Tag: Novel

To begin at the beginning, click here. 

(continued from)

His first thought was she was barking at a deer. Except Sally never barked at deer. She seemed more curious than defensive about them. A bear? Every so often a black bear would wander this far down, but not usually this late in the season. They would be thinking about hibernation and near a main access road wasn’t very appealing to tired bears.

Ed squinted through the glass. A dog—a big one. In a clearing just off the road stood a large, brown dog. It was lanky with dark red-brown coat and silvery eyes. Its ears were standing straight, alert to the commotion. Abruptly, the animal stiffened as though it was about to dart into the trees, stopped for another quick look, and then turned, head down, and loped away. It was an impressive creature. It appeared to be part wolf. Probably, somebody was looking for it.

Sally quieted and sat panting as she watched the thicket where the dog had disappeared. Ed settled back behind the wheel. Stray dogs weren’t any more common than bears. He wondered it had gotten away from some tourist. It had no collar that he could see. Still, it may have pulled out of its collar. Maybe somewhere there was a California vacationer with a leash and collar but no dog. Ed noted where he was so he could tell any tourist who looked like he’d lost something where he could keep looking. A couple miles down the road was a campground. He would check there, although it had looked empty when he passed in the morning. Not surprising. It was early October. Hardly tourist season, and the area was off limits for hunters. Furthermore, it was a small campground and most tourists this time of year would be traveling in heated trailers with satellite dishes.

He came around a bend in the road, slowed and turned into the campground. Empty.

Maybe one of the locals. Ed thought for a moment. He remembered hearing that somebody in the area had a dog that was part wolf. He’d stopped off to have a beer with a friend and it had come up when they were talking. Ed struggled to bring back the conversation. They had been talking about some of the loggers; about hunting season, about poachers—Mauk! Carl Mauk. That’s who it was. His friend had said that Mauk had some kind of dog that looked like a wolf. It made sense. Mauk’s place was about a quarter of a mile from the forest boundary on Section Line Road, but just across the ridge as the crow flies from where the dog had been. Ed decided he’d stop and let Mauk know where it was before somebody shot it.

Carl Mauk lived in a singlewide trailer. He rented a couple of acres on the high side of the road into town. Next to the gate, propped against the fence, was a splintering 4×8 sheet of plywood that served as a sign. It was spray painted with orange fluorescent paint, “fire wood 80$ a cord.” Next to it was a battered mailbox with the box number scrawled on the side of it with the same orange paint.

Ed slowed and made the turn into the gravel drive. It paralleled a barbed wire fence on either side as it made a wide turn up to a level area overlooking the road. The only improvement on the place that Ed could see was the trailer, white and faded aquamarine with an unpainted porch tacked onto the front. The porch roof was two sagging 4x8s covered with a blue tarp, one end propped up with 2x4s, and the other end laid on the roof and weighted down with a couple of log rounds. There were cardboard boxes filled with empty beer bottles on the porch, a five-gallon gas can and a battered toolbox. A low, weathered wooden shed with a rusty metal roof stood about a fifty yards up the hill.

The place seemed to suit all the rumors Ed had heard about Carl Mauk, a sometime logger, frequent poacher and backwoods rowdy known for having been thrown out of every tavern and club in the county. He had a reputation as a loner who, if he had a couple of beers in him, could take offense at a sideways glance or careless remark over a game of 8-ball.

The only place he was still welcome was Jiminy’s Jump, a dusty looking dive run by a man named Jim Pollard, a hulking ex U of O lineman in his early fifties with a reputation for keeping order in a place that often needed it. Mauk had come in one night drunk and in foul humor, having been tossed out of a club in Bend. He took exception when Big Jim brought him a bottle of root beer instead of the Bud he ordered.

Mauk glared at Pollard. “What’s this?”

“You’ve had enough,” said ‘Jiminy.’

Mauk started to stand up. “I’ll tell ya when I’ve had enough,” he roared.

Mauk never made it to his feet. Suddenly, he was on the floor looking up at Big Jim who had one knee planted in the middle of his chest. The expression on Mauk’s face was the precise definition of surprise. When standing he was over six feet. In his work boots he was a monster. He wore a permanent scowl on his face that signaled a warning to anyone that might think about getting in his way. Mauk wasn’t used to being challenged. So when Jim Pollard took him to the floor his world crumbled into momentary confusion.

Big Jim escorted Mauk to the door and told him that if he was going to get wasted he should start the process at his tavern instead of spending money somewhere else then dropping by so Jim had to go to the trouble of kicking his ass. This apparently sounded to Mauk like an invitation. From then on he was a regular patron at Jiminy’s Jump.

If Mauk had frequented any other watering hole in the county, his presence would have been a blow to business, but at Jiminy’s it was understood that if he caused a problem, Big Jim would see to it that he got tossed out on his keester. There was a certain security in that. As for Carl Mauk, Pollard’s was the only place the owner wouldn’t call the cops when he walked through the door. He had a grudging respect for Big Jim.

“Down, Sally!” The dog’s ears went slack. Sally paused for an instant as though she was considering some mutinous stand-off and then, thinking better of it, slid sullenly to the floor where there was an old blanket for her to curl up in when she was banished from view.

Forest service employees were forbidden to have animals in government rigs, reruns of Lassie notwithstanding. Ed ignored the rule. She was good company and he couldn’t bear to leave her home. Fortunately, the Keller house was right off the main highway between the ranger station and the forest boundary. It was a simple matter for Ed to drive to the station in the morning and take care of whatever business needed doing and then swing by the house on the way out to the field. Sally would wait on the front porch until she heard the truck round the corner at which time she would crouch down—an arrow ready to fly—waiting for Ed to give the signal: a quick tap on the horn. Seconds later, Ed would open the door and Sally would leap in, almost before the truck had come to a complete stop. Ed only expected one thing of his stowaway companion: when a tourist, or Dalt, the district ranger approached she was to hide on the floor and stay there until invited to join the civilized world again. Truth was, most everybody, including Dalt, knew about Sally. Officially, she wasn’t there. Unofficially, she worked for the US Government.

Ed nosed the truck in next to a battered four-by-four with a plywood jockey box in the back. There was a gun rack, empty, in the back window. That Mauk had his rifle inside with him made Ed a little nervous.

“Sally, stay!”

He got out and rounded the front of Mauk’s truck. Somewhere he heard a dog barking.

“Whadayuh, want…” It was more of a challenge than a question. Carl Mauk was standing on the porch as if he intended to charge down the stairs if Ed took another step. He was a big man with a sagging paunch. His hair was long. Tied back it hung well below his collar. He was bearded as a matter of laziness. Wide, red suspenders were hitched to faded jeans that had been cut off just at the top of thick-soled work boots. He had half-drunk bottle of Heineken in his left hand.

Ed stopped. “Howdy…” He tried to sound friendly.

“Whadayuh want?”

“Are you Mauk?” Ed knew very well who he was. Mauk said nothing. “Do you have a dog that’s part wolf?”

Mauk was expressionless, but his eyes were threatening. “So what if I do?”

Being good with people was part of his job, but Ed didn’t like being bullied. It irritated him. He had come to do the guy a favor and it was turning into a throw-down. He felt like telling this moron where he could stick it.

Ed took a breath. “Listen, man. I’m not here to get in your face. I saw a big dog just beyond Slip Creek Camp—part wolf. I think it might be yours. I heard you had a wolf-dog so I stopped by…”

Mauk sipped his beer and seemed to soften a little. “It ain’t mine.”

“Are you sure? I just…”

Suddenly, Mauk let out an ear-piercing whistle. “Choker!”

The barking from the shed stopped. There was the sound of a heavy chain being dragged and a big grey dog came into view, ears standing at attention.

“Like I said. My dog’s right here. And I ain’t got but one.”

“Well…” Ed said. “Sorry. Just figured I’d ask. Figured you’d want to know if he got loose.”

“It’s OK…”

“Gotta say, though, that’s a good looking dog. Did you get him around here?

Ed was thinking that there were others from the same litter in the area and that Mauk might know who else was missing an animal. Not only that, he wanted to leave on good terms. If Carl Mauk liked his dog, then Ed would talk to him about his dog. Mauk was a drunk and a bully, just the kind of guy you wanted to stay on the right side of in case you ran into him on a lonely forest service road someday. The Mauks of the world made better friends than enemies.

“Alaska,” Mauk said.

“I hear that’s pretty country. Work up there?”

“Naw. Friend there. Has sled dogs.”

“What is he, wolf and what? Part Malamute?”

“Yeah. One bitch had got loose. When she come back she had a litter of four pups. Choker’s one of ’em.”

“Know of anybody else that has a dog like that around here?”

“Nope.”

“Well, maybe it belongs to some tourist.” It was time to go. Mauk wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Anyhow, Ed could feel the lateness of the afternoon and he didn’t feel much inclined spend any more time with this guy than he had to.

“Well, hey, thanks for your time. Sorry to bother you.” He pushed out his hand.
Mauk hesitated for a second then took Ed’s hand and gripped it hard—unreasonably hard. Ed stifled a wince.

Seconds later, he was getting back in the truck, working his fingers. What a jerk! Friendly handshake and he pulls some macho bullcrap! What an asshole. Ed turned the truck around and headed down the drive. He was going to wave as though nothing had happened, but Carl Mauk had already gone inside.
Ed fumed most of the way back to his place. He had intended to check in at the ranger station tonight, but his irritation made him change his mind. At least the encounter with Mauk had taken his mind off the forgotten logging. He’d check it out tomorrow.

(To be continued, next scene.)

To begin at the beginning, click here. 

(Previous scene, click here). 

Down the hall, the phone was ringing.

“Dang it!”

Pastor Tom Roland hurried out of the rest room, zipping up his khakis, and headed toward the church office. Never fails. Every time I don’t carry the phone…

From down the hall, he heard the answering machine pick up—his own voice, “Thank you for calling Heritage Church…”

He rounded the corner into the office just in time for the beep.

“Tom? Are you there? Pick up…”

It was Tom’s wife, Ruth, and she sounded stressed. Over their 22-year marriage he had learned to read the sound of his wife’s mood in the way she said his name at the beginning of a phone call. She always started the call the same way: Tom? As though she wasn’t sure it was really him. Her inflection invariably revealed what she was thinking or how she was feeling. Happy, frustrated, mad, sad, each came out in that first syllable. Today it was worry.
He grabbed the phone and turned off the answering machine.

“Hi, honey! What’s up?”

“Jeremy isn’t home yet.”

Pastor Roland glanced at the clock above the door—a little after four. “He didn’t call?”

He knew it was a stupid question. If Jeremy had called, Ruth would have said so. And there was no point in asking if she had tried to call him; he knew that she would have already done that and that he hadn’t answered, which is why she was on the phone at this moment sounding worried.

The fact was, Jeremy nearly always—no, always—called. He was just a good kid that way. He was what many would call a mature 19 year-old. He had always been “old for his age” but after he graduated from high school and started community college he had become positively reliable, so it was strange that he hadn’t called, particularly when they had insisted he take the cell phone so he could call home as soon as he was back in range, and because he knew they would worry about his safety on a two day ride into the back country.

Jeremy was out horse camping with Alex, a childhood friend. Alex was a year younger than Jeremy, but had been out of school for longer. He had dropped out sometime during his sophomore year having spent ninth grade living the part of an “at-risk youth.” All of this was to the distress of his parents who were members of the Roland’s previous church. They had asked if Tom and Ruth would look after Alex while they went on a Caribbean cruise, an award that Alex’ dad had won for being the top salesman in his region. They thought that their prodigal son would be less likely to get into trouble in Dutch Ford. More than that, they hoped that Alex’ friendship with Jeremy—mature and dependable Jeremy—might divert their son from pursuing some relationships that they knew to be “unhealthy.” In their conversation with the Rolands, they said they would enjoy their vacation a lot more knowing Alex was away from the trouble he was all too eager to look for when he was at home in Portland. Alex had not been unwilling. He liked Jeremy Roland in spite of their differences—yet another indication of Jeremy’s winning outlook on life.

The boys hung out for a couple of days, and then arranged to borrow a horse from Hank Landen, the sublimely generous and affable senior elder at Heritage Baptist who had a ranch and kept a few horses, including Jeremy’s horse, Pluto. The boys hitched the double horse trailer (also Hank’s) to Tom Roland’s aged but dependable Blazer, loaded up Pluto and Bonny (the friendliest horse on the planet, according to Hank. The perfect horse for a tenderfoot like Alex.) and headed out for an over-nighter in the national forest. They were to pack in, spend the night and ride back out the following morning, planning to get home around three at the absolute latest.

That was the plan. But it was now 4:22—no boys, no call, and the Rolands were getting worried. It would be dark soon . . .

(To be continued …)

To begin at the beginning, click here. 

Chapter One

Ed Keller was the first to notice the changes. He thought it was something else at the time; something that he feared more than death; a memory of his father that stalked him.

In mid-September, the nights were getting longer and the air in the Oregon mountains seemed to grow brittle. The creek beds were awash with color—alders and aspens going from green to yellow. Under the forest canopy, vine maples had gone blood-red. The wind, high in the Ponderosa and Douglas fir whispered secrets.

Ed had pulled off the main gravel and jockeyed his Forest Service pickup down a passable skid road where he could take a leak and do some paperwork—kill some time before rolling into the ranger station. The place was familiar. He stopped there often to let Sally, his butterscotch Brittany, stretch her legs awhile.

Sally knew the place, too. The skid road was cut into a steep hillside at the base of a clear-cut. On the low side the ground dropped away into the canyon with the river rushing over the rocks below. She rocketed out of the truck and scampered down the bank toward the creek. To the west, the Cascades stood against the horizon. Northward, along the crest were the peaks of the Three Sisters; due west the distinctive column of Pinnacle Butte, called “the Spire” by the locals. On a smoky summer evening the Sisters would turn pink and the Spire seemed suspended against the smoldering red sunset.

But this afternoon Ed wasn’t awed by beauty; he was anxious and fearful. He stood with his hand on the door handle of his Forest Service pickup trying to fight off a deep sense of uneasiness. It was as though he had forgotten something and couldn’t decide what it was. He didn’t like the feeling one bit. It frightened him, and fear was an emotion he’d carefully taught himself to ignore. If he ever felt it he never showed it.

Ed retraced his steps back to the stump where he had stood relieving himself a few moments before and scanned again the two ridges between him and the Spire.

The far ridge was scarred by clear-cuts, square blocks where the trees had been ripped from the mountainsides like chunks of flesh. Clear-cutting, was unpopular with environmentalists, but was still common forest management. The theory was that the harvested area would reseed from the perimeters. True, but it left a decade’s long scar on the land.

The fact was, laying out timber sales was a big part of Ed’s job. He had been finishing one today not unlike the sales on that far ridge…roughly square plots of bare land. But the closest ridge had been left unlogged, deemed too steep and too near critical watershed. At least that was what Ed remembered…or thought he remembered. But there was a thumb-shaped patch of nearly bare ground extending from the far side of the ridge and down into the center of it, a treeless island almost to the road. It was a random looking patch that Ed didn’t remember.

What he remembered was uncut timber from the ridge top, angling down the slope along a shallow drainage to the east until it met the road on the south. But there was that bare patch. A fire? No. Too even—a clean straight arc. There must have been some reason he’d authorized logging there. Insects or a diseased stand? Or maybe he wasn’t involved. Maybe somebody else on the district, but he would have at least known. Moreover, it didn’t look like a freshly cut unit with telltale gouges and slash piles. It looked to be years old, with signs of natural reseeding.

What bothered him most was that he could not remember. He looked away and then back as if his eyes might tell him something different, but each time that bare patch was still there, extending like a brown teardrop down the face of the slope.

Ed walked slowly back to the truck. He knew the source of the fear—more like panic. It was the image of his father, slack-jawed and bewildered in the final years of his life. Edward Keller Sr. had begun to falter while Ed was working in Colorado. At first it had been easy for the family to ignore his father’s confusion. On brief visits home for holidays Ed could write off the occasional social misstep or memory lapse as the usual advance of age. Thinking back on it, he realized that his father’s mind was becoming muddled even then. For years it had been unspooling like an old movie reel and they hadn’t known it. The family thought he was just getting hard of hearing.

It was a long, slow dying. What made it worse was that the senior Keller was aware of what was happening to him. As the months passed he became increasingly agitated and angry, sometimes lashing out at anyone who dared try to help. He was trying to fight the disease that stalked him. As often as not it looked like fury. Then he started to give up; long quiet spells; blank expressions; tears. That was when Ed’s mother asked Ed to take his father’s hunting rifles out of the house.

In retrospect, Ed wondered if he should have. He knew his father. He had watched him wait for the right moment to set the hook, or for a buck to come within range—the patience of a tree. It was a competition for the elder Keller. He would compete against the buck, or the trout. He challenged nature on his own terms, in his own good time. Ed imagined that his father would have wanted to fight this disease on his own terms, too. But Ed had his mother to think about.

At the end, his father had lost it all. He died of pneumonia two years later.
It was an experience that Ed tried not to think about, but the memory intruded on his mind each time he struggled with a name or forgot something. He would tell himself that everybody had moments like that. He would remind himself that Alzheimers wasn’t necessarily hereditary. The research wasn’t conclusive.

That’s what the doctor had said and Ed cursed him for it.

Ed knew every road and rut in this forest—a map with legs, his friends said. Yet, he had deliberately cut a small stand of trees in the middle of a hillside and he had no idea why. This was no misplaced tool or a forgotten name. This was different and it terrified him.

“Sally! Come!”

The dog came running from out of the woods, made a straight line to the truck. Just as Ed swung open the door she sprang across the last three feet landing in the passenger seat.

Ed got in, started the truck, dropped it into gear and then just sat there, foot on the brake, hands hanging loosely from the steering wheel.

Somewhere above the dashboard of the truck he saw himself as a kid—nine or ten—hunting with his father. He was lost; gotten himself turned around. He panicked and started running wildly, calling out and crying.

The truck was creeping forward. Ed slammed his foot on the brake nearly throwing Sally on the floor. Damn, what’s the matter with me?

Ed powered the pick-up onto the road and gunned it; gravel clattering against the wheel-wells as he steered down the hill through the last of the open area and into the shadows. The road snaked its way into the deepening forest, contouring down the slope of the canyon before making a hairpin turn as it bridged the creek that had, over thousands of years, carved the drainage into the mountainside. For the next few miles, until the road broke out onto the flat, Ed wrestled with his thoughts. Why did we cut that unit like that? His mind sorted through possible reasons, trying to jog his memory. Diseased trees? Endangered species? Seeding concerns? He decided that he would review the records of the sale when he got back to the station.

For some reason the decision to check the files on the sale and review the aerial photos, quieted his mind. Always make a plan, his father had taught him. Decide what you’re going to do and then do it. He decided he would review the files after Beverly left for the coast tomorrow. Friday, she was going to take the boys to Coos Bay for the weekend to visit her parents who had moved there after her dad retired. They would leave right after the boys got out of school. Ed had opted to stay home this time so he could catch up on some projects around the house. He would look into that timber sale then.  Let’s see that would have been two years, maybe three. Five?

In a reflex instant his body stiffened and his mind came to full alert. Sally lunged at the passenger side glass, snarling fiercely. The hair on her neck bristled. Her bared fangs snapped against the glass as she roared her intentions to shatter the window and get at whatever was outside. 

Ed stopped the truck, temporarily throwing Sally off balance. The dog paused only for a moment before resuming her challenge.

“Geez! Calm down! What do you see, girl?”

He leaned across the seat to get a better look, struggling for a glimpse past Sally, as she continued to lunge at whatever was out there.

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[Click to continue]

Author Note: I am exploring how to craft the plot. There will be several characters that move the story and some of them will interact more than others. I am toying with the idea of interweaving their stories within chapters as opposed to giving each of them their own chapter.  Just one of the things about which I will be accepting advice from you. ]

OK, here’s how I picture the novel beginning. Let me know if you’d be interested enough to keep reading. By the way, I am hoping to have all of the “chapters” that I post be 2-3 thousand words. That means they should be seen as segments rather than actual chapters. The chapters will likely be longer and very likely in different order. Still, I’ll try to keep the continuity of what I share with you. Thanks for reading!

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Prologue

At the north edge of town, a young man—he had come to be called AJ—sat in his wheelchair. The blacktop ended there. A path of volcanic rock, ground fine like red sand, continued into the hillside cemetery that overlooked the town and the river. He scuffed his foot in the gravel evaluating the surface, fearing his chair might bog down after the recent rains—it rained more now than it used to. Confident of its firmness he rolled forward as he had nearly every day since coming to Dutch Ford. Fine grains stuck to the wheels and pressed into his palms as he pushed past silent, uneven rows of grave markers—lifetimes frozen in stone. 2010…2002…back through the 90s, 80s, 70s. Through the 1950s and back…1930… 20…back…the turn of a century and still further to the last headstone—the first—in the second row of graves.

The name on the headstone was Aleene. Carved beneath the name words written in Dutch, “geliefde dochter”—beloved daughter—and the dates “1851–1853.” The stone was rounded, like an egg, worn smooth by water and time. It had been pulled from the river near the place where wagons had crossed at the shallows, carted up the hill to the place where they buried the little girl. The father had carved the inscription. That stone was the reason a town had been born here. It marked the first life to have been lived here. The first death to have begun here.

On the short street that led to the cemetery, the former church parsonage had become a museum. Two rooms held the history of the community. In a glass case, a diary written in Dutch was set next to yellowed, typewritten pages in English. They explained everything.

July 1, 1853 – Another child in the company has been lost having fallen in the river. The crying of her mother was heard through the night. We buried the girl today at daybreak. Mrs. Vandercoort cannot be comforted.
July 16 – ready to continue the journey west. Only seven families will proceed to W. valley. Vandercoort and Dijkstra will remain as Mrs. Vandercoort refuses to leave the grave.
July 17 – We traveled ten miles today. forded the stream this morning. Bid farewell to two families, leaving them to fare as best they can. Perhaps they will follow if another company passes but we fear they may be cut off for some time because of the late season.

The young man stared for a long moment at the stone, its uneven letters gouged from the smooth surface. Aleene. The name meant, “alone.” He remembered feeling alone on the first day he had come. From this bluff, looking over the town that had happened here in the high Oregon desert, he breathed aloneness. He had been plucked from life like a rock from the river, a scar carved across his spine like an epitaph.

He tugged at one wheel of his chair, pivoting to the right, turning away from the grave and from the sun which had risen high enough to hurt his eyes. From this vantage point he could see most of the town of Dutch Ford: the county park just below; the Old 97 bridge—barely two lanes—spanning the river at the shallows; the railroad tracks on the other side. He could see the Chevron station at what the locals called, “Bridge Corner.” It was across from Oma’s Table, the restaurant owned by Remco deWette and his wife Neda. Those businesses and a handful of others stood shoulder to shoulder along both sides Old 97, which was Main Street.

Two years ago he had come to the town to write, which, he concluded later, was a kind of suicide. There was no going back to the life he had known before his accident, so he had decided to lose himself in words—death without dying. He would get settled in this obscure corner of Oregon and make what living he could by words. He intended to write articles about the environment. (He had written one on pollution in the open ocean that had earned $350.00). He would turn his attention to Oregon’s high desert and expose the wasteful practices of farmers and ranchers; the ruthless tactics of agribusiness.

This he intended, but did not do. Instead, he kept to himself in his apartment tucked into the hillside beneath the VFW. Through the window he gazed at the mountains that had once beckoned him. Now, he grieved them—the Sisters to the north and the slender column of Pinnacle Butte to the west. Eventually, he abandoned them from his heart, and turned, instead, to the town. From his wheelchair and keyboard he watched it. Like an impotent god he observed its people—their coming and going—absorbed them into his heart and then excreted them through his fingertips. Steadily, he became more the embodiment of the town than the people themselves.

And then a strange thing happened. He became one of them. Unexpectedly, they became his people and he became AJ. It was that which kept him from feeling doubly alone when the world changed around them and they found themselves lost together.

He wheeled back to the apartment. Pushed open the door. Rolled across the room to the folding table that was his desk. His laptop sat useless, the battery exhausted and no electricity to revive it. Next to it was a clipboard that held a shallow stack of notebook paper. He took up a pencil and began to write…

Over two years have passed and still no one can offer a common sense explanation for what has happened. We are becoming desperate for answers. We want answers in the same way that primitive tribes imagine explanations for inscrutable things like lightning and thunder and earthquakes—war among the gods; anger in belly of the earth. Even educated citizens feel their reason stretched to the breaking point. Someone overheard a conversation, checked the calendar and noticed the blizzard struck on the night of the Jewish New Year. Hence, we have become a town of enlightened mystics and practitioners of progressive superstition. We take the link between the day and the events that have happened as a sign, as though there is a connection—there has to be a connection. So, that particular Rosh Hashanah has become the dividing line between all that came before and all that has come after. Even though it is clear that the world was changing for months before, we still reckon time from that day. No longer is history calculated, “AD” or “BC.” In Dutch Ford we speak of the years “before Rosh” or the months “after Rosh.” When snow came early we called it “Rosh autumn.” When the weather changes suddenly it is a “Rosh wind” or if somebody asks a question for which there seems to be no answer we shrug and say, “hashanah…”

[To Be Continued…Click Here.]

This is a work in progress…

OK, here’s the deal: I’ve had an idea for a novel banging on the inside of my head for a few years. The first cover concept is above. Now all that is needed is a book to go with it. I’ve got it started, but there’s a lot left to do—a LOT left to do. If I were going to go after this goal alone, I’d probably leave this project unfinished. Maybe, with your help, assuming you’re the slightest bit interested after I slip you a chapter or two, I’ll stay motivated until I see the project through.

Whadaya say? Will you follow along on this thing for a bit and give me your opinions and suggestions along the way? I’ll be honest. I don’t know exactly where the story is going, but that’s why I need you to keep poking me. So, with fear and trembling, I am going to start publishing what I write a little at a time. Comment, please. I’m counting on you. Although my self-confidence is none too solid when I get criticism on my writing, I trust you can be tender and constructive. Promise? Thanks.

I can’t find my copy of Bird by Bird, a great book for beginning writers by Anne Lamott. If I could, I’d lift out one of her quotes about being an impostor; about her terror of being discovered as the incompetent authorial pretender she knew herself to be. I would paste that quote in right here, because, as a talented writer she could express what I cannot. What’s more, she can say it from the lofty heights of being a successful author. I can say it from the  pitiful depths of a recreational writer.

So, allow me to begin this adventure with some text as it might appear on the back cover of the book, then, in the next couple of days, there will be the full prologue. After that, chapters and parts of chapters as I write them. Strap yourself in…

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Nearly two years have passed and still no one can offer a common sense explanation for what has happened. We are becoming desperate for answers. We want answers in the same way that primitive tribes imagine explanations for inscrutable things like lightning and thunder and earthquakes—war among the gods; anger in belly of the earth. Even educated citizens feel their reason stretched to the breaking point. Someone overheard a conversation, checked the calendar and noticed the blizzard struck on the night of the Jewish New Year. Hence, we have become a town of enlightened mystics and practitioners of progressive superstition. We take the link between the day and the events that have happened as a sign, as though there is a connection—there has to be a connection. So, that particular Rosh Hashanah has become the dividing line between all that came before and all that has come after. Even though it is clear that the world was changing for months before, we still reckon time from that day. No longer is history calculated, “AD” or “BC.” In the town of Dutch Ford we speak of the years “before Rosh” or the months “after Rosh.” When snow came early we called it “Rosh autumn.” When the weather changes suddenly it is a “Rosh wind” or if somebody asks a question for which there seems to be no answer we shrug and say, “hashanah…”

[To Be Continued…Click Here]