Fair Blows the Wind (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)
Page 30
Dett Kober […]
Jacob Binns […]
You can see the idea was to start with the mysterious woman from the carriage right off. The “plans for escape” may relate to either her escape, the escape of the Hedgerow Teacher, or both. Chantry himself does not seem to have any problems that would require him to get away or that would make leaving England or Ireland much of a problem. However, other notes continue to reference an “escape” in relationship to his name, so maybe something was planned.
Obviously, Louis was considering a plot where the history of the original, and long-dead, Tatton Chantry plays a significant role. If you remember, Dett Kober was the emissary of the Queen who tried to take young Tatton from Fergus MacAskill. Louis may be suggesting that either Dett or the next person listed here, Jacob Binns, might help Tatton find those friends in high places. Binns supposedly had connections to a group like the Freemasons. The British Masonic lodge was not publicly formed until 1717. Like many, however, my father believed that Freemasonry existed as a true secret society for a long time prior to that.
An interesting note on Fergus MacAskill: In creating the character, Dad was having some fun playing with my mother’s genealogy. Part of her family were MacAskills, one of the more famous members being the “Cape Breton Giant” Angus MacAskill, who at 7-foot-9 and nearly 500 pounds performed as a circus strongman with P. T. Barnum and even made it into Guinness World Records.
Dad was also intending to use Tatton’s wife a good deal more than the slight reference above indicates. He wanted to establish her as a character adept at political intrigue and to utilize her Incan heritage in some interesting, but yet-to-be-disclosed, manner.
Some additional notes wrap up all that is known about the sequel. They start with the plot to help the mysterious woman escape:
Needs money he has invested, also passage to America (Indies?)
He arranges, old ship captain friend at other friends pub. Smuggles her away across river-mouth.
Pursuit - white-haired man - Chantry gets woman away - wife warns - he goes to London where she says he is - establishes old contacts - meets white-haired man - He knows something about original Tatton. “But he would have been an older man.[“] Original [was the] heir to vast fortune - meets [the original] Tatton’s sister who insists he claim estate. Original Tatton has left papers, Chantry has them. Has Peter Tallis investigate. [Peter Tallis is a character who shows up in the early Sackett books.]
Present pic of London at the time, people, coffee houses, taverns, plays, customs, etc. Draw characters with care. Old friend show up - (secret society)
Tatton’s sister greets him before others as his sister. Challenged by enemy who doubt[s] it -
(Weave woman who escapes into future story with Chantry’s grandson & nephew.)
Shall he claim estate?
Why does she want him to?
Perhaps she reaches him with plea to take possession. Briefs him on what he should know.
Maybe she cannot inherit unless he does? She is superb actress. She plays part well.
I suspect that, had these trains of thought continued, the character of the “mysterious woman” might well have ended up being combined with the original Tatton Chantry’s sister. It would explain her seeking him out, especially if she knows the secretly noble background of “our” Chantry.
Ultimately, once Tatton’s sons or cousins emigrated to the New World, the plan was to have later members of the family involved in a plot that would touch on the history of the French and Indian War and the historical struggle between Governor John Penn, Benjamin Franklin, and others to protect the Conestoga Indians from a vigilante army known as the Paxton Boys.
Moving on, Dad planned to use a Chantry and a Sackett in a book about the American Revolution before the series connected back to Ronan Chantry, the protagonist of The Ferguson Rifle. From there the series could quickly join the main stream of his traditional Westerns through the pages of a novel he had planned called “Cibolero” that was to take place on the plains of New Mexico in the days when the Spanish hunted buffalo with lances. The Chantrys, it seems, were destined to continue their connection to Spain and Spanish America.
*
—
Planning out all these possibilities was certainly fun and exciting, and Dad was forever creating more work than he would ever be able to complete, but the path to getting the books he was writing through the publishing process, and the various personalities found there, was occasionally a rocky one.
In May of 1977, Dad finished writing the novel that would become Fair Blows the Wind. By the end of the month it had been received by Bantam Books, and a month or so later the editorial department had returned the marked-up pages for approval. And that’s when a situation that had been brewing for a few years…well, it kind of blew up. The following letter is to Marc Jaffe, editorial director at Bantam:
July 16, 1977
Dear Marc:
Tomorrow I leave for Durango but I shall attempt to reach you by telephone first.
FAIR BLOWS THE WIND (I like the sound of that better than FAIR BLOW THE WINDS) has been delayed because I had to [go] over it, page by page. What was sent me was not an editing job but a re-write, and I did not like it.
Time and again there were purely arbitrary changes in wording, phrases and [sentences] padded, and sometimes trite phrases that I would never use. I do not like to make waves but only to get on with the job.
After this, Marc, I want each story sent to me before it goes into galleys. I want editing, not rewriting or rephrasing. In the past I have had readers write to me about errors in the [text] and now I see how they came to be. On several occasions I found errors that were not in my story.
At one point Chantry asks some castaways if their ship sank. Your editor has altered my wording and written: “She did.” As a matter of fact, she did not sink. I had it that she was or seemed to be in a sinking condition.
Early on in the book my protagonist, as a boy, is escaping. He hits a pursuer on the head with a rock. I said merely that, but I wrote: “I was not the first man to flee my island home nor would I be the last.” Your editor has added “Nor was I the first to kill.” I had said nothing about anybody being killed. Later on he carries the idea on further.
Some of the changes are purely arbitrary, such as “A man who has nothing must follow chance wherever it takes him.” And it has been altered to: “A man who has nothing must follow the vagaries of opportunity wherever they may take him.”
That isn’t editing, Marc, that is rewriting and I think “chance” is simpler and more expressive than “vagaries of opportunity.”
I want to write, Marc, not go through this sort of thing. I want scripts edited, not re-written, and if the English is bad, the tense if wrong, etc. I want it changed. But I want to [do the] rewriting.
At one point I say “the future was doubtful.” Your editor has changed it to “the future was nothing if not doubtful” which again, is not editing, but adding unnecessary words and a trite, much-used phrase that never made sense, anyway.
I have “Here the trees grew down to the water.” It has been changed to “Here the grove of trees grew down to the water.”
It was not a grove, Marc, but the edge of the forest.
My protagonist kicks a boot toe into a shell-mound, but the editor has changed it to a “booted foot” which could not be done. The only thing you can kick a booted foot into is probably very soft mud.
I have “At least I knew enough to gather leaves for a bed.” It has been changed to: “At least [I] knew enough this night to gather leaves for a bed.” Why “this night”? Didn’t he know enough to gather them on any other night?
I have “a thought came to me” and it has been changed to “a new thought came to me.”
Everybody has to make a living, Marc, but this is absurd.
At one point my protagonist uncovers ten tons of silver, and your editor has added the line “It was a tre
asure room!” My God, what a discovery!
My protagonist, in a boat, rows it around the end of an islet in the river. Your editor has it “I moved the ship around the end.” How the Hell could he do that?
I have my character wading ashore from an islet in the river, but for some reason your editor has interposed the word “far” in referring to the shore. That means he waded across a river deep enough to carry ocean-going vessels!
Several times “captain” has been cut out and “Sir” put in its place. In those days, Marc, as you know, the term “Sir” was only applied to one who had been knighted. It was many years later (despite some fiction writers) before the term “sir” became merely a title of respect. At this time it was wholly improper to call a captain “sir.”
Chantry wants a ship (and your editor keeps adding “And a crew” which is completely wrong as what he wishes to do is catch a ship that is trading along shore and get passage back to England).
He adds the word “voraciously” when a hungry man is eating. It is one of those trite expressions used so much by people who have never really been hungry. I have been. A truly hungry man cannot eat “voraciously” and does not. His stomach would have shrunk. He would eat slowly, savoring every bit. On the first day he could eat a little, on the second more. After that he might for a few days, eat “voraciously.”
In the past I have tried to leave the editing and get on with the job. My first real shock came with RIVERS WEST when over half the book was cut out. It was already in print and nothing could be done about it. Fortunately, I caught TO THE FAR BLUE MOUNTAINS.
My stuff has been butchered in the past, and it must not happen again. I want to see every script after it has been edited and I want no rewriting or rephrasing. If I am unclear, just indicate it and I’ll do the rest. This has caused me much trouble and embarrassment in the past, and I simply cannot go on this way.
There were not five pages in the entire 372 where changes had not been made, most of them unnecessary, some purely arbitrary. I am sure your editor is a nice person and has my best interest at heart, but let him work on somebody else’s stuff or learn to edit, not re-write.
If this had been an editing job you would have had the manuscript back the next day. As it is I had to cover it page by page and at times became so irritated I could not put up with working on it much at one time.
My first impulse was to chuck it and have you send me another script entirely, but then I decided to go over the work so as to save time. But the script I am now returning is the one I want to go to Dutton, and no other. I erased most of the changes. Some were legitimate and I let them stand.
RIVERS WEST, because of what was done to it, is one of my least satisfactory books. I would have to check the ms. but my guess is that at least 100 pages were cut out of it.
I hope this is the last time this has to be discussed. I want only to write and not worry about such things. I lost several important days when I should have been preparing a new story to be written in Colorado in going over this ms. and undoing all the work that somebody took a lot of time in doing.
Remember, after this I want to see every script after it has been edited. I don’t like it, and it is going to hold things up, but I’ll be damned if I want this to happen again.
I will be at the Strater in Durango for the next two weeks. There is to be the first formal signing of a peace treaty between two Indian tribes (Comanches and Utes) and they have asked me to be present. After the 5th I may go on up to the Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, or return here.
I have two more stories in the file but do not want either of them out at this time. I shall, now that this is off my hands, get on with [your] next book. Which should be soon as I have several stories well-started.
Sorry about all this—
Sincerely,
Louis L’Amour
First things first: The greatest asset any writer can have is a good editor. All writers need editing; their job is creativity, not perfection. And good editing is a great deal more than correcting spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It is very rare that you ever read the original text of any writer without its having been improved by an editor.
An important aspect of an editor’s job is to help the author tell the story he wants to tell, in the way he wants to tell it. We all find it easier to simply fix things than to try and understand and then explain why those things need to be fixed. However, in my limited experience the most intelligent thing for an editor to do is to simply identify the problems rather than create his or her own solutions. The author can then choose to deal with the issue in his or her own words.
Dad was pretty easygoing, but you can tell he was riled up. In this letter he repeats Marc’s name over and over, something his characters often do when they are angry and telling someone off. Oddly, it was not a verbal trait of his—I don’t think I ever heard my father do it in conversation.
Up until this point, Dad tended to finish a manuscript, hand it to my mother to proof, and then ship it off to the publisher. In many cases he never looked at it again. But Fair Blows the Wind was the third book in four years that had suffered from what Dad considered to be excessive and arbitrary editing.
I am not entirely sure what happened with Rivers West, the first of the three books. When I examined it, I found that the original manuscript had been significantly marked up by an editor, and yet not all of those many cuts and changes made it into the novel that eventually showed up on bookstore shelves.
In the case of To the Far Blue Mountains, we were very lucky. Dad received a call from Art Jacobs, a San Diego–based wholesaler who was a friend of ours. As usual, Art had received his books days ahead of the “on sale” date and had decided to pull one out of the box and read it. He called up to tell my father he was enjoying the first few pages, and Dad just happened to ask what the final page count was. The number was shockingly low. The book had been severely cut.
A phone call was placed to Marc Jaffe, and Marc immediately recalled the books. Thousands of them. From all across the country. In a truly heroic effort, the full text of To the Far Blue Mountains was restored, and the book was reprinted, with only a minimum number of (author-approved) edits.
Why this happened, and why it continued to happen in this final instance of Fair Blows the Wind, is somewhat of a mystery. Dad explained it to me by saying that some editors seemed to feel all his books should be roughly the same length, that they were unaware he was trying to do something different and break away from the slim and traditional Westerns of the past.
This could well be the case. If so, it was really one of the last hurdles that he had to overcome. Though he continued to mix in shorter books similar to the novels that started his career, within a year or so more sizable efforts like Bendigo Shafter, Comstock Load, and The Lonesome Gods were appearing more and more regularly.
In the end, all this controversy led to a very positive outcome. Fair Blows the Wind was returned to its earlier form, and Marc Jaffe took the opportunity to hand Louis over to a new and very special editor, Irwyn Applebaum. Irwyn was the younger brother of Stuart Applebaum, who was already working with my father at Bantam in his role as publicist. The Applebaum brothers would be Louis L’Amour’s editors and closest advisors for the rest of his career…and remain dear friends of our family even to this day.
Beau L’Amour
July 2017
To Bob and Roberta…
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 t
he 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