“Fictions!” It is a vile word, and one to which I, the honest compiler of the tales trapped within these covers, have been subjected, time and again, by otherwise kindly readers. Allow me to clear the air. There are no fictions to be found anywhere in these pages. Every inch of ink and paper has been devoted to the cataloguing of cold hard fact. The geography, as presented, is as close to plumb as any writer could ever hope to reckon into words. Every hill, mountain, canyon and desert, is described according to location, flora and fauna, with the stated aim of educating while entertaining the casual reader. The dates are historically accurate. The colorful personages are drawn with an eye to the truth. All of these people existed, without exception, and their parts in the narrative have been scrupulously researched for authenticity.
Not all of the characters in this book are to be admired, however. History, as it turns out, is littered with men and women (and boys and girls!) possessed of vile, even shocking beliefs, language and manners. As your narrator I will admit having felt tempted to censor the more disturbing bits of racism from the nineteenth century folk that people these tales. But as fact is my watch-word, I have resisted that temptation. My advice, should you find any of the dialogue to be unspeakably grotesque, is to consider the following and take heart. We no longer live in such times! Thankfully, we in the modern age have utterly vanquished religious intolerance, sexism and bigotry. As mental diseases they are cured. My lasting hope, in presenting these distasteful subjects, is only that younger generations will recognize exactly how awful their forebears were, and so guard against any moral backsliding.
This brings up a further charge, which I feel the need to address here and now. Because this book contains themes of an often uncomfortable nature, certain pigheaded readers have suggested that it ought to be reserved exclusively for adults. In essence, this charge claims that literature read by the young “seeks only entertainment in its wonder-tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incidents.”1 While it is true that my fondest wish has been to “remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in,”2 I would never begrudge the precocious youth or inquisitive adolescent reader the opportunity to engage the sometimes shocking realities of history.
And yet, despite my insistence on the above points, readers have proved remarkably stubborn. The majority continue to level charges both of inaccuracy and adult exclusivity. Having no other recourse, I have determined it best to seek legal counsel. Thus, let it be known that any reader suggesting the slightest whiff of fiction within the pages of this book, henceforth to be known as The Year of the Horse, by Justin Allen, or otherwise implying that this book should be accessible only to the aged of body and soul, will be sued to the fullest extent of the law. The firm of Lister, Gatliff, Patrelle, Irons and Murphy has already filed a dozen such suits, and is prepared to enter into literally hundreds more.
The author considers this fair warning.