Guns, gold and grubstakes

COEUR d'ALENE - Trouble is brewing in the town where writer Matt Johnson's mind wanders.

It's a town of outlaws, corruption and a clash of consciences, but it is also a place of redemption.

Or, as Johnson has named it, "Temperance."

"If you look at the definition of 'temperance,' the idea is to temper something, whether it's an urge or an attitude," said Johnson, 37. "I thought about the word and I thought about the themes of the book, I'm like, 'Man, that is perfect.'"

Temperance is a fictional, Old West town Johnson created - dust blows across the wooden sidewalks along the streets and the deep, drunken laughter of miners in a saloon may be heard over the clip-clop of horse hooves while the men play cards and spend the last bit of gold in their pockets. The jingle of spurs and six-shooters is a common sound in the lawless town of Temperance, which takes place in the Coeur d'Alene Mountains north of Wallace in the late 1800s.

"There was gold, specifically," Johnson said. "They camped so quickly that Idaho had more murders in three years than all of the United States for like 10 years, in just this area. More than Deadwood, and it's known for that, but not even close to here."

Johnson moved to Coeur d'Alene from Seattle last June, but has been enjoying the summers in the Lake City his whole life. While he was growing up, he stayed with his grandparents, who live around Lake Coeur d'Alene, for a week or weekend each summer.

"When I was a kid, the house was on the lake and this is where we came every year since I can remember, since I was tiny," he said. "This is as much home to me as anywhere else is, even though I didn't live here until right now."

He has memories of swimming, boating and visiting Sherman Avenue, but he never had an opportunity to explore the Murray area and outlying North Idaho wilderness areas until he moved. While conducting research for "Temperance," he found an old map online and familiarized himself with an area that was the perfect location for his book, mainly because of the railroad, steamboats, mining and general lawlessness of gold rush chaos.

"It's like it was built around the story without even knowing it," Johnson said. "It was like taking a LEGO piece and sticking it right there."

"Temperance" is Johnson's first published novel. It was released about a year ago and he is in the midst of writing the second book in the trilogy. He's writing them in a way that will make them easily adaptable to the silver screen, and he sees the scenes play out in his mind. Even while he's describing the scenes, listeners can tell his mental film projector is at work.

"Seeing the screenplay in my head, I'm like, 'Well, I guess I can learn how to write,'" he said. "I wrote it as if I saw the movie in my head."

The story line of "Temperance" follows the cowboy-turned-mountain man Beckett and a captivating, gun-toting female protagonist Abby on their mission to take down a corrupt sheriff. Johnson, who writes under the name Matt Prescott, will tell you it's not the average "cowboy eating beans by a fire" story. It's quick, it's gritty and it's as historically accurate as he could get - not your grandpa's kind of Western.

"There are a lot of things about the book that are, you can call them, 'cliches on purpose,'" he said. "The guy with a mysterious past comes riding into town, that's on purpose. But you take that and turn it on its head and do other stuff with it."

Aside from building new stories from Idaho's wild past, Johnson has a few other claims to local and international fame.

His grandfather, John Kildow, carved out the famous "Indian Canoe" on display in the Post Falls Museum in 1938.

"My grandpa is the coolest guy I know; he always has been," Johnson said, adding that a book dedication is for his grandpa.

Johnson's great-grandpa, George Oliver Kildow, served as the president of North Idaho College and is the "Kildow" for which Lee-Kildow Hall was named.

"George Oliver was an amazing man," Johnson said. "An educator always."

Johnson is newly an author, but has been in the music industry for many years. He is a guitar teacher and he makes custom guitar effects pedals through his business, Tortuga Effects. His pedals have appeared on stages with guitar players for artists such as Alice Cooper, Dierks Bentley and Paul McCartney.

"The coolest thing I saw with them is, aside from being next to Paul McCartney every night, and knowing that Paul's probably gone and said, 'Look at that, that looks really cool,' I know that's happened," he said. "When they played the closing ceremony at the Olympics a couple years ago, there's a picture of Paul on the front of the stage with his back to the entire Olympic arena, and there's two pedal boards, right next to him there in that huge picture. That's pretty cool."

Johnson will be signing copies of "Temperance" from 1-4 p.m. today at Hastings in Coeur d'Alene. "Temperance" is available at Hastings and on Amazon and eBay.

Info: www.facebook.com/MattPrescottAuthor