A COWBOY CHRISTMAS--THE RODEO by Marisa Masterson

It's Christmas in July and the gate opens. Out comes a wildly bucking horse with the man determined to stay in the saddle. Six seconds, seven, eight! He stayed on the required eight seconds.







That's a common enough scene at a rodeo. Consider, though, how did we get our modern rodeo?

Small communities in Texas would come together to celebrate the Fourth of July. Bronc riding and showing off roping skills became a part of those celebrations. Cowboys from different ranches could compete to see who was the best.

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Wild west shows were very popular and featured some of what became a part of any rodeo. Cowboys signed on to show off their riding and roping skills. The public loved it.




The first rodeo recorded as awarding prizes was held in Pecos, Texas in 1883. The first one to charge admission is thought to be in Prescott, Arizona. Regardless of where these things happened, by the 1890, rodeos became annual events in many places.

With their popularity, a huge problem rose. Many of the large rodeos billed themselves as "World Championship Rodeo". Just imagine how many world champions there were in one year alone! This is one of the reasons that several rodeo committees formed the Rodeo Association of America in 1929. It was the start at trying to regulate the celebration and change the rodeo from a spectacle into the sport that it is today.

But why Christmas in July or Cowboy Christmas? I'm not sure. I do know that ten days in early July are packed with more rodeos than a person could hope to attend. It's definitely an exciting time. The contestants have the chance to win some serious money, though most spend more to be there than they win. Still, maybe the chance of winning the payout is why it's like Christmas to them.


Sadly, people couldn't head out to rodeos this year. Long standing traditions gave way to health and safety concerns, and the annual rodeo became one more victim in this terrible pandemic.

I hope that isn't a sign that Santa plans to stay home on December 24...

(I want to direct you to a fantastic article for more information on the background of rodeos--https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/llr01#.)

Here's my own spin on Christmas in July, available at a special pre-order price. Now, it's $.99, but the price goes up to $2.99 on July 31...

Pre-order today for the special price.

A hula dancer—seriously? And blonde to boot!

Why did someone send JT Kirkwood a hula dancer ornament? This was July, not even close to December and the season for a Christmas tree. The note promised that the dancer was real and waiting for him. No matter how ridiculous this seemed, JT looked at the ornament and felt compelled to find the woman mentioned in the note. Too bad his father’s accident prevents him from looking.

A luau—seriously? With their town of Oak Grove hit by layoffs, why did Bonnie Miller’s mother insist that they throw a city-wide party at the small strip mall that housed Bonnie’s restaurant. Still, her mother had fantastic insight into what the public wanted, so Bonnie went along with it. She even danced the hula for the crowd, and saw the man of her dreams watching.

Serenaded by Elvis, this couple easily falls in love. But is love at first sight enough to overcome the distance that separates the couple when JT has to return to his job in another town far from Oak Grove? He loves his home and job, but Bonnie is fiercely loyal to hers as well.

Mrs. Claus is discovering that not even the magic of a compelling ornament or the lyrical sounds of Elvis will be enough to bring about this couple’s happily ever. Which one will compromise? Will each say Aloha--meaning goodbye?

A Fairytale Retelling or Embellishment on Real Life?

Several of the authors who contribute to this blog write in The Pinkerton Matchmaker series. I am one of those authors. It has been a really fun series to write in, but kind of strenuous, too, as my brain doesn’t naturally think in terms of mystery but gravitates more toward romanticism. When I was first invited to participate in this series, I was excited but also a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to come up with viable plotlines for readers to enjoy. For my first Pinkerton story, An Agent for Elizabeth, I decided to build the plot around a fairytale, if you can believe that, partially basing one of the villains, Elizabeth’s stepmother, on Cinderella’s. Who was the other villain? Her daughter, of course, but instead of a stepsister, Callie is Elizabeth’s half-sister, unbeknownst to her. However, this villainous mother and daughter duo was also contrived from another well-known female, this one a real-life stagecoach bandit, commonly known as the "Bandit Queen" from the Wild West: Pearl Hart.

Pearl was born in Canada but eventually made her way down to Arizona Territory where she and her lover, Jim Boot (real name unknown), decided to rob a stagecoach going from Globe to Florence. They were caught a few days later while wandering in the same area (some speculate that they were lost) and sent to prison—Boot in the Florence jail and Hart in Tucson. Following were several episodes of incarceration in which Peart used her feminine wiles and any other theatrics she could employ to gain others’ sympathy. The fact that Pearl and her partner had first attempted to rob men by luring them to a hotel room and then knocking them out cold played into Elizabeth’s story as well. When Callie does this in An Agent for Elizabeth and leaves the man for dead, it sets the stage for a wild chase. Luckily, Elizabeth has a wonderful agent husband in Stephen Randall who is able to help her solve this case and put a stop to her stepmother and stepsister’s crime spree.

Oddly enough, Pearl Hart was inspired by Annie Oakley, whose showmanship and sharpshooting skills were brought to life in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. When it came time for me to write my third Pinkerton Matchmaker story, An Agent for Hallie, I was researching the “dinosaur wars” from the 1870s-1880s and came across a fun tidbit about Buffalo Bill being impressed upon learning that Wyoming and Dakota Territories had once been covered by ocean water. He learned this from a paleontologist named O.C. Marsh. Marsh and his crew were involved in what eventually became an all-out war between himself and another paleontologist, Edward Cope. In an effort to outdo each other and gain more financial backing from institutions back East, bribery and trickery were employed to keep the other from making more discoveries. This bitter feud made lifelong enemies of the two men. However, it also brought about countless scientific discoveries, of which we are the beneficiaries.

This scenario became the background for An Agent for Hallie and An Agent for Meg. My character, Meg, is the daughter of renowned paleontologist Professor Zane Ashwood. He’s brought Meg along with him on a dinosaur excavation project so as to keep her away from men who might only court her for her money. What the professor, and Pinkerton agents Hallie and Jeff Moore, don’t know is that the young man whom he trusts to be in his daughter’s company is a Pinkerton detective from another office back East. While Hallie and Jeff were hired by Professor Ashwood, detective Carl Porter was hired by someone else—but whom?

Meg and Carl also get their own story in An Agent for Meg. It takes place several months later, giving Meg time to “grow up” and come to terms with things that were happening in her family that she didn’t fully understand before. When she’s paired with Carl and they are assigned the task of infiltrating an insane asylum, they must learn to trust each other—even though they are still angry with each other over what happened in An Agent for Hallie. The asylum is a scary place, not only for Meg and Carl, but for the inhabitants as well. I loosely based this tale from investigative reporter Nellie Bly’s experience when she went undercover and spent time in the asylum on Blackwell’s Island in 1887. She found the conditions there to be deplorable. Lack of decent food and cleanliness, ice cold baths, and people being locked up like animals, all contributed to her scathing report. A report that made a huge difference in the lives of many people as conditions in institutions such as this one changed. Also, An Agent for Meg takes place in the fall, so I couldn’t help but add a little more ghoul to it, which makes it an extra fun read if you like a little more suspense in stories. Not to worry, though, if you’re a romantic like me. There’s plenty of romance in these three stories as well.

I recently put these three adventures into a box set. If you haven’t tried any of the Pinkerton Matchmaker stories yet, you’re in for a treat, especially right now because this box set is only .99 cents and will remain at that price until April 18^th. If you have read them before, it's always fun to go back and reread a story once you know more about its background.

Here is the universal link where you can find it on sale: https://amzn.to/3atSVAE

WILLIAM F. "BUFFALO BILL" CODY - FROM CHILDHOOD TO FAME TO LEGEND by Cheri Kay Clifton

First of all, on this, the 241st year of our country's Independence,  I want to wish all our patriotic Sweethearts, families & friends a very Happy 4th of July!

I'm sure there's been a blog or two about "Buffalo Bill," but having visited the fascinating Buffalo Bill Historical Center, I thought readers would enjoy a brief  post about  this amazing man who by the turn of the 20th century was probably the most famous American in the world.  No one symbolized the West for Americans and Europeans better than Buffalo Bill. He was consulted on Western matters by every American president from Ulysses S. Grant to Woodrow Wilson.

William F. Cody was born in LeClaire, Iowa in 1846. His family moved to Leavenworth, Kansas when he was a child. Cody left home at the age of only eleven to herd cattle and drove a wagon train across the Great Plains several times.  In 1860 at fourteen, he rode for the Pony Express. After the Civil War, Cody scouted for the U.S. Army.  A fur trader, gold miner, and master bison hunter, he then gained the name "Buffalo Bill."

Buffalo Bill's career in show business began in 1872 in Chicago at the age of 26.  He acted in the show "Scouts of the Prairie" which became a huge success.  Critics said he may not have been the best actor, but he knew how to charm the audience. The following season Cody started his own show, Scouts of the Plains, including his friends, Bill Hickok and Texas Jack.

In 1882, Cody organized the famed "Buffalo Bill's Wild West" show, a grand outdoor event, with a cast of hundreds including the western personalities, Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, Will Rogers, Wild Bill Hickok, Chief Sitting Bull, and Geronimo, as well as many live animals, in particular, horses, buffalo, elk, moose, bear and Texas steers. He recruited cowboys and cowgirls from ranches throughout the West. The shows demonstrated bronco riding, roping and many other skilled events.

In 1887, the Wild West show was invited to England for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee celebration. Cody's show was a popular hit and soon rose to international fame. His notoriety earned him an audience with Pope Leo XIII while touring Europe. At the turn of the twentieth century, he was known as "the greatest showman on the face of the earth."

 In 1895, Cody was instrumental in the founding of the town of Cody, in northwestern Wyoming. In 1902, Buffalo Bill opened the Irma Hotel, named after his daughter. (I visited the town and the fascinating hotel where you can experience the romance of the era.)

Buffalo Bill never retired. He died in 1917 at the age of 71. He was buried in his chosen place on Lookout Mountain overlooking the Plains and Colorado Rockies where he had spent the best times of his life. His wife, Louisa, was buried next to him four years later. 

In 1921, Johnny Baker, a dear friend of Cody, created the Buffalo Bill Memorial Museum. It illustrates the legendary life and times of William F. Cody and his Wild West shows. The exhibits offer many objects of the Old West, including Indian artifacts and firearms as well as Buffalo Bill's show outfits. Today the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave in Golden, Colorado is one of the top visitor attractions in the state.

In Cody, Wyoming, the Buffalo Bill Museum is the flagship museum of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. First opening its doors to the public in 1927 in a log cabin in downtown Cody – modeled after Bill Cody's house at his "TE Ranch" – southwest of town, the museum remained in that location until 1969 when it was relocated to a newly-built wing of the then Buffalo Bill Historical Center. Today the center is a complex of five museums and a research library featuring art and artifacts of the American West.

Cheri Kay Clifton - Historical Western Author

Born in Nebraska, Cheri Kay Clifton loved researching the Oregon Trail, historically known as the "Gateway to the West." Her passion for those brave pioneers, Native Americans and 19th Century America led her to write the epic western historical Wheels of Destiny Trilogy.  Cheri is married and has one grown son.  If she’s not riding on the back of her husband’s Harley, she’s writing the third book in the Wheels of Destiny Trilogy which includes already published Book 1, Trail To Destiny and Award Winning Book 2, Destiny’s Journey.

"The Old West isn't just a time or place, it's a state of mind.  I get germs of ideas, do a lot of research, then breathe life into my characters.  I like strong heroines, but loveable; and strong heros, but vulnerable."

Reviews from Easychair Bookshop judges:  "A must read western romance." "A10/10 read." "Action, adventure, romance at its very best."

Links:

Cheri's website

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