dual personalities

Craig Johnson’s newest Longmire mystery, Next to Last Stand, releases today and I should be getting it in the mail shortly. The plot hinges on a famous American painting:

One of the most viewed paintings in American history, Custer’s Last Fight, copied and distributed by Anheuser-Busch at a rate of over a million prints a year, was destroyed in a fire at the 7th Cavalry Headquarters in Fort Bliss, Texas, in 1946… Or was it? When Charley Lee Stillwater dies of an apparent heart-attack at the Sailor’s & Soldier’s Home of Wyoming, Walt Longmire is called in to try and make sense of a hauntingly familiar, partial painting and a Florsheim shoebox containing a million dollars both found in the veteran’s footlocker. Encountering some nefarious characters along the way, Longmire strives to make sure the investigation doesn’t become his own Next To Last Stand.

Interestingly, (at least to me) this large painting hung in our father’s classroom for many years. Someone gave it to him I suppose. I think our brother has it now. As a child I thought it was rather shocking, because you will note, there are some near-naked men in the painting. There are also several soldiers being scalped. All rather too graphic for my taste.

Much more to my liking as a child was the Disney movie Tonka (1958). This story takes place in the territory of the Dakotas in the 1870s, where a young Indian brave, White Bull, captures a wild stallion and names him Tonka. Yellow Bull, the brave’s cousin, is jealous and mistreats Tonka so that White Bull frees the horse once more. The horse’s new master, Capt. Myles Keogh, rides him into battle with General Custer in the Battle of the Little Big Horn, where Keogh is killed by Yellow Bull.

In retaliation Yellow Bull is stomped upon and killed by Tonka, who is the only survivor of the battle. He is officially retired by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry on April 10, 1878, to be ridden only by his exercise boy, his beloved master…White Bull! Directed by Lewis R. Foster, the film stars Sal Mineo (White Bull) and was filmed at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon by Loyal Griggs, who had filmed such famous westerns as Shane. Released on video in 1986, it is no longer available, no doubt because it is so politically incorrect. Indeed, there aren’t many of those “Wonderful World of Disney” movies that we watched on Sunday night TV available on their new streaming channel. I guess they’d have to put too many warnings about the pre-enlightened attitudes of yesteryear to make it worthwhile.

I had the Golden Book…

Anyway, I am really looking forward to reuniting with Sheriff Longmire and Henry Standing Bear et al. I have been setting the stage by re-reading Land of Wolves, the 2019 offering and enjoying it.

The idiot actually leaned in. “I said, do you know who the f–k I am?” Henry peered at him and actually looked concerned. “Do you not know who you are?”

I’ll let you know how it goes.