My good news and a weather-challenged dog

 

Sophie watching for happy hour company. 

Friday, my editor at Rowman and Littlefield wrote me about catalog copy for my forthcoming book, The Most Land, The Best Cattle: The Waggoners of Texas, due out in September. I had been a little uncertain about it because I had not heard a word from the new editor. The entire operation got behind when they closed for six months at the beginning of pandemic, and though I had been assured all was back on schedule, I was nervous. We exchanged emails for over an hour, tweaking this detail and that, until we were finally pleased with what we had done. I wrote her that it was fun to work it out with her, and she replied with “Ditto.” I felt I had established a good relationship with her.

That sent me on a search or the Rowman and Littlefield Two Dot catalog for Spring—and there they were! Two reprints of my historical novels written and published in the 1990s—Libbie, a fictional biography of Elizabeth Bacon Custer, wife of George Armstrong of Little Big Horn fame—or infamy. I toyed for years with writing a sequel, detailing the thirty-some years Libbie was a widow. She spent every one of those years cementing her husband’s role as a martyr/hero. It was only after her death that the truth about Custer began to be revealed. But I never could make a compelling story out of it.

Less is probably known about Jessie Benton Frémont, the daughter of longtime Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, a spokesman for western expansion, and the wife of John Charles Frémont, explorer, mining entrepreneur, the failed military leader who tried to upstage President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, and failed governor of the Arizona Territory. Frémont is mostly remembered for the Bear Flag Revolt in California. Theirs’ was a passionate love story but also the story of a man whose reach exceeded his grasp.

I found both these women fascinating, loved studying them, though I realized what I was writing about were strong women married to men with less resilience than their wives possessed. These two novels will be out in June and are in the current Rowman and Littlefield/Globe Pequot catalog. Other reprints will follow in 2022.

No bookstore signings, unless the pandemic goes away a lot quicker than most of us believe, but you can be sure that I will bombard you with links and the like when the books are back in print.

Last night, when it was damp but not too cold, Sophie was earnestly trying to tell me something. She didn’t bark, but she made a lot of guttural sounds with great feeling, all the while staring intently at me. She had food, water, a treat, and the outside door was open—I couldn’t imagine what else she wanted, but I desperately wished I spoke dog. Jordan asked if I wanted to take our wine outside, and I said no, it was too chilly—the temperature was then dropping fairly rapidly as it can here in Texas. Jordan nodded at Sophie and suggested, “It may help with that.”

Well, magic solution. She ran out, then ran back to check that I was coming, and then settled down on the patio to watch the gate for company. How to tell her no company was coming. She just really wanted happy hour on the patio.

Tonight she tried the same thing again, but I told her with certainty that it was too cold. We weren’t going out. Then neighbors Mary and Joe came bringing firewood they thought would fit in our fire pit. Sophie ran out the door ecstatically, so happy to see company, however brief their stay. We are hoping the firewood will keep us warm on Tuesday night when we gather for ladies’ night on the patio. Sophie is included as one of the ladies.

There is good news tonight, what with the vaccine and the SCOTUS dismissal of Ken Paxton’s frivolous lawsuit—I wish the media would call it Paxton’s lawsuit and not Texas’. Most of us in Texas want no part of it. But anyway, the good news is tempered by the difficulty of delivering the vaccine and by the fact that there was a big rally in support of trump tonight, though I am pleased it barely made a blip on the network news. It’s easy to wonder if this upheaval will ever end, but be of good faith, my friends. It will. We will get to a new and different normal.