Dead Shot: The Memoir of Walter Ferguson; Soldier, Marshal, Bootlegger To Be Released November 22

 Well, I finally got around to it.

After years of dithering and several abortive starts, I finished a Western. Dead Shot: The Memoir of Walter Ferguson, Soldier, Marshal, Bootlegger drops four weeks from today, on November 22, just in time for holiday shopping. (Hint, hint.)

Dead Shot is unique from my other books in several ways besides being my first Western. First, I didn’t “write” it; I am but the “editor.” The conceit is that I stumbled across the notes for a memoir by a western Pennsylvania native while researching a Penns River novel. Walter Ferguson (1844 – 1937) told his life story to a woman named Helena Elizabeth Judson, who took copious written notes and even a few wire recordings. Both participants died before the project came to fruition, and somehow the notes ended up at the Alle-Kiski Historical Society, where I found them. I then took it upon myself to complete what Walt and Helena had “begun.”

Another difference is that Walt crosses paths with historical figures and participates in documented historical events. Along the way he interacts with frontier notables, including Charlie Bassett, Butch Cassidy, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, Bat Masterson (and his brothers), Johnny Ringo, Al Swearengen, and Bill Tilghman among others. Walt also participates in the Second Battle of Adobe Walls and the Dodge City War.

I also had to come up with a new style and voice that felt more appropriate for the era. I read several memoirs of cowboys, lawmen, and criminals in hope of cobbling together something that would ring true as an oral history as told though Walt’s eyes without seeming too archaic.

I had a ball writing Dead Shot and The Beloved Spouse™ enjoyed listening to me read it to her; she is always a good judge of how well what I wrote is received by others. J. D. Rhoades, author of the Jack Keller series as well as the acclaimed Western The Killing Look, said, “A fascinating, picaresque journey through a tumultuous post-Civil-War American West. Walter tells his tale with scrupulous honesty and wry wit as he encounters legends and makes a few of his own. Fans of Thomas Berger's Little Big Man are going to love this one. Highly recommended.”

Here’s a tease from Chapter One:

My name is Walter Stewart Ferguson. I was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania on January 17, 1844. Or January 14, depending on who you ask. I celebrate on the 17^th, as that is the date Mother told me and I figure she should know. It is also the birthday of the greatest Pennsylvanian of all time, Benjamin Franklin, and who better to share a birthday with than he? [Editor’s Note: The facts are unclear. Many local birth records were damaged or destroyed in the flood of 1936, as were the baptismal records of the Ferguson family church.]

I am the second of five children to survive more than one year, along with an older sister (Oneida), a younger brother (Seward), and two younger sisters, Ella and MaryLou. An older brother was stillborn and a sister, Ethel, was taken by the whooping cough in her first year.

I could always shoot. My father, Gordon, was a more than passable marksman, but I bested him the first time he took me out to learn. People said it was a gift from God, my ability to shoot accurately with whatever was in my hand, be it musket, rifle, pistol, or bow and arrow. Only God knows if that is true. All I can say for certain is that it led me to do things I am not sure God would approve of. I suppose one day I will find out.

Dead Shot will be available on Amazon November 22. Look for special pricing over that weekend.

(Note: I know, I know. Some might consider releasing a book titled Dead Shot on the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination to be in questionable taste. For reasons of my own, I always planned to drop the book on the Friday before Thanksgiving. I didn’t realize that was the 22^nd until I looked it up just now. If anyone takes umbrage…well, damn, people. It’s been 61 years. He’d be dead by now, anyway.)