Title: Texas Gang
Author: Wild Bill Blackolive
[$10. From ULA Press.] Tales from the Texas Gang by Wild Bill Blackolive, is an amazing, ribald, far-out novel of the wild west, based on our own wild world and a real life gang. Catch a fresh dose of the spirit of Twain, Abbey, Kerouac and Castenada…rolled into one. Like Cormac McCarthy, only more realistic. (Yikes!) Wild Bill, the fighter, has been there, done that. It’s been called a “beat western.” Williams Burroughs wrote Bill a letter that said it was “really great.” I guarantee you’ve never read anything like it. (Paperback, 6×9, 239pp.)
It’s a ULA PRESS paperback! $10 mailed. Here’s the link for that: outyourbackdoor.com/article.php?id=954
Here’s a more recent author photo….
EXCERPT
I would rather live Indian than with preachers and sin. I ain’t a guilty man. Kelly and me once came upon a bunch of wagons, regular pioneers, some pretty tough people and they was about to get set for the night. We was a bit idle and rode up for a chat, Kelly about eighteen years old, me looking near Christianised in a hat and buffalo coat. They was mighty glad to see us, give us coffee and whiskey. We sit with them and they had a preacher, first one we had ever seen. We ain’t seen white people since we left Arkansaw, he said. He was a wide shouldered big young fellow, had a clean face, had a neat mustache, had a firm lip, and a pretty but dull woman kind of hid behind him, and next he said, you boys working men? No, I said, after the surprise went. What about yourself? Oh, yes, he bragged, happy with it. Sirs, my work is the Lord’s work. Why don’t he do it hisself, Kelly wondered. Thing of it, Kelly asked a mostly serious question. After all, if you’re just riding around and looking at the earth and picking a few antelope, and someone asks you about work, this is a strange question too. Preacher feller thought we was being blasphemous and these hard cases with him was some so foolish as to bristle up but we held our smiles inside till our pure innocence let that man ride his storm out. Have you heard about Jesus Christ, he said. Ain’t he the one they killed for disagreement, I asked him. He is the one that died for our sins, he said, and went on some about it. Is that right, we said. Sirs, he said, feeling better and poured a little more whiskey in the coffee pot. Brothers! Let me tell you about Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Well, go right ahead, we said even as our mother already had. He did not have much to say about Jesus but he was pretty big on hellfire and redemption and by tones of his voice first you were not sure he believed it all himself because it was mighty like play acting, you wondered maybe he was making some fun, but understand that we had just never seen a preacher and he worked himself to a lather, was fit to be tied. He did it about an hour and then he stopped, and smiled real calm at us, though like a joke cept the smile happened to be part of his serious sermon, and he wanted to know if now we believed. It was a even more confusing question, and before we could judge some kind of answer he said, would you like to be baptised. That one really startled me, I just could not get over this man, and was studying all these dead serious folk backing him up, but Kelly settled it, said, hell no. The preacher frowned, and all behind him frowned. Kelly rose, pushed back his coat showing gun and knife, and frowned back. My brother is a squawman and you are in Comanche territory and likely to get killed. They was all on their feet by time I was and I asked, what’s wrong with you people? They was looking us over with some new respect, looked over at our horses, one said, why don’t you men have saddles? We went and pulled our rifles from the blanket folds, mounted and they all jumped back. You’re squawmen, ain’t you, screams the preacher. Lost sheep of the fold! Amen, amen, went the crowd. I had to get into the spirit of it and give them a long Comanche turkey gobble, and then did one of my own, eee-eee-eee-haw-aw-aw! One started to shoot but Kelly still took care of me and in mean temper shot the man’s elbow when he bent, and that one moaning on his knees the rest went for cover, women screaming, preacher giving his best sermon, and we ducked into the darkness.
