NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET: HORROR STORIES by Richard Matheson

This is my first real foray into Matheson's work that I can remember (I read I Am Legend a very long time ago and can't quite recall it). I knew he was an important and influential author but I had no idea to what extent! It feels to me like he's the author that had the strongest influence on Stephen King. Their style of storytelling and pacing (at least in the short story work) is very similar! And you can also see why he was tapped to write The Twilight Zone episodes and why that show adapted a few of his stories. If you're a fan of the show, you'll love this collection as the stories have a very similar structure.

I listened to this on audiobook throughout the span of several months. I really enjoyed most of the tales in this collection and was constantly impressed with how clever and creative Matheson was in his storytelling. The concept and idea for each story is compelling and will keep you reading. And not only does Matheson show real skill in building upon these concepts in interesting and original ways and bringing it to a slam-bang ending, but he also has a great sense of what to show, what not to show, and when to do so. In the entire collection the writing has a great sense of mischief throughout, that same sense that King's writing has in his best creepy tales. The best example of Matheson's skill is the best story in the collection, the utterly creepy "Dress of White Silk", about a young girl obsessed with her dead mother's belongings. And that final couple of lines? Holy shit.

Other standout stories are, "Disappearing Act," "Legion of Plotters," "The Likeness of Julie," "First Anniversary," "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,""Through Channels," "Blood Son"...hell, who am I kidding? Just read 'em all. Definitely a recommendation if you're looking for some classic horror stories this Halloween season.

GRADE: A-

THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain

"Tomorrow night, if I come back, there'll be kisses. Lovely ones, Frank. Not drunken kisses. Kisses with dreams in them. Kisses that come from life, not death."

With the one-two punch publication of both this novel and the serialized version of Double Indemnity in the mid-1930's, James M. Cain truly popularized what we know of now as being the hard-boiled sub-genre of noir in American fiction, a long time before the term was even coined. Since it's publication, this book has spawned so many copycats, and inspired so many writers and an entire genre of movies that it's story of a man falling for a femme fatale, their descent into crime, and their eventual doom is kind of a cliché at this point. But even to this day, over 80 years later, very few have been able to match the intensity of both this and Indemnity.

"Except for the shape, she really wasn't any raving beauty, but she had a sulky look to her, and her lips stuck out in a way that made me want to mash them in for her."

I initially thought that this was better than Indemnity but now on my second reading, I saw that while it's still great, and still has a stellar, superior ending, Postman pales a bit in comparison. But it's still stronger and tighter than many books in its genre and beyond. It's a little over 100 pages of high tragedy as we witness these two emotionally weak but determined characters dig themselves deeper into a hole of self-destruction and form a bond started by love and transformed into hate, a bond that they realize will never be broken, no matter how much they want out. Can anyone else think of any flawed couples like this in recent bestselling fiction? Of course you can. Yep, and it all started with The Postman Always Rings Twice. 

“I ripped all her clothes off. She twisted and turned, slow, so they would slip out from under her. Then she closed her eyes and lay back on the pillow. Her hair was falling over her shoulders in snaky curls. Her eye was all black, and her breasts weren’t drawn up and pointing up at me, but soft, and spread out in two big pink splotches. She looked like the great grandmother of every whore in the world. The devil got his money’s worth that night.”

GRADE: A

THE SHOOTIST by Glendon Swarthout

GRADE: A

John Bernard Books has found out he has terminal prostate cancer.

Books is an aging but notorious gunman, who is known across the frontier for being dangerously quick on the draw, for loving women, and for killing over thirty men. So it comes to his dismay that he is destined to die an undignified and unremarkable death, taken down by a disease in his crotch. He doesn't have long to live and pretty soon news of his condition spreads around town. But J.B. Books is determined to die with some semblance of dignity.

And then, emptied, on hands and knees, head hanging over his own spew, teeth chattering with cold, in that animal posture he knew fear for the first time in his adult life.

 I was really taken with this outstanding novel and this great character: a portrait of a dying man who must figure out the best way to make his last stand in life. Author Glendon Swarthout creates a three-dimensional character out of the conventionally one-dimensional Western antihero. On the outside Books is trying to portray the same stoicism and grit that he's known for, but on the inside is a man terrified of dying the way he is. Not only is he forced to look back on his life and decide if it was truly worth anything, but he also has to deal with the town's sudden interest in his imminent death, interest both curious and nefarious, but everyone looking to profit one way or another.

A great theme that is prevalent throughout the book is the changing times. It is the turn of the 20th century, year 1901, and the West is changing from the frontier that it was to a more modern, civilized place. And the aging gunman is part of those dying times. He's constantly reminded of this in every new invention he sees, or by the newspaper articles he reads to pass the time.

She looked at him bravely now for the first time, at his face, the face from which a child had fled, and drew breath. She rose. Her eyes filled.

She knew.

He took her in his arms and kissed her ardently. Men in their hosts, young and old, innocent and corrupt, had paid her for her favors, but she put her arms about him of her own free will as though to give him what she could in recompense for this, the last gift she guessed, of his manhood.

It was a real joy reading this book, which was tender and mournful, like a melancholy fable, downright funny at times, and gorgeously written. Swarthout seems to always use just the right words; I felt like every page had a line or paragraph I wanted to make note of. The book also contains a stunning classic Western bar shootout that is well-crafted, dark, and nihilistic.

I would agree with critics that this is one of the best Western novels ever written (definitely one of the best that I've read). It's about courage, dignity and throwing up a middle finger to death, taking control of your life and the the way you leave it.

He thought: I will not break. I won't tell anybody what a tight I am in. I will keep my pride. And my guns loaded to the last.

CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD by Gabriel García Márquez

GRADE: A-

In a tiny, coastal Latin American town, Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Román get married and have the biggest party the town had seen! But soon after, Bayardo returns his new wife to her shocked family after he realizes that her virginity has been spoiled. In an effort to restore her honor, her twin brothers murder her alleged deflowerer in cold blood (obviously not a spoiler), but not before announcing their intentions for all to hear. 

 "'All right, girl,' he told her, trembling with rage, 'tell us who it was.'

 

She only took the time necessary to say the name. She looked for it in the shadows, she found it at first sight among the many, many easily confused names from this world and the other, and she nailed it to the wall with her well-aimed dart, like a butterfly with no will whose sentence has always been written.

 

'Santiago Nasar,' she said"

The late master Gabriel García Márquez (with credit to translator Gregory Rabassa) has once again impressed me and captivated me with his command of language, this time in an effort to explore and document the events that surround this very public homicide. Not only does Marquez look at whether or not the Vicario brothers are right in defending their sister's honor in such a way, but even more significant, he writes a fascinating portrait of a small town, and how its collective mindset, the self-absorption of it's citizens, bad decisions, unfortunate fate, and possibly straight up lies came together in an epic fail of preventing a tragedy that ultimately affect the community for years to come.

"They taught her old wives' tricks to feign her lost possession, so that on her first morning as a newlywed she could display open under the sun in the courtyard of her house the linen sheet with the stain of honor."

THE WOMAN IN THE DUNES by Kobo Abe

GRADE: B-

Sand sucks. 

The sand in this novel is so oppressive, invasive, and omnipresent, that after finishing the book, I felt like I needed to take a shower. Maybe two.

"His words were absorbed by the sand and blown by the wind, and there was no way of knowing how far they reached."

The book is the basis of one of my favorite Japanese movies, and it's story is so eccentric, I wanted to see how it worked as a novel. It's the tale of a man, who disappeared and was declared dead after he journeys on his own to study some bugs at an isolated beach town, and ends up in a mysterious woman's house at the bottom of a sand pit. The novel details what happens to this man at the bottom of that hole.

"The whole surface of her body was covered with a coat of fine sand, which hid the details and brought out the feminine lines; she seemed a statue gilded with sand."

The story is totally unique, bleak, and claustrophobic. It's filled with Sisyphean themes, and (as another reviewer put it) it focuses on the erosion of many different things: not just the earth but also the wearing away of boundaries as well as the wearing away of sanity. Aspects of the writing style was not to my taste though, drifting away from the narrative for numerous pages as the main character starts musing on a multitude of topics. But it's worth reading because this intriguing book is truly an original.

"While he mused on the effect of the flowing sands, he was seized from time to time by hallucinations in which he himself began to move with the flow."

THE LAST GOOD KISS by James Crumley

 

GRADE: B+

A true classic of the crime fiction genre, and for some reason I just got around to it. The book introduces C.W. Sughrue, a Vietnam vet who is now a private dick, usually working boring jobs doing repossessions and divorce cases. As the novel opens, he's finally tracked down Abraham Trahearne, a famous drunken writer who Sughrue was hired to track down before he drinks himself to death. While on the job, he takes another assignment from an old barmaid to track down her daughter, who ran away from home ten years prior. So, accompanied by Trahearne and an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts, Sughrue searches for a girl he's mysteriously drawn to, a girl he only knows from a faded, crumpled photograph.

This book inspired almost all of the contemporary crime writers working today. One of the big reasons why it was so influential is because it took your standard detective novel and turned it into something more, with it's brilliant, poetic prose that, before then, would usually be reserved for more "serious" fiction. Sughrue is a great character, also influencing the modern detective characters today, with his mix of not only toughness, humor, and rough charm, but also with a tender empathy that drives his search for Betty Sue and his friendship with Trahearne. Thankfully he's so likeable and gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, because I really didn't like any of the other supporting characters, especially Trahearne. But along with Sughrue, it was Crumley's vivid writing that kept me turning pages, inherently hard-boiled and lyrical at the same time.

"Nobody lives forever, nobody stays young long enough. My past seemed like so much excess baggage, my future a series of long goodbyes, my present an empty flask, the last good drink already bitter on my tongue."

TREASURE ISLAND by Robert Louis Stevenson

GRADE: C

 

Young Jim Hawkins stumbles onto a map leading to a treasure buried by the famous pirate Captain Flint on a small Caribbean island. This sparks a overseas adventure to find the buried treasure! Treasure Island is THE classic of pirate adventures.

I love pirates and pirate stories. The adventure and independence on the high-seas is something that speaks to old boyhood fantasies. Sadly, I didn't find much of that adventure in Treasure Island. It was interesting seeing where all of the pirate story conventions originated, but otherwise it wasn't as exciting as it should've been. Jim was one of the most boring characters I've read in a while. Maybe it was the language...or maybe the book just hasn't aged well in general.

THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammet

GRADE: B+

This is the one that started it all. Dashiell Hammet's novel basically popularized the hard-boiled detective story. Hammet's detective Sam Spade paved the way for Phillip Marlowe, Lew Archer Matthew Scudder, and Easy Rawlins. The classic story follows private dick Spade after he learns that his partner has been murdered working a case. In trying to figure out who did it, he gets entangled with a bunch of low-life criminals who are all after an ugly black bird statue that supposedly worth tons of money.

There's not much you can say about this one that hasn't already been said. Although it failed to blow me away due to the fact that the plot is so familiar in this day and age, it's an indisputable classic, and undoubtedly essential reading for any lover of crime fiction.

Great hard-boiled dialogue:

“He said: 'I'm going to send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means you'll be out again in twenty years. You're an angel. I'll wait for you." He cleared his throat. "If they hang you I'll always remember you.'"

LONESOME DOVE by Larry McMurtry

GRADE: A

 “Yesterday's gone on down the river and you can't get it back.”

I’ve been a big fan of Western movies for a while, but I’ve only recently started reading Western fiction. This Pulitzer prize-winning epic adventure is considered by many to be one of, if not the best novel in the genre.  Now that I’ve finished it, it would be hard to argue with that.

The book follows aging best friends Woodrow Call and Augustus “Gus” McCrae, who were once famous Texas Rangers that fought Indians on the frontier, but for the last 15 years, have retired and now operate a small livery in the sleepy Texas border town of Lonesome Dove. They’ve been living a simple life with their buddies and the other residents of the town, including the sad and emotionally distant Lorena, Lonesome Dove’s only whore. But when the duo’s friend, the gambling ladies’ man Jake Spoon, returns after many years, describing the beautiful, untouched grassland in the largely unsettled Montana territory, Call is inspired to go on one last adventure and, with Gus, be the first to settle in Montana and become successful cattlemen in their old age. Gus is initially not interested in the idea, content with them spending their old age hangin’ out in the sun along the Rio Grande, instead of risking their lives on the open range. But he agrees because of the prospect of reconnecting with his lost love Clara, who he knows has settled in Nebraska, which would be on the way. So after stealing 3,000 heads of cattle from a Mexican bandit and hiring a ragtag team of cowboys, they set off on an epic cattle drive across the country from Texas to Montana. On the way, they will make new friends, lose old ones, encounter great dangers and witness great beauty.

I’m always nervous when I begin reading long novels, hoping that I’m not wasting my time. It was no different when starting Lonesome Dove. At first, it felt like it was taking way too long for them to even get started on the cattle drive. Instead the first part of the book seems like it's mostly focused on the characters sitting around Lonesome Dove. But this novel is a sneaky little bugger. There came a moment (not even sure when it happened) when I realized that while it seemed like nothing was happening, the book was slowly sucking me in until I was completely engulfed in the tale. The characters are so detailed, so real, that I couldn't help but to be completely invested in their lives and what would happen next. And not just the main characters, but the minor roles (even the animals like the Hell Bitch, the two blue pigs, and the mean bull) were incredibly well-drawn. The length of the novel was imperative to this kind of character development. And not only did the length help with getting to know the characters, but it also made me feel like I was part of the cattle drive, living through not only the dangers, but through the slow tedium of it all. And because the trip is tedious, the joy I felt when the cowboys finally make it to certain landmarks in the trip was really something!

The tone and atmosphere is another thing that sucked me in. The story has a truly romantic mood, like a great adventure story should have, reading like a long love letter to the dying Old West. The theme of "longing" runs all throughout the novel, from Call wanting to develop a thriving, meaningful business before it's too late, to Lorena wanting a place to call home and someone to connect with, to Dish Bogget, who's undying love for Lorena is so large it's tragic, to Gus, stuck between his love for two women and his love for adventure, and to young Newt (the heart of the story), who not only wants to see more of the world outside of Lonesome Dove and be accepted as a man and cowboy, but longs for a father figure. 

Lonesome Dove is truly something special. It has something for everyone and is possibly the essential western story, a tale that encompasses everything that the genre stands for.

" 'It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's living,' Augustus said. 'I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.' "

KINDRED by Octavia Butler

GRADE: A-

Great science fiction does more than just entertain. Sometimes, it's used to explore important and difficult material and ideas about society, past experiences, as well as speculate on where we are headed in the future. Octavia Butler was one of the queens of sci-fi and Kindred is considered by many to be her masterpiece. It is one of the examples of great science fiction that goes beyond pure entertainment. It shines a light on what is possibly the most difficult and taboo topics in American history: slavery in the U.S.

Dana, a black woman living in 70's Los Angeles, is inexplicably snatched through time on her 26th birthday, and sent to a Southern plantation during the 1800's. She realizes that she will be brought back repeatedly to save the life of the young troubled son of the plantation owner, who she realizes is her ancestor. So to keep him safe and secure her existence in the modern day, she must endure existing in a time when her skin color makes her property.

"I lost an arm on my last trip home."

Whoa. What an opening line! It's so simple in its construction, but packs a big wallop, and locked my interest in for at least the following 100 pages. After that, not only is it a searing look at life on a slave plantation in the antebellum American South, but also an interesting, speculative character study on how a young black woman from the 1970's would react to having to submit herself to the reality and culture of the times back then. The most intriguing aspect was the way it affected her relationship with her white husband, who ends up traveling along with her through time to protect her. She is so used to acting a certain way with him, a way that is completely not acceptable during these times. Seeing the two of them get "comfortable" in their roles on the plantation and seeing the strain that it put on their relationship over time was fascinating. And Butler's simple and concise style helps to make this harsh story one that can be universally relatable and appreciated.

NATIVE SON by Richard Wright

GRADE: B+

This classic, important novel is a challenging read. The easy route for the author Richard Wright would've been to write a novel asking us to sympathize with a black man wrongfully accused of murder in a racist community. But he does not take the easy route. Instead he implores the reader to follow Bigger Thomas, a young black man who is absolutely guilty of committing a deplorable act (for reasons which he himself cannot fully explain), and forces us to look at the circumstances which might have possibly created this complex man. 

Although the book isn't perfect and every now and then (especially in the last 30 pages, which is basically one big speech) delves into bloated preachiness, it still is very engaging and surprisingly suspenseful. It forces you to consider how society in the 1930's created a man, for whom fear and hate were the only emotions he's ever felt, and how those emotions can lead him to murder. It challenges you to understand that although the murder is essentially accidental, Bigger knows he has done something wrong but is initially unrepentant. Because after lashing out in a situation he doesn't understand, it is the first time he feels alive, with a purpose and with the control of his own life in his hands. 

A challenging and important book that pulls aside the curtain and looks dead on at the circumstances that create Bigger Thomas and at the social, class, and racial relations in our society.

“Violence is a personal necessity for the oppressed...It is not a strategy consciously devised. It is the deep, instinctive expression of a human being denied individuality.”

THE BIG SLEEP by Raymond Chandler

GRADE: C+

*Book 1 of the Philip Marlowe Series*

Private dick Philip Marlowe takes a blackmail case involving an old rich man and his two crazy-ass daughters and ultimately gets more than he bargained for in the form of racketeering and dirty picture-book smut. I really wanted to like this one more than I did. It's one of the top essential classics of not just the hardboiled noir genre but of the crime genre in general. I read somewhere that Chandler came up with the book by cobbling a few of his old short stories together. Well it shows. The plot is so muddled and the double and triple-crosses so tangled, that I unfortunately just stopped caring after a while. But Chandler really does have a gift with words that's nearly unmatched, and that definitely elevates the material. I will definitely give the other books in the series a try soon.

AESOP'S FABLES by Aesop

GRADE: A-

This is the complete collection of the fables of Aesop, who was reportedly a tongue-tied slave that miraculously gained the power of speech and began telling stories to his masters. The tales were first written down almost 2,000 years ago. It's amazing how many of these very short tales have ingrained themselves so deep into our psyche as a society. While reading, you will be constantly surprised when a story pops up that you've always been familiar with, but were never really sure where it came from. For centuries, these simple stories have guided much of the way we live our lives all around the world. They are so much more than just short fables, but can be seen as a reference book of wisdom.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee

GRADE: A

It's sad that I haven't read this book until now. Unlike other people it was never assigned to me in school and I never got around to reading it, along with many other classics (I'm trying to rectify that this year). I had also never gotten around to watching the movie, so I was fairly unfamiliar with the story before I started.

When I first started this book, I was disappointed. I initially thought that the novel was about the trial of a black man wrongfully accused of the rape of a white woman, told through the eyes of the defense attorney's young daughter. So when much of the beginning of the book featured the little girl running around town getting into mischief with her big brother, I admit I was a little thrown. But then, I started realizing that I was totally mistaken: the book was about the coming-of-age of and loss of innocence of little Scout during a few very impressionable years living amongst her tiny community in Alabama during the Great Depression, with the rape trial being one of the big events that teaches her about the bigger world she's living in. After I realized that, I was fully lost in the book. So simple in it's delivery, it sort of sneaks up on you with it's astute lessons about prejudice, decency, community, heroism, and just plain growing up. Once I finished reading in the early morning, I discovered that the book truly lives up to it's reputation as one of the greatest novels ever written.

LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding

GRADE: C

One of my favorite narrative themes is the true nature of society and its corruption and breakdown when facing trauma and change. Lord of the Flies played a big part in inspiring and popularizing this theme in fiction. A group of British schoolboys survive a plane crash on an unidentified island. At first the boys naturally have a blast with their new independence without adults, until leaders start rising and groups start dividing. Then the dark side human nature starts to show its ugly head.

The classic plot is one of my favorites but I found the writing to be a bit tedious and awkward. In the hands of a more engaging, imaginative writer, this book could've been a favorite!

A LESSON BEFORE DYING by Ernest J. Gaines

GRADE: B

Young teacher Grant Wiggins is bitter about returning to his home in a tight knit black Louisiana township to teach in a poor education system and live with his aunt. So he's definitely reluctant when he is called upon by his aunt's friend to counsel her son, who has been arrested and sentenced to death for murder. In trying to help this young man recover a bit of dignity before he dies, Grant forms a bond with him that will affect him more than he expects.

Although it took me a while to truly empathize with the main character as he seemed obnoxious and self-absorbed in the first half, this was a great story, with a powerful message and a great sense of time and place.

THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells

GRADE: A-

“Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.” 

One of the most timeless classics in the world. The story begins with a scientist describing his latest invention to a group of his dinner friends. They are naturally skeptic when he describes a machine that can travel through time. One of his friends is curious though and when he returns to visit the scientist, he finds him haggard and spent, and sits and listens to the "time traveller's unbelievable story. This is the classic novella that arguably gave birth to science-fiction as we know it. And it is still incredibly readable, imaginative, engaging, and thought-provoking. Not to mention ahead of its time!

DOUBLE INDEMNITY by James M. Cain

One of the most tightly written books I've ever read, by the godfather of the type of noir fiction that I love. Not. A. Word. Wasted. In the book, Walter Huff goes to the Hollywood Hills to sell a car

insurance renewal to Mr. Nirdlinger. But he gets caught up and starts falling hard for Mrs. Nirdlinger, who doesn't waste any time asking about accident insurance. We can pretty much guess where that leads! But even though we know where this is going, like a car crash, we can't take our eyes away. Even Walter knows where it's heading but he can't turn away either, because to his horror, he realizes that he's in love.  

"I knew then what I had done. I had killed a man. I had killed a man to get a woman. I had put myself in her power, so there was one person in the world that could point a a finger at me, and I would have to die. I had done all that for her, and I never want to see her again as long as I lived.

That’s all it takes, one drop of fear, to curdle love into hate."

This is the perfect introduction to classic noir and it inspired everything that came afterward. It's even better than the classic, The Postman Always Rings Twice, but it has a more disappointing ending. This is one of the closest examples of a perfect book to me but falls a bit short because of that strange resolution. If it had Postman's ending it would be perfect! But still, it feels like Cain took everything good about Postman and ramped it up a notch here. This book seems like a better draft of that book, making it even tighter, more suspenseful, and even more razor sharp, with an even more relentless pace and even stronger characters (how awesome was Keyes?) and dialogue. And in 1944, Billy Wilder teamed up with Raymond Chandler and churned out a movie that might be even better! But Double Indemnity is everything that I look for in crime writing and in books in general. Cain doesn't waste any damn time with bullshit. It is a lean, efficient, and suspenseful piece of writing, and dark as the grave... 

"I loved her like a rabbit loves a rattlesnake. That night I did something I hadn't done in years. I prayed."

GRADE: A

DRACULA by Bram Stoker

GRADE: A-

The plot is definitely familiar by now. Jonathan Harker is a young real estate solicitor traveling to a mysterious estate in Transylvania to complete to sale of a major property in England to the noble Count Dracula. However when he gets there, he discovers an evil that he never could have imagined. And we all know what that is: Dracula is actually a vampire, an undead being that feasts on the blood of living humans. And when the monster makes its way to England, it's up to Jonathan and his ragtag group of friends and loved ones to stop it. This book is the pioneer of the now popular vampire fiction, so influential that it's now somewhat of a cliché. But things become clichés for a reason.

I was surprised by how modern this book felt. For a book originally published in the late 19th century, it has as much suspense, horror, and action as many stories written today. Aside from a large lag in the middle, it's fairly fast--paced and was ahead of it's time. Didn't think I would enjoy it so much. And it's so refreshing to see how the original vampire stories were like, back before Twilight and True Blood, back when they were truly terrifying.

TRUE GRIT by Charles Portis

GRADE: B+

This is a great story with a wonderful, courageous, young female protagonist, which you don't see too often in Westerns. After her father is shot down by a low-down coward while on a trip to Fort Smith, 14-year old Mattie Ross courageously sets out on an adventure deep into Indian territory to avenge him, with the help of a one-eyed, washed-up marshal and a fancy Texas Ranger. The story is very exciting and sometimes very funny. I thought the climax left a little to be desired and there were a few missed opportunities, but otherwise I really enjoyed this popular Western classic.

“People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.”