Stoney Livingston- Private Detective, Bounty Hunter, Independent Trucker, and Author
"I have a fine horse under me!"
Stoney was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2017 and given a month to live. True to form as a fighter, Stoney survived almost a year after that diagnosis. On March 20, 2018 Company A of the 1st Battalion of the 4th Marines added another battle casualty to its list of heroes. Stoney became one of the thousands of Vietnam participants laid low by Agent Orange. Stoney took the news with courage and put himself into his work to try and arrange for his beloved Cheryl after his passing. If you had happened to ask him how he was doing he'd always answer, "I have a fine horse under me." For those who have not seen the movie Jeremiah Johnson, the quotation is dialog from a mountain man that Jeremiah has found buried with only his head protruding out of the dirt. Jeremiah inquired about the well-being of the buried mountaineer and he makes that classic reply of daring and bravado. It was as if the line was written for Stoney.
I worked with Stoney writing six books (two of which are being finished) and I helped him with cover art for several of his other works. One could not hope for a better writing partner. Together we created fictional worlds, characters, and situations. I am grateful for the many long conversations about plots and our characters. Stoney and I both believed that stories need to be populated by characters one wishes to spend time with. We came to have great affection for our characters, even the bad ones. Most of all I am grateful for getting to know Stoney and his family. Stoney had a wealth of experiences and readily shared his recollections of the various lives he lived. He once called me early in the morning and asked, "Hey, do you speak Spanish?" I informed him I did not speak Spanish besides some very simple conversational phrases. He said, "That's too bad. I have this guy who wants me to go down to Nicaragua and get his daughter back. If you spoke Spanish you could get me around the place. He is offering a lot of money." I laughed and said, "I've always wanted to do research on Nicaraguan prisons." He then laughed as well and said, "Oh, so you think it's a bad idea?" We then went back to work on our writing.
It was like that with Stoney... life was an adventure. You always knew where you stood with Stoney. That personal honesty is rare.
We will miss Stoney and invite him to come haunt our offices as we finish the works we began together. Perhaps he'll bring along that fine horse.
Stoney was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2017 and given a month to live. True to form as a fighter, Stoney survived almost a year after that diagnosis. On March 20, 2018 Company A of the 1st Battalion of the 4th Marines added another battle casualty to its list of heroes. Stoney became one of the thousands of Vietnam participants laid low by Agent Orange. Stoney took the news with courage and put himself into his work to try and arrange for his beloved Cheryl after his passing. If you had happened to ask him how he was doing he'd always answer, "I have a fine horse under me." For those who have not seen the movie Jeremiah Johnson, the quotation is dialog from a mountain man that Jeremiah has found buried with only his head protruding out of the dirt. Jeremiah inquired about the well-being of the buried mountaineer and he makes that classic reply of daring and bravado. It was as if the line was written for Stoney.
I worked with Stoney writing six books (two of which are being finished) and I helped him with cover art for several of his other works. One could not hope for a better writing partner. Together we created fictional worlds, characters, and situations. I am grateful for the many long conversations about plots and our characters. Stoney and I both believed that stories need to be populated by characters one wishes to spend time with. We came to have great affection for our characters, even the bad ones. Most of all I am grateful for getting to know Stoney and his family. Stoney had a wealth of experiences and readily shared his recollections of the various lives he lived. He once called me early in the morning and asked, "Hey, do you speak Spanish?" I informed him I did not speak Spanish besides some very simple conversational phrases. He said, "That's too bad. I have this guy who wants me to go down to Nicaragua and get his daughter back. If you spoke Spanish you could get me around the place. He is offering a lot of money." I laughed and said, "I've always wanted to do research on Nicaraguan prisons." He then laughed as well and said, "Oh, so you think it's a bad idea?" We then went back to work on our writing.
It was like that with Stoney... life was an adventure. You always knew where you stood with Stoney. That personal honesty is rare.
We will miss Stoney and invite him to come haunt our offices as we finish the works we began together. Perhaps he'll bring along that fine horse.
Elegy by Siegfried Sassoon
Your dextrous wit will haunt us long
Wounding our grief with yesterday.
Your laughter is a broken song;
And death has found you, kind and gay.
We may forget those transient things
That made your charm and our delight:
But loyal love has deathless wings
That rise and triumph out of night.
So, in the days to come, your name
Shall be as music that ascends
When honour turns a heart from shame...
O heart of hearts! ... O friend of friends!
Your dextrous wit will haunt us long
Wounding our grief with yesterday.
Your laughter is a broken song;
And death has found you, kind and gay.
We may forget those transient things
That made your charm and our delight:
But loyal love has deathless wings
That rise and triumph out of night.
So, in the days to come, your name
Shall be as music that ascends
When honour turns a heart from shame...
O heart of hearts! ... O friend of friends!
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Stoney is a coauthor on this mystery/action/fantasy novel about a serial killer in 1990s North Dakota. This novel was a step into a new genre for both coauthors and has been getting great reviews.
I was stuck in Chicago, in some seriously bad weather, so I got a hotel room, brought my small screen DOS computer into the room and wrote this novel. It took eight days and the war was all but over when I finished it. It shouldn’t take eight days to read it, if you like it at all.
I don’t like to rush into things and it wasn’t published until June 13, 2015. Please don’t wait 24 years to buy it.
This book will be available in June of 2015.
I don’t like to rush into things and it wasn’t published until June 13, 2015. Please don’t wait 24 years to buy it.
This book will be available in June of 2015.
Since my first official creative writing class in 1990, I have been encouraged to write about my experience as a bounty hunter. I thought about writing a non-fictional account of a few cases but ended up writing a novel. It was definitely a lot more fun than writing non-fiction. The first chapter and a half is taken directly from one of my earliest cases but, from there, it goes wild. I just love being able to do on paper what can’t or shouldn’t be done in the real world. If you read the book, I hope you enjoy the reading as much as I did the writing.
Though not my first completed novel, it is the first one I had published. Gordon Mustain and I completed it in 1990. We had a long discussion with a big publisher and it looked like a done deal until the publisher insisted that we change the ending. Gordon and I both agreed we would not do that, and it took six years to find another publisher. It was first printed in 1996 by Blue Star Productions, a label of Bookworld. The second printing occurred in 2000 by iUniverse. Third printing will take place in 2015.
If you think you might like a modern-day (1979) version of an Apache uprising, with a lot of Native American spiritual influence, I think you’ll really enjoy this book. We have had letters and comments from readers in several states and at least one from England, all heaping praise on our novel. The most surprising praise, for me, came from a lady in Montana, who said she was 83 years old and had never read a better book. As a writer, that makes me feel pretty good. |
Stoney contributed several articles on Apache culture and history for this encyclopedia.
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This is my first completed novel. I began writing it as soon as I got out of the Marine Corps in August of 1967 and, after more than 1300 handwritten pages on legal tablets, completed it in 1972. Once it was completed, I didn’t know what to do with it. When PC computers became an affordable reality, I typed it into Word Star, then WordPerfect, and, finally Word.
While the book is a novel, any knowledgeable reader of that war will know that the battle scenes depicted are of real battles; only the characters are fictitious. The story is seen through the eyes of a young enlisted man, so you will not get the “big picture” of the war, only that which is experienced by the men on the ground. I believe there’s a little bit of something for most readers in this large novel, including romance, camaraderie, violence that is war, differing attitudes among the young men, holidays away from home, the choices made by squad leaders and team leaders, and the irony of who lives and who dies.
I like to think this is an excellent book of fiction, with accurate descriptions of the attitudes and expectations of the fighting men who took part in that little war in its first year and a half. After that time, everything changed.
While the book is a novel, any knowledgeable reader of that war will know that the battle scenes depicted are of real battles; only the characters are fictitious. The story is seen through the eyes of a young enlisted man, so you will not get the “big picture” of the war, only that which is experienced by the men on the ground. I believe there’s a little bit of something for most readers in this large novel, including romance, camaraderie, violence that is war, differing attitudes among the young men, holidays away from home, the choices made by squad leaders and team leaders, and the irony of who lives and who dies.
I like to think this is an excellent book of fiction, with accurate descriptions of the attitudes and expectations of the fighting men who took part in that little war in its first year and a half. After that time, everything changed.
Mathew Grady, a Confederate soldier returning to his home in Tucson, Arizona Territory at the end of the Civil War, with his unusual horse and dog, stumbles upon a family of settlers trying to make a go of life in the middle of Apache Country. Crawford Kensington, an eight-year-old boy, befriends Grady and his horse and dog. The Kensingtons have a small herd of cattle and little experience in ranching. They appeal to Grady for help and he agrees.
Grady refuses to surrender to the Union and wishes only to be left alone. He doesn’t want a pardon, nor does he want to be a citizen of the United States. Federal troops from Tucson search for him from time to time but Grady is able to elude them.
Cochise and his band of Chiricahua Apache are on the warpath and are killing whites and Mexicans as fast as they see them. Grady is able to maintain a margin of safety for the Kensingtons while attending to his chores and eluding the U.S. cavalry.
The introduction of a family of Negroes to their homestead, then a family of Mexicans, a homeless Chinese man and, finally, a lone, wounded Apache, makes for an interesting mix in a land as rugged as it gets and where survival is truly accomplished only by the fittest.
The trials and tribulations of the Kensingtons is chronicled by Crawford, as only an eight-year-old boy can see things. He doesn't understand Confederate and Union, and the notion of nationality, but he does understand that he grows to love Matt Grady and his horse, Critter, and his dog, Judd.
Grady refuses to surrender to the Union and wishes only to be left alone. He doesn’t want a pardon, nor does he want to be a citizen of the United States. Federal troops from Tucson search for him from time to time but Grady is able to elude them.
Cochise and his band of Chiricahua Apache are on the warpath and are killing whites and Mexicans as fast as they see them. Grady is able to maintain a margin of safety for the Kensingtons while attending to his chores and eluding the U.S. cavalry.
The introduction of a family of Negroes to their homestead, then a family of Mexicans, a homeless Chinese man and, finally, a lone, wounded Apache, makes for an interesting mix in a land as rugged as it gets and where survival is truly accomplished only by the fittest.
The trials and tribulations of the Kensingtons is chronicled by Crawford, as only an eight-year-old boy can see things. He doesn't understand Confederate and Union, and the notion of nationality, but he does understand that he grows to love Matt Grady and his horse, Critter, and his dog, Judd.
