Oklahoma Odyssey

In late fall of 1892 outlaw Eddie Mole gallops down the main street of Jericho Springs, Kansas, where he robs and shoots dead the freighter Barney Kreider. Some urge Barney’s son Ulysses ( Euly ) to take revenge, but Euly is a Mennonite and Mennonites don’t seek revenge. Instead, Euly plots how to make his fortune with the aid of his half-Osage sister, Kate, and his friend Johnny, an Osage farmhand. The three make a plan to sell goods and livestock to the settlers converging on Caldwell, Kansas, for the land run going on in the Cherokee Outlet. When Johnny tracks Eddie into the Cherokee Outlet, he witnesses Buffalo Soldiers evicting Eddie from a ranch, leaving it public domain, and Johnny and Kate make the run for that beautiful land. Euly follows close behind, even as Eddie, riding from Arkansas City, tries to reclaim his old ranch.

John Mort’s narrative is an anti-revenge novel–always opting for nonviolence. But there’s violence nevertheless, as Eddie’s and Barney’s survivors converge in a rousing finish. Though this novel uses some of the architecture and motifs of traditional westerns, it is carefully researched and set in the unfolding of a pivotal, neglected historical event.

John Mort is a writer and farmer. He is the author of eleven books, including Soldier in Paradise and Down along the Piney: Ozark Stories. His short stories have appeared in a variety of publications, including the New Yorker, Missouri Review, the Chicago Tribune, the Arkansas Review, and Sixfold.