FASTEST GUN IN TEXAS by Marisa Masterson

Maybe you've tried channels like Sling or Philo? They offer seven days free just to surf their programing. That's what I was doing when I ran into the fastest shootist Texas ever experienced.

I'm a documentary junky. I love learning. Perhaps that's why I became a teacher. For whatever reason, I ran across this documentary on a man who sent shivers through Texans.

John Wesley Hardin. Mothers used his name as a threat to make their children behave "or Wes would get them." Even Bill Hickok found himself facing the business end of this man's guns. So, exactly who was he?

John Wesley Hardin

Named for the evangelist John Wesley, Hardin was the son of a preacher and grew up in Civil War era Texas. With his father's encouragement, he practiced with the gun until he was a marksman at the age of twelve.

One of the tricks this shootist did to prove himself was to hit playing cards at fifteen paces, never missing. By the end of childhood, the man was deadly and bore a nasty grudge against Yankees and any people of color be they Mexican or African-American.

Maybe that's why he killed his first man when he was only fifteen. The former slave had bested him in a wrestling match. When he encountered the man alone in the woods, he shot him and claimed the man attacked him with a stick. The victim lived long enough to declare that a lie. Hardin ran from his home, fearing arrest.

Cowboys in Kansas

From there, he leaves a trail of dead men. He easily hid amongst a group of cattle drovers taking a heard to Kansas. That's how he eventually met Wild Bill Hickok in Abilene, Kansas. Guns weren't allowed while walking the streets of that town. Typically defiant, Hardin kept his on.

"Wild" Bill Hickok

Hickok confronted the armed cowboy, being the marshal, and demanded he remove the guns, Hardin did so and handed them toward Hickok with the handles first. Before that man could grab them, the shootist flipped them so he held them cocked and pointed close to the famous marshal's face.

This wasn't the first man Hickok talked down to avoid violence. The two went into a saloon and shared a drink bought by the lawman. When they met again another year, Hickok didn't ask the shootist to remove his guns.

That was just the type of man Hardin seemed to be. Showy, cocky, and willing to kill. After he returned to Texas and killed a lawman, Texans had had enough.Many put pressure on the governor to send a new group called the Texas Rangers after the man. With a $5,000 bounty on his head, the governor was confident the man would be caught.

I would think so, considering the amount. It was one more thing Hardin boasted about to people--the size of his bounty! In 1875, that $5,000 was equivalent in purchasing power to about $116,540 in 2020.

Someone was willing to risk Hardin's guns to claim it, and the rangers caught the man in a railroad car. Not a very glamorous life!

Here's where it gets interesting for me. While Hardin sat in Hunstville Prison, he wrote his autobiography. This is why historians view him as a man with no conscience. He detailed murders, excused them, and vowed he felt no remorse. He was the faster gun and that was all that mattered.

After serving seventeen years, the murderer went free, a supposedly changed man. While in prison, he'd earned a law degree and tried to set up a law practice. Surprise, surprise, but people were too afraid of him to use his services.

He eventually ended up in El Paso where he was shot from behind and killed. It didn't matter how fast he was since he hadn't guarded his back.

One last note--the word shootist. I used that rather than gunslinger to be authentic. Amazingly, the word gunslinger was invented in the 1920's by author Zane Grey. Men in the old west never used it, calling men like Hardin shootists. Very accurate for Hardin, I think!



If you enjoy action, romance, and adventure, please take a look at Ruby's Risk. With our 380,000 pages read on Kindle Unlimited, readers are falling in love with this book.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YBK98P8

A man might homestead, but it takes a woman to turn that place into a home! This matchmaker will settle the West one couple at a time.

Under suspicion after his wife’s murder, Elias Kline knows he has to leave Mills Bluff. Learning a lynch mob is planning to kill him, he slips away from town. Taking only his smithy tools and his young son, he chooses a new name—Ezra King. Heading west seems a fine way to start over, but he’ll need a wife to raise his son and cook his meals. One sent by an agency shouldn’t expect love, he decides.

A matchmaker convinces lonely Ruby Hastings to take a risk on Ezra King. After all, the man is helping fulfill the nation's destiny of settling the west. Reading the man’s letter, Ruby aches for the widower's little boy and seizes on this chance to be a mama to him. After all, with a brother on the run from the law and a newly married sister, her siblings no longer need Ruby and this motherless boy does.

It should be a convenient arrangement. What happens when the mail-order wife begins to push past the walls guarding Elias’ heart, challenging him spiritually and emotionally? When danger follows him from Mills Bluff, will Elias be able to keep his family together?

NOT A WAGON TRAIN IN SIGHT! by Marisa Masterson

In my newest novel, the hero decides to follow the Oregon Trail in search of a newly created town, one he hoped would desperately need a blacksmith. To do this, he plans to join a wagon train for safety as he heads west.

Stop! Here's where I hit a wall. My book couldn't take place any earlier than 1871. A little research and, boom, my plan was totally blown. Any guess why? No more wagon trains.

That's right. The wagon trains were done. By 1869, the railroad was pushing westward.  It was faster and safer to settle the west by train. For as little as $65, a person could take a seven day train trip.
While emigrants like my hero, Elias Kline, continued to use the trail. They didn't go with wagon trains, though. Most went alone or with another family.

Realizing this, I rethought my plot. My characters would travel only a small part of the trail. But would they start from Independence?

Train station in St. Joseph, MO.

My heroine would arrive by train as a mail-order bride. I looked at maps from 1869 that showed the railroads. Because my heroine came from New England, St. Joseph, Missouri, was the best spot for her to meet up with her hunky German-American groom.






By 1871, St. Joseph was a key spot in our country, sort of a gateway for goods. Items needed in the west were first shipped to St. Joseph before being hauled to destinations further from "civilization". Even before the railroad, steamers came up the river and delivered goods to be hauled west. Pioneers came by steamboat also and used St. Joseph as a jumping off point for travel by wagon overland. This history made the town a good choice as the place where my couple would meet, marry, and start their journey.

I still want to write a wagon train romance. Ruby's Risk, my soon to be released novel, just didn't turn out to be that, exactly. Maybe some day soon a wagon train romance plot will tickle my mind. Fingers crossed!

https://www.amazon.com/Rubys-Westward-Hearts-Mail-Order-Brides-ebook/dp/B07YBK98P8

 A man might homestead, but it takes a woman to turn that place into a home! This matchmaker will settle the West one couple at a time.

Under suspicion after his wife’s murder, Elias Kline knows he has to leave Mills Bluff. Learning a lynch mob is planning to kill him, he slips away from town. Taking only his smithy tools and his young son, he chooses a new name—Ezra King. Heading west seems a fine way to start over, but he’ll need a wife to raise his son and cook his meals. One sent by an agency shouldn’t expect love, he decides.

A matchmaker convinces lonely Ruby Hastings to take a risk on Ezra King. After all, the man is helping fulfill the nation's destiny of settling the west. Reading the man’s letter, Ruby aches for the widower's little boy and seizes on this chance to be a mama to him. After all, with a brother on the run from the law and a newly married sister, her siblings no longer need Ruby and this motherless boy does.

It should be a convenient arrangement. What happens when the mail-order wife begins to push past the walls guarding Elias’ heart, challenging him spiritually and emotionally? When danger follows him from Mills Bluff, will Elias be able to keep his family together?

A PRAIRIE BOUQUET FOR MAMA by Marisa Masterson

marisamasterson.com

Yesterday, as I wrote the following scene for my latest novel, Ruby's Risk, I tried to envision the Nebraska prairie as my heroine saw it.


With a nod, the older woman led her to the wood-framed house. While the livery itself wasn’t painted, the house boasted a coat of slate-blue. Small saplings had been planted on both sides of the house. Small rose bushes stood to each side of the white porch steps. The woman obviously loved her home.

“The color is lovely. I’d expect it to be white, but this color is one that has become very popular in my hometown in Massachusetts.”

The widow beamed. “I had my sister send it out. I do like pretty things.” Then her expression abruptly changed. “I’d hoped it would help me forget this horrible, barren prairie. No trees, nothing green and lovely.”

Unable to stop herself, Ruby looked beyond the home to the horizon. Though the summer heat had begun to turn the grass brown in spots, wildflowers and a sea of waving green met her eyes. She saw freedom and beauty. How this poor woman must hate this place if she couldn’t see that.

What does Ruby see as she looks at the horizon? What types of flowers will Buddy, her newly acquired son, pick for her when he wants to bring Mama a bouquet?

The first plant I found in my research was the blue wild indigo. It's native to the Midwest and can be found in states besides Nebraska. When I looked at photos of the plant that grows to about four feet tall, I could imagine a small boy being drawn to the beautiful color as well as the fact that the plant would be about his height.

A second plant I found in my research was yarrow. It can grow to be about three feet tall. Imagine the four-year-old surrounded on the prairie by these flowering plants. Won't this lacy, white blossom look nice in Mama's bouquet?

 A third plant for the bouquet that caught my eye was the silky aster or western silver aster. Unlike the yarrow which is found on multiple continents, this plant is native to the central plains of the United States. Neither Ruby nor Buddy would have seen this plant before their move west.




Imagine the three together to see the bouquet as the little boy presents it to Ruby. And what does she do when he hands it to her? She sticks the blossoms in a Mason jar and places it in the middle of her kitchen table, of course--just like my own grandmother always did.


 I'll let you know when Ruby's Risk becomes available next month for pre-order. In the meantime,
Grace for a Drifter is available now at Amazon.

Will a second chance at love reunite this husband and wife or will their past tear them apart again?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TSG28HM