Thursday, September 27, 2018
Don Travis: MUDDY TOES (Part 1 of 2 Parts)
Don Travis: MUDDY TOES (Part 1 of 2 Parts): dontravis.com blog post #304 Courtesy of Pixabay A change of pace this week. An action piece. Sorry if it runs a little long...
MUDDY TOES (Part 1 of 2 Parts)
dontravis.com
blog post #304
 |
| Courtesy of Pixabay |
A change of pace this week. An action piece. Sorry if it
runs a little long.
*****
MUDDY
TOES
Samantha sat in the grass
joyfully wiggling her toes in the mud puddle beneath a leaky water spigot. She
giggled, anticipating the mock horror her mother would display when she squealed,
“Sammy, you’re not a three-year-old girl, you’re a three-year-old piggy!”
“Four,” Sammy always replied,
holding up her fingers with a pudgy thumb folded into her palm.”
Her mother would laugh. “Not
yet, but soon.” Then she would set Sammy on the counter beside the sink and
immerse her feet in warm soapy water where the black mud always magically
floated away, leaving her toes clean and pink. Then her mommy always tugged on
each one, saying, Piggy, piggy, piggy.
Now as she splashed her feet
in the muddy puddle, a shadow fell over her. She twisted around, expecting to
see her mother standing there with hands on hips. Instead, it was someone else.
Frightened, Samantha scrambled to her feet and raced for the house.
She made it to the front
porch.
Detective Sandra Winston
stared at the small, muddy puddle beneath a water spout in the foundation of
the red brick ranch style house. While her partner questioned Rick and Mary
Harcaster, the child’s frantic parents, inside, Sandy wanted to inspect the
scene of the crime… if that’s what it was. She could easily imagine the girl
sitting in the grass where her small bottom made a slight impression in the
grass. Petite brown leather sandals sat neatly side-by-side nearby. Marks from the
child’s bare heels were clearly visible near the side of the puddle. She could
almost hear Samantha’s happy, musical laughter as she gleefully enjoyed a
“no-no.”
Sandy saw where the child had stood,
her wet feet slipping just a little in the grass before she bolted for safety.
Tiny muddy footprints indicated she made it to the front porch. Then the prints
stopped. Stopped where the girl was snatched.
“Will there be a ransom demand, do you think?”
Detective Tom Bales asked as he came out of the house. Tom had been Sandy’s partner
for the past year.
“Father’s a lawyer. Good house
in a good neighborhood. And everybody thinks lawyers are rich. Good chance.”
“Let’s hope so,” he said with
feeling.
After the crime scene unit
arrived and chased them out of the front yard, they canvassed the neighbors who
confirmed that Sammy’s mother was neither careless nor negligent. She checked
on her child regularly when Samantha played in their gated front yard. One
elderly man had noticed a black car pulling away from the curb near the
Harcaster house. A phone call confirmed the father had been at work in his law
firm downtown.
That task completed, they returned
to the house to console the frightened family. A technician was in the kitchen
rigging the house phone so that they could listen to and record any incoming
calls… just in case. Another took fingerprints from the parents for elimination
purposes.
Eventually, the other officers
completed their tasks and departed, including the crime scene unit. Sandy and
Tom remained behind to control the situation in case a ransom call was
received. The phone rang twice, almost sending Sammy’s mother into a panic, but
both were routine calls from family and friends.
As the day stretched on, the
Harcasters became more difficult to bolster. Mary took to her bed with a
headache. Rick tried to do business from the den phone’s second line, but he
soon gave that up to sit and stare at the telephone.
Midafternoon, the crime scene
commander called Sandy on her cell phone. They’d found numerous prints or
partial prints on the front gate, most of which were probably friends and
neighbors. But one traced back to someone with a record. Sandy wrote down the
information carefully before facing the others in the den, including Mary
Harcaster who came out of the bedroom as if summoned by the chime of Sandy’s
cell phone.
She stared at the expectant
faces before her. “Do either of you know a William B. Robbins? Is he a client
of yours, Mr. Harcaster?”
The lawyer’s mouth dropped
open and his wife let out a shriek, clutching at a chair back to keep from
collapsing.
“That’s my ex-husband!” she
wailed. “But… but he’s in prison.”
“Apparently not. They found
his prints on your gate.”
“He escaped?” Harcaster asked.
“He’s been released.”
“That can't be! The prosecutor promised
they’d notify us before he was released,” Mary said.
“Then somebody dropped the
ball. He was paroled six weeks ago. At least, he was sent to a halfway house on
the west side of town.”
“Oh, my God! My little girl,”
the mother wailed.
Sandy drew a deep breath. “Mrs.
Harcaster, I have to ask a delicate question. Is Samantha William Robbins’
daughter?”
She gasped aloud. “Good Lord,
no! B-but he thinks he is.”
“Explain, please,” Tom said.
Mary made an obvious effort to
steady herself. “I met Bill at a Ted talk. He seemed nice. You know, ambitious.
Motivated. I got swept up in the public persona of Bill Robbins before I
learned who the real Bill Robbins was. We were married less than a year before
he was arrested by the FBI for bank fraud. I was pregnant at the time, but I
had a miscarriage during his trial.”
Rick took up the tale. “I knew
Mary from way back. During the long period from Bill’s arrest to trial, I
helped keep up her morale.”
“Were you William Robbins’
attorney?” Tom asked.
“Absolutely not! I was just a
family friend. Anyway, Mary and I grew close. When we learned Mary was pregnant
again, she divorced Bill and married me. Whether it’s a case of self-delusion
or not, he insisted that Samantha is his child. The letters from the prison
where he was incarcerated got wilder.”
“Threatening?” Sandy asked.
“Not exactly, but he claimed
he had a right to see his child. To be in her life. He wanted Mary to bring her
for a visit. She rejected his request, and the letters grew stronger. That’s
when the prosecutor promised to notify us in advance of any
change in Bill’s status.”
Continued next week.
*****
Does
a crazed ex-con have little Sammy? Will he harm her or ask for a ransom? Next
week will tell.
Please
get a copy of my latest book, The Lovely
Pines, and give me feedback on
the novel. If you do read the book, please post a review on Amazon. Each one
helps.
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on
writing. You have something to say… so say it.
If
you would like to drop me a line, my personal links follow:
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Here
are some buy links to the Lovely Pines,
which (as noted) was released on August 28:
Abaddon’s
Locusts is scheduled for release on January 22, 2019, and The Voxlightner Scandal is coming along.
See
you next week.
Don
New Posts are
published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Don Travis: PIQUANT
Don Travis: PIQUANT: dontravis.com blog post #303 Courtesy of PxHere Free Prints “Larry and Laura” is popular according to page hits, but not many ...
PIQUANT
dontravis.com
blog post #303
 |
| Courtesy of PxHere Free Prints |
“Larry and Laura” is popular according to page hits, but not
many of you contacted me with comments. Let’s
try another short one this week.
*****
PIQUANT
Sometimes vocabulary—you know,
words—can get you into trouble.
Let me tell you what I mean.
My name is Wylie, and I’m about as different from the other kids in my class as
my name is from Robert or John. I guess you could say, I’m confused. Sometimes
I see Helen Hagen practicing with the other cheerleaders and I get all steamy from
looking at her curves and long blonde hair. You know, feeling weird down there
and ashamed someone will see and hoping she does. Okay, that’s the way it’s
supposed to be, so what’s the problem?
The problem is Robby Belson,
who’s the team quarterback and as pretty as Helen is… except in a different way.
And he’s as curvy as she is, too… but still in a different sort of way. But my
insides treat them the same. I get syrupy and weak-kneed and stutter and
embarrassed around either one of them.
I’m not on the team, but I run
the snack bar at the school’s field, so I’m around both the team and the
cheerleaders a lot. Worse, I have classes with the two of them. And to top
things off, I do better in the classes than either one. Especially, in the
English class. That’s where I got in trouble.
Miss Hardesty was talking to
us about vocabulary. How everyone needs a better one. How to build one. As
usual, she picked on me to make her point.
“Wylie, describe Helen in one
word.”
“Beautiful.” I’m sure I blushed
a little, but she merely smiled.
“Come now, you can do better
than that. You have a great vocabulary. Use it.”
“Lovely, alluring, glamorous.”
My mouth got started and wouldn’t stop. “Exquisite, radiant—”
“Excellent,” she interrupted. “Now
describe Robby in one word.”
“Piquant,” I blurted without
thinking.
Someone from the back of the
room spoke into the sudden hush. “Doesn’t that mean hot and spicy?”
Ears flaming, cheeks scarlet,
I nodded my head. “Y-yes.”
Thank goodness, Miss Hardesty moved
on to others to make her points. I sat for the rest of the class with my head
down, not daring to look at anyone.
I walked home alone feeling as
low as a wad of gum on a shoe sole. Everyone stared at my back as I passed by, or
at least I was convinced of that.
I followed my usual pattern of
grabbing a glass of milk and a cookie to settle down at the kitchen table to do
my homework. I always finished it before my folks got home. Dad was a carpenter
and mom worked at a day care center.
Finished with my lessons, I was considering splurging on another cookie when the phone rang. My spirits soared through the roof on hearing the voice on the other end.
“Wanna go for a Coke?”
*****
Okay,
so who do you think called? Helen? Robby? Miss Hardesty? Your imagination can
fill in the answer… and take you down the road a bit farther.
My
latest book, The Lovely Pines, is now out. Please get a copy and give
me feedback on the novel. Some Amazon reviews would also help.
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on
writing. You have something to say… so say it.
If
you would like to drop me a line, my personal links follow:
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Here
are some buy links to the Lovely Pines:
Abaddon’s
Locusts is scheduled for release on January 22, 2019, and The Voxlightner Scandal is coming along.
See
you next week.
Don
New Posts are
published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Don Travis: ZYNDI ZUE
Don Travis: ZYNDI ZUE: dontravis.com blog post #302 Once again, funny. “Larry and Laura” got a ton of page views… very few comments. Go figure. Here’s...
ZYNDI ZUE
dontravis.com
blog post #302
Once again, funny. “Larry and Laura” got a ton of page views…
very few comments. Go figure.
Here’s some more nonsense for this week.
*****
ZYNDI
ZUE
Prissy Pullman eyed her best
friend across the malt shop’s checkered tablecloth, disbelief clouding her eyes.
“You can’t do this!”
“Already did,” said Cynthia
Sue Breedwell, teasing her recently dyed red, orange, and blue hair through long
fingers tipped with ebony nails. “Also got a nose piercing, and put three earbobs
in each lobe yesterday. The tats will come later. By the way, call me Zyndi Zue
from now on.”
Prissy eyed her friend’s hair
critically. “Red and orange?”
“And Blue.”
“Ugh.!
“You’ll get used to it. I
already have.”
“That’s because you don’t look
in the mirror all day while I have to watch you for hours.”
Zyndi Zue regarded her through
magenta accented eyes. “You don’t have to, you know.”
Prissy’s’ gasp drew the
attention of half a dozen staring spectators. “Cynthia! I—”
“Zyndi. If you want to remain
my friend, I’m Zyndi Zue.”
Prissy pulled a frown. “Do I
have to?”
“You hafta. That’s how I’ll
tell friends from foes.”
“You don’t have any foes.”
“Not before I dyed my hair. Now
we’ll see.”
Prissy couldn’t argue with
that, so she returned to wailing. “But you’ll never get any boyfriends. Not
looking like that.”
Zyndi shrugged. “Who needs
‘em?”
“You do. I do. We all do.”
“That’s what they want us to
think. Besides, they’ll come.”
Prissy’s nose caught a sharp
odor. “Ugh, what’s that smell?”
“Brut.”
“Brut? That’s a man’s aftershave. It… it smells okay on them, but on you? Why are you doing this?”
“I’m resigning from the world
and telling it to go screw itself.”
“What do your folks think?”
“I’ll tell you when my mother stops
fainting every time she sees me.”
“What about Frank?”
Frank had been Cynthia’s
boyfriend since forever. Prissy always believed nothing could ever come between
them. But blue and red and orange hair might just do it.
Zyndi waved dismissively. “Who
cares? He’s history, anyway.”
“No! When?”
“Last week. He thought we
ought to broaden our horizons, live life a little.” Zyndi Zue framed her face
with both hands. “So I took him at his word.”
Prissy compressed her lips for
a moment before speaking. “I’m not sure he meant this.”
“Who cares what he meant. He
doesn’t fit the new me, anyway.”
Despite herself, Prissy
blurted: “Who does?”
“Maybe nobody, but who cares?”
Prissy returned to what was
important to her. “Have you thought this through, Cynthia… uh, Zyndi? There isn’t
a boy in our whole school who’ll have anything to do with a girl who walks
around lit up like a neon.”
Zyndi fluttered lashes heavy
with mascara. “This is a big town. There are other boys besides the duds in our
school.”
“But how will you meet them?”
Zyndi shrugged her as yet
untattooed shoulders. “Who knows, but it can’t be that hard.”
“I’m not sure—”
A deep masculine voice
interrupted Prissy. “Well, hellooo, mama!”
They looked up to see a
well-shaped young man with spiked pink hair and a ring in his nose. Black and
green ink snaked up his tanned arms and disappeared beneath the sleeve of his
T-shirt.
“I’ve not seen you before?” he
continued, staring at Zyndi.
“I’ve not been before,” she
countered. “Not until yesterday.”
“I’m Zhak. You need orienting?”
“Big time.”
Zhak held out a hand. Zyndi took
it, stood, and fluttered the fingers of her unencumbered hand at her friend. “See
you later.”
Prissy sat with her mouth
hanging open as the two disappeared through the malt shop door. At length, she
shook her head and blinked.
Wonder how I'd look in cherry and gold?
*****
Did
you see anyone you recognized? Your younger self, perhaps?
Don’t
forget that The Lovely Pines is now
out. Please get a copy of the book and give me feedback.
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on
writing. You have something to say… so say it.
If
you would like to drop me a line, my personal links follow:
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Here
are some buy links to the Lovely Pines,
which (as noted) was released on August 28:
Abaddon’s
Locusts is scheduled for release on January 22, 2019. I’m hard at work on the first draft of The Voxlightner Scandal.
See
you next week.
Don
New Posts are
published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Don Travis: LARRY AND LAURA
Don Travis: LARRY AND LAURA: dontravis.com blog post #301 Courtesy of Pixabay.com Funny how things go. Sometimes I get a lot of page views and a few comm...
LARRY AND LAURA
dontravis.com
blog post #301
 |
| Courtesy of Pixabay.com |
Funny how things go. Sometimes I get a lot of page views and
a few comments or a few views and lots of comments. “Walls” prompted a number
of both.
Here’s some more short fiction for this week.
*****
LARRY
AND LAURA
Larry hooked one thumb in his brown
leather belt and pushed chestnut locks off his forehead with the other. “Funny
about love. You ever notice that? Sometimes you gotta plant a seed and water it
and hope it grows. That’s the way it was with Luther and Dahlia.”
Laura thought of the wedding
they’d attended an hour or so ago before wandering down the hill for a little
solitude. “Shoot, anybody who knew that couple coulda told you how it was with
them two years back.” Laura wished he’d notice her new frock.
“Yeah, but they didn’t face up
to it. Not ‘til Luther finally got it in his head that’s the way it was.”
“Wasn’t all his decision. She
had to figure out her end, too.”
He studied the water oak
towering above them. “Nice shade on a hot summer day like this.” He sighed and
answered her “Still, nothing happened ‘til he decided the way it was.”
She cast a blue eye at him. “Just
because she got there before he did, doesn’t mean he was the lead ox,” silently
adding. Just the ox.
Larry took no notice of the bite
in her voice. “Now with Charlie and Maggie, it just kinda arrived all at once.
You know, full bloom.”
She eyed him again without him
taking notice. “Yeah, full bloom.”
The whole countryside knew Maggie
set her cap for Charlie before they got out of high school. Course, Charlie
almost didn’t make it out of school. Probably wouldn’t have if he hadn’t played
football.
Larry skipped a stone across
the creek and leaned against the bole of the oak. “Most all our friends got
hooked up.”
“Or ran for the hills. Like
John and Edgar.”
“Didn’t exactly run for the
hills,” he protested. “John got a job over in Harreltown, and Edgar joined the
army.”
“Same thing.”
“Maybe so.”
Laura leaned against the tree
beside him and rested her head in the crook of his arm. Would the dolt ever get around to it, or would she have to give him a
shove?
“Creek’s running high. Probably
good fishing. Shoulda brought a pole.” He looked down at her. “You got anything
to make a hook out of?”
“Not a thing. We didn’t come
here to go fishing.”
He gave another sigh. “Fishing’s
about the most relaxing thing I know.”
“I don’t doubt that, Not for a
minute.”
Well, that was that. He was
off and running in a different direction now. No telling when she’d get him
back on the subject. Wait for another wedding? They were running out of
marriageable friends.
He gave her a quick hug. “How…
how you think it was for us… honey? You know, the love thing?”
Despite the joy bubbling in her bosom,
she couldn’t resist one more swipe. “Like a mustard seed, Larry. Like a mustard
seed.”
*****
A little
change of pace from last week, don’t you think? Hope you enjoyed that idyllic slice of life.
Don’t
forget that The Lovely Pines came out
last week. Hope you’ll get a copy of the book and read it. If so, please give
me feedback.
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on
writing. You have something to say… so say it.
If
you would like to drop me a line, my personal links follow:
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Here
are some buy links to the Lovely Pines,
which (as noted) was released on August 28:
Abaddon’s
Locusts is scheduled for release on January 22, 2019. I’m hard at work on the first draft of The Voxlightner Scandal.
See
you next week.
Don
New Posts are
published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.
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