Tougher Days are Here Again

Grading time is upon me. I’m grading a test now in my Capstone class, and on Monday I’ll have two tests to grade. Senior grades—and most of my students are seniors—are due Tuesday at noon so that means Monday will definitely be a nose to the grindstone kind of day. Probably most of the night too.

In the meantime, It’s been a while since I’ve talked up my own books so I thought I might leave you with some samples from a couple of my available works. Soon I hope to be able to turn my mind to writing some ‘new’ stuff.

Here’s the opening to “Showdown at Wild Briar,” from my Kindle collection Killing Trail. As you might guess, things aren’t going to be as easy as the end of this teaser suggests. In the west, going home ain’t for the faint of heart or the slow of hand.

“You Josh Allen Boone?”

Leaning back in his chair in the Bucket of Blood saloon, a man looked up from under the brim of a battered Stetson. His gray eyes studied the speaker, noted the briar-scarred chaps, the faded red bandana at the neck, beaten smooth and soft with many washings, and the sun-worn face under a sweat-stained hat. A Remington New Model Army .44 rested in a holster high on the man’s right hip. Except for the boots, which were hand-tooled and expensive, the outfit shouted cow puncher.

“Who’s asking?”

“Don’t matter,” the cowboy said. He tossed what looked like a newspaper clipping onto the table beside Josh’s beer. “Figured you’d like to know. A Texas ranger down Brazos way shot a horse thief. One, Terrance Morelli. Seems old Terrance wanted to clear his conscience afore he died. Told about a man name of Frank Caine he’d killed in Wyoming. I believe you knew Frank.”

A tiny smile quirked the corner of Josh Allen’s lips. “Knew him,” Josh agreed. “They say I murdered him.”

“Now they’ll say you didn’t. You can go home.”


*****

Here’s a piece from the collection Midnight in Rosary, also available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. This is from a story called “Love in the Time of Cybersex.”

The shapeshifter prowled toward him, as if her bones and muscles weren’t quite human. And they weren’t. Persona vats could grow anything. He’d seen a dragon here last night for sweet sake, though the cost of downloading one’s mind into something like that was astronomically high. But the shifter body was almost standard, and with practice the person inhabiting it could make it change shape. In the lighter gravity of the moon, the werewolf myth could come howling to life.

This shifter was named Smokeheart, a werepanther instead of a wolf, and she hadn’t been here quite long enough to learn how to fully control her body. She remained mostly human, except for pointed and tufted ears and a rampant grace, and a tail as strong and flexible as satin rope. Boone recalled that tail fondly.


*****
Killing Trail is a collection of western stories and some nonfiction stuff about the west. The stories were most strongly influenced by Louis L’Amour. Since this is a self-published book, it’s exactly as I want it to be. Now, whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing the readers will have to say.

Midnight in Rosary is a collection of mostly vampire stories with some werewolf stuff thrown in. It’s also got a fair amount of erotica in the mix.

Thanks for listening!
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