dontravis.com blog post #562
Hope you enjoyed Markey’s story. Went from a cute kid to a sultry seducer in three easy installments.
This
week, I want to offer another look at fellow Okie author Donald T. Morgan’s
Ebook, The Eagle’s Claw. Some time ago, I gave you a glimpse of the prologue,
now let’s look at Chapter 1where we meet protagonist Román Otero (or Ro as he
comes to be known) as a child. The book is the story of a half-breed boy growing into manhood with a
foot in two different worlds, both of which deal him trouble.
THE
EAGLE’S CLAW
By
Donald T. Morgan
CHAPTER 1
The
store in White Pine wasn’t open yet, so he played in the mud puddle beneath a
faucet for a quarter of an hour before it occurred to him to wash his face and
hands. When the place finally opened, he swapped the empties for a full bottle
of strawberry. Like he figured, the man refused to pay for the nicked Coke
bottle.
He
collected his scrawny pony and rode deep into Dead Scout Canyon where the mare
could graze while he nursed his drink. It was no longer cold, but he didn’t
mind. Warm soda pop made him burp, and he liked to burp. The bubbly water
filled an empty belly better than anything. And red strawberry was the best of
all. A man would never be hungry if
he could buy four bottles a day.
For no
reason other than his thoughts were so bent, he belched loudly, once in each
cardinal direction, beginning in the east as all things begin and proceeding as
the hands of a white man’s clock move. The ritual complete, he drained the bottle
and dropped it on a rock.
The
noise flushed a woolly spider from beneath the flat stone. Román nudged the
creature with his toe. It scooted sideways on eight hairy legs and then froze.
Cane-Woman said that if you killed a spider, its relatives would try to kill you.
And his grandmother knew about such things. He hesitated, his foot suspended
above the tiny animal. Abruptly, he dropped his heel.
“The
white man at the Agency did it. The one with fuzzy hair that’s falling out on
top,” he lied to the dead spider and all its kin. For emphasis, he nodded in
the direction of the Indian Affairs Office in the settlement. There. That
should fool the spiders. They weren’t very smart.
When
he began moving again, he sensed he was not alone in the canyon. The hair on
the back of his neck and the faint clink of stone from the deep shadows told
him so. In that moment, he felt a kinship with ancestors who lived when danger
covered the earth like a blanket. He decided to stay…even though the image of a
huge Grandfather Spider bent on revenge crawled across his mind.
After
tying the mare to a piñon, he headed for an outcrop where he could hide. Maybe the
presence was other than natural. For years, he’d listened to tales of the Mana,
the Great-Power-Flooding-the-Universe, and of the ga’an, the Mountain Spirits
of his grandmother’s winter stories. Everybody said Cane-Woman knew Eagle, and
that he gave her great power, although Román wasn’t exactly sure how that
worked. But things might not be the same anymore. Was this world the same as
when the Old Way prevailed? He frowned as he recognized the words of Miss
Marshall, his last year’s teacher. Did his mind belong to the Indah
woman now?
The
mare whinnied and danced at the end of her reins. Whatever shared the canyon
was near. His eyes raked the tufa above him. He saw nothing that didn’t belong.
Ashamed of cowering behind rocks, he rose and poked his head over the boulder.
Below him, he saw his “presence.” No supernatural shared the canyon with him. It
was only Clarence Wolf sneaking up on his pony. He didn’t like Clarence very
much. A year older and almost twice Román’s size, Clare-Ass wasn’t just a Dumbo.
He was a bully, to boot.
Feeling
cheated his interloper was merely human—and an inferior one, at that—he scooped
up a handful of stones and ran down the hill raining missiles upon his enemy.
The bigger youngster retreated before the barrage to a more sheltered place.
They settled down to throwing rocks at one another with only sporadic accuracy
until the morning failed and his stomach began growling again. The sport gone
from the half-serious game, he reclaimed the mare and wandered off, leaving his
enemy to hurl obscenities at his back.
Abandoning
the high canyon to his foe, Román ranged down from the Capuchas onto the edge
of the desert. The noise in his gut grew stronger. Chewing a wad of sap from a
wounded piñon provided a little relief. He eyed a colony of prairie dogs, but
they were such wary little creatures he didn’t even unwind the slingshot tied around
his waist.
He
rode the mare down the steep side of Split Nose Gulch and came up out of the
gully hungrier than ever. He reined in and listened. Had he heard something?
No, it was just his head playing tricks on him. His head must be hungry too.
Then
from far away, so faint the wind must have whispered in his ear, he heard a
voice. He scouted and found nothing. Perhaps the ga’an toyed with him.
Or was it the One-Great-God-Who-Was-Three they talked about at the settlement
church? Weird. Three was such a strange number. He preferred four. Four was
good and natural. Four was the ritual number of his people.
There
it was again. Closer now. A cry for help. He skirted a clump of juniper and cut
the trail of a horse. Curiosity set him to following the tracks. The hoof
prints made straight for Blind Man’s Arroyo, an enormous ditch snaking down the
foothills that carried the spring runoff to the distant river. He dismounted, stepped
to the brink, and peered over the edge.
I’ve read the book, and
it’s well worth the read. You can find it on Amazon.
Stay safe and stay strong.
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Don
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