"...I LOVE THESE GUYS...": THE HIRED GUN'S STEVE HOCKENSMITH

I've known Steve Hockensmith for some some years. The last time we hung, he talked to me about wanting to write a more traditional western than he had been doing in his acclaimed Holmes On The Range series. He used that series to spin off a The Hired Guns, three army buddies that comprise of Diehl, a former officer, Eskaminzim, his Apache scout, and former buffalo soldier Hoop. The three now work for The Western Detective Agency on the jobs that rely on their combat experience. The Hired Guns was a smart and rollicking debut, then Steve topped himself a month later with the follow up, No Hallowed Ground. I got a chance to talk to him about the series.

SCOTT MONTGOMERY: I know you have been wanting to do a straight up traditional western. What made you want to work in the genre?

STEVE HOCKENSMITH: Over the years as a reader I’d found myself falling more and more in love with the genre. A good Western can have so many of the things I love: interesting characters, high-stakes conflicts, regional flavor, historical context, humor. You know — thrills and spills, you laugh and you cry, all in a setting I find endlessly fascinating. So even though I’d done the “Holmes on the Range” books, which are part-Western but structured like mysteries, I was itching to write a novel more like the ones I was enjoying so much. And at last I got around to it!

S.M.: How did the idea of Hired Guns come about?

S.H.: I’ve been thinking about a “Holmes on the Range” spinoff for a long, long time. Probably about 10 years. I knew I wanted to do something that would be more action-oriented, without all the clue-gathering and deductions and big final reveals of a mystery. And through the first several “Holmes on the Range” novels the heroes are amateurs who keep stumbling into murder plots. I wanted to get away from that and have protagonists who are constantly in dangerous situations because that’s their job. There are a lot of ways you could go with that — lawmen, cowboys, soldiers, railroad police, Wells Fargo guards, etc. I settled on detectives because I’d already built a base for it: the detective agency my “Holmes on the Range” guys end up starting in their series.

S.M.: What made you decide to have The Hired Guns share the world with Old and Big Red?

S.H.: Marketing! I thought it would be easier to launch a new series if I could lure readers to it from the “Holmes on the Range” books. But I think part of the appeal of a spinoff also came from my childhood. I grew up a big comic book and Star Trek fan, so I was used to the idea of a shared universe with spinoffs and cameos and crossovers. It just adds to the fun, you know? Makes it more immersive. I set up another “Holmes on the Range” spinoff — one focusing on their friend and fellow detective Diana — but I’m not sure I’ll get around to launching it. One day, I hope…

S.M.: With Big and Old Red you have a duo. What do three leads do for you?

S.H.: There’s a lot more jumping around in perspective, which is both liberating and challenging. With the “Holmes on the Range” books I’m not only locked in with Big Red and Old Red as my leads, I’m locked into Big Red’s head because he’s the first-person narrator. I switched to third person for the “Hired Guns” books so I could pop around to where the action is in a much quicker and freer way. The challenge to that is that I need to know the interior lives of all my heroes, not just one. Because I’m always writing Old Red from his brother’s perspective, what’s going on in his head is actually a bit mysterious to me. I don’t always understand him, which can work narratively because Big Red doesn’t always understand him. But in the “Hired Guns” books the POV revolves, so I need a deeper understanding of everyone’s outlook. I feel like I’ve got that nailed for Diehl and Eskaminzim. Hoop, I’ll admit, I’m still getting to know.

S.M.: The first two books came out pretty close. Was there any debate about which story should be first?

S.H.: Hired Guns had been finished for three or four years by the time I wrote No Hallowed Ground, so there was never any question about which would come first. Things did get a little jumbled up in terms of the overall Holmes on the Range-iverse timeline, though. I wanted Hired Guns to come out before the “Holmes on the Range” novel Hunters of the Dead so the books would stay chronological, but that didn’t work out with my publisher. So readers first met Diehl in Hunters of the Dead, which takes place in the summer of 1894, then later read about him in Hired Guns and No Hallowed Ground, which take place in the spring. So there’s a little backtracking. It’s not a big deal continuity-wise, but I do think it makes it hard to track one of the subplots that crosses over between the books (namely, how Big Red and Old Red’s partner Col. Crowe ended up owning a dachshund!).

S.M.: The first book deals with a mining war. What drew you to that?

S.H.: To be honest, I can’t remember! The book’s been done so long I’ve totally forgotten how I decided on the plot. It probably grew out of the research. I’ve tried to keep all the “Holmes on the Range” and “Hired Guns” books historically grounded, so I do a lot of reading before I settle on a storyline. What I dig up always ends up pointing me in one direction or another. I was already familiar with a thing called “the Panic of 1893” — a mini-Depression that’s played into several “Holmes on the Range” plots — and in looking at that more I read about the collapse of the market for silver that helped cause it. I think that steered me toward a conflict over mining, with a big concern trying to get out of silver and bully its way into something more stable, like copper. Rich jerks throwing their weight around was a pretty common thing back then. Some things never change…

S.M.: I was happy to see you use the Cherokee Lighthorseman in No Hallowed Ground. What made you want to use them?

S.H.: I knew early on in the plotting that the story was going to end up in the Indian Territories, so that meant I’d have lots of Indigenous characters. I wanted them to be a mixed bag — bad guys, good guys, in-between guys. And in doing my research I read Art Burton’s Black, Red and Deadly: Black and Indian Gunfighters of the Indian Territory, which includes a lot of material about the Cherokee Lighthorse. If you’re writing a Western set in the Territories and you read about those guys, you’re going to get them into the action! They’re pretty cool, and I hope I have the chance to write about them again.

S.M.: I also love Eskaminzim's sister and Hoop's wife Onawa. What does she bring to the ensemble for you?

S.H.: Estrogen! I always knew I wanted my cast to be diverse and (if the series continues) to have a revolving-door quality. Diehl, Hoop and Eskaminzim are the constants, but who they team up with changes from adventure to adventure. Adding Onawa allowed me to have a female Apache perspective while showing new facets to Eskaminzim and Hoop. I wasn’t sure how readers would react to her. She’s a pretty tough cookie — far from warm and fuzzy. But so far everyone seems to love her. So now I’m rethinking the revolving-door thing: If there are more sequels, maybe it’ll always be the four of them. Or Onawa is going to convince Hoop and Eskaminzim to quit — her inclination by the end of No Hallowed Ground — and the door will really revolve as the series moves forward. We’ll see…

S.M.: What can you tell us about what you have in store for The Hired Guns?

S.H.: Not much yet, I’m afraid. I’ve been writing at a pretty fast pace the last three years, and now I need to take a breather and slow things down for a while. There’ll probably be a new “Holmes on the Range” novel out in a year or so, and after that I’d love to circle back to Diehl and the gang. In all honesty, I think Hired Guns and No Hallowed Ground are two of my best books — and I’ve written a lot of books now! I am getting old! So what the future holds for me and my characters…I don’t know. But I love these guys, and I know that sooner or later, in one way, shape or form, they’ll be back.