Daniel Wetta's Blog, page 4
September 12, 2016
Author Sharon Dillon
Daniel Wetta Publishing is pleased to announce the webpage of author Sharon Dillon and the publication in e-book form and print of her first book, Echoes of Your Choices. For those who long that peace and joy would replace the pettiness, anger and frustrations of daily life, Sharon’s meditative and compassionate guide is a must to add to your personal library.
Click Here to Visit Sharon’s Web Page!
For several years, Sharon has delighted her followers through her posts on her WordPress.com blogsite entitled, “Laugh Your Way to Peace, Love and Joy.” In her first book, the author curates the best articles from these postings and arranges them in thematic chapters. Sharon’s mission from the beginning has been to write to bring peace, joy and laughter to all who seek to find a true and destined path in their hectic lives. Drawing from the pain and joy of her own life experiences, Sharon teaches practical methods for living a peaceful, happy and balanced life. The markers along the path that she sets for the reader, compassion and love, are the same as those she has established on her own path. Life, Sharon believes, must be fun as well as serious and spiritual as well as practical.
Over the years, Sharon has been a reporter for several newspapers and magazines in both Wisconsin and Virginia. Writing on a deadline helped her quickly hone her skills. She has loved books since the first time her mother read her a story. Always providing her new subjects for learning and personal growth, books have been a staple of her life, bringing her comfort, joy, shivers of fear, and the full spectrum of emotions. She grew up in Ohio, lived and worked in several states, and finally settled in Virginia after retiring from 25 years’ employment with the State of Wisconsin. She now works part-time jobs that are fun at Busch Gardens Williamsburg and the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. Meeting new people daily in these jobs provides her ideas for writing and expands her world view.
Click to See Sharon’s Blog: “Laugh Your Way to Peace, Love and Joy.”
The author is a frequent attendee of the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshops, a member of the Chesapeake Bay Writers, the Williamsburg Writers Group, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, and Southern Humorists.
Echoes of Your Choices is now available in e-book form for $2.99 on Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks and all online retail book sellers. The print version sells for $10.95 and is most easily available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and CreateSpace.
Below are the links to purchase the e-books from Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. Apple users may purchase through iBooks (via iTunes) on their Apple devices. Note that Smashwords makes available multiple downloads in all e-book file formats for one price (for readers who might like to have the book on multiple devices.)
Click Here for Barnes and Noble
Sharon Dillon’s webpage address is www.danielwetta.com/sharondillon
August 10, 2016
The Teacher Arrives in Unexpected Form
Daniel Scruggs is my good friend. Books could be written about his adventures around the world and his compassion for others. He is a humble teacher of magnitude 9. But in this six minute video, Daniel tells a story about his teacher: a 12-year-old, nearly blind drummer from a village in Ghana who arrived in Daniel’s school for a 10-month stay on a medical visa. What resulted from the meeting of Francis and Daniel will remain in your memory a long, long time. This is the story narrated by Daniel in his direct and engaging way. This is six-minute heart medicine for you:
August 8, 2016
I Want to be a Social Media Star!
“Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?”
(Lyrics to “Paperback Writer,” © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Lennon and McCartney song writers)
No doubt, the Beatles were the greatest social media stars of their day, with press releases, movies with the same name as their albums, video clips, countless interviews in radio, television, magazines and periodicals worldwide, and the calculated first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in the USA, where they ushered in the British Invasion (which lasted years). Everyone assumed that they were making billions of dollars. Celebrity and money went hand-in-hand in those days.
Flash forward fifty years. Could anyone have foreseen that people could become international sensations from the comfort of their homes and make absolutely no money, despite their celebrity? I see this all the time on YouTube and Instagram. Videos and photographs go viral on these media, and the creators draw hundreds of thousands or millions of followers who look forward to their next crazy posts or glimpses of their bodies. Most of these people are not earning money from this. They have dreams of doing well financially, perhaps from selling a product they promote or from sports/fitness counseling delivered through diets, workout routines, and online counseling. But only a very small percentage can quit their day jobs.
Then there are authors like me. I honestly think there are more writers than readers these days. Actually, I am fairly certain of this. It doesn’t matter if one has a big publishing house behind him or her or if one is an independent author, the bid for the attention of people who do read books is excruciatingly hard work. Nowadays, you have to be a social media superstar just for people to be aware of you. But that does not mean anyone is going to buy your book.
I am everywhere in social media, and I love it. All over the world, people give posts about my books their “likes,” thumbs-up, and smiley faces. I am followed on Instagram, Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, Goodreads, LinkedIn, Tumbler, and Pinterest. (I am totally clueless how to use that one!). It makes me feel very warm inside to have their support. I never knew I could have so many friends.
I just wish someone would buy my books.
That is the thing. Globally, we have moved into a zero-cost economy. Not even a marginal-cost one anymore. We all want things gratis, and the fact is that we can get wonderful software, applications, products, and music for free…and books.
Okay, so the musicians have developed a work-around by discovering that they have to go on the road to do concerts in order to make money, even if it is their third “Farewell Tour.” They are not receiving much in royalties anymore. The application vendors give away good software, and they make money by selling third-party ads and upgrades. (Selling upgrades to a fractional percentage of millions of users is their calculated gamble.) And authors?
So far, we are giving material away for free in the hope that if someone likes it, they might buy our “premium” works. I have two novels available, so I wrote “prequels” to those novels as free introductions to the stories.
I have five years experience in using social media to promote books now, and I have advice for authors who hope to sell books: First, write excellent material which is well edited. Then make sure your stories, books, poems etc. display well through their cover art. Produce a portfolio of material that is available as soon as possible. Get involved in social media communities and be consistent with your postings. Think of yourself and your work as a brand. Separate your personal postings from your commercial ones. If you are not “techy” or social-media knowledgeable, hire someone to do this for you.
I actually love using social media. I want to be a SM super-star! In fact, I snuck little photos in this post to break up narrative with visual images so you might not become bored. And if you click on the photos, you get a surprise! But all of this activity online that I enjoy has roots in my heart from the stories I tell about heroes, lovers, the righting of horrible injustices, and the transformations in people’s lives when they confront uncommon good or frightening evil. I have met the composite characters in my novels in real life. They humble me, and I want to honor them. I write about them because their stories are thrilling and their courage inspirational.
So here comes the free stuff: Click the link to this page on my website. You can read about the two short stories and how to deliver them to your electronic reader. (Kindle, Nook, Apple or computer. It’s easy). If you want print editions of anything, go to Amazon and search my name under “Daniel Wetta.” You will find there also the books of my father and all the wonderful independent authors who have trusted their publishing to me.
Click here for Awakening and Nightfire!
These have taken me years to write. Would you take a look? (Paste smiley-face here).
August 5, 2016
CakeAlicious on Cake Wars!
The exciting news in Williamsburg, Virginia today involves my associate and friend, Alice Cooke, the owner of CakeAlicious Design Studio in the New Town planned community. The word is out that CakeAlicious will compete in Cake Wars on Food Network, and the airing will be at 9 p.m. on August 8, 2016!
If you are in the Williamsburg area, it is worth a trip to our local, favorite, gourmet coffee shop, where you can indulge in cupcakes, pastries, baked goodies and confections, 
and Alice’s homemade gelato. Alice is a highly talented and artistic baker who has done thousands of award winning cakes for weddings, birthdays and many special events over the years.
You may wonder what this has to do with books or publishing! I think Alice’s life is inspirational and am hoping to convince her to write a book or memoir. In addition to that, did you know that cakes have played an important role in history? In the 1830s, Mexico and France waged battle in The Pastry War over (among other things) unpaid bakery debts. And although Marie Antoinette didn’t actually say, “Let the people eat cake,” that slogan has become the icon of class indifference to the poor in the centuries since it was attributed to her.
Ultimately, life boils down to what is sweet and what is not. My novels and those of the authors whose works I have published write about heart. It is important that we remember what is good and fun in life. I can think of nothing more delicious or anticipatory than watching pastry chefs compete to produce the best-judged cake…except tasting it at the end! You can meet Alice and see the wonderful creations made in the CakeAlicious Design Studio on its website by clicking this link: http://www.cakealiciousdesignstudio.com/ And please tune in this Monday night to see the outcome of the competition and how our hometown favorite did on Cake Wars!
July 20, 2016
Update on Power Steering!
Daniel Wetta Publishing (https://danielwetta.com/books-by-daniel-wetta-publishing/) announces with pride the release of author M. J. Scott’s new book, Power Steering! A recent Excellence Award recipient from Women of Distinction Magazine online, M. J. Scott (USA) is the pen name of Marilyn J. Shafer-Asprey, who previously authored the books Journey into Fulfillment and Time on the Turn by Xulon Press.
Power Steering compiles an insightful series of vignette-style articles that illuminate the power of intuitive feelings in our quest to find the roads leading to our best destiny. In this book, Marilyn makes her readers wonder how their lives would be different if they truly trusted a higher power to guide them. What would it be like to tune into a force that works for the benefit and well-being of people in a universe so complex that one can easily feel that his or her significance does not even register?
Throughout the book, the author uses a car analogy to show what happens when we let higher power accompany us on life’s journey. We stay behind the wheel, she shows, but the “power steering” of intuition makes our passage much less tiresome. She argues that intuition is a beautiful and subtle messaging from God. Our learning to recognize it and trust it allows us to make the choices in life that lead us to our most blessed destinies. Through this collection of poetic-narrative meditations and anecdotes in Power Steering, M. J. Scott rolls out the panorama of her own life’s enrichment when she lets intuition take the wheel.
![BookCoverPreview[1]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1469180489i/19788735._SX540_.jpg)
Marilyn studied education at Manchester College, earning her BS in Education, followed by her MA in Mass Communications at Norfolk State University. She completed all but her dissertation in the doctoral program of Education Administration at California Coast University. A retired gifted students teacher who began her career working at Dr. Albert Schweitzer Elementary School in Anaheim, California and 20 years in education in the public school systems of two Virginia cities, Marilyn has also spent years with her own photography business and philanthropic work. In 2015 she became co-founder of The Writer’s Council, an organization serving to encourage aspiring writers to achieve their dreams to become published.
Power Steering is currently available in e-book form through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords and all online book retailers including Apple iBooks. The Smashwords link ( https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/610304 ) offers all available file formats for any reading device including Kindle, Nook, Apple and PC. The Amazon link for Kindle readers is http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B52W3CO .
Beautiful print editions of Power Steering are available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and CreateSpace. Just click on the links below!
Amazon: Click this Amazon link!
Barnes and Noble: Click this Barnes and Noble link!
CreateSpace: Click this Createspace link!
NEW! Now you can hear an interview with this energetic, vivacious author on podcast! For ten years, radio personality Neal Steele of Extra WXGM, 99.1 FM, in Gloucester, Virginia, has done monthly interviews with members of the Chesapeake Bay Writers. Marilyn was the featured author in July, 2016, and the recording of her interview can be heard by clicking this link to Soundcloud: Radio Podcast with M. J. Scott (USA)
First Review of Power Steering!
“Power Steering is creative, descriptive and beautifully done. The book reminds me of special places and times in my own life. At times you feel it could have been written about you! It steers you right into the writer’s mindset as Ms. Scott was writing the book. Her beautiful prose touched me and made me feel as if I were right beside her in the passenger’s seat; seeing and feeling her memories as she wrote. In the process, you may even learn a little about yourself. It was a great read and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to be uplifted.” Connie L. Buechele, reviewer and classmate of M. J. Scott.
The author’s two previously published books, Journey Into Fulfillment and Time on the Turn by Xulon Press, are available for sale online at Barnes and Noble.
July 5, 2016
Echoes of Your Choices
Daniel Wetta Publishing is pleased to announce the publication today in e-book form of author Sharon Dillon’s first book, Echoes of Your Choices. In addition, a beautiful print edition will be available within two more weeks.
For several years, Sharon has delighted her followers through her posts on her WordPress.com blogsite entitled, “Thoughts to Ponder.” In her first book, the author curates the best articles from these postings and arranges them in thematic chapters. Sharon’s mission from the beginning has been to write to bring peace, joy and laughter to all who seek to find a true and destined path in their hectic lives. Drawing from the pain and joy of her own life experiences, Sharon teaches practical methods for living a peaceful, happy and balanced life. The markers along the path that she sets for the reader, compassion and love, are the same as those she has established on her own path. Life, Sharon believes, must be fun as well as serious and spiritual as well as practical.
Over the years, Sharon has been a reporter for several newspapers and magazines in both Wisconsin and Virginia. Writing on a deadline helped her quickly hone her skills. She has loved books since the first time her mother read her a story. Always providing her new subjects for learning and personal growth, books have been a staple of her life, bringing her comfort, joy, shivers of fear, and the full spectrum of emotions. She grew up in Ohio, lived and worked in several states, and finally settled in Virginia after retiring from 25 years’ employment with the State of Wisconsin. She now works part-time jobs that are fun at Busch Gardens Williamsburg and the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. Meeting new people daily in these jobs provides her ideas for writing and expands her world view.
The author is a frequent attendee of the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshops, a member of the Chesapeake Bay Writers, the Williamsburg Writers Group, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, and Southern Humorists.
Echoes of Your Choices is now available in e-book form for $2.99 on Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks and all online retail book sellers. The print version, soon available, will sell for $10.95 and will be most easily available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and CreateSpace.
Below are the links to purchase the e-books from Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. Apple users may purchase through iBooks (via iTunes) on their Apple devices. Note that Smashwords makes available multiple downloads in all e-book file formats for one price (for readers who might like to have the book on multiple devices.)
Click Here for Barnes and Noble
June 10, 2016
Congratulations to the Prize Winners!
No, they didn’t win a red, classic Corvette Stingray like the one that shot through Mexico with Día and Luna under a hail of bullets…something slightly more mundane: a $20 Amazon gift card. Hey, I am on a writer’s budget. But they also won something else: my deep appreciation for taking time to read my short story. Any writer will tell you that to them, finding readers of books, blogs, poetry, short stories, limericks, signs, fortune cookies…readers…is a heart-warming experience that keeps hope for the world burning in their hearts.
In case you missed this, I took my short story, “Nightfire!”, and serialized it over six days. On the seventh day, I asked a question about the story and had three gift cards to give to three winners for a correct answer. For six days I tweeted about the contest and promoted it heavily over social media. I hope it was not to an annoying degree. I might have been the only one having fun, but I confess to having enjoyed doing it.
I have other free bonuses and reads that are supplementary to the novels The Z Redemption and Corvette Nightfire, the latter done with story contributions by editor-and-poker extraordinaire, Robert Selfe. Many people have said these are fun. So here is your link to them: Click here to have fun (heh, heh.)
Congratulations and thanks, again, to the winners. To all writers out there who happen to see this blog post, I salute you and offer this, my brothers and sisters: Animo! Keep writing from your heart and soul, and enjoy the best life of all!
June 9, 2016
Day 7:The Prize!
Hello, readers! Each day over the preceding six days, I have posted an episode of my 9,000 word short story “Nightfire!”, which I wrote after the novel, Corvette Nightfire, as a prequel to explain a bit of mystery that ran through the novel. I have no clue how many people might have read it, whether it was one (me) or a hundred, but I sincerely hope that it was an enjoyable read if you did so. I am honored.
If you would like to read the short story in its entirety, here is the link: Nightfire pdf version
I have said that I will give the $20 Amazon gift cards to the first three readers who would send me the answer to a question about the story via e-mail. I am posting the question in the early morning. (I am in the Eastern time zone of the United States.) I will be away from my computer until the early afternoon. Send your answer to me at: cursillo86@gmail.com. I should be able to tell who the first three are by time stamps on the e-mail. If there are many more correct answers than I expect from people in different time zones all over the world, I think the fair thing to do would be to select three from a random drawing. I will only deviate from the original idea if that is the case. In any event, please send me a user name with your email that I may congratulate you publicly so everyone will know that there have been three winners selected.
HERE IS THE QUESTION:
Who are the three generations of males explained in the story that tie the short story with the novel? (The names of the grandfather, the father, and the grandson.)
It is an easy question, not a trick one, so don’t doubt your answer!
If the short story whetted your appetite to experience suspense, passion and heroism in international settings in the longer format of the novel, I invite you to consider reading The Z Redemption and Corvette Nightfire. Just click on the book covers below to be taken to the Amazon pages for these books in e-book or print. If you are interested in purchasing from other sources such as Barnes and Noble, Smashwords and Apple I-books, all that information is on my website http://www.danielwetta.com. The e-books are only $2.99 each. For those of you who get one of those books, I will say this: Thank you, and buckle up!
Click Here for More Information
Click Here for More Information
June 8, 2016
Day 6! A Story in Six Days, a Prize on the Seventh!
Hello, readers! This is the sixth installment! I am serializing my 9,000 word short story, “Nightfire!”, for a fun way to read a story over six days. On the seventh day, I am going to ask a question about the story, and the first three persons who e-mail me the correct answer will receive a $20 Amazon gift card. If you missed the first five episodes, don’t worry: There are links to them just below this paragraph. “Nightfire!” is a prequel to the novel, Corvette Nightfire, and like the novel, it is full of love, heartbreak, crime, danger and heroism. Have fun with this, and I hope it whets your appetite to read the novel!
Episode Six
The night of the transport of the Corvette to Mexico, Día and Luna sat tensely in their seats as they approached the border. With so much cash being under the headliner of the car, and the car being a special birthday gift for the boss of the cartel, there were escorts for the young Rarámuri couple: A heavy-duty pickup truck cruised ahead of them, and a Ford Galaxy full of young Mexican men drove behind them.
“There should not be a problem going over the river to Mexico,” Día explained for the umpteenth time to Luna. “They have made sure the border agents looking at the cars tonight are the guys on their payroll.” But he was nervous.
Luna sat quietly, staring out the passenger window.
“So when it is time for us to get out of the car on the other side, when everyone is making a big commotion about the car for El Jefe, that is when we do what we always do.”
Luna didn’t say anything, so Día added, “We run. We run into the night. You stay with me. They won’t notice us or care about us at first. They will just be interested in the car.”
The inspection at the U.S. gate was, indeed, nonchalant. The young man who looked at their papers didn’t even look directly in their eyes. Día had seen him on the job before. The truck was ahead on the bridge over the river. In the rear mirror, Día saw that the Ford behind them also had passed through quickly, as if it had been waved through. Día did not expect that there would be anyone on the Mexican side stopping vehicles in the “Nothing to Declare” lane. There seldom was. Sometimes, a Mexican Army troop-carrier sat nearby in the darkness with soldiers watching and pulling an occasional car over to question the driver, but this didn’t happen often. Once over the bridge, they would drive through the sleeping small town on the route to the city of Chihuahua, but they would turn off shortly onto a rural road that would lead them to the place where El Jefe was staying.
It was precisely at that turn where some Mexican Army jeeps and trucks had blocked the intersection! Día got startled suddenly by cracks of gunfire ahead of him, and he instinctively stomped the brake pedal. Luna bolted upright in her seat. Both of them stared ahead, trying to make sense of what they were seeing.
“I think the guys in the truck are shooting at the Mexican Army!” Día shouted to Luna. He glanced in the mirror and saw that the Ford was speeding toward them and catching up fast. When he looked ahead again, he saw the pickup truck move backwards and then stop. He tensed, aware that he would have to make a split-second decision. Suddenly, the truck began spinning its tires, and it lurched forward aggressively, accelerating directly towards two jeeps on the left side of the highway. Día glanced in the rear mirror another time. The Ford was getting closer. When he looked ahead again, to his amazement, the pickup truck rammed into the fronts of both jeeps, and all three vehicles flew askew, leaving an opening in the road.
While Luna screamed, Día floored it. He revved the Corvette’s engine, shifted into second gear, took it whining to a scream, hit third, and sailed through the opening in the highway just as soldiers rushed forward trying to shoot at him and the Ford behind them.
But Día got through! A shot blew out the passenger side window, and Luna shrieked and threw her hands to the right side of her head. It happened fast, yet Día perceived her movements as if she were in slow motion. His mind took recorded instants of super-speed time as if he were looking at Luna and watching the rear mirror at the same time. There he saw that the Ford had stopped and that soldiers were running towards it, firing their rifles furiously.
“Luna! Luna! Are you okay?” Día shouted, feeling panicked that she was hurt badly. But his feet and hands fired the Corvette into the Chihuahua night. The car made a loud rifle shot of its own as an orange flame spumed from the exhaust and then extinguished. In a flash, they were in the pitch-darkness of Mexican countryside.
It didn’t seem like a serious injury to her head at first, but Luna never was the same. As months and years passed, she became quieter. Her eyes stayed on Día as he fixed her meals or helped her dress in the mornings. She sat silently nearby as he worked. Every now and then, she brought him joy, because out of the blue, she would say, “Thank you!” or “I love you!” Once she said, “Look at the sky!” But then her cough developed and became worse with every passing month. She stopped speaking completely then.
They moved a lot. Día made a trusted friend who kept his Corvette in storage for him. Several times, Día went to visit it and he took Luna with him. He gave her rides in the night, which she seemed to love. He never disturbed the roof liner or told anyone about the cash taped to the metallic roof above it. He remembered that he had never changed the vehicle number because he had learned that there would be no inspection at the border. So a knowledgeable person looking at the vehicle tag mounted on the driver-side dash by the windshield would know that the Corvette was originally silver.
He told Luna, “We’ll take this car to Rogelio when he’s grown. It will be our gift from us to him. Or maybe one day he will look for his people, and he will come to Chihuahua and find us.”
Luna’s cough began producing blood. With the help of his friend, Día took her to receive medical care in the city, Chihuahua. The doctor admitted her to the hospital, and she died a couple of weeks later. It was 1968, and she was only twenty-eight years old.
It took Día weeks in the canyons, but he finally found his brother still living among the Rarámuri. His heart grieved the loss of Luna so painfully that there were days in the mountains and canyons when he did not have the spirit to walk and search for his brother or his family. He didn’t find him until winter, when many of his people migrated to the warmer canyon bottoms. The brother was married at the time and had two small children.
Día didn’t want his family to know much about the life that he and Luna had led. His heart wanted the memory of Luna to be what she was before she left the mountains with him: happy, young, beautiful…and a true runner. In the few years that Día spent with his brother’s family, he said that he and Luna had been deported suddenly. They had left Rogelio with the ranchers in Texas to protect him, Día reported, and they had worked together in different cities to avoid retribution by the cartels. He didn’t tell them how quiet Luna had been, that she had been injured, and that she had followed his every movement with her trusting eyes. He didn’t say that he had stolen the only legacy which he might be able to leave his son: the car and the cash. He debated with himself to tell his brother that the cartels might look for the car because it had so much money inside it. Día was about to explain that, finally, to his brother, but before he could, he died in an accident in the mountains. The homeland that had nourished his spirit as a young boy betrayed him: a rocky point on a cliff crumbled, causing Día to slip and fall to his death.
After Día died, the brother inspected the box that Día had brought with him when he had returned to the mountains. Inside were the keys to the Corvette, a couple of Polaroid photographs taken of Día and Luna in Texas, a picture of the vehicle identification number of the Corvette, a paper with contact information for the man keeping the car, and a few random odds and ends: a whistle, some coins, a rosary…not things in summation that would explain the years away from home. The brother had a better understanding from a story that Día had told him once:
“I left behind this car, a crazy car that spits fire sometimes. I used to take Luna out in it in the night, and we would race through the dark countryside until the car would shoot its flame and make a big light behind us and a noise. Those were times when a smile would appear on Luna’s face. I adored seeing her smile. Before we left the United States, I told her that we would have a last name, as is the custom of the gringos, in honor of our car, and we would say that we were Fuego de Noche, which in English means ‘Nightfire.’ One night in Mexico, when our car sputtered the fire, I reminded her of our gringo last name. She looked at me and laughed in a way that I will never forget. At that moment, a shooting star lit the night, and Luna said to me, “Look at the sky!”
And then Día broke into sobs, and his brother sat and put his arm around him.
Remembering this story a few days after Día died, the brother said to his wife and children, “I want us to remember my brother and Luna in our hearts forever. They were great runners. Their names meant, ‘Day’ and ‘Moon.’ Their names honored the creators of the Rarámuri. They had the spirit of fire in the night. They called themselves by this name in Spanish. We have Rarámuri names, but we will remember my brother and sister-in-law by using this Spanish name when the chabochi ask our full names. Ours is the family, ‘Fuego de Noche.’ We are proud to be this.”
The brother was old and his wife had long died when a young man appeared in the canyon with a woman and a Rarámuri guide. The brother was nearly blind, but when he stood close and looked at the youth, when he traced his eyes and face with his fingers, he could see that the man looked very much like Día had looked just before he died. He had always expected that Día’s son would find his way to him, but this was not his son. This could only be a miracle of the Creator: The young man before him was Día’s grandson. He said that his name was Corvette Nightfire!
In his body, the brother felt rushing wind.
It was Día telling him to give Corvette the box.
The End
June 6, 2016
Day 5: A Story in Six Days, a Prize on the Seventh!
Hello, readers! This is the fifth installment! I am serializing my 9,000 word short story, “Nightfire!”, for a fun way to read a story over six days. On the seventh day, I am going to ask a question about the story, and the first three persons who e-mail me the correct answer will receive a $20 Amazon gift card. If you missed the first four episodes, don’t worry: There are links to them just below this paragraph. “Nightfire!” is a prequel to the novel, Corvette Nightfire, and like the novel, it is full of love, heartbreak, crime, danger and heroism. Have fun with this, and I hope it whets your appetite to read the novel!
Episode Five
Rogelio, the baby, had been walking for about nine months when the complicities of Día’s work intruded. He and Luna suddenly had to accept the inevitability of sudden life-or-death choices to be made with no time to consider them. The finality of things began with the theft of a fast silver car.
Día was about to go home late one January evening when a pock-skinned cartel leader appeared with a couple of his men. Día had dealt with him before, a rooster of a man who strutted back and forth wherever he was, usually belittling those with him. But this night he came with singleness of purpose.
“You are coming with us, cabrón. We have work tonight,” the man told Día. “El jefe, the big man, is coming from Sinaloa to Ojinaga in a few days. He has business, but it is his birthday, and he wants to have a special fiesta because he will have fifty years of age. There is this singular gift that he wants to show off at his party. It is a car is made in the United States, a new model, very hard to get. It has caused me mucho fuego (a lot of fire) in my stomach trying to find him one. Finally, I found one not too far from here. You are the lucky hombre who is going to get it ready for him. Serás muy jodido si metes la pata, cabrón! (You will be very fucked if you screw this up, you idiot.) Vámonos, let’s go! Bring your tool kit.”
They drove on nearly deserted highways about ninety miles to a ranch on the outskirts of a small community named Alpine. On the way, the man described the “gift” that Día was to steal: a 1963 Corvette that had double rear windows caused by a flow of the roofline passing down the center of the window. The car would be in the detached equipment shed of a ranch house owned by the prominent area farmer. “El jefe tiene huevos grandes por este auto,” he told Día: “The boss has big balls for this car. It is fast. He wants the best.”
Just before arriving at the ranch, a mid-size moving truck pulled ahead of them onto the highway. It led a few miles before pulling to the shoulder in the dark of the moonless night. As they passed it, the man told Día, “You will get the car started and drive it to this truck. Muy rápido. It is a straight drive to here. Just be sure no one is on the road when you make the short trip. Drive the car into the truck when you arrive, and then get in the truck with the driver. We won’t be far. But if anything goes wrong, you are doing this all by yourself, chiquito. The truck will take the car to a place and leave it to be painted. When that is finished, it comes to your shop for the customizing that you will do. We will instruct you at that time. But tonight, this is your job alone, comprendes? (Do you understand?) Any word from you about us to anyone, we go to find your wife. She will not be too happy that you talked, I promise you that.”
At the mention of Luna, Día felt his breath catch. He forced a calm composure. “I understand,” Día answered, but inside he seethed with rage. In a flash, he determined that the time for a new life had arrived.
The theft was easy in this trusting community of rural Texas. Día had worried about dogs barking or the time required to break into the shed, but the night was quiet and still. There was no sign of dogs. The double door to the shed was not even locked. Inside were the car, a couple of tractors, a big generator and farm tools. The men had let Día out from the car just down the road from the ranch and had driven away. With his tools, Día skillfully unlocked the car. He observed that the Corvette had a manual transmission. He broke the steering column lock. With his body, he eased the car closer to the open shed door by pushing the frame from beside the driver seat. When he hot-wired the ignition, he got startled by a loud crack and a flame that shot from the exhaust pipe.
Maldito! he thought. This carburetor needs adjusting! He worried that the sound might have awakened the owners in the house, but in the seconds that followed, he saw no sign that anyone in the house was stirring. He hummed the engine as quietly as the Corvette would allow. The engine was a small block and relatively calm at low rpms, but Día worried that there would be more misfires creating explosive cracks of thunder in the cold, silent night.
When he got to the road, he gunned the engine and popped into gear, and the car’s front end lifted slightly for a moment. He had rolled the window down. The gushing, roaring wind in his face and the growling acceleration of the engine caused his heart to pound. He had never experienced speed like this! It was that moment which validated for him that the time had come for freedom for his family. He would pay close attention to opportunities that would present themselves over the next days.
He covered the two miles to the truck in no time. When he decelerated, the brakes seemed woefully inadequate for the Corvette’s speed. He noted that the car had drum brakes. He had studied the new disc brakes on a couple of the cars that had passed under his modifications in his shop. He made a mental note that these should be installed on the Corvette. The truck had turned around and had its rear doors opened with ramps down for entry. Día barely managed to stop the car in time because of the brakes, but he did, and then he eased the Corvette up the ramp and into the truck.
In the three days that passed before he saw the car again, Día remembered something important: The car was silver. The Chevrolet Corvette vehicle identification numbering system would include a number to indicate the car’s color. If it were to be repainted, a new vehicle number would have to reflect the new color.
When the man who had taken him on his mission reappeared with the car three nights later at his shop, the surprise wasn’t that the car was bright red. The shocker was the special project that the man had for him to do: He had a box of cash, U.S. currency, that he wanted hidden inside the liner of the car’s interior ceiling. Día was to tape the large denomination dollars to the metal frame of the roof and then re-install the liner so that no one would be able to tell that it had ever been removed. The car, Día realized, was not only a birthday gift for the leader of the Cartel of Sinaloa, but it would also serve the purpose of transporting cash to him for drug sales that had taken place in the United States. El Jefe would have double bragging rights: for the car and the cash inside it.
After he stole the Corvette, Día had prepared Luna that there might come a hasty escape opportunity for them. In the bed, they whispered intimately, as if the baby could understand what they were discussing if he heard them. Luna surprised Día with unyielding anxiety about Rogelio:
“Por Dios, Día, if we run, we can’t take the baby! Anything can happen. We could be killed! We’ll be on the run forever! We can’t take our baby all over Mexico! That is no life for our son!”
“We can’t stay here forever, either, Luna,” Día answered. “I’m going to be caught one day by the gringo police, or the cartel will kill us, or we’ll be deported and then sought in Mexico by the cartel. We have to make a new life, with new identities.
“I won’t risk Rogelio’s life in the transport of this car,” Luna said pointedly, talking about the Corvette. “If I have to go with you, we have to come back!”
The discussion wore on through the night. Finally, Día got Luna to agree on a plan that he didn’t believe would ever come to pass: that they would find a hiding place in Mexico, and when the time was right, they would return for Rogelio. Luna seemed uneasily to agree to this, but Día believed that she also didn’t think that they would be able to return.
The next night, Luna shocked Día with news that she had confided to the woman of the ranch that she would be making the trip with him.
Luna said, “I began to tell her that we would be back, but she interrupted me. It was as if she knew we were doing bad things. She told me never to worry about Rogelio, that she loved him as if he were her own grandson, and me as if I were her daughter! If anything ever happened to us, she said that she and her husband would raise Rogelio as if he were their own son!”
