Another Look at My Novel, Ides

 Markwildyr.com, Post #222

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Lots of hits, but not many comments on Bifurcated Man.

 

This week, I’d like to take a second look at the last novel in the Strobaw Family Saga (the Cut Hand series). As I’ve said before, this one is dealing me fits. Slow going. On June 2, I posted the Prologue to the novel and solicited comments. Didn’t get much. So today, I’d like to take an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the novel. Again, I ask for your comments. Am I on the right track or foundering in deep water?

 Here we go.

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IDES

Chapter 1

 Approximately one year earlier, Fort Yanube, South Dakota

 Something bit into my back, slashing through my shirt and setting my flesh afire. Giving an anguished grunt, I whirled to face my tormentor and was surprised to see Sergeant Courtland Dawson drawing back for another lash of his quirt. Marybell’s father’s face was afire, his lips drawn into a snarl. I rushed him, but not before the quirt struck again, slashing sideways across my left cheek. He lost his grip on the leather when I bowled into him, but he recovered quickly and rocked me with a fist to the side of my neck.

I went down and rolled, coming back onto my feet in a boxer’s stance. My dad had taught me the basics, but the sergeant was the bigger man and simply overpowered me. I got in a few licks before some noncoms arrived and pulled us apart. My split lip stung as I smiled at his bruised eye. He’d have to face his troops with a shiner…given him by a teenager.

Dawson shook off his restrainers and stabbed a finger at me. “You stay away from my little girl, you hear me, you fucking breed!”

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that word, nor its adjective, but it was the first time one of my dad’s subordinates had said it aloud in my presence. I saw red as the sergeant stalked away, muttering to himself. He was barely out of sight before someone called the men in the vicinity to attention, and I knew my father had arrived.

“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded. His eyes registered shock when he saw me. “Ides, what happened?”

“Disagreement, sir,” I muttered as I picked up my scattered books, the last day of school marred by the unexpected attack.

My father put hands on my shoulders and spun me around. “Boy, someone’s taken a lash to you. Who was it?” Facing me once again, he put a hand to my cheek, and I knew the quirt had left its mark.

A bluff, weathered man with hashmarks all over the arms of his uniform arrived. Sergeant-Major MacLaughlen. Shortly thereafter, my dad abandoned the field to him and led me across the parade ground to our quarters.

Ma moaned aloud at the sight of me, her normally dark features going even duskier. “William!” she exclaimed but bit off her questions. No doubt she knew Pa would get explanations out of me soon enough.

He held his tongue until she had cleaned me up and applied what stung like horse liniment before beginning his interrogation.

“All right, son. An explanation.”

“I dunno, Dad. He caught me with his quirt while I had my back to him.”

“He?” Mom asked.

“Sargeant Dawson,” my pa said.

A little gasp escaped her. “Marybell’s father?”

“That’s right, Rachel Ann, Marybell’s father.” My dad fixed his stare on me. “And why would he do that?”

I shrugged and winced. “I dunno. I didn’t do anything.”

“Have you been sneaking around and seeing the girl on the sly?”

“No! Well, I shared some of ma’s venison jerky with her a couple of times. All we did was sit up against the back of the headquarters building and eat it.”

“And?” he prompted.

I avoided my mother’s eyes. “And I kissed her… once.”

“Is that all?” This time it was a demand.

“Yes, sir. I swear. And she kissed me back, so I guess she liked it.”

“Has Sargeant Dawson told you to keep away from his daughter?”

I winced at the recollection. “Just today…after the dustup.” I shot a glance ma’s way. “Called me a breed.”

“Meet my eyes, Ides, and swear what you’ve told me is true.”

I swung my blue eyes to meet his. “I swear it, Pa. I just kissed her… once.”

“And you didn’t force her?”

“No, sir.”

“I believe you, William. Now you leave everything up to me. No payback, do you understand?”

When Major Gideon Haleworthy called me “William,” I knew he meant business. Normally, he used my nickname of Ides, like everyone else on post.

“Yes, sir, I understand. Not sure he does, though. If…”

“You leave Sergeant Dawson to me. This might be a good time for a visit to your grandfather at Teacher’s Mead,” he suggested.

“Gideon!” my ma exclaimed. “Surely, tomorrow will do as well. He’ll miss his graduation ceremony tonight if he leaves now.”

This had been the last day of school for me… maybe forever. I’d earned the credits I needed to graduate the post’s high school. Hang the ceremony, just give me my diploma. But I kept my mouth shut and took in the haunted look of my father’s eyes.

“I’m, sorry, Rachel Ann, but I think it better he takes this afternoon’s train to Mead’s Crossing.”

“I’d rather go to Turtle Crick,” I said quickly.

“Easier to face your Uncle John than your Grandfather Cuthan, I take it.”

“It’s not Grandpa Cuthan,” I said, “as much as it’s everyone else. There’s a host of people at Teacher’s Mead. Heck, it’s a whole town now. But it’s just Uncle John and Ethan at Turtle Crick. Besides, maybe they’ll give me a job.”

“For the summer,” Ma put in. “I want you in college this fall.”

“But I need to find something till then,” I said, not really agreeing. “And if they don’t have anything for me, there’s the Liberty Ranch right is next door. Dexter and Libby might need help.

“All right,” my father agreed.

He started to leave, but I halted him with a question. “What are you going to do to him…the sergeant, I mean?”

“If he’s honest and forthright in answering for his actions, I’ll take his stripes and transfer him.”

“But you won’t cashier him?”

“Let’s get this straight, Ides. I’ll not take any action because of his assault of my son. What he’ll answer for is viciously attacking someone on an Army post. He’ll pay, but not with his career. That would not be fair to his wife and daughter. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir. Uh, can I take ’Stelle with me to Turtle Crick? She’s out of school too. And I know she’d like to see Uncle John and Ethan.”

Gideon Haleworthy glanced at Mother. She nodded. “All right, if Estelle wants to go, she’s free to do so. But that puts a rein on how long you stay. Be back here in a week.”

“Two weeks…that’s not too long, is it?” I asked. “Especially, if I get a job.”

A look of sorrow claimed my father’s features as he nodded. “Two weeks for both of you unless you find work. But you bring Estelle home, regardless.”

I knew that look. I’d seen it all my life. He loved my mother, and he loved me…us, but life had taken dark twists and turns before we came to live in the commandant’s lodging at Fort Yanube. We’d lost my little brother, Gabe, to a sniper’s bullet when some land grabbers shot at Uncle John and struck my five-year-old brother instead. To the rest of them, Gabe was dead. But he was constantly with me. I experienced his presence and heard his voice—grown more mature over the passing years—and took comfort in our bonding. He was often the voice of reason in my world.

And while my father liked and respected my mother’s brother, Gideon Haleworthy was never able to truly reconcile himself to John Strobaw’s deviant nature. While that was of no consequence to the tribal side of our family, it went against the grain of the wasicun…the white men. Although admittedly, the attitude of the conquerors had negatively affected the acceptance of Two Faces by many of the tribes.

But my pa’s big problem was me. My mother, half Yanube and half white, was born of Cuthan Strobaw—known to the People as Dog Fox—and Mary Jacobsen Strobaw at Teacher’s Mead some forty-three years ago. Pa was pure Boston Irish, so I should have been an eighth blood, yet my features were as Indian as Uncle John’s…or even Grandfather Cuthan’s, save for eyes as blue as my father’s. Growing up on an army post during the so-called Indian Wars had proved a demanding task.

Yet, here I was, all of eighteen-years-old—or eighteen winters, as the tribal members of my family tolled time—an Army brat just graduated from the post’s school. To my father, with his yellow hair—now beginning to gray a bit—and fair features, it likely seemed I was a troublemaker. Yet, in truth, it was trouble that sought me.

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Let me know what you think.

 More Wildyr Tales, a second anthology of some of my stories, is due out in September. By the way, I have a third anthology nearly ready to submit to JMS Books called Gabacho and Other Wildyr Stories.

 My contact information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:

Website and blog: markwildyr.com

Email: markwildyr@aol.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr

Twitter: @markwildyr

Now my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

See you later.

 

 Mark

 New posts the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:00 a.m., US Mountain time.