One of the men who helped put my moccasins on the Frontier Partisans path has gone up the long trail. Meredith Blevins announced a couple of days ago that her husband Win Blevins has died. He was 84. Blevins wrote Give Your Heart to the Hawks: A Tribute to the Mountain Men. That book and Ted Franklin Belue’s The Hunters of Kentucky (which was … [Read more...] about Win Blevins Has Gone Up The Trail

I was working at Paulina Springs Books in Sisters back in 1994. Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses (ATPH) had been published in 1992, marking what in most careers would be considered a breakthrough novel. And it was that, in a sense. Winning the National Book Award certainly put McCarthy’s name out in front of a broader public than he’d ever … [Read more...] about Passing Into The Evening Redness In The West — An Ode To Cormac McCarthy

After a couple hours of banging on the first episode of the Mexican Revolution podcast series (ready to record this week) I was poking around the Interwebs and cut the trail of The Folklore Cycle by John Hood. I am utterly charmed. Hood, a former journalist, has crafted what he describes as a young adult crossover series of yarns that live at … [Read more...] about Folklore Fennario

By Rick Schwertfeger Captain, Frontier Partisans Southern Command “In The Guise of Manifest Destiny” Author Tim Robinson’s Manifest Destiny phrase in A Tropical Frontier: The Indian Fighter encapsulates it: Anglo-Americans saw dominance of the continent as their right and destiny. Through disease, subterfuge, and warfare, the Indigenous … [Read more...] about Into The Sawgrass

We have us a July 18 release date for Justified: City Primeval. Man, I’m looking forward to sitting down with Raylan Givens again. “Having left the hollers of Kentucky 15 years ago, Raylan Givens now lives in Miami, a walking anachronism balancing his life as a U.S. Marshal and part-time father of a 15-year-old girl. His hair is grayer, his hat is … [Read more...] about In The City Primeval

Ace scout Monk alerted me to the coming April 25 publication of Peter Cozzens’ A Brutal Reckoning, an account of the Creek War of 1813. Cozzens knows the period — he wrote a highly regarded dual biography of Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa aka the Shawnee Prophet. The Creek War was a seismic event. The powerful confederacy of the Muskogee … [Read more...] about A Brutal Reckoning

There are rumblings on the border... again... Politico reports: Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) introduced a bill seeking authorization for the use of military force to “put us at war with the cartels.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said he is open to sending U.S. troops into Mexico to target drug lords even without that … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — Punitive Expeditions, Rednecks & Resisting Jackassery

Samuel K. Dolan scouted up this forthcoming tome on the man who took Joaquin Murietta’s head. Here’s the caper: Like some mysterious Paladin, Harry Love seemed to suddenly appear on the California landscape at a time when he was particularly needed. As captain of the California Rangers, Love pursued Joaquin Murrieta and his bandits, and the outlaw … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — Longhunter & The Man From The Rio Grande

Guest post by Matthew Ilseman Comics have long been dominated by the superhero genre. The exception was the 1950s when they were dominated by the Western. By the 1990s, however, the Western was considered cliché. It was said they could not be made. So John Ostrander set out to write one along with his partners from Grimjack, Tim Truman and Tom … [Read more...] about Truth, Justice, and the American West — The Kents by John Ostrander, Tim Truman, and Tom Mandrake