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ONE NIGHT WITH THE ANASAZI

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"A school is wherever a man can learn . . ." Wise words from a wise woman in Bendigo Shafter, Louis' amazing coming of age tale set in the demanding frontier of Wyoming as a young man discovers who and what he wants to be.

"Often when our wagons were rolling westward I would sit by the fire and listen to the talk of men, and especially, in the days before he died, to Ruth Macken’s husband, who was an educated man. He was a tolerant and thoughtful one as well.

He talked much of writers long dead and of the thoughts they had left to us, and I longed to know such men, men who had painted, composed music, or written books. Once when I had said as much, Macken commented, “Often they are fine men, enough to be admired, but often they are sadly, weakly human, too. Remember this, Bendigo, that it is the work a man does that matters. Many men who have made mistakes in their own lives have created grandly, beautifully. It is this by which we measure a man, by what he does in this life, by what he creates to leave behind.”

Ruth Macken knew of my longing for knowledge, of my longing for a larger, brighter world somewhere beyond the distance. She was a woman to whom a boy might talk of things dreamed. There was understanding in her, and sympathy. Also, I thought, there was a longing in her for the same things. An Indian arrow had taken away her husband only a few days out upon the plains, and he was one who had none but kindly thoughts of Indians. A woman less strong might have turned back, but she had little money, nothing to return to, and a son to rear.

She listened when I told her of John Sampson’s talk of a school. “Of course, we must have a school, but the building is less important than the teacher. It is the teacher who makes the school, no matter how magnificent the building.

“A school is wherever a man can learn, Mr. Shafter, do not forget that. A man can learn from these mountains and the trees, he can learn by listening, by seeing, and by hearing the talk of other men and thinking about what they say.”

If Louis L'Amour has left us anything, it is a wealth of inspiration and a treasure trove of delight!

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In perhaps a moment of self reflection, Louis expresses a sentiment that weighed on him as his career began ... knowing that his adventurous life and thirst for knowledge gave him a wealth of experience he wanted to share . . . could he express that knowledge and give to others that sense of excitement he surely felt as his stories took shape in his mind? Could he write large upon the page as he surely did upon the page of life?

THE LONELY MEN

https://www.louislamour.com/novels/lonelymen.htm

Long after the others had turned in, I sat in the quiet of the old Don's study and talked with him. The walls of the room were lined with shelves of leather-bound books, more than I had ever seen, and he talked of them and of what they had told him, and of what they meant to him.

"These are my world," he said. "Had I been born in another time or to another way of life I should have been a scholar. My father had this place and he needed sons to carry on, so I came back from Spain to this place. It has been good to me. I have seen my crops grow and my herds increase, and if I have not written words upon paper as I should like to have done, I have written large upon the page of life that was left open for me.

"There is tonic in this." He gestured toward the out-of-doors. "I have used the plow and the Winchester instead of the pen and the inkstand. There is tonic in the riding, in the living dangerously, in the building of something."

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In one of the most heart wrenching scenes ever written, Louis L'Amour discovers a hero in the shape of a seven year old boy. This tale of survival, terror and intrigue never fails to induce throat tightening, tear inducing emotions in even the toughest readers. This image brings to mind just how young Hardy is while reminding us of the different world he inhibited. The lessons Louis shares in DOWN THE LONG HILLS are a basis for survival even today as we imagine a seven year old navigating the precarious trail upon which Louis has set him.

DOWN THE LONG HILLS

https://www.louislamour.com/novels/down_long_hills_with_bonus_material_postscript.htm

"The wagons had been hastily looted and set afire, the bodies stripped and left as they had fallen.

Avoiding them, and embarrassed by their nakedness, Hardy searched quickly through the camp. He would need weapons and food. There were no weapons, of course - the Indians would have taken those first. He did find some scattered cans of fruit and meat, and some cans with the labels burned off. Evidently the Indians had no acquaintance with canned goods. He gathered up the cans in an old burlap sack. Some flour was there, but he had no idea how to use it, and left it behind. Hurriedly, he left the wagons and went back down the hill to Betty Sue and Big Red.

Hardy Collins was seven years old, and he had never been alone before . .. not like this. He knew where the North Star was, and he knew the sun came up in the east and went down in the west. At home he had done chores around the farm, had run and played in the wooded hills with other boys, and for the last two winters he had kept a trap-line down along the creek. He did not know much more about the world except that pa was out west.

He did not know how to tell Betty Sue about what had happened, or whether she would understand if he told her.

He dropped on his knees beside her. "We have to go on alone," he said. "Indians came, and our folks all had to go west. We have to go meet them." It was a lie, and he did not want to lie, but he did not know what to tell Betty Sue, and he did not want her to cry. Nor did he believe that she knew what "dead" meant. The only thing he could think of was to go ahead now, and quickly. The Indians might come back, or the smoke might attract other Indians."

DOWN THE LONG HILLS

https://www.louislamour.com/novels/down_long_hills_with_bonus_material_postscript.htm

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In the SACKETT BRAND - (https://www.louislamour.com/novels/sackettbrand.htm) Forty gunslingers from the Lazy A have got Tell Sackett cornered under the Mogollon Rim. They're fixing to hang him if they can capture him alive, fill him extra full of lead if they can't. But the Sacketts don't cotton to that sort of treatment. Hunt one Sackett and you hunt 'em all. So they're riding in from all over -- mountain Sacketts, outlaws, cattleman, bankers and the rest.

One of Louis' most amazing talents is his ability to mix emotional, heartfelt wonder in with exciting, thrilling action. His characters never missed an opportunity to appreciate the beauty of the world around them . . . and neither did HE!

TELL SACKETT -

"This was rugged, broken country, and what I needed now was speed. At Dead Cow Canyon I turned south and plunged into the lonely wilderness of the Mazatzal Mountains.

It was hot and still. The coolness of the morning was far behind me now, and the climbing had worked my horses hard. On the slope of a cactus-covered ridge I drew up to let them breathe and to contemplate the countryside.

It was good to sit quiet a moment and look upon the land, for the flowers were out and it was carpeted with beauty. Little enough time I had for that, but it came to me through the air I breathed, for the loveliness of this land was always with one who traveled through it.

Far away the mountains were a blue rim. Close by, the canyons clung to their shadows, and setting quiet up there, I just let my eyes roam over the far country and the near, watching, searching."

https://www.louislamour.com/novels/sackettbrand.htm

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Louis, Kathy, Beau and Angelique L'Amour on an extensive tour of England and Ireland in 1969. Here they are enjoying Castle Freke in County Cork, Ireland. Started in the 1400's it was expanded into the "fairy tale" castle that now stands in 1642 and survived much of the Eleven Years war with Confederate Irish forces. Owned by the Irish Land Commission it served as a military barracks during WWII and is now owned by one of the Descendants of the Evans-Freke family. #louislamour (at Castlefreke, Cork, Ireland) https://www.instagram.com/p/CqYSTh9u4t_/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Louis L'Amour's reflections often took a very personal turn as his characters expressed much of what he himself had wanted to say at one time or another. Sometimes a body just had to have somebody to talk to. You saw something and you wanted to turn and say, Isn't that beautiful? And there was nobody there. Well, there were a lot of lonely folks out here in the West. Men and women working alone, or feeling alone, their homes far from each other, their minds and hearts reaching out across the distance, plucking at the strings of the air to find some answering call. Lonely people, who looked at horizons and wondered what, or who, was beyond them, people hemmed in by distance, people locked in space, in the emptiness ... prisoners, they were. #louislamour #thewest https://www.instagram.com/p/CqG5ZadPihH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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In the short story SAND TRAP from The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour Volume 6 (Vol. 6.1 in paperback) - https://www.louislamour.com/shortstory/collectedShortStories6.html - Louis L'Amour's personal experiences and intimate knowledge of the desert allow the main character to, in the noir style of the times, turn the tables on his antagonists. Sand Trap - From the Listening Hills BEFORE HE BECAME fully conscious he heard the woman’s voice and some sixth sense of warning held him motionless. Her voice was sharp, impatient. “Just start the fire and let’s get out of here!” “Why leave that money on him? It will just burn up.” “Don’t be such an idiot!” her voice shrilled. “The police test ashes and they could tell whether there was money or not…don’t look at me like that! It has to look like a robbery.” “I don’t like this, Paula.” “Oh, don’t be a fool! Now start the fire and come on!” “All right.” Monte Jackson held himself perfectly still. Despite the pounding in his skull he knew what was happening now. They believed him dead or unconscious and, for some reason, planned to burn the house and him with it. LATER IN THE STORY, MONTE USES HIS KNOWLEDGE OF THE DESERT TO ... ENCOURAGE HIS ANTAGONISTS TO CONFESS THEIR CRIMES . . . Monte took a pull at the canteen and rested in the shade of a clump of brush. Walking was okay but the running did not do his head any good. When he looked again they had started on and made almost half a mile. Paula Burgess looked beaten. After a while he moved to follow, staying in the shade from the nearby ridge. When he again saw them they had stopped and were seated near some salt bush. They had reached the fork of the old desert trail. From this point it branched south and then west to Keeler and north across the vast waste of the Saline Valley, waterless and empty. Paula had her shoes off and so did Ash. Obviously, they’d had enough although they’d come just five miles from the jeep. From where he crouched in the shadow of a rock he could see their faces were beginning to blister, and their lips looked puffed and cracked. #louislamour #westerns #shortstory #sandtrap https://www.instagram.com/p/CqBpciWPp_K/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Write what you know is the foundation of a good author. Louis certainly lived and breathed the world around him and shared his experiences through his novels and stories. From CONAGHER (https://www.louislamour.com/novels/conagher.htm) At sunset Evie walked away from the cabin and stood alone, her hair stirring a little in the faint breeze. She stood on the edge of the trail, a hundred yards from the cabin. All was very still. She never tired of the mornings and evenings here, the soft lights, the changing colors of sunlight and cloud upon the hills, the stirring of wind in the grass. Out here there was no escaping the sky or the plains, and Evie knew that until she came west she had never really known distance. The air was incredibly clear. Fresh and cool as it was, one breathed it in like drinking cool water; and always there was a definite odor on it, the odor depending on the direction from which the wind blew: the smell of cedar, and of pines beyond, the smell of sage, or, from the dryer lands after a rain, the smell of the creosote bush. #louislamour #writewhatyouknow https://www.instagram.com/p/CpyHLrLP_x3/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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So, I was talking with Beau L'Amour the other day and we were discussing the AI technology which has become all the rage recently. Things like Chat GPT and the many AI Graphics programs seem very interesting to us. I thought I'd take a Louis L'Amour quote and try and generate an appropriate image, not necessarily directly from the quote but trying to capture the essence behind the quote. Using Midjourney (credit where credit is due) this is the image .... How'd I do? #louislamour #cardgames #westerns https://www.instagram.com/p/CpntycQvnrB/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Louis L'Amour writes in FRONTIER ( https://www.louislamour.com/nonfiction/frontier.htm ) Nobody knows the wild country. No matter how long one lives in it and with it one is forever learning, and there is always much to see and hear. Nor are any two places the same. Much of what one gets from the wilderness depends on what one takes to it. By this I mean that the more that is known of simple geology, of plant growth, and so on, the more interesting an area becomes. The point is not only to see what is there but to know what is happening and what has happened. Soon one is able to travel the country with an awareness impossible before. If you believe the wilderness is gone you are mistaken. It is out there, miles upon miles of it, but passersby must leave it as they found it, always remembering that it is the land from which we have come and that it is to the land we return in times of great trouble. #frontier #louislamour https://www.instagram.com/p/CpdzPOiPFGI/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Louis L'Amour and Euan Lloyd got caught enjoying the Southern California sun and chatting about all things Hollywood. Between 1968 and 1973, Louis L'Amour had a string of movies produced by Euan Lloyd. Shalako, Catlow, and The Man Called Noon all translated Louis' novels to the silver screen with varying levels of success. However, with casts like Sean Connery, Brigitte Bardot, and Stephen Boyd in SHALAKO; Yul Brynner, Richard Crenna, and Leonard Nimoy in CATLOW, and Richard Crenna, Stephen Boyd, and the beloved Farley Granger in THE MAN CALLED NOON, these three films helped propel Louis's novels to the forefront of the Hollywood Film Industry. You can find all of the currently available DVD's in the MOVIES section at louislamour.com (https://www.louislamour.com/movies/index.html) #louislamour #westerns #westernmovies https://www.instagram.com/p/CpTy8kkpqhV/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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In EDUCATION OF A WANDERING MAN (https://www.louislamour.com/nonfiction/education.htm), Louis recalls meeting a young Arab boy whose knowledge of regional history was extensive and encouraged Louis to "overcome my ignorance (which was probably shared by many educated Westerners), I plied him with questions. He could answer only a few, but he had opened wide a door that never closed and led to years of exciting reading and much speculation." The young boy sparked something in Louis that lasted a lifetime! "I think the greatest gift anyone can give to another is the desire to know, to understand. Life is not for simply watching spectator sports, or for taking part in them; it is not for simply living from one working day to the next. Life is for delving, discovering, learning. Today, one can sit in the comfort of his own home and explore any part of the world or even outer space through books. They are all around us, offering such riches as can scarcely be believed. Also, I might add, having done both, it is better to sit in comfort with a cold drink at hand and read the tale than to actually walk out of the Mohave Desert as I did. The armchair adventurer has all the advantages, believe me. As I have said elsewhere, and more than once, I believe adventure is nothing but a romantic name for trouble. What people speak of as adventure is something nobody in his right mind would seek out, and it becomes romantic only when one is safely at home. It is much better to watch someone riding a camel across a desert on a movie screen than it is to be up on the camel's back, traveling at a pace of two and a half to three miles per hour through a blazing hot day with the sand blowing.” #louislamour https://www.instagram.com/p/Co_FFYcp8d_/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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On The Road With Louis L'Amour In April of, 1950, Louis L'Amour and friend Ed Ross explored Bodie, California. They went up to "Boot Hill," and down the canyon to Aurora, Nevada, and take pictures. Bodie, CA is a ghost town dating back to the 1860's. From there, they moved on to Carson City, Nevada for the night. From an interview with Ed Ross, Beau L'Amour recorded the following about one of their trips to the Bodie, CA area . . . On their first trip together, the first place Ed Ross and LDL stopped was at Olancha. "Going from here to Big Pine or to Bishop it's on this end of Owens Lake. There's a road that'll turn to the right and take off to Death Valley. . . . There's a monument there in honor of Joe Walker, the explorer. We stood there and looked at it and talked about it and got in the car and went on. That night we went past Lee Vining and up the hill toward Bodie and we stopped at, I think somebody told us about the Scandovino family. The Scandovinos are an Italian family that had a little farm there on the side of Bodie and you could look up from their place and see Mono Lake down there. And they raised early vegetables and sold it to the miners up in Bodie. . . . The Scandovino brothers that lived there . . . his other two brothers came in from San Francisco and someplace else in California, in the Valley somewhere. The three of us went up and we sat there till . . . midnight shooting the breeze. The Scandovinos telling Lou and I about the early days and how . . . hills were so steep that the Ford gasoline wouldn't go in the morning, you'd back up the hill. . . . About that time they were fifty or sixty years old, maybe more. Like I say, one lived in San Francisco and another lived in the Valley somewhere, Modesto or someplace . . . We had a grand time there." [Beau writes: "Reverse was the lowest gear so to climb really steep hills you'd go in reverse."] #louislamour #bode #nevada #authorlife #roadtrip https://www.instagram.com/p/Co5pmPYSmKH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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The Sackett Brand - from The Sackett Companion It was a wild and broken country known only to the Apache, miles and miles of forest and running streams bordering on the half-desert lying to the west and south, a country in which a man could both run and hide. What chance did one man have against forty? One man, already badly hurt and without weapons? Then the Sacketts began to come from wherever they heard the news. Some were near, some far, but a Sackett was in trouble so they asked no questions. They came running: Nolan, Orlando, Flagan, Galloway, Tyrel, Orrin, and Falcon. Even Parmalee, the Flatland Sackett. Riding for the Mogollon from wherever the news found them, and as has been said, even one Sackett was quite a few. ********~~~******** WILLIAM TELL SACKETT: Left the mountains of Tennessee to take part in the Civil War. Joined the Sixth Cavalry of the Union, served on detached service in other areas. Also in SACKETTS LAND, MOJAVE CROSSING, THE SACKETT BRAND, TREASURE MOUNTAIN, and LONELY ON THE MOUNTAIN, and briefly, as just another working cowboy, in DARK CANYON. He could barely read and write, having attended school for only a few months on several different occasions. He could ride, rope, shoot any kind of a gun, and was skilled with stock. He grew up hunting, trapping, and fighting. Six feet three inches, he was lean, but broad-shouldered. Essentially a lonely man, he was shy with strangers. Accustomed to hard work, he preferred to be let alone to work at whatever he was doing, from punching cows to mining. He liked women but was uncomfortable around them. At dances or parties he could usually be found somewhere in the background, simply enjoying the music and watching the others, and was content to have it so. Of the great love of his life he rarely spoke, and even his brothers knew nothing of her. He met her and lost her during his Civil War days. Discover the incredible history and background of the entire Sackett family collected in the "Facts Behind the Fiction" of THE SACKETT COMPANION by Louis L'Amour https://www.louislamour.com/novels/sackettbrand.htm https://www.louislamour.com/nonfiction/sackettcomp.htm #louislamour https://www.instagram.com/p/CoqYD6RPmt2/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=