The Floating Outfit 48
Page 19
In Conclusion
Those of you who read the episode in THE TEXAN upon which this present narrative is an ‘expansion’ may wonder why certain points, particularly the final confrontation, differ from the events recorded in the earlier work. When we questioned Alvin Dustine ‘Cap’ Fog about the inconsistencies, he explained that the source upon which we based the original work did not have access to all the facts. For instance, the information regarding the capture and holding of Mavis Dearington had not then been made available. Also, because at that time there was some conflict of interests between the United States of America and Mexico, it was considered inadvisable to allow the participation of Sergeant Brady Anchor and Ranger Jefferson Trade to be made public as their action might have been construed as a breach of international law and used to worsen the situation.
About the Author
J. T. Edson was a former British Army dog-handler who wrote more than 130 Western novels, accounting for some 27 million sales in paperback. Edson’s works - produced on a word processor in an Edwardian semi at Melton Mowbray - contain clear, crisp action in the traditions of B-movies and Western television series. What they lack in psychological depth is made up for by at least twelve good fights per volume. Each portrays a vivid, idealized “West That Never Was”, at a pace that rarely slackens.
The Floating Outfit Series by J. T. Edson
The Ysabel Kid
.44 Caliber Man
A Horse Called Mogollon
Goodnight’s Dream
From Hide and Horn
Set Texas Back on Her Feet
The Hide and Tallow Men
The Hooded Riders
Quiet Town
Trail Boss
Wagons to Backsight
Troubled Range
Sidewinder
Rangeland Hercules
McGraw’s Inheritance
The Half-Breed
White Indians
Texas Kidnappers
The Wildcats
The Bad Bunch
The Fast Gun
Cuchilo
A Town Called Yellowdog
Trigger Fast
The Trouble Busters
The Making of a Lawman
Decision for Dusty Fog
Cards and Colts
The Code of Dusty Fog
The Gentle Giant
Set-A-Foot
The Making of a Lawman
The Peacemakers
To Arms! To Arms! In Dixie!
Hell in the Palo Duro
Go Back to Hell
The South Will Rise Again
The Quest for Bowie’s Blade
Beguinage
Beguinage Is Dead
The Rushers
Buffalo Are Coming!
The Fortune Hunters
Rio Guns
Gun Wizard
The Texas
Mark Counter’s Kin
Old Moccasins on the Trail
... And more to come every month!
But the adventure doesn’t end here …
Join us for more first-class, action-packed books.
Regular updates feature on our website and blog
The Adventures continue…
Issuing new and classic fiction from Yesterday and Today!
More on J. T. EDSON
1 How this came about is recorded in: GOODNIGHT’S DREAM, FROM HIDE AND HORN and SET TEXAS BACK ON HER FEET.
2 The black bullhead, Ictalurus melas, is frequently sold by aquarist suppliers as a ‘coldwater catfish’ for scavenging in goldfish tanks. Their release into certain rivers in Europe has allowed them to multiply to plague proportions.
3 An example of the sizes to which the blue, Ictalurus furcatus, and yellow or flat-head catfish, Pylodictis olivaris, could attain under suitable conditions is given in: THE HIDE AND TALLOW MEN.
4 A description of one method of fishing for channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, can be found in: SET A-FOOT.
5 How the Winchester Model of 1873 ‘One Of A Thousand’ rifle came into the possession of the Ysabel Kid is told in: GUN WIZARD.
6 Information regarding the different types of Colt Model ‘P’ of 1873, commonly known as the ‘Peacemaker’ can be found in those volumes of the Floating Outfit series which follow THE PEACEMAKERS in the chronological sequence.
7 Information about the composition of the finest type of steel James Black could manufacture is given in: THE QUEST FOR BOWIE’S BLADE.
8 We have been informed recently that the current usage of the word, cabrito, is applied to a husband who is being made a cuckold by his wife. While this is the case now, we would point out the meaning of words change with the passing of time. We are old enough to remember when one could say a man was ‘gay’ and merely mean he was happy.
9 Full details regarding ‘the bet’—this, incidentally, was the title under which we submitted the manuscript to our original publishers, Wagon Wheel Westerns, and was changed for reasons we were never told—are given in: THE TEXAN.
10 Unlike in the British Isles, throughout the United States of America and Mexico, that section of a multi-storey building which is at street level is referred to as the ‘first’ and not the ‘ground’ floor.
11 ‘Cristobal Colon’: The Spanish name for Christopher Columbus, Italian-born navigator who discovered and claimed America for Spain on the 12th of October, 1492.
12 How General Jackson Baines ‘Ole Devil’ Hardin and his Japanese valet, Tommy Okasi, turned the similarity of facial characteristics to their advantage on an assignment during the Texas War of Independence is told in: GET URREA.
13 Pronounced, ‘Hey-Soos’.
14 We realize that the names of the town and cantina, the description of its nominal owner and other details differ from those given in: Part Three, the Ysabel Kid in ‘Sam Ysabel’s Son’, THE TEXAN. This is due to there having been discrepancies in the information from which we produced the original manuscript. These have now been corrected via a study of documents presented to us by Alvin Dustine ‘Cap’ Fog, for whom we also have the honor of being biographer. See series of the same name.
15 Told in: THE PEACEMAKERS.
16 Told in: THE YSABEL KID.
17 As was the case with the majority of its successors from the Winchester Repeating Firearms Company, the magazine tube of the Henry rifle—holding fifteen cartridges—was underneath and as long as the barrel. Having a capacity of seven rounds, that of the Spencer was in the butt.
18 Told in: GUN WIZARD.
19 Details of the childhood of the Ysabel Kid are given in: COMANCHE.
20 Having seen examples, we consider it highly unlikely the Ysabel Kid wrote the message as grammatically as it was translated by Don Ramon Manuel Jose Peraro.
21 New England: the North-East section of the United States of America, including New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, which was first settled primarily by migrants from the British Isles.
22 ‘Tigrillo’: coloquial name for the ocelot, Felis pardalis.
23 The author has a strong suspicion that the trend in most Western movies made since the mid-1960’s to portray all cowhands as being long haired and filthy has not arisen from the desire of the producers to create ‘realism’. This kind of appearance was regarded as the ‘in’ thing by the ‘liberal’ element who were becoming increasingly influential in the movie industry. Consequently, few clean shaven and short haired actors were available, particularly to fill ‘supporting’ roles. Our extensive reference library does not contain a dozen photographs of cowhands—as opposed to Army scouts, mountain-men, or gold prospectors—who had bushy hair and beards. Furthermore, our reading on the subject and conversations with some of the older members of Western Writers of America—to which organization we have the honor of belonging—have led us to assume that the term ‘long hair’ was one of derision and opprobrium throughout the ‘Old West’ and Prohibition eras, just as it still is today. Therefore we see nothing unusual i
n the Ysabel Kid washing and shaving in the morning.
24 A ‘skewbald’—also called ‘piebald’—horse is coloured by irregular patches of black and white and a ‘paint’ is white with any other colour.
25 ‘Creole’: used in this connotation, a person of pure Spanish origins.
26 Some details of the siege of the Mission San Antonio de Valera, more commonly known as ‘the Alamo’ and the Battle of San Jacinto are given in the Ole Devil Hardin series and THE QUEST FOR BOWIE’S BLADE.
27 A similar technique was employed during the Prohibition era by Minnie Lassiter, ‘madam’ of the Premier Chicken Ranch, El Paso, Texas, to end fights between her ‘girls’; see: RAPIDO CLINT.
28 For a description of a snake fight for ‘sport’, see: THE COLT AND THE SABER.
29 The most serious grievance of the ‘Texicans’—as the Anglo colonists of what was then a part of the Territory of Coahuila were known—was that they were subject to taxation without being allowed political representation. As had happened in 1776, when a similar state of affairs had existed between the citizens of the country and Great—as it was then—Britain and which led to the formation of the United States of America, the settlers had risen in revolt.
30 Information regarding one atrocity, the massacre of over four hundred prisoners at Goliad, is given in: GET URREA.
31 The Ysabel Kid discovered later that the segundos of the four ranches had tried to warn Philo Handle of the dangers and, employing similar arguments to those he had intended to use, had suggested the ransom should be paid. They were countered by such apparent logic that, gauging the reception it was receiving elsewhere, they had concluded they would only lose the respect of their respective crews if they were to persist with their objections. Therefore, they had desisted and were hoping to exert their authority at a more propitious moment.
32 An explanation of what was entailed by a Comanche warrior electing to carry a war lance into battle and of the term ‘pukutsi’ is given in: SIDEWINDER.
33 ‘Ka-Dih’: the Great Spirit, supreme deity, of the Comanche Nation.
34 The suppositions of the Ysabel Kid and Jock McKie subsequently proved valid. Only two of the horses, each belonging to a hard-case hired by Philo Handle, were not recovered other the next couple of days. One of the missing animals arrived a month later at the ranch from which it had been stolen, but the other was never seen again.
35 At the period of this narrative, Jefferson Trade was in the process of changing the way by which he carried his revolver in, THE QUEST FOR BOWIE S BLADE to that he employed in, TWO MILES TO THE BORDER. He had already bought a later model weapon.
36 Told in: THE BLOODY BORDER.
37 The first occasion is told in: THE QUEST FOR BOWIE’S BLADE. This volume also explains how the clasp-knife came into the possession of the Ysabel Kid.