The trapline is set in the cold waters of a Scottish burn this month. The Outlander Season 4 premier is on November 4, and the trailers continue to indicate a fine rendering of the North Carolina frontier, where our intrepid Highlander couple lands after many a perilous … [Read more...]

By all accounts, the semi-ruined Hermitage Castle in Liddesdale, Scotland, is a grim, gloomy and forbidding place. Sinister, even. Well it ought to be, for the history of the keep and the land about is soaked in blood. Not for nothing was the Hermitage called “the guardhouse of the bloodiest valley in Britain.” The fortress was a key … [Read more...]

I adore my wife. Marilyn is everything a man could want in a life partner and I am grateful every day to have spent the past 26 years in her company. Not least of her charms is her willingness — nay, eagerness — to not merely indulge the eccentricities of a frontier-obsessed scribbler and woodsrunner, but to actively encourage them. The least … [Read more...]

Thanks to a tip from Italian Front scout Davide Mana, I picked up the first Dark Horse Conan Omnibus for $2 on Monday. The first story is Born on a Battlefield, depicting the Cimmerian’s youth. The art is by Greg Ruth and I like it very much. Ruth also illustrated the Ethan Hawke Apache Wars graphic novel, Indeh, which was a disappointment — but … [Read more...]

Moving is a pain in the ass, no getting around that. But there’s something strangely satisfying in it, too. There’s the getting rid of “stuff,” of course — it is fine to lighten the load. But more than that, I still feel that sense of possibility that comes with pulling up stakes. Speaking of which… • STARZ has teased the opening title … [Read more...]

  “I saw a magnificent woman on a beautiful black horse Lozen, sister of Victorio. Lozen, the woman warrior! High above her head she held her rifle. There was a glitter as her right foot lifted and struck the shoulder of her horse. He reared, then plunged into the torrent. She turned his head upstream, and he began swimming.” — James … [Read more...]

I don’t know what I think about this. From Deadline Hollywood: Mel Gibson has been set by Warner Bros to direct The Wild Bunch, a new version of the 1969 Sam Peckinpah-directed classic Western. Gibson is writing the script with Bryan Bagby. Gibson will be executive producer. In The Wild Bunch, an aging group of outlaws look for one last big … [Read more...]

For many years, the Hawken Rifle had the reputation of being “The Mountain Man’s Choice.” That’s largely thanks to the classic 1972 movie Jeremiah Johnson (the first movie I saw in a theater). At the opening, the narrator explains that Johnson sought a .50 caliber Hawken Rifle before heading alone into the Rocky Mountains. “He settled for a … [Read more...]

I am fond of bastards. Truly. I love the way the word rolls off the tongue in a Tom Russell song, the way Breaker Morant bellowed it into the muzzles of a Cameron Highlander firing squad. And I am always sympathetic to the illegitimate sons of empire. One of the areas of frontier history that fascinates me most is the mingling of peoples in … [Read more...]

• I neglected to mention the Coen Brothers’ anthology film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival where it earned Best Screenplay honors. Netflix drops it upon us in November. The Hollywood Reporter offers a synopsis: The Joel and Ethan Coen film, which was directed, written and produced by the brothers, is … [Read more...]