It was a good morning, indeed, for director Walter Hill and all the folks associated with AMC's "Broken Trail" which placed second in total Emmy nominations (16).

Hill is a past Emmy winner _ for the pilot of "Deadwood" _ and has already copped the DGA award for "Broken Trails."

"Broken Trail," "Deadwood," "Geronimo," "Wild Bill,"... Yeah, you could say the man likes his horse operas.

"I liked them the best when I was a kid," Hill said this morning. "I like the seeming simplicity of the stories and the kind of moral choices that people are forced into. What makes Westerns other than big hats and horses and pistols is really people that are in difficult situations. The usual rectifying powers of society _ usually the Army or the police _ can’t fix things, so people have to do it themselves. Somebody said to me it’s like telling Old Testament stories. I think there’s a great deal of truth to that."

Hill is currently developing a Western series for AMC called "True West."