. “There’re perfect.”

Really? If given the chance I would rewrite everything I’ve written for none of it is perfect.

 Walking with Tsistsistas

I walk with the Sand Creek story on a daily basis. This doesn’t mean that I write every day. That said, research and thinking are constant. The main problem that I’ve had is how to make the early chapters flow forward in an active voice. Complicating the problem is that in early Cheyenne history the people are nameless. The reason is simple: Early contact with whites often had no one present capable of translating the Tsistsistas’ (Cheyenne) language to English and back. The encounters happened and whites had a hint of who the Indians were but had no idea of individual names or the people who traded with them.

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This is Ivan Hankla, a Tsistsista (Southern Cheyenne) that I met for the first time on April 30, 2004, at Fort Larned, Ks. We hit it off immediately and I spent a good part of the Fort Larned Old Guard two or three-day convention hanging out with him and James Coverdale (Kiowa) in Ivan’s tipi or on the boardwalk or parade ground at the post. You are looking at the interior of Ivan’s tipi, which is a good view of how Cheyennes decorated their lodges. He (and James) kindly allowed me to take a number of photos of them on May 1, 2004. On the first I talked about Custer, Stone Forehead, and the Sweetwater village that Custer boldly rode into (March 1869). I asked Ivan and James if they were going to go to the talk, and they told me that they weren’t registered with the convention. I told them to forget that, that they were my guests. I invited them to my talk and they attended it in full native regalia. Ivan would be perfect to assist my Sand Creek manuscript but unfortunately he died a few years back. Our relationship, although mostly long distance, was always like yesterday when we were together. I miss him. (Photo © Louis Kraft 2004)

As Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is dependent upon people actions (mainly Cheyenne and white) the early chapters have presented a problem to me as I’ve chosen to begin the manuscript with early Cheyenne life, development, and migration. Certainly I’ve been writing long enough that I should be capable of composing active prose. This isn’t the problem. In the past my books have all been people driven. Sand Creek will also be people driven, but this won’t begin until chapter 3, and a lot has happened to the Cheyennes by then. Let me put this another way, they had created a tribal structure and lifeway long before the white man entered their lives and began recording encounters.

Actually, the Cheyennes are a merging of two tribes: Tsistsistas (which is the word for Cheyennes) and the Suhtai. Their merging gave “The People,” which “Tsistsistas” means, two sacred objects that have played  major roles in their religion, lifeway, and future. The sacred arrows (“Maahótse,” but often written as “Mahuts,” which is a phonetic spelling of how the word is pronounced) and the buffalo hat (Is’siwun).

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Kiowa James Coverdale w/lk at the Washita Battlefield NHS on 6dec2008 (photo © Leroy Livesay 2008)

Sweet Medicine, the Tsistsista culture hero who spent time with Maheo, the Cheyennes’ one God, and received Maahótse, while Red Tassel, the Suhtai culture hero, received Is’siwun. There is no room here to discuss and explain Maahótse and Is’siwun but they play (and played) significant roles in Tsistsista lives (past and present). I must understand and present what Maahótse and Is’siwun mean to the Tsistsistas for Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway to live.

I walk with this on a daily basis. Once I have a draft that is readable dealing with this portion of Cheyenne history I hope that Cheyennes Chief Gordon Yellowman, Dr. Henrietta Mann, and Minoma Littlehawk might be open to reviewing the subject matter, along with my pal the great Indian wars and Cheyenne historian John Monnett.

Let me raise a red flag here. How often have you been confronted by a zealot who tells you that you are stumbling around in darkness if you don’t see God as they do? I’m talking about myself, Catholicism, and Christianity here. Why? What makes one person’s beliefs absolute truth when another person’s beliefs, which they may also totally believe, false? Why can’t people accept religious beliefs and other religions that differ from theirs as also valid?

Why do people hate and kill in the name of religion? And worse, why do the victors in war do everything possible to destroy a conquered people’s lifeway, language, religion, and family? Are their lives and beliefs that much of a threat?

Racism dominated the 19th century and American expansion. It’s cliché now, but many Americans (during the conquest of land from sea to shining sea and right on through a good portion of the 20th century) view and viewed people of different races, colors, and cultures as less than human. Reason: The foreign cultures hadn’t developed at the pace or in the same manner as white cultures and thus were inferior. Unfortunately that view still lives, and I for one have faced it and have been accused of being a traitor to my race.

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Cheyennes Chief Gordon Yellowman (left) and Harvey Pratt at the Washita Battlefield NHS event on 11nov2011 at the overlook to precious land, sacred land. Upon my arrival before the event began Harvey made a point of meeting me, and we hit it off. On this day Harvey spoke about what it was like to be a Cheyenne warrior during the 1860s and today on foreign battlefields. I met Gordon when he and Cheyenne chief Lawrence Hart blessed the Pawnee Fork Tsistsista-Dog Man-Lakota village in Kansas in 1999. Since then we have spoken at several programs together. Upon seeing me he said, “Your name is all over the place.” The Wynkoop book had just been published. Sounded like he was sick of this, and I didn’t ask what he meant. Gordon is one of the four principle chiefs of the Cheyennes. He blessed the land this day, and delivered a moving talk on what it was like to be a Cheyenne chief at the symposium the next day. (photo © Louis Kraft 2011)

What bullshit!!!

The Cheyennes created an extraordinary culture. They had everything in place, and it was based upon strong religious and moral beliefs and laws. Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway isn’t going to be this type of book, so I’ll only be able to hint at the above. That said, by the late 1820s when Cheyennes no longer existed as faceless people, the manuscript becomes people based. People actions (Indian, white, and mixed-blood) will dominate the flow of the manuscript.

High-back Wolf is first to walk out of the mists of obscurity

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George Catlin painted High-back Wolf about 1832. The little I know about High-backed Wolf has grabbed my interest, and as he is, at the moment, the first major Cheyenne in the Sand Creek book I want to make him as prominent as possible.

Simply put, High-back Wolf (and he had numerous names including Né-hee-ó-ee-wóo-tis, Wolf on the Hill, and High-backed Wolf) stepped out of the dark mist of obscurity and became the first Cheyenne chief to register big time with whites. Until the 1820s the handful of Cheyenne-white contact had no one present that could translate words. This changed when he not only met with whites, but impressed them. More important, translators matched his actions with his name. Not many years later artist George Catlin painted portraits of him and his wife. Sadly High-back Wolf exited the big picture soon after Catlin captured his image for all time. Enter a second High-backed Wolf, but he, too, died early. Was he related to the first High-back Wolf? His brother? I don’t know, but I will find out.

High-back Wolf had a wife, and someone actually took the time to learn it. George Catlin also painted her in 1832. At the moment I don’t know the ages of High-back Wolf or She Who Bathes Her Knees in 1832 but they don’t look old. I wonder if I’ll be able to learn anything about her other than she was his wife. Fingers are crossed.

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George Catlin painted She Who Bathes Her Knees portrait in 1832.

Something else has caught my interest. One reference to High-back Wolf questioned if he sired Black Kettle. Whoa! I don’t know, but at the moment I doubt it. Reason: We’re cutting it too close on what I consider the range of Black Kettle’s birth years. Need to dig in my Grinnell notes, for I certainly searched for Black Kettle when researching Wynkoop Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. However, High-back Wolf’s name doesn’t ring a bell, although I believe that I had seen a father for Make-tava-tah (as Wynkoop called Black Kettle) listed but didn’t use it in the Wynkoop book. If not, hopefully my upcoming visit to the Braun History Library of the Southwest Museum (Autry National Center) will provide an answer. The archive houses a wealth of information that I have not yet seen. High-back Wolf has become a priority. Need to check, but think I’ve got 12 days of appointments set.

Good times are coming for I’ll be back in my element doing research. There is nothing better than mining primary documentation and then trying to figure out what happened and who did what. Francis Drake, John Ward (an Englishman who became a Tunisian pirate), High-back Wolf, Kit Carson, Black Kettle, Tall Bull, Geronimo, Ned Wynkoop, George Bent, Charles Gatewood, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, LK. I’ve listed people whose lives have reached across over five centuries. And these lives are linked, at least in my brain.

My hope is that I can learn enough about High-back Wolf and write enough about him to justify using the magnificent Catlin portrait of him in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. Time will tell.

The Discovery

I have 175 pages in this medical malpractice novel and progress on The Discovery has been decent. But sometimes I’m ripping out my hair and banging my head against a wall. I’ve partnered on the novel. This includes edit, fix, rewrite (read totally rewrite), fix some more, edit more, research and fix (that’s right, it’s a period piece and the 101 freeway in LA didn’t exist in 1952, and on and on and or with technical errors), write-write-write, and get the book published. It will happen.
These are harsh words and they aren’t meant to be, for
Dr. Robert Goodman has done a masterful job of bringing
a unique form of medical malpractice to life. He’s not a trained writer
and so he falls into a swamp 
of pitfalls that exist to trap writers.

You should see my markups on my drafts and the verbal

and written abuse I sling at my words.

Luckily my initial training in writing had been writing dialogue, and there is so much you can do with dialogue to move a plot forward. Let me say this in another way. Telling is not good in fiction or nonfiction. Writers must constantly strive to move their plots forward in an active manner. Dialogue, if used properly, it is a great way to move a story forward (it is also a great way to develop and show character).

For me writing began a lifetime ago on that flatland that surrounds the Texas college town of Lubbock. I spent a summer working there in 1976. After work (let’s say 11:00 PM or thereabouts) I, other actors, and sometimes waitresses, waiters, and college theater groupies went out to restaurants, dance clubs, and clubs with entertainment. Lubbock thrived. One night a country singer told his audience: “Lubbock is the only place on earth where you can be up to your ass in mud and still get sand in your eye.” A true statement. Later that evening an enraged boyfriend stepped onto the stage and physically threatened the singer as his eyes had lingered on his girlfriend once too often. Luckily nothing happened. … Have you ever performed on stage? Do you know what the lights do to your eyes? You can’t see anything other than perhaps the first row or two, and then only if it is an intimate venue.
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Texas offered leading roles in class productions. It also offered an introduction to life that I hadn’t realized existed. Texas proved to be a good learning experience over the years. (photo © Louis Kraft 1976)

Lubbock, Texas, turned me into a writer
It goes something like this (and this is the short version).

Hell hath no fury like a woman [fill in the blank(s)], and this was certainly true during that 1976 summer I spent in Texas. She was a petite blonde actress in the Theater Department of Texas Tech in Lubbock and she had her eyes on me (I have no images of this lady). Parties at the Hayloft Dinner Theater and elsewhere and I was a fish waiting to be hooked. One problem, this lady wasn’t for me. Racial prejudice that made the racial prejudice I had seen in Texas and Oklahoma in 1970 look like child’s play, a major drug bust that I viewed, in-college theater war, other nasty events, and of course the lady ignored made TV soap operas of the day seem lightweight.

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The play was Eat Your Heart Out, and it was the 2nd play of my visit to Texas that summer. It dealt with an actor struggling to survive in LA. Talk about type casting. Certainly sex entered the picture and the director did everything he could to remove my clothes, and that included swinging imaginary swords. The actress in this scene is Robin LaValley. (photo © Louis Kraft 1976)

Nevertheless I had become a marked man. Bottom line: I was lucky to get out of Texas with my scalp in place. After returning home to LA I wrote a screenplay about what I had seen. My then theatrical agency had a literary branch and I submitted the script. Agent Ed Menerth called and said, “This is terrible, but let’s talk.” We did and for the next seven years he represented my screenplays. Race became one of the key themes throughout the dozen or more scripts I wrote including a Persian woman surviving in Los Angeles at the time of the fall of the Shah of Iran, the Englishman turned Barbary pirate John Ward in Tunis, a German U-boat commander’s love for a Jewish woman during WWII, and so on). Menerth reviewed and marked the copy up and I rewrote and rewrote until the scripts became sellable. Bob Sabaroff, one of the key players in the Michael Parks’ Then Came Bronson TV series of 1969-70, also liked the scripts and he, too, reviewed and marked up and I again and again rewrote. It was a great training ground and I learned. This led to selling magazine articles, talks, books, and writing for the software industry. Hell I even sold biographical sketches to an encyclopedia.

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LK in Eat Your Heart Out. I actually played this character twice (the second time was in LA in 1977). I liked playing Charley. The director who came from LA (as did the leading four actors in each play) focused on the sexual image and pushed it as far as he could. Looking back I have no problem with his view of the play. (photo © Louis Kraft 1976)

Over the years I have traveled a long way from the unforgettable racism that I had witnessed up close and center in Texas twice and elsewhere including SoCal. It had been seared into my very being. I realized that, even though I had seen racism from the white POV while in school and had backed off from it without making a stand, that now this was not and could never again be acceptable in my life. Some of this you have perhaps seen in earlier blogs, and for this I apologize. However, it is important to me. I have time and again been called a racist as some of the women in my life have not been white. Yes, believe it or not, some whites don’t like that my lady was Black, Asian, or a Latina, and have let me know. Again, forgive me for repeating myself, but this hurts for these accusations have come from people I’ve considered friends and from people I love or have loved. This accusation is asinine and makes me ill. Enough said about racism for this blog.

Sorry about the lengthy sidetrack, but for me the timing hit the mark.

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Introducing Robert Goodman, MD
Bob Goodman (right) at home. Bob has a great house, and he is in a room that is a handful of steps below the entry to his house. This room opens to his swimming pool and has a very livable bar. Bob is sitting at a table that we use when we talk business. When I pulled out my camera he asked: “What are you doing?” “I’m going to take a picture of you.” He agreed, while making it clear he wanted me to shoot a good portrait of him at his office. I agreed, and this will happen soon. … I can’t say enough good things about Bob, other than say I wish you also knew him. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

Bob has played a major part in my life for some 25 years as my heart specialist, internist, and GP. Actually if it weren’t for him over a decade ago I’d be long dancing with angels. We’ve enjoyed knowing each other over the years, and a few years back I provided him with editorial help on his writing (various projects).

One, a medical malpractice novel had an exceptional story line. In November 2013 Bob asked me to partner with him. I have. Bob’s subject matter is extraordinary, and because of this we have agreed not to share it until pre-publication publicity begins. My apologies, but this is just how it is. That said, I will be able to talk about manuscript progression and I will.

All I can say at this point in time is that the story is character driven and although The Discovery is fictional the facts are based upon reality. When I complete writing and polishing the manuscript, we will deliver a story that captures our readers’ interest and will not let go until the last page.

A tall order but it will happen.

Greg Lalire and Captured

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I’ve hinted that Greg Lalire and I are friends. We are. Over what seems like a lifetime he has done everything possible to get my words in print, and has done everything to publicize a writer named Kraft. I’m forever grateful. But this section isn’t based upon Greg’s kindness to me, it’s based upon me knowing him, a special person even though our relationship is mostly long distance.

Five Star Publishing releases Greg’s novel, Captured: From the Frontier Diary of Infant Danny Duly, in July 2014. The June 2014 Wild West magazine features a full-page ad next to the table of contents. A perfect placement and appealing layout by the Weider History Group design staff. To scan the ad would have required mangling the magazine or pulling it apart and I didn’t want to do that. Captured features historical characters Chief Red Cloud, Col. Henry Carrington, and Capt. William Fetterman. The ad’s blurb (I assume from the dust jacket flaps) states:

“Libbie Duly, pregnant and with her husband confined to the local insane asylum, leaves Chicago in 1866 for booming Virginia City, Montana Territory. On the Oregon Trail she gives birth to the remarkable Danny Duly, who already began narrating this emigrant tale from the womb. Danny has the rare ability to see with his mind’s eye and record events he hopes to later put down on paper. Along the dangerous Bozeman Trail, Libbie and son fall into the hands of Sioux warrior Wolf Who Don’t Dance, and the emigrant story becomes a captivating captivity narrative.”

Captured will be published on July 16, 2014. It is currently available for pre-order on amazon.com with a price guarantee.

Am looking forward to reading it Greg, and so is my good pal Glen Williams (to whom I shared your Captured publicity).

Weider History Group is a class company, and Eric Weider has done an extraordinary job of obtaining and retaining class editorial and design staff. This is an understatement. Eric, you and everyone you designate to make hiring decisions know what you are doing. Your staff from A to Z with “Lalire” being first on the list is extraordinary. My hope is that your entire selection of historical publications expand and grow in ways that guarantee their continued existence throughout my, Greg’s, and your lifetimes. You and your entire staff produce product that needs to live forever.

I’m honored to play a small role in Weider History Group’s product line.

Classy lady Patrice Wymore Flynn dies + a Sand Creek “thank you”

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020
Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blog


Other than a Sand Creek “thank you,” this blog isn’t as originally drafted. Everything else found its way to the cutting room floor (but hopefully some of it will appear in a future blog).

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Patrice Wymore and Errol Flynn met when they worked on Rocky Mountain, which was shot on location in New Mexico. This color image is a publicity photo that had nothing to do with the plot of the film. (Louis Kraft personal collection)

The changes weren’t planned, but good friend and Flynn expert David DeWitt contacted me early Sunday morning, March 23. The previous afternoon (March 22) Patrice Wymore Flynn, a classy lady, died at her home outside of Port Antonio, the capital of Portland Parish, one of the 14 parishes of the Caribbean country of Jamaica.

I tend to remain quiet around death as I don’t deal with it well.

I have twice spoken from the heart about people that played huge roles in my life. Although a wreck inside I had found what it took to channel the inward anger and pain into joyful capsules of how I perceived their lives. No matter how distraught I had been behind closed doors I had the capability to push a button and for a flash in time share the essence of my love for them. The day or two or five allotted to prepare physically drained me. At the same time it allowed me to search within myself and walk with my father and then my sister in ways I had never done during their lifetimes.

I had the pleasure of meeting Pat Flynn once and I have good memories of that evening (see below).

A Sand Creek thank you + LK ramble

In January last I advertised that I needed information about mixed blood Cheyenne Charley Bent on this blog and on the Order of the Indian Wars (OIW) Facebook page. The response wasn’t great, but then I had made clear what information I already had in-house as I didn’t want anyone searching for something that I already had. Of course, as I stated in the last blog in February, Charley sporadically drifted in and out of the spotlight, and as he died way-too-young at 19 the pickings are slim.

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Upon my request Dee Cordry sent me his portrait for the blog. Dee kindly shared important information about Charley Bent. He has been researching and writing a biography the mixed-blood Cheyenne Edmund Guerrier, a person who played an important role in Cheyenne-white relations during the 1860s and for many years afterwards. (photo © Dee Cordry)

Dee Cordry saw the request for information on Charley that I had posted on the OIW FB page and responded with information (along with bonus information) that I didn’t know. Actually I had no idea it even existed and would have never searched for it. Everything Dee supplied me is first class and will appear in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway.

Dee’s contributions are already in the manuscript. Thanks Dee! I didn’t know Dee until he took the time to contact me. Regardless if you know or don’t know Dee, you need to know one thing. He is working on a biography of the mixed-blood Cheyenne Edmund Guerrier. For some reason, Mr. Guerrier walked between the races without much to do about his actions. I’m not sure why, for he certainly lived an exciting life (and from what little I know about him he led a good life). Perhaps he has for the most part been ignored because he had mixed blood and didn’t publicize his contributions to the Cheyennes and the whites. I know one thing; Ned Wynkoop thought the world of him and employed him. I’m thrilled that Dee is writing about Mr. Guerrier, for we need to know more about people who dared to move between two worlds during a time of extreme prejudice.

Edmund Guerrier played a key role during the 1860s and long afterward. I don’t know what Dee has research wise, but if you know of information that could benefit him in his effort, I hope you’ll consider contacting him. When Dee’s book is published, I’ll be first in line to buy a copy for Guerrier is a man worth knowing.

Another person, actually a good friend who constantly strives to help my writing projects, Glen Williams also contributed to my Charley Bent research. And like Dee, he also sent additional Sand Creek information that proved of great value to me. Thank you my friend. Glen not only finds information, he questions what I write and offers suggestions that always improve the work.

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Glen Williams and LK at Mission San Xavier del Bac (west of Tucson, Arizona) on February 12, 2012. This was one of Glen’s and my road trips. Unlike Dee, Glen has been a friend I’ve known for years. We met back in the dark ages when we both worked at Infonet Services Corporation (now British Telecom Infonet), and we hit it off. We became friends, and it didn’t hurt that Glen has Cheyenne blood and has a lot of interest in the Indian wars. As the years have passed our friendship has grown. He’s there for me at all times; health, research, writing, older brother, and everything else that matters to me. Glen’s input to my George Bent question and the Sand Creek manuscript has been massive, and for this alone I’ll forever be grateful. (art © Louis Kraft 2012)

Others contacted me and I’m grateful for your time and what you shared. Thank you.

I will in the future again raise a question about a person or two that I hope to learn more about for Sand Creek and Tragic End of a Lifeway. Nothing else is forthcoming until I decide whom I need more information about.

When I write about someone I don’t reject or ignore information that might show a dark side. Actually I want to see this, for this is what brings the person to life. No one is all good or all bad (although there are exceptions on the bad side). I have known people closely who thought that everything they did was good. If ever I write about them they may be shocked, or if they are no longer with us they might turn over in their graves for some of their actions register well below the godly bar of excellence.

I don’t like thieves (I actually caught one at Tujunga House once), and rapists and cold-blooded murderers deserve the harshest punishment possible.

Terrible things happen in war, and it is a combustion of many things from fright to fear to hate (often religious or racial) to simply survival. Certainly there is a bloodlust that grabs hold but this can be attached to survival. … It’s him or me. Rape isn’t acceptable in life, and it isn’t acceptable in war. Many of us living in the U.S. are horrified over how people are treated while held captive by a foreign enemy, and this includes their executions (from my POV this has at times been little more than murder). Different cultures are just as horrified by what happens to their people captured by the U.S. It’s a two-way street of horror. At times innocent people (children, women, and men) that are often non-combatants suffer inhuman indignities to their lives and bodies.

Ungodly things happen in daily life and in war. Carrying these thoughts to the Sand Creek manuscript, how do I show what happened in a readable and page-turning manner that is true to what happened while getting my editors to accept the prose? What happened during the lead-up to the attack at Sand Creek, the attack at Sand Creek, and the aftermath is compelling, and at no time should it put you to sleep. For this to happen, the people must become real flesh and blood.

If you know me and my writing, you know that I’m a firm believer that action and not words define people. It is what they do and not what they say that defines them.

Patrice Wymore Flynn dies

Patrice Wymore Flynn died at her home in Jamaica on March 22, 2014, never recovering from a fall in 2013. That’s it. I don’t write obituaries. …

I do want to say a few things. First, life is precious and it is fleeting. Our lives change all the time. People enter it and people exit it. Some, good friends, remain constant regardless if we saw them yesterday or two years ago. It is always like last week no matter how much time has passed. Some partings hurt worse than hell and it takes forever to get beyond what once was never to be again. Sometimes this loss never fades away but is there forever on a daily basis. What can one do? I’ve been told, more than once, to let it go that it will naturally heal itself or it won’t. That’s a harsh verdict.

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Publicity photo of Errol Flynn and Patrice Wymore from the 1950 film Rocky Mountain (Louis Kraft personal collection)

When Errol Flynn died, he and Pat had been long separated but not divorced. Flynn … By the way you shouldn’t quote this paragraph. It is hastily written. If there are errors or omissions they aren’t intentional. Again nothing should be quoted as fact (even though Nora’s and Pat’s comments appeared as newspaper copy; that’s right, I don’t trust the press.) other than Deidre Flynn’s quote about her father. … Flynn prepared a second will, but it wasn’t signed or filed properly. I believe the first will was dated 1954 and it dictated the division of property. Flynn’s girlfriend (Beverly Addland) wasn’t mentioned in the 1954 will (but how could she be; he hadn’t met her yet), and Deidre and Rory (Flynn’s daughters by second wife Nora Eddington, who remained his friend until the end of his life) received $10,000.00 each and Sean (his son by Lili Damita) received $5,000.00. Pat received the bulk of the estate that was estimated between $20,000.00 to well over $100,000.00 (but less than $1,000,000.00).

EastJamaicaMap_lk_2014_wsThis included extensive property holdings in Jamaica, including a 2,000-acre cattle ranch and coconut plantation near the city of Port Antonio (purchased during their marriage; if true, was it community property?), the Titchfield Hotel in Port Antonio, and Navy Island (just off the coast of Port Antonio; it is no longer a Flynn property). And we can’t forget Flynn’s beloved Zaca (which has been fully restored and I believe sails throughout the Mediterranean Sea during summer months). The press quoted Nora the week after Errol’s death as saying: “He said he was leaving everything to be divided equally among his four children and that the property in Jamaica was to be left to Deidre and Rory.” (Errol had a third daughter with Pat, Arnella Roma Flynn, born Christmas day 1953.) If true, Nora’s statement underlines what might be considered corruptness and a total disregard for a person’s final wishes within the U.S. court system (but then again, it may not). After Errol Flynn’s death lawyers used legalese and a technicality (albeit a major one) to screw Deidre and Rory and reject Errol’s final will. And what about Beverly? That same October 1959 the press quoted Pat as saying: “I intend to see that the will is executed according to Errol’s wishes.” And why not? He had left her, and now his official will left the estate to her. Apparently the 1954 will held up. I’m certain that this wasn’t Mr. Flynn’s intention. He loved his children and at the time of his death he loved Beverly. Deidre has said on camera: “Life at home with my father was like anybody else’s life at home. … He was very down to earth and he was very much a parent. … He was right there, and—and nobody ever writes about that.” Believe me, from everything that I have seen, Errol Flynn was a good father and he loved his kids.

It is not my job to judge. Anyone. My sister, my ex-wife, my daughter, or anyone I write about.

No judging but I am going to talk about Pat

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DVD cover for Robert Kennedy and His Times.

I don’t know anything personally about Errol’s four children even though I worked with Deidre for three or four months back in the early 1980s on a miniseries called Robert Kennedy and His Times, which had an exceptional cast including Brad Davis (RFK), Veronica Cartwright (Ethel Kennedy), G.D. Spradlin (Lyndon Johnson), Cliff de Young (JFK), and on and on. When we did night shooting on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, Ca., her younger sister, Rory, who was then a photographer on I think a TV show (can’t remember the title) visited the set once or twice and I met her. At this time another production company was shooting the travesty supposedly based upon Flynn’s great autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, and they had approached Deidre to be a technical adviser. She apparently had seen the script and was outraged. Even though she had a tee-shirt the production company gave her she turned them down. Deidre never knew I had an interest in her father as I felt she needed her privacy and I had no intention of invading it.

Back to Pat. I’d like to repeat a portion of what Gareth Davis wrote about her in an article that The Gleaner, a Jamaican publication, published on March 24th:

Pat “took up residence in Jamaica following the death of her husband [Flynn] and was an active community member. She was inspirational in paving the way for the Boston Jerk Festival* to return to the community of Boston [Jamaica], which is renowned internationally for it authentic jerked pork. …

* LK comment: I believe the writer is talking about the Portland Jerk Festival, which takes place in the parish of Portland, Jamaica, where Pat spent most of her life. Last year the event happened on July 7, 2013. See the event’s Facebook page for more information: https://www.facebook.com/originsofjerk.

“Paul ‘Bigga’ Young, chairman of the festival committee, in bemoaning the loss of Flynn, described her as a warm and friendly person who, despite her age [Pat was 87 at the time of her death], was full of energy and fire.

“‘She was someone that could easily be approached for just about anything,’* commented Young. ‘What I particularly liked about her is [was?] that she doesn’t [sic? “didn’t”?] beat around the bush. …'”

*LK comment: Other than appearing on the terrific 2005 documentary, The Adventures of Errol Flynn, and sharing some of her time with Flynn, I think she for the most part cut off most writers and other people that wanted to know about her life with Errol.

patriceWymoreFlynn_recent_b&w_border_wsYes, after the Jamaican property became hers, Mrs. Errol Flynn chose to remain in the country Errol fell in love with in 1946 when he, his crew, and his 118 foot schooner, Zaca, survived a Caribbean hurricane and limped into Kingston harbor, Jamaica. Flynn met Pat and fell in love with her while they filmed Rocky Mountain in New Mexico in 1950. Why Warners didn’t spend the money to shoot this film in color is beyond me, for the red rock locations are glorious. Flynn found himself drawn to her, wooed her, and won her hand in marriage (they married in Nice, France, on October 23, 1950).

In June 2006 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored Olivia de Havilland. At the time of the announcement I was recovering from sinus cancer surgery in Arcadia, Ca., and had no computer access. People came out of the woodwork demanding that I get them invitations. One fellow actually sounded like a woman scorned. When I finally saw email piled upon email tearing into me for not replying I was floored. When I replied that I wouldn’t ask Olivia for them as I had no intention of asking for myself and wouldn’t share her address as I had promised her I wouldn’t the attacks (and one in particular) became lethal. I may forgive but I’ll never forget. I doubt that this story in full will ever see print (and it is long).

The punch line: Olivia invited me to her shindig.

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LK & Patrice Wymore Flynn at Olivia’s event in Beverly Hills, Ca., on the evening of June 15, 2006. She sipped wine and nibbled at the buffet. I watched her for a minute or so. When I realized that she was alone I joined her. I’d have to dig out my notes of the evening to provide details of where our conversation headed. We didn’t discuss Errol Flynn. I had heard that she usually refused to speak about her life and time with Mr. Flynn and had no intention of ending our time together quickly. Actually I had hoped to open the door to eventually visiting her in Jamaica. (photo © Louis Kraft 2006)

The Academy knows how to throw an event/party. The food was scrumptious and the booze flowed. I really had little interest in the guests, other than Olivia who made her appearance after everyone mingled and ate and enjoyed each other’s company. …

Pat held a glass of wine as she tasted food. I had already eaten, as had my then girlfriend, who mingled and shot photos. I watched Pat. At this moment in time she was alone, as was I.

I’m shy (those of you who know me probably don’t believe this, but ’tis true). I walked up to Pat and began talking. Chit-chat about the event. We got along. As Mr. Young stated in The Gleaner, Pat was open and friendly. The conversation was easy and I enjoyed myself. Actually, I teased her for I didn’t let on that I knew anything about Errol Flynn or that I knew who she was. After some 10 or 15 minutes Pat said: “You don’t know who I am.”

I smiled. “Yes I do, Mrs. Flynn.”

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LK (left), Lincoln Hurst, and Patrice Wymore Flynn at Olivia’s event at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, Ca., on June 15, 2006. I had known Lincoln long distance for years. He had been preparing a book on Flynn that he supposedly had completed years back but now supposedly polished the manuscript. Unfortunately he died almost two and a half years later on November 11, 2008, and had never delivered an acceptable manuscript to his publisher. At this late date it doesn’t appear as if his manuscript will ever see print. Why? Some people talk the talk without walking the walk. (photo © Louis Kraft 2006)

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Patrice Wymore Flynn, Deidre Flynn (center), and LK in the room with Olivia while she spent time with her guests. There’s a story here regarding me getting into the room (but it’s for another place, probably Errol & Olivia). Pat was charming and fun to be around. Deidre was as I remembered her when we worked together in the 1980s; curt and standoffish, but that’s her (at least around me) and I’m good with her being her. (photo © Louis Kraft 2006)

She liked that I knew who she was and the conversation expanded. Lincoln Hurst, a theological professor from the University of California, Davis, joined us. He had become a friend of Deidre’s and had visited Jamaica with her in the hope of spending time with Pat. From what I’ve heard Pat kept him at a distance and didn’t allow him to visit her on her property. True? I don’t know. The conversation with Pat continued with Lincoln making us a threesome, and it remained easy.

Olivia appeared and I moved off. Later, inside the room where Olivia’s invitees spent time with her I again had the pleasure to chat and joke with Pat Wymore Flynn. She had become an unanticipated pleasure, if only for a short amount of time. Pat easily became the highlight of the evening for me.

I had hoped that our short time together might lead to a visit to Jamaica (trust me; I tried). It didn’t and I never saw her again. A shame, and you can forget Mr. Flynn and what I had hoped to learn, for I had met a classy lady who oozed charm and fun. I would have been satisfied to just hang out with her and enjoy her company. Alas, it never happened and now, never will.

Life is precious. It doesn’t matter if we know someone for a few hours or a lifetime. They can be here today and gone tomorrow.