Speed of sound.

A writer friend and I were talking a while back. He mentioned a book he had read in which a character under fire heard a bullet strike a tree, then heard the report of the rifle. My friend suggested this was unlikely, as the speed of sound is much greater than that of the bullets of the era—the Old West.

I disagreed, and we left it at that.

However, curiosity got the best of me, so I thought I’d do what they tell you to do on Sesame Street: “Look it up.” It took a few hours and lots of mouse clicks to reach a number of relevant web sites. Here’s what I learned about the speed of sound and the velocity of bullets fired from a few rifles in common use at the time in question.

Sound travels through the air at 1,125 feet per second. That varies somewhat, affected by temperature, humidity, and wind. And, of course, sound waves dissipate and the noise fades with distance. The velocity of bullets varies as well, depending on wind and distance, and the bullet loses speed the farther it travels.

But, all things being equal, a bullet fired from a .52 caliber Spencer repeating rifle would lose the race, lumbering along at a paltry 931 to 1,033 feet per second.

The race with a .44 caliber round from a Henry rifle would be a dead heat, the bullet leaving the barrel at 1,125 feet per second.

A bullet from a Winchester .44-40 Golden Boy outruns sound at 1,433 feet per second.

The old-time Hawken rifle, .50 caliber model, spit out lead at 1,600 feet per second.

Winning it all is the Sharps .50 caliber, which, depending on grains of powder in the cartridge, fires bullets that fly 1,448 to 1,814 feet per second.

None of which matters. But how else is an old man with no gainful employment supposed to spend his time?

 

Still Sinning.

All My Sins Remembered is now available in paperback and eBook, as well as the original hardcover edition. I have wrenched my elbow patting myself on the back about this book, so this time I will leave that to others.

“A riveting tale of human weakness which explores the nature of evil and its presence in and among us.” True West magazine

“All My Sins Remembered is destined to join the ranks of the frontier classic.” Loren D. Estleman, Western Writers Hall of Fame author

“A brutal, beautifully rendered masterpiece, guaranteed to stay with you long after the last page is turned.” Michael Zimmer, Winner of the Western Heritage Wrangler Award

“The action is swift, the Western scene spare and tense, the whole a haunting tale of good and evil. This is superb Western fiction.” Charles E. Rankin, Retired Associate Director/Editor in Chief, University of Oklahoma Press

“All My Sins Remembered is hypnotic and poetic and vivid.” Marc Cameron, New York Times bestselling author

“All My Sins Remembered is a unique, original novel with a wealth of period and milieu detail.” John D. Nesbitt, Spur Award-winning novelist

eBook:
Amazon US
Apple Books
Barnes & Noble
Google Play
Kobo Books

Paperback:
Amazon US
Barnes & Noble

Hardcover:
Amazon

Stupid words redux.

After my latest rant on abuse of our shared language, a friend suggested I did not like to see language evolve. But it happens. It’s something that can’t be helped. Most of the time it doesn’t matter. Sometimes it’s an improvement. Sometimes it’s not.

But I can sleep at night knowing that many—at least some—of the stupid words I rant about will end up on the trash heap of speech, discarded as the useless, even noxious, locutions they are.

Using only words extant during my lifetime, I offer some examples of this self-correction.

Time was, people who were “cool” (a word that was silly then and still is, but has demonstrated staying power) were ofttimes referred to as “cats.” If they were really cool, they were “hep” cats. No more. In the same vein, “groovy” has pretty much disappeared. And when was the last time you heard something cool referred to as “far out” or “bitchin’?” “Fab” had its day, which has long since passed. And we no longer say we “dig” things that are cool. An event or incident that was the opposite of cool was often called a “bummer.”

Clothes were once “threads” but now they are not. No longer are women “chicks” or “dames.” I haven’t heard police referred to as “fuzz” lately. And we have moved beyond all the silly CB radio-inspired lingo too expansive to chronicle here. To that I can only say, “10-4 good buddy. See you on the flip side. Keep your ears on.”

 

Good Books.

Read any good books lately? Along with numerous other writers, I was asked by the Shepherd.com web site to list the three best books I read in the past year. Not necessarily books that were new in the past year, but books read during that period. 

For almost 40 years (don’t ask me why) I have kept a list of the books I read. So, finding my three favorites for the year took nothing more than paging back 12 months and going through the list to see which titles jumped out at me. Some surprised me, to be honest. Others almost topped the ones I chose, but not quite. Still, it was not an easy decision. Maybe, on a different day, my choices would be different.

You can see my list here: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/rod-miller. 

And don’t hesitate to wander around the Shepherd.com web site for other lists by other writers on other subjects. (Somewhere on there is my list of five Western novels about cowboys who really are cowboys, rather than the usual fare of outlaws, lawmen, gamblers, and the like.)

Really Stupid Words, Chapter 22.

You hear a lot about “hacks” nowadays.

Not, in this case, “hack” as a means to cut or sever or chop with repeated irregular or unskillful blows, as most dictionaries define the word’s original and primary meaning.

Nor does it conform to another longstanding sense of being unable to deal with a given situation successfully, as in “he can’t hack it,” or “he’s a hack writer,” both of which can be seen to have evolved from the original meaning.

Nor is the current usage related to the meaning of the word that came along with the rise of computer networks and the internet, where people “hack” into computer systems where they have no business being, whether for fun or to do damage—chopping their way in, so to speak.

No. The current buzzwordy use of hack has to do with something altogether different, and I am not sure how or why it applies. You hear a lot these days about this “hack” or that “hack” that seems (apparently) to be a shortcut or something of the sort. Just lately, I have been advised of “hacks” for life, fishing, parenting, productivity, health, housekeeping, heating and cooling, cooking, cleaning, clothing, crafts, decluttering, organization, school, math, travel, and on and on and on…

On a side note, “hack” seems to be popular with the same people who are fond of “side hustle” (which sounds to me like being up to something no good) and “the gig economy.”

I cannot fathom the word “hack” in this most recent—but already clichéd—usage. I guess I wish there were a “hack” for understanding stupid words.

On the air in Ireland.

This story starts a few years ago but got derailed when Covid shut the world off for a time. A radio producer from Ireland contacted me to say he lived and worked in County Kerry, homeland of Patrick Edward Connor. Connor was the army commander behind the Massacre at Bear River (promoted from colonel to brigadier general following the atrocity), the Father of Utah Mining, and was involved in other military and business pursuits here in the West.

The man from Radio Kerry, Jerry O’Sullivan, wanted to create a radio documentary about Connor, was coming to Utah, and wondered if he could interview me. Then came Covid.

But all things must pass, and early this summer he contacted me to say he was on his way. We spent some time at the remnants of Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, including a spell at Connor’s gravesite in the cemetery there to record the interview. O’Sullivan interviewed other people here, then went back to Ireland to put the program together. It aired on Radio Kerry in early August, and “Glory Hunter” is now available on Spotify. (Just click on “Glory Hunter” and you’ll go there.)

O’Sullivan also wrote a commentary on Connor, the connections between Ireland and the USA, and the way we remember history. That article appeared recently in the Salt Lake Tribune. (Again, a click should get you there.)

Connor was an interesting man of many accomplishments—not all of them laudable. It will be worth your time to hear—and read—what Jerry O’Sullivan has to say about him.

See page 26.

The August 2023 issue of Roundup Magazine, official publication of Western Writers of America, focuses on the theme “Writing the Traditional Western Novel” in a series of articles. One story, by Western Writers Hall of Fame author Loren D. Estleman, offers a departure to talk about Western novels that stray from the herd in search of something more.

Estleman writes in “Westerns: Beyond Tradition”: “The difference between the ‘traditional’ Western and literature that resonates through the decades is the sense that these stories are not confined to the page. The characters seem to have a life outside the story. Men and women live and die, often violently; but they don’t exist merely to thrill. While they live, other lives are affected, and when they die, others are left to mourn, or at least ask why. That simple premise is what separates the enduring classic from empty tradition.”

Offered as examples are The Virginian by Owen Wister (of which, Estleman says, “Nearly all the tropes we associate with the Western were invented by one writer in one book”), Shane by Jack Schafer, True Grit by Charles Portis, the novella “A Man Called Horse” by Dorothy M. Johnson, Ride the Wind by Lucia St. Clair Robson, and All My Sins Remembered by Rod Miller.

What? If that last bit surprises you, imagine my surprise when I saw it. About the book, Estleman writes, among other things, “Miller tells his story with a minimum of emotion and just the right amount of pathos, masterfully expressed between the lines of his spare prose. A 2022 release, All My Sins Remembered is a late addition to the long string of Western classics and promises that it’s nowhere near its end.”

By happenstance, when the article appeared I had just started proofreading the galleys for the pending paperback and eBook editions of All My Sins Remembered, due out within the next couple of months. The hardcover edition is still out there and will be, I hope, for a long, long time.