Pale Horse Coming (52 page)

So many people came up with so many good ideas on this project I began to question, toward the end, whether I had anything to do with it at all.

The great Weyman Swagger, one of the world’s finest natural editors, brought considerable intelligence to bear from start to finish. Behind that grizzled countenance lurks penetrating insight; he really gets it.

Then my friend Lenne Miller, in the throes of a divorce, took time out from his anguish to pitch in a key idea and to remind me that I couldn’t write a book where the hero hates dogs.

Usual suspects Mike Hill and Jeff Weber were there as needed.

In my journalism life, I went to my editor, John Pancake, and said, “John, I have a question that the Arts Editor of
The Washington Post
certainly ought to be able to answer. How do you drain a swamp?”

Here’s the scary part: he knew.

He also was, as always, somewhat forgiving in his definition of acceptable time-in-office, which provided me the freedom to have the two careers going simultaneously and puts off that Big Choice another year or two, if not forever. Gene Robinson, Deb Heard and Peter Kaufman were equally forgiving on the present/ absent issue.

Cellmates Henry Allen and Paul Richard were enthusiastic, which is a great help, believe me. Bill Smart, another great old
Post
guy, loaned me certain shooters’ biographies helpful in concocting my old men; and when office politics in the Style Section grow wearying, I can always turn to him for an illuminating discussion on much more important subjects such as: 9-mm vs. .40 S&W for personal defense, or 7-mm Remington Mag—enough for elk?

Randy Mays, retired from a certain agency he can’t talk about, supplied me with a Department of Energy book on Los Alamos science that I kept too long, as I usually do. Sorry, Randy, but thanks so much.

Also in Washington, Mike Jeck of the American Film Institute came up with that wonderful use for old cowboy movies.

I should also mention the late Jim Schefter. Jim, author of
The Race,
and several other volumes, died before he could read this book, I’m sorry to say. But he caught a huge geographical mistake in
Hot Springs
that would have made me the recipient of dozens of snippy letters. I’m sure he’s up there in Writer’s Valhalla, taking his red Corvette through 180 fish-tails on gravel roads whenever possible.

In cyberspace, my thanks go to Bob Beers, who voluntarily runs a Stephen Hunter website at www.stephenhunter.net. Why I don’t know, but he seems to enjoy it. My appreciation.

I should mention also that the prison work songs are taken from the Alan Lomax collections—“Prison Songs I and II,” recorded by the great Mr. Lomax at Parchman in 1948—and are available from Rounder Records.

In the gun world, I was able to spend a morning on the range with Jerry Miculek, the world’s greatest revolver shooter and the heir to Ed McGivern. Jerry, and his wife Kay Clark-Miculek, are fabulous people, and I had to pinch myself several times to remember that I was hanging out with someone at the level of Joe DiMaggio, who was nevertheless decent, approachable, helpful and whose insights on the care, feeding and fast manipulation of a revolver were of great help.

Jerry came into my life through the good offices of Ken Jorgenson of Smith & Wesson, and Michael Banes of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who convened a writers’ play-day at the Fairfax County Rod and Gun club. And to Ken, thanks so much for other considerations.

My good friend John Bainbridge spent a wet, cold, muddy week with me in Mississippi, most of it perched in tree stands on Steve McKenna’s ranch, waiting for the legendary Mississippi white tails to appear. If you spend time in a deer camp, you’re a lucky man if you have a buddy as congenial, decent and amusing as John Bainbridge.

Professionally, those two legends, Michael Korda and David Rosenthal, editor in chief and publisher, respectively, of Simon & Schuster, were steady hands, true believers and highly accomplished facilitators; they made this book as good as it could be. And of course my agent Esther Newberg was always around to say gently, “Stop whining and get back to work.”

I was particularly emboldened when I explained to my daughter Amy what I wanted to do in this book and she said, “Dad, works for me.”

And of course the great Jean Marbella, one of the funniest, smartest, most beautiful women who ever lived, was supportive from the first and until the last.

And I should say finally that while some readers may recognize the real life antecedents of my six old gunmen, there is no evidence at all, and this book was not meant to suggest, that they ever took part in such an enterprise as I’ve invented, technically illegal no matter how morally upstanding.

And also to them—my heroes in the ’50s—I have to say, “Gents, I’d ride the river with you anytime.”