The first novel I ever read was Louis L'Amour's Mojave Crossing. I was hooked on L'Amour stories for years after that (even if they were ALL basically the same story told in a different way each time, they were still good). I would be a flat out lie for me to deny that L'Amour's style had no effect on this story, up to the point where the hero gets the girl in the end.

That is, if you call Wallace a hero. For what it's worth, I do. He played by the rules that society set legally, if not culturally. If society was going to shocked that Wallace used violence "excessively", then that needed to be codified legally. Some of us understand hard and fast rules, not socially mutable rules ;>

Other Westerns that influenced the story:

• Larry McMurty -Lonseone Dove & Comanche Moon; there is a great deal of Call in the character. The funny thing is that McMurty set out to write a story mocking the Wetsrn genre, and instead wrote one it's best works!
• Clair Huffaker - The Cowboy and the Cossack (1973); this book is hilarious, and I drew a great deal of the dialect from this book.
• Mark Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; a classic that everyone should read, especially the morons that claim it's racist without ever have bothered reading it.
• James Waner Bellah - Spanish Man's Grave; I had mistaken this writer for T.R.Ferenbech, a historian of both Texas and the military. I found the story in Pournelle's There will be War series, which is a recommended read of mine.

I have to admit I have never read Zane Grey.He is supposed to the the bedrock of Westerns. Oops.

The surprise addition to the book's background is Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai by Katsu Kokichi, a Tokugawa samurai who also thumbed his nose at society, got in lots of trouble, and told his story despite a lack of full literacy. Kokichi became a lay monk at the end of his career, taking the name Musui, which means "Dream Besotted".Both Kokichi and Wallace end up happy and contented at the end of their lives despite the way they had lived it.

I took the style of wandering from chronological episode to reminiscence and back to episode from Musui's Story. I feel that suits Wallace's character quite a bit.

When I first started writing this book, 13 years ago, I had an unhappy ending planned for Wallace. He would die alone and cold-hearted, with no regret for the way he spent his life; defiant to the end, he would have never made it home. Those 13 years have put me on the edge of old age myself, and I have found an empathetic connection to Wallace and hope that I too can find a comfortable old age.

I used John, Wallace's brother, to backlight some point of view and history that Wallace wouldn't think important enough to include. He had no notes to add at the end because the book needed to END right there, period ;> Another major intent of John was to mute the use of the word "nigger" somehwat. Wallace tried to defend his constant use of the word, but it wasn't convincing, and I could see where some black readers would find that grating. Hopefully John takes some of the aggravation out of that by having the book clearly state that a man's worth is in his works, not his skin.

The dialect I use was not researched for authenticity or consistency; however, for the most part I took it from the above books, leaving out Musuis's Story, ne. I did take some dialect style from a WWII era book, James Jones' From Here To Eternity. (for example, didn't = dint). There is going to be some slight variation in these dialects, especially considering that Texas has it's own mutation of the Southern American accent, with a bit of Spanish morphed in, I think I got this part of Wallace's speech right! The Southern accent is primarily rural English in nature, and although the Scots-Irish migrations in America (IMHO) was the primary drive behind the spread of the dialect, we need to remember that the Scots-Irish were a Lowland Scot/Northern English folk who spoke English and not Gaelic! If you want a good look at the Scots-Irish influence on America as a whole, then James Webb's Born Fighting is the book for you.

Finally, there is my own weird accent to consider; I was born in California and lived there til I was 6, and my family moved us to the great state of Texas (Thank g*d!). My mother was Texan, and my Dad was New York Jewish ( abit of a difference in accent from New Yorker as a whole). I've always loved and included as much slang from the 30s and 40s as possible in my speech, and I have a tendency to mimic other folks' accents when I speak to them ( I don't do this to mock: I suspect it's an unconscious attempt to fit in). In any case, I really don't know how much my own arglebargle of speech affects the dialect of the book.

I have to go back and collect sources for the songs I used; that will be another post ( or not, I am having second thoughts about how interesting it would be; I do need the song titles and credits for the book, however)

I thank everyone who read the book! I am putting it together for Kindle publishing, and I will let yall know when it is there for free.

I have included Amazon links for the book I have referenced. Each and every one of them is a joy to read.

Home To Texas: Recollections of a Texas Badman

See also: A break from "Home To Texas" and a little character analysis