Bluewood Anthology 2011
By: Various Authors
ISBN: 978-1-927134-69-6
All rights reserved
Copyright © Nov. 2011, Deborah McNemar, Tony Butler, Dan Strawn, Jennie Marsland, Angela Rigley, Jeanette Hewitt, Julie Romero, A.F.Allen, Paulette Rae, David Bowman, Corrine Shroud
Cover Art Copyright © Nov 2011, Brightling Spur
Bluewood Publishing Ltd
Christchurch, 8441, New Zealand
www.bluewoodpublishing.com
Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Coupe De Merci by Deborah McNemar
Matthew’s Gift by Jennie Marsland
Ellen’s Journey by Jeanette Hewitt
It’s Hell To Get Old by Julie Romero
The Lady of the Lake by A.F. Allen
David’s Goliath by Paulette Rae
Vanguard To Vampire by David Bowman
Introduction
We hope you will enjoy the varied short stories contained within these pages. All of the authors included are published authors, and should you be interested in other work by certain authors we have included a hyperlink to their author pages on our site.
All of our books are carried by most, if not all of the major e-book retailers, and you can of course purchase their books from sites such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks, Kobo, WHSmith, Waterstones, Whitcoulls, Sony and Smashwords.
Coupe De Merci
An assassin falls for his intended mark. Can a killer find redemption in the arms of a woman or is it all smoke and mirrors?
Deborah McNemar
Deborah McNemar’s lifelong love of romance, fantasy and science fiction have finally comingled beyond redemption. Living in a small town in North Dakota, she divides her time between writing, her family and her small herd of Dachshunds. Now a Grandmother, life is only getting better.
You can find Deborah’s books at:
http://www.bluewoodpublishing.com/Authors/A-DeborahMcNemar.html
Nick took another swig of his beer, his gray eyes roving the bar. She would be here, he told himself. Sweet little Felicity would never break a promise to a friend even if it was something as simple as meeting for a drink after work. She was so cheerfully honest. It shone from her like an inner light. So innocent. So gullible.
His beer was getting warm. On the jukebox, Godsmack rasped about needing serenity. The gravel-rough voice edged into his calm.
When the original e-mail to the feds had been intercepted, his boss had thought it a fluke, a curiosity that would soon be forgotten. So, the numbers didn’t add up. Numbers seldom did what you wanted unless you were a bookkeeper. So what if this junior secretary for an antiques distributor could do simple math? It meant nothing.
And this assignment smelled all wrong.
Antiquities were a dicey business at best. These particular pieces had been sold for far less than they were worth, but that meant nothing. The woman didn’t have access to the real accounts where the full payment for the shipment had been logged. She had no way of knowing the Mayan figurines were actually fakes used to transport cocaine into the country. She was as ignorant as she was innocent.
She was late. Nick swore under his breath and took another swig of beer. Felicity was dependable to a fault, something he had discovered over the last two weeks. If she were going to be late, she would have called. Something had happened.
Nick’s stomach clenched. He hadn’t meant to get this close to her. It was taboo for someone in his profession to allow his emotions to get tangled in his business. But this had been out of his control from the first time he had laid eyes on her.
“Nick!”
Felicity waved at him as she came through the door. It must be raining again. Tiny droplets littered on her cheeks and lashes as she slid into the booth beside him. She smelled of rain and vanilla. He wanted to lean over and lick the water from her skin. He stifled the urge with another long pull on his beer.
He had a thing for petite brunettes. Felicity stood barely four inches over five feet in her stocking feet. She wore her dark hair long and straight. Her body was slim with full breasts and delicate bones, a dichotomy of lush and fragile that tempted him as no woman had in years. She liked plain clothes that didn’t draw attention and high-heeled shoes. Every time he saw her, he had to fight the urge to bundle her up and stick her in his pocket where he could keep her safe. His very own pocket Venus.
“You aren’t going to believe what I found today,” she told him as she settled her purse beside her and shook back her hair. Her dark eyes sparkled up at him. She was wearing silk today. The deep burgundy color was rich against her peaches and cream skin. Nick’s eyes followed the curve of her blouse where it dipped modestly over her breasts, her words barely registering. He toyed with the long neck of the beer bottle.
“That CD you wanted,” she continued, her smile as bright as a spring morning. “I went to lunch with Jeannie and there it was.” She produced the old Queen CD with a flourish and laid it in front of him.
“Since when do you have lunch in a music store?”
Damn. It was going to be hard enough to do what he had to do without her being nice to him. It was just his luck that nice was Felicity’s permanent setting. She didn't even seem to PMS.
“Since it’s right next door to the coffee shop where we always eat,” she returned with a puckish grin. “Jeannie was looking for some Barry Manilow.”
Nick shuddered at the thought and was rewarded by Felicity’s laugh. There was a lull in the music as the jukebox flipped to the next song and some country singer began admonishing them to save a horse, ride a cowboy.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he reprimanded, keeping his tone mild.
“It’s what friends do,” she argued as the waitress brought her a soda and a glass of ice. “You offered to help me out with my computer and won’t take money for it. Just call this making things even. Okay?”
Making things even. He took another long pull of his beer to cover his discomfort. He had made the offer as a way to get into her house and check out what she had on her PC without her being any the wiser. She thought he was a computer tech. She had no idea what his real occupation was. He eyed the curve of her hip under the sleek fitting skirt as she reached for a napkin. He wished he were a tech. He would love to interface with her software.
“You still having that lag in your server?” he asked to fill the moment.
“Yeah.” She poured her soda into the glass, watching it foam over the ice. “It takes forever to load anything. I cleared my cache thingy and did that defragmenter thing, too, just like you said. It helped but it’s still lagging badly.”
“Do you still want me to look at it?” he asked on cue.
“If you have time tonight, I would really appreciate it.” She smiled up at him, beautifully, stupidly grateful.
Nick swallowed the bitterness that rose in his throat. He was a professional. He wasn’t going to be sidetracked by a pair of doe eyes and soft breasts. If she knew anything real about the operation, he would eliminate her. That was the reality of his life and he was paid too well to get distracted now.
“Dance with me,” she said. The jukebox had fallen quiet but there was an older man dropping quarters and searching the song list.
“You don’t even know what the song is going to be,” he protested, laughing.
“I don’t care.” Felicity slid from the booth and grabbed his hand, tugging him after her. He went, as obedient as a puppy. “I’ve wanted to dance with you since the first day I met you.”
He could dance with her without getting too close, Nick told himself as they wove through the tables toward the dance floor. Dancing didn’t involve touching, which in turn would keep him from wanting things he couldn’t have. As they reached the parquet floor, the first strains of piano floated to them and Nick swore under his breath. A slow dance.
Felicity moved into his arms as if she had been made to fit there. Even in heels, her head didn’t quite come to his shoulder. It didn’t seem to bother her. She only snuggled closer, laying her head over his heart and wrapping her arms around his waist. Nick forced himself to breathe as he rested his hands on her hips and they began to sway to the music.
Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses? You’ve been out riding fences for so long now. Oh, you’re a hard one, but I know that you’ve got your reasons. These things that are pleasing you can hurt you somehow.
Felicity was singing. Her voice, slightly husky, caressed his ears like an angel’s whisper. It felt as if fate were somehow talking to him, tempting him. Tonight, with this woman, the words of the song held a painful truth.
Don’t you draw the Queen of Diamonds, boy. She’ll beat you if she’s able. The Queen of Hearts is always your best bet. Now, it seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table, but you only want the ones that you can’t get.
He could have her, Nick realized. He could take her to bed and indulge his every fantasy. After she fell asleep, he could rifle her PC. He didn’t have to deny himself. She was hardly computer literate enough to know if he had touched anything. On the jukebox, the Eagles continued their lament.
Desperado, why don't you come to your senses? Come down from your fences, open the gate. It may be raining, but there's a rainbow above you. You better let somebody love you…You better let somebody love you before it's too late.
As the last strains of the song hung in the air, Felicity sighed, her breasts pressing against him in a caress that set his blood pulsing hot and thick in his veins. Her eyes were soft and luminous with something that tempted him beyond reason. As Gretchen Wilson began informing the bar that she was here for the party, Nick followed Felicity without a word. She gathered her purse, dropped some bills on the table for their drinks and led him outside into the softly falling rain.
* * * *
The numbers on the clock beside the bed read 2 AM. Nick lay still, staring at the ceiling. Felicity was curled next to him, her tiny hand resting on his chest. For a relative innocent, she had been the most incredible experience of his life. For a moment, he indulged in the fantasy of waking up this way every morning with this woman beside him, of a dog and a house and a regular job. Felicity sighed, shifting in her sleep, and the pleasant little bubble burst. His boss would never let him go. He had seen others turn state’s evidence and vanish into witness protection only to turn up dead on the six o’clock news months later.
With care, Nick slipped from the bed and tugged on his jeans, leaving them unfastened. Padding on bare feet, he crept from the room, pulling the door almost shut behind him. The click of the latch might wake her up and he didn’t need her walking in on him while he worked.
Her computer sat on her desk in the corner, a standard PC with a flat screen monitor. She didn’t have a web cam, he noted absently. She didn’t care to surf the web for companionship, it seemed. Ignoring the pleased buzz that information gave him, Nick turned on the computer and waited for it to boot up. There was probably nothing here to find. Felicity wasn’t computer literate enough to hack her way through the encrypted files to the only information that would link his boss to the cocaine shipments. But the e-mail had been sent from this computer, not her terminal at work.
Giovanni Bartonelli ran one of the largest syndicates in the Chicago area. Drugs were only a small part of his operation, but they were lucrative. He had several drop points like this antiquities dealer here in Seattle spread across the country. Purchases of artifacts and artwork were made through corporate fronts and never the same one twice in a year. Names were guarded by top of the line security and were changed often to throw off any snoopers. The majority of the people who worked for him never knew what they shipped.
Nick had been a bouncer in a bar in New York when Bartonelli had found him. After Nick had stiff-armed one of the big man’s bodyguards into the street during an altercation, Bartonelli had offered him a job. The pay had been too good to pass up. He had gone from protection to elimination in less than five years and the pay was even better. He had never had a problem killing his marks. Most were dealers who got greedy or leeches who refused to pay up. Hardly something to lose sleep over.
The screen flashed to her desktop and the icons appeared. Her wallpaper turned out to be the Phantom of the Opera reflected in an old, pockmarked mirror. Nick grinned. So, she liked dangerous, psychotic men, did she? Cute. With a glance at the darkened hallway, he got to work.
Accessing her computer’s memory was no problem. She had no safeguards to speak of. She had cleared her cache but not the history. Nick scrolled through the information, looking for any sign that she did more than a bit of Internet shopping. She liked shoes and books. She had paid her power bill online this afternoon. Still, he couldn’t afford to be careless.
He found it by accident, a link to a website he had never heard of. Out of curiosity, he connected to the Internet and entered the link into the browser.
As the page loaded, Nick sat back in the chair, a chill running over him. It was all there. Off shore bank account numbers, names of suppliers in South America and even a shockingly complete list of corporate fronts and the names of the men who ran them. Felicity had somehow managed to find Bartonelli’s personal accounts.
What the hell was Bartonelli thinking putting all this stuff on the web? Nick’s fingers flew over the keys. He had to alter the files, he thought feverishly. No one could know what she had found. He couldn’t kill her. He had known that the moment he had walked into her house tonight. He could kill scum without blinking an eyelash but not Felicity. She didn’t deserve that.
Hands grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms and body to the chair. Nick swore, kicking off from the desk to break their hold. The chair flipped over backwards and he landed hard. He heard the men grunt but they retained their hold. There were five of them. There was a prick in his arm, a sharp pain and then lethargy took hold.
Felicity stood over him, a syringe in her hand. She wore only a silk robe. He could see the puckered outline of her nipples through the thin material. The men used duct tape to secure him to the chair but it was unnecessary. Nick couldn’t move. He couldn’t find the strength to lift a finger.
“Oh, Nick,” she whispered as she knelt beside him. “I hoped they were wrong about you. But you had to go and try to cover that bastard Bartonelli’s ass and prove them right. It doesn't matter what you've done to those files. The feds already have the information.”
“Why?” It was hard to force the word from between his lips. That strange lethargy was spreading through him fast and he wondered how long he had before he passed out.
“Andre Lemarou.”
The name hit Nick hard. Andre Lemarou had been a computer security whiz kid who had tried to opt out of his position with Bartonelli last year. Nick had been sent to eliminate the threat before he turned over any information to the feds. He had done the job with his normal clean efficiency. The kid had never known what hit him.
“Brother?”
Felicity shook her head. “He was my husband and I loved him very much.”
Nick closed his eyes in defeat. He had made the kill quick and clean, but that would hardly matter to the widow. The first bitter trickle of admiration rose in him. She, a relative novice, had played him like a pro.
“The Feds have enough information to bury Bartonelli. But you…” She gave a lithe twist of her shoulders. “You were mine, not theirs. From the moment you pulled that trigger, you belonged to me.”
She stroked a finger over his cheek, her beautiful eyes dark and serene. “Andre died painlessly compared with the others who’ve crossed Bartonelli in the past. Thank you for that.”
She knew it had been him. It didn't matter how she had found out. She had known and she had still crawled into that bed with him and spread her legs. It was the oldest trick in the book and he had fallen for it. Fury sparked through him, but he was helpless. He tried to fight the tape, but he couldn’t budge. He could only glare up at her, panting.
“You’re going to die of a heroin overdose,” she told him. “I will grant you the same mercy you showed Andre. Your kindness has won you a painless death. Coup de merci, Nicco.”
Leaning over him, Felicity pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. Touching his face with gentle fingers, she rose and vanished out of his sight. The scent of vanilla lingered in his nose as the world went dark.
Bogeyman
Jason and his Pa like to tease Mary about the Bogeyman. Has she got a surprise for them.
Tony Butler
Tony Butler was born in 1942 and lives with his wife, Sue and their daughter Katherine. Even as a child he was an avid reader and his Saturday mornings would be spent in Wolverhampton Public Library.
Tony, a professional magician since 1970, began writing routines and patter for other magicians and one-line gags for comedians.
Today, he is better known as Clown Zozo and is the four times winner of Nottingham Guild of Magicians’ Best children’s Magic Act competition.
His love of reading led to him to volunteer as a ‘Buddy Reader’ at his local school, helping slow readers to develop their reading skills. As a direct result of his mentoring, his protégé’s advanced their reading age by an average of two-years. He was chosen as Derbyshire’s Buddy Reader of the year and also received a presentation from The Times Education Supplement, for ‘Hero of the Week’.
He has also written and broadcast a series of ‘Morning Thoughts’ for BBC Radio Derby and his short stories regularly win writing competitions.
He has attended the residential Writers’ Summer School, held annually at Swanwick, Derbyshire, for five consecutive years. During this period, after being encouraged to write a novel for young readers, The Awakening, which became Merlin’s Granddaughter, was published as an e-book, by an American publisher, The same company also published Tony’s eighteen part series, Lord of the Woods (Robin Hood of Nottingham)
Tony has been a member of Eastwood Writers’ Group for twelve years and served as Secretary, Treasurer, and Chairman. He is also a member of Nottingham Writers’ Club, where he served as Secretary and Prose Competition Secretary.
As an anthropogenic global warming cynic, Tony researches, writes and publishes articles debunking what he describes as the biggest load of pseudo, scientific bunkum ever inflicted upon mankind.
Tony’s books can be found at:
http://www.bluewoodpublishing.com/Authors/A-TonyButler.html
“The Bogeyman’s coming to get you!” thirteen-year-old Jason, Mary’s stepbrother mocked. Six-year-old Mary felt tears of anger spring into her eyes. She hated him. He‘d gotten most of the kids at school teasing her too. She hated Jason and his Pa, Mac; her mother’s new husband. Now, here she was, stuck with the pair of them. It just wasn’t fair.
It was not her Ma’s fault though, Mary realised that. When her mother was around, Mac was as nice as good old apple pie, and then some. As for Jason, he would never dare to tease Mary about her fear of the dark when her Ma was here. No, they were both too darn clever for that. They waited until Ma was out shopping or getting her hair done, or something, like now, before starting on her.
“Hey! Now, leave Mary, be,” Mac said, winking at Jason. “She can’t help being a scaredy-cat who’s afeared of the dark.” His grin was replaced with a sly smile when he turned towards her. “You take no notice of him, honey, and get yourself on up to bed. I’ll be up to turn off your light later.”
Mary swallowed hard. Ma wouldn’t be back until the morning. Two days ago she’d gone to visit Grandma who was sick, and Ma was staying over for another night.
“Please can I have my night-light?” she asked. Her Ma had bought her this cute night-light shaped like Bugs Bunny, despite Mac saying she treating her like a baby. That’s why Jason was winding her up. Bugs Bunny had been removed from its socket in the wall of her bedroom and was now lying on top of the television.
Mac’s face took on a look of regret. “I’m sorry, Mary, but you’re six now and not a baby anymore. There are no monsters in your bedroom and the night-light stays where it is. Now get yourself up to bed like I’ve told you, before I whip your butt.”
Mary turned towards the stairs. Mac wasn’t joking; he’d whipped her ass just a few days ago and had warned her afterwards that he’d take the skin off it next time, if she ever complained to her Mum. The whipping hadn’t been the worse part though, that had come later, when he woke her in the middle of the night to rub some cream into her butt.
“It will take the soreness away,” he whispered hoarsely, making her recoil from his breath, which stank of beer. It had taken him an awful long time to massage the liniment into her butt and he was breathing funny, like someone with asthma. That had been really scary.
She paused outside her bedroom. Taking a deep breath, she turned the handle and eased the door open a fraction. “One,” she whispered to herself. “Two…Three!”
On the count of three, she shot her arm through the crack in the door and flicked on the light. Something darted under the wardrobe and she heard Jason’s voice in her mind.
“The Bogeyman’s gonna get you,” he’d whispered in her ear. “He’s going to squeeze your throat shut until your tongue’s poking right the way out and bite it off, so you can’t scream or anything. Then he’ll eat you, an arm and a leg at a time, before slicing open your tummy with his fingernails and sucking up your guts like spaghetti. You’ll drown in your own blood. Boy, am I glad that it’s not me the Bogeyman’s after.”
She stepped backwards away from the door and bumped into something big and solid. Turning, she found herself looking up into Mac’s angry face.
“What in tarnation are you doing, girl?” he snapped. “Get in there and haul your butt into bed, or I’m gonna take my belt to you, and that’s a promise.”
“Go on, Dad,” Jason appeared at the top of the stairs. “Whip her butt for her. I’ll hold her arms again, if you like.”
“That never happened, boy! You got that? It never happened. Right?”
“Sure, Pa. Whatever you say but it didn’t look like no big deal or anything to me.”
“That’s as mebbee, but I don’t think Mary’s gonna need another whipping. Ain’t that right, Mary?”
Mary nodded quickly and slipped into her room. It was better to be killed and eaten by the Bogeyman, than being whipped again.
She couldn’t see him anywhere of course but then he was very good at hiding, she knew that. She undressed, pulled on her pyjamas and slipped quickly into bed, before Mac or Jason barged their way into her room.
The door opened and Mac smiled nastily at her, his hand already reaching for the light switch. Behind him and peering over his Pa’s shoulder, Jason grinned at her and slid his forefinger across his throat.
“I’m going to the tavern for a few beers and a game of cards,” Mac said. “Jason will be right here so there ain’t nothing for you to worry yourself about. I don’t want to hear anymore talk about no damned Bogeyman. You got that?”
Mary nodded. He switched off the light and she could only watch as the door closed behind him, shutting out the last of the light.
Her hand snaked under her mattress and she pulled out her mini flashlight as something by the foot of her bed made a shuffling sound. Her heart racing, she pointed the flashlight towards the sound and switched it on.
“Hi, Mary!” The thing standing on the end of her mattress was a gnome with a head that looked larger than his body. His teeth were small triangles and looked terribly sharp. In it’s hand was a big knife with a wavy blade. Without warning, he plunged it down into the mattress and Mary barely managed to move her foot out of the way.
The creature laughed as though it was the best joke in the world. It pulled the knife free and, using the mattress like a trampoline, it bounced up and down, screeching with laughter. “Time to die,” he cackled, waving the knife and bouncing towards her. “The Bogeyman’s coming to get you now.”
He leapt on top of her, straddling her while one of his hands clamped firmly over her mouth. He raised the knife and brought it sweeping down.
Mary silently screamed for help.
From the side of her bed another hand shot out – a huge green hand. It caught the gnome-thing’s wrist, and hurled it from Mary, into a corner of the room.
“I’m the Bogeyman, here, Troll,” the newcomer said. “Get out of this house before I get really angry.”
In the beam of her flashlight the new monster loomed huge with green skin and a mouth full of wicked looking teeth. Mary whimpered. She was making small sobbing sounds and shaking and wondering how much longer she could…
“Hey, you’re okay now,” The monster said. “I never meant for you to see me, but you asked for help and I…Anyway, hiding that flashlight was a pretty sneaky thing to do.” He sat himself on the edge of her bed, picked up her glass of orange juice from the bedside table and handed it to her. His other arm slid underneath her back and helped her to sit up.
“Have a drink of that and you’ll soon feel better,” he said.
Mary took the glass from him and took a swift drink. Je nodded at her and smiled.
“Aren’t you going to…?” she asked.
“What? Bite off your tongue and eat you?”
Mary nodded.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “That would be a really dumb thing to do, because then you’d be dead and I’d be dead as well,” he said.
“What do you mean, you’d be dead as well?” The Bogeyman didn’t look half so scary now. In fact he was quite cute, she thought.
“Well, I’m only what you made me,” he said. Picking up the flashlight, he shone it across the room and onto a picture of the Incredible Hulk. “Recognise that skin, or perhaps those teeth?” He played the flashlight onto her Taz doll. Mary looked at the Bogeyman’s skin and teeth and frowned.
“But how…?”
“You made me, Mary. You created me in your mind. You took bits of all your favourite characters and put them together to make your own Bogeyman. That’s how all us Bogeymen are made—by someone’s imagination. That’s all I am—all I ever was. I’m whatever you want me to be.”
“What about that troll—gnome—or whatever it is?”
“He won’t be back, but whoever dreamed him up must have sent him after you.”
“That would be Jason. He hates me.”
The Bogeyman climbed to his feet. “I gotta go now. You’re not scared of me anymore and tomorrow you won’t even believe in me.”
“I will always believe in you,” Mary said. “I might not be scared of you but you’ll always be my Bogeyman, no matter what. Trouble is, Jason’s going to get me someday and when he does…”
Mary crept out of bed and onto the landing just in time to see Jason’s bedroom door close. “The Bogeyman’s coming to get you, Jason,” she giggled quietly. There was a muffled cry and when she pressed her ear against the door she heard the wet sound of tearing flesh, followed by the sound of crunching bones.
She returned to her room and once in bed closed her eyes and concentrated. When she opened her eyes again, the Troll was back and standing on her mattress.
“Hi, Trolly,” she said. “I’ll be getting rid of that stupid Bogeyman soon. Then you can go and visit Mac, Jason’s Pa. I told you about him and he’ll be back from the Tavern, later.”
It grinned and bounced up and down on the bed. “You must be the best actress in the world,” it said. “You almost had me fooled too, as well as that dumb Bogeyman.”
“I almost wrecked it though. I thought I was going burst into giggles.”
“The Bogeyman thought you were shaking in fear, not laughing. I still don’t figure why you got me to tell you how to magic him up, and wouldn’t let me take care of Jason myself?”
“Because you’re real, Trolly. I didn’t dream you up, did I? Besides, I wanted Jason to feel his arms being pulled right off. I know you could have made him scream, but you’re not big enough to tear anyone’s arms off.”
“But you promised. I really do get to kill his Pa, and eat him?”
“Oh, yes, indeedy,” Mary said. “You get to suck up his beer-flavoured guts all right, and you want to know the good part, Trolly? I know where almost all of the kids from school live. Boy, are they in for a surprise when you go to visit.”
Dos Equis
A grandfather shares cold beer and advice with a grandson who turns eighteen on September 11, 2001.
Dan Strawn
After
retiring from dual careers in business and education, Dan Strawn now
lives in Vancouver, Washington with his wife, Sandi. His work has
appeared in various editions of Idaho Magazine and in Trail Blazer
Magazine. His essay about Moscow, Idaho, was a finalist entry in the
University of Oregon’s 2005, Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest.
His essay, “About Being Out of Date,” is included in Clark
Community College’s soon to be released Elderberry Wine, a
compilation of student writings. Lame Bird’s Legacy, his originally
self-published novel about the 1877 Nez Perce War was favorably
reviewed in the December, 2008 issue of Idaho Magazine. The book has
now been edited and will be re-released. His second novel, Isaac’s
Gun—an American Tale, relates an intriguing tale of healing,
romance, and murder that bounces between war in late 1877 Idaho and
World War II in California.
The Return of Black Wolf, his current
work in progress, deals with the shared fate of Nez Perce Indians and
wolves in eastern Oregon. The story moves from prehistory to modern
times and carries strong, yet even-handed, spiritual
and ethical components. His 2009 book, A Body of Work, was intended
primarily as a memoir for his family, but he has been pleasantly
surprised at the unsolicited copies that have sold on Amazon and
Barnes & Noble. Strawn works with the Nez Perce National Historic
Park as an interpreter of the Nez Perce experience at Park sites and
at both elementary and high schools. On occasion he teaches for the
mature learning division of Clark Community College in Vancouver,
Washington.
Dan’s books can be found at:
http://www.bluewoodpublishing.com/Authors/A-DanStrawn.html
Beloved—that’s what David means. It’s a Hebrew word. I know because I looked it up before I named him. I didn’t want my son to have a name that only sounded good. It had to stand for something. David, the historical David, the one the Old Testament talks about, he stood for something—protector of the flock, giant slayer, military scientist, poet, musician, king. The clincher? Isaiah’s prophecy: from this root of Jesse the Messiah would spring—did spring, according to Grandma Keller and the rest of Christendom.
I’m sitting in the backyard with Joab, my grandson, and I’m thinking about how I named his father David. Why wasn’t I thinking about Joab? We were, after all, talking about his birthday, how we would never forget it from now on, how celebrating is going to be bittersweet.
“Joab? It means Yahweh is Father,” his dad said. “He was the biblical David’s commander in chief. His right-hand man, a brilliant general, loyal to a fault.”
Brilliant, loyal, but ruthless, and in the end Joab’s ambition got the best of him. In his zeal he killed innocent men. Solomon, honoring his father’s request not to forget Joab’s bloody hands, had him executed. My son should have read that story over a few times before the christening.
Joab sits on the other side of the picnic table. He matches me sip for sip with his root beer when I pull on my Dos Equis.
“Gramps, I got me something in the mail about registering with the selective service. You think I might have to go to war?”
Joab’s question is what sent me back to those years: his father’s birth, naming him David, his age of innocence—those carefree days when he cruised the neighborhood on his big wheel, not knowing that the local draft board was lurking in the bushes, waiting to shanghai him to Southeast Asia as soon as he was big enough—strong enough—to shoulder a rifle.
I tip my head, let the amber ale trickle down my throat, set the bottle on the table, and with the tips of my fingers caress the twin X’s on the label.
My mom said a boy who had just stepped across the line into manhood, an eighteen-year-old, was the handsomest he’d ever be. There, across the table from me, my grandson made her case. If she could only see him now! She’d holler about the earring, how it was unmanly, belonged on a girl or—farmer’s daughter that she was—in a pig’s nose, but then she’d say something about how ring or no, he’d become a good looking man, and she’d be right.
“Gramps?”
“Stay here.”
I get up, wait a few seconds while old tendons and muscles respond to balance commands from my brain, then walk into the house. When I return I’m carrying an open bottle of Dos Equis. I sit down and push it towards Joab. His look, as if I were Eve handing him forbidden fruit, catches my funny bone. I laugh.
“Go on. Take it.”
“Gramps…?”
“Take it! You goin’ ta ask men’s questions you need a man’s brew to wash down the answers.”
He reaches a tentative hand towards the bottle.
“Oh, for crying out loud! I’m not going to tell your mommy. And don’t pretend them’s virgin lips, that you’ve never pushed beer or maybe even stronger stuff past them.” I hold my bottle up. “Let’s drink a toast, you and I, to manhood and the promise of youth.”
Joab can’t hide his embarrassment. He picks up the bottle and touches it to mine. Their clink punctuates the solemnity of this rite of passage, this passing of the baton, however painful. I put my bottle to my lips and throw back my head. Belatedly, he does the same.
We set our bottles on the table and look at each other.
“Good stuff, huh? Not like that sissy, low-calorie excuse for beer you been sneaking out of your buddies’ refrigerators when nobody’s lookin’. You want to know the secret to drinkin’? Never drink so much the ongoin’ cost compromises your standards—that is, standards about what you’re pouring down your throat. You start buying cheap-ass beer or screw-top wine you know you’re messing with a habit that’s got the best of you. Me? I want a beer or a first class Chianti. I ignore the price ‘cause I don’t do it so often the cost impinges on my wallet.” I take a swig and wipe my mouth with a melodramatic sweep of the back of my hand. “Ahhh! You remember that. Buy what you like, price be damned. Drinkin’ starts hittin’ you hard in the wallet, lay off—you’re drinkin’ too much.”
Joab forces a laugh, which covers the remnant of his embarrassment. He tips his bottle and looks at me.
“That’s good advice, Gramps.”
“As for sex and women—” I let those words hang while I take another quaff of brew— “I don’t have the answers for either one, ‘cept sex and love are different things, and they’re both at their best when they happen at the same time.”
Joab looks at me, flushes a little, pushes out another contrived laugh. I look at my bottle while I rotate it on the table.
“You think I might have to go to war?”
Joab’s question intrudes on this otherwise benign shared moment. Inside, I’m rebelling at the insanity of it all: my inability to save my seed from Man’s penchant for maiming himself.
I towel off my naked, dripping, four-and-a-half year-old David as the images of the naked and seared little girl leap out to me from the black and white television. Her terror-stricken flight from her burning village scorches my sensibilities and at the same time spawns my watershed moment. “Not my son! Not for this war!” My David ignores me. He grabs the towel, makes a cape like the one Disney’s Zorro wears. He lunges and parries and ripostes in a vain attempt to ward off my embrace. My kiss on his cheek calms him, allows me to sneak back the towel and finish drying his precious, innocent back, buttocks, and legs. “Not my David!”
I sigh, raise my eyes and gaze at my grandson.
“Those issues of manhood, love and sex, and…booze, they’re easy to respond to…but fightin’ and the need for it…that issue’s a lot more complicated. Why? ‘Cause circumstances are different as to why men go to war.”
“It seems, like, well, those guys who took down the towers…like there might be more to come. Like, maybe we’re going to have to go over there to keep them from coming here. Seems like—”
“Damn it, Joab! Evil exists in the world!”
I look at Ron Thomas’s boy, a good Mormon kid. He’s all spit and polish—his uniform clean and neat, his epaulets in place, faultless creases in his Army slacks, the Bronze Star prominently and precisely positioned on his military tunic. Erect, expressionless comrades form an honor guard flanking his casket.
“Those guys—the one’s on the airplanes—they made it clear with their box cutters that negotiatin’ is not one of their strategies. They’ve given us no choice but to meet their violence with ours.”
Our eyes meet. I see the cognition in his, watch him personalize that notion: “…meet their violence with ours.”
He tips the bottle to his lips. When he sets it back on the table, his fingers clasp the broad base below its neck. He studies its open mouth. His is a vain hope: the oracles’ words won’t emerge; there’s no refuting the promise of mine.
“What happened when you were my age, Gramps? I mean, were you just never called up? Like, did you have a deferment or something?”
I stop pushing the lawnmower and watch two officers emerge from the Air Force Chevrolet that pulls up across the street. Their labored, slow walk to the front door, as if they were scaling a mountain, the way one fumbles with the buttons on his tunic while the other pushes the doorbell—I know. Which one, I wonder, which of the two sisters sharing that house along with their children will become a widow this day?
Later I learned it was the officer, the pilot, not the master sergeant. “Shot down over Hanoi,” they said, “and presumed dead.”
“I was lucky, too young for Korea and too old for Viet Nam. I didn’t need any college deferment. I’d already graduated, gone to work, and had me a couple of kids when they got around to classifying me. I was twenty-nine and Five-A—which meant, they said when I called, ‘You might get drafted if the Viet Cong invade Los Angeles’.”
The words stick in my solar plexus. I force them out.
“Evil’s struck, Joab! I’m too old. Unless terrorism comes to my front door, I’m not needed. They wouldn’t take me if I volunteered.” Jesus! God! Is this the fate of old men: to send young men to war? “Born when you were, on September eleven those eighteen years ago, you and your friends…”
I stop talking, look away, fight to keep my vocal cords from stretching tight, lest the words ride on the same pitch as a bow drawn across the A string of a violin. When I return my gaze to Joab, I see the hurt in his face and eyes, not for him or what he must do, but for me. He sees my pain. Unlike his namesake, he’s no warrior. Becoming one, whether he lives through it or not, will, for him, be the ultimate sacrifice.
I close my eyes and wait for an eon or two before I utter the words.
“You may have to step into the breach…be selfless like those World War Two boys sacrificed themselves, their bodies and their psyches, because Evil plotted to destroy their families.”
We stare at each other while the reality of those words, ones we both know to be true, settles into our minds. The silence becomes a catalyst, one that allows waves of consensus to move between us. Our separate selves become one.
For a subliminal instant, the air around us becomes so heavy I can see it—war’s residue: wafting particles of bomb dust emerging from napalm’s soot, atomized droplets of bright red blood drifting in clouds of gunpowder, floating bits of charred skin. Like a hot, hazy Los Angeles day in September, my eyes burn and inhaling hurts my lungs. My mind, my heart, can’t bear this kind of tension.
I lift my bottle into the air.
“So, another toast—let’s focus on good manly things, ones to celebrate—being eighteen, a comely girl at your side, and a bottle of good beer in your hand.”
Together, Joab, Yahweh is Father, my grandson, the son of David, Beloved—we tip our heads and knock back the last of our Dos Equis.
Matthew’s Gift
Leaving childhood behind is never easy – especially at Christmas.
Jennie Marsland
Jennie Marsland is a
teacher, an amateur musician and watercolor artist and, for over
thirty years, a writer. She fell in love with words at a very early
age and the affair has been life-long. She enjoys writing children’s
fiction, poetry and lyrics as well as romance.
With a background
in Animal Science and molecular biology, Jennie has been a lab
technician and a science teacher at different times in her life. She
is now pursuing her love of language as an ESL teacher, meeting
people from all over the world and helping them learn to communicate
in English. She finds it as rewarding in its own way as penning
novels.
Jennie has always loved books that take her back to an
earlier time. Glimpses of the past spark her imagination. Perhaps
there’s an archaeologist buried in her somewhere. Everyone has a
story, and it’s the stories of ordinary people that affect her the
most.
Jennie developed a soft spot for Westerns by reading her
father’s collection of Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey novels as she
grew up. She thinks they contain everything a girl – or a
woman –could want…handsome, rugged heroes, spirited heroines and
horses, but she’s planning on trying her hand at other genres as
well. So many stories, so little time.
She finds her inspiration
in family stories passed down from her parents and grandparents, and
in the beauty of Nova Scotia’s landscape. When she’s not writing
or working she gardens, plays guitar and spends time with her
husband, two cantankerous elderly cats and the most spoiled dog on
earth.
Jennie’s books can be found at:
http://www.bluewoodpublishing.com/Authors/A-JennieMarsland.html
“Matt, for goodness’ sake, close the door.”
Matthew McShannon made a face at his older sister as he stamped the snow from his boots. “Chelle, for goodness’ sake, quit bossing.”
Chelle tossed her dark curls and went back to cutting biscuits to go with the beans Ma had baked for supper. Matt deliberately kicked some snow in her direction on his way to the stove. Chelle might look fourteen and try to act twenty, but she wouldn’t be thirteen ‘til March and needed to be reminded of it often.
The scents of salt pork and molasses wafting from the oven made Matt’s stomach rumble. He pinned his gloves and scarf to the line over the stove, where years of stored sunshine poured from the fire, forcing back the chill of the December afternoon. Winter had come early to the Colorado foothills this year.
Steam started to rise from Matthew’s jacket, carrying the unmistakable smell of damp wool. He rubbed his hands to warm them, then fumbled with buttons. The lamp glowing on the table turned the dark window beside him into a mirror, reflecting the cabin’s log walls, the bright Indian rug on the pine floor and the ladder leading to the loft. Pa had added rooms on either side as the family grew, but this room hadn’t changed since he’d settled here in 1865. Somehow, the older Matthew got, the smaller it seemed. Now, at nearly twelve, there were days when it seemed too small. Today was one of those days.
Lamplight struck the glass ornaments Ma and Ethan were hanging on the Christmas tree across the room. Matt had always loved the glittering blue and gold birds with their tails of real feathers, treasures from Ma’s childhood home in Philadelphia, but not this year. Where had their magic gone?
Matt frowned in the glass at Ma and Ethan’s ruddy heads, at little freckled Abby sitting on the floor near them, and at his own blond, blue-eyed reflection. A hop out of kin, Mrs. Baker at the Wallace Flats store called him. Knowing he looked like his grandfather McShannon, whom he’d only met once and didn’t remember, didn’t help.
He dipped water from the stove’s boiler into a basin, diluted it with cold from the pump and washed his hands. Ma looked over her shoulder, smiling. “Will your father be in soon?”
“Yeah, he’s just checking on Diamond. He’ll be through in a minute.” Matt hung his jacket by the door and plopped down on the bunk where Dad used to sleep before Ma had come along. Ethan tucked a paper snowflake among the branches of the little pine and brushed his hands together with satisfaction.
“I’m done, Ma. Matt, is Diamond going to have her foal?”
“Pa says any day now.” Matt shrugged as if he were shaking off a mosquito. What’s wrong with me? Last year I would have been as excited as Ethan about the foal. Why not now?
The lamp flickered in a gust of cold air as Pa came in, banging the door behind him. Now the room felt even more crowded. Matt and Pa seemed to rub each other the wrong way more and more often this winter.
Ma came across the room and slipped her arms around Pa inside his unbuttoned coat. “Trey, you’re freezing.” A little woman not much higher than his shoulder, she stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “Come and sit in. Supper’s ready.”
“And I’m ready for it, Beth.” Pa shrugged out of his coat and hurried to wash up. Chelle took her biscuits from the oven and put them on a plate while Ma dished up the beans. Matt took his seat and bowed his head with the others as Pa said grace.
“Thank you, Lord, for this Your bounty and for allowing us to be together on the night of Your Son’s birth. Amen.”
A trace of a Southern drawl softened the prayer. By the time Pa was twenty-two, he’d fought a war and traveled across a continent on his own. Matt sighed into his plate. Where would he be at that age? When had home started to feel like somebody else’s house?
Ethan spoke around a mouthful of beans. “It’s my turn to name the new foal, isn’t it, Pa? How about Thunder?”
Pa nodded. “Thunder Cloud would be a fine name if it’s a colt.” All the colts born on the place had Cloud in their names after Flying Cloud, Dad’s old stallion. A horseman already at six, in a way Matt knew he would never be, Ethan’s round face beamed with pride.
“If it’s a filly, I’ll call her Glory.”
Matt dropped his fork. It clattered against his plate as words came from nowhere, tumbling out like water bursting a dam. “Glory’s a stupid name for a horse. Can’t you think of something that makes some kind of sense?”
Ethan’s quick temper flashed as Matt knew it would. “That’s what you think, mister big-for-your-britches. Speak when you’re spoken to, come when you’re called.”
A warning spark lit Pa’s dark eyes. “That’s enough, boys. Eat your supper.”
Ethan stuck his tongue out. Before Matt could think, he snatched up half of the buttered biscuit on his plate and pitched it at Ethan’s head. It grazed him, leaving a smear of butter on his forehead before hitting the floor with a dull splat. The next thing Matthew knew, Pa’s rough hand grabbed his shirt collar.
“Up to the loft. Now.”
With the strength of anger, Matt tried to jerk free and almost managed it. “He—”
“Now!”
Eyes stinging, Matt scrambled up the ladder and dashed between trunks and boxes. He threw himself on the bed jammed against the back wall. His hands balled into fists as he stared into the shadows that hid the roof’s peak.
I’ll pound Ethan’s fat face tomorrow, Christmas or not.
Ethan, Pa’s little shadow. Ethan, always asking questions about the horses and the ranch that Matt would never have thought to ask at that age, and still wouldn’t think of. Questions Pa always had time to answer, where when Matt asked him about the battles he’d fought or about England where Aunt Chelle and Uncle Martin and Grandpa McShannon lived, he’d clam up or smile and say, “You’ll see it someday.”
There had to be more to life than school and chores and staring at mountains, wondering what lay beyond them. Wanting to know—not just believe—that the world was round. Wanting to belong.
Four more years, no more. I’ll scrape the money together somehow, get on the stage and never show my face in Wallace Flats again.
He lay there, nursing the painful knot in his chest, while the family finished eating. He heard the click of plates as Chelle cleared the table, then Ma’s light step on the ladder. Matt closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. In a moment, he felt her hand on his hair, then heard her soft tread as she retreated.
“He’s asleep. I hope he hasn’t picked up that flu that’s going around the school. He hasn’t been himself today.”
Pa answered, murmuring something about age that Matthew didn’t quite catch. He stayed still, listening to the familiar sounds of supper being cleared away. Tonight, Ma and Chelle sang as they worked.
It came upon a midnight clear, that glorious song of old
With angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold.
Chelle’s soprano rose clear and light as a feather above Ma’s lower, richer voice carrying the melody. Pa joined in the next verse, his baritone a touch off key but still somehow pleasing to the ear.
Silently, how silently the wondrous gift is giv’n…
A gift. What gift was there in Christmas when everything worth having was beyond your grasp, like the silly girls’ stuff Chelle oohed and aahed over in the shop windows when they made a trip to Denver?
They sang Once in Royal David’s City next, then O Come All Ye Faithful. The carols went on until the dishes were done and the door of the pantry cupboard clicked shut.
“Ethan, Abby, bed.”
“Aw, Ma, it’s only seven thirty.”
The smile in Ma’s voice carried up to Matt. “Ethan, you know Santa won’t come until you’re asleep. Go on now. Abby, come here.”
The house grew quiet. Matt pictured Ethan asleep in the room they shared, curled up in a ball, his mouth open. Abby would be lying on her stomach in her crib, her carroty hair tumbled across the pillow, and Chelle would be on the hearth rug reading, her long legs folded Indian style. The thin rustle of tissue paper and Ma and Pa’s muted voices told Matthew they were wrapping gifts. The knot in his chest grew tighter. Should he even bother pretending he still believed in Santa Claus this year? Last year he’d had his doubts, but now, without anyone saying anything, he knew.
Finally Pa blew out the lamp. Waiting for his parents to go to bed so he could creep down to his room, Matt struggled to keep his eyes open. He let them close, just for a minute, and the next thing he knew he was staring out the loft window, shivering, his quilts kicked off onto the floor.
A few ragged clouds blew across the remains of an old moon, fading the sharp shadow of the barn roof. His back ached from the lumps in the little-used chaff tick on the loft bed. Grumbling under his breath, Matt tiptoed across the loft and climbed down the ladder.
The dim moonlight showed him the presents under the tree, but he ignored them and padded across the room. He’d acted like a kid and he’d have to say sorry at breakfast, but that wouldn’t cure what was eating at him. Nothing would, until he figured out what the problem was.
The house was so still he nearly jumped out of his skin when the front door creaked. He whirled around and saw Pa’s tall shape silhouetted in the moonlight.
“Pa, is it Diamond?”
“Yeah.” Pa’s shadow leapt as he stepped to the table, then vanished when he lit the lamp. He poured a cup of coffee from the enamel pot on the stove and scraped back a chair at the table. “What are you doing up?”
“You left me up in the loft.”
Pa ignored Matt’s peeved tone and gave him one of his thoughtful looks. “I meant to wake you in a minute. Diamond had a little filly.”
Shame for the way he’d acted at dinner heating his cheeks, Matthew stood rooted in place, torn between going to Pa and turning away. It always seemed to be like that now. “Are they all right?”
“Couldn’t be better. She only laboured for a couple of hours. Come here, son.”
Pa patted the chair next to him. Matt shuffled across the floor, the chill seeping through his socks. Pa still had his coat on; the smell of hay and horses began rising from it in response to the stove’s heat. Pa’s smell. Matt slid onto the chair and parked his elbows on the table, the scent pushing and pulling at him both. He sighed and said what had to be said.
“Sorry about dinner. Ethan just makes me so mad at times.”
“I know.”
Pa sipped his coffee while the silence built between them. Then, with a suddenness that made Matt jump again, he set his empty cup on the table.
“Get your coat on and come out with me.”
It didn’t occur to Matthew to argue. He bundled up and followed Pa out into the star-swept night, into the rich, still, dark air of the barn. Instead of lighting the lantern, Pa just sat on the grain bin, his shape barely visible in the darkness. The soft scraping of hooves in straw was the only sound until he spoke.
“You don’t seem much interested in Christmas this year, Matthew. Last year you were almost as excited as Ethan.”
Matt kept his distance, leaning against the half-door of old Flying Cloud’s stall. “Santa and all that stuff…it’s for kids. I’m not six anymore.”
He heard Pa’s dry chuckle, could almost see the glint in his dark eyes that would accompany it. “You sure aren’t. You’ve grown like a weed this year. At this rate you’ll be almost as tall as me by next Christmas. You’re growing up, and growing up is never easy.”
“Growing up? Hell, I won’t be twenty-one for—”
Dad didn’t chuckle this time. He roared with laughter, completely drowning out Matthew’s words, ignoring his ‘hell’ completely. “Twenty-one? For Pete’s sake, Matt.”
“What’s so darned funny?”
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