One of the pleasures of writing the eight comic Westerns in The Memoirs of H.H. Lomax series was that I got to do a lot of historical research, which is always more fun than the writing itself. Some of the research focused on well-known personas and events as the first four books acquainted Lomax with Billy the Kid, Jesse James, the Earps and George Armstrong Custer.
However, the next four books in the series examined some of the more obscure people and events in Western history. All four are now in Wolfpack Publishing’s omnibus edition of Call of the Wilde, Volume 2 in the Lomax collection. First Herd to Abilene is the trail drive novel I always wanted to do. North to Alaska, second book in the new collection, gave me the chance to send Lomax on the Klondike Gold Rush after having a date with rabid suffragist Susan B. Anthony.
Next in Outlaw West of the Pecos, Lomax made enemies of Judge Roy Bean and John Wesley Hardin as he helped pull off the most bizarre heavyweight title fight in American history. Finally, in the omnibus namesake novel, Call of the Wilde, Lomax winds up being a body guard for poet Oscar Wilde during his speaking tour across the West.
When I do research, I’m not only looking for historical facts, I’m also looking for odd stories or unknown incidents that have comic potential. I found one such tale doing some unrelated research on Fort Griffin and Shackelford County, Texas. It seems there was a questionable escape from the county jail. There’s no doubt the accused escaped, but the question was whether he managed the breakout on his own or whether county officials just let him escape because they didn’t have enough money to pay for his trial.
So, that’s how I started Call of the Wilde with Lomax being arrested for a bank robbery he didn’t commit in Buffalo Gap, Texas. Unfortunately, the robbers got away with all the county’s funds, and those fictional folks in Taylor County, Texas, faced the same predicament as their actual counterparts in Shackelford County.
Unfortunately for Taylor County, Lomax decides they are just setting him up to either shoot or lynch him, so he doesn’t play along. The more the officials try to entice Lomax to escape, the greater he resists the temptation until he is in control of the sheriff’s office and jail. Ultimately, he does “escape” with a little help from the sheriff’s straight-laced daughter, who has the crookedest teeth in Old West history.
And that’s all before Lomax meets Oscar Wilde. So, check out Volume 2 of the Lomax omnibus if you are curious about who taught Wild Bill Hickok the fast draw or how Lomax’s date with Susan B. Anthony saved him from Wells Fargo detectives or how he befriended Judge Roy Bean’s pet bear or what he had to do to guard Oscar Wilde.
Lomax may not always show how the West was won, but he does demonstrate how it was fun. Check it out for $1.99 on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Call-Wilde-Memoirs-H-H-Lomax-ebook/dp/B0HCFBC8LG/
