Longtime Unalaskan and independent author Randy Batten recently published his second book, The Golden Arrow. It’s a Western historical drama that touches on themes of greed and revenge.
Batten published his debut novel, a time-travelling adventure called Knight On Time, in 2023. He has a second edition of that story out now.
Batten sat down with KUCB’s Andy Lusk to talk about those projects, and a new one coming up.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Andy Lusk: You've been a local author for a while. In fact, you interviewed here in the studio for a book that you wrote in 2023 called Knight on Time. You've made some updates to it, if I understand correctly.
Randy Batten: Yeah, I've added a chapter and embellished some of the characters a little more. Did some other editing to some other mistakes that, you know, there's always mistakes. That's why they have first editions and second editions. So I did a little rewrite of it, and it's got eight to 10,000 more words than the original did.
Lusk: Tell me about this new chapter. What's going on there?
Batten: The new chapter is actually a little bit more at the end. There’s a lot more activity between my three main characters in a kind of a battle scene at the end, and how they all came back together after being kind of separated throughout a lot of the book. They'd gotten separated and doing their own things, pursuing the bad guy in their own ways — but they all end up at the same place, at the same time.
Lusk: You've got another [book out, called The Golden Arrow].
Batten: This is a novella. It started out as a short story way back when I was probably in my late 20s, and it was one of two short stories that survived my storage unit down in Washington when I moved here to Dutch Harbor 24 years ago. It's just been sitting and I re-read it and went, ‘You know what? I can expand this into something.’
It's basically a story about a young Native American chief struggling with personal loss and dreams of revenge, and the vicious pursuit by a relentless adversary that enters into the story. It's a story of greed and the expanding of the American West, and the love of nation and one's people — with a subtle sprinkling of guiding spirits in it.
Lusk: What's the name of the book?
Batten: Oh, did I not say that? It's called The Golden Arrow, and the reason behind that is the chief decides to use what the [gold miners use]. They're coming in and encroaching on the native lands and causing all the damage to their people, and so he chooses to use the gold as a weapon.
Lusk: And you talked about greed being a central theme.
Batten: The main bad guy is probably the greediest individual you'll ever read about, and he'll go to any lengths to get what he thinks he deserves. He thinks he deserves everything, and it’s all his and anybody else is in his way.
He's heard the rumors about golden arrows being used. They don't even know if this “Indian” is real, according to the newspapers and stuff — it's almost like a myth — and he's on a mission to find the “Indian,” and to find the gold if it exists.
Lusk: In your stories, you have these villains that evoke visceral feelings — like, these are mean guys. How do you come up with your villains?
Batten: I just base them on myself. [Laughs.] No, I want people to hate them, so that when bad things happen to them, everybody is happy about it. If the guy is only a so-so bad guy — you know, he gets injured or gets some sort of punishment — you go, ‘Did he deserve that?’ You know, I don't know. But if he's a really bad guy, no matter what happens to him, he deserves whatever he's getting.
Lusk: What else would you like us to know about The Golden Arrow?
Batten: It inspired me to start writing it as a book, and rethink it too, as I learned about how the Aleuts were treated out on the islands by the Russians, and then how we treated them during World War II.
There's a history of, they weren't treated fairly, weren’t treated necessarily nicely. And I always had a soft spot in my heart for that. And so I just wanted to give some life to this Native American character, his village and all the things that were happening to him and their side of it.
Lusk: You’re out here in Unalaska again after a little bit of time away, and you're continuing to write. I understand you have a new project coming up. What are some of your inspiration points here?
Batten: Oh, God, so much. The Alaskan Bone, I'm excited about this. It's an archeology thriller. It's the first book of a new series that takes place everywhere from Dutch Harbor to Anchorage to Juneau and Port Chatham, and the ghost town of Portlock. Dutch Harbor is painted all over this thing. I mean, I'm using it now that I'm back in Dutch Harbor. I'm getting all new inspiration, walking to work and back every day, I'm looking at the mountains. I'm looking at the ocean splashing in in the early morning when it's still dark out, and the cliffs and everything. And that's right where I'm at in my writing right now, is my character is in situations like that. This is bringing it all home.
You know, I've been to Juneau, and I've been to Anchorage, and I've been very close to Portlock. It's too scary to land your feet there, if anybody knows the story of Portlock.
Lusk: I don't. Can you tell it?
Batten: I can tell you a little bit about it, sure. So it's a town that was established way back. It had a Native population to begin with, and over the years it became a fishing village. There was a processing plant there and a post office was even established, but people started disappearing — and bodies started getting found torn apart very gruesomely. And you know, all sorts of reports of sightings of strange creatures. It was blamed on everything from Bigfoot to different Native American spirits, but overnight, the town basically vanished. I mean, some people even packed up in the middle of the night and, under the cover of darkness, moved over to a town further away.
Modern day, they say that was because a modern road had been built into that town, and so it was easier to access. And everybody from the town thought that it would be better to live there. Well, that would be fair to believe, except they didn't do it gradually. Everybody moved suddenly and left most of their stuff there in Portlock, at least, so legend has it. So there you go. That plays a role in my story.
Lusk: When was that?
Batten: That was in the 40s, I think when they actually abandoned the town.
Lusk: Where in Alaska is that?
Batten: It's near Port Chatham, which is way, way at the very, very tip of the Kenai Peninsula. Pretty wild out there. Yeah, and that plays perfectly into my story.
I can't give too much away on that, but trust me that the ending of the story is going to blow you away. You're not going to see it coming.
Lusk: What's the name of this book?
Batten: This book is The Alaskan Bone.
