Page Two I am a stranger here myself

Patient readers, if there are any of you out there, I chased my grizzly bear off my title page. My son suggested some things I needed to amend, but Losing Ole Grizz wasn't one of them.

I also noted that the trapper's rifle barrel is curved. I guess that it will shoot low. A quick note to my children: Please text me a valid e-mail address for you and your spouse. It's a sneaky way to see who visits. Heh, Heh.

I have a lovely lady friend, Terri. We have dinner most Thursdays. She gifted me a pewter statue of a mountain man. He is standing gallantly in all his 1.5-inch glory. He now watches my back trail.

I don't know how other writers work, but my writing resembles a cattle stampede. I was trying to finish a novella about two young men from South Carolina who want to see the elephant and kill a Yankee. The other side is balanced by an Indiana farm boy and maybe a leprechaun. I was getting to a crucial part in the narrative when, lo and behold, Davy Thomas pops up. I have been trying to put together a third book to make it a trilogy. Some information about Captain Jack and the Modoc wars came across my computer. Hmm, maybe I could get Davy tangled up in that. One hundred Modoc warriors against one thousand troopers. It is a compelling story. I thought that Davy would probably be too old for that time frame. There was a link to the California Indian Wars. Captain Jack's was in reality the only Indian war fought in California, and most of it was fought in Oregon. I stumbled across the Government and Protection of Indians Act. This became part of the state's first constitution.

This was a very detailed act, and I will summarize it for you. Employers can obtain Indian children and keep them away from their tribe until they were 18 years old if male. Females could be kept until they became 15. I believe this led to Indian schools.

The fine for mistreating any of these children was $10.

If there was a complaint by a white man against an India, the Indian could not testify.

When an Indian is convicted of an offense. Any white man could post a bond and use the Indian as an indentured,

No Indian shall loiter or stroll about, frequent an establishment that sell liquors, They shall not beg or lead an immoral or profligate life. White society did not recognize Indian marriages, so they were all profligate.

The penalty here was to be sold to the highest bidder as an indentured servant until his debt was satisfied. Who decided when the debt was satisfied? Why it was the man who held the debt?

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, if the governor spoke to the legislature and said, "That a war of extermination will continue to be waged until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected."

Every bleeding heart liberal molecule in my body screamed out in outrage. This Act was amended in the 1870's and repealed in 1937. Indians could not become citizens, vote, or testify in court.

So Davy Thomas and the Free State of Tilly was born. Look for it on Amazon.