 
Tattle Tales: An Anthology

SHO Writing Group

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 SHO Writing Group

"Big Red Fox" artwork © May 2013 by Lad Castle

Cover art © December 2013 by Kerry Collia

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Table of Contents

Introduction **·** Frank Collia

A Meal to Remember **·** Alan Breese Tisdale

Rhythm of the Night **·** Robin Watt

Cuts Like a Knife **·** Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

End of the Line **·** Lad Castle

The Shopping Cart **·** Jerome Levy

State of My Union **·** Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

Mom's Brownies **·** Ruthe Foy

Accidents Happen **·** Steve Murray

A Woman of Note **·** Alan Breese Tisdale

Dad **·** Michael Sonneveldt

The Second Cut **·** Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

A Sad Good-bye to the Gators **·** Gayle B. Duke

Gator Man **·** Robin Watt

The Christmas That Wasn't **·** Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

The Walking Man **·** Nichole Somme

Big Red Fox **·** Lad Castle

The Mermaid **·** Gloria Wilkinson

Living It **·** Ruthe Foy

One Piece of Paper **·** Robin Watt

Halloween **·** Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

Who Dun It in the West **·** Lad Castle

Mr. B **·** Nichole Somme

The Cake **·** Ruthe Foy

How the Man Walked In **·** Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

Crucify Him **·** Lad Castle

Return **·** Steve Murray

My Word **·** Alan Breese Tisdale

About the Authors

Introduction

Frank Collia

I didn't know what to expect when I began the Adult Writing Group as a monthly program at the library where I work. I knew what I hoped would happen, but I had enough experience in the librarian game to, if not temper my expectations, at least guard my optimism. I wanted it to work, but prepared myself for whatever randomness played out.

As it happened, it took all of one meeting for my concerns to dissipate. While several months would pass before our core group of hearty writers worked itself into place, I saw from that first day that this idea had legs. People want to write, to express themselves, open up their creativity, give voice to those inner voices that have been whispering for freedom inside their heads. Some came to chronicle memories for grandchildren; others to jumpstart long dormant dreams. They all found each other, a community of fellow chroniclers and dreamers within their own community. Actually, found isn't correct. They created it themselves with support and encouragement and shared desire. I'm just glad I could provide them the setting to do so.

What you are about to read is the culmination of their work. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did watching it come to fruition.

A Meal to Remember

Alan Breese Tisdale

That evening he took his time eating everything she had placed before him, savoring each mouthful, being careful to look into her eyes every so often and indicate his utter pleasure with the meal. She seemed so happy at this, as if she were being rewarded for her pleasuring him in this way as well.

After dinner, when the remains of their feast had been cleared from the table and the dishes taken to the sink, they came together in the living room. It was frequently like this at the end of the day–work and play behind them, and just enough time left before nightfall to relax, let the cares of the world fall away, and enjoy each other's company before going off to bed. They sat together quietly on the sofa, feeling each other's warmth, gazing into each other's eyes. They communicated their love effortlessly, without a word being spoken.

She was tired after her long day of myriad chores in the house, puttering about in the garden, and having prepared the evening's meal. She had even cleaned the carpet in the living room, something that had been on her mind and her "to do" list for a very long time, but had been put off for one reason or another until today.

She smiled at him in her special way, got up from the sofa, yawned and stretched, and started up the stairs. He looked at her longingly, but decided to just sit for a few moments longer before turning in. She looked back at him, smiled knowingly, and turned into the bedroom. They would be together again soon.

He felt so relaxed and cozy on the sofa that he just couldn't make himself move. He could still smell her sweet perfume where she had cuddled next to him but a moment ago. He thought of all the times they had been intimate, and that made him feel wonderful.

Sometime later, he awoke with a start and felt cold. He was still on the sofa, but she had gone–the perfumed scent left beside him had evaporated, and she was not there. It came back to him in a moment, as his senses and his thoughts recovered from his half-sleep: she had gone up to bed. Of course! He had totally forgotten. But why had she done this? Why had she not paid more attention to him? She had been so loving, preparing his meal, cuddling with him on the sofa; surely she had known what he wanted, what he needed. Why had she not come to him downstairs before going up?

The more he pondered these things, the more frustrated he became. He could feel the beginnings of an urge from within his body, an urge that grew despite his attempt to quell it. He wanted so much to fight if off, to not let her get the best of him, to show her he could manage somehow without her. In the end, he was not able to control himself, and found the momentary release of his need which inevitably caused him anxiety and grief. Exhausted, he lay down again on the sofa and fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning he awoke in horror as she was striking repeated blows to his nose with a rolled-up _Wall Street Journal_.

"Bad dog! Bad dog!" she shouted over and over, as he tried to get up. "I shampooed that carpet just yesterday, and I'll never be able to get that smelly mess out of it!"

Rhythm of the Night

Robin Watt

In the morning light

I watch you sleeping

And feel your breath upon my skin.

Your lashes closed against your face,

Your fingertips touch my chin.

Awake, I dream of this.

And in dreams we dance to the rhythm

Of the night.

We glide across heavens sublime,

Each step in unison:

We move as one.

Your face is close to mine and

I breathe your breath.

We dance through space and time.

Is there not a constellation of the Heart?

(A celestial haven for those who dance on stars)

Asylum from reality and work and day.

But now

We move on sonic winds across the Milky Way

And soon, my friend,

We'll be flying fast apart.

Our destinations diverge;

The voyage I won't regret,

I'm even grateful too

That quite by chance we met

And danced,

And I shared the rhythm of the night

With you.

Cuts Like a Knife

Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

At the end of a typical school day in the fall of 1968, I got off the train at 169th Street, the E's last stop in Queens, raced up the steps that led to the street above and made two quick, hard rights. Perfect timing. I saw my bus, the Q-4, rounding the corner directly across the street from me.

Halfway down the block, a familiar voice called out, "Smitty! Smitty!"

By the time I turned around, my best friend Micky had gotten right up in my face. Short of breath, she panted, "Come on. Meet Rob, the guy I've been telling you about."

She and I had grown up together in Queens and together survived elementary school plays at P. S. 15, the desegregation of P.S. 156, and all those "is-he-looking-at-me?" crushes of J. H. S. 59. Even though I had been in a public performing arts school in Manhattan for two years without her, we still talked all the time. And lately, the topic always seemed to be Rob.

She liked him.

Micky's voice trailed off suddenly because she had already turned around, reaching the corner and crossing back over 169th Street. Following her meant I would miss the next bus, too. Reluctantly, I ran to catch up.

The tiny storefront pizzeria faced Hillside Avenue, a narrow counter jutting from an open window to the left of the entrance. Facing forward, body tilted back at a ten-degree angle, Rob leaned against the counter on his elbows. His cologne smelled fresh and crisp. Seventeen, fair-skinned, tall, and very well-dressed, a senior at The High, the ivy-covered high school on the hill, and cute enough with his "Joe Cool" demeanor. Details of our introduction and the pleasantries he and I must have exchanged are now lost amidst Micky's excitement at our meeting and the way her eyes danced when she looked at him.

She really liked him.

Within weeks, the two of them arranged a double-date so that he could introduce me to one of his friends. Now that Micky's and my friendship included a boy, our social calendar included dating.

One night, she and I were upstairs at her house getting ready. The guys were picking us up to go to a house party. The doorbell rang.

Her older brother, Benny, opened the front door, peered out, and yelled up to us, "They're here."

When I got to the bottom of the stairs my eyes skipped past Rob and went straight to my date's beautiful hazel eyes and brown skin. His name was Dean and he was muscular, which I could see this through his short-sleeved polo shirt and the way his slacks fit his thighs.

After a few dates, I accepted his General Organization pin. And with all the significance and permanence that this action held at the time, I was officially his girlfriend. Micky and Rob's plan had worked. She and I both had boyfriends.

We were a party of four throughout the winter, but spring brought more changes than just the weather. Between dances at a party in Micky's basement, Dean and I talked. A faint strain of a popular, psychedelic soul song played prophetically in the background.

Unbeknownst to Micky and me, these lyrics signaled the start of the guys' plan to free themselves from the self-imposed bondage of dating exclusively. Execution and culmination was swift. Mid-conversation, Dean broke up with me.

This was the first time I'd been dumped. Stunned and heart-broken, I don't remember how I got home. I do remember letting myself in and closing the front door as quietly as I could. I hurried the short distance from the sun porch to the living room and collapsed onto one of my mother's two green brocade armchairs that were in front of a ceiling-to-floor beveled mirror. My favorite was always the one closest to the dining room. But it was the crackle of its dry, yellowing plastic chair covers that must have given me away.

My mother, with sleep in her voice, called down to me, "You okay, Suzanne?"

I tried to stifle my sobs as I answered, "Y-eh-eh-s." But I wasn't okay at all. I was crushed.

After a few days of unusual behavior on both our parts–that is, Micky and I not seeing or talking to each other–I went to her house. We gossiped about that night's happenings. I gave her a detailed description of how Dean had "quit" me. That same night on the other side of the basement, she told me, Rob had "quit" her, too. It was no coincidence that they both used the same line: "I need my freedom." The break-ups _had_ been planned.

For a time, things went back to what was normal for us, the way things had been since third grade. We grieved together. Just us girls. No boys. No complications. We started to feel like our former inexperienced, happy selves. Eventually, our girl-talk was no longer interrupted by sighs. We breathed with less effort and pain. Life was beginning to be worth living again.

And then during one of our chats, her telephone rang. Micky's face lit up as she answered. She didn't have to tell me that Rob was on the other end. Maybe he wanted to get back together.

She still really liked him.

Micky's hope quickly turned to dismay as she turned to me and whispered, "He wants your phone number. Should I give to him?"

Every teen magazine I had read advised that _real_ girlfriends never dated their best friend's ex-boyfriend. The recommended response to this kind of question was always a quick, emphatic and unequivocal, "No." But without thought or hesitation what came out of my mouth was, "Yeah, okay, go 'head."

She turned back, mumbled, "L-A-7...," and hung up.

Not too many days later Rob called me. He and I would go on to date, marry, move out-of-state on two different occasions, have two children, and eventually divorce. I think the divorce was poetic justice.

Micky and I hadn't seen each other or spoken to each other since that day twenty-four years earlier. During a round of post-divorce self-examination, I wrote letters to four people I felt I had wronged: my ex-husband, our two children, and my ex-best friend, Micky.

I sent Micky's letter to her parents' house in Queens, which is the only address I ever had for her. In the letter I included my new phone number. Much to my surprise Micky's mother forwarded the letter to her and Micky called me.

I got to the point quickly so I wouldn't have to deal with any dead air that would give her the opportunity to say, "And why are _you_ calling me?"

I said, "I want to apologize. I didn't act like a friend the day I told you it was okay to give Rob my phone number. I'm sorry. That wasn't what a real friend should've done."

I thought if she knew that he and I had gotten divorced maybe she would forgive me for my lapse in judgment. Maybe she would get some satisfaction from knowing that I had gotten my comeuppance. So I told her.

Apparently, what happened between Rob and me–and to the friendship that she and I once had–was old news. Micky had moved on. All that remained was a heavy, heavy silence from her end of our one-sided conversation.

Succumbing to the pressure of the silence, I rattled off a quick, "Well, okay. Thanks for calling me. Bye."

It was then that I finally realized why my grandmother, Twiney, always told me, "Zannie-pie, run your words through your heart. You'll feel the 'pricklies' first." Early on Twiney recognized my habit of not thinking before I spoke.

The tongue, like the heart, is always working. When mine work together, my words are my greatest strength. When they don't, they are my greatest weakness, my "rash words...like sword thrusts." (Proverbs 12:18, English Standard Version)

That day in the spring of 1969 I traded my best friend for a husband-to-be and started to learn how much I could, and would, hurt people with my rash words.

End of the Line

Lad Castle

The thing you hear over and over when you are at the bus station is the constant swooshing of air brakes and squealing of tires as the heavy busses maneuver on the asphalt.

_Swoosh-swoosh, squeal-squeal_. The sounds made me more and more nervous by the minute. Soon I would be on my way, away from this place, and away from the long arm of the law.

Tom said a heist would be easy in this small town with three policemen and no jail, lots of rich and famous people, and one bank full of money. But it had turned to hell.

The speaker blared, "Bus loading at Gate 7 for Alligator Alley, Miami, Key West, and all points south." That was my bus, so I grabbed my overnight bag, the only possession I had left in the world, and headed for the gate.

As I boarded the bus and handed the crumpled ticket to the driver, a strange calmness came over me. Perhaps it was because of the robust enthusiasm in the driver's voice.

"How do you do sir? We're glad to have you aboard. I see your ticket says you will be with us all the way to the end of the line."

"Yes," I answered. "I have friends waiting there, and we're meeting for a long awaited vacation."

I was already laying groundwork for an alibi should I need one. The truth was I had a hideout camp set up in the lower Keys. I would bus all the way to the end for pretense sake, and then hitch-hike back two Keys.

Being the first one on the bus, I had my choice of seats. I chose the rear seat next to the emergency exit. In case of trouble I could kick out the door and give myself an avenue of escape.

The bus was almost full when she boarded: 25ish with a full complement of built-in womanly accessories. She deliberately walked to the back of the bus and sat down beside me as though it was her assigned seat.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" she asked, almost apologetically.

"No, I don't mind at all." I assumed she must have acquired the hots for me at first glance. Then again maybe I had spent too much time in prison to know when a girl was just being nice.

Prison's where I met Tom and that's where we hatched the scheme to rob the Naples Trust Bank. Per capita, we knew that Naples banked for some of the richest people in the country. The Trust Bank was in a small beach town just south of the city. There had to be plenty of working capital just lying around for the taking.

But as if fate had planned it, it wasn't our lucky day. Two out of the three policemen in town were in the bank conducting a safety inspection at the precise time we were committing the robbery.

I had escaped under a hail of bullets, but I had to leave Tom bleeding and dying on the floor of the lobby. No heroics. I was a two time loser. The next offense would put me out of circulation for good.

As the bus made its way through the small cities connecting the west of Florida to Alligator-Alley, the runway to the East Coast, the woman beside me spoke again. There were tears in her eyes.

"My name is Cassie. I asked to sit here because you looked like a man who could take care of himself."

_Little do you know, honey_ , I thought as I felt for the nine millimeter pistol I had stuffed under my belt.

She continued, "I am running away from my husband. He is very abusive. He has had me shackled and locked up for a year in the house before I finally escaped."

"Why don't you go to the cops?"

"I would but I am afraid. You see, he is a cop."

"Wow, honey, I thought I had problems."

My first inclination was to get up and find another seat. This kind of dilemma I just didn't need. What if her husband had followed her and caught me with her? My life wouldn't be worth a plug nickel. But I could feel myself melting as I took another long look at her tear-stained soft brown eyes.

"I'll stay for a while, but if things get tough you can count me out. I'll have to be on my way." I remembered how I had left Tom dying on the floor in the Bank.

The bus rolled on past miles of heavily vegetated swamps. We began to share the tales of our lives and how we ended up here, alone on a bus to nowhere.

"By the way what is your name? I don't want to keep calling you 'Mister'."

"They call me Mark," I said.

It had turned dark and we snuggled like two people needing security, and drifted off to sleep. As I felt her warm, trusting body next to mine, I knew for the first time in my life I wouldn't run any more, not from anyone or anything. Cassie needed me and I needed her and on this bus speeding through the Everglades I vowed, _God give me the opportunity and strength to care for Cassie and I will never dishonor you again_.

People kept getting off the bus at their respective destinations and nobody else ever got on. Cassie and I didn't care. We continued to discover each other. We were like two teens that had just found love for the first time.

Then we heard the _swoosh_ of air brakes as the bus stopped. We were the last two passengers. The bus driver turned and called out, "End of the line. Everybody out."

I could tell Cassie was as stunned as I was. Did we think the ride would last forever? Would we have to wake up again into a world we never really knew or asked for?

We grabbed our meager belongings and walked hand-in-hand toward the front of the bus. I could see the driver's name tag said _Gabriel_.

"Wait a minute, guys," he said with the same pleasant voice he had at the beginning of the trip. "Sit down here for a minute." He motioned toward the front seats facing him. We sat down. "Haven't you figured it out yet?"

"Figured out what?" I looked at Cassie for an answer.

"Figured out this bus trip," he said, "and how you two met. It wasn't by chance, you know. Nothing ever is."

Cassie and I moved closer together and held hands.

"You see, Cassie," continued Gabriel, "your husband tied you up and locked you in the house, but he never came back, he never loosened your bonds, and you never got away. That life is behind you now. When you step out of this bus a brand new life awaits and your past won't even be a memory.

"And Mark," he said, fixing his gaze on me, "you didn't leave Tom back there in a pool of blood. As a matter of fact, you caught the first bullet."

After that, there was a long silence.

Finally, it sunk in. I asked, "What now? While Cassie goes on to a new life, I go to Hell?"

Gabriel smiled. "Do you remember the vow you made last night?"

"Yes," I answered, amazed. "But how do you know?"

"There's nothing much gets by Ol' Gabe on this bus. You could have turned your back on Cassie and gone running back to your troubled life of crime and hell on earth, but your commitment has bought you another round at a new life. I would say you're a very lucky man."

Cassie led me off the bus. Before the doors closed behind us, I turned back. "And what about heaven and hell, Mr. Gabriel?"

He answered with a wave goodbye. "It's all about where you get off the bus and everybody gets off somewhere. You? You rode it to the end of the line."

The Shopping Cart

Jerome Levy

There it was on the east side of US 301 about a mile north of Florida Highway 364, a Publix shopping cart in a remote spot quite a distance from the nearest store. It was sitting in an unpopulated area.

How did it get there? That full-sized shopping cart clearly did not take a walkabout by itself. Those things weight 38 pounds and have a purchase price in the area of $125.

Did it get there as an act of vandalism? Did someone steal it with the idea of reselling it? Was the wind last night so strong as to have blown it there?

Ultimately I decided the answer: The members of the crew of a Martian space ship thought that the shopping cart was one of its relatives and unsuccessfully tried to free it.

State of My Union

Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

I had a second chance to do the right thing by Micky and our nine-year friendship when Rob called me and asked, "Ya' wanna go to the movies?"

In one of those slow motion moments I stood at a fork in the road like a little girl running away from home with a knapsack made from a red bandana hanging from a stick slung over her shoulder. Wide-eyed, I read the road signs that loomed before me. The sign on the right read, _My Life._ The one on the left, _No Longer an Option_.

Micky was already history. I had seen to that. In my mind's eye the boy, now nearly eighteen years old, who had leaned against the counter of the Pizza Shop that day was not only cute enough, he was fine! I recalled the scent of his fresh, crisp cologne. Had I looked in the mirror I would have seen _my_ eyes dancing.

Suddenly I realized _I_ really liked him _._

There was never a real choice. Giving no thought to Micky, her feelings or our friendship, I veered to the right and said, "Yeah. That'd be nice."

"Let's go see that secret agent movie _,_ " he said.

From the moment I accepted Rob's invitation, he was all my eyes could see. The transaction was complete. I had traded Micky for Rob.

My world centered on him. Had it not been for going to different high schools we would have been together just about every waking hour. Rob and I dated exclusively for the remainder of his senior year. Except for his senior prom.

Some months earlier, he had committed to take another girl. I was jealous, but thought how nice he was for not standing her up. Much nicer than me.

As his high school graduation gave way to the summer of '69, the lyrics from all the rhythm and blues, soul, and pop songs played over and over again on the radio seemed to express how we felt for one another. They became _our_ songs.

I began the next school year tanned and in love. My literal, non-psychedelic interpretation of these arrangements described perfectly how I imagined our life together would be.

I was a senior in high school and _my_ boyfriend was a freshman in college! More and more our dates included activities with his family. They liked me and I liked them. Rob was one of two sons. I was the daughter they never had.

Our dating was frequent and quite eventful, but as spring approached, my insecurities mounted exponentially. In order to escape parental control, I decided to attend college in Michigan in the fall. I was unsure if our relationship could survive seven hundred miles of separation and very sure that Rob would find someone else. That left me with only one choice. There was no doubt in my mind that demonstrations of absolute, unquestionable faithfulness would short-circuit the latter.

I started my first year in the Big Ten tethered, wearing blinders and totally unavailable. So as not to appear stand-offish or stuck-up, I went to one party. But the whole time I was there, I felt as if I was cheating on Rob.

The social media of the 70s was the telephone and the Post Office. Girls living on my dorm floor shared telephone numbers to which we charged long distance calls home. I used the numbers to call Rob.

One evening I got the not-so-nice idea to test Rob's fidelity. Another girl agreed to call Rob from the phone booth on our floor. I stood outside and tried to listen, but her voice was muffled by the glass panels on the door.

"...heard a lot of nice things...like to meet you...interested?"

And then her face suddenly dropped, she swung the door open and thrust the handset in my direction. I heard, "Put Soo-zahn on the phone, please."

The plan was transparent. Rob saw right through it. Sheepishly, I took the phone from the girl and caught his voice mid-sentence "...how I feel about you. Don't ever do this to me again." I apologized, hung up and cried. It's over I said to myself.

In the days that followed I hesitated to call Rob. I put my hope in our letters. Each day other than Sunday at the same time I would rush down one flight of stairs to the dorm lobby. My eyes got a direct bead on my little square mailbox window like a hunter looks at innocent prey through a gun scope. If I saw a thin, white, diagonal line segment leaning against the A-207 engraved on the window, I knew I had a letter—hopefully from him—and I felt happy. Sadness would overwhelm me, if my mail box was empty.

The three months from the start of classes to Thanksgiving were long and lonesome. As a math education major not even the rigor of Calculus, my first hard math class, could keep my mind off of how much I missed Rob. I didn't really enjoy the few days I spent at home because immediately upon arrival I started thinking about leaving.

Back at school, the few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas break dragged. Classes and finals couldn't be over soon enough. In every sense of the word when they finally were, I _flew_ back to New York, uh, Rob.

Growing up, Christmas was a major production. But, Christmas 1970 proved to be one like no other. As December 25th approached, Rob asked me, "What do you want for Christmas?" I said, "A ring." There was no better way to be sure he was committed to our relationship and wouldn't stray once I returned to school.

Rob bought me a unique ring set for $100 from Kydeman's, a jewelry store one block from my high school. Mr. Kydeman was my father's jeweler-of-choice. All of my family's jewelry purchases were made there.

The engagement ring of the set was gold with an open heart on the top through which a small, princess cut diamond jutted out. The wedding ring, also gold, had a thin, wide U-shape on top. There was a diamond chip on each tip.

Inside the store, Rob slid the engagement ring on my finger and gave me the box with the wedding ring. The wedding ring was designed to slip up under the engagement ring so that the trinity of diamonds would be contained within the open heart.

We stepped outside into the quiet hush you hear when it snows. No one but us knew that we were engaged. Our secret was safe with the falling snowflakes.

I returned to Michigan right after New Year's Day. If my faith in our relationship waned, now I had a ring to reassure me. But a ring doesn't have a circumference big enough to lasso my re-occurring insecurity.

Fear of losing him was the basis of the plan I concocted for Rob and I to get married. Surely this would deal a death blow to insecurity.

I called Rob from the same phone booth I used in the fall. Without a lot of chit-chat I proposed with an imperative, rather than an interrogative sentence, "Let's get married."

According to another teen magazine article I had read a couple of years before, this wasn't lady-like behavior. It was a sure sign of desperation.

Rob paused for a moment and softly replied, "Sure."

In the 70s a computer was an entire building on campus and the only Google was the comic strip character, Barney. Armed with a telephone book and a phone I made all the necessary arrangements. The marriage license was valid for thirty days. Rob had to arrive before early February.

Driving the '69 Vee-Dub he bought at an auction, Rob drove westward in a major snowstorm to marry me. He narrowly avoided an accident in which he could have been killed when his car slid on a patch of ice on the freeway.

On Friday, January 29, 1971, we were married in in a Michigan courthouse. Strangers became instant friends as the Justice of the Peace's staff members acted as our witnesses. I wore a purple velvet dress with a brushed gold zipper. A matching ring on the zipper tongue was used to pull the zipper up from the bottom of the hem to the top of a stand up collar. The dress's length was slightly above the knee. I rarely wore a hat but, a purple felt skull cap completed the outfit.

I don't remember what Rob wore.

Our honeymoon was a few nights in a local hotel, and then Rob returned to NY.

No one but us knew that we were married. Our secrets still safe with the falling snowflakes.

Mom's Brownies

Ruthe Foy

"Lucy, are you sure you're okay making my brownie recipe?" asked my mother as she hovered over my shoulder.

"Yes, Mom, I'm fine. I checked the recipe twice".

Mom had come to live with me in Delaware six months ago after she suffered a mild stroke. While still quite able, she could clearly use some help. My brother traveled constantly, and my sister had a house full of rambunctious teens. Mom and I were always close, so naturally, I became the designated caregiver. Widowed myself, I looked forward to her company.

"Don't forget the chocolate morsels and the chopped nuts. You have to fold them in by hand. That's what gives them that extra flavor and crunch. And you don't want to crush them with the mixer." Mom continued to peer over my shoulder as I mixed the batter. "I won a prize with these brownies once when we were in Philly. I think I made them for your Girl Scout troop. They were a real hit every time."

I nodded in response. I also remembered baking them many times for my boys, now grown and living on the West Coast.

"And did you remember the mint extract? Everyone always liked that special taste of mint."

I held up the bottle of mint extract and shook it gently before I put it down again. "Like Girl Scout cookies."

Finally, I slid the brownie pan into the oven. That familiar aroma soon overwhelmed the kitchen.

We would be attending a pot luck dinner at the Senior Center where Mom went three days a week to play various card games while I went to my part-time job as a remedial reading teacher. She seemed to be making new friends and she always said she had a good time, but lately she had been especially talkative about her various Hearts partners.

I cut the cooled brownies into squares and covered them with foil. Mom followed close behind as I carefully loaded the tray into the back of my car for the short drive. She was more excited than a kid before Christmas.

Inside, I placed the tray on a table with all the other desserts. There was quite an array of goodies–pies, cakes, and cookies. The decorations were colorful and festive. Like my mother, many of the "seniors" had brought a guest. I glanced up as an older, gray haired man walked quickly toward us. Mom's face instantly glowed.

"Lucy, this is my Hearts partner, Joe."

Joe looked at me and shook my hand. "Lucy, I've heard so much about you. I'm glad this lovely lady has joined our card games".

Joe's blue eyes twinkled with adoration as he looked at my mother. Surprise washed over me. I was temporarily frozen as I considered the possibilities.

Mom turned to the dessert table. "Joe, have some of my brownies. We used an old family recipe."

Was I watching a budding romance? At her age? At his age? My gaze left them long enough to notice another man standing nearby, just at the edge of the dessert table.

"Try some Dad, they're wonderful! They were so incredible, I got seconds."

I turned and looked up at a younger, taller version of Joe with the same twinkling blue eyes.

"Oh, forgive me. I'm Steve, Joe's son and his guest for the evening."

Steve and I locked eyes for a moment. I was taken by his warm and engaging smile. "You must be Shirley's daughter. My Dad tells me you're a teacher. So am I. Over at the county Vo Tech. Keeps me young."

I stopped for a minute and surveyed the crowd. "Steve, I think we've lost them."

Steve pointed to a distant corner. "Oh, I see them by the pizza table. I'm not much of a cook, so we brought the pizza. By the way, how is your Mom managing?"

"It's new for her, but she's doing fine. This place has really helped her make the adjustment."

Steve gazed at me with a more serious look this time. "And how are you doing?"

I thought for a while. "It's an adjustment for both of us, but it's been a good move."

Steve took another bite of the last brownie on his plate. "These are really good. Listen, I have a suggestion. I take my Dad to the movies every week. Why don't you join us?"

I chuckled as I looked up at Steve. "Are you suggesting a double date?"

"I guess I am. I'll gladly treat, if you can bring some extra brownies. Saturday?"

"A deal."

Accidents Happen

Steve Murray

I thought I could make it, floored the Beemer after the left arrow turned yellow. I caught only a glimpse of the Mack grill towering above as we collided–nearly head on. I'm upside down. I can't see much with this damn airbag in my face. My door won't open. It wouldn't make much difference anyway because my legs are pinned and they hurt like hell. It will probably take hours for the fire department to cut me out. I smell gasoline, hope it doesn't ignite. Oh God, it's getting hot and smoky and I hear flames crackling. I shouldn't have mentioned Anne this morning over breakfast. Margaret knows that she is capable, young and beautiful. She senses that Anne is more than just another paralegal and becomes livid at the mere mention of her name. Margaret will wonder why I didn't visit her at the institution tonight as usual.

A Woman of Note

Alan Breese Tisdale

Early in the month of September 1905, in the industrial Wyoming Valley area of northeastern Pennsylvania where coal was king, a daughter, Dorothy Elizabeth, was born to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Stroh of Luzerne Avenue in the Susquehanna River town of West Pittston.

Dorothy was a precocious child who grew up around books and music. She learned to read before being enrolled in school and at an early age could play several tunes on her parents' parlor upright piano by ear. By the time she was a teenager, she could read the sheet music which cascaded out of the two tall music cabinets flanking the piano, and she delighted her parents and friends by playing all the latest popular music her mother and grandmother kept bringing home from Woolworth's. Through a friend of a friend who had listened to "Dotty" play she was given a weekend job after school in the orchestra pit of a local motion picture theater, accompanying the silent film screen action with appropriate music. She dreamed of one day being a concert pianist once she had been introduced to a volume of Beethoven sonatas by her piano teacher.

In ninth grade Dorothy and her parents moved east to a more idyllic area in the Pocono Mountains a few miles from New York State and just across the upper Delaware River from New Jersey. Her father opened a pharmacy, became known to the locals quickly as "Doc" Stroh, and soon knew everyone in the small county-seat town. Mother Clara stayed at home in their new starkly Victorian home, which had lots of room for the piano and a newly acquired Victrola console record player, along with a growing collection of RCA recording disks. Dorothy, although missing her old classmates and the excitement of the theater work, soon made friends in her new high school and among the young of the summer vacationing crowd. Soon after Memorial Day, city dwellers from New York and Philadelphia would more than double the local population until late August. They sought respite from the hot un-air conditioned cities in the cool weather and the "outdoors" of the town and its surrounding mountain streams, waterfalls, and quiet, lush glens where the flat glacial rocks were ideal tables for a languid summer's afternoon picnic. They stayed in their choice of about a dozen or more hotels in the town, built for just that purpose, each with its own particular amenities: tennis courts, swimming pools, and dance pavilions.

Of an evening, the guests at these local summer hotels would invariably repair to their pavilions for dancing and carousing. Young Dotty made quite a few lasting acquaintances among the children of these regular seasonal visitors to her otherwise sleepy town, and even got to play the piano at some of the venues at times when a regular dance band was not on the calendar. Making friends was easy when you could play the piano.

In her senior year of high school, Dotty asked her father if he could support her for a year at the Julliard School for music in New York City, as some of her new summer friends had encouraged her to study there; she still dreamed of being a classical pianist. To her dismay, Doc Stroh had shockingly different plans for his daughter. This was the Roaring Twenties, after all, and he certainly was not going to have any child of his be playing at some honkey-tonk bar in the Big City in her after-school hours, even though she would be getting world-renowned professional musical instruction during the day. No, it turned out that Doc, by now a local figure and much into politics, had decided that Dorothy would be a pioneer in the legal field. She would become a lawyer, come home, set up an office and try cases in the courthouse right up the street.

Dorothy attended law school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where she spent three years being unhappy, although studying hard. She graduated near the top of her class, came back to her family home, and found that she had been offered a position clerking for a retired judge who was now in private practice. She did the usual law clerk tasks of searching deed books for real property title information, looking up mortgages and recorded wills in the courthouse, and assisting her mentor in preparing cases for court. She still managed to keep at her music, but now it was mostly something she did to amuse herself when she wasn't busy writing legal briefs or researching cases in the county law library.

The Right Honorable Xenophon P. Huddy gave up his legal practice altogether shortly after the end of Dotty's clerkship, probably at the shock of the Black Friday which brought on the Great Depression, and turned over his office to her. Setting out her shingle as "Dorothy E. Stroh, Attorney at Law," she found herself in charge of all the casework. This plunged her into a good deal of activity for some time. She had recently been admitted to practice before the bar and before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. She was thinking less and less about her music now and more and more about producing successful outcomes for her clients. She threw herself into the work, not wanting to fail, even though that event, should it ever happen, might show her father that he had been wrong in so callously dictating her future.

The next few years were all about the law and attracting more clients. She lived in the small apartment over the office, renting out a smaller office with a connecting door to her main office to the county Board of Trade. She had a small upright piano in her living room which she managed to buy at a very reasonable price from an estate sale, and she had a collection of her favorite sheet music and a book or two of Beethoven sonatas. This was her entertainment.

By 1933 Dorothy had an established law practice and a more or less regular life with friends from her high school days who had stayed in town, who had graduated from college and returned, and who had come to her on the recommendation of her father. Some of her friends were as devoted to music and the arts as was she, but the bulk of her contacts had been with those locals who were taken up with politics. Since Doc Stroh was the Mayor now, her social conversational skills had to be tailored to weave a fair amount of politics into the mix of chatter present at meetings, dinners, church, and even in chance encounters on the street. This was a small town, where almost everyone knew everyone else; it was also the county seat of government, and the courthouse was a hotbed of gossip at almost any time, particularly as an election loomed on the horizon.

In 1934, Dorothy was being touted in parlor conversations and at Sunday post-service coffee hours as a possible candidate for office. The incumbent district attorney, George Bull, a Democrat, had been in that office since most of the younger crowd could remember. There had never been any challengers as all of the county's lawyers were Democrats. Doc Stroh asked his daughter late in the year if she would run for Bull's office as a Republican if the local committee would nominate her. After much thought over the Christmas holiday, she decided it would be an adventure to try, at least to gain some publicity for her law practice even if she didn't get elected. Despite these commitments, she managed to find the time to write a slim volume of poetry titled, _Rain on the Rocks_ , which she dedicated to "Robin".

Being unopposed, she won the primary election the following spring, and campaigned hard during the ensuing months. At the same time she maintained her client base and even attracted a few new clients. She hardly had any time at all to play her beloved piano, although on Saturdays she would scan the radio dial looking for broadcasts that were not just jazz music, radio dramas or dull news broadcasts; once in a while, she would catch the New York Philharmonic. One glorious Saturday, she and friend took the train over to New York to see the Metropolitan Opera perform Wagner's _Lohengrin_. It was just what Dorothy needed to refresh her cultural batteries, even though she might have secretly longed to have been a part of that lifestyle.

In the general election in November, after weeks of campaigning across the county meeting new people and making new friends, Dorothy went to bed on election night thinking that it most likely had all been for naught. However, on Wednesday afternoon, to her amazement, she received a telephone call from District Attorney Bull congratulating her on her victory--she had won by 83 votes! Dorothy Stroh was now the first woman to have been elected to the office of district attorney in the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

She jumped into the work as soon as she was sworn into her new office. Most of her cases were rather routine, since this part of the state experienced little in the way of major criminal activity. But then Bertha Armbruster, a farm wife from an outlying township, had the unmitigated gall to murder her husband and Dorothy Stroh, D.A. was thrust into the limelight. The case garnered as much attention locally as, say, Bonnie and Clyde amassed on the national scene. There was the arrest, the incarceration, the crime scene photographs, the investigation, the interviews, and the amassing of all the proper paperwork required to argue the Commonwealth's case. It wore Dorothy out.

Inevitably, the case was won, Bertha was dispatched to prison, and Dorothy again became a local celebrity. She was now thirty-two years old and single, although she had hardly taken time until this point to think seriously about the subject of married life or children. That summer, however, she met and married a charming young man from Massachusetts who was living with relatives in nearby upstate New York; he had been transferred by the power company serving the area to the local office in town, and was temporarily staying for the off-season at one of the local houses which took in borders during the fall and winter. After the wedding and a short honeymoon in Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania, the couple settled down into Dorothy's apartment over her law office. By October, she was pregnant. She was going to name the child Robin.

The following year brought sorrow to her family: she suffered a miscarriage. She and her husband tried again, but were not immediately successful. Her husband, mindful of the increasingly menacing news from Europe, decided that he was going to join the Army National Guard. In case there was a war, he wanted to be an officer rather than an enlisted man, and besides, there was a lot of pressure to stay out of any war, even after Hitler had invaded Poland. They didn't need to worry as much as they might have. They gave another try or two to develop their family.

In July of 1940 all their hard work paid off, and a son was born, happy, healthy, hale and hearty. Dorothy and her husband were ecstatic. Their son was all of eighteen months old when Daddy went off to war.

In 1941, Dorothy Stroh was appointed by President Roosevelt, or so it was proclaimed on a mailed certificate, to the local draft board. The certificate was accompanied by an official-looking ribbon glued to a little brass lapel pin. By 1944, her husband had been home on furlough only twice, and then had announced by letter that he had taken up with a woman in Kentucky and wanted a divorce. Dorothy was fit to be tied Busy with her law practice and coping with war rations and a growing boy, she tossed in the towel. There may have been more to the divorce episode than was meeting the eye, but if so, it became swept under the rug and was not a topic of general discussion within the remainder of the small family: her son, her mother, and Doc Stroh.

The war eventually ended as they had ever done, and her life slowly began to normalize. Rationing was over, goods and groceries were gradually being more generally available, and within a short year her son began first grade. Before she knew it, she thought to herself, the boy would graduate from high school, then college; and he would get married and have a family of his own, and she'd be all alone.

Dorothy had by now added her married name to her stationery and to her shingle. She plunged on with her law practice after the war and soon became re-accustomed to the single life, albeit as a mother. She put aside all thoughts of worrying about his growing up and leaving, and concentrated instead on perfecting his development, insofar as she could. Almost every day after closing her office she would read to him, and not just children's stories; she read from the classics of literature, as well.

She made sure that there was always music in his life. Growing up, she and her son would listen every Saturday afternoon to announcer Milton Cross as he opened another live broadcast of the New York Metropolitan Opera. Many evenings during the weeks were spent putting the boy's piano lessons to good use in playing through the sheet music the family had collected, some dating back to the end of the nineteenth century and many pieces from World War I and the 1920s. Gradually, her son had developed enough ability to work his way through a volume of Beethoven piano sonatas. Dorothy was thrilled that her son was so good at this, and apparently so interested. Perhaps he would do what she had not been able to do herself and become a classical pianist.

In high school, her son developed an interest in art and drawing. Dorothy gave him painting lessons, but it soon turned out that his real passion was for technical drawing. He took drafting lessons, and worked part time for a land surveyor during his summers between college years drawing maps. It began to look less and less like a musical career was in the lad's future.

After college, her son married and moved across the state to Pittsburgh to pursue his own dream of becoming an architect. She was disappointed, but kept much of that emotion to herself. After he left home, she went about the usual business of keeping up her law practice and visiting with friends. She played scrabble regularly with one friend in Latin, and with another in French.

Dorothy Stroh Tisdale died in 1969 after a short, debilitating illness. The county bar association eulogized her in a memorial service held in the Pike County courthouse, and the court itself issued a testimonial to her years of service. It was signed by the justices, all the members of the local bar association and by those of the adjacent counties in New York and New Jersey, and was entered into the court record.

Eighteen years later in Pittsburgh, several days after the elections, her son was reading the local newspaper when an article caught his attention. It was that a woman in an adjoining Pennsylvania county had been elected to the office of district attorney, and it went on to say that she was the first woman ever to have had that distinction. Alan Tisdale put down his newspaper, phoned the editorial office and begged to differ, explaining that his mother had in fact secured that title more than fifty years previous.

Staffers checked, phone calls were placed, local voting records were unearthed. Two weeks later, a second article appeared in the paper, this time authored by the Associated Press, explaining that the western Pennsylvania woman who won her local contest in the fall election of 1987 was not in fact the first woman in the state to have done so, and that Dorothy Stroh Tisdale (at that time Dorothy Stroh) was therefore unquestionably the first.

Dorothy's son never heard from the newspaper or from the newly elected Beaver County District Attorney after the corrective article came out. The record had been corrected, he rationalized; life would go on, and Dorothy Stroh's record remains.

Postlude

As Paul Harvey would have said, "Page 2!"

Looking back on the life that my mother had lived, I find myself being amazed by the force of character that she must have had to have kept herself going after being summarily denied by her very own father of her heartfelt wish to become immersed actively in the world of music as a classical pianist. What angst she must have suffered! She must have been very intimidated by Doc Stroh, in order to sublimate her passion and instead, turn herself one hundred eighty degrees and then do surprisingly well at her law studies.

For all that, she never gave up her love for music even though she managed to maintain her law practice until the onset of her fatal illness, which took her quite suddenly. She played her beloved piano, collected additional volumes of the classical repertoire for herself and for me, and instilled a life-long love of music in her only son.

Dorothy never remarried after her bitter divorce, although there were suitors–she was far too selective, not wanting just any old Tom, Dick or Harry to be a father to her only child. And at her age, I believe she just wasn't that interested in going through the dating process.

My mother was a bit overprotective of me as I was growing up. I walked to grade school as a youngster, and was embarrassingly equipped on rainy days with ugly rubber overshoes and the traditional "Fisherman from Glouster" rain outfit, while my compatriots were not at all similarly attired. I was mortified, and suffered the expected snide remarks. In winter, at the slightest snowfall, my trudging off to school was affected by donning clumsy galoshes, mittens, and a snug knit cap (admittedly, it was warm). The other kids, of course, were not similarly protected from the elements, and they all managed somehow to survive what Mother Nature had slung at them.

Growing up, I was, I admit, much too selfish to have been the ideal son. (I keep telling myself that after all, aren't only children invariably selfish?) I left her alone much of the time, playing with friends when I was in grade school, dating a lot and coming home late at night when I was in high school. College found me halfway across the three hundred-and-some expanse of Pennsylvania, and driving home to see her not all that often, being obsessed with studying, as I was wont to say at the time. When I think about that time of my life now, I keep hearing the words of Harry Chapin's song "Cat's In the Cradle" ("...we'll get together then...") and I am ashamed that my mother and I didn't.

Not that we did not get together at all, but from that time until she died we did not see each other all that often. Two weekends a month while I was in college, perhaps, and most holidays during that time, of course. But it must have been quite a blow to her that after our marriage my wife and I moved to Pittsburgh; visits to Milford became even less frequent.

I have often tried, in recent years, to self-analyze my relationship with Dorothy Stroh Tisdale. We were close when I was very young, then we gradually grew apart. I would almost be tempted to say, that I became somewhat diffident toward her. Perhaps this was in part due to my being resentful of her efforts to protect me at all costs, frequently to my great embarrassment. It may have stemmed from her attitude toward her father in his later life, which was at least diffident, if not somewhat hostile. Her attitude toward Doc Stroh had been formed in her adolescence, when he had summarily shuffled her off to law school instead of sending her to Julliard. To our mutual disadvantage, I didn't see her attitude toward my grandfather in quite the same light as she, and so did not make a corresponding adjustment of understanding which would have made all the difference in our relationship. I had thought all along, at the time, that she was being very disrespectful and quite harsh in her dealings with her father, and that tempered my relationship with my mother to my great present sorrow.

What had gone around, came around.

Has my life been perfect? Stay tuned...

Dad

Michael Sonneveldt

He approaches you like an ancient galleon that has taken one broadside too many, listing and unsteady in direction.

He is extremely thin and his cheeks almost seem too close to each other. His thinned tan hair comes to a perfect point, a true widow's peak. His ears are large and his face is very lined. The skin gives the appearance of dried leather. He looks at you with his one light blue eye. The other is off color and sightless. He smiles and his upper plate drops a bit. He speaks in a quiet tone, and his English is accented. He does not say much.

As I put my hand around his upper arm to steady him, my fingers completely encircle it, as if no blood flows under his dry skin. Touching him, I feel his love and the touch seems more important to him than the assistance.

I feel warmth for him, but at the same time a deep sense of pity. It is almost a feeling of impending doom, for surely this great ship will sink soon.

The Second Cut

Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

I came home from my first year of college in May 1971. The winter snows were long gone. Rob and my secret lay bare and exposed. As our third summer together approached, the oppressive, big city sun shined brightly on that which we had hidden since January.

How my mother found out that I had gotten married, I'll never know, but the stuff hit the fan! Just recently, I thought Mr. Kydeman, the family jeweler, may have told her when we bought the ring. Maybe, maybe not.

She knew and, suffice it to say, she wasn't happy about it. My mother issued an ultimatum: get an annulment or leave home. She gave me two choices, but I heard only one. I called Rob from the phone in the living room where just a few years before I had cried about getting dumped. I went upstairs to re-pack my suitcase.

Glancing out of my parents' bedroom windows on the front of our two-story house, I saw Rob pull up to the curb. I exhaled and celebrated internally that he came for me. This single act still speaks volumes to me to this day. For any number of reasons I can think of, Rob didn't have to marry me or come for me when I called.

This time I really was a little girl running away from home with a knapsack made from a red bandana hanging from a stick slung over her shoulder. As I left the house, I pulled the white, semi-gloss wooden front door closed. The brass knocker in its center gave its characteristic clang. I pushed the heavy jalousie screen door closed and a few of the glass panels shook a bit like they always did. I had heard those sounds for years, but I wouldn't hear them again for a long time.

I caught up with Rob on the last step of the stoop. His right arm cradled my shoulders and with my one bag in his left hand, he walked me to his car. By the time we drove the half city block to the corner, my childhood, like my home, slipped out of view. I released a breath that made my cheeks puff and my lips stick out.

Fifteen minutes later we arrived at Rob's parents' house. At a family pow-wow, we were sat down and advised, "Now that you've done this, you better make it work." And we did for almost twenty years.

We lived in one bedroom and then a basement apartment where we could identify visitors by their shoes through our eye-level windows. It was to this apartment that we brought home our first born, a daughter named Amanda.

Moves between three east coast states provided opportunities for us to grow from a garden apartment rental--where we introduced our second daughter, Meagan, to the world--to owning two houses.

In spite of early parenthood, Rob and I became college graduates and were gainfully employed as professionals in our respective fields of study. Eventually, we became a two car suburban family that vacationed regularly. And always, _always_ at the center of our marriage were our daughters.

Today it's raining. It's a perfect day to end this piece.

Before daybreak, I'm awakened by a scene from our mid-marriage years that flashes and storms through my mind's eye with an intensity that I would liken to that of a veteran's combat flashbacks. In the darkness, I cover my eyes and shake my head to make the images go away.

Words spoken without thought, poorly chosen, unloving and disrespectful. Timing? Bad. Location? Worse. Shades of 1969. In my memory it's now 1982 and it's the second time I didn't follow my grandmother's advice to "run your words through your heart. You'll feel the 'pricklies' first."

My word choice caused the relationship that I had with my best friend, Micky, to unravel quickly. But unbeknownst to me, my marriage had just begun a nine-year tug-o-war. Rob and I were on one end pulling together and on the opposite end were my words. Eventually, the strength of my words would challenge Rob's desire to hold on.

A Sad Good-bye to the Gators

Gayle B. Duke

For all you have given us,

Throughout all the sweltering heat;

The many joys and tears for the last 43 years;

Never once did we think our Gators could be beat!

The wild Jacksonville games,

Watching rowdy fans get busted;

The freezing cold and the drenching downpours,

That left my boot zippers rusted.

The tail-gate parties,

The scads of numerous new friends;

As with all the best in life,

We knew it had to end.

Climbing one last time to row 74,

Panting as we reached our seats at the 45 yard line;

We said good-bye to the children of our former friends,

Who had become our second family over time.

Each new year we sat with anticipation,

As we watched the team re-build;

Until one last time we cheered, **"GO GATORS!"**

Sitting at Florida Field.

Our beloved players on the field,

Have moved up, moved on, or been arrested;

But for the most part, they've held our heart,

And that cannot be contested!

It's really so hard for us to let go,

And for many it will be equally hard to understand;

What it has meant to the Duke family,

TO BE A FLORIDA GATOR FAN!

GO GATORS....

P.S.

A new generation will take our seats,

Part of the excitement and melee;

While we still cheer and yell, jump up and down,

For our Gators on Pay TV!

Gator Man

Robin Watt

Happy in retirement, Tom West wondered sometimes how he ever found time to work. It was Friday evening and he was busy packing his fishing and camping gear into his boat so he could leave the next morning. As usual, he was planning to go to the Ocklawaha River and, of course, Cowboy and Stump were coming with him.

"Okay boys, we'll be up early tomorrow," Tom told them.

_I love fishing. That's where we found you, Stump._ Cowboy nudged his sidekick and started a wrestling match.

_I love fishing too, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! What's fishing_ **?** Stump pushed back and the growling and wrestling spilled into the living room.

Early Saturday, Tom headed for the river with Cowboy and Stump sitting beside him on the front seat. He had enough dog food packed for at least two nights, even though he was only planning to stay one.

He pulled into Gore's Landing about 7:30 and found the boat ramp empty even though there were plenty of campers around. He backed his truck down the ramp, unhitched his boat and anchored it near the river bank. All his gear, an ice chest and rations for himself and the dogs were already packed inside. All he needed to do was park the truck and get the dogs in the boat.

As he got out of the truck and headed for the boat ramp, he heard panicked voices from the camp host's RV.

A young woman was pleading with the host. "Please call the Sheriff. I know Joey wouldn't just wander away. We've looked everywhere. He's only 4 years old!"

"No need to," said a man nearby. "I've already called the Sheriff. We should be seeing a deputy in the next 10 minutes."

A small group of campers had gathered around the family, volunteering to start a search.

Tom couldn't ignore the commotion and just head out to fish. He walked over with Cowboy and Stump.

"'Scuse me. I overheard that you're missing a child?" He introduced himself and Cowboy, explained their past history as retired K-9 police and that they were happy to help.

The young mom eagerly told him everything and showed him a photo. She walked him back to their campsite as a deputy was pulling into Gore's Landing.

"Last night, I was calling the kids for dinner and I saw this... this... strange person sitting down by the water. I wasn't even sure if it was male or female. It looked like a troll. I had my husband look and he said it had a beard so it must be a man. I thought he was a little odd, sitting with his back to the campground and the people and it made me uncomfortable so I called our kids–it was dinner time–and when I looked back at this...troll again, he was gone. Nowhere to be seen. Nowhere! Do you think he could have taken Joey?"

Just then the Deputy spoke up. He had joined the group and heard her describe the troll person. "Sounds like you encountered the 'Gator Man'. He's a legend in this area. So you actually saw him?"

Everyone turned to the Deputy as he spoke. The camp host said he had never heard of the 'Gator Man' before, but several other locals spoke up and confirmed the Deputy's statement.

"Friend of mine lost his sleeping bag, bean pot and some food rations while he was fishing 30 feet away from his tent," Tom added. "And he's with Fire/Rescue–a fairly reliable source. I've heard stories for probably 20 years, but very few people actually see the Gator Man."

Cowboy nosed Stump. _Something serious is happening Stump. I can always tell by Tom's voice._

_I can help, I wanna help, I'm ready_. Stump rubbed against Cowboy's back.

"Lady, pardon me, but what's your name?" Tom asked. Cowboy and Stump were sitting quietly beside him.

"Karen Johnson. This is my husband Rick, my son Casey and daughter Linnea. Joey is our youngest–he'll be four next month. He wouldn't just wander away. We've camped a lot and have taught him to stay close."

Rick Johnson added, "I've told Joey a hundred times to simply sit down as soon as he realizes that he's lost. He knows we'd be looking for him. He knows to stay put."

They pulled out their camera and showed everyone the photos they'd taken the day before.

"Let me get the dogs' leashes from the truck. I'll need to take Cowboy with me and leave Stump here. Maybe one of your kids could hang onto his leash. He hasn't been trained for search and rescue yet." Tom fetched the leashes from his truck and then met the family down by their tents.

"Joey was sleeping with his brother and sister in this tent. We were in the larger tent next to it," Karen Johnson explained, showing Tom the pictures from the day before.

"What I really need is for Cowboy to smell Joey's clothes from yesterday," said Tom. "The last thing he wore. Cowboy needs to get a good scent so we can pick up the trail."

Cowboy and Stump were beside him when Mrs. Johnson brought out a shirt from inside the tent. Tom took it and held it out for Cowboy to sniff. Stump also sniffed it, going over it with his nose several times, trying to push Cowboy's nose out of the way.

"Okay, I think Cowboy has the scent. Let me put their leashes on them and leave Stump with your kids." Tom bent down and attached Cowboy's leash, but as he went to clip Stump's leash to his collar, Stump pulled away and made a dash for the woods.

"Stump, come! Stumpy, come back here," Tom yelled. "Darn dog, he's been so good the last couple of months in obedience training."

Cowboy pulled on his leash to go after Stump. "Don't worry, Cowboy, we'll find Stump right after we find Joey. Soon as he gets hungry or smells food he'll be back on his own. Let's get started on finding this little boy."

Tom pulled Cowboy towards the group of volunteers who were gathering to meet with the Search and Rescue Coordinator from the Sheriff's office. He was passing out radios and small backpacks filled with water bottles, power bars, flashlights and other tools.

"All right everyone, use the buddy system and pair off. We don't want to have to come find one of you later. One of you will have a radio–call in if you find anything that might give us a clue to where Joey is. Use common sense and don't get overheated. I have a map and we'll set up quadrants. Tom, I know you and Cowboy make a pair on your own and I can tell he's ready to go, so make sure you check in on a regular basis."

Tom took a radio and he and Cowboy took off in the same direction that Stump had gone.

"Now, Cowboy, we're not looking for Stump, we're looking for Joey." Tom held out the small T-shirt for Cowboy to sniff, but Cowboy kept pulling in the same direction Stump had gone.

_Tom, the Joey smell is this way. I've been teaching Stump the finer points of smells and I think he's on track. Let's go!_ Cowboy pulled harder to give Tom the message.

Tom and Cowboy headed off up river. A recent spring storm had turned the woods into a swamp and Tom knew that it would impede the search. It was much slower going through water and muck and over downed trees than over nice, dry well-marked trails. The good news was that it would also impede the kidnapper's escape as well. If there was a kidnapper. But if Joey wandered off on his own they would find him much faster.

Tom thought about this as he and Cowboy made their way deeper into the swamp. If it was the "Gator Man" and if he was the tiny old "troll" he was described to be then carrying a 30 to 40 pound child through the swamp would slow him down as well. No matter how familiar he was with the woods.

*****

Stump made his way quickly, jumping over logs and running through the mud. He covered a mile quicker than Tom and Cowboy could, but only because Cowboy was being held back on a leash.

Follow the Joey smell, follow the Joey smell, gotta follow the Joey smell.

He maintained his focus for quite a while for him _,_ but then he came across a turtle basking on a log. He ran towards it and the turtle flopped into the water when it saw him. Stump immediately splashed into the river and swam around, diving down trying to find the turtle, but then surfaced and paddled back to shore. He stopped, lapped up some water and sat in the sun, completely forgetting the 'Joey smell.'

Tom and Cowboy continued to cover the wet ground more slowly. Cowboy was on track and focused as always. The muck, however, slowed Tom down quite a bit. At one point he sunk in over his ankle and when he pulled his foot out he nearly lost a boot. Then it took a few minutes for him to secure the boot and clean the foul-smelling stuff from the sole and laces.

It had been a couple of hours since they began searching, so Tom sat on a log and gave Cowboy a drink of clean water from his bottle. Then he finished the rest of the water and radioed in that thus far they had found nothing.

Stump finally got up and went to drink from the river again when a big gator tried to grab him. He jumped three feet straight up in the air and took off running, crashing through the woods before stopping a hundred yards into the forest. Huffing and puffing, he looked around confused, until being distracted by a butterfly.

Fortunately, the butterfly crossed over the "Joey smell" and Stump found himself back on track.

Lunch time came and Tom stopped to take a break and eat. Cowboy was never one to quit working when he was on a scent, but complied with Tom's command, sitting quietly while Tom ate a power bar.

_Time's wasting Tom, hurry up. He's getting farther away._ Cowboy nosed Tom's knee after a few minutes, ready to go again.

No sooner were they off, did Cowboy find a small child's sock. He immediately sat and indicated that this was something they were looking for.

"Good boy Cowboy!" Tom rubbed his ears. "Let me radio this in."

There was excitement back at Gore's Landing when Tom called in about the sock he'd found.

"We've got every fisherman on this part of the river looking for Joey. We also have another search and rescue crew starting up at the Canoe Outpost and working their way down river towards us. You may meet up with them later today or tomorrow morning if we're still hunting," the Search Coordinator said.

"Listen," Tom replied, "if we're still out this afternoon, send a deputy or searcher up river in my boat. I have camping supplies and food, more water, and a camp stove so I could stay out tonight if need be. I keep an extra key taped under the seat. The boat is anchored next to the boat ramp."

"Roger that. Thanks."

Tom and Cowboy continued the slow trek through the swamp. There were more deadfall and tree stumps to climb over, as well as swamp water to get around, than Tom could ever remember. This area had gotten 8 inches of rain out of the recent storm and it had been largely underwater for a week afterwards. Tom wished he'd worn his water-proof hiking boots, but in some areas he thought he needed high-waders.

_Joey smell, Joey smell, gotta follow the Joey smell_ **.** Stumped continued to track the odor he had gotten from the little shirt back at the camp. His Labrador blood made him better at tracking than Tom would have imagined. His biggest problem was his attention span.

It was mid-afternoon and Stump was hungry. The smells from the swamp rarely included the smell of dog food, but instead had so many other interesting odors. Stump continued on track and soon found a camp-site that had been recently abandoned. It smelled strongly of the "Joey-smell," but also had some cookie crumbs. Stump sniffed out every cookie crumb and scarfed them all down. Now he was even more ready to find Joey–he might have cookies!

By late afternoon, the search effort had grown to almost 100 people, including two water-dive teams from the county Fire/Rescue. The local media had picked up the story and sent a cameraman and reporter to the scene. Karen and Rick Johnson were frantic, making pleas on air for whoever took Joey to return him.

The story of the Gator Man was repeated frequently by the media. Before long, it seemed that half the campers and searchers out there had a tale of their own about the Gator Man, each getting their 15 minutes of fame on camera.

Tom and Cowboy continued the hunt until late afternoon. Tom radioed the Search Coordinator and asked that a Deputy bring his boat up river.

"I'll use the glow-sticks from the back-pack to mark my place at the river. Just have him look for them."

About an hour later, Deputy Mark Wilson pulled Tom's boat up to the riverbank. They unloaded the camping supplies and additional food and made camp for the night.

"It's an honor to meet you and Cowboy, sir," the young Deputy said. "I've heard so much about you both. I'd like to be in the K-9 squad. I've put in an application. I hope I can learn something from you and Cowboy while we're out here."

"Thanks, Mark. If you're lucky to be a K-9 cop, you'll love it. And a good dog will teach you a lot. I think sometimes that Cowboy can read my mind."

"I heard you had another dog here. What happened to it?"

"That's Stump. He ran off before I could hook his leash to his collar. He's still young, a mutt that Cowboy rescued almost a year ago down at Moss Bluff. I think he's part Labrador Retriever and part Pit Bull. Someone threw him and his sister off the bridge to drown them and Cowboy jumped in and rescued him. The little female didn't make it, but Stump did and he's usually pretty good. I've been training him on the basic commands; he's been much better about minding lately. I've also been working him on the agility course I have set up behind my house."

"Aren't you worried about him?" the deputy asked.

"Well, sort of, but Stump loves to eat. Soon as he smells food he'll come back. We'll hunt for him when we find Joey if he doesn't return on his own."

"You believe that stuff about a 'Gator Man'?" the deputy asked.

"I guess I do. I've heard stories about him for a long time. Not very often, but going back at least 15 or 20 years. He's supposed to have lived along the Ocklawaha and the Silver rivers for many years, surviving off fish, turtles, and alligators. I've known a couple of folks who think they've had encounters with him. That's how they explain missing gear and food. This is the first time I've heard someone say they saw him, so I guess it's possible."

Cowboy was restless all evening. Tom tried to feed him, but he only ate a small amount. The two men ate the rations that had been sent up river with the Deputy and turned in soon after dark. Cowboy lay down next to Tom, but was on guard all night.

Just before the crack of dawn, Cowboy nudged Tom and began pushing him with his nose. Tom got up and attached Cowboy's leash and woke Deputy Wilson.

"I think Cowboy is telling me that we've got to get moving. I'll eat a power bar along the way. Are you with us?"

The deputy got moving pretty fast and the two of them followed Cowboy, who was pulling Tom through the swamp as hard as he could.

They climbed over dead trees and got bogged down in dirty water, but continued to let Cowboy lead them away from the river, deeper into the woods.

About forty minutes into their hike, Tom heard a "woof" in the distance. Cowboy let out a long string of barks and the three of them moved faster.

Finally Tom could see a clearing up ahead and he saw Stump with a little boy who had to be Joey. Tom let Cowboy off his leash and Cowboy dashed ahead, licking Stump and Joey and dancing around the two of them making whimpering noises.

"Joey, Joey, its ok. We're going to take you to your Mom and Dad."

Tom and the Deputy were both speaking to the blood-covered child, who huddled behind Stump. The boy was missing his pajama pants and one shoe and sock.

"Don't hurt me!"

Tom picked up the child and asked, "Where are you hurt? Did the bad man hurt you?"

Joey wasn't crying, but seemed scared of the men at first.

Both Tom and the Deputy examined the boy and could find no injuries that would produce so much blood. "What happened?" they finally asked.

"The doggy bit the bad man and the bad man hurt the doggy," Joey explained. "The doggy kept biting him, like this–" Joey chomped his teeth together several times and made a growling sound. "And the bad man ran away."

Tom gave the boy to the Deputy and turned to Stump who was also covered in blood, lying on the ground, wagging his little stumpy tail. Tom looked him over and found three knife wounds–two to the shoulder and one to the chest–all serious. There was a good bit of blood on the ground and as Tom began looking closer, he found a piece of shirt, also bloodied and ripped.

"When did this happen, Joey? Did it happen last night?" the Deputy asked him.

"Yeah... the bad man took off my pajamas then the doggy came and bit him. The doggy kept me warm all night." This explained how the child was covered in blood–it was Stump's.

The Deputy radioed the Search Coordinator. "We've found the boy and he's alive and well. Meet us at the river. We'll be back at our camp-site in about 45 minutes."

Tom carried Stump back through the swamp to the river. Cowboy followed, whining occasionally to see Stump's face. Stump was quiet, but happy to see Tom and Cowboy.

_I found Joey, I found Joey!_ Stump wagged his tail, but wagged it very slowly.

By the time they reached the river, the Johnsons were arriving and tears began to spill. The Deputy handed over Joey and explained that he wasn't injured even though he was covered in blood.

Tom put Stump and Cowboy in his fishing boat and hurriedly said goodbye. He was going to rush Stump to Dr. Armistead and hope he didn't die along the way.

He called Gina Armistead and asked that she meet them at the Veterinary Clinic. He explained what happened and that Stump was a hero, but got a few wounds in the process. Even though it was so early, Gina rushed to the clinic to prepare for surgery.

Meanwhile, the Sheriff's Department brought in their own dogs to search for the Gator Man. The news media suddenly poured into Gore's Landing, overwhelming the searchers, the campers waiting for the Johnsons to return with their son.

Tom took his boat down-river to the Canoe Outpost where Deputy Wilson had called a friend to pick them up. The friend, in turn, contacted a buddy on the Alachua Sheriff's Department and requested a police escort to get Stump to the clinic in a hurry. In all, they made the hour-long trip in less than 45 minutes and got Stump into surgery in record time.

"Gina, I think Stump has the nose and personality of a Lab and the heart of a Pit," Tom said as he carried Stump into the clinic's operating room. "He's got three knife wounds and has lost a lot of blood."

"You're my hero, Stumpy-Boy," Gina said as she inserted the IV needle for the anesthesia. Stump wagged his little tail and licked her hand before the anesthesia took effect.

Several hours later, Dr. Armistead came out of surgery saying it was a success and that she was certain Stump would make a full recovery. Tom and Cowboy were waiting in the lobby when Gina came out. Cowboy jumped around her, licking her hands and rubbing against her leg.

Stumpy stayed at the clinic for several days before Dr. Armistead sent him home.

Two weeks later, Tom received a call from Rick Johnson.

"Mr. West, we never had the chance to thank you or your dogs. We can't possibly repay you for saving Joey, but I'd like to pay for the vet bill or at least help. I know it had to be quite expensive."

"No, but thank you for the offer. The bill was paid by a rich donor so it's been taken care of. How's Joey doing?

"Oh, he's doing fantastic. He talks about your dog almost non-stop. Its 'doggy did this' and 'doggy did that'. We'd love to bring Joey and the kids to see Stump and Cowboy sometime. Would that be okay?"

"How about you come by this weekend? Stump is doing really good and will have his stitches out tomorrow. I bet he'd love to see Joey too."

Saturday morning came and the Johnsons arrived right on time. Joey, Casey, and Linnea jumped out of the car while Tom held Stump and Cowboy on their leashes.

"Doggy, doggy, doggy," Joey yelled and ran towards Stump. The other kids ran behind him. Their parents got out and greeted Tom.

_Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, Joey's here, Joey's here, Tom, oh boy_ **!** Stump's tail wagged his whole body.

"Don't jump on him, Stump. Be good," Tom warned and let him off the leash. Cowboy was reserved, but also happy when unleashed.

Stump ran to the little boy and licked his face, careful not to jump on him and knock him over. The child sat in the grass and put his arms around Stump.

"I love you doggy."

Stump responded by licking the child's cheek and lying down across his lap.

The older children petted Cowboy while Rick and Karen Johnson spoke to Tom.

"We would love to buy Stump if that's possible. He saved Joey's life and it looks like he loves Joey, too," said Rick.

"We could give him a great home and he'd always have more attention than he could handle," said Karen.

Tom watched Stump sitting with the little boy. He thought about the Johnsons' suggestion, but realized that Stumpy was a member of _his_ family now.

"No... no... I don't think I can do it," Tom finally said. "He's like another kid of mine. But you and the kids can come visit anytime. I do have one suggestion though, something you can do for me."

"What? We're happy to. Just tell us," said Rick.

"Go to Gainesville Pet Rescue, or any shelter, and adopt a dog. There are so many needy animals there that would love to have a family with some great kids. You'd be doing a great thing for the dogs, your kids, and Pet Rescue."

"That's a great idea," said Karen. "We will absolutely do it! The kids have been hounding us for a dog and if we can't convince you to give up Stumpy then this is the next best thing."

Tom showed the Johnsons the agility course in the back yard. Cowboy and Stump showed off their skills and the kids ran through the course too.

It was lunch time when they left and Tom called the dogs to the house.

_Stump, you still need a few more smell lessons, but I think you're gonna be a good tracker._ Cowboy nudged Stump as they ran to the kitchen.

_Cracker? Cracker? Did you say cracker? I wanna cracker!_ Stump pushed past Cowboy and jumped up against Tom, wagging his little tail, waiting for a treat.

"Stumpy, I think you're going to be a good part of the team. We're going to expand your training so you can be a full-fledged certified, search and rescue dog," said Tom. "How 'bout that buddy?"

Stump was too busy wolfing down his treat to understand or care.

For more information about missing and exploited children, visit: http://www.ncmec.org/

For information about Search and Rescue Dogs, visit

the American Rescue Dog Association: <http://ardainc.org/>

The Christmas that Wasn't

Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

Christmas 1990 the air in the house hung heavy around me. Not even my mother and grandmother, whose very presence typically brightened my days, could lift the dark clouds that threatened the stability of my life-to-date. As fate would have it this would be our last Christmas together, my mother dying in 1992; my grandmother, four years after that.

The days of their visit unraveled in extended periods of eerie, weird silence. Not incessantly "gabby" to the exclusion of others as had been our norm when we didn't have to worry about the time of day, how long we talked, or long distance charges associated with the prior two.

I don't recall where Rob and my daughters were. Our eighteen year-old must have been home on her first Winter Break from college. The thirteen year-old probably placed in self-imposed exile in her room.

There wasn't enough oxygen going to my brain to capture, let alone hold onto, the whereabouts of my own children. I was too busy holding my breath waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop.

Rob dropped the first shoe earlier in the year. That Sunday night we were lying in bed. I was studying. Taking a break from reading, he glanced over at me, and asked, "Why are you studying so much tonight? Your test is not for a few days. You've got plenty time to study."

_Test?_ _Test?!_ This was no ordinary _test. Three days_ of Comprehensive Examinations were the part of a doctoral program that marked the infrequently evasive transition from coursework to program completion and I had been studying for six months!

I turned my head towards him, looking away from my stack of study cards and barked, "The 'Comps' start tomorrow!"

This was the first time in our twenty-year marriage that Rob appeared to be unaware that something important was going on in my life.

I told myself that something was going on, but I'll have to deal with it later.

I loved going to school. I was an excellent student, a bit of an over-achiever (back when that meant something good). I marveled at that fact that you left home in the morning knowing a few things and always returned at the end of the day knowing more.

If I knew how to do anything, it was how to "do school". I _knew_ how to pass my "Comps". However, what happened later would prove to be a test for which I was totally unprepared.

My mother and grandmother left before 1991 made its debut. They took with them anything and everything that could stall the inevitable.

Anytime Rob and I were in the same room, I looked around constantly to see if I could catch a glimpse of that other shoe before he dropped it. Over the next five weeks, our marriage played out like a series of jagged, dark-to-light-to-dark photographs that when played sequentially became a moving picture.

The Walking Man

Nichole Somme

Kat watched him walk, every day, just precisely at this time. She'd do her housework, prepare supper, set the table, make certain she had a nice wine chilling. David loved, no, he adored the light, crisp wines of the region.

"Ah, just like air," he'd say. "Smooth on the front end, clean, sharp, and no aftertaste or oak. Just gorgeous, Kat, honey. This is the life."

David loved the simple pleasures. They sustained him.

Kat was edgy, restless. This small town simple way of life didn't bore her exactly; it blended one day into the next. No consequences, no real problems. The work around the house was easy enough; after all, it was just the two of them. It left Kat with plenty of time to read, listen to the radio, to her beloved show tunes. She even had ample time for long walks in the surrounding meadows and woods. All in all, an ideal life, but for Kat, there was always a _but_.

She had been raised in Boston, right in the heart of the city, to parents of modest means. Modest because they could pay their bills on time, a rare occurrence on her block. Modest was almost an accomplishment in the neighborhood.

Most of the families were Irish and almost everyone was Catholic. The true problem lay with the sheer number of children all of the families had. With the mothers home minding babies, cooking, cleaning, doing massive piles of laundry, every chore imaginable, the men were left to earn the money. It was a struggle to make ends meet and keep mouths fed.

In Kat's case, her father was the night foreman in the sweater mill where most of the men were employed. He made more money than most and Kat was their only child, so they lived a much more lavish lifestyle than any of their neighbors. Her father also watched his drinking habit. He'd stop by the bar only on pay day Friday nights and only for one beer. He'd pay cash for it, never running up a tab, and be home early.

Kat's mother made sure she had all the chores done, Kat bathed and to bed, and a nice meal ready for him when he came through the door. They had a good marriage.

Her mother and father actually got along. _That_ was odd for her neighborhood. Most of the husbands drank too much, spent too much money and time at the local bar, and the arguments and fights were like clockwork, one couple shouting louder than the next. Many a wife sported a shiner or a bruised mouth on Saturday morning down in the courtyards where they did their laundry and hung it up to dry. No one mentioned it. No one had to.

Some of the families had eight, nine, even ten children. It strained the parents' patience and budget, and exhausted the women.

Not only was Kat an only child, but she proved to be an obedient, bright girl. She got wonderful grades, helped with the housework, and loved to sing in the church choir. Kat would lose herself in song and whenever she had a solo, all chatting in the church ceased and everyone sat mesmerized. That's what attracted David to her.

David was twenty-five when he moved to Boston for a very good position as an accountant at the sweater mill. He came from a tiny town and wanted to do a bit of "big city" living before he settled down for good. And then he met Kat.

They enjoyed a long courtship. Kat was perfect for David. She was well-raised, a decent girl with hardly any experience with men. She had two "boyfriends" in high school, but once it came time to get really intimate, Kat just couldn't bring herself to do it. She had never been in love. She convinced herself that when the right man came along she would know, deep down in her inner most being, that he was the one. There would be no trying to convince herself to become intimate with him, oh, no, just that wonderful, divine, ultimate wonder of wonders, "love," would come and wrap itself around her and her lover and everything would be right with the world.

But Kat never really felt that the earth was shifting when she was with David. He was special. He was handsome, educated, funny, pleasant, hardworking, and so kind and gentlemanly with her, but she really never got that feeling, or whatever it was, that women are supposed to feel. She tried, she really did try. She said no to every other suitor and made herself available to David only and he knew it.

About two years into the courtship, David asked Kat's father for her hand in marriage.

Kat and her father had a long talk about the pros and cons of married life. After a week, Kat's father met with David and let him know that if it pleased Kat, they had his blessing. A spring wedding was planned and David pledged himself to Kat with a beautiful little diamond ring with blue sapphires circling it. It had belonged to his grandmother and gifted by his own mother as a sign of welcome to Kat to join their family.

Through all of this, David shared his dreams and plans with Kat. His eyes would light up when he spoke of saving for a modest home back in Iowa. He wanted a good barn, a meadow, and room for a large garden. The house, he felt, should have a load of bedrooms for their children and their parents when the time came. David really wanted children. How many was up to the Lord.

Kat shared her dreams as well. She wanted to try to become a professional singer, but did not know how to go about it. It was one thing for people to say she had a lovely voice and another to get a real job on a real stage or radio program. Not to mention a real paycheck. Kat didn't want to do musicals and plays as a chorus girl; she wanted to be the star of the show.

Kat begged David to delay their wedding for one year. She felt if she couldn't get a career started in that amount of time then the handwriting was on the wall. She'd get it out of her system and settle down and be the perfect wife and mother.

David was a bit put off by the turn of events, but he didn't want to start a life with a woman who would never be happy. Reluctantly, he agreed.

All of which was in the past now. It had been a too fast, hellish year of rejection, but she kept her word. She and David married, moved to Iowa, and bought his dream house. And Kat hardly ever thought about her dreams anymore.

The one dull note in their otherwise perfect melody of life was the fact that Kat had yet to get pregnant. The doctor said that there weren't any problems with either of them and David asked Kat to be patient, to just let it go and relax. Children would come and so, faithfully, Kat made love with David as often as he showed interest in her.

The fact that David didn't exactly light all the candles on her cake didn't get in her way where pregnancy was concerned. She would imagine a movie star or Broadway actor as David fumbled along and got the job done. No one's life was perfect she told herself.

However, every night when she said her prayers she begged the Virgin Mary to let her have a child. _Please, please_ , she would beg. Kat was never the patient type and what little she had was wearing thin.

And while she waited, she continued to watch the walking man. Every day, like clockwork, rain or shine, he'd come trudging up the incline wearing his jaunty little cap. Sometimes he'd whistle. Sometimes he appeared to be deep in thought.

Curiosity–though maybe boredom, maybe loneliness–finally getting the best of her, she asked the postman about the mystery man.

He looked at her very strangely for a long moment or two and he replied, "Now Mrs. Harris, I'm not one to neither wag my tongue, nor speak ill of people but I'd suggest you keep as far away from that man as possible."

However, it didn't take much coaxing to get his tongue wagging.

"The story has it," he continued, "and remember now, this is only rumor and no good ever comes of a rumor I say, but the story has it that he's served some time in prison. Quite a long time, I hear tell. Story goes that it had something to do with his young wife and the neighbor man."

Kat eyes widened and the postman, seeming to sense her shock, added, "Mrs. Harris don't you fret now. The sheriff knows he's out here. They keep a good eye on him, oh yes they do. You might want to get you a dog, a big dog with a big bark. One who barks when anyone comes around? You know protection of a kind with you home alone all day and David off to work wouldn't hurt, nope."

Later that day, standing at her kitchen window watching her walking man trudging up the hill, she wondered which day, tomorrow, or today maybe? Which day she'd go out the door, down the stone path, and signal him, invite him in for a coffee, maybe, or a cold glass of iced tea.

Kat was very lonely.

Big Red Fox

Lad Castle

There once was a fox that lived in a box.

His name was Big Red, and on rabbits he fed.

Out of the box at night he would pounce;

He chewed and he ate till there was not an ounce.

Then came a night, when the moon was so bright,

That all of the rabbits there abiding,

Could see where Big Red was a-hiding.

Though the rabbits were many, the fox could not catch any.

Here ran a rabbit, and there ran a hare;

Soon old Big Red did not even care.

He missed a meal to his left, and one to his right.

The ragged old fox was a heck of a sight.

He sat and he pondered, and he thought and he wondered.

"I'll build me a trap" he screamed with delight.

"I'll catch me a rabbit before they take flight.

But who do I know who will teach me the skill, to build a good trap to catch a fresh kill?

I'll ask the black crow, and surely he'll know

How I can proceed to accomplish this deed.

"How about it, black crow, I want you to show,

How a trap can be built, if only thou wilt."

The crow was amiss with emotion; the rabbits were friends of devotion.

The bunny trails ran through the bushes and brambles;

They would cause berries to fall with all of their tramples.

With joy and elation the crow would then feed; sometimes exceeding his incredible need.

"No I won't do it! I won't show you how." The crow gave his answer, and then left with a bow.

"Now what shall you do?" screeched the owl from a tree; "I have no friends, why don't you ask me?

I'll show you to build a good trap with a trick; all you will need is a string and a stick."

"Why would you help me?" Big Red was aware. "We always compete, for the diet we share."

"I too, need a good friend," hooted the owl. "Nobody likes me, not nary a fowl."

"Well wise old owl, pray tell me dag-nab-it; how do I build a good trap, to catch me a rabbit?"

The owl fluffed his feathers really quite well, then leaned close to Big Red, just so to tell.

"Pry up your box with a great big strong stick, and sure to be careful, that a good one you pick.

Inside the box you must bait it with clover. Tie the string to the stick, now your work is over.

Rabbits galore in the box they will pour. You can catch two or three, and sometimes catch four."

Big Red thanked the owl, with a yip and a howl,

And then scurried home with sly-full glee stopping once or twice for slapping his knee.

The traps construction was the owl's own design and Big Red smiled broadly, "this will do me just fine.

"Now I must test it to know if it will work." While still in the box the string he did jerk.

Down came the box, with a horrible slap, trapping the Fox in the terrible trap.

He tried and he cried, but he could not get out, while all of the rabbits danced round and about.

No one ever knew what happened that day; everyone thought that Big Red, moved away.

If you walk in the woods and find a big box; don't look inside it may be Big Red—the Fox.

THE END

The Mermaid

Gloria Wilkinson

Little did I know what an impact a mermaid would have on my life.

I had always dreamed of seeing exotic places and now that my children are grown and I am a widow I finally can. I like to travel alone and do so about three months a year.

My children think I am quite the adventurer.

Last year I explored the Caribbean. I love the tropical atmosphere–the sun, the beaches, the seafood–and each island's unique culture and language. I've found that taking tours is the best way to see the sights and learn the history of each island. Which is how my story began.

The last thing I remembered on the boat that day was a loud explosion. When I woke up I was alone on a small island. I had no idea how I survived in the water or how long I had been unconscious. I felt my water-proof bag around my shoulder. How long had I been there? I could move my arms and legs, so I stood up. Nothing hurt.

The cry of a seagull brought me to my senses. Oh, my God. No one knows where I am. No one knows I took the dolphin-watching boat ride. If I die here no one will even know I'm dead. Oh, dear. It's up to me to figure out a way to be rescued.

I remembered my cell phone in my bag. I'll call my daughter, I thought, and she can tell the authorities where I am from the GPS in my phone. I should be rescued in no time.

I looked in my bag and _no phone_. Then I remembered: it's still on the charger in my hotel room. A big coconut, a huge brightly-colored Mardi Gras mask that I bought just before the boat ride, and my multi-lingual traveler's dictionary were the only things in my bag.

As I walked up to the shade of the palm trees the reality of the situation began to sink in. How could I use these three things to get off the island? Then again, I also had my creativity. Now was the time to put it to the test.

I sat down against a palm tree and let my mind wander. As I looked out across the water I remembered a vacation we had taken when the children were small and they had such a fun time building sand castles on the beach. I could build something to attract attention. My mind raced. Then it was like a lightning bolt struck. I would build a huge mermaid.

My fingers flew as I piled up scoop after scoop of sand until it was as high as me. Then I began sculpting a life size mermaid. I unfolded the huge mask and placed it where the face should be. I gave her a beautiful figure. I found a dead sawfish down by the water and used it to cut the coconut in half. This would be the bra for my creation. She was beautiful. Using my dictionary I wrote help in the surrounding sand in four languages.

About an hour after I finished I heard a helicopter. I raced to the water's edge and waved. They saw me and landed.

Before they helped me into the helicopter, I gave the mermaid a big hug and thanked her for saving me.

As we flew away, they said they had been searching all day for survivors of the ill-fated boat and were ready to return home when they caught a glimpse of bright color and flew over to investigate. They saw that I had printed HELP in the sand and knew I needed to be rescued. They were greatly impressed with my creation. They named her Destiny.

After that experience, I'll only watch dolphins on TV from the safety of the big easy chair in my living room.

Living It

Ruthe Foy

Despite the long train commute from Princeton Junction to lower Manhattan each morning, I always enjoyed the energy of the city. That morning, another beautiful fall day had begun--blue skies with a gentle autumn breeze. Jacket weather! But I barely took the time to notice, preoccupied with some project issues I had discovered while working late the night before.

I was a consultant working for the City of New York on a computer project. Our office space was in one of the older City buildings and our desks were arranged bull-pen style. The offices were old and had their own "charm". We did have the advantage of very large windows and a great view of the City and many of its landmark buildings. The grandest of them all were the Twin Towers, always a compass when you were navigating the City, especially if you were walking. Their size and grandeur guaranteed them a dominant presence that was always felt.

As I rounded the corner on the way to my desk there was a very loud boom–not an unusual occurrence in New York. It's always a noisy place. I thought nothing of it–just background noise. I was focused on the work day ahead and the need to find a resolution to the computer issues I was working on with the other analyst.

"Ira, we need to talk about some issues," I announced from the corridor.

"Not now," he replied with irritation. Ira was always a bit of a curmudgeon. "They just bombed the World Trade Center again." Animated, he pointed outside, through our large, nearly floor to ceiling window. "Look!"

We could clearly see the Twin Towers from our desks. The rightmost tower was in flames. At first I thought it had been hit by a wayward general aviation aircraft–a bad, but not terrible accident. I took it somewhat in stride–after all, this is New York. Lots of things happen. But Ira was visibly shaken. He read the situation more accurately than I had.

One of the developers in the back room had a radio. He brought it into the main area and we huddled around as we tried to get more details on the "accident" as it unfolded. Then the second plane hit the other tower. Right in front of our eyes! Now it was clear this was no accident and that there would be a great loss of life.

"Could they topple?" I asked. "Are we far enough away to be safe?"

Of course, I was assured. Then the radio told us about the Pentagon. Shortly thereafter we were ordered to evacuate and gathered in the street with the growing crowd–all eyes looking straight up toward the Towers.

I had a moment of déjà vu as I thought back to the '93 World Trade Center bombing. I had been in downtown New York then too. That day had also been pretty and unseasonably warm for February. I was out having lunch when it started to snow. Huge snowflakes. When I heard the explosion, I thought it was thundersnow and thought nothing of it. I was to find out that I had heard an explosion, not thundersnow. That day was incredible in its own right, but not as catastrophic.

In '93, I was working for Bankers Trust. It was late afternoon before the evacuation order was issued. I remembered the sight that had greeted me when I finally got to the street that day. It was totally surreal-like a scene from a Hollywood movie set. Every kind of emergency vehicle and transport you could ever image was parked neatly in the streets for many blocks in either direction. t appeared that each had a designated parking place–neatly arranged like a bunch of large Tonka trucks. Orderly, not chaotic. The evidence of a well-executed disaster plan, I thought. I followed a friend of mine to the ferry and then to the Path train. In no time I was home again, watching the news.

But this time was totally different! It wasn't déjà vu!

This time, after we evacuated, we collected near our building, everyone looking up and watching the Towers. Some of my teammates with better eyesight than myself told me that people were jumping from the Towers. A chilling thought! At that moment, I was glad that I'm severely myopic. Thankfully, all I saw was glittering paper catching the sunlight and floating to the street.

Soon the cops wouldn't let us stay near our building any longer and kept pushing us north, toward midtown. As it turned out, that was a good thing. Our building was later enveloped in a Tsunami of dust and debris. Our team went in separate directions. As directed, I proceeded north by myself, the quiet interrupted by police whistles and the incessant staccato of South bound sirens. All the emergency vehicles were going toward the Trade Center at the same time we were directed away from it. A knot in my stomach told me this was going to be very bad.

All the small businessmen and craftsmen that travel into the City on any given day had no way to leave. The bridges and tunnels had been closed. There was no way out of NYC. While they waited by the curb, the small truck and pickup owners turned on their cab radios. And, at each vehicle, people collected, trying to hear the latest. Then we were pushed further north, stopping at the next block to hear the latest, quietly chat with a few strangers and look backwards at the Towers in horror and disbelief.

Then, it happened. The first tower fell. Then, the second. Then I cried. Sorrow, fear, sadness, panic. All my emotions mixed together, frozen in mute disbelief. I felt like we were surely under siege. Would there be more planes? Would they come back? And how many people had died today? It must be a very large number. Would some of the deceased turn out to be my friends?

Little by little, I and many others made it to Penn Station and took a seat on the front entry steps, waiting. Penn Station was closed. I had no idea how or when I would get home. As I sat outside Penn Station, I heard some jets overhead. I didn't know who sent the jets or what kind they were, but I can tell you, I was terrified and wanted to find cover, anywhere. Were the bad guys back? Someone in the crowd said they were US jets–and eventually, the trains would be running again. Sure enough, limited service was resumed in the afternoon and we boarded the train. Home!

As we sat on the train, we shared a state of collective shock. People stood as we passed the burning Towers, now many miles way. There was a hush as people leaned toward the window for a better view of the great clouds of smoke. We all knew that while we were on a familiar journey, life had been forever changed. For some of us, that change would give us a traumatic memory. For others, loved ones were lost and life would truly never be the same in a most profound way.

It was three weeks before we could return to work, first at an alternate site and later back to our old office. Nothing was the same. People seemed numb. Vacant eyes and masklike faces went through the motions like drones. Posters of the missing were plastered everywhere. People sat on the trains and subways and stared ahead. People said nothing to each other. No laughs, no idle conversation. No one was reading their newspaper. The survivors were in communal mourning and wouldn't give themselves permission to be happy in the midst of such devastation and loss. This was the pattern that persisted for many months, even after things were back to "normal," the new normal. The sadness felt indelible.

The actual "site" was barricaded for many blocks in either direction. An acrid smell of smoldering debris permeated the air. I knew I shouldn't be going to the edges of the barricades. Yet, at lunchtime the draw was unrelenting. I couldn't resist the urge, the lure to "the site". How many people lied in this debris field? Was I sensing their remains in some minuscule way?

All the commuter towns erected memorials–Princeton Junction erected their own, outside the train station bistro. It was perpetually well tended by the survivors and the community committees. A plaque and pretty flowering bushes became permanent monuments. Live flowers and wreaths appeared at holidays. Fortunately, none of my personal friends were lost, yet I felt the loss deeply. And every year I see announcements of still another news special on the World Trade Center. And every year I say I won't watch them, but I do. After all, I was "Living It".

One Piece of Paper

Robin Watt

Looking into his blue eyes, I tried not to cry. _All of this could have been avoided with one piece of paper. He never wanted to live like this. Nobody does._

Sitting on the edge of his bed, holding his hand, I remembered all the talks we had. All the promises we made.

"Promise me," he had said, "If I ever end up in some catatonic state where I don't know my own name _–_ promise me you'll put a pillow over my face."

And of course I made that promise, never thinking I might actually consider keeping it.

The social worker came yesterday morning and I signed all the documents to ensure that my Sam would be cared for in a decent nursing home. We found one close enough for me to visit on a regular basis. The para-transit wheelchair van would be here soon and I had Sam's clothes packed and ready to go.

Sam–my big handsome husband–my renaissance man who could fix anything, could not fix this.

I thought back to eight months ago when I came home from the grocery store to find two county fire trucks in front of my house.

"What happened? Where's my husband? Is he ok? Sam? Sam?" I shouted when I came through the front door.

A large fireman stopped me.

"Ma'am, ma-am, slow down. Your husband's had a heart attack and the medics are helping him now. I need to ask you a few questions. First, does your husband have a DNR?"

"A D-M-R? What's that?" I asked.

"No, a D- _N_ -R, a 'Do Not Resuscitate' document. It legally requires us to stop resuscitation efforts, if that's his wish."

I caught my breath. _This is bad, very bad._

"No. We don't have anything like that. But I know my husband's wishes and if..." I choked and had to stop speaking. "If... if his heart has stopped beating, he wouldn't want to be revived. Not if there isn't any chance for a full recovery. Please, can I see him?"

"They are doing all they can for him. I can't tell you if he'll be ok or not. But I need more information. Does he have a history of heart problems? What medications is he on?"

I answered his questions and then asked him, "How long have you been here? How long have you been treating him?"

"We got here about 15 minutes ago. He called 911 and said he had chest pain. We barely got through the door before he went down."

I walked past him, into the living room. Sam was lying in the middle of the floor. Two firemen were beside him and he had these pads on his chest. His skin was so pale. It didn't look like him.

Just as I reached down to touch Sam, one of the firemen said, "Stand back! Everyone stand clear!" And then he pushed a button on the machine on the floor. The young man I was talking with grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back.

The shock from the machine raised Sam off the floor about 8 inches.

"We have a pulse!" one fireman yelled.

"Load and go," said the other.

The two firemen grabbed Sam and practically threw him on the gurney and then headed out the door. The first fireman kept speaking to me, but I didn't hear him anymore.

That was eight months ago.

Sam spent nine days in the ICU at our local hospital. He had been without oxygen to his brain for a long time while he lay on the floor that day. At the end of the 3rd day, I asked them to take him off life-support. He wouldn't want to live with machines to make him breathe.

But his heart kept beating; even though his brain wasn't really functioning.

I tried to take care of him at home, but Sam required a lot of help. He couldn't speak or walk or get to the bathroom; feeding, bathing _–_ all the stuff the professionals call Activities of Daily Living, ADL's _–_ Sam could no longer do. Sam could no longer fix anything; he certainly couldn't fix this.

I looked at him as we sat waiting for the wheelchair van.

"Sam, I'll come by to visit every day. Every day after work, I'll be there. I wish I could keep you here at home, but I had to sell the house." There was no acknowledgement in his eyes, though occasionally I thought I saw a spark _,_ a small flash of recognition. But it may have just been hope instead.

The van arrived. Two EMTs helped me transfer Sam from the bed to the wheelchair. They were professional, but distant. Sam was just another warm body to them. They didn't know him. They didn't know he had served his country with honor or that he had been a wonderful father. They didn't know he had been a law enforcement officer, protecting his community for thirty years. They didn't know that Sam had been a warm and tender husband and the best friend anyone could want.

"I'll follow behind the van with his clothes and stuff," I said. "Sam, I'm coming too, in our car. I'll be there also." I patted his shoulder and watched them load him into the van.

The nursing home was about six miles away. It was the closest I could find and I felt fortunate that they had a bed available. It seemed clean. The staff was polite. I was sure I'd like them in time.

After Sam was settled in his room, I sat with him, holding his hand for an hour. Speaking was unnecessary; I'd known that for a long time. Usually when I talked to him, it was for my own benefit. I needed some sense of normalcy. Sometimes I needed to pretend that he would recover and be the man I married. But most of the time I knew where this was headed.

"Sam, I'll be back tomorrow after work. The kids are coming this weekend. They'll be by to visit while they're in town. They're gonna help me move while they're here. I've found a cute little apartment not far away."

No response of course. I brushed the hair out of his eyes. He would need a haircut soon. He hated it this long. I'll bring my scissors tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Meet with the attorney to sign the bankruptcy paperwork. Not something I want to do, but have to do. The medical bills have been enormous. No one plans for this sort of thing. Who could foresee this? At least the house has sold. Half the proceeds will go to Sam's care, as they should. Maybe I can find a condo that I can afford with the other half. At least I have a job.

I went home and sat in the dark with a glass of wine. Lately, even the wine felt like a luxury as money was so tight. But tonight I needed it to lessen the pain. I didn't feel like boxing up another room of stuff. It's amazing what you accumulate over 40+ years of marriage.

The next morning I met with the attorney. Lots of forms to sign. I know I should have listened more closely to what he was telling me, but I felt dead inside. We worked and raised a family, paid off the mortgage and paid our bills on time. Sam would be mortified to know we have to file for bankruptcy. He would be mortified to know that his heart attack facilitated these dominoes to fall, one after another, after another.

No one ever plans for this. Why doesn't someone warn us that this could happen?

If I'd had that one piece of paper, that DNR, things would be different. Sam could have died a dignified death. He wouldn't be lying in bed, breathing, but not really alive. He never wanted to live like this. He never wanted to leave me this way.

One piece of paper.

I need to make sure I get one signed and let the kids know where I keep it.

Halloween

Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

Inside my house it is Halloween every day.

The scent of each one of Rob's colognes still hangs lightly and inconspicuously like cobwebs in the corners of our bedroom and adjoining bath. I can still close my eyes and feel his fingers on my naked body like the eight-step ballet of those big, hairy spiders.

Ghosts are everywhere telling at great length different parts of our story. Each synopsis is recorded succinctly below the dates written on the tombstones upon which the ghosts lean. All the dates were the same:

Marriage: Born January 29, 1971 – Died February 3, 1991

Once Upon a Denouement

The Sunday morning of February 3 Rob's suitcases were already packed. _When did he do that?_ I wondered.

Five days earlier it was our twentieth wedding anniversary. As usual, the top of Rob's dresser was covered with a number of gifts. There was nothing for me anywhere.

_Strange_.

Rob was the first to get up and shower. When both of us finished dressing for work he stood in front of his dresser and said in a very business-like, matter-of-fact tone, "I'll be moving out as soon as I get a few things settled." Historically, he was a dropper of verbal bombs just before quickly exiting stage left, but never with this much impact.

Stunned, I sat softly on the edge of our bed and asked, "Did you have to tell me this today?"

Rob was quick with his retort, "Would any other day have been any better?"

_Yes_ , I thought, it _probably wouldn't have hurt as much_.

As Rob turned to leave our bedroom, I stared at the back of his suit jacket as he turned left and walked down the short hall that led to our living room. I heard his footsteps approaching the front door and then, as they always did, they stopped and I knew he was bending down to pick up his briefcase that he kept there. I heard him open the door and then take the six footsteps he needed to step outside and shut the door behind him.

Later that day, a delivery man delivered a bouquet of flowers (roses, I think) to my office. Rob had included one of those small, delicate cards with a handwritten note. His choice of card and his words were harbingers of what would come to pass five days later.

_Have a nice day. Rob_.

Pools of tears collected in the wells of my lower eyelids. I mumbled, "Have a _nice_ day? Right."

Halloween began early that year.

The Sunday morning that our marriage died, Rob awakened, showered and dressed quickly. After he ate breakfast, he sat back comfortably on the couch in our family room with his legs crossed on top of the coffee table. Rob held the Miami Herald high in front of his face as he read what seemed to be every single word very slowly.

I don't remember what I was doing during all of this. Probably, as my grandmother used to say, "Runnin' around like a chicken with its head cut off."

I always heard a moving target was more difficult to hit. I had already been hit once by Rob. A year earlier he aimed innocently at our marriage and scored his first bull's-eye.

He was waiting for our thirteen year-old daughter, Meagan to wake-up. Hours later as if by divine plan, she joined her father in the family room at the exact time he finished with the paper.

Wiping the sleep from her eyes, pajama-clad Meagan curled up beside Rob. (She and her father were always so simpatico.) Still reeling from five days of shock and disbelief, I listened as Rob said to Meagan something like, "Meagan, I need to tell you something. Mom and I are not getting along. It has nothing to do with you. I'm moving out. I'll call you later to let you know where I'm staying. Remember I love you, okay?"

With those words Rob hugged Meagan tightly. He kissed her cheek and started towards the front door. This was no business trip. He had so many bags packed and parked at the door that he had to make two trips to his 1990 blue metallic Pontiac Sunbird.

Rob glanced at me and said, "I'll call Meagan later."

I nodded my head and managed to respond, "Okaaa-y."

The door, clicked. His car v-roomed. And then he left.

The sound of his car pulling out of the driveway rivaled the absolute silence that used to be his presence.

I went to what was never to be Rob's and my bedroom again. I lay down on my side of the bed. A wall and our closet were on my right. Turning in that direction, I assumed the fetal position. I saw the spooky signs of Halloween slipping out from underneath the closed closet door.

Meagan seemingly unfazed came to the door, peeked in and asked, "Mom, Are we still going shopping?"

Who Dun It in the West

Lad Castle

"Tom," Dale whispered to his older brother, his head bobbing out of the open window.

"Yeah, Dale," Tom answered, pulling up his worn overalls.

"Dad is sound asleep, so don't make any noise. I can hear some giggling coming from out of the upstairs windows of the saloon. I think it's time. Hurry up and get your pants on if you're a-coming."

Tom, the younger of the preacher's two boys, crawled out of the wood-framed window still buckling his Farmer John's overalls and joined his brother in the tween-way, what they called the space between the church and their house. Like two alley cats, they crossed the street and snuck around the back of the saloon directly kitty-cornered from the church where they lived.

"Are you ready Dale?"

"Yep. How about you, Tom?"

"Guess I'm ready as I'll ever be," replied Tom and shinnied up the loose slats after his brother.

Unfortunately, familiarity with the endeavor, coupled with a woman's giggling, caused the boys to act a bit hastily and pay no mind to the old dry boards creaking a mite more than usual. By the time they reached the second story window where the ladies had their private rooms to entertain the clientele, they barely had time enough to get their heads in a look-see position when the _Blaaam!_ of a shotgun blast sent chunks and splinters of wood bursting out of a hole cut in the rear of the building as big as their Aunt Wilma's butt.

The double 00 buck pellets slammed out right between the two would-be voyeurs, their bodies pressed hard against the building. The shock loosened both their grips, and like two sacks of hundred pound Peabody potatoes they dropped twenty feet into the briny concoction of slime and muddy water of a hog's watering trough.

Tom found a foothold first and stumbled to the ground. He reached back into the metal-lined container and pulled Dale out by the seat of his pants. The boys stared at each other and, with horrified looks, they rapidly scurried off towards the relative safety of the nearby woods.

Back in the saloon the blast had caused complete silence to fall over the once jubilant crowd. At the thunderous sound, all of the patrons' heads twisted in unison to stare at the stairway leading to the boudoirs. Then in a twinkle, as if nothing had happened, all of their heads twisted back to the gambling tables and the familiar saloon rumblings quickly resumed.

That's the way it is in Loco Weed; people have a sense of not becoming involved.

I'm Dick Gentry. I run the _Loco Weed Journal_ , the town newspaper, such as it is. Used to do some blacksmithing on the side to make ends meet; I couldn't make it selling papers in a town where the population can barely read. But the locals keep feeding me tales of the happenings in Loco Weed. That's when I got me a brainstorm. I hooked up with a publishing company back east, now I'm making money hand over fist putting out dime Western novels fast as I can write them.

*****

You'd never guess Hardy Butler, owner of the Dangling Spur Saloon, ever had a real name. Everybody just calls him "Wart" on account of the big, fat wart growing out the side of his nose. Now old Wart has his fingers in most of the money-making enterprises in Loco Weed, Texas. Having The Albuquerque Kid as his personal friend and protector might have something to do with it, the kid being a famous outlaw-turned-sheriff.

Among some of Wart's major successes are his three imported lovelies, fancy working girls out of New Orleans and the finest ladies I ever did see.

The first is a gorgeous raven-haired beauty named Renee. But you had better know how much money you came in with cause Renee sure knows how to make you part from it. I can't say that I blame her much; money's always been mighty hard to come by for a working girl in Loco Weed.

Then there's Millie the Creole. She's of the demure, petite variety. I have my suspicions about whether she belongs in this type of entertainment profession; you could say she was just a mite too gentle.

Finally, there's Sam, short for Samantha. Her looks rival even the famous Lily Langtry. This blonde-haired, blue-eyed, buxom beauty has the boys coming from near and far; had some even propose to her. But at two bits for a feel and a dollar for the other, Sam's doing just fine and salting away some big cash for her retirement. She decided pretty darn quick she wasn't going to be married to some local yokel in a forgotten hell-hole like Loco Weed.

Of course, women of any variety are a precious commodity in this part of the country. The Dangling Spur Saloon, with all of its diversities–women, gambling, and drink–has made old Wart a big man, loved and hated by most of the meanest critters you ever did see. Cowboys, gamblers, and prospectors from all over the territory, even some respectable married ones, come to visit the Wart girls from New Orleans.

Each girl has her own room, upstairs over the bar, and each has a say on who they will invite to visit. One thing I have to say about old Wart, he has always demanded total respect for his lovelies.

The Albuquerque Kid, now known as Sheriff Dan, keeps a tight grip on the town while his two regular deputies, brothers Harley and Farley, keep a tight grip on each other. At times they have been seen holding hands as they walk their assigned beat, a strange sight indeed, until Sheriff Dan catches them and yells, "Don't do that!"

The faster on the draw is Harley, but his aim is suspect, once shooting his uncle Mayor Poke in the leg while trying to kill a rattler, or so he claimed.

Ambidextrous Farley can never remember to which of his hips he strapped his gun, invariably reaching for air at the most inopportune times. Together this unlikely duo was appointed by their Uncle Poke to help the sheriff tame the town.

Now, back to that shotgun blast.

Shortly after it rang out, a scantily dressed Samantha ran screaming from her boudoir at the top of the stairs.

"Fanon's dead! He's been shot," she cried.

Frank Fanon owned the bank and held most of the mortgages on the local ranches. Lately, he had been serving foreclosures on many of the local spreads. Everybody knew the railroad was coming, and there was money to be made if you owned the right properties.

"Somebody go and get the sheriff," a voice yelled out of the crowd.

Before long, the swinging saloon doors sprang open and there with steel-grey eyes and pearl-handled nickel-plated six-shooters drawn stood the infamous Albuquerque Kid. Or, rather, Sheriff Dan Murphy, as he's been known since he met the beautiful Mellissa who changed his life forever.

The flickering gaslights of the saloon glistened tiny shiny reflections on the outlaw lawman's long pistol barrels. The awed patrons held their breath as the sheriff slowly made his way through the crowd and toward the stairs.

He spoke softly and deliberately. "Send my deputies up when they get here."

The sheriff climbed to the top of the stairs, glancing back over his shoulder as he went. His silver spurs caught the flickering reflections of the lights as his foot touched the top stair. A long sigh of relief emanated from the patrons and, again in unison, they quickly shifted their attention back to their gambling and gaiety.

Gently taking her hand, Sheriff Dan helped Sam back into her room. In horror she pointed a twitching finger to a blood-soaked naked body lying on the floor beside the bed. "That's Frank Fanon," she said. "He was about halfway through his dollar when it happened."

The sheriff walked around the four-post bed and began his inspection. He carefully studied the position of the body. Fanon was lying on his back with the top of his head missing. The sheriff also noticed the obvious hole blown out of the wall between the two windows.

"Sam," said Dan. "Try to remember exactly what happened. Even the smallest detail could be helpful. Do you suppose the shooter was after Frank, exclusively? Or do you think he might have been trying for you, or maybe even both of you?"

Sam nestled her buttocks softly on the edge of the bed; it creaked a familiar sound as it had countless times before. She hadn't considered that the killer might have meant to get her, too. What had she ever done to rile anyone to this extreme?

She began speaking after a short, pensive silence. "I remember the room suddenly filled with a deafening sound and the familiar thick smell of gunpowder. I couldn't see who fired the gun; I believe the blast came from the doorway. Wait...yes, now I remember; there was something."

She pointed to the hole made by the shotgun. "We heard a noise outside the window and thought it might have been a coon or a squirrel trying to break in to steal crumbs. We get a lot of that with the girls bringing food into the rooms.

"Frank cursed and turned his head for a look-see. That's when I heard that God-awful noise. The next thing I knew, Frank was on the floor and there was blood all over me."

When Harley and Farley finally made their appearance, the sheriff presented them with instructions. "I want you to station yourselves at the front and back doors of the saloon. No one is to enter or exit until I have had a chance to talk with them."

"Yes, sir, Sheriff, we are on the job," the deputies answered in harmony. After a short scuffle between the two brothers about which one would guard which door, Sheriff Dan assigned the front door to Harley and the back door to Farley.

Renee and Millie were interviewed first. They either had not seen anything or they were trying to protect someone.

On the way back to the murder scene Sheriff Dan met Wart in the hallway wearing his familiar red, fur-lined long underwear.

"Well, Dan, have you got it figured out yet? Do you know who shot Frank?"

"No, not yet, Wart, but by the way, where were you when Frank Fanon was murdered?"

"Me? I was in my room resting up for later. You do remember it is Friday night. Most all of the cowhands will be coming into town, and it'll be another all-nighter. Besides you know Frank's been foreclosing on a lot of the ranches around here. I'll bet one of them took out a little revenge. You don't suspect me, do you? Now don't you be getting too big for your badge and don't forget that I am the one that recommended you for the sheriff's job."

Sheriff Dan answered, "But it is my job now, and I am going to perform my duty, no matter who turns out to be the guilty party."

Wart smiled knowingly. He was a master manipulator; that's how he'd come as far as he had. He leaned toward the lawman cupping his hand as in a malicious whisper, "Even if the murderers turn out to be the Williams boys? You know who I mean, Dan, your sweetie-pie's two younger brothers, Tom and Dale. It seems someone seen them crawling up the back of the saloon just about the same time the shot was fired. You know how taken they are with Samantha. Maybe the boys killed Frank out of jealousy."

The Kid suspected Wart could be right; it sounded damn reasonable.

Instantly, he thought about Melissa, the love of his life. _I might as well forget her if I arrest her brothers and lock them up in jail for murder. She would surely end up leaving me. I would probably be so heartbroken I would even lose my job. Eventually I would go back to hiring out my guns for a living. That would keep me from ever getting Melissa back, she being the preacher's daughter and all._ "Quite a dilemma," mumbled the sheriff as he assembled his troops.

"Harley, you and Farley go out and bring in the two Williams boys for questioning." Just then Preacher Williams and his wife Emma, along with Melissa, appeared at the front door of the saloon.

"The boys are missing," Emma cried. "Both Tom and Dale are gone. They were last seen running off into the woods just about the time the shot at the saloon was heard." Mrs. Williams worriedly squeezed Sheriff Dan's arm.

"We'll find your boys, Mrs. Williams." he said reassuringly. "You and the preacher go on home. I'll come by when we've located them." The fact that they were missing was another nail in the boys' casket, the sheriff surmised.

Harley and Farley, the trusted deputies, mounted old Gulliver after several unsuccessful tries, falling off one side, then the other. The skinny old swayback Clydesdale with ponderous hooves was the only horse that would allow them to ride double. _Clippity-clop, clippity-clop_ , the fearsome duo trotted out of town stopping to remount after several unsightly spills.

The deputies shortly dismounted down by Tucker's Pond. They had traveled far enough; their backsides needed cooling by the still waters. While Harley and Farley discussed each other's injured pride, the Williams boys showed up unexpectedly, catching the deputies with their pants down.

The startled lawmen reached for their guns. Their arms locked and became hopelessly entangled, in mass confusion. Guns went a-flying straight into the murky waters of Tucker's Pond.

"What do we do now, Harley?" asked Farley.

"I don't know, Farley," said Harley.

"Maybe they'll just give up; huh, Harley?"

"Well, go ahead and ask them, Farley."

"Wait a minute, deputies." The Williams boys spoke interrupting each other excitedly. "We didn't do anything wrong, nothing but climb up the rear of the saloon and peek in on the girls."

The deputies were relieved to find the boys so cooperative. "You'll have to come back to town and tell the sheriff your story, besides your folks are all worried about you boys."

Back at the saloon Sheriff Dan was still investigating. He had interviewed almost everyone that might have had a hand in the shooting. Melissa sat quietly in the rear of the saloon. Glances between the two told a story of a love denied if her brothers were to be arrested for the crime. The sheriff continued trying to find someone that had it in for Frank Fanon or Sam; someone other than the boys, someone who might have had enough motive and opportunity to want them harmed.

It was late when the deputies finally arrived back at the saloon with the Williams boys. Renee, Samantha, and Millie had all joined Melissa at the round table in the rear of the saloon. Soon Sheriff Dan and the two Williams boys joined the congregation.

Sheriff Dan looked seriously at the two boys and began the interrogation, "Well boys, I guess you know the mess you're in. Do you have anything to say for yourselves? Did you crawl up the back of the saloon and maybe shoot Frank Fanon?"

Tom and Dale looked around the table nervously, and then hung their heads, refusing to talk.

Melissa faced her brothers, holding back tears. "What about Mom and Dad? How do you think they will ever live this down, Dad being a man of God and all? With one swoop you boys have managed to ruin all of our lives in this town, not to mention the fact that you could hang."

Millie the Creole suddenly rose with an uncharacteristic shout. "I did it!" Uncontrollably sobbing, she confessed to being the one who had shot Frank Fanon dead.

"I did it! I shot Frank. He swore that he loved me. We were going to get married; he was going to take me back to New Orleans and buy us a fancy house down on Bayou Street. I walked by Samantha's door and saw them making love. I couldn't stand it, so I grabbed the shotgun Mr. Wart keeps hidden at the top of the stairs for unexpected trouble. I shot Frank Fanon and then I replaced the gun.

"The Williams boys had nothing to do with it, except for the fact that they saw me shoot Frank while they were looking in at the window. They wouldn't talk because they were trying to protect me. I can't let them take the blame for something I've done."

With the shooting of Frank Fanon solved, it's time for me to put all the finishing facts about my newest ten-cent novel down and get it off to the publisher back east. Think I'll call this one, _Lilies of The Frontier_.

Now let's see, the last I heard, Millie was sent to the county seat for trial. Of course, she was got off for lack of evidence once she retracted her confession. It's mighty strange how she ended up marrying the judge that acquitted her, and them running off to New Orleans together.

And if you're wondering about what ever happened to The Albuquerque Kid–I mean Sheriff Dan–well, he finally did marry Melissa, and he and Wart are now partners in the Dangling Spur Saloon, among other extensive enterprises.

Preacher Williams is still preaching the devil out of his parishioners, and Harley and Farley were both appointed as the new City Marshals. The town may be in real trouble now!

Samantha and Renee are still working their professions upstairs at the saloon with the addition of Roxie, a new local girl learning the trade.

I ended up with the Williams boys, Tom and Dale. They're working for me here at the _Journal_. I just handed them their first week's pay–a whole dollar each.

And there they go now, scurrying off down to the Dangling Spur Saloon. I'm just a-wondering, _what, in heavens name, are those two rascal boys planning to spend their first earned dollar on_?

Mr. B

Nichole Somme

"So, like, just because you're a doctor, you should just, like, be able to stand there and talk to me and take my thoughts and make a diagnosis, right?"

"That's a tall order, but let's start with something simple and go from there, shall we? For example, what's your name?"

He sat absolutely still, his eyes burning into hers, willing her to read his mind.

"Oh, I see, I understand," she said. "Let's just call you Mr. B and I will be Dr. A. Does that suit you?"

She was trying to get him to reply, to connect with her without seeming too desperate. "So, Mr. B, do you understand why you are here?"

"It's karma," he replied. "But you know that."

"Yes. Yes, Mr. B I do. There are many things I know about you, but there are so many things I need you to tell me, share with me."

He did not respond.

She whispered, "For example, I believe, sincerely, that The Group, and shall we say Mr. C, are always listening to us, aren't they?"

He sat bolt upright, eyes wide, and brushed the hair off of his face saying, "See, see- _eee_ I knew it, I knew all along that you had the vision, I felt it when you put your hand on me. The power, the electricity, you are not like them. They only want to fill my body with their poison drugs so I become a zombie. Oh, man! But not you, oh, thank the universe. I am so tired, so worn out. It's been, like, forever since I met anyone with the vision."

He paused to catch his breath. "It's exhausting, trying to explain what's really going on to these people, they have no idea. They think I'm crazy. _That's_ why I'm here." He finished his rant and slumped over with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He let out a huge sigh.

"Well, Mr. B, it's all over now. You can take a breath, get some rest, eat something. Would you like some water, coffee, or how about a sandwich? You haven't eaten for almost three days. Are you hungry?" she asked.

"No, no, no, they'll put something in it and block my receptors. I'll never get out of here then. I'll never get any help." His voice filled with defeat.

"How about if I order the food for me and I eat a bite of each thing, then we wait, ten, maybe fifteen minutes? That should be long enough to be sure the food is safe. What do you say?"

"Well, you're taking a huge risk, but I guess I will. I'm so hungry and so weak. I can't go on much longer. I'm ready to pass out. Thank you, thank you Dr. A," he said with a passion born of conspiracy.

"Carl? Please have the kitchen make a nice big club sandwich, lots of mayonnaise, bacon, cheese, and a pot of hot coffee with milk and sugar, oh, and a large glass of milk and some ice cream, chocolate, no, no, make it vanilla. Have someone bring it up as soon as possible. I missed both breakfast and lunch and I'm starving. Thanks Carl, I appreciate it."

She put her index finger to her lips in the universal shush symbol and walked over to Mr. B, knelt down, and whispered in his ear, "They hear e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. We can't be too careful."

She looked side to side, pointed to the air vents in the ceiling, the electrical outlets, the pencil sharpener on the table, all while bobbing her head up and down, letting him know that "they" were everywhere.

He made the OK sign with his fingers. They were in league.

She breathed a sigh of relief. It had taken seven long, hard months, two weeks, and three days, but finally she had broken through to him. Not that Mr. B noticed. He thought it was three days, for heaven's sake.

This man, this tortured soul, was a monster.

Seventeen dead people could attest to that _if_ only they could speak. He didn't live in the real world, he lived in some crazy mixed up sci-fi alternate universe where people were telepathic and nothing, nothing but the Grand Objective mattered. If only she could get him to tell her what the Grand Objective was.

However, she was in, she finally did it. She had earned his trust.

The Cake

Ruthe Foy

The delightful aroma of the Banana Bread wafted through the whole kitchen. It smelled delicious. This recipe was well known as my favorite and as usual, I had baked the recipe in my quad pan with four mini-loaves. I had been invited out for Thanksgiving Dinner and the loaves were my contribution. I busied myself with other tasks as I waited impatiently for them to bake. The buzzer rang; it was time to take the loaves out of the oven. I reached for the pan and it was immediately clear that something was wrong. Their middles had sunk! What could have happened? As I cleaned up the baking dishes I spotted the problem. In my haste, I had misread the recipe and forgotten to put in the baking soda. I tasted one. It had the same delicious taste – just unusually dense. No recovery time – off I went to Thanksgiving.

How The Man Walked In

Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

When my brother Kenneth, nine years my senior, left for college, I was so beside myself my parents bought me a dog.

Growing up I wasn't allowed to attend funerals. I'm from a relatively small family, so there weren't that many funerals to begin with, but my parents felt that children should be insulated against death. Conversations and questions about the finality of life were not encouraged. No explanations were given as to what happened to the deceased. I was merely told, "They died."

The first funeral I attended was that of my father. I was 31 years old. I had very little experience with grief. I was at a loss with loss.

After Rob left, I curled up in bed and re-played the sounds of the front door closing and his car pulling out of the driveway over and over and over again. When I opened my eyes they caught sight of the few clothes he'd left hanging in the closet. The lingering smell of his cologne sent me into a panic.

I called my mother from the bedroom phone and spilled my guts in shock and disbelief. I didn't worry about the time of day, how long I talked or the long distance charges. I talked and talked and talked. She listened.

The phrase "...and then, he _left!"_ concluded each of the non-stop retellings of what had just happened. I told my story so many times that it was almost too late to take Meagan shopping as I'd promised.

I could hear my daughter's heavy sighs from the family room rolling like thundering down the hallway. She was annoyed with me.

"Mom, I gotta go. I'll call you back tonight before the rates go up."

I drove Meagan the few blocks to TJ Maxx at the South Dade Shopping Plaza on US 1. She shopped and didn't notice that I was walking inches above the ground. I wouldn't realize this myself until months later. During another oxygen-starved episode, I lost myself in shopping.

Within a few short months my frame, that had carried as many as one hundred twenty-five pounds, dwindled into the low nineties. When I showered, pools of water settled in my clavicles. My diet consisted of _nothing_ or _anything_ with sugar. Glazed doughnuts sold in packages of two in a vending machine on the campus where I worked were my mainstay. As a result, at nearly forty years old, my face was re-visited by the pimples of puberty.

There were late nights listening to others' sad stories on self-help radio talk shows. Little sleep and no answers other than it is true what the experts say--I found comfort in the fetal position, from which I would crawl every morning, in just enough time to make it to work.

Monday through Thursday, I'd leave my emotional baggage outside of my classrooms and teach mathematics at the exceptional level for which I was known. Upon exiting, I'd pick-up my "bags" and buy another package of doughnuts. It's a miracle that I was able to function professionally. Fridays and Saturdays were a forty-eight hour blur.

To this day I'm amazed that in my unstable, depressed state I did not hurt myself and/or some not-so-nice math student. No doctor. I discovered I was depressed by responding to a magazine questionnaire.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. This was the day of the week when the sound of the clock ticking away the seconds of my "death" was deafening. It was the official day to turn the same old story around and around in my head looking desperately for a way out of the deep, dark hole in which I found myself. I had far too much time on my hands. I asked myself incessantly, "What am I going to do?" Sundays were deadly.

In response to my self-query, a friend invited me to a place where I could "kill" some time: her church. At that point, _any_ place without the ticking clock and my hopeless thoughts was fine with me.

Suddenly on Sundays, tears of emotional release flowed freely. During times of fellowship with strangers, words of love and encouragement comforted me and gave me hope.

On the last Sunday of 1991, I walked to the altar of that church alone. A Man named Jesus was there waiting for me with open arms. He hugged me and I felt loved again. And this time, it _was_ forever. The process was complete. A man walked out of my life, so that _The_ _Man_ could walk in.

Crucify Him

Lad Castle

Ptolemy looked up at the battered bleeding Jew he had just helped to crucify. He had seen many men and women hanging from these rugged crosses, but only from afar. The young Roman centurion swallowed hard to keep the contents of his stomach in check, revolted by the smell of stale blood, vomit, and all manner of bodily excretions. The stench in his nostrils roused the tender young quail and red wine he had devoured at lunch, expelling them from his mouth in a stream of bilge. He quickly wiped his lips. No one must suspect the son of Aralias and nephew of Caesar to be weak or lacking in fortitude.

He wondered why he had been chosen as one of the executioners for this particular rabbi called Jesus. Were they not all the same simple beggars claiming to be the long awaited messiah, the "King of the Jews"?

Ptolemy had been appointed as a ranking officer in the Roman Parturient Guard only two weeks after his enlistment. Caesar learned of his nephew's enlistment and wasted no time in notifying Pilate that his nephew should receive the special treatment due his royal bloodline. Pilate, the ambitious governor of Jerusalem, would not normally send such an inexperienced soldier on such an important mission, but Ptolemy would serve him well in his quest for Caesar's favor.

Pilate fostered great fear of reprisals from the followers of Jesus. He knew the peasants numbered in the thousands and he was not yet sure if they were a militant contingency. What better accomplice than the nephew of Caesar, should an uprising ensue? Surely, Caesar would order battalions of soldiers to protect his own nephew.

None of which concerned Ptolemy who could only revel in the thought that Herida, his betrothed, would be so very proud when she learned of the honor bestowed on him. Surely he would return a hero with all the accolades, pomp, and splendor.

"You there, Centurion, break his legs," commanded the captain in charge of the crucifixion.

Startled, Ptolemy quickly procured the battering staff to break the legs of the one they called Jesus. However, as he struck the helpless man the staff split and hung limp in the young soldier's hand.

A roar of laughter erupted from the crowd. A loud voice came from a bystander. "Is this lad not mature enough yet to keep a stiff rod?"

Embarrassed, Ptolemy shouted back, "I will do better than break his legs."

Approaching the cross again, he grabbed his spear and thrust it into the side of the hanging Jew. Blood and water came splattering out onto Ptolemy's face. He raised his fist at the dying man, shouting curses. But in return, in the broken, bleeding face beneath the crown of thorns, Ptolemy witnessed the deep penetrating eyes of compassion.

_What is this_ , he thought, _has this man that believed that he could heal the sick and raise the dead gone mad with the torment and pain that he has endured?_

The wind began to intensify, slowly at first, then with huge bursts of energy. The small, white clouds turned dark and then blackened into giant billowing demons. Crackling bolts of lightning like golden snakes struck relentlessly at the ground and splintered trees with thunderous explosions.

The crowd that had gathered to watch the crucifixion scattered in every direction running and screaming. Those that remained were swallowed in giant gulps as the ground opened beneath them.

Frightened beyond his years, Ptolemy wrapped his arms and legs around the cross at the foot of Jesus, seeking to protect himself from the disastrous onslaught. Then, for the first time in his life, he believed he would die.

Looking up at the crucified Jesus, he yelled, "You will have your revenge, you drag me to your own death. O King of Kings and Lord of Lords, I was not the one that condemned you. It was your own people that hung you on this cross that we now share. I am but an instrument of the authority. What would this world be like without soldiers as I am to carry out the laws?"

The skies burst again into torrents of drenching rain blowing stinging droplets against the tender young skin of the centurion recruit. Now alone with three dead bodies on three separate crosses, Ptolemy held on for his life atop Golgotha, the mount named for a skull. The splendor of Rome seemed so far away and so trivial now. And what of his beloved Herida, what would she do when she learned of his death? Would she turn her affection towards Termedes, his greatest rival for her love?

Clutching for his very life at the foot of a blood stained cross, Ptolemy's mind expired and a new consciousness was born. _What great faith in his God this Galilean must have had, to lay down his life for his brethren, of which faith I have none. Let me live O God of Jesus so that I too may know of this great faith._

Suddenly the winds slowed and the clouds quickly dissipated and quietness filled the air. It ended as swiftly as it had begun. The rain and the wind had washed the top of the mount clean. The stench dissipated. Ptolemy rose up a different man. A fire had lit in his heart. His search had begun for this undying faith in the God of Jesus.

*****

Pilate waited patiently for Ptolemy's report of the execution, but none arrived. When he exhausted the last of his patience, he reluctantly issued a direct order for Caesar's nephew to appear at the Praetorian.

The report from Quarias, head of the Centurion Guard, explained to Pilate that Ptolemy had handed in his Centurion uniform and had struck out to live among the people of Jerusalem.

This certainly had not been the message Pilate wanted to send to Rome. To save himself in Caesar's eyes, Pilate hatched a plot with Quarias to absolve himself of the young soldier's conversion.

"We will advise Rome on how well the crucifixion went and how brave and victorious Ptolemy preformed. He alone remained standing vigil at the cross, while all the others fled from the storm.

"I, Pilate, then gave him another assignment to carry out. His duty is to act as a spy on our behalf. He is to dress in ordinary clothes and befriend the Jews. His task is to search out the Jesus followers and report on any reprisal activity against the government."

Pilate knew that if anything unfortunate befell Ptolemy, it would simply be in the line of duty to Rome. There would be no blood on Pilate's hands.

"Of course if you, Quarias, were to find Ptolemy first, you understand what must be done?"

Thumping his chest with a fist, Quarias swore his allegiance. "For my God Caesar and my country Rome, I pledge that death shall come swiftly to Ptolemy."

*****

On his own quest, Ptolemy began mingling with the people of Jerusalem disguised as a merchant from Rome. He intended to find some of the followers of Jesus and learn more about their God.

"My name is Tibia, youngest daughter of Jarad the tent maker," she said, smiling beneath her veil.

Not an elegantly-clothed and perfumed woman of Rome, thought Ptolemy, but never-the-less a lovely girl. "And can you lead me to your father," Ptolemy said, smiling back. "I may have some business to talk over with him."

Her eyes danced as she crooked her finger for him to follow. Through a maze of street peddlers they trekked, until they came to a large dwelling at the edge of town.

"Through there." She pointed to a small doorway. "Don't worry, it gets much bigger inside, and in the back it opens to a big courtyard. That is where my father makes the tents."

She entered first. "Father, Father," she called, "here is a man and his name is Ptolemy. He wishes to talk business with you."

"Well, bring him out here in the back where we are working; we never refuse business."

The old tent maker eyed the young Ptolemy. "A little young to be a businessman, but who can tell now-a-days? The young people of today are getting smarter and smarter. Sit here beside me and tell me how I can help you?"

"I must confess to you, Master Jarad, I have entered your home under false pretenses. What I truly seek is information."

"Information?" the tent maker asked. "Business costs only money, information can cost a life."

"I swear to you, Master Jarad, I come only with deep respect and full humility. No one will be harmed. It is I, if anyone, that deserves death. It is I that put my own honor and pride above the value of an innocent man's life".

Ptolemy continued, "Last week when the rabbi called Jesus was crucified, I was there and in mine own heart received crucifixion. I need to find out more about him. I have dedicated my life to this."

The old man remained quiet a moment. Then he spoke, and as he did his smile became wider and his joy more evident.

"Jesus is not dead. He is alive."

"What are you saying, old man," Ptolemy replied. "I know the truth, I tell you I was there, and I saw the blood spurt out of his side. I touched and examined the cold dead body of this man when they lowered it from the cross. I wish he were alive, a thousand questions I have for this one called Jesus."

Then the old man spoke again. "He is not dead. He has risen. If you had known Jesus and of his sayings, you would know also of his resurrection."

Ptolemy, amazed by what he heard, asked, "Where will I find him? I have to ask for his forgiveness. I must tell you, Master Jared, I am the soldier that crucified him."

With a knowing expression, Jarad replied, "Fear not. I was one of his fellow Jews that condemned him. That was me in the plaza yelling at the top of my lungs. 'Crucify him, Crucify Jesus,' I yelled. You see, Ptolemy, we need not find Jesus for he has found us.

"The promise of his final return may not manifest in our lifetime. But it will in the last days, because of the unsuspecting work we have done. He came to die... so we may live.

"Jesus knows us well, Ptolemy. _We were part of his plan, from the beginning_."

Return

Steve Murray

_Jesus,_ thought David, standing in his long-johns watching the camp burn, _what a damn mess._

He didn't know how it started, perhaps around the stove pipe or maybe a crack in the back of the firebox. At any rate, he awoke to a sheet of crackling flame marching up the wall behind the stove. He dove from his bunk and barely made it outside. The door was only a few feet away but the camp went up like the kindling that it was–logs dried beneath a roof for close to a century. Although the temperature hovered at about five degrees he wasn't cold, not yet, because he had a huge campfire. The irony was not lost on him and he grinned sardonically as he thought _camp_ fire _._

_At least_ _the shed is still standing and I can walk out on the snowshoes in there_.

Glancing down at his feet, the enormity of his predicament began to sink in.

How in hell do you snowshoe eight miles barefoot in your underwear in three feet of snow?

*****

Fifteen miles away as the crow flies stood David's boyhood home, the potato farm that had provided a living for several generations of Gordons. As soon as they were able, David and his older brother John were laboring in the fields, planting, weeding, spraying, harvesting, and plowing for the next crop. John took to farming like a fish to water. David hated every minute and every aspect of farming. He had no idea what he wanted to do in life, but knew it would have nothing to do with agriculture.

David was unquestionably the best southpaw pitcher in the history of the small rural high school and an above-average football quarterback. He effortlessly maintained a B average even though his hell-raising, particularly in his final two years of school, was legend. The family Buick regularly made its way Friday nights to a certain store two towns south where the clerk didn't know or didn't care that his customer was underage.

The local deputy sheriff, Al Johnson, probably knew more than he would ever admit but exercised his authority only as necessary to keep David whole and able to play Saturdays. He knew that any action rendering David ineligible for sports would cost ninety percent of the town vote in the next sheriff's election. Al pulled David and his cronies over several times, warned them about excessive speed and the evils of drinking and driving, but stopped short of searching the Buick or citing them.

David, tall with dark good looks and a ready devilish smile, was the local heartthrob. He played the field, although field wildflowers in backwoods northern Maine were a bit sparse. About 4:00 one blurry morning a month or so before graduation he awoke in the Buick's back seat with Sarah Abbot, a cheerleader and fellow senior. They had parked earlier on a narrow side road outside town and between heavy petting sessions worked on the case of beer in the trunk. Later, neither was certain what transpired between them that night, but David hurriedly tossed out the empties, hid the remainder of the case in the bushes, and took Sarah home. Both made the baseball game that afternoon. Sarah was radiant as usual in her cheerleader's uniform. David pitched a two-hitter, winning the regional championship for their school.

A few weeks later, returning from a beer run after graduation practice, David, Johnny Cyr, and Ken Graham passed the local electric utility maintenance yard. A bucket truck was parked prominently against the fence parallel to the highway. Inhibitions suppressed by two or three bottles of liquid courage, all three seemed to form the idea at once. David slowed to reconnoiter the area.

"Do you suppose," he said, "there are keys in that truck?"

The padlock on the gate chain hung open. The truck was locked, but after a few minutes of searching they located a set of keys hidden inside the heavy channel-iron rear bumper. Stashing the Buick behind a pile of old transformers, they told themselves they were only borrowing the truck for a short while and would return before anybody realized anything was amiss. The three boys climbed in, David driving, and headed toward town.

The late afternoon road was mostly deserted; the occupants of the three or four cars they met paid them no heed. On the outskirts of town they stopped just out of sight of Johnny's house. He sneaked through the woods to the family shed and returned minutes later with a four-inch bristle brush and a partial gallon of paint. Closer to town they turned right onto the two-track road leading to Mann Hill. Sited on a plateau part way up, the town standpipe was an ancient bolted steel structure about forty feet tall. The color, a pastel green now faded, had been selected years ago by the elderly visually-impaired town waterworks superintendent to blend into the wooded backdrop. Even when fresh the paint contrasted with all natural foliage, and aging added nothing to its camouflaging capacity. Except on the very blackest of nights, the tank stood out against the hillside like a sore thumb, an excellent palette for what the boys had in mind.

David pulled the truck close to the town-facing side of the standpipe. It took the boys a few minutes and a couple more beers to figure out the bucket controls. They noisily and unanimously elected Johnny resident artist.

David popped the paint can cover and stared at the contents. "Blue paint? That won't even show up. I thought you said you had white."

"I thought it was white," responded the fledgling artist. "Anyway it's a dark blue. I'll make the lettering big. It'll show up."

Soon the standpipe sported, in large blue letters

CHS

CLASS OF 1963

As they lowered the bucket, the truck began to acquire a definite list toward the tank. The big dual rear wheels on the standpipe side were sinking into soft mud. David jumped in, shifted into bull low and floored the accelerator. The truck lurched forward slightly, the rear tires throwing gobs of mud fifty feet into the woods, then slowly continued tipping, coming to rest against the standpipe.

"Crap!" exclaimed Ken, noticing the contact between truck and tank and the set of approaching headlights at about the same time.

Somebody out on the main road had heard the racket up near the water tank, assumed it was a teenage party and called Al Johnson. Al pulled up beside the tipped truck, shined the patrol car's spotlight around and stepped out.

"Looks like you boys are in a bit of trouble."

They were caught red-handed, or in Johnny's case, blue-handed. All three stared sheepishly at the ground under the glare of Al's flashlight.

"I'm going to assume that all these nasty old beer bottles scattered around were here when you boys drove in," said Al. "But just to demonstrate what good citizens you are, I'd like you to pick them up, together with the other trash and put it all in that paper bag over there."

The boys complied, placing the bagful of bottles and trash in the trunk of the patrol car.

"I guess your car is stashed down around the electric company maintenance yard," Al continued, "but you fellows have been hanging around all these empty bottles for a while so I'm sure you have absorbed too many fumes to be driving. I'm going to drop each of you off at home and fill your folks in as to what you have been up to. Tomorrow afternoon, after I sort out the damages and charges, I'll drop by each of your houses for a chat. It would behoove you to be present when I arrive."

True to his word, Al came by the Gordons' house about 3:00 the following afternoon. After exchanging pleasantries with David's parents, Al got right down to business.

"David, you are eighteen now, an adult in the eyes of the law. What you and your friends did yesterday could buy you all criminal records that would stay with you for the rest of your lives–auto theft, breaking and entering, and defacing public property for openers. If found guilty in court, and I'm certain you would be, you could be looking at jail time. I'd hate to see you toss away your future because you are young and stupid. I think at some point you'll get over both. I've talked with both the waterworks superintendent and the electric company manager and they have agreed not to press charges provided they receive full restitution.

"The electric company wants compensation for righting and retrieving the truck as well as fuel. The water department superintendent would be very pleased if you show up at the standpipe promptly at 8:00 Saturday prepared to fill in the ruts and clean up the mess. I will be most displeased if you don't, and believe me you _do not_ want me displeased. Fortunately for you the water department had contracted to have the standpipe repainted this summer so you won't have to remove the graffiti. If you will come out to the patrol car with me I have a couple of papers for you to read and sign."

When they were out of earshot Al turned to David. "Dave," he said, "I think you and I need to have a private little talk. Your two friends will be ok; both are going off to college in the fall. I know you have a job lined up at the sawmill. If you continue in the direction you are headed you'll at best wind up living in a shack on the outskirts of town with a bunch of kids and half enough money to feed them. At worst, you'll really get into a mess and wind up in the Thomaston crowbar hotel making beautiful license plates without ever owning anything to hang one on."

"You remind me a lot of myself about twelve years ago. I grew up just down the road, you know, and was a pretty good quarterback at CHS. My parents couldn't afford college so I took a dead end job at the starch plant shoveling rotten potatoes. What a nasty, messy job that was! All of a sudden I was no longer a hometown hero; I was just another working stiff and a smelly one at that. It was pretty hard to go from star to nobody overnight. I didn't take it at all well, was in one scrape after another. I was so ugly and unhappy that most people couldn't even stand to be around me."

Al leaned against his patrol car. "I enlisted in the army and became an MP–military policeman–stationed in Germany, then in Korea. When I returned I used my G.I. Bill and enrolled in the police academy in Portland. I was a state trooper for a couple years, and when this job opened up I jumped at the chance to come home.

"You aren't dumb, Dave. I've seen your name in every high school honor roll published in the _Times_ over the past four years. I expect your folks could afford to send you to college, but if you aren't ready, do a hitch in the service. Sooner or later you'll be drafted anyway, but enlisting gives you leverage to choose training and duty stations. Who knows, perhaps you may decide to stay in. You might not think so now, but retiring on full pay at less than age fifty is a powerful incentive."

*****

After graduation David started work at the sawmill. The Buick was off-limits so he walked the two miles each way. He trudged home each evening, dog-tired and itchy from sweat and sawdust.

His first two weekly paychecks went directly to the electric company for his share of the restitution. The third check went to his parents for room and board. Finally after four weeks of hard work a paycheck became his.

Finally having gas money, he asked the mill owner for the following Tuesday morning off and begged his father to borrow the Buick. David headed for Houlton, the county seat and nearest community boasting more than a single street.

The Army Recruiting Office was a small room in the old Post Office with barely space for a desk and two chairs. The recruiter suggested that with his natural athletic ability he would be a good candidate for airborne training. The usual enlistment was three years but David committed to an additional year to be guaranteed parachute training. That day he signed on the dotted line contingent upon his passing a physical examination, an aptitude test, and furnishing a high school grade transcript. At noon he arrived home and was back at the sawmill at 1:00. He gave his notice that afternoon.

Two weeks later David arrived at Fort Dix, New Jersey, to begin Basic Training.

Naturally athletic and in good shape, he enjoyed the physical conditioning, marching, and close-order drill. The noise and constant harassment were less to his liking, but he excelled in most aspects of the eight-week course and qualified as Expert on the M-14 rifle.

The M-14 was intended to be a major advance in technology, but in practice was only a streamlined version of the M-1, the standard semi-automatic American infantryman's weapon of World War II and Korea. Introduced in the early 1960s with a selectable full automatic option, the M-14 proved uncontrollable in that mode and fell short of the Pentagon's intent that each soldier be equipped with an effective automatic weapon.

After graduating Basic Training, David remained at Fort Dix for his next eight week course, Advanced Infantry Training (AIT). Like Basic Training, AIT was very physical, and he learned squad and platoon tactics, qualifying on several additional weapons: the M-60 squad machine gun, the .50 caliber heavy machine gun, and the 60 mm mortar. At the end of AIT the Army, true to its word, issued orders sending him to Fort Benning, Georgia for three week jump school.

David learned almost immediately that the military parachute does not lower one feather lightly to the ground. The impact was similar to jumping from a third or fourth story window. The trainees spent the first week practicing landings–knees and feet together then roll to absorb the shock and prevent impact damage. They moved on to tower jumps the second week. During the third week they made five actual jumps, the first with only fatigue uniforms, then with increasing loads of combat gear. The chutes were somewhat steerable and David managed to land reasonably close to his drop zone each time. Although nervous at first, he actually enjoyed the subsequent jumps. The final jump was at night, but the drop zone was lit to guide them in.

The school graduation ceremony was short. David pinned on his new basic parachutist badge and immediately received orders to join the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

He spent the following months as one of a nine man rifle squad–training, practicing, and retraining. At the end of his first year he was a Private First Class with more than fifty jumps to his credit, including some high altitude insertion types using cold weather gear and oxygen. A harbinger of things to come, the 82nd also trained on the UH-1 "Huey" helicopter. David enjoyed every minute, bonded with his fellow soldiers and fully expected to be an Army "lifer."

Toward the end of the second year his platoon sergeant, Jim Webber, pulled him aside. "Dave," he said, "Your promotion just came through. As of tomorrow you are a two-striper. You have what it takes to move up through the noncommissioned officer ranks or even to go to Officer Candidate School should you wish to pursue that route. A Ranger tab would grease the skids either way. It is far from easy, in fact it will be the toughest training you'll ever do in the Army, but right now while you are in top physical shape and have the opportunity I think you should apply to Ranger School."

Ranger School was the most challenging period of David's life–two months of constant physical exhaustion and mental stress starting at Fort Benning, then to the wilds of the Georgia Mountains and on to the Florida heat and swamps. The school mimicked combat conditions and was designed to separate the weak from the strong. Nearly half dropped out prior to graduation. Dealing with Florida's late summer steamy heat, muck, mosquitoes, snakes, and alligators on little food, no sleep, and constant toil drove David close to quitting. He somehow summoned from his reserves the extra strength to hang on.

David was pleased and proud when on graduation day at Fort Benning, Staff Sergeant Webber showed up to pin the Ranger tab onto the left shoulder of his uniform.

"Damn you, Webber," he joked, "had I known what you were setting me up for I'd have kicked your ass just for suggesting it."

"I went through it a few years ago," responded Jim, "and you know how misery loves company. Besides, I heard they eased off lately because all you new guys are candy-asses and they didn't want to flunk everyone."

Except for an occasional brief letter from his mother, David had no knowledge of family happenings or news of friends and classmates during the last two years. He applied for and was immediately granted a thirty day leave, took a bus to Charlotte, then flew military standby to Bangor via Washington and Boston. In Bangor he boarded a Greyhound bus that dropped him at about noon in the center of town. He had given no forewarning of his return, so he shouldered his duffle bag to begin the five mile walk to the farm. He got no further than twenty feet before Ken Bragdon, the town rural letter carrier, stopped beside him.

"Well David, ain't you a sight for sore eyes," he exclaimed. "A paratrooper with a Ranger tab to boot. Never mentioned it to many but I was a Ranger once, part of the force that took Pointe Du Hoc on D-Day. Can I offer you a ride home?"

David was taken aback that the quiet, balding, fortyish little man who delivered mail to the farm RFD box for as long as he could remember was a part of Ranger legend.

His mom nearly fainted when David walked in. She kissed him, and then held him at arm's length, looking him over.

"Lord," she said, "don't they feed you at that army post? If you stand sideways its hard to see you. I'm going to have to fatten you up some before we send you back."

His father walked in an hour later. His greeting was more reserved but David knew he was pleased.

David enjoyed sleeping in his own bed. He spent the first week of his leave at the farm busy with painting and carpentry work around the house and outbuildings. All his high school friends were in college, working somewhere or in the military themselves.

David's father, with his usual efficiency, had the potato harvest all planned–the digger operators, truck drivers and pickers all lined up. The pickers would be kids, kindergarten through high school. County schools closed for the first three weeks of October during the harvest and remained open through June to compensate. David's brother John planned to take some time off from his USDA job downstate to act as paymaster and field boss. John would eventually take over the farm, and David was not in the least dissatisfied with that prospect.

After a boring week of odd jobs, David said over breakfast one morning, "Dad, I'd like to go in to camp for a week or two."

His father smiled. "There will be a rental charge," he replied. "Last fall during deer season John and I cut a good pile of firewood and left it in the camp yard to season. While you are there, split up what you can and pile it in the woodshed."

Gordons had owned the old log camp for nearly as long as the farm. It was the sole remaining structure of what was once a large logging operation on the east bank of the Waskeag River about eight miles upstream from town. David's grandfather bought the boss's quarters from the timber company once all marketable wood in the area had been harvested.

Had it not been for the pressures of farming the Gordons would have frequented the camp more while David was growing up. But in spring, when trout fishing was at its best, planting took precedence. When the foliage and partridge season arrived in October, the harvest was in full swing. Father and the two boys made short summer visits. Although trout fishing was slow, the cold deep river spring holes reliably produced a few. After the harvest, they usually went for a week or two of deer hunting. _Perhaps,_ thought David, _I dislike farming so much because of the inflexible schedule it imposes._

*****

The river was too low to take a canoe up without a lot of difficulty. David shouldered a pack and followed the old road along its east bank. In his right hand he carried his 20 gauge double barrel shotgun. There were, according to his father, plenty of canned goods in the camp so David packed only a few perishable grocery items: bacon, two dozen carefully cushioned eggs, and a couple loaves of his mother's home-baked bread.

The path, narrow and wet in spots overgrown by alders, was all that remained of the old winter road over which horse teams a century ago pulled freight sleds laden with food and equipment for the upriver lumber camps. David enjoyed the walk, savoring the unique autumn earthy smell, colorful beauty, and quietness of the woods. Twice, partridge exploded from the brush beside the trail, zigzagging like feathered missiles through the trees. David shot both on the wing, quickly dressed them and tucked the plump breasts inside his pack for his supper.

In about four hours David strode into the camp yard, found the key in its usual spot beneath the outhouse eave, and opened the camp and shed padlocks. Everything appeared in good shape. He opened the camp doors and windows to air it out, then swept the floor, got a pillow, mattress, and sleeping bag from the big cedar plank chest and carried a bucket of water in from the spring. He placed the eggs and bacon into a large covered cooking pot to exclude animals and set the pot inside the spring house beside the ice-cold pool.

Next morning he attacked the pile of firewood, mostly hard maple and ash cut to length but unsplit. After lunch he took the shotgun and walked the ridge behind the camp, returning with three partridge breasts for his supper. Lamp kerosene was in short supply so he let the sun regulate his sleeping schedule–to bed shortly after twilight, up with the sun.

The following days consisted of much the same routine, chores in the morning, hunting in the afternoon on the ridges or the winter road. On rainy days he found inside chores–floor painting, installing coat pegs by the door, and stove cleaning and blacking. He worked through the firewood the first week. About a quarter of it became cookstove wood, split smaller than the quartered wood for the heater stove. John and his father also left a couple cut up dead cedars that David split into kindling. Neatly stacked in the shed, the wood measured about four cords, enough for several years of occasional camp use.

The second week he busied himself re-glazing some of the windows and painting the frames, manhandling a large flat river rock into place for a doorstep, and tightening calking between the logs. As the week drew to a close David prepared to leave and reflected on how much he had enjoyed the solitude. He had not been truly alone in over two years.

David hunted slowly on his way out, shooting his limit of four partridge. The hardwoods were mostly bare, making hunting easier than when he walked in. He expected that his mother would make a partridge pie, one of his favorites.

Nearing the end of the winter road, David saw a green pickup pulled a short distance in from the paved highway. As he approached, the driver's door opened and a game warden not much older than David stepped out. The name tag on his dark green uniform introduced him as Gary Smith.

Smiling, Gary said "I see you've been doing a little hunting."

"I've been upriver at the Gordon camp for a couple of weeks" replied David.

"Do you have your license with you?" Gary asked.

"I don't have one," said David.

Gary's smile disappeared. "I'll need to see some identification then."

David pulled out his wallet and produced his military identification card.

"Oh, active duty military," Gary grinned. "You have free hunting and fishing privileges in Maine. I just stopped here for a few minutes to eat my lunch. Where are you headed?"

"My folks' farm is a little way up the road," David pointed.  
"The Gordon Farm," responded Gary. "I know where it is. I'm going right by, toss your pack in the back and I'll drop you off."

The men chatted during the ride. Gary was about ten years older from a small town near Bangor. As a youth he spent as much time as he could in the woods hunting, fishing, and trapping. Upon high school graduation he volunteered for the draft and served two years as an infantryman, mostly in Germany. Following his discharge, Gary passed the written and physical exam and joined the warden service. Recently married, he and his wife lived in Houlton.

David told Gary about jump school and ranger training. Gary seemed surprised that a corporal with just over two years of service was a Ranger.

"You know, if you ever decide to come back to Maine I think you'd be a good candidate for the warden service," he half-jokingly remarked.

David allowed as to how he expected to be an army "lifer".

The potato harvest was in full swing. David's mother was home; his father and brother were still in the fields. David washed up and greeted his father and John at the door. John embraced him and seemed genuinely pleased that he was home. They sat down to a family favorite: rib roast dinner with mashed potatoes, carrots and peas.

Over the supper table the four had a cordial discussion regarding the future of the Gordon Farm. Father was nearing retirement and he and mother were looking forward to spending the colder months in Zephyrhills, FL, the winter destination it seemed for much of Maine's elderly population. David reiterated that he expected to be a career soldier and had no interest in farm ownership or operation.

The following June, John planned to marry a girl from downstate who had visited the farm several times and won rave reviews from David's parents. John and his intended had already discussed the possibility of relocating to Aroostook to operate the farm. John reported that she was very enthusiastic about the prospect. The four agreed that when father decided to retire, John would resign his USDA job and become sole owner and operator of Gordon Farm.

The next day David donned his uniform and John gave him a ride to the Greyhound Bus stop. "Take care of yourself, little brother," he said as David unloaded his duffle. "You have chosen a dangerous occupation."

"I'll be fine, John" David replied. "I'll try to get back for your wedding but I have a hunch I may be on the other side of the world." They hugged and John drove off.

Back at Fort Bragg David was promoted to buck sergeant–three stripes–and took over as squad leader. Training intensified. There was no question as to where they were going. A portion of the training centered on Vietnamese culture and language. They endlessly practiced embarking and disembarking from Hueys. The Hueys were lightly armored and had only a post-mounted .50 cal. at each door to suppress ground fire. Because a few well placed rifle shots could bring a Huey down, it was essential that the helicopters get in and out quickly.

In mid-February David's squad found itself in a wide flat valley in the foothills of South Vietnam's central highlands. A rural agricultural area, there wasn't much around except jungle, rice paddies and three small villages of twenty or thirty thatched roof "hooches" each. The Americans immediately dubbed the area "Happy Valley."

It was far from happy. The enemy, the anti-government guerrilla force known as the Viet Cong intimidated the villagers, under threat of torture or death, to feed and house them. The military phonetic alphabet for VC was "Victor Charlie," or simply "Charlie."

The Americans labored for six weeks, digging and filling sandbags to build what amounted to a small fort enclosed by concertina wire–Fire Base Blue. The main purpose of the fire base was to accommodate a battery of six 105 mm howitzers intended to support infantry operations in the area. Given the guerrilla nature of the enemy David couldn't imagine what the artillery might target. The artillery crews were supplied with plenty of star shells so the guns would at least be useful in illuminating the perimeter during night attacks.

For whatever reason, Charlie chose to ignore the construction. The Americans repeatedly sent patrols with translators into the villages seeking information regarding VC strength and locations. The villagers were friendly enough but disavowed knowledge of any VC presence in the area. They had little choice. The Americans could not possibly defend them or their families against VC retribution.

David received his fourth stripe–three up, one down–a month after arriving in Vietnam and continued to command his rifle squad. Shortly before the fire base was completed the nightly mortar attacks began. At about ten o'clock the VC would loose three or four rounds over the wire then disappear. They fired from random locations and used no aiming system, simply tipping the tube in the general direction. The thick sand bag revetments and roofs usually ensured that the rounds exploded harmlessly. The grunts, as the American soldiers called themselves, took to calling the VC mortar crew "Ten O'clock Charlie."

One night in mid-May, Ten O'clock Charlie got lucky. Platoon sergeant Webber, now a Sergeant First Class, was making his nightly rounds with the Spec. 4 Company Clerk and a PFC from one of the rifle squads. Charlie landed a round directly on top of them, killing the PFC and Company Clerk and filling Webber's legs with shrapnel. The medics numbed him with morphine and staunched the bleeding. A Huey airlifted him out the following morning together with the two fatalities. _One of our first casualties was the Company Clerk,_ thought David. _Poor little son of a bitch wasn't even an infantryman._

Captain Spaulding, the company commander, promoted David to platoon sergeant, filling Webber's slot.

About two weeks later, Captain Spaulding announced that their M-14s were to be replaced by the M-16. The M-16 was, according to him, "the answer to a maiden's prayer." A light, semi- or fully-automatic assault rifle, firing a .223 caliber high velocity round, it was touted as tough, reliable and non-jamming–so reliable even when dirty that it was shipped without a cleaning kit.

Training the next week at an improvised range inside the wire, the soldiers quickly discovered that the M-16s were nowhere near as advertised. Once dirty, either from firing or from grit and mud, they had a propensity to jam, not feed, double feed or fail to extract. Usually the only way to correct the problem was to field-strip the rifle. The grunts started referring to their new guns as "goddamned poodle shooters."

The soldiers had no choice but to make the best of a bad situation. To hopefully buy a little time to clear a jam during a firefight, most doubled up on the number of grenades they carried.

The monsoon began in early June. The blinding rains were the cover for which the VC had been waiting to lay siege to Fire Base Blue. The torrents eliminated any possibility of air support and turned the silty soil to mire. The grunts were like fish in a barrel. Charlie shelled and mortared them all day, the continuous detonations and shaking ground fraying their nerves to the breaking point. At night Charlie penetrated the wire in waves, forcing the Americans to fight hand-to-hand with rifle butts, knives, and fists. Each gloomy dawn revealed the bodies of grunts killed in their fighting holes, many with jammed M-16s still in their hands or lying nearby.

The VC used the Russian-designed AK-47 assault rifle. _They look like a piece of crap,_ thought David, _mostly stamped metal, but Comrade Kalashnikov was a design genius._ The guns were simple to manufacture and could be dragged through a rice paddy all day and still fired when needed. The AK used a heavier, slower bullet than the M-16 _,_ each with a distinctive sound–the AK a loud boom, boom, boom; the M-16 a softer crack, crack, crack.

Re-supply and casualty evacuation were a problem. The Hueys, not equipped for instrument flight, were forced to fly beneath the clouds. Despite the best efforts of the door gunners to keep Charlie's head down, the helicopters were easy targets. Few arrived undamaged. One Huey shot full of holes sat abandoned where it crash-landed at the edge of the helipad. Another, outbound with wounded, to David's horror became a fireball just yards beyond the wire.

As the siege progressed, more and more Americans began discarding their M-16s in favor of AKs and ammunition from enemy dead. At night it seemed that nearly as much AK fire came from inside the wire as from outside. _Goddamn those early M-16s,_ thought David bitterly, _I hope the incompetent pentagon rear-echelon fucks that saddled us with them eventually rot in hell._

After ten days the monsoon began to lift. Planes saturation-bombed the jungle right up to the wire, forcing the surviving VC to abandon the siege.

The siege of Fire Base Blue decimated the company and cost nearly half of David's platoon. _A staff sergeant without a staff,_ he thought bitterly. Closing his eyes, David could see each face. Blinking, he could see each of the dead. Some appeared to be in childlike sleep until one noticed the small round hole in the temple or the darkening stain on the fatigue shirt. Many died in wide-eyed surprise, seemingly amazed that it was _his_ turn. Others, the mortar and artillery casualties, were piles of meat, guts, and shit, identifiable only by dog tags or by dental records if the head were there. David expected to see death; it was inevitable in his profession, but never imagined it would smell so bad. He recalled the grunts puking as they shoveled the messes into body bags.

Weeks later, Captain Spaulding announced that the Army was supplying them with a new and improved version of the M-16, the M-16A-1 modified to address the problems with the M-16. _Wonderful!_ thought David. _I'll bet those kids we sent home from Happy Valley in body bags will be absolutely fucking delighted._

The Fire Base Blue experience left David bitter and withdrawn. Many nights he awoke screaming, black shadows haunting him from the darkness. Whenever the opportunity arose, he found a night's peace at the bottom of a bottle.

The M-16 fiasco had been swept far beneath the Pentagon carpets by the end of David's four-year enlistment. Nobody but the grunts would suffer any adverse consequences. Although his faith in and enthusiasm for the military was much diminished, David concluded that he had invested too much to walk away. He reluctantly reenlisted for four more years.

Two out of his next four years were Vietnam tours. He proved a competent platoon leader but with a negative attitude obvious to his superiors. There would be no further promotions.

As the long war ground on, David became convinced that only the VC and the North Vietnamese Army wanted to win it. The Army of The Republic of South Vietnam soldiers–"the good guys"–weren't particularly interested in supporting their corrupt Saigon government. They were content to let the Americans do the fighting and dying while they prospered by selling as much American equipment and supplies on the black market as they could liberate.

The grunts wanted only to survive their one-year tours and return home to their cars and girls, "The World" as they called it. To American field officers, combat meant promotions–the more prolonged the war, the more rank came their way. The Pentagon viewed Vietnam as a testing ground for new weapons and tactics.

By the end of his final tour David was aware that the majority of its citizens opposed America's involvement in the war and he realized he shared their position.

When his enlistment expired David knew it was over. He mustered out at Fort Bragg, donned a set of civilian clothes, and headed for home. The bus dropped him in front of the drug store in the center of town and he shouldered his duffle bag and trudged the five miles to the Gordon farm. John opened the door at his knock, hesitated in shocked surprise, then hugged him and invited him in.

"Alice," he called. "You'll never guess who's here!"

John's wife came from the kitchen, a toddler hard on her heels.

"Alice, this is my wayward brother David who you have heard so much about. Dave, this is Alice and the young fellow is Joshua–Josh for short. He'll be two next month. As you can see we're operating the farm now, have been for the past three years. Mom and Dad have a little apartment in Houlton when they aren't in Florida. Hope you plan to stay with us while you're home. As you know we have plenty of room."

David briefly explained that he was no longer a soldier and would be looking for work in town. John and Alice exchanged puzzled glances.

"Guess you can have your old room," John said. "It hasn't changed much. We'll find you some sheets and blankets."

David carried his duffle upstairs and made up the bed. When he returned downstairs John was out at the tractor shed. David sat in the living room where Josh played on the floor and talked in a non-stop mostly unintelligible chatter.

Alice was tall and thin, nervous and tight-lipped with long dark hair pulled into a pony tail. She reminded David of his spinster fourth grade teacher. She continuously flitted between the kitchen and living room checking, he supposed, on the interaction between him and Josh. Finally, he asked "Do I make you nervous, Alice?"

"Yes, frankly you do. I can't understand how my husband's brother could be involved in an immoral war against a group of patriots who simply want to reunite their country. American soldiers are macho thugs with no sense of compassion or morality and I can't believe we are housing one under our roof. I'll feed you supper and you may stay the night but I'd prefer that you make other arrangements beyond that."

The next morning, David hung his uniform in the closet, packed his few civilian clothes into a knapsack and asked John for a ride into town. He told John that he wanted to stay in town because it was closer to potential work. John dropped him at Annie's Rooming House, where he paid two weeks in advance for a small dingy upstairs room. Then he walked up to the sawmill and found that they could use a hand.

At the mill, David found himself doing the same work he had left eight years before. Evenings he went for a hamburger at Jimmy's Bar and Grill. He nursed a beer with the burger then tossed down several boilermakers and weaved his way back to Annie's. A small table at the rear soon became his and he spent his evenings facing the door and drinking in sullen silence. After the first week or so the regulars dubbed him "Dangerous Dave."

Julie, the barmaid at Jimmy's, had a few years on David. Although her youthful good looks had faded she still retained a decent figure tightly wrapped in a low-cut blouse and painted-on jeans. Julie took a fancy to David and invited him to share her apartment. The sex was great and all was well for a few nights until David went to bed a bit too sober and had one of his dreams. She was certain he was going to murder her but somehow slapped him awake and maneuvered him into a cold shower. Locking her bedroom door, she banished him to the living room for the remainder of the night and sent him back to Annie's the next day.

*****

Arthur Butts was a Hell's Angel, or at least so fancied himself. Rugged, bullet-headed, attired in black leather and ill-tempered, he and his big Harley were quite impressive as he cruised small Aroostook county towns mostly looking for someone to bully. In truth he was somewhat a laughing stock; nobody gave much credence to a one man Hell's Angel's chapter. One September evening Arthur appeared at Jimmy's, his big frame filling the door as he strode in. Spotting David at his usual table, Arthur was immediately in his face.

"Well, if it isn't Sergeant Gordon of Vietnam fame. Couldn't stand the heat I understand. Killed too many babies, perhaps?"

None of the half-dozen patrons saw exactly what happened; it was over before they could focus. Arthur lay face up on the floor, unconscious and bleeding copiously from both nostrils. David sat silently for a moment, chased his last shot with the remainder of his beer while Arthur gurgled and twitched on the floor, then laid a bill on the table and ambled out.

Back at Annie's, David slept fitfully and rose before dawn to stuff his modest assemblage of worldly goods into his knapsack. Sometime in the wee hours he heard Arthur's motorcycle start. He guessed Arthur was probably alive but he expected Al Johnson to show up any time with an assault warrant. After breakfast at the diner, David bought some canned groceries at the general store then stopped at the Green Front for a fifth of S.S. Pierce Red Label whiskey. His knapsack full, he trudged to the Waskeag River Bridge and turned up the old river road toward camp. He had no specific plan except to escape a world that neither wanted nor fitted him any longer. The building autumn foliage colors were lost on him as he walked head down, pondering what was and what never would be.

Somebody had left an open container of oatmeal and mice had scattered its contents and their droppings throughout the camp. Nobody had performed any maintenance since David was there nearly six years ago. _Was it really six years? Seems like yesterday._ David didn't much care about camp condition. He located a sleeping bag in the blanket box–the mice hadn't gotten in there yet. He unrolled it onto a bunk and broke out the fifth.

He had intended to ration the whisky but awoke the next morning in the cold dirty camp with the half-empty bottle beside him. As he lay collecting his senses it dawned on him that mice were everywhere–scampering across the floor, running across the kitchen counter, one even crawling out of his knapsack. _Jesus,_ he thought, _I might as well be in a New York City flophouse._ He dressed and then rummaged through the cupboards coming up with six mouse traps and two four-packs of d-Con. His father and brother had apparently been in during the summer and left a supply of miscellaneous groceries. He baited the six traps with peanut butter and in the time it took to fetch a bucket of spring water eliminated six mice. He spent the day frantically cleaning and scrubbing, trapping more mice each time he left the camp for a few minutes.

At twilight, after a nightcap, he crawled exhausted into his bunk. The six traps snapped nearly simultaneously as he drifted off and slept soundly and dreamlessly. He busied himself the following days cleaning, repairing and tightening the camp. There was the usual pile of seasoned unsplit wood in the camp yard. He attacked it and filled the woodshed.

Each day was infinitesimally better. The past slowly faded, and with it his nightmares. The fifth, with two inches of whiskey, sat half-forgotten on the shelf beside the sink. Still, David had no plan beyond surviving each day. He lost track of time. By what he guessed was mid-October he ran out of the meager supply of canned meat and sardines, but there remained an ample stock of canned carrots, peas, and corn. David supplemented the veggies with rabbit meat from wire snares set in the snowshoe hare trails among the small firs–illegal, but he wasn't much worried about a warden showing up.

John and their father paddled up in the canoe for deer hunting in early November. They knew that David had left town and weren't particularly surprised to find him at camp. Although they planned to stay only a week, the canoe was burdened with much more food than they could possibly have eaten. David acted as camp cook each day while John and their father hunted the ridges and swamps behind the camp. Both saw deer, usually the flicker of a departing tail, but neither fired a shot.

Before they left the following Sunday, David said, "Dad, I'm going to stay in here for a while. I don't know if I'll be here all winter but I'm not ready to come out yet. If you leave me your rifle I'll bring it out."

A few days later staked out in a nearby thicket David heard the deer coming and thumbed the .30-30 hammer to full cock. When the buck stepped out he laid the iron sights slightly behind the forward shoulder and squeezed off a round. The forkhorn jumped once and collapsed, dead before he hit the ground. David dragged him back to camp and hung him in the shed. The temperature was now seldom above freezing so David left the skinned carcass hanging in the shed, slicing off meat as needed.

*****

He still hadn't bothered to keep track of time but figured it was probably early January as he stood watching the camp burn. _Happy fucking New Year!_ He quickly backed away to the shed as the box of .30-30 rounds began cooking off. He supposed that the brass casings were splitting, but they made a hell of a noise and there was always a possibility of a stray piece of shrapnel.

Through the shed windows the waning fire bathed its interior in a flickering half-light. Shivering, David entered to check for anything useful. His snowshoes were just inside the door. Other than snowshoes there was little–an old flannel shirt, an army fatigue shirt, and a red hunting cap. No gloves or footwear. Using a set of snips on the bench, David cut the sleeves from the flannel shirt. He pulled them over his already numb feet and secured them with black electrical tape from the bench. _Cotton kills,_ he thought, _but it's better than bare feet._ He donned the sleeveless flannel shirt and pulled the fatigue shirt on over it.

The black night sky was beginning to gray as David started down the river road toward town. His feet fit into the snowshoe harnesses quite well. At first they hurt but numbness soon blocked the pain. His soles immediately behind the toes soon chafed raw and began to bleed, leaving a bloody spot in the center of each snowshoe print. Two days ago a soft fluffy snow had covered the older crust. The snowshoes sank through the top layer requiring David to lift the shoe each step. Before long he was laboriously plowing the snow rather than stepping high.

When his fingers began to freeze he hugged himself as he walked, putting his hands in his armpits. This worked to warm his hands but threw him off-balance. He fell frequently, scratching his face and nearly losing an eye to a twig in one particularly bad spill. It became harder to rise after each fall.

He kept setting one foot ahead of the other. He couldn't feel his feet but could still move his toes– _a good thing,_ he figured. When the sun reached its zenith in the southern sky David had exhausted the last of his strength. He needed to sleep, _only for a few minutes,_ he told himself, _and then I'll be fresh and able to walk the rest of the way out._ He lost his balance a final time and collapsed in a heap.

*****

The two cousins had told their grandmother that they were going to try out their new cross-country skis on the old river road. It wasn't much fun, the powder was too deep and there weren't many hills to glide down anyway. Tommy, the oldest at fourteen, was about to turn back when he spotted what appeared to be an animal or pile of rags in the road ahead. Eric caught up and both stood studying the distant object. Tommy pushed closer, and then turned to Eric.

"It's Dangerous Dave! I guess he's probably drunk but he doesn't look good and hasn't got much on for clothes. You stay with him while I get some help."

David was able to hear the boys, muffled, far away as if in another room. He couldn't summon strength to reply and foggily recalled a field medic in Vietnam commenting that hearing is the last sense to go. He felt the boy touch his face, lay something over his legs, and heard him ask repeatedly, "Are you okay, mister?"

Something in the boy's voice ignited a spark of recognition. "N...N...Name?" he whispered.

"I'm Eric," he answered, "Eric Abbot."  
The boy had to listen carefully, but finally understood the man to ask, "Age?"

"I'm almost eight," said Eric. "My birthday is next month. I hope Mom is home for it."

"W... Who is Mom?"

"Mom's name is Sarah. She works in Bangor. I live with Grandma and Grandpa just a little ways from here."

As David was drifting back to sleep the sound of sirens pierced the frigid air. He had managed to struggle to within sight of the paved roadway. The ambulance crew loaded him onto a stretcher, walking in the boy's ski tracks and doing their best not to drop him. In the ambulance, the paramedic started an IV, trying to raise his core temperature while simultaneously keeping his extremities cool to minimize frostbite damage. With the terrified paramedic hanging on with one hand and trying to minister to David with the other, the driver barreled for Eastern Maine Medical Center. They careened the first twenty miles over winding icy two-lane roads, and the last seventy wide-open down Interstate 95. They made the trip in just over an hour.

David knew he was on his back in a hospital bed, but had no idea where or for how long. He could see, but it was like peering through a heavily frosted window. There seemed to be a tent of some sort over his feet. _Jesus, he thought, did I lose my feet? Am I going to be like some of those poor bastards we loaded onto the Hueys?_ He tried wiggling his toes. They seemed to move but he wondered if his brain was just sending messages to severed nerve endings.

Beyond the foot of his bed a blue-green shadow approached. David strained to focus on the little Hispanic man whose horn-rimmed glasses seemed to cover half his face.

"How are you feeling?"

Without waiting for a response he continued, "I'm Doctor Ortiz. You are fortunate to be alive. You arrived here with the lowest core temperature I have ever observed in a living human being."

The doctor came closer. "I have some bad news and some good news."

"Bad first," said David.

"Your feet were in pretty rough shape. We had to amputate both little toes and debride other dead tissue. The good news is that your circulation is excellent and your feet should heal well. The amputations will have very minimal impact on your mobility. I think the deep soft snow somewhat insulated your feet and the boys who found you helped prevent further damage by wrapping them in a jacket. Your hands will be puffy and sore for a few days but should also recover fully. Further, there is no sign of damage to your heart or other organs. You are one tough hombre, David. I expect you'll be out of here in a week."

A day, perhaps two, later–it was hard to keep track of time–David had another visitor. Al Johnson had sprouted grey hairs at his temples and was working on a lawman's belly, but David recognized him immediately.

"I suppose you've come to talk about Arthur Butts," said David resignedly.

"Hell no," replied Al. "He came to Jimmy's looking for trouble and that's exactly what he found. You gave him what he deserved. Besides, we caught him six weeks or so ago breaking into some camps on Moose Pond, not the first time either. He's enjoying a state-financed vacation in the Thomaston pokey at the moment. I don't think we have anything to discuss regarding Arthur. I guess I came to see you out of guilt, Dave. I gave you at least a gentle push, perhaps a shove, in the direction of the military and I feel bad that it didn't work out for you."

"It wasn't your fault, Al," David responded. "It was just a different time and I found myself involved in a piece of hell for no good purpose. The whole god-damned thing was crazy."

"I ran into the local warden, Gary Smith, the other day and your name came up," said Al. "Gary said he met you a few years ago coming out from camp and told you that if you ever left the army there would probably be a place in the warden service for you. He meant it, Dave. Give it some thought and if you are interested I'll be more than pleased to help with the application paperwork. I'm certain you would pass the exams and with Gary speaking for you you'd be a shoo-in. Here's my card. Give me a call when you're ready."

David didn't immediately recognize the nurse who hesitantly strolled in. Even in her loose unisex blue scrubs he could see that she was shapely, pretty, and vaguely familiar. "Hi David," she whispered shyly.

A number of emotions fought their way into David's consciousness as recognition came over him.

"Jesus, Sarah, I didn't know you were a nurse. Why didn't you tell me about Eric?"

"I had dreams, David, and they didn't include being stuck in a one-horse town with an ex-jock sawmill worker that I hardly knew. When I realized I was pregnant I planned to give the baby up for adoption but my parents wouldn't hear of it. When he was born you were soldiering half a world away. My parents pretty much raised him while I went to nursing school. I make good money and pay his expenses, although I don't see him as much as I'd like."

"What have you told him about me?" asked David.

"I told him that his Dad went into the army before he was born and never returned, neither the truth nor a complete lie. If you are home to stay I suppose you'll have to play a part in his life, but don't come bumbling in. I'll have to tell him."

For the first time David noticed the plain gold band on her left ring finger. "You're married?"

"I was, briefly. He's a realtor here in Bangor considerably older than me. We met when I started working here. I thought he was my access to a nice home and financial security, but we should have talked a lot more. It turned out that he neither liked kids nor the idea of me working. We parted amicably after a few months." She grinned. "I wear this ring mostly to discourage riffraff like you from hitting on me."

"Perhaps when I get out of here in a few days we can have dinner and discuss this riff-raff thing a bit more," said David.

"I'll think about it," she replied, then turned and left.

Shortly after, David noticed the scrap of paper on his tray table. Written in a neat feminine hand was _Sarah Abbot 945-0830._

My Word

Alan Breese Tisdale

I had a word just a moment ago;

I saw it; I heard it, as plain as day.

It tripped off my tongue, as some of them do,

Then fell to the side as others crept in.

It was a good word, and it fit right in:

Explaining whatever I'd had before.

It wasn't political, not obscene;

Not condescending, nor was it mundane.

I'm not giving up, I'm just hanging on;

I'll bring up a new thought, and just go there -

New words will appear, and maybe by that

I'll stumble cross my Very Good Word.

Caldecott? Mariott? Neither of those...

Balderdash? Poppycock? Oh, no, not them.

Surreptitious? Inflammatory? No!

Congregational? Prepositional?

Think, man, think! All of the words that you know,

Order them up from the depths of your mind.

Imagine yourself at a game of words

Where the word that you had could win it all.

I thought and I thought, and I thought some more;

Then I pondered and pondered, but alas:

The word that I'd sought was not to be found.

How could I face all the writers I know?

And then it just hit me - yes, just like that! -

MY WORD! MY WORD! -

\- (Oh! What the Hell?!) Now, where'd that mother go??

About the Authors

Suzanne S. Austin-Hill is a freelance writer, poet and photographer. She credits her participation in the SouthShore Adult Writing Group for easing her transition from technical writing to more soulful forms of expression. Her written work has appeared in Daily Devotions for the Deaf (in English and American Sign Language), The Tampa Bay Times, Mature Living, Lifestyles AFTER 50, and The News of Kings Point. She won First Place in the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative 2013 Lit Wit Humorous Poetry Contest. Her iPhone photographs will be featured in the John Crawford Art Education Studio and two of her photographs were awarded First Place in the 2013 Camp Bayou Annual Photo Contest, both in in Ruskin, FL.

Lad Castle was born Eladio Del Castillo in the old section of Tampa, Florida known as Ybor City. His first job was stripping tobacco leaves at the age of ten in his family's Babalu Cigar Factory. He began writing after retiring to Sun City Center, Florida. He is an alumnus of the Long Ridge (CT) Writers Group and has since published two children's books and several short stories. You can contact him at Laddcastle@gmail.com.

Gayle B. Duke was born and raised in Atlanta, GA. She graduated from the University of South Florida with a major in Mass Communications (Public Relations). She has been adopted by the University of Florida football team.

**Ruthe Foy** is a Philadelphia native recently transplanted to the Tampa, Florida area. As a Wall Street alumnus, Ruthe spent many years as a computer analyst while dreaming of becoming a fiction writer. She is currently an active member of TARA and RWA, has written several screenplays, and has submitted several short stories for publication. She is currently working on a romance novel and dreams of writing cozy mysteries.

**Jerome Levy** retired in 2012 at age 70 from an active practice of law and mediation in Texas. During his years of practice he litigated or mediated more than 2,500 law suits. From 1995-2011, he published a book each year about various aspect of the law. Now, he is writing books of fiction, the first of which was published in 2013.

A Maine native, **Steve Murray** is a retired professional civil engineer and a Vietnam era U.S. Army veteran. He lives in Riverview, Florida with his wife, Marcia.

**Nichole Somme** is a nom de plume. The author worked as a professional actress, singer, and dancer for many years, landing numerous roles in live theater, TV, and movies. She began writing while living in Laguna Beach, California. Now retired, she lives in southwest Florida with her husband, Jon, where they enjoy cooking, rock 'n' roll music, live theater, and travel. Their goal is to visit every Island in the Caribbean at least once.

**Michael Sonneveldt** lives in Sun City Center, FL.

**Alan Breese Tisdale** is the author of _Words I Just Happened to Find_ (Gardenia, 2006), a volume of poetry. He writes articles, essays, and, yes, more poetry, all of which have been crafted largely after his retirement from a career as a practicing architect in which he was involved not only with design but in the writing of technical specifications. He has successfully left behind the humdrum of the precise world of tech language and has blazed a trail through the esoteric to create his enjoyable new works of humor, introspection, and provocation of thought.

Leaving behind her beloved Sierra, **Robin Watt** flew to the shores of Florida's warm waters, pursuing a new life. Amidst throngs of strangers, she found her soul mate, love and happiness, and self-expression through literary efforts. Her novel, _Moon of the Hawk_ (May 2011), rides through the turmoil of a best friend's murder. _Right Under My No_ se– _Short Stories with a Purpose_ (December 2012) reflects her love of dogs and their service and bond with people. (Her story, "Gator Man," included here, is from this collection.) Set in Orlando, _Karma Sux_ , her third novel, is a crime story about the trials and tribulations of the police brotherhood. She has two other novels in the works and many more characters living in her brain hoping for an escape in the near future.

**Gloria Wilkinson** began her second life upon turning 50. With her children grown and her marriage ended, she became a clown and entertained at children's birthday parties for two years before following her dream to run away with a circus where she worked in the wardrobe department for 12 years traveling all over the country. At 66, she retired and worked on some independent films as costume designer and built big walk-around costumes and side show illusions. Writing came as a fun way to relive the many memories she had of her travels.

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SHO Writing Group

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