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Who is Joseph Nathan ‘Sleeps with Bears’ Meeker?
Joseph Nathan Meeker is a fictional character in my Michelle Tanner series of stories. There are several real people the character was modeled after. The first is John Adams, not the 2nd President of the United States of America, but still a New Englander, born in 1812, who became better known as Grizzly Adams. The name Sleeps with Bears comes from Adams’s habit of sometimes cohabiting with a few bears.
Then, there was a western pioneer, Joseph Lafayette “Joe” Meek, who settled in Oregon and became a lawman. Born in Washington County, Virginia, he died in Hillsboro, Oregon. Meek was the Oregon Territorial Federal Marshal. I also threw in a bit of Heck Thomas, a deputy US Marshal who served under Judge Isaac Parker—the infamous ‘Hanging Judge.’ Along with a few other lawmen, mountain men, and pioneers thrown into the mix for good measure.
Much of Meeker is cut from the tapestry of stories I heard about people who are not so famous. People you would have never heard of. His ability to tell a tall yarn is culled from my father and his mischievous brothers. Yes, sir, it is certain Meeker inherited that ability of confabulation inflation from my dad, along with a good-natured manner, slowness to anger, and keen ability to measure people’s intentions. My father had this way of looking at you, listening to you, and he’d know immediately if I’d told the truth.
Meeker’s love of the outdoors is mine. I could have been happy living in those days. Nothing is better than climbing high in the Rockies and looking out over God’s handiwork. Alone with just your thoughts, the sounds of the wind in the trees, a babbling brook, and animals all around you, wondering just what the heck you’re doing in their world. It’s pretty much a religious experience.
Joseph Nathan Meeker craves both solitude and companionship. Sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? It isn’t, you know. To him, having those around whom you love for companionship while shutting out the rest of the world would be glorious. Nathan’s first love was a bear. Yeah, a bear. Not in any carnal sense, but he stumbled into her life one cold day, and he was never the same afterward. The bear moved in and out of his life for twenty years.
Oh, so you know, you can call Mr. Joseph Nathan Meeker by any of the following: Deputy US Marshal Meeker, Marshal, Meeker, Nate, Nathan, Sleeps with Bears, or Old Feller. But never, ever call him Joe or Joseph. I’m not sure why, but he just doesn’t like that.
Read about Meeker and all the other characters going west in Michelle Tanner's Going West. I post another part on Mondays until all eight parts are up. Or you can cut the line and buy Michelle Tanner Going West at Bookapy/ZBookStore today. Full disclosure, I make money when you buy the story rather than read for free. But that's your choice, and I'm fine whichever way you go!
It's here on SOL, Michelle Tanner Going West.
Let’s talk about gunfights. These are staple tropes of Western fiction and movies. In films, the bad guy must have a black hat, and the good guy needs to wear a white topper. Which, of course, was rubbish in the real world. But that is the trope.
What was the reality of gunfights? There were over 960 recorded gunfights between 1860 and 1900. There were more after 1900, and there were others before 1860. But I’m limiting my purpose to the forty years between 1860 and 1900. These are shootouts, not back shootings, long-distance killings, or out-and-out murders in which a gun was used. That doesn’t count battles in the Civil War or Indian engagements. It is two or more people engaging in gunplay with one another or one group with another.
First, let us understand the difference between a gunfight and a duel. Duels are eastern contrivances, which were used mostly in the southern states. A duel is a two-party event to settle disagreements, feuds, or insults suffered.
The most famous of the duels wasn’t in the South. The Hamilton-Burr duel was a fatal pistol duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, which took place on July 11, 1804, in Weehawken, New Jersey. Hamilton was fatally wounded, dying the next day, while Burr’s political career was severely damaged. The duel resulted from a long-standing political and personal rivalrythe two men's.
I do not rule out the possibility that a woman put the whole shebang in motion.
There are primarily three manners of duels — first, a bare-knuckle fight between the two parties. Second, crossed swords. That is a sword or saber fight. Occasionally, a knife is used rather than a sword. Third, single-shot firearms with the aptly named dueling pistols.
We will restrict our discussion to the third option to compare a gunfight to a duel. In a duel, the first thing that happened was an offended party striking the opponent across the cheek with a glove. Well, that’s used in writing and the film world. And to answer the obvious question, his hand is not in the glove when he slaps the man. If the glove strike happened, more often than not, it was a minor swish of the glove across the face. At that time, he demands satisfaction.
In the real world, the offended man’s second most often delivered a note.
One could refuse a challenge, and it did happen. Grounds for refusal, the incident in question was trifling, the offended person was not a gentleman, or the low social standing of the challenging party’s family. Should a person refuse a challenge, no matter his reason for refusal, he might be called a coward or even shunned by polite society for his “bad manners.” Good manners seemed to require you to kill the other fellow.
He could also issue an apology. However, when one issues a “challenge,” one can assume that a simple apology won’t do. “I’m sorry for having called your wife a toad-faced shrew,” wasn’t usually going stave off the duel.
The offending party, the man whose face has been slapped, is given the choice of weapons, consisting of swords or pistols. The choice of fisticuffs could be called. However, this choice was rare. I think this is because it wasn’t as polite to beat a person senseless as to stab them with a sword or shoot them with a gun.
In our example, the called-out wife-insulter chooses pistols at 10 paces, though some would choose 15 paces. I would pick 30 long steps myself. The further away, the better the odds of survival.
The offended party, that’s the husband of the “toad-faced shrew,” sets when and where. “Dawn at the Old Fork Road shall be our Field of Honor.” This location’s selection is the regular dueling place chosen for its isolation. Therefore, John Law didn’t stop them from settling their debt of honor because, by in large, dueling was illegal. It should be noted that dueling is still unlawful — unless you are using water pistols at five paces.
Now, one of the duties of the seconds is to talk sense into their friend. You know, so hey don’t get their fools' heads blown off their shoulders. Sometimes, it worked, and most times, it did not. The old way of dueling was to stand back to back, pace off the allotted steps, turn, and fire. This was accompanied by someone calling out the paces and then telling you to turn and fire. Each combatant has one shot and one shot only.
In the 19th century, this changed.
Sometime after 1800, the duel evolved. After the invention of the revolver, for a pistol duel, the two would typically start at a pre-agreed distance, which would be measured out by two seconds and marked, often with swords stuck into the ground. With revolvers now available, sometimes, the single-shot rule was abandoned.
At a given signal, let’s say the dropping of a handkerchief or the shout of “Ready, aim, fire,” our dueling dudes fire at will. Often closing the distance as they fired. This system diminished the likelihood of cheating, as neither principal had to trust the other not to turn too soon. Another method involved alternate shots being taken, beginning with the challenged firing first.
In England, a man named John Wilkes, “Who did not stand upon ceremony in these little affairs,” when asked by Lord Talbot how many times they were to fire, replied, “Just as often as your Lordship pleases. I have brought a bag of bullets and a flask of gunpowder.” His response seemed to end the affair before it began.
On the other hand, gunfighting was two or more men shooting at one another with the intent of killing the other person. Where dules were organized affairs, gunfights in the American West were rarely coordinated. One man didn’t, as a rule, stand on a street and call the other person out to do battle.
There are exceptions, such as James Butler ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok, who was in at least two gunfights of the called-out variety. I’d have to say calling out Wild Bill wasn’t the smartest way to start your day.
In one of his, called out, gunfights, he allowed the other combant to fire first. There was about 75 yards between the two men. The other man’s shot in the dirt five to six feet in front of Hickok. Wild Bill lifted his gun and took aim a bit above the man’s head. Squeeze off his shot and hit the man in the throat. After which, James Hickok retrieved his father’s pocket watch from the man’s vest pocket.
Hickok had used it as a maker, and the brigand refused to take money for it.
The most famous gunfight was “The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.” It can be debated what happened at the OK Corral (well near the Corral), who fired first, who caused it, and what the opponents’ motives were are all up for debate. You see, conflicting accounts persist even today, including Sheriff Behan’s many accounts of the event.
Behan wasn’t a participant in the fight. No, sir, he was off at a safe distance, recording his thoughts in five or six different notebooks.
With all that said, 960 is not a large number for 40 years. Most westerns, books, or movies have at least one gunfight. The gunfight, as portrayed in fiction, was rare. Shootouts had causes, real-world reasons, and they erupted in flashes, not with slow walks down the street and steelie-eyed men glowering at one another.
Someone tried to rob a bank, a stage, a store, or a train. Men attempted to rustle cattle, and the cowhands wanted to stop it from happening. Two men played cards. One thought the other cheated, tempers flared, guns were pulled, shots exchanged, and one or both died.
I can even buy a lost love as the cause of a gunfight.
The idea that two men would engage in a gunfight to find out if they could beat the other man has a ludicrous ring to it. I think I would have been okay with not knowing which of us was the fastest gun. Especially since if I was number two, I’d be a dead second best. Then again, I’m not John Wayne, and this isn’t the Chisum Trail. Oh, wait, I do live on or near the Chisum Trail.
Read my stories here at SOL, at Bookapy.com, or ZBookStore.com
Part Two of Michelle Tanner: Going West, The Deserters is now up. The next two members of the strange group join in for the fun. Buffalo Head arrives and tells a sad story about his past. And the fourth family member comes into the fold through a personal disaster, courtesy of the titular trio.
Michelle Tanner, Going West
Recently, I received an email asking, “Who is Michelle Tanner? Is she whole cloth from your imagination? Is she based on a real person? Will she ever find love?”
Those are valid questions. Let’s start with, who is Michelle Tanner? She is a fictional frontier woman who lived her life like men lived their lives in the period of history between the Civil War and turn of the century. Michelle lived in that time we call, the Old West. A proud, fiercely independent woman who refused to be boxed in by the traditions of her time. She wasn’t all that unique, there were more than 1000 women during those years that fit the same mold as Michelle Tanner.
Is she whole cloth from my imagination? Yes and no.
Was she a real person? No, Michelle Tanner did not exist. However, she is a compilation or combination of several women who did live in those wild years. So, in a way, the question is she based on a real person? is a resounding sort of.
I stitched together facts and characteristics for Shell from both heroines and villains, or is it, villainesses? There’s Bandit Pearl Hart, Laura Bullion of the Wild Bunch (never saw that in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, did you?) Bell Star, who out famed her outlaw husband, Sam Star. Bell was also pals with Cole Younger (maybe more than pals, yeah, more than pals, poor Sam). Bell worked as a prostitute between train, bank, and stagecoach holdups (poor Cole and Sam…shame on her). We have Claire Helena Ferguson, the girl sheriff of Utah. Calamity Jane Cannery, yes that is the right spelling, or is it? Some report it as Canary, but isn’t that small bird that sings? Either way, Martha Jane was a boisterous, adventurous woman, who was the best self-promoter in the Old West, she’d make a good friend for Michelle. Ellen Liddy Watson, also known as Cattle Kate, was a Wyoming woman rancher who worked her own cattle on her own land. She may or may not have been a cattle rustler, but she was lynched for being a rustler by a competing rancher. (Then again, the winner writes the history, so who knows?) Lillian Smith and Anne Oakley were rivals with shooting irons (though not gunfight-wise); their competitions were at targets, not each other. Then there’s F.M. Miller, who was appointed as a U.S. Deputy Marshal out of the federal court at Paris, Texas. There are several other US Deputy and full Marshals out there, more than I have room to name here.
There’s a mite of each of these women rolled up into Michelle Tanner, and a few others I didn’t name. Michelle would have fit right in with any of these women. Most of the erstwhile mentioned females lived on equal footing with men. Often, they dressed like men, spoke the same way that the men spoke (profanities and all), smoked, chewed, and drank like them. They even earned the respect of the men they worked with or against, as the case may be.
That brings us to the last question, will Michelle ever find love? I don’t know, I’m not sure she wants love. However, if she does, there is a good chance she could. Pearl Hart was married twice, once to an abusive bugger and once to her true love and thieving partner. Likewise, Jane Cannery had two husbands and a long-term love affair with a madam of a…house of ill repute…in Deadwood. Despite her insistence that she and Wild Bill Hickok were lovers, there is no evidence of that affair. Cattle Kate had a husband, though the marriage was kept secret so she could file claims on the land adjoining her husband's. Many of the other women mentioned were married or had long-term love affairs. But Shell professes to have no interest in such foolishness. Only time will tell us if she is as disinterested in home and hearth as she appears to be.
Now, to me personally, Michelle Tanner is as real as any of those women of history whose stories I have read. I can’t wait to see what happens next for Michelle! I’m hoping to crank out two additional novels featuring the fiery redhead in the near future! I have four stories featuring her for sale over at Bookapy/ZBookstore. Two are novels, Michelle Tanner Going West, and two are novellas over yonder as well. Michelle Tanner Going West is being posted here one part at a time each Monday for the next seven weeks.
You can meet Michelle Tanner in Michelle Tanner Going West.
Michelle Tanner Going West Part One Ambush at Kansas City
Today, I’ve published the first part of my eight-part novel, Michelle Tanner Going West. I will post the following parts every Monday for the next eight weeks. There will be a link to the Zbookstore/Bookapy purchase page for the full novel at the bottom of each part. No pressure to buy or not to buy is always up to the reader. I haven’t decided whether I’m putting this behind the paywall. I think not, at least not until after the entire book is up, and maybe not then.
Ambush at Kansas City, part one of the novel, is set mainly in Kansas City. Michelle Tanner meets a living legend on a train bound west in 1864, and a friendship blooms. Follow along as a ragtag group of strangers becomes a family.
This is my original story in the Michelle Tanner Series and my first novel under my Ron Lewis pen. I love a good Western. I hope you’ll enjoy this one and consider it a good one.
Michelle Tanner Going West
Ron Lewis
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