Friends and Fans--If you haven't read Black Wind this synopsis may not make as much sense as I would like it to, because I'm not going to add a lot of backstory. Also, this is literally the first draft. I'm simply jotting down the plot as I have it in my head. The reason I'm doing this is because with Black Wind, I went back and rewrote the beginning and end after peddling it unsuccessfully for 2 years to agents. I'm hoping this way, I can avoid having to do that by getting input before I start writing.
The Plot: It's four years later, and Aaron is still with the Jack Springs Marshal's office, filling in for Harlan as marshal, who's having some health problems.
He's still with Belinda but they don't live together. Rosca, Roscoe's daughter is alive and doing well and living with Aaron at the cabin.
His daughter returned without notice, now 21 and carrying a certificate from the Colorado Law Enforcement Academy (3rd in her class) and telling him she wants a job. When Aaron balks, she tells him "Fine, then I'll apply at the Denver PD; they've all but guaranteed me a job."
Knowing when he was beaten, he hired her.
The story begins with a phone message from Carlos Corrigan, an enigmatic New Mexico man who had helped, albeit surreptitiously, Aaron secure justice for a man who deserved harsh justice. His face is badly scarred from a bear aattack, and he carries an original bowie knife, about 16 inches long.
The message says, "I need your help." Carlos was a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service undercover agent whose daughter disappeared several years earlier in the mountains of northern New Mexico under suspicious circumstances. Carlos had been looking for a notorious poacher who had been in the area at the same time.
But now, Carlos has gotten word that the man has been seen in the area of Spring Mountain, Arkansas, somehow involved now in illicit drugs instead of animal parts.
The message hits Aaron particularly hard because he realizes that Spring Mountain, Ark., is where his secretive parents, who have both passed on, were originally from. He learned just after returning from Vietnam, that his parents were from warring clans along the Little Red River in Arkansas, and a death sentence had been handed down through the McAllister clan on Oren Hemingway. But when the cousins of Jesse Fay showed up, she shot them down. It was possible that Aaron had witnessed the shooting.
In any case, Aaron agrees to go to Spring Mountain with Carlos. When they get there, he learns that his father's side of the family has become cops in the area and doing battle against the McAllister clan, which is behind the meth labs in the region.
And the man that Carlos is looking for is an ally of the McAllisters. In the two-weeks battle that follows, the Hemingways, with Aaron and Carlos' help defeat the McA. clan but at a heavy cost. The man Carlos is looking for is also captured. He tells them Carlos's daughter was killed in a fall and most likely eaten the ghost grizzlies that still inhabit the South San Juan mountains.
The theme of Black Wind was: Do we ever learn from our mistakes? And the premise is: Well, not often but sometimes.
The theme of Night Music will be about finding home, but I'm not sure what the premise will be but probably it will be "sometimes we do."
I visited Mt. View Arkansas several years ago, after spending a couple of years in the vicinity and even owned some property there many years earlier. On the last trip, strangely, I felt the sense of being somewhere I belonged. I should probably mention that most of my family is from the Ozark Mountains in southern Missouri on one side and the Washita Mountains in Oklahoma, neither place being a model of law abidingness. Mt. View is a bluegrass mecca and a cultural center in other folk arts.
For the most part, these people (real and fictional)were migrants from the Appalachian and Smokey mountains, and before that from the English/Scottish border from the 1300-1600s, often via Ireland, where the King of England deported them because he couldn't otherwise stop the 300-year reign of violence along the border.
So there is more than a fanciful attachment to the place.
Anyway, here are the questions. You are not limited to answering these questions. Any comments are appreciated.
What had Cassie been doing in the previous six years that she had disappeared, at least from Aaron? Her mother had moved her to keep her way from Aaron, but she's a strong woman and would have been unlikely to have let her wander the streets as a "wild child."
I want Cassie to have a personal issue that's causing her a problem and a professional issue involved with a criminal enterprise or something similar. The story will flash between events in Arkansas and Cassie's situation in Jack Springs.
What could these be?
My action scenes kind of write themselves but if anyone has any thoughts about the situation in Arkansas, let me know. I want the action to start pretty quickly, with both Cassie and Aaron.
Any possible sub plots for the Arkansas side of things?
Does Carlos believe the poacher? If not, why not. What will be done about that.
That's about all for now. All suggestions will be taken seriously. But alas, in the end, I will make the decision.
Please respond to rebaird@indra.com -- not Facebook or Goodreads.
The Plot: It's four years later, and Aaron is still with the Jack Springs Marshal's office, filling in for Harlan as marshal, who's having some health problems.
He's still with Belinda but they don't live together. Rosca, Roscoe's daughter is alive and doing well and living with Aaron at the cabin.
His daughter returned without notice, now 21 and carrying a certificate from the Colorado Law Enforcement Academy (3rd in her class) and telling him she wants a job. When Aaron balks, she tells him "Fine, then I'll apply at the Denver PD; they've all but guaranteed me a job."
Knowing when he was beaten, he hired her.
The story begins with a phone message from Carlos Corrigan, an enigmatic New Mexico man who had helped, albeit surreptitiously, Aaron secure justice for a man who deserved harsh justice. His face is badly scarred from a bear aattack, and he carries an original bowie knife, about 16 inches long.
The message says, "I need your help." Carlos was a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service undercover agent whose daughter disappeared several years earlier in the mountains of northern New Mexico under suspicious circumstances. Carlos had been looking for a notorious poacher who had been in the area at the same time.
But now, Carlos has gotten word that the man has been seen in the area of Spring Mountain, Arkansas, somehow involved now in illicit drugs instead of animal parts.
The message hits Aaron particularly hard because he realizes that Spring Mountain, Ark., is where his secretive parents, who have both passed on, were originally from. He learned just after returning from Vietnam, that his parents were from warring clans along the Little Red River in Arkansas, and a death sentence had been handed down through the McAllister clan on Oren Hemingway. But when the cousins of Jesse Fay showed up, she shot them down. It was possible that Aaron had witnessed the shooting.
In any case, Aaron agrees to go to Spring Mountain with Carlos. When they get there, he learns that his father's side of the family has become cops in the area and doing battle against the McAllister clan, which is behind the meth labs in the region.
And the man that Carlos is looking for is an ally of the McAllisters. In the two-weeks battle that follows, the Hemingways, with Aaron and Carlos' help defeat the McA. clan but at a heavy cost. The man Carlos is looking for is also captured. He tells them Carlos's daughter was killed in a fall and most likely eaten the ghost grizzlies that still inhabit the South San Juan mountains.
The theme of Black Wind was: Do we ever learn from our mistakes? And the premise is: Well, not often but sometimes.
The theme of Night Music will be about finding home, but I'm not sure what the premise will be but probably it will be "sometimes we do."
I visited Mt. View Arkansas several years ago, after spending a couple of years in the vicinity and even owned some property there many years earlier. On the last trip, strangely, I felt the sense of being somewhere I belonged. I should probably mention that most of my family is from the Ozark Mountains in southern Missouri on one side and the Washita Mountains in Oklahoma, neither place being a model of law abidingness. Mt. View is a bluegrass mecca and a cultural center in other folk arts.
For the most part, these people (real and fictional)were migrants from the Appalachian and Smokey mountains, and before that from the English/Scottish border from the 1300-1600s, often via Ireland, where the King of England deported them because he couldn't otherwise stop the 300-year reign of violence along the border.
So there is more than a fanciful attachment to the place.
Anyway, here are the questions. You are not limited to answering these questions. Any comments are appreciated.
What had Cassie been doing in the previous six years that she had disappeared, at least from Aaron? Her mother had moved her to keep her way from Aaron, but she's a strong woman and would have been unlikely to have let her wander the streets as a "wild child."
I want Cassie to have a personal issue that's causing her a problem and a professional issue involved with a criminal enterprise or something similar. The story will flash between events in Arkansas and Cassie's situation in Jack Springs.
What could these be?
My action scenes kind of write themselves but if anyone has any thoughts about the situation in Arkansas, let me know. I want the action to start pretty quickly, with both Cassie and Aaron.
Any possible sub plots for the Arkansas side of things?
Does Carlos believe the poacher? If not, why not. What will be done about that.
That's about all for now. All suggestions will be taken seriously. But alas, in the end, I will make the decision.
Please respond to rebaird@indra.com -- not Facebook or Goodreads.
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