Empire of the Summer Moon - S.C. Gwynne

I picked up Empire of the Summer Moon in the Western section of a local bookstore in Crested Butte. I can’t remember the name of the store but it was on the main drag attached to a coffee shop. The book was on display, gold lettering and the solemn face of a Comanche proud on the exposed cover. That is a thing that separates the physical experience of buying a book versus a digital experience. You remember the tactile parts of picking up the book off the shelf in the store, turning it over in your hands, and raising your eyebrows and nodding satisfactorily the binding. Your kids run up with their books and you nod satisfactorily at their choices. The lady behind the counter gives you and the kids a free bookmark. Its nice. None of that happens when you click download on your kindle. You may nod satisfactorily at your digital purchase, but you won't remember it.

Of course, none of this is a reflection on this book, but the experience of the book matters.

Empire of the Summer moon is about the rise and fall of the Comanches in the area of north Texas. It’s the story of a people who rose from nothing to become feared warriors on the backs of horses imported from Spain and let loose on a country they weren’t bred for but perfectly suited to. It’s the story of captives, brutal atrocities, promises broken, and a people decimated.

Gwynne writes with excitement. The chapters read like a classic adventure novel of the American west without losing any of their historical accuracy. He doesn’t pull any punches; atrocious torture and murder are described in detail. Like a Cormac McCarthy novel, there are no heroes, though there are exemplary people, notable people, infamous people. In a land with no heroes, everyone is some kind of villain.

I like to think back on a book rather than flip through it. “The good shit sticks” as Cal Fussman said. In any case I already handed the book off to Richard Schick so I don’t have it anymore.

What I remember is the story of an Apache tribe convincing the Spanish that they'd convert to Catholicism if only the Spaniards would ride out and build a church deep into their country. The commander of the local Spanish garrison was dubious and smelled a trap, but the zeal of religion could not be overcome, and the priests insisted on dragging themselves and the garrison troops deep into the desert to bring the good word to the Apache. They arrived and waited for their converts. Nobody came. The commander alone recognized they’d been duped and insisted they return with the troops. The priests remained. After the troops left, the priests were brutally murdered. But not by the Apache. By their enemy the Comanche. The Apache had lured the Spanish into the hands of their enemy, in a kind of entrapment that makes you smile and remember the old proverb the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

More reveals itself the longer I reflect. The stories are embedded in your mind even if you can't recite them. The time the Comanche, now long in decline, corner a handful of buffalo hunters in a small village. They fail in their attempt to murder the men, trapped in a saloon, and ride off into the distance to plan another attack. Instead they are picked off at nearly a mile away by the hunters with their “Big Fifty” Sharps rifles. Only someone my age would think of Quigley Down Under.

Or the story of the development of the Colt Walker revolver by Samuel Colt in conjunction with the Texas Rangers by John Coffee Hays. The formation of the Rangers. Their learning and then re-learning how to fight the Comanche. The Comanche learning and re-learning how to outsmart the Rangers.

I could write for a long time about Cynthia Ann Parker, or Quanah, or MacKenzie. But I didn't write this book, S.C. Gwynne did. I encourage you to pick it up.