The Lords of the valley

by LaVerne Hanners

The Lords of the Valley is the intertwining of two voices, one male and one female, to tell the story of life in and around a tiny, remote ranching community on the Oklahoma/New Mexico border from the 1890s through the 1930s. LaVerne Hanners's gentle, helpful commentary is woven through the unaltered text of Ed Lord's "Our Sheltered Lives," a curt, no-nonsense account of his life as a cowpuncher, freighter, and storekeeper in Kenton, Oklahoma. Hanners also was a longtime resident of Kenton. Lord and Hanners both describe a way of life that demanded toughness - stoicism, commitment, and humor when possible - but their recollections take an interesting counterpoint. Following the branding and castration of a thousand young bulls, Lord insists that the entire town came with buckets to carry the testicles home - "They were really meat hungry." Hanners insists, however, that cooking and eating mountain oysters was "strictly a masculine endeavor," pursued by the men after the women had vacat