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Murphy's Rainbow BLOGS

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This collection of BLOGs is dedicated to Murphy's Rainbow which first appeared as a women's fiction novel published by Harper Collins back in 1993. It went on to win the National Reader's Choice Award for best Historical of 1993 and was a finalist for the prestigious RITA, romance's highest award. Murphy's Rainbow has enjoyed world-wide distribution and has been translated into French, Chinese and Russian. It is currently in its second print edition and is also available as downloadable e-book or as a book on tape.

In the Beginning....

Murphy’s Rainbow was the third book I wrote, though it was the first one to be published. When I wrote my first book Shadows in the Wind, I sent it to a friend who said I needed another character to increase the romantic tension. I created a brother. Now everybody likes Levi Cantrell, but I adore him! He had no more than walked onto the page than he started to take over the book. Luckily my heroine kept her head, preferring the handsome Cole Cantrell to his older brother Levi. It was obvious Levi had to go, so he rode off into the sunset and into his own book, Willow Creek. About halfway through Willow Creek I realized why I love him so much. He’s my husband! I hadn’t recognized him because Bru is a dairy farmer/truck driver not a six-foot something cowboy, but the personality is 100% my sweetie.

When I finished Willow Creek, I still felt I hadn’t told the entire Cantrell story, somehow. I got to thinking about a housekeeper named Mrs. Murphy who was in Shadows in the Wind. It suddenly occurred to me that she wasn’t the housekeeper; she was Cole and Levi’s stepmother! With that in mind, I went back and wrote Murphy’s Rainbow, the story of Kate Murphy and their father Jonathan Cantrell.

CHAPTER 1

BLOG #1 Bryan Murphy

When I set out to write Murphy's Rainbow, my first problem was how to get Kate to the middle of Wyoming. The obvious answer, to me anyway, was the Oregon Trail. So Kate and Bryan Murphy were on their way to start a new life in Oregon on what was probably the last wagon train to travel the Oregon Trail. The transcontinental railroad was completed later that year and made the wagon trains obsolete.

Then I had to do away with Kate’s husband, Bryan. There were so many choices, typhoid fever, dysentery, pneumonia, accidents, the list seemed endless. It had to be something very quick so they wouldn’t have time to prepare, there had to be a reason for the wagon train to leave Kate behind, and it had to be something that Kate could be exposed to without catching it.

The answer? Cholera. It is caused by contaminated water, so if Kate didn’t drink the same water she wouldn’t catch it. Cholera can kill in a matter of hours, and since they didn’t know what caused it back in 1869, people were pretty squeamish about it. Leaving the Murphys behind was not out of line at all. The symptoms include vomiting, severe diarrhea, dehydration, skin cool to the touch, and shallow or hurried breathing. In the final stages, the eyes appear sunken and dehydration is so severe that the body, especially the face, hands and feet, appear wasted.

You know, I never had time to get to know Bryan Murphy, he was gone by page five, but whenever I read that scene I get tears in my eyes!

BLOG #2 Horse Creek

I have been asked many times if Horse Creek, Wyoming is a real place. There is a tiny town in the southern part of the state named Horse Creek, and there are at least a dozen creeks of varying sizes all over Wyoming with the name. My Horse Creek, however, is fictitious. It was created when I wrote Shadows in the Wind, my first book.

As most writers, I drew from my own life. You see, I grew up on one of those little Horse Creeks, on the ranch that my great grandparents homesteaded in 1887. The ranch I created for the Cantrells was set on that same land with an incredible view of the Big Horn Mountains and a pretty little creek running down through it. That’s where the similarity ended.

The Cantrell ranch was probably three times the size of the Lampman ranch. We raised cattle and sheep but the Cantrells in that first book were into horses. I couldn’t very well have a creek called Horse Creek running down through a horse ranch; it’s just too obvious. Nor could I use the name of the real town. Shell wasn’t even there yet. So I combined the towns of Shell and Greybull, put a railroad through it and named it Horse Creek.

Since the town of Horse Creek was established in Shadows in the Wind, all I had to do was back it up sixteen years and think what it would have been like in 1869.

CHAPTER 2

BLOG #3 Saloons

This is one of those places where I tapped into my experience to help me get the setting "right". I needed a saloon and that saloon needed a name. When I was growing up my hometown had four bars, The Silver Spur, The Branding Iron, The Smokehouse and The Hanging Tree. While all are terribly western sounding and could easily fit into an old West setting, I always thought the Silver Spur had the classiest name. I tweaked it a little so it wasn’t TOO obvious, and the Golden Spur was born.

To describe the interior of the Golden Spur, I used a saloon at South Pass City in Wyoming. South Pass City is a National Historic site and well worth the side trip if you are on your way to Yellowstone or Jackson. They have restored many of the old buildings and made it a living history museum. My saloon is one of those.


The most noticeable item, at least to Kate, was the picture over the bar. The real one hangs over an identical bar in South Pass City and is exactly as I describe it except for one detail that Kate wouldn’t have noticed. The style in the 1800’s was for much heftier women than are in fashion now. The two “ladies” in the paining are not only naked, they are...well…downright fat!

When I took my 4th graders there on a field trip this spring, they noticed the picture right away, of course, and were thoroughly grossed out! In retrospect their reactions wasn’t that much different than Kate’s.

BLOG# 4 The Heroine and Supporting Cast

This chapter is all about characterization. It is where I began to build all my characters, especially Kate. I needed to show a contrast between the practical down-to-earth Kate the world saw and the beautiful sexy woman who lurked within.

Most heroines are lovely, lithe creatures that retain their beauty through nasty weather, run-ins with bad guys and every hardship fate throws their way; even sequels can’t fade their beauty. I decided to change that.

Of all my heroines, I think Kate might be my favorite simply because she is the most like me, or rather what I wish I were. Kate describes herself as plain, and I suppose she is, though I think she just doesn’t bother to primp and fuss with her appearance. I figured there needed to be something that made her attractive to the opposite sex. That’s why I gave her an hourglass figure. Though they have fallen out of favor now, back in the 1800’s an hourglass figure was what every girl wanted. Even up into the 1960’s and early 1970’s it was considered the pinnacle of female beauty. (Think Marilyn Monroe, Jane Mansfield, and Elizabeth Taylor). I loved the way Kate looked in that dress almost as much as I loved her horrified reaction to it. I had as much fun with Kate’s makeover as Rosie and Frenchie.

I always have a lot of fun with my secondary characters. Some only have small parts and never amount to much, while others grow into characters nearly as complex as the hero and heroine. Many appear in more than one story ,and some have even warrented their own book.

When I wrote about Kate’s first job, I didn’t give much thought to her coworkers. Yet from the first, Rosie and Frenchie became two distinct personalities. I found them both quite useful in later scenes so don’t be surprised when they keep popping up.

As is the case with many characters in this book, Rosie first appeared in SHADOWS IN THE WIND. She is mentioned in passing as a friend of Kate's. To be honest with you, I don't recall if she made the final cut in all the rewriting, so I'm not sure she exists in the final version. Still, I already knew her background and fleshing her out was easy and kind of fun.

Rosie is open-hearted, and kind to strangers in need, though she also possess a liberal dose of independance and sheer gutsiness. She's part philosopher, part cinic, and part mother hen. In retrospect, I think she bears more than a passing resemblance to Miss Kitty on the TV classic, Gunsmoke. This was the first time I used Miss Kitty as the basis of a character but not the last. Angel in MEADOWLARK started out much the same, though she soon took on her own distinctly different personality. Apparently, there is something about the character of Miss Kitty that strikes a chord in me somewhere.

I'm not sure why I named my second saloon girl Frenchie. It probably had something to do with the fact that it was a popular name among the women in her profession. Though I’m especially fond of my Frenchie’s accent, the name usually had to do with certain...specialties the woman was willing to perform for her customers. Since this is not an Erotica, I didn't delve into it, but in the back of my mind I knew that Frenchie was a bit kinky for her day and age. At one point I even tried to change her name, but Frenchie would have none of it. So I gave her a fake French accent and wondered how many of my readers would see the name and know the truth.

Then there are the characters that walk onto the page fully fleshed out. Charlie Hobbs was one of those; in fact he was the first. Like Rosie,he was born in SHADOWS IN THE WIND so I actually knew him pretty well by this book. When he first appeared in SHADOWS IN THE WIND as a slightly-past-middle-aged cowhand, he immediately took on a life of his own. I knew the way he walked, the way he talked, even the stories he told.

Since then, I’ve learned that when this happens I need to look around and see who I’m writing about because sure as shootin’ it’s someone I know. In this case, it was my grandfather.

Grandpa was born the year after Wyoming became a state (1891) and lived his whole life on the ranch his father homesteaded. He liked the cattle and sheep, but he loved the horses. He broke his last one when he was 77 using the same methods Charlie does in SHADOWS IN THE WIND. When I was little, shows like Bonanza and Gun Smoke were popular on TV. I remember telling my dad I couldn’t wait until I grew up so I could go out West and meet a real cowboy. My dad just laughed and said, “Go take a look at your grandfather. Cowboys don’t get any more real than that!”

Grandpa wasn’t one to tell stories, though. That part of Charlie’s character is my father-in-law. Pete was always telling tall tales and joking around. When Charlie tells a story it’s probably one I got from Pete. Some were true, others so ridiculous that you couldn’t help but laugh. I’ll be sharing those stories with you as we come to them in future issues.

Then there is Jonathan Cantrell. What an entrance! Leave it Jonathan to be…. but I’m getting ahead of myself. I really can’t say more without ruining the next chapter so I’ll stop here. Until next time…

CHAPTER 3

BLOG #5 A Hero to Fall For

In the last BLOG we looked at Kate Murphy. Now it’s Jonathan Cantrell’s turn. Ah yes, Jonathan. He’s one of my favorite characters, but then all my heroes are. I was asked once if I fall in love with my heroes. Of course I do. To date I have had nine heroes, and I’ve fallen in love with each and every one of them. I have to; if I don’t you won’t either. Jonathan was especially fun. Here’s this stunning, intelligent man with a great sense of humor and winning personality all wrapped up in a body to die for, in short everything any woman would love in a man. And then I gave him dimples.

Years ago, a good friend of mine introduced me a man she had described as breath- taking. When we finally met, I was surprised. He was kind of cute in a boy-next door sort of way, but certainly nothing to write home about. Then he smiled and a dimple appeared in either cheek. Oh my! Breath-taking didn’t even begin to describe it. I’d wanted to use those dimples as long as I’d been creating characters, but they never really worked on anyone else. For Jonathan they were perfect!

I find the more I write the more I sharpen my writing skills. Jonathan Cantrell taught me something odd about characterization. It is a character’s faults that make them likable, not their positive traits or talents. Jonathan was too good to be true so I gave him a wicked sense of humor, which gets him trouble with Kate right off the bat. I also made him a touch arrogant; as handsome as he is he’d almost have to be. The rest of his faults… well you’ll see them as the story progresses, and I predict each one will make him seem a bit more human.

Most romances have handsome heroes and beautiful heroines. As you saw with Kate in the last Blog, I decided to play around with that a little. Every woman who sees Jonathan Cantrell is instantly smitten. Everyone, that is except Kate. She finds his good looks intimidating which is exactly how meeting a man who looked like Jonathan would affect me. Since she doesn’t fall instantly at Jonathan’s feet, she piques his interest. If you’ll notice, the fascination in their initial meeting is mostly Jonathan’s. Kate finds him attractive, of course, but he sets her inner warning bells clanging loudly. So we have a drop dead gorgeous hero that is attracted to a plain-Jane heroine. Now who’s fantasy do you suppose that is?

What about a story with a beautiful heroine and an average-looking hero? Actually that was my next book, MEADOWLARK. The hero is a gentle giant, kind of like a buffed-out Hoss Cartwright and the other love interest is Fabio. I loved the idea of Hoss going up against Fabio and Hoss getting the girl in the end. But I digress, back to MURPHY’S RAINBOW.

Time for a bit of science/human anatomy. A blush is caused an infusion of blood under the skin. Nothing earthshaking there. However, did you know that a blush starts on the stomach and travels upward? (Or so they say. I’ve never really checked- being too embarrassed at the time to look). That’s why Kate reacts to Jonathan’s teasing the way she does and puts on the “show” he finds so fascinating. It was just one of those little tidbits I couldn’t resist using. Writing is such fun!

BLOG # 6 The Triple C Bar

First impressions are important. It’s human nature to judge things by the way they look the first time you see them. So I gave some thought to the Cantrell homestead. I wanted to portray a dream in process.

The house was easy. It was a building I had seen every day of my youth, a left over remnant of the 19th century, and the house where my grandfather was born in 1891. It was a small three-room log cabin with a sod roof. The cabin was built of logs because pine was plentiful in the nearby Big Horn Mountains. Roofing, however, was not. Ever resourceful, my great-grandparents used the next best thing, sod. As a roofing material is was superior to most at the time. With a layer of tarpaper underneath, it was waterproof, wind proof, fire proof, and had a very high insulation factor.

The most impressive part of the building was the plants that grew there. The cactus was my favorite. The prickly pear is not an especially pretty plant and has a zillion nasty spines, which make it even less appealing. But on wet years it blooms and is one of the prettiest wild flowers around. The petals are yellow, and vary from a daffodil yellow almost salmon in hue. Those on the roof were brighter than most and made a very pretty display. The cactus wasn’t the only surprise though. I remember my father pointing out the grass that grew there as well. It was the native grass that had been growing on the prairie when the house was built and has long since disappeared from the surrounding landscape. As far as I know that roof is the only place it still grows.

Though the building was once the family home, in my time we called it the saddle shop because that’s what we stored there. It always had three or four saddles, saddle blankets, bridles, old harnesses, kegs of nails and horseshoes along with the equipment my grandfather used when it was time to shoe the horses. Now that I think about it, I suppose that’s why the saddles and tack wound up in Kate’s kitchen.

The rest of the ranch is imaginary though the large “shed” that figures prominently in the next two issues is real and was still in use until we left the ranch in 1969. The windows in the house are mentioned in MEADOWLARK though the characters take little notice. I’m not really sure why I made them so large, but I suspect it’s just one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time.

CHAPTER 4

BLOG #7 Levi and Cole

Most people who know me and read MURPHY'S RAINBOW think the Cantrell boys are my oldest two sons. In some ways that’s true, particularly the way they fight all the time. Actually, they are a combination of my sons, my brothers, and a hundred boys between the ages of 9 and 12 that I have known in my 29 years of teaching.

Since Cole and Levi were both created as adult characters in other books, going back and recreating them as children was fun. Physically, I already knew what they looked like as adults and used them to create Jonathan. You probably noticed that the boys are named Levi and Bernie rather than Levi and Cole. At the time I wrote this book, Cole was not a popular name and I just couldn’t imagine a child named Cole.. It was one problem I thought I had to solve. Now, I can’t imagine why I thought it was so important. Since I wrote MURPHY’S RAINBOW I’ve had at least three Cole’s in my class and twice as many Levi’s.

Actually, one of the coolest things that ever happened to me as a writer came about because of the names. Several years ago, a young woman came to one of my book signings with a small child. We chatted for a moment or two while I signed her book. Then she lifted up her baby, gave me a great big smile and said, “I’d like you to meet Levi. He’s named after Levi Cantrell.”

I was flabbergasted! She said she had been reading the Cheyenne Trilogy during her pregnancy and was thoroughly enjoying it. When the doctor told her there was a possibility of twins, she had decided then and there to name them Levi and Cole. Though it turned out not to be twins she decided to keep the name Levi anyway.
You may be aware that in my other life I am a fourth grade teacher. I’m not exactly sure how old “Levi” is right now, but I’m thinking he’s got to be getting close to 4th grade. I have no idea if his family even still lives here, but every year when I get my student list, I scan it looking for Levi. What a kick it would be to get to know him on a personal level.

POST SCRIPT- Reports cards were due the week I posted this. Our district had just installed a new computerized system and it had a few bugs. When they printed out my report cards I had an extra student. Though the computer thought he was in my class, I had never seen him. Since I teach in a 4th-5th building, there are six other 4th grade teachers. So I started making the rounds to see where the mysterious student really did belong. I found him two doors away in my friend Shannon's class. As I handed her the report card the name suddenly registered in my mind. LEVI!

As I said there have been any number of Levi's come through the system, but for some reason I decided to check this one out, probably because I had just posted this story to the web.

"Where is he?" I asked my friend. She pointed out a tall, dark-haired boy. I walked over and introduced myself. “I’m Mrs. Brubaker, but I write books as Carolyn Lampman.”

He started to grin. “My mom reads your books.”

I grinned back. "And you were named after one of my characters weren't you?" I asked.

He nodded and I told him the story of the book signing where I had met him and we'd had our picture taken together. I’m pretty sure I was more excited about the meeting than he was. Still, it was great fun to see him as a boy about the same age as a Levi Cantrell. From what Shannon says he's more like Cole than Levi or even Cole's son Josh from SHADOWS IN THE WIND. He definitely looks more like Cole or Josh.

So I finally got to meet Levi. If the computer hadn’t goofed up, I’d have missed him completely. I can't help but wonder about the coincidence of that. It was the only student out of almost 400 that wound up in the wrong class. Why him and why in my class? You have to wonder.

CHAPTER 5

Issue #8 Mini Marauder

Personally, I like prairie dogs. They’re kind of cute little critters and their natural curiosity means if there are any around, you’ll see them. They like to sit at the top of their burrows watching everybody and everything. But the truth is prairie dogs do not mix well with ranching. For one thing their holes are a real hazard to animals like cows and horses who have a tendency to step in them and break legs. They also have a bad habit of eating the same vegetation as the ranch stock. Generally when homesteaders moved in, the prairie dogs moved out.

When my great grandparents first settled on the Horse Creek ranch there was a prairie dog town that covered at least 5 acres. By the time I was born nearly seventy years later they were all gone. My father remembered trapping them as a kid, and so did my grandfather, but that wasn’t what did them in. About ten years before I was born some sort of a plague swept through the county and all the prairie dogs disappeared.. I regret I never got to see the prairie dog town in its glory. Perhaps that’s why I decided to include prairie dogs when I created the Cantrell ranch and to have a prairie dog create havoc at some point.

While I was writing Murphy’s Rainbow, one of my critique partners went to visit friends in another part of the state. She returned bubbling over with amusement. It seemed that the two boys of the family had taken to branding prairie dogs with little branding irons they fashioned out of bailing wire. When she told me the story it was like kismet and the whole scene came together in my mind.

Frankly, I love the prairie dog scene and the resulting chaos. Until next time….

Blog #9 When the Characters Take Over

One of my favorite things to write is dialogue. This probably doesn’t come as a great surprise since my characters seem to spend most of their time talking. I’ve been told that it is what I do best and have been asked to share my secret. The truth is, I don’t have a secret. All I do is eavesdrop on what my characters are saying in my head and write down what they say

I can hear you thinking “All right, Lampman’s lost it. She’s hearing voices in her head now! Actually I don’t quite hear them. I just imagine conversations between characters and put it down on paper. Like real conversations, my characters never say quite what I was expecting them to. Jonathan’s comment about his neck and Kate’s reply were a complete surprise to me, but I loved the interaction between the two of them.

Up until this scene I was in charge. I was the one that set up the action, manipulated the circumstances and told my characters what to do. From here on out Kate and Jonathan took over the story and told me what to write. You will notice they are becoming more and more complex, especially Jonathan. I will take responsibility for the story up to this point. However, from here on in, you can blame most of it on Kate and Jonathan, and the rest on the boys.

Blog # 10 Names

This chapter is all about names. I find myself compelled to make a confession here. Abigail Kline exists only to fulfill my inner need for revenge. She is modeled after a real person who shall remain nameless, but has been my nemesis for years.. Every time I write about Abigail and her nasty ways, I get a surge of satisfaction. It’s sort of like thumbing my nose at the real person without her knowing. That’s one of the great perks of writing, you can get back at your enemies. She was NOT named after my first editor, by the way. That Abigail and I got along very well. In fact the person Abigail Kline is modeled after isn’t named Abigail, nor would anyone recognize her from the description.

Then there’s Bernie’s name change. This piece of the story comes from my own family. As I said before, I really don’t know why I thought Cole’s name would be such a problem. In retrospect it seems silly to have even worried about it. Still, I felt compelled to come up with a more childlike name for the youngest Cantrell. I don’t recall how I came up with the name Colburn, but as soon as I did, I knew it would work well for a surname as well. Of course the problem with being given a family name is that the recipient rarely appreciates it.

My middle brother was named after a favorite uncle. It is a family name that everyone likes and respects…everyone, that is, except my brother Francis. He lived with it, defended it even, the whole time he was growing up. Then he went to college and ran into a girl named Frances. The day a teacher mixed up their tests, my brother became Frank.

I’ll admit it was hard for me to change. I mean, I’d called him Francis for nineteen years! He convinced us to use his new name very quickly, though. He simply stopped answering to “Francis”. If you wanted to talk to him, you called him Frank. Though I slipped every now and then at the beginning, within a year he was Frank and so he remains today.

What about the uncle he was named after? Well, Uncle Francis said he never could understand what my mother was thinking when she saddled one of her children with that name anyway. He went by Smitty.

CHAPTER 6

BLOG #11 Bathing

Americans are obsessed with cleanliness. A daily bath or shower is the norm and catering to our personal hygiene is a multi-billion dollar business. It is also a fairly recent development. In fact, in the not too distant past, bathing too often was considered a health hazard by some.

Fifty years ago a single bathroom for five or six people was considered adequate. Now we feel cramped if we have to share with more than one. A hundred years ago the concept of the “bathroom” as we know it didn’t even exist in rural America. The toilet was a privy outside, preferably downwind from the house.

Bathing itself was usually done in the washtub in front of the fire. The first person in the tub got the clean water; the second used his, and so it went until the last person had bathed. Since families were large and bath days few and far between, one can only imagine what the water must have looked like at the end. The youngest was often the last to bathe, and the water probably murky at best, hence the phrase “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”

The hipbath made things somewhat different at the Cantrell household. First of all, it was a luxury way out in the West. Unlike the washtub it was made to accommodate the human body. It was shaped somewhat like a washtub with a high back and a cutout for the knees in front. The bather sat in the hip-bath with their knees and feet dangling over the side and their back leaning up against the back. Not what we would consider comfortable, perhaps, but a vast improvement over the washtub that put your knees up under your chin.

I did see another version of a bathing tub from the 19th century at the Ivinson mansion in Laramie Wyoming. It was built long and narrow to accommodate the bather’s feet and legs. It was so narrow at the upper end that I can’t imagine how anyone fit in it. People were smaller in the eighteen hundreds of course, with the average man about the same height as the average woman is now, (somewhere around 5’6”) but still…

Ok, I admit I took poetic license having the boys bathing before their father. It was an obvious plot contrivance, for which I’m not even going to apologize. I try very hard to maintain historical accuracy, but sometimes it just isn’t possible. The sexual tension produced by that particular scene was the whole point of the chapter. Jonathan’s teasing simply wouldn’t have worked with his sons as an audience. Instead of blushing and running to her bedroom, Kate would have boxed his ears!

Blog #12 Clay and Gallahad

Clay Langton exits for the sole purpose of owning a beautiful white stallion. See, my husband’s grandfather…. Well never mind that for now. You’ll find out why the horse is important somewhat later in the book. I don’t recall where I got the name Clay, but I do know where Langton came from. In the book Shadows in the Wind, Sally Langton is the vivacious widow of a close neighbor of the Cantrells and Cole’s love interest before the heroine, Stephanie, burst upon the scene. She was beautiful, wealthy, and Kate’s bitter enemy.

Only one thing could cause such deep dislike between two women who were quite obviously from different generations…a man The obvious candidate was Sally’s dead husband. All I knew about his was that he was significantly older than Sally, had built a fortune in the West and had some rather spectacular heirloom jewelry that had been in his family for many generations. After a particularly strenuous bout of love-making the adult Cole speculated whether the elderly Mr. Langton had died of exhaustion. So I needed the kind of man who had a family history of wealth and sophistication but would come to the West in the early days and still be attractive to a much younger woman. I knew almost immediately he was a gentleman raised in the wealthy aristocracy of the South before the War. The Civil War had destroyed his family and his home so he came west looking for a fresh start.

Though I invented him to facilitate a story from my husband’s family history, he became a most useful character. From the moment Clay Langton and his horse Gallahad trotted into Kate’s life there was a spark of interest between the two. I have no idea why his hair was prematurely gray, but I suspect it was because I have always loved the color of my mother-in-law’s hair. Though I met her in her early fifties, her hair was already a gorgeous silver. For some reason, the image of such hair on a handsome middle-aged man was quite appealing.

As the relationship between Kate and Clay developed, his character became more and more complex and I found myself really liking the guy. I was almost sorry to know that he was eventually going to marry the vindictive Sally Langton of Shadows in the Wind. I guess that’s why when I rewrote Shadows, I had Kate grudgingly admit that Sally did make Clay happy. I even set it up in this book. But that comes later, about the same time that the white horse becomes important…

CHAPTER 7

BLOG # 13 Jonathan's Bedroom

This chapter further develops Jonathan’s character and there are a big surprises both for Kate and for me. I had no idea that he considered himself an artist, for instance, or what he did before he became a rancher. The picture didn’t surprise me, but where Kate found it did.

The secretary in his bedroom was a bit of a surprise too, though I know exactly where it came from. It sits in my house and once belonged to my mother who inherited it from her Aunt Alice who in turn inherited it from her Aunt Ethel. A secretary, for those of you who are not familiar with the term, is a drop-front desk with a built-in bookcase on top.

The bookcase on mine has glass doors and a fancy brass lock. It isn’t filled with books though, and I’ve never seen it when it was. My mother and I both put the family crystal behind the glass doors. Aunt Alice probably filled it with books but I don’t remember ever seeing it. I was pretty young when she sold her house and moved to a retirement community; too young to notice boring things like desks and bookcases.

There are two drawers below the drop front with brass handles. As I recall, I discovered they were brass about the time I wrote this scene. I tend to get distracted by odd things when I’m writing, particularly when I get stuck. This was one of those times. One day when I was trying to decide what came next in the story, I happen glance at the at the drawer handles of the secretary. It occurred to me that they might not really brown as I had always thought. I hunted down some brass/copper cleaner to test out my theory. Viola, they were a gorgeous gold color underneath years of tarnish. It took a screwdriver to remove them and lots of elbow grease to get those handles back to the original beauty. Then I went after the locks on the desk front and the bookcase. I wasn’t quite as successful with them, but in the end I was really proud of the change I had wrought. By the time I had finished, I knew what happened next in my story and went back to my computer.

I guess I was preoccupied with the secretary when I was writing this scene and that’s probably why it wound up in the book. You’ll notice I didn’t describe it exactly in the story. The one I have is a reproduction dating back to the 1920’s, but there were several original styles from various time periods. As with lots of little plot twists in this story, we’ll come back to the secretary later on, and you’ll find out its history.

Writing this made me glance over my shoulder at the secretary which is now right outside my office door. It’s been so long since I wrote this scene that the handles are starting to turn brown again. Funny how I never noticed it until just now.

Anyway, I hope this scene piqued your curiosity a bit and made Jonathan seem a little more real even if it added to his mystery. I loved the way he kept evolving as I wrote. Now, if you excuse me, I need to go find a screwdriver and some brass cleaner.

BLOG #14 Historical Trivia

This chapter was something of an experiment for me. A friend of mine challenged me to see just how much incidental historical information could I actually stick into a scene without destroying it. I’m not even sure why I took the challenge though I do remember it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I love the research and all of the interesting facts I dig up in the process. Those facts skillfully woven into the story are one of the things that make historical fiction popular. Never underestimate an avid Historical Romance Reader in a game of historical trivia. They have almost as much fun learning tidbits of history a book as the author does putting them in! The tough part is figuring out what to use and what to stick back into the folder and save for next time.

Even so, one of the quickest ways I know to lose a reader is to put in too much historical information. Though I might find it all fascination, chances are good my readers won’t be nearly as enthralled. It’s kind of like cooking with spices. Too little and it is dull and uninteresting. Too much and it completely covers what the main focus was in the first place. But with just the right amount it becomes a treat to savor and enjoy. I usually wind up putting in about a fourth of what I would like. I usually start with a trip to Grun’s Timetables of History (a resource book that gives snippets of what was going on in any particular year.) It turned that Kate lived in a pretty amazing time and there were some very exciting things going on. I don’t know recall how I hit upon the idea of the old newspapers, but it was truly an inspiration. Pay attention as Jonathan shares bits and pieces of his papers, and you will find yourself absorbing some history. It could come in handy some day. Who knows, you might even wind up on a game show.

CHAPTER 8

BLOG #15 Brothers

This is one of those times when I was very glad I had a copy editor. When I got back the copyedits she pointed out a discrepancy that might have really jolted my readers. At the beginning Partick’s eyes were a deep velvety brown, but by the end they had mysteriously changed to blue. Even his build seemed different. He went from short and stocky to thin and wiry.

I was shocked. Consistency is something I pride myself on. How could I have goofed so badly? Heck I’d even used my brother as a model. Then it hit me. That’s exactly what went wrong.

When I first described Patrick I saw him as my older brother, Louie, hence stocky broad-shouldered build and velvety brown eyes. By the end of the book, Patrick had changed to my middle brother, Frank, who has a wiry build and blue eyes. I’m not exactly sure why it happened, but I’m guessing it had to do with the kind of person Patrick turned out to be.

Frank has always been something of a rebel, and of my three brothers, the one most likely to spit in the eye of a man like Bullwhip Johnson. Louie would probably buy him a beer and talk his way out of it. He’s like my father that way.

Actually, Patrick is sort of a combination of all three of my brothers. My third brother, Eric, was in college studying business when I wrote Murphy’s Rainbow. That piece of Patrick’s personality you won’t get until later in the book. Of course, none of my brothers recognized themselves and will probably be rather surprised to find out that Patrick was modeled after them. But then I was kind of surprised to discover how much of Kate Murphy’s personality comes from my own. Maybe that’s why her brother is a combination of all three of mine!

BLOG #16 Levi and Jughead

I’ve never actually known any mules personally. We never had any on the ranch and, come to think of it, neither did any of our neighbors. We all took two to three hundred pounds of salt up the mountain several times during the summer for the cattle, but we packed it on horses not mules.

I’m really not sure why Jughead is so cantankerous or why he has it in for Levi. I did know that there had been a mule in Levi’s youth, and that they hadn’t gotten along very well. He’d mentioned it in Willow Creek.

Foreshadowing, or giving clues to what is going to happen later in the story, is much easier when you know what the end result will be. All I had to do was build toward that offhand remark Levi would make two books later. It turned out to be surprisingly easy. No one has ever complained about Jughead so I guess he’s all right.


Though Levi and Jughead are the main focus of this issue, the relationship between Kate and Jonathan begins to deepen here. It is very difficult to build sexual tension between the main characters without being too heavy-handed. It is a delicate balance that is easily upset. Though some writers use a love(or hate)-at-first-sight scenario, I like to build mine gradually.

As a reader you just know that the spark that flashes between them in this issue will soon become a sizzle. When I wrote it I thought it was a great bit of sexual tension. From the vantage point of six books later, and zillions of revisions, it seems a tad-heavy handed, and I can think of several ways of improving it. Ah well live and learn.

CHAPTER 9

Blog #17 You Kill it You Eat It

The father of a good friend of mine lost his mother at an early age. As a result, he and his three brothers were raised by housekeeper. From what I gather, she was something of a character. Her philosophy was “waste not want not”. Early on she told the boys they had to eat whatever they shot. As the boys grew, they became expert marksmen and a steady stream of odd animals made it into the stew pot, though as I recall the story a skunk was the last straw.

The story has always tickled me, and I knew it was just the sort of thing Levi and Cole would do. A great idea for a scene popped into my head, and I started planning for it. This seemed to perfect place to do a little foreshadowing. I tried to write it so that the reader is hardly aware of Kate promising to cook anything they brought in. It’s one of those tid-bits of information that seems irrelevant at the time but holds great significance later in the book. I suppose I’ve got you wondering now. Don’t worry, your curiosity will soon be satisfied. So, until next time…

Blog #18 Charlie's Ploy

I do love Charlie! To date, he’s been one of my most useful characters. I can’t really recall where this thread came from which is odd since it’s such an important one. I think maybe it was just one of those things that happened. Like Kate, I thought it was Jonathan who had come to interrupt the picnic until Charlie showed up. I had planned some kind of cute little by play to get Kate away from Clay, and had even toyed with the idea of having it blow up in Jonathan’s face. I had no clue what Charlie was up to.

So I just let it go to see where it would lead me. These are some of the most exciting times for writers, and some of the most frustrating. When the story takes off on its own, and you’re not sure where it’s going you know you’re in the “zone”. You have built your characters so well that they take on a life of his or her own. There’s an almost magical feel to it as the words flow from your head and you really aren’t sure what’s coming. It’s sort of like exploring a new forest path; you have no idea what wonderful thing is just around the corner.

It can be horribly frustrating too. For one thing it can take off on a tangent that will eventually short circuit your story. I might be able to carry on for awhile but the story usually comes to a grinding halt and I can’t force the words to come. When that happens I back up to where it was flowing and take a hard look at what changed.

I used this scene to set the stage for Kate later telling Jonathan about the baby but that’s all. I was just as curious nervous about what was in that cabin as Kate was. I had to wait until she opened the door to find out what was going on…And so will you. Until next time…

CHAPTER 10

BLOG #19 Moonflower

Character names are very important in any novel. The way a name looks in print affects the vision your reader has of the character. It’s one of the reasons I do a thorough character chart before I begin writing. Suddenly I had a character I hadn’t been expecting and needed a name for her. I wanted something that sounded pretty and delicate. It also had sound Native American.

I live on an Indian reservation and hear Indian names all the time. Many of my Native American students have surnames that reflect the name of an ancestor. Spoonhunter, Wallowing Bull, Whiteplume, After Buffalo, and Standing Elk are all common names around here. Female names are things like Cloud Woman, Blue Sky Woman, or Little Otter. The names are descriptions of things they were familiar with, things they saw everyday.

There are no moon flowers in Wyoming. I don’t even know if they exist anywhere in the world. An Indian woman named Moonflower? I doubt it. And yet it fit my character perfectly. You can’t help but picture a delicate beauty. Though it isn’t a “real” Native American name, it sounds like it is and reader will never forget Moonflower is Native American.

I had no idea where Moonflower came from or what kind of importance she might have in the story. As it turned out she came in very handy on more than one occasion. Her story, which I promise will be revealed before the end of the serial, is an interesting one that you will watch unfold the same way I did, one tiny piece at a time.

CHAPTER 11

Blog #20 First Kiss

This scene has two purposes. First, to build sexual tension, a necessary part of any successful romance. I always like the first kiss to come as something of a surprise to both the hero and heroine. I don’t really know why, I’m not sure such a thing even truly exists. I know I never got a surprise kiss that took my breath away. I have had a few breath-stealing kisses and a couple that were knee weakening, but I don’t recall any of them being a surprise. Be that as it may, there is something terribly romantic about the chemistry between two people being so strong that it pulls them together and overwhelms their senses. I get all warm and mushy every time it happens. I suppose it’s one of the reasons I write romance.

Kate and Jonathan’s kiss, though, was something of a surprise. I knew it was going to happen but I didn’t know the catalyst was going to be a life-and-death-situation. Jughead came through for me though and that brings me to the second reason for this scene. Jughead.

Jughead is a cantankerous, unpredictable menace, and this scene cements that permanently into your mind. Remember I told you there was one thread in particular that I regretted letting the powers that be edit out? Well, this incident foreshadows a scene later on that is the pivotal part of that thread. Curious? I hope so. Until next time…

BLOG #21 Soap for Dinner

I remember my grandmother and her sister making soap once when I was tiny. About all I recall is them dumping ashes and fat into a huge kettle and cooking it. I know I asked for a taste which they found quite amusing. The only other memory I have of the incident was the smell. It was almost as bad as when they decided to make homemade horseradish sauce. That one made my eyes burn!

I love the story of the Indians! As with many of the most unbelievable tales in my writing, this one is true. I found it in a book of stories about the Old West. I’m not positive, but I think it was by Dee Brown, an excellent historian who writes wonderful books about all kinds of things in the West. You may well have seen him on television as he is frequently used as an expert on the History channel. I enjoy reading his material. It’s always entertaining, informative and full of stories like this one.

The story of the Indians went pretty much the way I told it in Murphy’s Rainbow only I think the Indians were Pawnee and the woman was too hysterical to offer them bread. This tale from the past proves once again, truth is stranger than fiction!.

CHAPTER 12

Blog #22 Suffrage

Wyoming is known as the Equality State because it was the first state to give women the right to vote. What many don’t realize is that women were given that right twenty years before Wyoming became a state. The first Territorial Legislature convened in the fall of 1870. They were taxed with the job of creating a government for the newly formed Wyoming Territory. In my research I found all kinds of interesting little tid-bits, like the fact that the territory was originally part of Nebraska Territory and deciding who was going to be in charge was a hot topic for at least two American presidents.

That’s one of the tough parts about writing historical fiction. There are so many wonderful pieces of information that you want to use them all. You can’t. If you give in to the temptation, it will sound like a history book, your story will lose momentum and you will almost certainly lose readers. Everything in this story about the territorial legislature from the governor right up to how the woman’s suffrage bill got pushed through is true. I tried to weave it in using dialog. The folks around at the time almost certainly had discussions about what was going on.

One piece I was only able to allude to deserves more attention here. There is a story that Esther Morris of South Pass City had a tea party one afternoon and invited all the prospective legislatures. At the party, so the tale goes, she lobbied long and hard for giving women the right to vote and to own property. There is some speculation that the story is untrue, however William Bright of South Pass City did, indeed, introduce the bill to the legislature.

As for Esther Morris. That’s the best of all. When the law was eventually passed, the justice of the peace from South Pass City was incensed. He was so angry, in fact, that he said the day a woman could do his job, he’d hand it right over to her without a squawk. Esther Morris stepped forward and got the job, becoming the first female justice of the peace in the country perhaps even the world. She held the post for 18 months and meted out justice with intelligence and fairness.

BLOG #23 Until Death Do Us Part

This issue was supposed to be about Kate, but wound up revealing more about Jonathan. Murphy’s Rainbow is certainly not the first romance to involve previously married characters. What is somewhat unusual though, in that both of those pervious marriages were love matches. Usually at least one of the main characters has had a bad experience and it is up the other to “heal” the wound. For Kate and Jonathan that is not the case.

I hadn’t really thought about it when I started the story, but somehow both Brian Murphy and Mary Cantrell turned out to be sympathetic characters. It made the plotting somewhat difficult in that I couldn’t depend on tried and true formulas. The problem that kept Kate and Jonathan apart was not that one had been burned by love. On the contrary, the problem was both were still in love with their dead spouse and had no desire to let go! It turned out to be a far more difficult problem to overcome in the long run.

Back to Jonathan. This scene shows a side of his personality we have never before suspected. He drinks to forget. Luckily he is a rather lovable drunk, and his tongue tends to loosen a bit. It is the first time he admits out loud that he finds Kate attractive, and the first time that he mentions the horrible secret that lurks in his past. It will be awhile before Kate (and the reader) truly understands what Jonathan is alluding to. Even I didn’t know it all at this point, though I did know about Mary. It’s one of those things that kind of developed with the story. Writing is such fun!

CHAPTER 13

BLOG #24 Snakes

What can I say? I LOVE this chapter. It’s one of my favorite scenes in this book. I told you earlier that I got the original idea from a story one of my friend’s father had told me. All I had to do was come up with something really obnoxious for them to bring in.

The rest of the scene came from trick my husband played on me. Several years ago my husband got a job about 400 miles away from home, near a large metropolitan area. On one of my trips to visit we went to a place called Furniture Row and I bought, among other things, a new desk for my office. It was/is a thing of beauty. It’s solid oak and is topped by a large hutch with several handy shelves and a small cupboard for odds and ends. Perfect for a writer. I’m still using it and still loving it.

It was delivered later in the week, after I had gone home and back to work. So it was at least two months before I actually got to take possession of it. That desk was all I could think of on the seven-hour trip to visit my husband, though of course I was anxious to see him too. When I arrived I discovered he’d set it all up for me complete with an office chair and an inviting display of pens, pencils and paper. As I explored my lovely new possession, I reached up and opened the cupboard. There, just inside the door was a HUGE coiled snake! I swear my eyes bugged out the way they do on cartoon characters, and I forgot to breathe. It was stuffed of course, which I realized within a few seconds but by then, the damage was done.

The snake, which I discovered later, is a nonpoisonous ruby boa, at first glace could pass for a rattlesnake. A friend gave it to my husband and told him to keep it until he got tired of it then pass it on.

He has had more fun with that darn snake. Every Halloween, for instance, it goes into a huge 10-quart stainless steel bowl that I have. Bru carefully buries everything but the head with candy and waits for the trick-or-treaters. The little ones he spares, but anyone over four feet tall is fair game. Sitting in my office I hear the same scene play out over and over. The doorbell rings, and I hear the traditional “Trick-or Treat!” Then I hear screams followed immediately by delighted giggles. The kids love it. In fact, they will often bring their friends and even parents back to see it.

The rest of the year, the snake sits by the door. We’ve had more than one salesman do a double- take and I even had one react so violently he hit the far wall. I’m sure that sometime in the future it will show up in one of my brothers’ Christmas boxes. In the meantime, it’s a well-known feature of the “Bru Zoo!”

CHAPTER 14

Blog #25 September Snow

Every so often we have an early September snowstorm. Though most don’t do much damage, there are some that dump a foot or more of heavy wet snow. If the trees have not yet dropped their leaves it can cause some real problems.

You never really think about it, but the leaves on the trees weigh a lot. I have no idea what the total “poundage” is but when I rake leaves in the fall I know those bags and bags of leaves that I carry to the composter are heavy! Add the extra weight of water and living tissue in a green leaf, as well as the broad surface to catch the snow and you have a recipe for disaster. Dozens and dozens of branches and limbs break under the extra weight. Fences, decks and even an occasional vehicle are smashed. Power lines break. Large, beautiful trees are destroyed and there is nothing you can do about it.

We had one such snowstorm as I was writing Murphy’s Rainbow. I sat in my nice warm house listening to the trees break outside and wrote this scene. It occurred to me about halfway through that in the days before electricity and expensive landscaping such a snowstorm could be more of an inconvenience than anything else.

Blog #26 GOLD!

This issue contains one of the three threads that holds the Cheyenne trilogy together. It is the most obscure of the three, and I have a suspicion that no one has picked it up. The gold shipment that Jonathan was guarding, and what happened to it, played an important part in Shadows in the Wind and Willow Creek as well as Murphy’s Rainbow.

The gold was on its way to St. Louis in payment for a shipment of pistons that had been purchased from Scott Manufacturing. They were traveling through Maryland when they were suddenly ambushed by several men wearing confederate uniforms. Taken by surprise, all of the Union soldiers except Jonathan were killed in the initial attack, but not before they managed wipe out most of the attacking forces.

Though Jonathan’s wound was not fatal, the shot knocked him unconscious. He came to just as the one remaining confederate triumphantly lifted the strongbox from the wagon. Jonathan fire two shots from his rifle before losing consciousness again. That much you know from issue #25. But there is more to the story.

The confederate soldier was mortally wounded but managed to make it to a small house on the edge of town where he hid in a woodshed unable to go on. An eleven year old boy, Cyrus Chandler, found him and the soldier begged the boy to hide the strongbox and keep it safe until he recovered. Cyrus did as he was told, but the soldier died before he could give the boy any other directions. Uncertain what to do, Cyrus broke open the strong box and discovered it was filled with gold bullion.

Since the Chandlers were trying not to take sides in the War Between the States, Cyrus didn’t know which side to give the gold to, and in the end wound up leaving it hidden. Twenty some years later, Cyrus would give a leather pouch full of that same gold to Levi Cantrell, and ask him to exchange it for money in South Pass City. Yes, the same Levi Cantrell who is appears in Murphy’s Rainbow. The gold is a very import part of WILLOW CREEK, which is Levi’s story.

Meanwhile, Ashton Scott, the owner and chief stockholder of Scott Manufacturing, waited in vain for the shipment of Yankee gold that would pay for the large order he had filled for the government. The loss of the gold nearly destroyed his company, in fact he had to devote every waking minute to keeping his business solvent. So much so, that his two young daughters, Stephanie and Elizabeth, are left to their own resources much of the time. As the girls reach adolescence, Elizabeth and Ashton clash and Elizabeth runs away from home. For the next ten years, loneliness is Stephanie’s constant companion. Finally, on Ashton’s death she goes looking for Elizabeth. An accident steals her memory and pitches her right into the arms of the devastatingly handsome Cole Cantrell. SHADOWS IN THE WIND is their story.

As Paul Harvey would say, “And now you know the rest of the story!”

CHAPTER 15

BLOG #27 Meg's Cloak

This was one of those things that just happened. I hadn’t given much thought to Kate’s wardrobe until it snowed. That’s when it occurred to me that all of Kate’s clothes would have burned up in the wagon including a winter coat. There were too few women in Horse Creek for Abigail to stock something as expensive as a cloak or pelisse and she certainly wouldn’t have stocked them for the women at the Golden Spur. Like Kate I started looking around for something for her to make a coat and hit upon the only solutions… a blanket.

I was just as surprised as Kate when Frenchie produced Meg’s cloak. I thought that would be the end of the matter, but it turned out to be one of those things that just kept surfacing in the story and wound up becoming a very important part of the plot. I love it when that happens. Until next time…

Blog #28 Tragedy

As you may have guessed, I am meticulous about my research. I’m almost obsessed with “getting it right”. My husband has been known to laugh at me more than once because I tend to get a little carried away with the need for accuracy. It’s a very vital part of my “writer’s voice” but it also made this scene very difficult for me to write.

I personally have been very fortunate when it came to pregnancy. I did have a miscarriage, but it was so early on that I didn’t even know I was pregnant. Though it provided me with the symptoms that Kate went through at the beginning, the finer points of what really happened were a complete mystery to me. I know people who have experienced it first hand but couldn’t bring myself to ask about something so devastating.

Now, of course, I’d just log on to the Internet and Google “miscarriage”, but back in the early 90’s the Internet was in it’s infancy, and I didn’t have access to it. I spent several days worrying about how I was going to write it and finally hit on a solution in the middle of the night. That’s why you see one of the most intensely emotional scenes of Kate’s life through Jonathan’s eyes rather than hers. He didn’t know what went on in that room either, and oddly enough, it works.

CHAPTER 16

Issue# 29 The Sweat

This scene that underwent extensive revision in the first version. My first publisher insisted that I remove all religious references from this chapter. They objected both to the reference to the Catholic missionaries and to the religious overtones of the whole “sweat” concept . In the Native American culture a sweat such as I have describe is a deeply spiritual experience, which is why Moonflower used it to heal Kate’s “spirit”.

As a new author, I was anxious to please the publisher, but had no idea how to remove the religious overtones of the ceremony. It would be sort of like trying to take religion out of a description of a Catholic mass or a Protestant sermon. Not impossible, but bound to have a negative effect on the scene.

My husband, who was a wild land firefighter at the time, had several friends on the ShoRap fire crew from the Windriver Indian Reservation. (The name ShoRap is derived from a combination of the two tribes that live there, the Arapahos and the Shoshones). They wound up together on a fire out in California, and Bru told one of them about my dilemma. After shaking his head over the odd perception of New York editors, he suggested I just make it a healing sweat rather than a spiritual one. I took his suggestion and the editor was satisfied. However when it came time to redo the scene for the serial, I decided to take the chance on inadvertently insulting someone and put the spiritual part back in. To me, it just makes more sense!

BLOG #30 The Skunk & the Bronc

This scene is one that was cut entirely from the original story. In retrospect I guess it doesn’t add much to the romance, but it does show that Kate is fully recovered from her ordeal as well as adding some comic relief to the story.

It has its origins in two real-life tales from my family. The first comes from the autobiography of Charles Lampman, my great grandfather. In about 1889 or so a new canal was started near Worland Wyoming. Charlie brought in a little extra cash by hauling supplies from stores in two small towns out to the camp. One night, he was stopped over at the town of Bonanza. Mr. Taylor, the owner of the store had gone out into a lean-to he had next to the store. After several minutes, Charlie heard Taylor calling him.

When Charlie cautiously opened the door, the sight that met his eyes brought him to a sudden halt before he was even inside. There stood Taylor in the center of the room, holding the lantern in one hand and a skunk by the tail in the other. Now I’ve been told that a skunk has to have at least one front foot touching something in order to spray. Though I have never had the opportunity to test this bit of wisdom, it does sort of make sense, and I’ll gladly take their word for it. At any rate things were safe as long as the skunk was suspended. The trick would be to get the animal away before it touched the ground.

My great grandfather was still trying to figure out what to do, when his dog raced in through the partially open door and grabbed the skunk. Charlie beat a hasty retreat but poor Taylor didn’t have a chance as the dog made several rounds of the room shaking the skunk as he went. As Charlie put it in his autobiography, “Words fail to described just how bad that mess was. Taylor wanted to move the store and shoot himself.”

The second half came from a cousin of my father’s, Irvin Kershner. His father had bought a pretty little black filly at a sheriff’s auction. Since she was a stray, no one knew if she was broken, but when Irvin saddled her up and rode her around the corral, she seemed tame enough. It wasn’t long before he discovered his mistake.

He decided to ride her out to sheep camp to retrieve a gallon canteen he had left there. Everything was fine until he slung the canteen over his shoulder and started back. Suddenly the mare started bucking for no reason he could see. He got her under control, but it was only the beginning. She tried to buck him off every little way, eleven times in all. The trail went right along the edge of a gulch, and there was one place that had a ten foot drop off. You guessed it, the mare chose that place to blow sky high.

Irvin remembers, “I kept trying to think what I was going to do when we went off that bank. Well, believe it or not, she bucked for about twenty feet right along the edge of that bank, just as straight as string. Every time she would buck that canteen would fly up and hit me on the head. It made bumps all over my head.”

It’s funny how well the two stories fit together in the book, though of course what happened to Cole and Levi wasn’t nearly as funny as what happened to Charlie and Irvin. As you can see from these two stories, truth really is better than fiction!

CHAPTER 17

BLOG #31 Ox Bruford

This chapter is tied closely to history. First of all, it sets up the timeframe for Wyoming’s Territorial legislature which took place during the winter and spring of that year. It also establishes that they will travel on the newly completed Transcontinental Railroad. Without the railroad, Jonathan wouldn’t even have considered such a trip so late in the year.

Though it is difficult to comprehend in the world of jet travel and the world wide web, the Transcontinental Railroad was one of the biggest transportation innovations of the 19th century. A traveler could make the trip from New York to California in a matter of days instead of months. The trip from Cheyenne to California took four days by train and more than three months by wagon. In reality, it would take nearly three times as long to get from the Cantrell ranch to Cheyenne than from Cheyenne to Chicago, a fact which my New York editor had a great deal of trouble believing, but more about that later.

The most important part of this chapter, wasn’t the logistics of the trip or even Clay’s near proposal. This chapter marks the creation of new character; one who has appeared in more of my books than any other, and who is the only connection between my two trilogies. For this is where Ox Bruford came to be.

When Jonathan went to Abigail’s store the conversation seemed to call for the name of a freighter. I couldn’t come up with one right off hand so I asked my husband. He thought for a moment and said, “How about Ox?”

I couldn’t help but grin. What a perfect name for a muleskinner! A minute or two later I had added one version of my husband’s high school nickname, and Ox Bruford was born. I never intended Ox to be more than a name. He doesn’t even show his face in this book, but when I needed a freighter in Meadowlark, I pulled him out, dusted him off, and sent him to get the black powder my hero needed.

A few weeks later Ox showed up at Garrick’s door. That’s when things started to get interesting. Suddenly Ox became Garrick’s best friend and they developed a history of working together on the Transcontinental Railroad after the war. As the book began to develop, so did Ox. He even became involved in a clandestine romance with another minor character behind my back. In fact, the chemistry between Ox and Angel became so powerful that I got letters from fans wanting to know when I was going to write their book. I finally did. Silver Springs is the story of Angel Brady and James Oxford Bruton Treenery III, better known as Ox Bruford.

CHAPTER 18

BLOG #32 The Lost Thread

This issue and the next have haunted me since this book was published. The editor saw the thread started here as one that could be cut without significant damage to the story. She was wrong. Though it isn’t terribly important to this specific book, it is the glue that holds the whole trilogy together.

The seeds for it were sown long before I wrote Murphy's Rainbow. It began with Levi, Jughead and the animosity that exists between them. Though I had no idea what it was, Levi first mentions it in the book Willow Creek. At the time, it was just a peek into his past and a clue the relationship he’d had with his father. I had no idea it would bloom into a key element in another book. In fact, I didn’t know at that point there would even be another book.

I’ve always found it interesting what a small idea can grow and bloom into. The funny thing is, I’m usually surprised when something like this takes off and turns into something more. I have to admit, though, it’s one of my favorite things about writing and something I would miss entirely if I were one of those authors who plan out every part of a book before they start writing. I’m more of a seat-of-the-pants author and love watching the story unfold as much as I love sharing it with readers.

Anyway, the whole point of redoing Murphy’s Rainbow was to put this piece back in and I can’t tell you how good it felt to do just that. It is the beginning of a thread that will surface again several issues on. Until next time…

BLOG #33 Wild Bart Kelly

Wild Bart Kelly, or old Dirty and Smelly as Cole and Levi call him, never made an appearance in Murphy’s Rainbow. I ruthlessly cut him out as the editor suggested, but didn’t throw him away. See, it’s a game I play with myself. I find it very difficult cut scenes and characters; every word I write seems so perfect at the time I write it. That changes when I get some distance, of course, but it makes editing in the short term tough. So when I make the necessary cuts, I store the scene for later. I’m always sure I’ll find a place for that deleted description, sparkling dialogue, or fabulous characterization somewhere. Some I do use again, but most eventually wind up in the trash where they belong.

Bart Kelly was such a delightfully disgusting character; I couldn’t bring myself to do away with him completely. So I pulled the original pages from the manuscript and stuck them in a folder. He wasn’t the first that I saved, but he is the first that I resurrected. In the book, A Window in Time, I needed a repulsive freighter that worked for the Pony Express. I pulled Bart Kelly out of retirement and plunked him into the story. I didn't even need to tweak him; he was perfect. The only change I made was that he was a disgusting freighter instead of a disgusting buffalo hunter. I even told myself it was the same character earlier in life. Ever the opportunist, Bart Kelly could easily have been a freighter for the Central Overland and Pike’s Peak Express Company until 1861 when the company went bankrupt. It’s not even a stretch to have him working for the railroad as buffalo hunter by the end of the decade. I am delighted to have him back in Murphy’s Rainbow. I can’t help but wonder if my readers will realize it is the same character.

CHAPTER 19

Blog #34 Speedy Horses
I loved my first editor. Abigail and I got along very well though we sometimes had major communication problems. To start with, we had something of a generation gap. Abigail was almost 20 years younger than I, but that wasn’t our biggest difficulty. The fact that she had spent her whole life in New York City, and I had spent mine in Wyoming often made for major misunderstandings.

This chapter one of those places where my editor and I had trouble. She wrote me a note in the margin saying, “The timing on the trip is all wrong. It takes them four days to get from Cheyenne to Chicago, but two weeks to get from Horse Creek to Cheyenne. You’ve got to make them move faster.”

When I planned out the journey I did it with a calendar and a map. The Cantrells would have followed the Oregon Trail down through Wyoming Territory to Cheyenne where they would have caught a train to Chicago. I knew from my research that the trip to Chicago from Cheyenne would take four days, but what about the trip to the railroad?

A good horse carrying a rider can make around forty miles a day. It is hard on them to keep that pace up day after day, so I figured around 35 miles a day to be safe. I shortened the time from two weeks to ten days.

Abigail phoned me this time. “It’s still taking them too long,” she said. “I mean they’re only traveling across one state, for heaven’s sake!”

“Right,” I said, “They have to go clear across the whole state.”

“Then they should be able to do it in a couple of days at the most.”

That’s when I figured out the problem. When you look at a map of the United States, you can see that New York is a giant when compared to the states around it. Wyoming, on the other hand, is dwarfed by Montana. It plays tricks on your mind and you think the two states are about the same size. They aren’t even close. In reality, the whole state of New York would cover less than half of Wyoming. Abigail is used to traveling across four or five states in a few hours, while I’m used to driving 65 to 70 miles an hour for hours and never leaving Wyoming.

Neither of us ever did entirely get it. I still can’t conceive of states the size of some of our counties, and she can’t imagine traveling 120 miles to the nearest mall. We compromised on the 10 days to get to Cheyenne, though.

I knew that was stretching it then, and I know it now. My characters are covering a distance of 350 miles in ten days. It takes a whale of a good team to make 35 miles a day pulling a wagon. I’m not sure it’s even possible for horses to keep up that kind of pace for the better part of two weeks. The covered-wagon pioneers on the Oregon Trail used oxen because horses didn’t have the stamina to make it all the way to Oregon, and usually died on the trail. In later books the Cantrells of Horse Creek are known for their exceptional horses. I guess this is where they got their start.

CHAPTER # 20

BLOG # 35 Riding the Train

I wrote almost this whole chapter from a couple of pictures in one of my reference books. (Time-Life, The Old West, The Railroaders. The pictures are worth looking at if you have the books) The first was of a herd of buffalo stampeding over the track. (pg 137) Though most people don’t realize it, the buffalo were a big problem for the railroad. Huge herds roamed the prairie at the time. I takes a lot to stop a buffalo and they pretty much went where they wanted to. Trains were frequently delayed just like the one the Cantrells were on. The delays cost the railroad big bucks so they hired buffalo hunters like Wild Bart Kelly to take care of the problem.

About the same time, the US government had decided the “Indian problem” could be solved the same way. Wiping out their food supply would force Indians onto reservations. So the slaughter began, with both the government and the railroads paying top prices for killing the animals. By all account the waste was horrendous. The hunters often shot the animals and left them to rot without even taking the hides. Buffalo Bill Cody got his name for killing 350 buffalo in one day, a feat he was quite proud of.

The other picture (pg 129)showed the interior of the coach with people trying to sleep in the cramped seats. It was before the days of sleeper cars, though the book had some rather entertaining stories about those (I used several in my book WILD HONEY which took place twenty years later). About half way down the car, there was a couple snuggled together. In spite the cramped conditions they looked as though they were quite comfortable, the only ones in the car that did. As I looked at them, I realized that was precisely how Kate and Jonathan would have to sleep. Once I put them together the sexual tension grew at an amazing rate. It seemed the natural place for Kate to realize she’d fallen in love, and I must say, it worked out rather well!

CHAPTER 21

Blog #36 The Daytons

Daniel and Belle came as something of a surprise to me. I knew Daniel and Jonathan were cousins, but I didn’t know Belle and Mary were twins. The resemblance between Levi and Cassie was unexpected too, though as soon as I created it, I decided I could exploit it somehow. Levi does go to Colorado to visit Cassie in SHADOWS IN THE WIND, but I have never come up with a story for Cassie, which is not to say I won’t some day.

Belle was one of those characters who plopped onto the page fully formed. I still haven’t figured out who she is, but I do know I like her. I’m actually sort of surprised she hasn’t shown up in one of my other books. Still she was most useful in this one, as you shall see in the next few issues.

The best part of this chapter, though, was how well I was able to set things up for later. I wanted a ball of some sort and adjoining rooms for Kate and Jonathan. Both were easily arranged though I was somewhat surprised how rich I wound up making Jonathan’s relatives. In the end, it worked out very well, though, so maybe I had it in the back of my mind all the time.

CHAPTER 22

BLOG #37 Belle

Belle really comes to life in this issue. I remember well how she took over without even asking permission. Belle’s open, giving personality, her intense curiosity and the tendency to flit from topic to topic made for lively conversations. It also made her a veritable gold mine of information for Kate and for me. She’d known Jonathan Cantrell for most of his life; more importantly she knew Mary Cantrell as only a twin sister can. It is through Belle that Kate gains the most insight into Mary and her relationship with Jonathan. To be honest, I suspect that was the main reason I created Belle. She also tells us a lot about Jonathan, his affect on women, and the affect of their adoration on him.

And then there is her tendency to match-make. It was a character trait that I threw in to help my story along, but, like everything else with Belle, it sort of got out of hand. With her it’s more of a compulsion, kind of like breathing or eating chocolate. I love the fact that she can’t keep a maid because she finds them all husbands. It’s completely unrealistic, of course. Even modern computer dating services backed by twenty-first century technology and decades of research in sociology, psychology, and human behavior, can’t match her success rate. But then this is fiction and I can go where the story or, in this case, the character leads me. You know from the beginning she won’t be able to resist dabbling in Kate and Jonathan’s love life. Frankly, I’m grateful to her. Without Belle Dayton’s help, I’m not sure I’d have ever been able to get Kate and Jonathan together!

BLOG #38 The Coat
As I have mentioned before, I am very meticulous about my research. There is very little that annoys me more than reading a book with sloppy research. Finding something that isn’t accurate is kind of like biting down on a piece of tin foil with a filling. So I was quite chagrined to have a fan call my attention to a faux pas I had unwittingly committed.

I have dozens of reference books on clothing that I have gathered over the years. However, when I was writing the Cheyenne trilogy I only had a couple. I depended heavily on the library though there wasn’t much there either. I can’t remember exactly where I found the picture of the coat, but it was love at first sight. I made a photocopy and stuck in my files. There is a description next to the drawing which says “English 1893, coat in Alaskan seal skin trimmed with Russian sable.” It must have been absolutely gorgeous in real life.

I knew I couldn’t use it the way it was. For one thing, it fur and probably horrendously expensive as well as being as inappropriate for Kate as the fancy dresses she rejected. More importantly the style is distinctly 1890’s with big puffy sleeves. The minute I saw it, I knew Kate had to have that coat and also that I’d have to change it some. On the same page there is an 1869 Paletot (sort of a mid-length coat that flared out over the skirts of the day). I took the fabric, sleeves, and black braid from the Paletot and used them on the fur coat. Viola, a fabulous coat Kate couldn’t resist and one that fit the styles of 1869.

That’s when I made my mistake. I made it red. It seemed the perfect color. After all I had already established it was one of her colors and that Jonathan was very taken with her when she wore it. When they met at the Golden Spur he couldn’t take his eyes off her. And that was the problem. Red was NOT an appropriate color for a decent woman. Only whores wore it. I should have known, really. I mean, I knew that a scarlet woman was one of questionable morals. It was even the color of the infamous letter in Hawthorn’s classic tale of adultery and betrayal, The Scarlet Letter. So in this version I changed it to russet, a pretty color in its own right and one that would look good on Kate. Oh, in case you’re wondering why I’m making such a big deal out of a coat she didn’t even buy, you’re going to see it again. Of course, I’m betting you’d already figured that out!

CHAPTER 23

BLOG # 39 The Waltz

I love the waltz. It’s such a graceful dance and surprisingly, to me anyway, considered quite scandalous when it first appeared at the end of the 18th century. It required the man to put his hand on the woman’s waist and the woman to place her hand on her partner’s shoulder. They were almost embracing, for heavens sake! Though it seems pretty tame to us today, it was a degree of intimacy people just didn’t indulge in, at least in public.

The intimacy as well as the beauty of the dance is precisely why I find it so useful. It’s the perfect way to fire up the old sexual tension. I’ve used it in no less than three books and am trying to figure out how to use it in my current WIP (work in progress). It puts my characters in close contact, staring deeply into each other’s eyes, and gets those hormones racing. From there sexual tension builds on its own.

It’s quite possible that Kate could have already known how to waltz, lots of people did. I confess I did have an ulterior motive for inserting the waltzing lessons. It was foreshadowing. Oh, not for this book. The sexual tension could have just as easily been built at the actual ball. This is where Cole learns to waltz, you see. Though he’s just a kid here, he turns into a man eventually, one who is nearly as devastating to the ladies as his father. In Shadows in the Wind there is a waltz scene that practically made my heroine’s garters smoke.

On a personal note, I feel I should confess. As much as I love the dance, I don’t waltz myself. I have two left feet, you see and have never mastered the steps. That’s why I leave it to my characters. None of them have ever made a fool of themselves dancing the waltz. Sadly, I can’t say the same.

CHAPTER 25

BLOG #40 The Dress
Everyone has moments in their life they wish they could go back and fix. From “I wish I’d said…” to doing something differently to prevent disaster, we all wish we could do an instant replay and change things. As I was rewriting this chapter in the book, I realized I had done exactly that, though I had no idea of it thirteen years ago when I wrote the original scene. This time, as I was working on the scene, the image of a dress popped into my head, but it wasn’t the dress I had designed for Kate. It was a dress I myself had worn.

The date was December 1967. As a freshman in high school, I went out for choir. In retrospect I wonder what I was thinking. My voice is too deep for alto, too high for bass, I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, and I have a range of approximately three notes all of which are flat. I do like to sing though and have used it to great advantage in my teaching career. When I want my students to behave all I have to do is threaten to sing and they straighten right up. I was probably the only student in Greybull high school who was ever asked to leave the choir for something other than discipline problems! The instructor gently suggested that my time might be better spent elsewhere. My voice has a unique carrying quality, you see. I never really understood until I went to my daughter’s concert several years ago and could pick her voice out of the choir clear from the back of the auditorium. Luckily she inherited her singing ability from my husband’s side and is quite good.

But I digress. For the Christmas concert that year the choir director decided that all the girls would wear floor length formals. As a freshman, I had never been to a formal dance, been in a wedding or had any reason to wear a formal. Nor were my parents inclined to buy one for me. For one thing, at 14 they weren’t sure I had stopped growing. For another, there was no money for such an expensive dress even if there had been one in the town of Greybull so early in the year, which there probably wasn’t. That kind of thing was only stocked in the spring around Prom time.

My mother, being a resourceful woman, said no problem, we could borrow one. And so the search began. I went to school in Greybull but lived 16 miles away outside of the town of Shell, a tiny rural town (population 50) surrounded by sheep and cattle ranches. There weren’t a lot of older girls in the community, but my mom figured someone would have what we needed. They were all willing to help out; that’s what people do in communities like Shell. Unfortunately, luck wasn’t with us. Linda was too short. Althea was too thin. Nancy’s formals were all knee length. Martha and the Smith twins had taken theirs to college with them. Finally Althea’s mom thought of her daughter-in-law. We made a call and sure enough, JoAnna not only had a dress, she was delighted to let me use it.

It was a beautiful creation of maroon velvet and satin with a wide skirt and miles of net and lace, much like the dress Kate wore to Belle’s ball. I’ll admit I was a little skeptical of the slightly out-of-date styling, but it was gorgeous on me. According to my best friend ,the maroon coloring made my skin look like a cameo just like Kate’s. Even the long dark ringlet draped over the shoulder was mine. I felt beautiful right up until I got to school and saw everybody else in their pastel sheaths.

On page 28 of my freshman annual is a picture of the choir dressed in their finery for the Christmas program. There I am in the front row on the end nearest the camera. You can’t miss me… or the dress. My most humiliating high school moment captured forever on film. Ten years earlier I’d have been in style. You could wear that dress to a formal function today, and it would fit right in. But in 1967, when the style was empire waists and long straight skirts, I stood out like a crow among a bunch of pigeons.

So I gave Kate the dress. Instead of wanting to slink away and die of embarrassment, she spent the evening being admired. It took me almost thirty years, but I did manage to “redo” that horrible evening and turn it from a social disaster into a rousing success. Ah the power of the pen!

CHAPTER 26

BLOG #41 Ooops!

This was another place I have a chance to go back and correct a historical inaccuracy. As I’ve said before, I’m quite picky about that, and I’ve beat myself up a dozen times since I realized the goof I made, though I doubt many readers caught it (if any did).

About three months after MURPHY'S RAINBOW came out I had the opportunity to attend a historical clothing class at the Wyoming Territorial Prison in Laramie, WY. The Territorial Prison is a living history museum and well worth a visit if you are ever in Laramie. The cla