PLUS
CHAPTER FOUR
AFTER THE SAWPITS of Boston, Shannon wanted no man as his master. He spent the next three years wandering the New York frontier, living by his wits and strong back. He traveled from village to farm to town, always trying to skirt the tides of "George's War"—another of the seemingly never-ending struggles against the French and their Indian allies. He specialized in the dirty, hard-labor jobs—putting in a month or two at a mill, doing scut work at a blacksmith shop, helping farmers clear new land or getting in the harvest.
During this time, Emmett Shannon never appeared on a town's official rolls, usually finding bed and board at his place of work, or living in the squalor of the squatters' camps that ringed any well-off farming village. He learned no skills of great value, preferring the freedom of moving on whenever he chose, to laboring in the lower ranks of some leather apron's trade. The free life he enjoyed was easy to maintain during these years because the toll of the Indian wars made male labor of any type exceedingly scarce; so scarce, he was constantly offered opportunities to stay on in some village and make a life.
"I may have been young and a fool," Shannon later told Sarah, "but I wasn't that great a fool. I saw how others like me were treated. When you arrived in a town you were greeted with great enthusiasm at the tavern. Everyone cozying up to you for your services. But if a man was stupid enough to remain and take their damned redemption contract, it was short rations and hard labor next, with a stick across the shoulders to keep you quick.
"I never met a traveling man who was allowed to join the village circle. No money, no land, no vote. If you came in poor, you would remain poor. So I was always treated well. What else could they do? One harsh word and I was gone down the road to the next man who needed me."
A few years short of his majority, a different kind of opportunity knocked. In return for the promise of land— rich, New York borderland—he was recruited by a ranger company to fight the Frenchies and their Indian allies. It proved to be a mistake.
It was the offer of real land that clouded his view. With land, he would instantly become a man to be reckoned with. The land would enfranchise him, give him a say in matters. He would be the first Shannon who could stand tall in any circle. His advice would be sought, his opinion valued. More importantly, he would be able to free his mother and sister from the poverty of Boston. Not that the few letters he received from his mother were complaining; she was the sort who took on any burden and tried to put a good face on it. Emmett realized the only hope his little family had for a future rested on him. The term of enlistment was for three years.
"I was so green that it is a wonder I managed to survive the first months, much less live out my term of contract," Shannon said. "A religious man would say it was a miracle. But if the truth be known, it was because I was a gifted murderer. 1 learned quickly, made few errors—and those I did make, I was lucky enough to escape and wise enough not to repeat."
He also discovered he had a minor talent in medicine. "It was fright that quickened my wits," Shannon said to his wife. "After a fight, with the wounded all around groaning and praying for death or mercy, the doctors would walk through the field with nothing but a lancet. They'd bleed you on the spot, if you let them. If you survived that and made it to the tent, they'd want to dose with the ten-and-ten. This was a purgative. For horses. They would do this every three hours, followed by massive bleeding each time. It was the rare man who survived that.
"In a battle, chances are only two men will fall if a hundred charge. In a doctor's hands, the number will be twenty-five out of a hundred. What was left of us, the plagues got. That's how most of us died: bled by the doctor, starved by the quartermaster, or fried by the fever."
Emmett developed his own theories and kit bag of medicines—relying on proven herbs, quantities of healthy foods—which meant no purging or bleeding—backed up by burning pure-smelling things to drive away the little animals of disease that lived in foul air, or, as a last resort, trapping them on tarred rope.
The treaties of peace were signed, violated, and signed again before his enlistment was finally up. Shannon presented himself to a British lieutenant for his wages and the document that deeded him the promised land. The man slowly counted out the shillings he was owed. Then he stopped. Next, instead of the deed, the lieutenant slid over a brimming cup of rum.
"I'll not be wanting that, thank you just the same," Shannon said. "I'll have my promise, redeemed, if you please."
The officer laughed. He pushed over a slender sack that chinked with coin. "I'm buying you out," the lieutenant said. "Haven't you been told? Ah, but you're a ranger. They're always the last to get the word. You don't want land, son. It would be worthless in your hands. Besides, the plot is small and poor."
"Then why would you be buying it, sir?" Shannon asked the obvious.
The British officer's face turned bloodred with anger at being questioned. Through stiff lips and bristling moustache he gave Shannon the ultimatum: sell out now, or there would be nothing at all for him tomorrow. That the man lived beyond the next few seconds was only because Emmett had learned to keep his temper under control during these last years.
"What could I do?" he asked Sarah. "He and the other king's men made it plain: sign over the land or get the back of their hand. It should have been no great marvel to me," Shannon said. "During those three years of war, I kept on hearing my grandfather's voice warning me—'Never turn your back on the king's men.' And here I was fighting for the king's men. Ah, well, in some things the Shannons are slow to learn."
What upset him far more than the cheating was the response to the letter he'd written his mother and sister in anticipation of his newfound status as a landowner. It was the first letter he had been able to write in over two years. The letter said he would be sending for them as soon as he mustered out. It would be hard work at first, he told them, but after that they would never agonize over the price of bread or firewood again.
A week following the incident with the lieutenant, while he worried over how he would break the sad news to his family, Emmett got a tragic reprieve. It was a letter from Ruth. His mother had died a few months before in the smallpox epidemic that swept Boston that year.
Finally, Ruth said she wouldn't be joining him, either, but thanks for the kind offer. She had married. From the description of the man—reading between the glowing adjectives of praise—he sounded exactly like their father. His name was Isaac Conners.
Once again the Ship of the Shannons had foundered.
* * * *
Shannon woke, drenched in sweat and ravenous. His fever had broken. The storm roared on outside the cave. He stumbled out for more firewood, cooked and ate. He built up the fire, then sleep smashed down on him. He was out for nearly twenty-four hours.
* * * *
The first time Emmett saw Cherry Valley, he did not notice the town's small jealousies. He was on a scouting expedition to the springs well past the town. It was during George's War, in early summer, and his party sat under the trees at a small tavern on the edge of town. He thought he had never seen such a pleasant little community—in the distance he could see smoke rising from the chimney of a farmhouse and smell the smells of something delicious cooking for dinner. The traffic past the tavern was unhurried, and everyone was smiling and well-fed. The innkeeper even stood Shannon's group a round, and his wife packed them a double brace of cold bird and a meat pie for the trail.
Later he often thought of Cherry Valley as a hazy ideal. He envisioned himself being part of a town like that once he had his farm. Even after the British lieutenant robbed him of the dreams of landed respectability, Shannon had kept the brief hours in Cherry Valley safe from the cynical probing of his mind.
Emmett returned to wandering after his mustering out. He spent six years traveling the roads of New York, but this time as a trader, tinkerer, and apothecary. No longer did he earn his bread with hard labor, but depended on charm and the voluminous knapsack on his back. The frontier was becoming more self-reliant, and the cities of the East were buying more than they were selling. Still, frontier life was isolated. The settlers sometimes wondered if they were missing something living far from the coast in these empty lands.
Emmett specialized in creating a small need and then fulfilling it. With a lonely farm wife he might talk about city life, mentioning perhaps some elegant woman he had seen outside a fine shop and the bit of lace that added just the perfect touch to her costume. Then he would recall he had the very same piece of lace in his pack, and he would draw it out slowly, temptingly. The farm wife could never have the costume, but she could have the lace. She could keep it in her drawer with some cloves or some spiced-apple cachet, and when a friend visited, she could slip it from its nesting place—slowly and temptingly like Shannon—and paint that picture of the elegant city woman for her friend. It was a way of dressing up her dreams.
At a tavern Emmett might perform the same magic with a gleaming pocketknife or a pouch of brandy-cured tobacco from some exotic Virginia plantation home. With such a knife a man could imagine whittling the most wondrous toys—with moving, wooden-clockwork parts for his children—toys that Shannon remembered seeing at a fair. With the tobacco he could light up and inhale smoky reflections of a man at leisure in his library.
It was his herbs and medicines that really opened people up to Emmett. You could tell when he spoke there was no blarney in these products. He wasn't selling Seneca Oil or miracle cures from the Spanish Lands. People began to look forward to his irregular visits, and they delighted in feeding him, putting him up in their softest beds and filling him in on the major details of their lives since they last had met. In the winter months he might take a contract as a scout, traveling from town to town and fort to fort. He would stay at a prosperous farm, drink hot cider and let himself be enticed into the barn by the pretty girls.
During those days, if you asked, his customers would tell you Emmett Shannon was a man who was a marvel with a story. He always had the freshest, most interesting news and gossip—or at least he told it so it seemed that way. But if they reflected, they would realize that in the time he spent with them, they'd done most of the talking. Emmett was a man who could listen, and give a person the impression that he was as great a chatterbox as they. Finally they would tell you Emmett was a man who seemed to have no aim, no goal but the next lovely stop in the road.
He came to Cherry Valley again. It was in the summer of the new decade. The tavern had been replaced by one much larger. The traffic in and out was constant, the folk more prosperous. There was a town center now, complete with a new church and school. Shannon noticed all this idly: he had no intention of staying more than that night. His real business was in another farm community well beyond Cherry Valley.
The next morning he strolled out of town, leading his packhorse. He paused to lean on a fence at the western edge of town. It protected a vast, rich meadow. Just beyond was a gate opening on a path that wound through weeping willows and cherry trees. The path ended at a sprawling farmhouse. There was a drumming of hooves on rich grass just to his right.
Shannon turned to see a vision. A girl was riding bareback on a fat brown horse. Her skirts were at her knees and she kicked the horse's flanks with naked heels. Her face and arms and legs were milk-white, and she had long black hair that streamed out behind her in the wind. It was like the myth of Molly Brant come true. In local legend this was how Sir William Johnson—founder of the entire Mohawk Valley some forty years before—had met the Indian princess who was to become his wife. Shannon's girl on horseback was no myth and no Indian. She was Scots-Irish and she had a sprinkle of freckles on her nose. Her name was Sarah Hopkins. In three months she would be his wife.
First he had to get past her father. Sarah was an only child whose father had never remarried after her mother's premature death. Unlike Shannon's grandfather, there was nothing tragic/romantic about Alex Hopkins's decision to live the permanent life as a widower. People said he was as tight-fisted as a Dutchman. Emmett approached his courtship of Sarah Hopkins like a man waging border warfare. The moment he saw her thundering past him on the horse, the picture blended with his long-ago dream of Cherry Valley. This would be his wife. For the first time he set a goal and went after it with a will.
The town elders were happy to hire him as a scout. There were Indian fears about—all nonsense—mainly caused by the area's steady encroachment on farms already owned by Indian families who had put aside their tomahawks and breechclouts for trousers and the plow. Shannon sold off all his goods—bargaining shrewdly to amass capital—and laid siege to Mr. Hopkins. At the tavern, he always bought the man a round or three. Hopkins favored a bit of opium in his ale, but was too stingy to pay the extra penny, so Shannon made sure the drink was spiked the way he liked it. He listened intently to the man's tales—mostly complaints of how his neighbors were always trying to cheat him—and always frowned or smiled at the right point.
Eventually Hopkins invited him home to share a meal— bribed with a promised bottle of good brandy. Sarah helped serve the dinner, and politely sat on a stool by her father's chair as the man droned on and on. By the time the bottle was three-fourths gone, the fire was dwindling and the room was growing cold. No matter: Hopkins was drunk and snoring, his feet dangling close to the grate.
Sarah had kept her eyes modestly low during all this, but she finally raised them in protest when her father let out a loud snore. She found Emmett staring at her, smiling. His eyes were clear, his hand steady as he reached over and let his hand rest on her arm. She glanced worriedly at his glass and saw with a start that it was full—realizing the drinking that night had been done only by her father.
"I want you for my wife, Sarah Hopkins," was all Shannon said. Then he rose and left the house.
Sarah confessed later she had sat by the cold fire long after he left, wondering who this Emmett Shannon could be. "I want you for my wife," indeed. The man must be mad. And the next time she saw him she would tell him so. Give him a very large piece of her mind. She remembered his dazzling smile, the clear blue eyes, and the place on her arm where he had touched her suddenly grew warm.
Everyone in Cherry Valley said it was a grand wedding—considering it was the daughter of Alex Hopkins who was wed. It should have been: Shannon paid for it himself.
On their wedding night she came to him in a plain white cotton shift, her black hair tumbling to her waist. There was no nervousness or hesitancy: she gave a long, deep sigh as she came into his arms, and it was as if they had been lovers forever.
Emmett had a dream in his hands. It was a dream with soft arms and thighs and a full, throaty chuckle. It was probably for this reason that his mind was clouded when Alex Hopkins made his offer of a large, uncleared parcel of land that lay at the edge of his farm. It would be his and Sarah's, in return for Shannon's labors on the Hopkins farm proper. Emmett pushed aside his memories of redemption farmers who toiled for entire generations and died with arthritic limbs and empty bellies.
It was also for Sarah's sake he did his best to ignore Hopkins's loudly stated views that everything that was English was good and noble and everything American a poor, degenerate shadow. His best usually came in a poor second. They had heated, almost violent arguments. Sarah would pull them apart and take Emmett home to their split-board shack, and soothe him with her voice and soft fingers stroking his temples.
Shannon's marriage and monetary alliance with Hopkins put him at odds with the town. Tavern debates over the shackles the motherland was throwing over her stepchildren would be silenced when Emmett entered. Suspicious eyes followed as he took his drink to a solitary corner. Emmett couldn't agree with them more. He knew firsthand the arrogant British opinion that her colonies were some kind of an obscene child, born out of wedlock in a cold bed with not even an old gramer to tend it. Never mind that thousands of Colonials had died taking up arms against the French in defense of the mother country. Somebody had to pay the enormous cost of George's War, and the king was determined it wouldn't be him.
Emmett witnessed deprivation spreading across the land as the colonies tried to struggle out of the pit that follows any great war. Prices and taxes climbed the mountain hand-in-hand. Even on the frontier the roads were swarming with refugees from the poverty of the cities, desperate to find some kind of life. Cherry Valley accepted some—in bondage. The rest were warned out before the alms laws forced them to assume the burden of their support. The refugees moved on, and few knew or cared what happened to them.
Church also kept Shannon apart. Although he was not a religious man, he remained stubbornly Catholic, and any time he was even tempted to soothe his neighbors into accepting him by attending services, he would remember his mother's stricken face when she saw him marching at the head of the Pope's Day parade.
Sarah, like most of the people of Cherry Valley, was only semiliterate. But she quickly warmed to the idea of books and the lives they revealed when Emmett began reading to her aloud. They would sit by the fire at nights and Shannon would open whatever volume he managed to obtain and he would weave tales for her with his rich voice— which was very much like his mother's, but with a deeper timbre. The stories would always end in tender lovemaking: the kind people remember for the rest of their lives. She promised when their children were born, they would learn to read as well as their father. She even suggested Shannon find a copy of Garden of the Soul. Their children would be introduced to both their religions. When they were older, they could make up their own minds.
Their first child was born in the autumn of 1772. It was a boy. They named him Brian. The pregnancy was easy, and Sarah said the birth pains were nothing at all and she was anxious to have another—a companion for Brian—as soon as possible. Shannon made her wait another year.
The work on the two farms was some of the hardest he had ever done in his life—rivaling even the sawpits. His own parcel was like Hopkins himself—stubborn and resisting. It would take weeks to clear a few yards, and he never knew so many rocks could hide in dirt. Emmett found that he was a very poor farmer. He never had time to work his own land. Hopkins always kept him doing his own bidding to pay off Shannon's debt. The man kept a careful accounting of Emmett's days and subtracted them from his books. But the amount owed never dwindled.
Things didn't get easier after Brian was born. Emmett got a desperate letter from his sister Ruth. As Shannon suspected, the man she married proved to be a wastrel. Isaac Conners had gone off "a-pirating," abandoning her with two children. He hadn't been heard from since. Despite this, Ruth still loved the man and was reluctant to leave. It took a firm letter to his sister to convince her of the hopelessness of her position.
Emmett added to his shack and brought her to the farm. Although the two women took an instant liking to each other, Ruth was no help to Sarah at all. She was a Boston girl through and through, and shrank from farm squalor.
"At least the air is healthy and clear and we never lack for victuals," Shannon would argue.
His sister would sniff the breeze suspiciously. "If you call this air," she would say dismissively. "It seems a little thin to me." Then they would all laugh and Ruth would go back to spoiling whatever task she was performing.
The hardship didn't prey on Emmett. He was too much in love with Sarah, and trusted somehow things would get better—although he worried if this wasn't his father creeping into him.
Their second child came in the spring of 1774. It was another boy, and they both had agreed beforehand that they would name him Farrell. Actually it was Sarah who insisted on this. She wanted to honor his parents. If it had been a girl, they would have named her Anne.
Something went wrong. The midwife came out of the room carrying his son swathed in cloths. Her lips were compressed, her face pinched, and she was shaking her head. "She's dying," the old gramer said. That simple. That flat.
In shock, Emmett stumbled into the room. The bed sheets were red and Sarah lay pale and quiet. Asleep, or. . . ? Shannon sat on the bed and took her limp hand. Suddenly she opened her eyes and looked at him, her eyes wild in fright. She gripped his hand—hard. Then she died without a word.
Her death rocked what little faith Shannon had. If God wanted children, he told his sister, why did He make women suffer so much? And why did He kill them? He had seen women dying in childbirth all of his life, but it had never registered as such a terrible penalty. Midwives' sayings, like "a tooth for every child," came into awful focus. His sister hushed him and said it was just so, that women accepted the burden God had written for them. For her sake Shannon pretended he was comforted.
The next three years went by in a blur. He dragged himself to his labors each day, not even bothering to argue with Hopkins that the poor parcel he was struggling to pay off was all that he would ever own, and that with Sarah's death he lost any call on her father's rich farm.
From the East came wild rumors, fueled equally by hope and pessimism. The king relented. No he didn't. War was imminent. The colonies were content.
Alex Hopkins's was the loudest voice of all. He mocked majority views in Cherry Valley. Without England, America was nothing. The king only demanded what was rightfully his. The people should respect his wishes. They had no right to question. On and on. Shannon saw this was no casual tavern debate. People were tending to their knives and rifles and choosing sides. He feared if his father-in-law went much further, he would rouse a mob that would sack and burn both farms. Shannon could also see people weighing each other's holdings.
If war broke out, he was sure there would be quick excuses to use the law as a thief, or account settler. Alex Hopkins had many people who itched for revenge.
War. And the fever gripped Cherry Valley. Committees were stripped of Loyalists and re-formed by "Patriots." The Committee of Safety would preside over all others. A militia was raised, and there was much parading and marching up and down the village square. Shannon noticed when the marching was over everyone drifted off home or to the inns to get drunk. There was no intent to actually send the militia anywhere. It would be kept in Cherry Valley "to protect the homeland." As far as individual sacrifice, it was to be the war with the Frenchies all over again. Stay safe at home and profit from the struggle of others. So when asked, Emmett refused to join the militia. Some grumbled at this, but after so many years of shedding blood, the Cherry Valley militia was a line of hypocrisy he would not cross.
As for Alex Hopkins, his complaints grew louder. The man was insane, but there was no arguing with him. He boasted of his loyalty to the king, gloated at every Colonial failure, swore that any day now the effort would collapse and the traitors would all pay. He got his mob; sanctioned by the Committee of Safety. The men seized his holdings and his animals for the public good. Some men eyed Shannon's own poor land, but he stood at the fence line, his rifle ready, and they wisely left him alone.
Hopkins managed to flee, and in the luck of the truly insane, he found a warm reward waiting for him in Quebec, where he sat out the troubles in great ease, mocking his former friends in Cherry Valley.
Shannon was left destitute. His own land could not support his family. Before, the gap had always been filled by the food he earned on Hopkins's farm. Now, with his awful skills and impoverished soil, Emmett hadn't a hope.
A recruiter for the Fourth New York Regiment came to Cherry Valley in January of 1777. The bounty for a three-year enlistment would provide a solution for Emmett's family. Plus, he would be able to send his wages home so they would never want. Shannon ignored the whisper of experience in his mind and signed. Besides, when he saw the recruiter, he realized just how angry a man he had become.
He took his rifle and set off to kill the Kingsmen for his grandfather.
After three days the weather broke. Shannon kicked the remains of the fire apart, packed up his goods and set off in the clear, cold air. He felt refreshed and ready, and he set a pace that would gobble up the miles. He was in a hurry to get home.
NEXT: Murder On The Frontier
*****
S.O.S. ALLAN'S NEW NOVEL
Between February and May of 1942, German U-boats operated with impunity off the Florida coast, sinking scores of freighters from Cape Canaveral to Key West and killing nearly five thousand people. Residents were horrified witnesses of the attacks—the night skies were aflame and in the morning the beaches were covered with oil and tar, ship parts and charred corpses. The Germans even landed teams of saboteurs charged with disrupting war efforts in the factories of the North. This novel is based on those events. For my own purposes, I set the tale in the fictitious town of Juno Beach on the banks of the equally fictitious Seminole River—all in the very real Palm Beach County, a veritable wilderness in those long ago days. Among the witnesses were my grandfather and grandmother, who operated an orchard and ranch in the area.
Click here for the paperback and Kindle Versions
Click here for the audio version - Read By Ben McLean
*****
A DAUGHTER OF LIBERTY
The year is 1778 and the Revolutionary War has young America trapped in the crossfire of hatred and fear. Diana, an indentured servant, escapes her abusive master with the help of Emmett Shannon, a deserter from the desperate army at Valley Forge. They fall in love and marry, but their happiness is shattered and Diana Shannon must learn to survive on her own. From that moment on she will become a true woman of her times, blazing a path from lawless lands in the grips of the Revolution, to plague-stricken Philadelphia, to the burning of Washington in the War Of 1812.
Click here to buy the novel. Paperback, Kindle or, audiobook.
*****
TWO NEW AUDIOBOOKS ONLY $4.95!
S.O.S. ALLAN'S NEW NOVEL
Click here for the paperback and Kindle Versions
Click here for the audio version - Read By Ben McLean
A DAUGHTER OF LIBERTY
*****
TWO NEW AUDIOBOOKS ONLY $4.95!
Tales Sometimes Tall, but always true, of Allan Cole's years in Hollywood with his late partner, Chris Bunch. How a naked lady almost became our first agent. How we survived La-La Land with only the loss of half our brain cells. How Bunch & Cole became the ultimate Fix-It
Boys. How an alleged Mafia Don was very, very good to us. The guy who cornered the market on movie rocks. Andy Warhol's Fire Extinguisher. The Real Stars Of Hollywood. Why they don't make million dollar movies. See The Seven Pi$$ing Dwarfs. Learn: how to kill a "difficult" actor… And much, much more.
Boys. How an alleged Mafia Don was very, very good to us. The guy who cornered the market on movie rocks. Andy Warhol's Fire Extinguisher. The Real Stars Of Hollywood. Why they don't make million dollar movies. See The Seven Pi$$ing Dwarfs. Learn: how to kill a "difficult" actor… And much, much more.
THE TIMURA TRILOGY: When The Gods Slept, Wolves Of The Gods and The Gods Awaken. This best selling fantasy series now available as trade paperbacks, e-books (in all varieties) and as audiobooks. Visit The Timura Trilogy page for links to all the editions.
NEWLY REVISED KINDLE EDITIONS OF THE TIMURA TRILOGY NOW AVAILABLE. (1) When The Gods Slept;(2) Wolves Of The Gods; (3) The Gods Awaken.
*****
A NATION AT WAR WITH ITSELF: In Book Three Of The Shannon Trilogy, young Patrick Shannon is the heir-apparent to the Shannon fortune, but murder and betrayal at a family gathering send him fleeing into the American frontier, with only the last words of a wise old woman to arm him against what would come. And when the outbreak of the Civil War comes he finds himself fighting on the opposite side of those he loves the most. In The Wars Of The Shannons we see the conflict, both on the battlefield and the homefront, through the eyes of Patrick and the members of his extended Irish-American family as they struggle to survive the conflict that ripped the new nation apart, and yet, offered a dim beacon of hope.
*****
NEW: THE AUDIOBOOK VERSION OF
THE HATE PARALLAX
What if the Cold War never ended -- but continued for a thousand years? Best-selling authors Allan Cole (an American) and Nick Perumov (a Russian) spin a mesmerizing "what if?" tale set a thousand years in the future, as an American and a Russian super-soldier -- together with a beautiful American detective working for the United Worlds Police -- must combine forces to defeat a secret cabal ... and prevent a galactic disaster! This is the first - and only - collaboration between American and Russian novelists. Narrated by John Hough. Click the title links below for the trade paperback and kindle editions. (Also available at iTunes.)
*****
THE SPYMASTER'S DAUGHTER:
A novel by Allan and his daughter, Susan
After laboring as a Doctors Without Borders physician in the teaming refugee camps and minefields of South Asia, Dr. Ann Donovan thought she'd seen Hell as close up as you can get. And as a fifth generation CIA brat, she thought she knew all there was to know about corruption and betrayal. But then her father - a legendary spymaster - shows up, with a ten-year-old boy in tow. A brother she never knew existed. Then in a few violent hours, her whole world is shattered, her father killed and she and her kid brother are one the run with hell hounds on their heels. They finally corner her in a clinic in Hawaii and then all the lies and treachery are revealed on one terrible, bloody storm- ravaged night.
BASED ON THE CLASSIC STEN SERIES by Allan Cole & Chris Bunch: Fresh from their mission to pacify the Wolf Worlds, Sten and his Mantis Team encounter a mysterious ship that has been lost among the stars for thousands of years. At first, everyone aboard appears to be long dead. Then a strange Being beckons, pleading for help. More disturbing: the presence of AM2, a strategically vital fuel tightly controlled by their boss - The Eternal Emperor. They are ordered to retrieve the remaining AM2 "at all costs." But once Sten and his heavy worlder sidekick, Alex Kilgour, board the ship they must dare an out of control defense system that attacks without warning as they move through dark warrens filled with unimaginable horrors. When they reach their goal they find that in the midst of all that death are the "seeds" of a lost civilization.
*****
TALES OF THE BLUE MEANIE
NOW AN AUDIOBOOK!
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Venice Boardwalk Circa 1969
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In the depths of the Sixties and The Days Of Rage, a young newsman, accompanied by his pregnant wife and orphaned teenage brother, creates a Paradise of sorts in a sprawling Venice Beach community of apartments, populated by students, artists, budding scientists and engineers lifeguards, poets, bikers with a few junkies thrown in for good measure. The inhabitants come to call the place “Pepperland,” after the Beatles movie, “Yellow Submarine.” Threatening this paradise is "The Blue Meanie," a crazy giant of a man so frightening that he eventually even scares himself.
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