Word came down last week that Wallace McRae is dead.

He was among the handful of cowboy poets behind the rebirth of our art and craft in the mid-1980s, and his passing is a loss from which we will never recover.

The word “curmudgeon” was as firmly affixed to McRae as his bushy mustache, and it was a description I believe he carried with pride. To many, he came across as gruff. But underlying that gruffness were two simple facts: he had a low tolerance for bullshit, and he did not suffer fools gladly.

McRae was a poet. More than a mere rhymer, jokester, versifier, or entertainer, he wrangled words to create well-crafted poetry that spoke of the West in layers that plumbed the depths, asking questions and demanding thought. You will not find among his work the cheap emotion, the manufactured pride, the manipulative humor so often found in cowboy poetry.

I did not know McRae well. We were well enough acquainted to speak, but it’s not like we were drinking buddies. Back in 2016, he agreed to be interviewed for a magazine article I was working on, and we had a good, long talk at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. I got what I needed for the story, and I got a lot more than I expected.

We talked about his early exposure to poetry, including his first public recitation at age four at a community Christmas celebration. And his exposure at an early age to one of the greatest cowboy poets of all time: “We got a livestock publication, my dad did, I don’t know what the title of it was, but it had a monthly Bruce Kiskaddon illustrated poem in it. . . . I knew Kiskaddon before I could read.”

I asked his opinion on what Kiskaddon and other early masters—Badger Clark, S. Omar Barker, and others—might think of today’s cowboy poetry. “My guess is, I think they would for the most part feel that we’re trying hard. But maybe not measuring up. Because so few people are trained now in writing. They haven’t read the classics. We haven’t studied the art enough. . . . I don’t think there’s enough of us that study poetry.”

McRae’s honors are too many to mention. But his legacy is one we should treasure—and we could all benefit from reading and rereading and studying his poetry. He was one of the best of us. And now he is gone.

Peacemaker Finalist!

Western Fictioneers—an organization formed in 2010 by professional Western writers to preserve, honor, and promote traditional Western writing in the 21st century—recently announced the annual Peacemaker (named for the iconic Colt revolver) Awards. My book, Hanging Man: The Hunting of Man Book 1, was a Finalist for Best Western Novel.

Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.”

That quotation seemed a good description for a bounty hunter, and Matt Crowder was born. A middle-aged former Deputy United States Marshal turned bounty hunter, Crowder is relentless in his pursuit of justice—although, at his age, he would rather not sleep on the ground anymore if he can help it.

In Hanging Man, Crowder comes upon a man hanging from a tree in an isolated area and pursues the mystery of who he is, why he died, and who killed him. He chases the two men he believes responsible, and along the way discovers graft and corruption involving the US Army, and in a chance encounter captures another wanted man.

In Running Man: The Hunting of Man Book 2, and Hiding Man: The Hunting of Man Book 3, Matt Crowder’s adventures lead him across the Old West on the trail of other outlaws.