rebellion of his allies. Somehow, he commands the amazingnobedience of women. (I cannot think of a single categorynWestern in which a strong, sympathetic woman resists thenadvice of the protagonist and follows her own counsel to thenend of the story. In traditional Westerns only the “bad” ornantagonist women are willful.) Still another tradition governingnthe classic Western is that the hero must be portrayednonly from the outside, usually through action. He’s nonHamlet. Readers usually are not made privy to a hero’snprivate torments or doubts, or even his rejoicing and dreams,nlest the flow of action be interrupted. As a result, we rarelynsee a Western hero in the fullness of his character. We seenhim only from without.nI have described, in fact, the classic Louis L’AmournWestern hero and story, and because of his awesomensuccess, few publishers have deviated from his approach.nThat great author, who dominated the field for so manynyears, was both an asset and liability to the Western story. Atnone point in the early 80’s, he was virtually the only authornof single-title Westerns being published, and he kept thencategory alive at a time when publishers had largelynabandoned it. I cherish two of his stories, Flint and Hondo,nand admire several others.nBut if he was the rescuer of the category, he was alsonunwittingly responsible for leaving it in a straitjacket. Hisnvery success at writing the mythic, romantic Westernnensured that the mass market houses would rarely deviatenfrom his formula stories about a frontier West that nevernreally existed. This was no fault of his own, but the productnof his astounding success. And sad to say, I believe hisninfluence radically narrowed the Western market, drivingnaway women readers, and especially better-educated readersnwho might have enjoyed a story about real, flawed mortalsnwrestling with the dangers of a real frontier and wilderness.nHis influence has been so profound that in his later years thentype of Western story accepted by imitative publishersnnarrowed more than ever; so much so that gifted authorsnwho earlier wrote of the West in broader strokes — I’mnthinking of Ernest Haycox in particular—would now findntheir manuscripts unwelcomed because they didn’t fit thenL’Amour matrix.nAs much as I have loved the Western story all my life, Infound these ironclad rules daunting. When I begannwriting Westerns in the mid-70’s, I yearned to tell a morenrealistic story, about real people challenging the awesomendifiiculties posed by the wild West. A person of ordinaryncourage promised to be a better protagonist than the mythicntype whose victory is foreordained. There was a much betternpossibility of suspense, or story tension, where a hero ornheroine has those qualities found in most people: couragenand fear, cowardice and honor, skill and clumsiness, moralnconviction and occasional weakness. This sort of protagonistnwould grow or shrink, but certainly not remain the same atnthe end of the story. And the possibility of his or her defeatnwould add to the underlying tension of the story.nIn the course of my research I discovered something else:nthe historical West was far better material, more colorful andnfantastic, than the richest stories of the romantic Westernnnovelists. For a brief, unique period in the 19th century, anflood of people streamed into unknown and dangerousnlands. This extraordinary event captured the imagination ofnthe country—indeed, the world. Far from being exhaustednby the innumerable Western novels, films, and TV series,nthe real frontier West is virtually untouched, virginalnmaterial available to any novelist. The traditional mythicnWestern has used this material only as a backdrop to its realntheme, male pecking-order struggles between loners outnupon a lawless land where social rules don’t apply. But thenhistorical West was rarely about that. The mythic Western isnso far removed from the reality of the frontier that thenaficionados of the old West rarely read paperback fiction;ninstead, they buy history and biography from the Universitiesnof Nebraska and Oklahoma presses. The stories andncharacters in the academic literature are much wilder, morenastonishing, and more vivid than anything on the drugstorenracks.nI had one additional goal when I set out to writenWesterns. I wanted mine to appeal to a more educated,nliterate readership. That meant doing two things: one wasnupgrading the vocabulary I would use in the Western to anlevel commensurate with any serious literary novel. Andnalong with a richer vocabulary, I hoped to achieve a graciousnuse of metaphor and figures of speech. But here, too, Inbutted against still another convention. Traditional Westernsnare written in the most basic and utilitarian language, andneditors have ruthlessly stricken any usages that might havenappealed to a literate reader. (I’ve had a copyeditor systematicallyndowngrade the vocabulary in one of my stories.) Mynother purpose was to deepen my characters, work withinntheir heads, but in ways that didn’t slow the story. There arenproper ways to do that, mostly by making the characters’ncalculations a part of the plot itself.nI’ve had the great good fortune to have editors who havenpermitted me to write nontraditional Westerns, includingntwo series that totally escape the traditional Western format.nBoth are set very early, in the 1840’s and 1850’s, which Infind much richer than the post-Civil War era. The 1840’snsaw the Oregon migration, the Mormon migration, thenCalifornia gold rush, the Mexican War, the annexation ofnTexas, the rise of the buffalo robe trade, the settlement ofnthe Oregon dispute with Great Britain, the development ofnsteamboating up the Missouri, and much more: wagonntrains, the Santa Fe Trail, buffalo, the first great WesternnIndian wars, the explorations of an unknown continent bynJohn Fremont, and the transition of weapons from muzzleloadersnto breech-loaders — for starters. And yet, incredibly,nthat whole decade, and the one following, are taboo to NewnYork publishers with Western lines. To this day, you will notnfind traditional Western novels set in the 1840’s and 50’s innany traditional line, including those of Fawcett, PocketnBooks, Bantam, Warner, NAL, Berkeley, Dell, Avon,nCharter, or, until recently. Zebra. If you find such a novel,nput it in your safe-deposit box.nWell, I’m a crank. I love the West. I especially love thenWest of the 1840’s, which was by far the most colorful andnfascinating decade in American history. I also have beennbemused by the sheer improbability of events in the West.nThings regulariy happened that are beyond the wildestnimaginings of novelists. But most of all, I believe thenWestern story has never been told. All those thousands ofnmythic Western novels haven’t told it; neither have thennnAUGUST 1991/21n