For Craig Johnson the west is a part of his hero, aging Northern Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire. The locals breathe in his books through sparse description and detailed characters. His latest, Depth Of Winter, has Walt going into Mexico to retrieve his daughter who has been kidnapped by Tomas Bidarte, a “monster among monsters” who has plagued him since As The Crow Flies. A friend since his first book, I was honored to be assigned to interview him a couple weeks after Longmire Days, a celebration of the books and TV series it is based on in Buffalo, Wyoming, the town that serves as the inspiration for Walt’s fictional counterpart, Durant.
Scott Montgomery: So what did you get from Longmire Days this year?
Craig Johnson: Tired. I got tired from Longmire Days.
Montgomery: And Lost your voice.
Johnson: Yeah, first time that happened. This seemed to be the smoothest one ever. Every year we try to make it a little bit better, but it’s not really in my hands anymore. The Chamber of Commerce of Buffalo has done all the work. I’m kind of like the actors. I’m a contract player.
Montgomery: Do you get surprised with the fans?
Johnson: That there are always people discovering the books after fourteen years or the show after six years and that’s kind of wonderful. I find it surprising, because I’ve been with the characters for years.
Montgomery: And they get to interact with Walt’s world when they come out there.
Johnson: Oh yeah, it’s Frank Capra-esque. They’re there on the main street of Buffalo/Durant. The Busy Bee Café. And it’s just not people from across the country; it’s from around the world. We’ve had an uptick in international travel to the Johnson County area.
Montgomery: I ran into a couple of now-locals who moved out here because of the books.
Johnson: I don’t know why they want to live in a town that seems to have such a high per capita murder rate. I think the characters and the sense of place draw people. I get compliments from readers that they can take out a road map and follow the routes and trails I describe. I think that sense of realism makes them want to visit.
Montgomery: You kicked around a lot of places. What about Northern Wyoming drew you?
We’re not the kind of people out here who close the gates. This place gets better with more interesting people.Johnson: When I was in my twenties, I delivered horses out there and fell in love with the country and The Big Horn Mountains. It was odd because it was considered over populated then and even more so now. I may be my own worst enemy, with people moving out here because of the books. But we’re not the kind of people out here who close the gates. This place gets better with more interesting people.
Montgomery: I think that’s the thing that resonates with your books, It’s not just cowboys and Indians, there’s people of Indian descent who run the motel, the retirees who move out here, artists, and outfitters. You really go into that society.
Johnson: That’s just being honest. It’s interesting the diversity, because there are so few people.
Montgomery: That’s were your west reminds me of Tony Hillerman’s.
Johnson: Yeah, I think so and that’s about picking a place and being as honest as you can. That’s always going to help you as far as the writing process is concerned. If you get stuck about the people, you could get bored in a while. One of the groups I use a lot is the Basques because that’s a big element in Johnson County and Wyoming and they are always interesting. I’ll be using them again.
Montgomery: Speaking about being honest, is it difficult to write about the worst aspects of a place you love?
Johnson: No. No matter how beautiful a place is, there is a certain human element that’s less than appealing. And because I write murder mysteries I’m stuck with that. There’s no way getting around that dramatic conflict without dealing with those aspects. I could write about two cowboys working on a fence that could ramble on for hours. The storytelling elements of crime fiction work for me. They force me to really build a story with drive, instead of meandering along.
Montgomery: There are elements of the traditional western in your work. Even though your dealing with the modern narco trade in Depth Of Winter, I couldn’t help but think of Peckinpah.
Johnson: (laughs) That’s high praise. It was a very cinematic book, I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because of the different locale, Northern Mexico. It has no snow, which I was shooting for to be honest. I get a lot of people e-mailing me saying “There’s a lot of snow in your books.” My first response is: “I don’t live in Key West.” And another thing is the books are seasonal, so you get one of my Vivaldi winter books every four years. I think with the title Depth Of Winter people were expecting to be knee deep in snow and the temperature never gets below ninety.
Montgomery: It’s cold in a lot of different ways.
Johnson: Yeah and I think anytime you’re talking about Pekinpah, it’s also the Sergio Leone movies. You could score this entire book to Ennio Morricone’s western scores. And then there’s The Magnificent Seven. That’s one of my absolute favorite westerns of all time. I’m talking about the old one, not the new one. I always think someday it’s going to age and it never does because the writing is so good. It takes from the Kurosawa film and develops character. And anytime when you have a group of individuals go down to Mexico to do a job, you have it made. But to be honest, Walt has the worst group of misfits you could ever find. You have a blind hunchback with no legs, who is the brains of the outfit. It’s questionable how it’s going to turn out. What makes it a bit different is it’s a group of Mexicans he pulls together. That’s where it comes back to the honesty, it’s just not a just a group of gringos going down there. You have to go covert and sometimes it’s hard to be covert with a 6’5, 260 lb., white guy in Northern Mexico. I don’t want to give it away how they deal with it, since it is one of the funnier parts of the book.
Montgomery: When you write about the west, you eventually find yourself in Mexico.
Johnson: (laughs) In this situation, Walt has no choice. When you have a character like Tomas Bidarte who is involved in some really shady deals, who becomes more and more powerful by sheer viciousness, it’s Mexico where you have to put him. It’s where he is going to rise. And he needed to be powerful. He’s not going to make the same mistake twice. He took Walt on his own turf. Walt has a lot to work with in Wyoming. I knew when Bidarte was going after him. He can’t put the usual group together; he has to put a new one together in a place where he’s told by a border patrolman, who is his counterpart, not to trust anyone, not the law, not the military. It made all of these characters jump off the page.
Montgomery: It’s interesting because any time Walt is out of Absaroka County and has to pull people, it’s usually from the establishment. This time it’s from the margins.
Johnson: You’re absolutely right. Generally he can call law enforcement, but this this situation he has to go a little cowboy. He’s going into this as a suicide mission. He doesn’t think he can come back. It’s to save Cady. That makes for dire circumstances, so he can’t put Henry or Vic into it. He also knows he has a limited window, so he’s plunging in and wanting to end it as fast as he can with both the U.S. and Mexican governments trying to stop him.
Montgomery: You mentioned The Magnificent Seven. I know one thing you think it has on The Seven Samurai is the villain. Bidarte is the first reoccurring villain to plague Walt in more than one book. Was it different creating a Butch Cavendish for your Lone Ranger?
The title comes from the Albert Camus quote: “In the depth of winter, I finally learned within me there lay an invincible summer.” So how far is Walt willing to go and sustain some semblance of humanity?Johnson: Or Moriarty. Walt’s never had somebody who always comes at him and leaves him no choice. Bidarte been interesting for a while, but another character who came to the forefront was Culpepper, Bidarte’s second in command who in many ways is responsible for herding Walt along. And interacts with him more times than Bidarte. He’s a bad guy, through and through, but he’s charming and funny. He’s also smart. When he does come up against Walt, he knows what he’s capable of and what Walt’s not capable of. Same with Bidarte. Much of this book is about is how far is Walt willing to go and how much of his humanity is he able to to hold onto. The title comes from the Albert Camus quote: “In the depth of winter, I finally learned within me there lay an invincible summer.” So how far is Walt willing to go and sustain some semblance of humanity? A heartbreaking part of the book is about halfway in when Walt is behind a crumbling mission in this Indian village. He’s having coffee with this woman and she notices he’s reading an Ambrose Bierce book he’s reading and asks about it. He tells her and then she asks if he realizes he’s crying and asks why. He says it reminds him of what he misses about home the most, the normalcy in all this violence. We can get caught up with the car chases and gun fights, we sometimes forget the drama about the price to be paid.
Montgomery: It’s funny you mention that moment, because I was thinking of recent books and films that deal with the Mexican cartels. Great work like Don Winslow’s Power Of The Dog and The Cartel and the Sicario movies that take an epic, inner workings of the world. This is a more intimate personal view.
Johnson: This is a very personal fight between men. That violent playground seemed to work best. If you want things to happen that wouldn’t happen in Wyoming, Mexico would be a good place to start.
Montgomery: An odd question, why do you think Wyoming writers are less grim then their Montana brethren?
Johnson: (laughs) I don’t know. I think it’s certain trait from that Montana school. I don’t know if there are enough Wyoming writers to be considered a school. For me, humor is an aspect of character. For Walt, he’s lost without it and I would be too. If I had to write a completely grim book, I’d find it tiresome.
Montgomery: Do you think working between the western and crime novel allows you to do a series where the books aren’t the same?
Johnson: Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t really picture myself as a genre writer. I’m like a crow who flies around, finds something shiny, picks it up, and brings it back, be it western, crime fiction, regional, or sci-fi, and drop it into the story line if I think it will make it more interesting.
Montgomery: Do you have any plans for a more traditional period western?
Johnson: Absolutely. I stumbled on a piece of history that just struck a nerve with me It’s got a great epic western feel with a great sense of humor, and a lot of options and great characters. I won’t tell you about it, because I just want to write the book.
Montgomery: What do you hope readers take away from Walt’s west?
Johnson: Decency. It’s not just people out there pounding their chest, making YouTube videos. There’s folks out there doing their job and trying to do the right thing. And it’s just not in Wyoming.
