Jaycee Woods

I had an idea for a period western adventure story for boys as there aren’t enough westerns today. As a genre, westerns are primed to stories focused on morality with a gritty realism.

Civil war vet turned Rocky Mountain trapper comes into town in the spring to sell his fur collection from the winter. As he considers how to invest his proceeds between supplies and trade goods for the Indians, he is approached by a former fellow soldier who tries to recruit him into a criminal gang for a robbery.

The story would be about the virtue of independence dramatized by resisting peer pressure to make moral choices rooted in values and long-term thinking.

His solitary life in the wild will have a therapeutic aspect rooted in the idea that battlefield veterans may require time to decompress psychologically before being reintroduced into peaceful society so their brains can rewire back to normal life.

Character would have potential to be serial with him taking on other western roles (buffalo hunter, prospector, army scout, railroad engineer, farmer, rancher, lawman) as he heals from the war.

Perhaps he is haunted by the Crater at Petersburg where he was involved in laying the charge and later storming the works as an eyewitness to the effect. It would explain why he would be considered an expert with explosives and why he doesn’t want to talk about it.

A line to consider for inclusion, and editing, after he tells the other vet that he won’t talk about the Crater, “In the war we did what we had to, what we were ordered to do under threat of discipline. Now we have choices and full responsibility.”