“The Way West: True Stories of the America Frontier,” edited by James A. Crutchfield (Forge, 304 pages, $25.95)
Western history is about stories. Members of the Western Writers of America tell more than two dozen, many little-known, in “The Way West.”
There is the tale of Mary Lambe, the Wyoming rancher’s wife who dallied with both the hired hand and her father-in-law, then plotted with the latter to kill the former to save her reputation. She ended up in jail.
“The Jayhawking of Salina” is the tale of a guerrilla raid on the Kansas town in the early days of the Civil War, when men were rounded up while stores and homes were ransacked. Guns, ammunition and rifles were taken and townspeople threatened, but unlike the raid on Lawrence, Kan., a year later, nobody was killed, and the town was not burned. There were humorous incidents. Someone produced a barrel of apples shared by jayhawkers and victims alike, as the two sides joked with each other.
WWA writers tell about steamboating in the Northwest, Zebulon Pike in the Southwest and women crossing the wild West. Many women made good money baking pies and washing clothes once they reached the gold fields, but one hoped to strike it rich the old-fashioned way – by marrying. She advertised, noting that along with domestic chores, she could find six states on the atlas and once knew how to dance.
“Chief Joseph: Guardian of the People,” by Candy Moulton (Forge, 239 pages, $19.95)
Candy Moulton, another WWA writer, is the author of this brief but informative biography of the famed Nez Perce leader. In 1877, to escape from the government, Joseph led his people from their homeland in northeastern Oregon almost to the Canadian border.
But the Nez Perce failed to make it into Canada, and Joseph announced he would “fight no more forever.” He began an even harder struggle – for better conditions for his people and the right to return to the Northwest. Moulton’s well-researched, well-written account is a concise history of the Indian leader.
“The Oatman Massacre: A Tale of Desert Captivity and Survival,” by Brian McGinty (University of Oklahoma, 288 pages, $27.95)
Another familiar Western story is the captivity of the Oatman sisters, whose family was murdered by Indians in 1851. Mary Ann, who was 8 when she was captured, died of starvation, but Olive, 13, lived through five years of captivity and was reunited with her brother, Lorenzo, the only other member of the family who survived the massacre. Later, the tattooed Olive lectured and sold her biography, which was ghostwritten by a minister.
Brian McGinty goes beyond that story, separating fact from fiction and adding new details to the story of the Oatman girls. The Oatman family, converted to an offshoot of the Mormon church, was traveling west to a new Zion when their solitary wagon was attacked. And while Olive claimed in her book that she lived a chaste life among the Mohaves, she most likely was married and had children by an Indian husband. That would explain the bouts of melancholia and depression she suffered the rest of her life.
Several years after her rescue, Olive married and apparently lived a somewhat happy life as the wife of a wealthy Texas banker, who fiercely protected his wife’s privacy. He bought up copies of Olive’s book and forbade guests from talking about Indians. Olive traveled the country seeking treatments for a variety of ailments and either covered the tattoos with makeup or went about veiled.
Sandra Dallas is a Denver novelist who writes a monthly column on nonfiction regional releases.
