Back in 2007, I started my first full-blown novel. As with most aspiring writers, I had big ideas and high hopes to knock out this novel in a few months, edit it, shop it around for a publisher, then get rich on the royalties from the film rights I would have amassed from the series of Hollywood bastardizations of the novel and its subsequent follow-ups and then probably become a real asshole and blow off all of my friends and use my riches to spiral into a self-loathing state where I ruin my life along with those that I love and eventually end up dead in a fancy hotel, in some weird drug-related sex fantasy act gone wrong, meanwhile amassing hundreds and thousands of more fans who find my work hip and trendy and use it on a daily basis to make themselves appear smarter and cooler than they really are. Well, of course, that didn’t happen (at least not the first part).
But I was no slacker. I had been able to write seven chapters of a fictional piece I had milling around my head for quite some time. That was around 2008. And that was when my overconfidence in the digital revolution came back and bit me in my ass. I had accidentally deleted the only copy I had of the novel on my hard drive and only found bits and pieces of earlier printouts that ended up not being very useful to me at all. I fell into a slump about losing all of the work I had poured into that first draft but upon hearing that I would soon be with child, I got excited to start over in the hopes that I would have something done to one day show my future offspring.
Five years later, I have only been able to rewrite six of the seven chapters but the positive thing about it is that I really love this version of my story much more than the previous draft. I was still pretty green about how to tell a story and was kind of caught up with trying to follow the rules and properly write a fiction novel but since then, I have gotten pretty comfortable with my own voice and have decided to say, “Piss off!” to all of those who have criticized my work (not that there has been that many, but there are some out there) and to do this my own way. If no one likes it, oh, well, I still accomplished something. But if a lot of people like it and they are able to have a better day from reading it, I will be even more ecstatic.
So, here I am today, with only about 65% of my book being done, but, man, what a wild ride this 65% is and I am so anxious to get it done so I can start sharing it with others. But the sad realization is that in my current situation with work and parenting, who knows when I will get that other 35% done? So in doing so, I decided, mostly for those who have asked to get a sample of the story, I am putting out today an excerpt of my little brainchild in which I have titled RANSOM MILES PUCQUE. For those with some time on their hands and would like to sample this work of extraordinary genius, stick around, because this may be the only snippet you’ll ever get to read at the rate I am going (^_^).
To preface you, RANSOM PUCQUE is a hired detective living in the age of the old west, in the 1800’s. The story is told in his point of view and throughout the unfolding of the events in the story, you learn about his friends, enemies, and all other sorts of fun, oddball characters through anecdotes that he shares with the reader. In this particular excerpt, Ransom tells the story of his best friend’s first case as a deputy sheriff, where he was on call to investigate a mysterious fire of a rich entrepreneur and his family’s home where only one survivor lived to tell the tale of what happened. So sit back, grab a mouthful of chewin’ tobacky, and enjoy a little anecdote I like to call “Goodman Meets Martha Childs”.
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Goodman had just joined the Lupus County sheriff’s regiment when the Childs’ mansion burned down. Being the only deputy in Lupus County who had attended college (and also being the only deputy who could even spell “college”) made him Sheriff Fenrir’s 2nd hand man on all of his major investigations. Goodman had an eye for detail and Fenrir knew this. And even though Goodman had only been on staff for two hours when he received word that the only survivor of the Childs’ mansion fire was young Martha Childs, Sheriff Fenrir had no doubt Goodman would come in handy on this case.
At 9:00 pm, on Thursday, October 8, 1807, a series of explosions within the Childs’ kitchen caused a chain reaction of mini-fires throughout the mansion with the precision of a master chef caramelizing his one millionth Crème Brûlée. No sooner than one could say, “Bon appeitit” did that glorious structure fall to the ground leaving nothing but char and ash. That and a single large steel Safeway® safe that was once hidden behind the east wall of the family den, its 5 ¾” thick walls kept the confidential documents inside safe from the destruction that had befallen on the rest of the Childs’ home. It also kept the fifteen year old Martha Childs protected from the fire, but lack of oxygen had nearly killed her.
When Fenrir and Goodman appeared at the scene, a local blacksmith by the name of Ferral S. Nescius was able to pry open the safe door and pull out a nearly unconscious Martha Childs. Goodman immediately questioned the blacksmith to see what he knew about the happenings that night at the Childs’ mansion.
“What happened here, Nescius?” Goodman looked over at Martha who was sitting on the ground with a horse’s blanket wrapped around her. Nescius had just placed the large steel door of the Safeway® against a pile of charred wooden beams next to the safe. “How did you get here so fast?”
Nescius was an honest blacksmith and had no need to be afraid of the law but, alas, he wasn’t as good a blacksmith as he was honest and had been known to miss important details when performing his blacksmithing duties. Apparently, he had the same problem when he was performing rescuing duties. “What’s that, Goodman? How’d who get where?”
“You, man. How’d YOU get here so fast?
“Oh, yes, right. I’d come a running when I heard the explosions. I had just finished off shoeing the Villegeoff’s youngest mare when the explosions started. I knew it weren’t normal for rich folks to be exploding and stuff. Not this time of night.”
“Well, what’d you see when you got here.”
“Just that the Childs’ entire home was quickly being reduced to rubbish. I tried to get inside but fire was just too hot to penetrate so I wasn’t much use until the building was down to the level it’s at right now.”
“How’d you come about knowing Martha was in the safe back there?”
“She was a pounding on the inside of it. I heard the pounding once the fire died down on this end. I knew it wasn’t normal for a safe to be pounding so I ran back to my work shed and got the tools I needed to remove the door. This one isn’t like any safe I had ever worked on, though. I think it’s a Safeway®. I’d heard of ‘em but never had seen one in my life. It was a tough safe to crack, so to speak.”
“How do you s’pose Martha ended up inside that there safe, do you think, Nescius?” Only Goodman knows whether or not he had his own hypothesis at that point and time but it wouldn’t surprise me none if it turned out that he was interrogating Nescius further simply to stall for time as he was allowing his own brain juices to stew. “Huh, Nescius? You’re the safe expert here. Tell me how a young child like Martha could have gotten herself stuck inside a safe a mere few minutes before her family’s whole house went up in flames.”
“Shucks, Goodman, that there is a darn good question. Like I said, I ain’t too much familiar with the Safeway® line but if’n Safeway’s® are like any other safes – which I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t be – then I would say she simply opened up the safe and climbed inside herself.” I wasn’t there when Nescius provided Goodman with this answer but I think I could rightly say that I am sure Nescius was uncomfortable with Goodman’s line of questioning and was pretty bad at hiding it. Needless to say, I’ll tell you folks right now that Nescius had nothing to do with the fire and for the rest of his life stayed on the straight and narrow that he had the reputation for. He may have been a bit dumb but he was not an arsonist and/or murderer.
“That’ll do, Nescius. Why don’t you do me a favor and stick around while I get a closer look at the rubbish here.”
“Sure thing, Goodman. Shall I help the other deputies with the cleanup?”
“Not necessary, Nescius, thank you. You just make yourself comfortable over yonder and if’n I need to ask you any other questions, I’ll be sure to holler at you, okay?”
Nescius nodded awkwardly and made his way over to the north end of the Childs’ property line. Goodman jotted down a few notes in his little brown leather notebook and then made his way to Martha who was staring down at the ground.
“Hate to bother you, Miss Childs, at a time like this but I’m sure you understand the importance of me asking you a few questions now, while the events are still fresh on your mind, do you?” Martha didn’t say a word and simply nodded approvingly to Goodman, her eyes still fixated on the patch of charred ash in front of her. “Now, Miss Childs, it is my understanding that while your family’s house was burning down, you were locked inside that there safe.” Goodman paused for a moment, then continued. “Judging by your silence, I would assume that statement is true, right?” Another pause. “I understand this is hard for you, Miss Childs, but if’n I’m going to be able to help you in any way, I really need to understand all the details of what happened here tonight. If’n you need another minute or two, I can come back but I really need to question you tonigh–“
“It was dark in the house and I had gone down to my Papaw’s den to get myself a drink. He kept the good stuff in his den.”
“A drink? What sort of drink are you referring to, Miss Childs?”
“Whisky. I know what you’re thinking but it really isn’t unusual for a girl my age to have a drink every now and then. My Papaw was a sophisticated man and he treated Juliet and…” Martha’s voice trailed off as she spoke her sister’s name. Goodman knew better than to push her at that moment so he patiently waited for Martha to swallow twice and then take a short breath, in which she started back into her testimony. “Juliet and I were often allowed to have drinks at the dinner table because we weren’t no mamby pamby kids like others our age. We was mature and Papaw treated us that way.”
“I understand, Miss Childs. I’ve always known you and your sister to be mature ones. That was the reputation you had.”
“Well, it’s true but we was still kids and we still needed to stay young. Sometimes Papaw didn’t understand that and was too quick to help us ‘grow up’. No matter. He’s not here to push me to grow up no more.” Martha wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and swallowed again. “I have a hard time sleeping at night. Sometimes my night terrors keep me up and I find that whisky helps me to sleep better.”
“And your father kept the whisky in his den, in that there safe?”
“No, not in the safe. He trusted us with the drinks in the house. He didn’t lock it up none because he trusted us.”
“So, that still doesn’t answer how you ended up inside the safe.”
“If you would allow me to catch up on my thoughts, I can give you the details you’re looking for. You just got to give me a few minutes here, Deputy. A girl needs time to pull herself together after she has lost her entire family, don’t you think?”
“Yes, indeed. I don’t mean to rush you none. It’s just that –“
“It’s just that you’re doing your duty. I can respect that, Deputy, um…what did you say your name was?” Martha looked up for the first time and her eyes met Goodman’s, who couldn’t help notice that although the look Martha had was intense, there was no sign of any crying to have been had.
“I didn’t ma’am. My apologies. I’m James Goodman. I’m a new deputy under Sheriff Fenrir.”
“Glad to meet you, Deputy Goodman. I won’t hold you up much longer.”
“You take your time. I just need to fully understand what happened here so that I can do my report and make sure we get this matter taken care of.”
“Well, deputy, as I said, I went down to my Papaw’s den to get a drink to help me sleep. That was when I realized a fire had broken out in the dining room next door. I tried to get out but the entryway was already blocked by flames and there was no getting through the bars on the windows. That’s when I realized that I would be protected from the fire inside my Papaw’s safe.”
“So the safe was left open? Doesn’t seem right for someone to have such a fancy safe like the one your family has here and not use it. From what I understand, Safeway® safes cost more than most folks in town can make in a lifetime. Why wouldn’t it be locked?”
“I never said it wasn’t locked, Deputy Goodman. I simply said I used the safe to protect myself from the fire.”
“Well, if it weren’t locked, how’d you come to get inside it, Martha.”
“The same way anyone would get inside a safe if the situation was desperate enough for them to need to do so…I opened it.”
“And am I to believe that your father trusted you with the combination like he trusted you with alcohol?”
“My Papaw may have been a trusting man toward us when it came to the drink, deputy, but he was no idiot. Of course he didn’t share the combination with me. But I knew what it was. My Papaw and I were close and I knew him better’n anyone else. Even better than Mama knew him.” Martha turned her eyes away from Goodman at that point and returned her gaze back to the spot on the ground that had previously garnered her attention. “The combination was the amount of ingredients he used in his secret marinating sauce. I figured that out the day he chose to share all of his secret recipes with me and not with Juliet.”
Goodman felt exasperation at that point. The questioning had not been going as smoothly as he would have liked and he wasn’t comfortable with Martha’s obvious aggression towards Goodman’s line of questioning. Which made it ever so much harder to ask Martha the next question. “Martha — if I may — did you have anything to do with the fire that burned down your family’s home?”
Martha stood up at that point and dropped the horse’s blanket she was covered under to the ground. Her eyes, for the first time that night, were fire red. “Firstly, you may not, Deputy Goodman. Secondly, I do not like what you are insinuating there, Deputy. I know you may fancy yourself a good detective of sorts but I do believe your greenness is keeping you right ignorant in your analysis of my situation.”
“Now, Miss Childs, I’m sorry to upset you but I just don’t understand why you would try to escape a near-death situation by putting yourself in another near-death situation. You know you would not have lasted long in that there safe. Heck, if’n Nescius there hadn’t come along, you’d be dead right now. I just don’t think you would’ve chosen to put yourself in that there situation unless you’d a known that you could’ve gotten out of it on your own.”
“Deputy Goodman! Have you ever been in a situation where you had nowhere to go and that your life was pretty much going to be over with if you didn’t do something right then and there?”
“Well, ma’am, I just started my duties with Sheriff Fenrir a mere few hours before we got word of your family’s home burning down so I can’t say I have been in that situation yet in my life but I am sure I can under—“
“Can you? How could you?! Like I said, you are ignorant, Deputy Goodman. You do not know enough about me and my family to be judging me like you are doing. I was in a death-or-death situation and I chose the less painful of the two. Maybe it doesn’t make much sense to you but at the time, it was all the sense I could make.”
“Ma’am, my apologies. I don’t mean to offend but you understand it is my duty to make sure I cover all possibilities. What you say does make sense and I can see how your actions were taken in an act of desperation to survive and can be seen as purely instinctual. You say that you had nothing to do with the fire, I will record your statement as such and bother you no more today.” Goodman wrote down a few more notes then tipped his hat farewell to Martha. Martha glared at Goodman as he turned away and motioned for Nescius to rejoin him for some additional questioning. His voice was low and completely inaudible to Martha, who then reached down and picked up the ash-stained horse blanket she had dropped and then looked up again at Goodman and Nescius who were now joined by Sheriff Fenrir.
“I didn’t kill my family, Deputy Goodman! You get that in your head and you get it in there good, you ignorant simpleton! Folks like me and my family, we don’t kill! We’ve no reason to kill because we are so much better than you regular folk! No matter what you think! I know what happened and I won’t forget what you accused me of, you hear, Goodman?! You hear me?!” Goodman, Fenrir and Nescius all looked up at Martha in silence. Then Goodman turned and nodded to Fenrir then walked on ahead back into town while Fenrir gave directions to the others to wrap up their work for the morning. In the end, the Childs’ home was reported to have been burned down due to a faulty prototype gas stove that Emil had installed in his fancy kitchen. And even though Emil paid top dollar to have this exclusive new cooking hardware installed into his home, seems even the rich can’t always get what they pay for – no matter how much they pay for it — and in this case, Emil and his wife and one of his children got burned on this deal.
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So, there you have it. Again, this is a work in progress and a lot more stuff happens but I am keeping the juicy bits a secret until I have this baby completed. In the meantime, if you would like, I would greatly appreciate any feedback anyone has on this excerpt. Did you like it? Did you hate it? Would you want to read more? What didn’t work for you? What did? Any constructive criticism is welcome. Well, let me elaborate: any constructive feedback that is meant to enhance and improve my work without being a chance to simply parade around ones own self-righteous views about writing that they mindlessly picked up from a pretentious writing class is welcome. Have a good day, y’all, and thank you for visiting.
BoyAtLarge 