Brent Towns (who also writes as B. S.
Dunn, Jake Henry, and Sam Clancy) tells me an overall favourite of his novels
is VALLEY OF THUNDER by Sam Clancy.
‘I really enjoy writing about Josh Ford.’
Marshal
Josh Ford investigates a wagon train that has disappeared in the wilderness of
Montana and the Pacific North West. He comes up against a brutal autocrat who
rules the area with his private army, rather like the historical Henry Plummer.
WILLIAM HENRY HANDY PLUMMER was born in 1832 in
Addison, Maine. In 1852, aged 19, he headed west to the California gold fields.
In 1856, he was elected sheriff and city manager in Nevada City, California. His
tenure as sheriff ended in controversy a year later when he shot and killed
John Vedder. Convicted of second-degree murder, he served time in San Quentin
Prison but was granted a pardon due to poor health as he was suffering from
tuberculosis.
Plummer left California and drifted across the
Pacific Northwest. In 1862 he arrived in Bannack, Montana, where gold had been
recently discovered. Despite (or perhaps because of) having killed several men
in gun duels he was elected sheriff of Bannack.
Between October and December 1863, the rate of
robberies and murders in the area increased significantly. Local citizens formed
the Vigilance Committee of Alder Gulch in Virginia City, Montana. Between
January 4 and February 3, 1864, the vigilantes arrested and summarily executed
at least 20 alleged ‘road agents.’ One was ‘Erastus Red’ Yeager. Before his
hanging, Yeager made a complete confession, naming Henry Plummer as leader of
the gang, ironically nicknamed ‘The Innocents.’ At their peak it’s claimed ‘The
Innocents’ numbered almost 200 men. One of their specialities was to waylay
stages that had been marked with chalk by Plummer’s informants, indicating they
carried gold.
Plummer was arrested by the vigilantes on the
morning of January 10, 1864. Standing before his captors, Plummer asked them, ‘You
wouldn’t hang your own sheriff, would you?’
They would and did – the same day.
Plummer was given a posthumous trial in 1993 which
led to a mistrial. The jury was split 6-6.
I’d
expected Plummer to feature quite a lot in western movies and TV but I could
only find him being portrayed by TOM McKEE in an episode of ‘Tales of Wells Fargo’ and JOHN DEHNER in
an episode of ‘Stories of the Century.’
John
Dehner as Henry Plummer
The Nez Perce
Indians also feature in VALLEY OF
THUNDER. These remarkable people, and particularly the tragic war they
fought against the white man in 1877, deserve at least one separate blog.
The wagon
train aspect reminded me of movies like MEEKS CUTOFF
and one
of my favourite westerns, John Ford’s lyrical masterpiece ‘WAGONMASTER.’
Ward
Bond, Jane Darwell and Russell Simpson in ‘Wagonmaster’
VALLEY OF THUNDER reviews:
‘A great
read.’
‘Amazing.'
‘The
descriptive writing is superb and I saw each landscape and action sequence in
full technicolour as though it were playing out on a cinema screen. There was
no fat in this story, no padding. It promised sweeping adventure and it
delivered in spades.’
https://www.amazon.com/Valley-Thunder-Black-Horse-Western-ebook/dp/B01N9XDKWL/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492581090&sr=1-1&keywords=valley+of+thunder+sam+clancy
and https://www.amazon.co.uk/Valley-Thunder-Black-Horse-Western-ebook/dp/B01N9XDKWL/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
No comments:
Post a Comment