First Herd to Abilene – Author Interview

Trail Drive Novels & First Herd to Abilene

Author Interview with Preston Lewis

Why a trail drive novel for your next H. H. Lomax book?

Two reasons. First, I’d never written one, and I think every Western writer wants to give it a try. After all, the trail drive is the Odyssey of American literature. Second, it allowed me to complete the back story I began in Bluster’s Last Stand of Lomax’s strange and estranged relationship with Wild Bill Hickok. Of course, I had to figure out what that relationship was, but that’s part of the fun of writing novels, seeing where they take you. So, First Herd to Abilene weaves together an interlocking story of a cattle drive and Wild Bill Hickok at pivotal moments in his life and death.

How do you write something fresh over a literary trail that has been well trod?

The best I can determine, the first trail-drive novel was published in 1878, titled Live Boys: or Charley and Nacho in Texas, written by Thomas Pilgrim using the pseudonym of Arthur Morecamp. Since then certain clichés—stampedes, river crossings, lightning, rustlers, Indians, and death—have been established as standard fare along the literary cattle trail. So, you’ll find some of the same conventions in First Herd to Abilene, but usually with a twist or a little different take.

Can you give an example or two without giving away the story?

Since First Herd to Abilene is a comic Western, I look for different angles on the clichés. Take stampedes, for instance. They are usually started by a thunderstorm, an accidental gun discharge, or rustlers. First Herd, to my knowledge, is the first and only cattle drive novel featuring a stampede started by a cowboy breaking wind. There are two deaths along the First Herd trail as well, but by different methods than being trampled to death, struck by lightning, or drowned in a river crossing. This may be the first cattle-drive novel where a hand actually dies from natural causes.

In your research for this novel, what was the most interesting fact you discovered?

In a sense every trail drive was two journeys, but most novels only cover the first.

What do you mean?

A successful trail drive was actually a round trip. The first trek was herding the cattle to Abilene or whatever railhead after Abilene. The second journey, equally important in a successful drive, was getting the proceeds from the cattle sale safely back to Texas. The return trip could be just as hazardous and dangerous as the first, just for different reasons. In First Herd, my protagonist H. H. Lomax, in his inimitable way, is integral to the success of both drives, thanks, on the return trip, to a little unexpected help from Wild Bill Hickok in an encounter that sets the two on a collision course, culminating with a showdown in Deadwood, Dakota Territory.

Why do you enjoy writing comic Westerns?

First, there are a lot of fine writers past and current who have done or are doing exceptional fiction on the Old West. The comic Westerns were a way I could develop a niche for myself among so many fabulous Western writers. Besides that, they are fun to research and write.

Do you have any other trail-drive novels you would recommend?

Oh, sure. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry is the classic Texas trail-drive novel and the basis for the wonderful television mini-series. The Trail to Ogallala by Benjamin Capps is a well-researched and -written account of a cattle drive going from South Texas to Ogallala, Nebraska. The Terrible Teague Bunch by Gary Jennings is an offbeat novel about the waning days of the Old West, with a cattle drive critical to a planned train robbery. North to Yesterday by Robert Flynn is a bittersweet story of a man trying to recapture his youth through a trail drive. And most recently, Return to Red River by Johnny D. Boggs is a beautifully written new take on the characters from the classic John Wayne movie Red River. There are others but those are a good starting place for anyone interested in trail drive novels.

 

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