Hero or villain?

Several book reviews have criticized Steve Dancy as barely better than the bad guys.

Seriously?

I believe vile villains make a story work, so I've invented some highly reprehensible characters. There has to be some tough-as-nails criminal around for Dancy to dispatch or he couldn't be a hero. Now, I also prefer flawed heroes, so Dancy is certainly not perfect. Besides being a tenderfoot, he can be a dunderhead when it comes to romance. He is especially ill equipped for the lawless frontier until he has survived a few nasty episodes.

So, what gives? I can think of only two reasons why people would think ill of Mr. Dancy. First, he is rich and prefers to buy his way out of trouble. It’s unusual for a western hero to be wealthy. Most fictional frontier gunmen own a saddle and a horse, and part of the mythology is that their lack of possessions makes them free. But surely readers don’t hold Dancy’s wealth against him. After all, television's Paladin lived pretty high on the hog, and he earned his piles of cash by less than reputable means. Dancy, on the other hand, came by his wealth honestly—he inherited it.

Gunsmoke TV series Opening Sequence

So if it's not the money, it must be something else. I suppose it could be that Dancy has never had a one-on-one stand-up duel in the middle of the street. When faced with a gunfight, Dancy always searches for an edge. He wants the other fella off balance, unaware that he is about to be shot. Now, that’s closer to how it actually was in the Old West. I remember reading about a study that concluded that most gunfights during that era occurred inside of three feet and most often in a saloon. The epic one-on-one gunfight did occur, but it was not the norm. (The stand-up duel may have faded from popularity after our United States Vice President killed a former cabinet member on the shores of New Jersey.)

Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson were two famous Westerners that lived long enough to die of old age. Both were cautious when it came to gun trouble. Earp liked to sneak in the back door of a saloon and coldcock a troublemaker from behind. The practice even got him fired once from the Dodge City force for “police brutality.” Masterson counseled that if you got in a gunfight, you should shoot your opponent center chest … and more than once. 

Steve Dancy has numerous gunfights in every book. It’s the nature of the genre. I like him and most of my readers like him as well, so I can’t let him get shot dead. After all, I need him for the next book.

Guns and Horses: Getting it Right

Western writers are like other fiction writers in that they have super powers. They can bend time, compress space, and sweep away boring people, mundane tasks, and toilet needs.  Writers can magically have their characters do and say whatever’s necessary to incessantly move the story forward. Instead of wielding a wand, writers brandish a keyboard. No wonder so many writers are egotistical.

The exception: John Wayne got guns right

There is one major difference between Western writers and other authors—they need to get guns and horses right. Western enthusiasts will suspend disbelief in every other aspect of a written story, but not guns and horses. Odd, because Western movies enjoy forbearance that a novel does not. A film can run a horse forever, fire eight shots from a six shooter, or shoot with precision from horseback. Western readers, on the other hand, tend to be sticklers for accuracy about these two areas when they occur in print. That’s why I use gun and horse specialists to proof my Westerns.

What brought all this to mind was a Cracked article about “6 Stupid Gun Myths that Everyone Believes (Thanks to the movies).” The piece deals mostly with modern guns, but a few of the 6 myths relate to nineteenth century guns. For example, a dropped Colt Peacemaker could go off. That was not a myth in the olden days. Reputedly, it happened to Wyatt Earp when he sat in a saloon chair. That is why Westerners often kept the chamber under the hammer empty, making their pistol a five-shooter. 

“Shotguns Are Room-Clearing Murder Factories” applies equally to the Western double barreled shotgun. Marshals who held off a lynching party with a shotgun looked threatening, but could only kill two vigilantes before reaching for a pistol. As Wild Bill Hickok and Bat Masterson attested, the myth that "Deadly on the Gun Range = Deadly in Real Life” is apropos for gunfighters in the Wild West.

The article is a fun read, but unfortunately many of the movie clips have been disabled due to copyright issues. Too bad. The clips that work do a fine job of illustrating Hollywood gun myths.

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters.

The Wild West—an Escape from Despair

Jacob Riis was a late nineteenth century social reformer who used his camera to expose parts of New York City avoided by the smart set. He ventured into the poor districts ruled by gangs. Daily life for the unfortunate inhabitants was dismal and violent … far more violent than the infamous Wild West. The film, Gangs of New York, focused on a small time frame covered by the 1928 book by Herbert Asbury.

Jabob Riis

In The Return, I wanted to show New York’s explosive progress in technology and wealth creation, while a few blocks away gangs and lawlessness dominated neighborhoods. A common misconception is that the Wild West was ignorant, lawless and lacking in basic comforts, while eastern cities were cultured and ordered, with the basic amenities close at hand. Eastern city slums couldn’t hold a candle to safety and opportunity on the frontier. For many, the West was a chance for a new start in life, one with more promise than a bleak future in the East. Hope drove the mass migrations to the frontier. People endured hardship on the chance of securing a better future for themselves and their families. In truth, that is the great story of the Wild West.

Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis

The Return, A Steve Dancy Tale

Ink Tank does: The 8 sexiest cowgirls to kiss John Wayne

John Wayne was a lucky man. As the leading man in 142 films, he had the honor of working with somewhere near 142 leading ladies. Ink Tank does a fun job of selecting "The 8 sexiest cowgirls to kiss John Wayne."

Owen Wister’s Virginian Would not Approve

Poor, but smiling nonetheless

Last month, Paul Mountjoy of Virginia wrote a snarky article for the Washington Times website titled, “The Old West: When men were men and women knew their place.” He opens with the following paragraph. 

“How many times have we heard men declare of the days of the old West, ‘men were men and women stayed at home and knew their place’? This is a common refrain after folks watch a movie based on the period.”

How many times? None, that I've encountered. This is not a common refrain of Western film enthusiasts. It is a writer’s cheap trick. Attribute a sexist comment to something you intend to denigrate.

Mountjoy proceeds to make commonplace observations about the true nature of gunfights in the Old West, list everyday hardships as if they were unique to the frontier, and reminds us that people died of disease and attacks without good medical assistance. The West, of course, was completely void of compassion due to men “witnessing 25 thousand deaths in a matter of days” during the Civil War. (I'm sure this callousness never afflicted men in the actual battleground state of Virginia.) Mountjoy has a penchant for hyperbole. He also claimed prostitutes in the West took “up to 50 or more customers nightly, more often than not, in an alley between two buildings.”

Perhaps Mountjoy’s motive is to promote employment for his friends in the nation’s capital. He writes, “If their farmer husband became disabled and had no older sons to take over the farm, they were in deep trouble. There were no government programs to help.” That seals it; the real Old West was nothing like the movies. And I thought White House Down was a documentary.

Mountjoy misses the whole point of Western mythology. I wrote an article titled, “Is the Mythologyof the Old West Dead?” Here's one paragraph. 

“The West, outer space, the future, or a make-believe land represents a new beginning in a fresh place away from home—the shrugging off of disappointments and a chance to start all over again. The romance and adventure of frontiers draws people desperate to escape the travail of their current existence. We've seen this in real life with the migrations to the New World and the Old West, but today many people satisfy this longing vicariously with fiction. If you're poor, your family makes you miserable, you've committed an act that offends society, or wanderlust has gripped you, then the adventure and limitless opportunity of a frontier beckons like a siren's call. Emigrating to a frontier means you get a do-over in a land with no rules, no fences, no referees.” 

It’s the absence of civilization that draws stalwart people to a frontier. They can start over and build a better life. Maybe they won’t, but they’re willing to take risks just for the chance. Listing hardships never dissuaded pioneers, whether they were setting off for Plymouth or Tombstone. They were a tough and hopeful breed. We lament the demise of the frontier and the Old West because we need more of these courageous people.

Why was Arizona so tardy to the party?

Bisbee, Arizona celebrates the 4th of July in 1909

Arizona was the last contiguous state to join the Union. That probably should be rephrased as the last state allowed to join the Union. Arizona became a full-fledged state on February 14^th, 1912. At the time, the population was around 200,000, but it was not the wide open spaces that held Arizona back. After all, Nevada became a state in 1864 with a population of less than 20,000. What was the deference between these two desert states?

Nevada had two things Washington mucky-mucks desperately wanted: the Comstock Lode and electoral votes to help reelect Lincoln to a second term. Money and votes—what could be more enticing to a politician? Between 1859 and 1865 an estimated $50 million in ore was removed from the earth. Quite a haul. But wait a minute; Tombstone produced 32 million troy ounces of silver valued at between $40-85 million, which in today’s dollars would be worth about $2 billion. Wasn’t that enough to warrant an invitation to the club?

Actually, statehood looked close around 1880. In the great West, Tombstone was only behind San Francisco in commerce and culture. As early as 1877, Arizona Territorial Governor A. P. K. Safford predicted that the Territory "will soon become a State." What happened?

October 26, 1881

The gunfight at the O.K. Corral is what happened. This fight and the aftermath were reported by all of the Eastern tabloids of the day and the reputation of Arizona was reset in a few deadly seconds. How could Congress welcome a lawless wasteland into the Union? (No snickers.) By the time Arizona was finally admitted, the silver had played out and Tombstone was nearly a ghost town. So, shunning Arizona can be blamed on the Earps or the cow-boys, depending on which side of the feud you prefer.

Author Interview with Robert Peecher

Robert Peecher, author and journalist, has published an interview with me on his blog.

Q. When you started writing did you know Steve Dancy’s character, or did he develop for you through the telling of the story?

Best: I knew his character from the start, but that said, every character must grow or the story will become stale. By the fourth book, he is a much more mature character than at the beginning of the series. I had nothing to do with it. He learned and grew as he ventured around the frontier and I scribbled down what he did and how he did it.

The Steve Dancy Tales

You can read the full interview at robertpeecher. 

John C.H. Grabill, Renown Western Photographer

"Branding cattle" Six cowboys branding cattle in front of a house. 1891

Last week I posted "Preserving Western culture through photography."

Don Schimmel takes beautiful contemporary photographs that help preserve our Western culture, but John C.H. Grabill was actually there to take photographs of the real Old West. The Denver Post has 66 of Grabill’s photographs posted on their website. He submitted 188 photographs to the Library of Congress for copyright protection. Grabill’s subjects included cowboys, native Americans, trains, stages, wagons, landscapes, and towns. The contrast between Native American encampments and frontier towns is interesting. He is especially renowned for his photographs of Deadwood, South Dakota and the Wounded Knee Massacre.

 Washing and panning gold, Rockerville, Dak. Old timers, Spriggs, Lamb and Dillon at work

Since the characters in my Steve Dancy series are miners, I found the mining pictures helpful, especially the heavy equipment used by the big operations.

You can see all 66 photographs by following this link.

Preserving Western culture through photography

Don Schimmel Photography

There are many ways to preserve our Western Culture. I prefer books, of course. I have no visual or musical talents, but I still appreciate Western film, music, and photography. Schimmel has a talent for catching a mood. Take a look at his site through the link above and enjoy some great photographs.

The Evolution of a Novel

I just spent a week writing and surfing in San Diego. The writing went well, the surfing not so much. The weather was crappy for three days and I was crappy the other five. My mind tells me what to do, but by the time my body reacts, it’s too late. Surfing needs to be an unconscious reaction. When you think, you get cold water down the back of your wetsuit. Actually I had a few decent rides, but nothing to write home about.

Speaking of writing, The Return is in its final revision before professional editing. I start each day by revising what I wrote the prior day, so by the time I complete the manuscript I think of it as a second draft. Then I go through it one more time on my computer. I make revisions, but this third pass is primarily for continuity, clarity, and crispness. I've now completed this step for The Return, A Steve Dancy Tale.

My next step takes me to Staples where I print four copies. Three copies go to ornery people who will give me honest feedback. (Okay, one is my wife. She’s not ornery. I didn’t mean that. Really.) The last copy is for me. I use a traditional red pen and really scrub the printed version.

Here is a previous post where I related revisions to antique car restoration.

I always see odd and outright embarrassing things when I review a printed version. There is something about ink on a page that is totally different from a backlit screen. Stuff jumps out on a page where the eye glides over it on a computer. When I finish my review, I consolidate all the revisions from the four copies.  It surprises me that obvious problems are often missed by one or more of my reviewers. I’d like to think it’s because they got lost in the story, but it’s probably human nature.

Professionally Format e-books

How long before the book is ready for the general public? Months, I’m afraid. The next step will be professional editing, and then my final review of all of the recommended changes. This is an important step because I've been separated from the book for a while, which allows me to see it with fresh eyes. Along with accepting/rejecting line-editing, I frequently make adjustments to the plot. In the meantime, a cover needs to be designed and finalized. A designer needs to lay out the interior, back cover, and spine. The back cover includes a synopsis or elevator pitch for the story. This tantalizing piece of copyrighting will eventually be the book description displayed by online sellers. After every change is incorporated and the interior layout complete, a proofreader scrutinizes the modern equivalent of a galley proof. Now, it’s off to the printer … but not eReaders. The last step is professional eFormatting.

Front, spine, and back cover design

I’m involved with every step, but I prefer professionals do the design, editing, proofreading, and formatting. I’m just no good at it. I’m only a storyteller. 

Saline River Chronicle reviews The Shopkeeper

"This is a compelling narrative and as good as the best of classic Westerns. James D. Best is a name to remember."

Read full book review at Saline River Chronical

Pacific Beach, San Diego

My wife has flown to Omaha to do some tasks that have to do with spa colors, soothing music, and aromatherapy.  She’s helping my daughter open a pedicure spa. Since I can’t contribute anything but bad advice, I’m driving today to Pacific Beach to get in a little surfing.

You might want to visit my Surf Pinterest Board. There are some great shots and a couple videos.






Three people have asked if I will continue to work on The Return or just surf all day. Boy, does that make me feel good. In truth, two hours is all I need suit up, surf, and shower. At my age, you no longer make a day of surfing. Since six hours is a full day of writing for me, I think I can catch a few waves and still make progress on the next Steve Dancy Tale. Besides, I write better at the beach. Who wouldn’t be inspired by something like this?

Louis L'Amour, The Read Deal

If your name was Louis L'Amour and you wrote about men tougher than nails, would you adopt a penname? Frederick Faust used Max Brand to publish his rough and tumble Westerns. Of course, that was partly because Faust was a Teutonic name, and the Great War had made Germans unpopular.

Saul David, editorial director of Bantam Books, told Donald Jackson a story he included in a Smithsonian Magazine article. "That was the heyday of the paperback Western. We had lost Luke Short, our Western Star, and I was in California looking for a new one. I got a call - the word was out that I was in town - and a voice said, 'This is Louis L'Amour, you've never heard of me but I want to see you right now.' He came up with an envelope, made a pitch and told me to read his samples. He said he was going to be the next great Western writer and we'd do well to take him on. I read it while he waited. It was Hondo, and it knocked me out. I signed him to a long-term contract on the spot … David's boss in New York had doubts about their new author's name - L'Amour on a paperback sounded like ‘a Western written in lipstick,’ he said - but no one had grit enough to ask him to change it, ‘I didn't want to get punched out,’ David explains.”

At the time David met L’Amour (1908-1988), he was nearly fifty. He had mellowed a bit in middle age, but could still throw a hefty punch. For almost his entire life he would spend over an hour each day lifting weights, skipping rope, and punching a bag.

It might seem that L’Amour started late in the writing field, but that would be incorrect for two reason. First, he wrote for the pulps before WWII. (He took an extended hiatus during his enlistment.)  After the war, he sold at least one story per week prior to the film Hondo. There is a legend that John Wayne made L’Amour’s career when he bought the theatrical rights to a short story that became Hondo. Wayne also endorsed of the later novel as the best Western he had ever read. The Duke certainly gave L’Amour a big boost, but L’Amour was making a decent living from writing prior to Hondo. He had already sold several novels to paperback publishers and had sold several other projects for movies and TV.

The second reason would be research. He spent his early years living the life he would later write about. During his upbringing in North Dakota, his father’s veterinary practice and his other relatives exposed him to ranching and genuine cowboys. As a youth, L’Amour traveled the world as an itinerate worker. He hoboed, skinned cattle, baled hay, worked in mines, saw mills and lumber yards, circled the globe as a merchant seaman, and boxed all over the globe for money. He went out of his way to meet lawmen and outlaws. He traveled everywhere, noticed everything, and read constantly. He bragged that from 1928 until 1942 he read three books a week. By the time he met David, his life experiences and pulp writing had thoroughly prepared him to be a novelist.

Louis L'Amour wrote over one hundred books, of which more than 30 have been made into movies. He was extremely prolific and once signed a thirty book contract with Bantam. His books have been translated into over fifteen languages. A few days before he passed away, L’Amour was notified that sales of his books had topped two million. Today, that number is well in excess of three million. None of his titles have ever been out of print.

He loved writing and storytelling. He said, "I can transport myself to another time and place and put myself there." 

Critics panned his dialogue and one-dimensional characters, but praised his pacing and historical accuracy. L'Amour dismissed their criticism. "If you write about a bygone period east of the Mississippi River, it's a historical novel. If it's west of the Mississippi it's a Western." He added, "I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks, I know it's literature and I know it will be read 100 years from now." 

Twenty-five years after his death, his prediction looks accurate.

A Hanging Party in the Old West

I was going through some research I had collected for the Steve Dancy Tales and ran across this letter from J. A. Carruth describing life in Las Vegas, New Mexico in the 1880s.

Click to read poster

Speaking of hanging bees, another one took place in Las Vegas after wards when a crowd went and took a party out of the east side lockup and went over and started to hang him on a pole right under the window of the office of the district attorney, who came up and said: “For God’s sake, boys, don’t hang him here. There’s a much better pole in the next block. So the boys very kindly took the “candidate” to the better pole, where he was duly hanged.

J. A. CARRUTH.

Django Unchained—Quentin Tarantino’s Does Spaghetti Western

I like Tarantino movies and Westerns, so I expected to love Django Unchained.  I only liked it. It wasn’t bad; it just didn’t live up to my expectations.

The Spaghetti Western is a subset of the Western genre, typified by antiheroes, revenge themes, extreme violence, slow scenes, scant dialogue, extreme close-ups, long running times, and heavy scores punctuated by stretches of pure silence. (My favorite is Once Upon a Time in the West.) The Spaghetti Western is a different breed from the traditional Western because all of these characteristics are done to excess.

I knew something was amiss with Django Unchained about two hours into the movie when I wondered how long it would be before the end. Not a good sign, even when three hours is typical for Spaghetti Westerns. The audience is supposed to be transported to another place and time, not squirming in their seats.

Tarantino loves bad movies, especially bad genre movies. He sees art where others see trash. His best works, like Kill Bill for example, blend clichés and corniness from multiple genres into a cornucopia of unexpected delights. Django Unchained seemed too predictable and too narrow. Perhaps Tarantino’s shtick has run its course. I hope not.

Related post: Europe's Infatuation with the American Wild West

Zane Grey Defined a Genre

Portrait of Grey at Monument Valley

Zane Grey was an athlete, avid fisherman, and a lifelong philander. Grey was introverted and remained somewhat antisocial his entire life. Oh yeah, he was also a writer. In fact, he wrote his first story at age fifteen.

He attended the University of Pennsylvania on a baseball scholarship, and played minor league ball for several seasons. After graduating with a dentistry degree, he set up practice in New York City. About ten years later, he gave up dentistry to write full time.

His first published work was a magazine article about fishing, and he wrote extensively about fishing his entire life. At first, his novels were repeatedly rejected. He grew to love the West after several hunting trips to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, so he incorporated these experiences into his writing. Still his novels continued to be rejected. (His early works were not Westerns.)

In 1910, he wrote his first Western, The Heritage of the Desert which became a bestseller. Two years later, Riders of the Purple Sage became his best-selling book of all time. From that point forward, he was a celebrity writer and Grey’s Westerns were eagerly published.

Zane Grey authored over ninety books, counting the ones published posthumously from manuscripts or serialized magazine stories. He would cease writing for long periods, and then burst into writing frenzies where he would scribe over 3,000 words a day. He sold over 40 million books, most of them Western novels, but some were children’s stories or non-fiction books about hunting, fishing, and baseball. Over 100 films were based on his stories. After his death, he even made it to television with The Lone Ranger, Sgt. Preston of the Yukon—which were based on his characters—and Zane Grey Western Theater. His Westerns allowed him to explore the world extensively, maintain several homes, and write about fishing. In fact, his books made him a millionaire, which irked critics who had little respect for his writing skill.

Zane Grey’s West Society claims that “In 57 novels, 10 books of Western nonfiction, and 130 movies, Grey, who died in 1939 at age 67, almost single-handedly created the "Myth of the West."

The official Zane Grey website lists his books, movies, and magazine serializations.

Three Icons of the Western Genre

Zane Grey

The three greatest icons of the Western novel are Zane Grey, Max Brand, and Louis L'Amour. Sure, other authors have written multiple Western novels, but these three made their names synonymous with the genre.  (Actually, Max Brand was a pen name.) Together, these three authors wrote nearly 500 Westerns and countless short stories.

Zane Grey published Westerns from 1908 until his death in 1939. Actually, he left such a large stockpile of manuscripts that Harper & Brothers published a novel per year under his name until 1963.

Frederick Faust, aka Max Brand

Max Brand published his first Western in 1919 and continued writing in the genre until his death in 1944. Similar to Zane Grey, publishers continued to bring his work out in new editions. For example, in 2007, Five Star Westerns published Acres of Unrest from a 1926 magazine series.

Louis L'Amour published his first Western in 1951. His last Western published  while he was alive was The Haunted Mesa (1987). Like his genre predecessors, books under his name continued to be published long after his death, many of which were short story collections.

Louis L'Amour

These three may not have been the greatest authors who have ever written about the American frontier, but they were great storytellers. (Okay, my vote would actually go to Mark Twain as the best Western author.) Storytelling has always been a revered art form and has been around since man first exaggerated his hunting prowess. In fact, storytelling might be the real oldest profession. 





In the early days, stories were spoken—handed down generation to generation. Cave dwellers began the notion of illustrated stories with petroglyphs, while during the middle-ages; stained-glass served the same purpose. The novel came to fruition only after widespread literacy and it nurtured its own artistic standards. Have these three authors ever met those artistic standards? I believe the answer is yes, especially in their best work.

Steve Dancy Tales -- Kindle Bargain

 

                   The Steve Dancy Box Set

Books provide hours upon hours of entertainment. If you're looking for rousing fiction, consider the Steve Dancy Kindle Box Set. The set includes The Shopkeeper, Leadville, and Murder at Thumb Butte, all three for $8.99, which is five dollars less than buying each book individually. Together, the three Western novels have 790 Amazon Customer Reviews for 4.4 stars and 1,878 Goodreads ratings for 4.0 Stars.

One of the First Mass-Market Bestsellers

The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains by Owen Wister was one of the first mass-market bestsellers. The 1902 novel received immediate critical acclaim and was hugely popular, eventually spawning five films, a successful play, and a television series. An instant success, it sold over 20 thousand copies in the first month, an astonishing number for the time. It went on to sell over 200,000 thousand copies in the first year, and over a million and a half prior to Wister's death. This Western classic has never been out of print. (You can read my review, "The Virginian, A Classic Western Revisited" at Ezine Articles.)

The Virginian inspired hundreds of stories about the Old West—including the Steve Dancy Tales. After reading The Virginian, I thought it would make an interesting story if the Easterner was the protagonist rather than the narrator. I always enjoyed fish-out-of-water stories.

The Virginian is credited with inventing the literary Western, and many people are familiar with the book. Less is generally known about Owen Wister. In 2002, Harvard Magazine published a short biography of Wister: oddly titled "Owen Wister, Brief life of a Western mythmaker:1860-1938." (By my math he lived to be 78 years old.) Thousands of Westerns have been written, but The Virginian set the benchmark for excellence in the genre.

The Mythology of the Old West

For me, there are three major elements of good western. The first is the romance of a new beginning, the second is the battle of good versus evil, and the third is the lone warrior who sets things right.

Hopalong Cassidy
 as illustrated by Frank Earle Schoonover, 1905 

• The old west represents a fresh beginning in a new place away from home - the shrugging off of disappointments and a chance to start all over again. Emigrating to a frontier means you get a do-over in a land with no rules, no referees, and no fences. 

• The mythical old west is a black and white world. Good fights evil and good usually triumphs. In stories of the Old West, ordinary people are capable of extraordinary heroism. 

• But raw frontiers are dangerous, so even courageous pioneers need help. No civilization means no restraints on bad people doing bad things. Help comes in the shape of an idealized hero, a paladin who risks his life to save the day and asks nothing in return.

These themes have been a part of storytelling in every society since the first cave drawings. You'll also find these elements dominate fantasy and science fiction. The frontier in these genres can be the future, outer space, or a make-believe land. The gunfighter has a simple solution on his hip, while Frodo has the ring and Harry Potter the magic wand.

You can read my article "Is the Mythology of the Old West Dead?" by following this link.

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters.