The Ferguson Rifle (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)
Page 18
Sackett will fight at, among others: Saratoga and King’s Mountain, possibly Cowpens, Bunker Hill, etc.
Talon will appear as an officer from Quebec in the British army, before the war, and continues. Has some contact with both Chantry and Sackett.
Lay out battles, routes, situations. Plan to move this forward at once.
Read American Heritage REVOLUTION, FOUNDING OF THE REPUBLIC, REVOLUTIONARY FRONTIER, SPIRIT OF SEVENTY-SIX, DIARY OF REVOLUTION, FIELD BOOK OF REVOLUTION, as needed.
Do quick outline sketch of movements and characters, indicate romance, general activities on a page or two.
Plan this for a smashing big romantic story with some swashbuckling and fervor in the story, and a genuine picture of what developed in the philosophy.
KEVAN CHANTRY a friend to Beaumarchais; aids in arranging ammunition and arms deal with America. Check on this affair. Contacts while Beaumarchais on a secret mission in England. Later in Paris helps to set up company to buy arms and secure ships. A romance with a Trelawney girl, the one found on the ship, but he has known her before. He does not marry her; a romance with her is too athletic.
A couple of my father’s experiments with dialogue also show up within these notes. This one seems to be a line intended for a British military man or official:
“These Colonials—
“Forgive me, but these Colonials are more often than not the sons of English gentlemen.”
The second line is more interesting, expressing an idea Louis occasionally experimented with, that “Americans” were a chosen people—chosen by themselves:
“We did not get them all, damn it! Some [went to] India, Canada, Australia & South Africa.”
My father believed that there was considerable strength in this self-selection, in the people who chose to leave home, wherever that was, and risk everything to travel to a new land. There were even more important qualities in the highly independent people who chose to move beyond the boundaries of colonial control. A bit more of this idea sneaks out in the following notes:
Open before Revolution in NY, or Phil. [Philadelphia.] A conversation at a party. Chantry with some British officers & Tories. Asked where he would stand? Some talk to set the stage before this. He foresees outcome. Tells why. Also [that it] was [inevitable even]…from 1763—But even before—when [the colonists] left England.
Open with arresting situation. Chantry almost in a duel.
Acquires an enemy who lasts throughout the book.
First page: A threat of death, a hint at romance, a new enemy.
Establish Chantry character at once.
Bring up protests from past on issues…
Chantry believes in destiny of America, away from Europe.
Chantry, a merchant venturer. Often trades in Indies, Peru, Chile and Canada. Coast of Africa. No slaves—is approached by Arabs & others about trade…
Perhaps open with Sackett on frontier, finds evidence of British activity, arming Indians.
The last thing I have to offer that relates to the Revolutionary War book is the following letter that my father sent to Joe Wershba, a good friend of his who worked as a news producer for CBS:
This is a Sunday morning, and after digesting the local papers I spent a bit over an hour just “browsing” in my library, reading bits and pieces from a variety of books, something I very much like to do. This morning, however, I did not get far, for I dipped into POTOMAC SQUIRE, a bio. of Washington by Elswyth Thane, and settled back to read, among other things a few comments from a note by George Mason that Washington carried to Williamsburg. It was a suggestion that they limit their buying to necessities from England as a protest.
As I believe I’ve said, I am planning a book soon on the Revolution and its times using both a Chantry and a Sackett, the latter a frontiersman (the King’s Mountain battle was a typical Sackett-type action) and Chantry as a merchant venturer with a wide acquaintance on both sides of the ocean. One of the things I want to do is give some attention to George Mason. Perhaps more than anyone else he was a behind the scenes advisor to them all, kept by family, plantation and health problems from much active participation, but a wise man who had his eye on the ball all the time.
This will be rather a large book as I have a lot of ground to cover, and hope to give a good bit of space to the Committees of Correspondence. Not enough attention has been paid to them as a means not only to formulate and organize opinion, but to educate.
I hope to spend some time demonstrating the influence of the frontier on the political thinking of the time. Few stop to realize how much time Washington actually spent out there, and it was undoubtedly the most important experience of his formative years. Jefferson, too, lived in one of those houses where frontiersmen stopped when returning to civilization. They were a hardy, freedom-loving lot, irked by red-tape and restraint on their actions.
Two of the battles of Saratoga (both of them, actually) were also decisive at an earlier stage. It was our victories there that provided Beaumarchais with arguments that he used very well to influence French thinking in our favor. One of my own ancestors (not in the direct line, however) was an important unit commander at Saratoga, and wrote an account of the battle that was widely circulated at the time. He was Major Henry Dearborn, later a General and Sec. of War under Jefferson (they exchanged seeds and letters on gardening, also). Later, Dearborn was commander in chief during the War of 1812, but had a bad press in that affair. He did not want the job, was in bad health, and well up in years, and should not have been chosen. Madison insisted, however.
One aspect of the Revolution which has not been mentioned enough, if at all, are the many indications of what was to come had the British been sensible enough to read the hand-writing on the wall. From the early 1600’s there had been protests about “taxation without representation” and many indications of what the colonials were thinking. The ideas of the Revolution were developing for a good century before it came to head.
The other unwritten Chantry story, one that might have followed The Ferguson Rifle, is Cibolero. A Cibolero is a Spanish-American or Mexican buffalo hunter. In the era of short-range, single-shot firearms, the lance was a very effective weapon for a man on horseback. Aim could be adjusted all the way up until the point of impact, and a firearm’s range, from the back of a charging horse, was effectively little greater than that of a lance.
CIBOLERO
Early New Mexico & Texas—1700’s
Spanish-Irish, 24, no known family—[the hero was] reared by Spanish officer, now old. Mystery as to origin—found by Kiowa, traded, for almost nothing—Curious in itself—Did Kiowas want to be rid of him? If so, why? Live alone some miles from others—books—Hacienda—Style, Court, Tile, etc—old ruin, re-built.
Idyllic love story—[illegible]—Buffalo stampede—Escape to East.
Fights with Indians
Jealousy of others
Warning in time.
Safe as long as foster-father lives.
Tie in [the mystery of the hero’s origin] with political situation. At one point Indians pull away from fight because he is there. Brings him only trouble in New Mexico—Superstitious—Hunts alone with one renegade Indian
Think this one thru very carefully.
Old man must be very complex character.
Later H. goes to old priest to find out about him. And of his own destiny—Thru him learns of old Indian of vanished or Natchez tribe. Perhaps one who escaped Mexico because of Aztec invasion—
One who knows of ancient people who came before.
Tie in the dark hole.
The place in California of rendezvous.
Dark hole
Caliente (my place)
I’m afraid I know little more than many of you about what my father was thinking here, but I’ll
try to explain what I can: In the colonial and early independence era, Old World Protestants often made the United States their destination in North America. However, many Catholics immigrated to New Spain or, later, the Estados Unidos Mexicanos. Many of us in the United States of America do not know all that much about Mexican history, but it is easily as cosmopolitan as ours—perhaps more so. Dad’s interest in the Irish in Mexico, as well as the rest of the Latin world, plays a part in Fair Blows the Wind, the first Chantry novel chronologically, and in Over on the Dry Side.
Dad was also very interested in the Natchez tribe. Their language, culture, and connection to the “Mound Builders” of the Mississippi Valley are fascinating. It seems clear that, as in Jubal Sackett, some elements of the history and mystery of the Natchez were to be explored.
The “Dark Hole” is an area in California that interested my father. He wrote a portion of a short story about it that I reprinted in Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures: Volume 1. Possibly as an alternative to that rendezvous point, Dad seemed to be thinking of our old property near Caliente, California, a reference to which also shows up in the “Jeremy Loccard” chapter of Volume 1. We all felt that there were some spooky aspects to that area and that, at the very least, it would make a good hideout because of its narrow canyons and easily defended approaches.
Here are a few more of my father’s notes relating to Cibolero. These are likely from an earlier date:
Gather materials for Cibolero; read on early New Mexico. Anza story; buffaloes; early history of western country. Establish country—characters—period.
Think of Lasca—wild, beautiful girl—a Cibolero, part Irish, part Indian or Spanish. A dashing, dare-devil sort of man, afraid of nothing—a rebel, yet a sensible one.
A man in conflict with the government; perhaps with the church; a hero to many of the people. In love with a girl he is forbidden to marry—elopes with her into the wilderness, beset by Kiowa and Comanche. He knows the wilds, knows the Indians, winds through to California or to east or north. Decide on this.
First, much about the life of a cibolero.
Girl: Is she incurably ill? Was their elopement a mistake?
CHECK COMMERCE OF THE PRAIRIES, all early material on west Texas, New Mexico, eastern Colorado, etc.
All material on buffaloes.
All material on early Spanish settlements. Read Anza, Moorhead, etc.
Browse on typewriter; tune-in on those times and get it all.
I am not familiar with the “Anza” book, though I suspect that it has to do with Juan Bautista de Anza, who, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, was governor of New Mexico and helped establish the cities of San Francisco and San Jose. Those coastal settlements were considered strategically important in case the Russians, who seemed interested in northern California, tried to claim San Francisco Bay. Commerce of the Prairies, by Josiah Gregg, is an all-purpose text for any reader interested in the early Southwest. It covers the period from roughly 1830 to 1840. In mentioning it, Dad opens up the possibility of setting this particular story somewhat later in history. Here are some last notes to that effect:
…Texas, Alamo, etc. Chantry IV New Mexico—Cib. Boston to Santa Fe (very early) CIBOL?
California War (Fremont or?)
Colorado
Look for Mesa in Colorado
Perhaps Paradox or elsewhere.
Dolores Canyon region?
Rampart Hills
Hogback?
The reference to “Chantry IV” suggests where this book would fit into the Chantry series. The first Chantry novel would be Fair Blows the Wind. Chantry II seems to be the unwritten Revolutionary War story mentioned earlier. Chantry III is The Ferguson Rifle, and Chantry IV Cibolero.
“Texas”—denoting either the Republic of Texas (1836–1846) or a time slightly before the Battle of the Alamo—refers to a period later than that in which The Ferguson Rifle takes place. It seems that in this version of Cibolero Dad was experimenting with the idea of a Chantry character coming out from Boston and becoming involved in the Mexican War (1846–1848), possibly in Santa Fe, and possibly being connected to Fremont’s expedition to (or invasion of) California in 1846.
Dad’s notes about a “mesa in Colorado,” “Paradox” (Paradox Valley, Colorado), “Dolores Canyon,” “Rampart Hills,” and “Hogback” are an attempt to tie Cibolero to events in, or referred to in, Over on the Dry Side. I’m not sure if he had written that book yet when these notes were made—if not that is, no doubt, why he was experimenting with various southwest Colorado locations—but the notes do suggest that he had a plan for future stories clearly in mind.
Beau L’Amour
June 2020
Bantam Books by Louis L’Amour
NOVELS
Bendigo Shafter
Borden Chantry
Brionne
The Broken Gun
The Burning Hills
The Californios
Callaghen
Catlow
Chancy
The Cherokee Trail
Comstock Lode
Conagher
Crossfire Trail
Dark Canyon
Down the Long Hills
The Empty Land
Fair Blows the Wind
Fallon
The Ferguson Rifle
The First Fast Draw
Flint
Guns of the Timberlands
Hanging Woman Creek
The Haunted Mesa
Heller with a Gun
The High Graders
High Lonesome
Hondo
How the West Was Won
The Iron Marshal
The Key-Lock Man
Kid Rodelo
Kilkenny
Killoe
Kilrone
Kiowa Trail
Last of the Breed
Last Stand at Papago Wells
The Lonesome Gods
The Man Called Noon
The Man from Skibbereen
The Man from the Broken Hills
Matagorda
Milo Talon
The Mountain Valley War
North to the Rails
Over on the Dry Side
Passin’ Through
The Proving Trail
The Quick and the Dead
Radigan
Reilly’s Luck
The Rider of Lost Creek
Rivers West
The Shadow Riders
Shalako
Showdown at Yellow Butte
Silver Canyon
Sitka
Son of a Wanted Man
Taggart
The Tall Stranger
To Tame a Land
Tucker
Under the Sweetwater Rim
Utah Blaine
The Walking Drum
Westward the Tide
Where the Long Grass Blows
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
Beyond the Great Snow Mountains
Bowdrie
Bowdrie’s Law
Buckskin Run
The Collected Short Stories of Louis L’Amour (vols. 1–7)
Dutchman’s Flat
End of the Drive
From the Listening Hills
The Hills of Homicide
Law of the Desert Born
Long Ride Home
Lonigan
May There Be a Road
Monument Rock
Night Over the Solomons
Off the Mangrove Coast
The Outlaws of Mesquite
The Rider of the Ruby Hills
Riding for the Brand
The Strong Shall Live
The Trail to Crazy Man
Valley of the Sun
War Party
West from Singapore
West of Dodge
With These Hands
Yondering
SACKETT TITLES
Sackett’s Land
To the Far Blue Mountains
The Warrior’s Path
Jubal Sackett
Ride the River
The Daybreakers
Sackett
Lando
Mojave Crossing
Mustang Man
The Lonely Men
Galloway
Treasure Mountain
Lonely on the Mountain
Ride the Dark Trail
The Sackett Brand
The Sky-Liners
THE HOPALONG CASSIDY NOVELS
The Riders of High Rock
The Rustlers of West Fork
The Trail to Seven Pines
Trouble Shooter
NONFICTION
Education of a Wandering Man
Frontier
The Sackett Companion: A Personal Guide to the Sackett Novels
A Trail of Memories: The Quotations of Louis L’Amour, compiled by Angelique L’Amour
POETRY
Smoke from This Altar
LOST TREASURES
Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures: Volume 1 (with Beau L’Amour)
No Traveller Returns (with Beau L’Amour)
Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures: Volume 2 (with Beau L’Amour)
ABOUT LOUIS L’AMOUR
“I think of myself in the oral tradition—as a troubadour, a village taleteller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That’s the way I’d like to be remembered—as a storyteller. A good storyteller.”
IT IS DOUBTFUL that any author could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L’Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally “walked the land my characters walk.” His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L’Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.