August Musings

I finished my morning coffee and stared into the empty cup. I'd been sitting at the desk in my office for over an hour, struggling with what to share in this blog post, but soon I began to write: 

Set in the fictional town of Midpoint, A Good Day To Die follows recurring character Jacob "Twenty-One" Black Elk as he has a run-in with a pair of sicarios who threaten to kill Emily in a case of mistaken identity at the roadside diner. As the story begins, Twenty-One is standing at the bar, drying glasses with a white towel. It's only five o'clock, but the sky is growing increasingly dark.

A Good Day To Die (Excerpt)

A deluge of rain and hail pelted the skylight, and strong winds were blowing from the southwest, making it difficult to drive. It was unlikely that anyone in their right mind would be traveling this remote stretch of the old road, let alone looking for a place to eat. Most of the truckers and motorists on the Interstate would have pulled off at an exit somewhere closer to Amarillo.

The Texas Panhandle is a vast wilderness with colossal escarpments overlooking windswept plains and distant canyons. It’s a capricious place where Mother Nature exacts her revenge and ultimately decides the outcome. And then, when you least expect it, she surprises you again with the gentleness of her comment.

The National Weather Service had issued a severe weather alert, and John Bradford, the owner of the roadside diner, suspecting there would be few, if any, customers, had gone home for the night.

Twenty-one watched Emily out of the corner of his eye as she refilled ketchup bottles. The pink uniform against her pale white skin reminded him of the evening primrose that grew wild on the reservation. As soon as the cleaning and restocking were done, he planned to switch off the red neon sign in the window and head for home.

“Twenty-one.” Emily paused. “That’s not your real name, is it?”

His eyes widened slightly as he tossed the towel over his shoulder and tipped his head to one side. “No, it is not.”

Emily blinked. “Why am I not surprised?”

“My name is Black Elk,” he said. “Jacob Black Elk.”

She leaned in, resting her elbows on the bar. “Well, if you don’t mind me asking, how come people call you Twenty-one?”

For a moment, he let his mind wander back to the days when his classmates had teased him about his shyness. His shoulders dropped, and the corners of his mouth turned down a bit more than usual. “As a child, I didn’t say much.”

“Yeah, shocker.” She rolled her round eyes and turned her attention back to the cook. “What’s that got to do with it?”

Fingering an empty glass, he lowered his gaze to it, rocking the vessel back and forth on the counter. “When I got older, someone followed me around, counting the words I spoke.”

Emily didn’t say anything. She just stared at him and nodded.

“I didn’t like it,” he said. “But that is how I got the name.”

Emily turned on her stool to face the front window. “People can be so cruel,” she said, squinting to see through the endless sheets of rain on the other side of the glass. “They say a nickname is the hardest stone you can throw at a man.”

“I should not have tolerated the abuse for so long. I would have rather grabbed a gun and driven them off the rez.”

Fifteen minutes later, he was about to switch off the sign when a car turned into the driveway. As the vehicle approached, he observed that it was a black sedan. It rolled at a snail’s pace across the gravel and came to a stop with the engine and lights off.

Suddenly, there was a crack of thunder and a flash of lightning that stretched across the sky. Twenty-one moved out from his position behind the bar, keeping an eye on the vehicle as the doors swung open and two men stepped out of the car. He could hear the muffled sound of voices outside the diner as they hurried to the front door...

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I'm delighted to announce that a new edition of A Good Day To Die is set for release on September 1, 2025. I appreciate your ongoing support and look forward to sharing the story with you. Happy reading!