You can’t know darkness until you’re trapped deep in a mine, on the wrong side of the tangle of rock and timbers blocking you in with your crew. After the thunderous wave of dust and panic settled, half a dozen… Continue Reading
They took him to a monastery to escape the noose, a sunless cathedral far from his family. Inside, the monks stripped him of his cloak, his rings, and anything that might have signified his membership of the aristocracy. They shaved… Continue Reading
Texon, Texas was in southwestern Reagan County 319 miles east of El Paso. Oliver made the drive in about seven hours in his 1929 Model A pickup, stopping once to refuel. He was early for his interview, so he parked… Continue Reading
April 30th, 1972 I came home. It wasn’t the warm welcome that I had expected. What I expected was the abundance of romance and cheering that my father had told me about after he returned home from Germany at the… Continue Reading
“I hate funerals,” I whisper. “Who don’t, boss?” Ah, Lomax. In his 5’2”, motheaten glory, he’s doughy as flapjacks and almost as aware. “Assassins, morticians, beneficiaries of juicy wills, and we other lowly disciples of greed and grift. At least,… Continue Reading
Dear Jesus, there is a dead woman in my closet and she watches me as I sleep. Us. She watches us. I blame my husband. He brought this curse upon us, Lord, this undead woman who’s seen more of the… Continue Reading
My helicopter crashed into blackness somewhere south of the Imjin River. My whole life didn’t pass before my eyes. Just the scene most worth remembering: Giselle and me strolling through Paris six years ago, November 1945. She wore a red… Continue Reading
That evening, my parents had a fight. It had been a particularly nasty fight about things I did not understand. We were having supper when the shouting began. Then Mom ran off in tears and Dad finished eating with us… Continue Reading
“Make a note, Edgardo,” the Monsignor said to me on the way back to his summer residence amid the opulent gardens of the palacio above the cathedral. “The shrieks of the heretic as the flame first touches her body are… Continue Reading
She’d heard cannon fire before. One never forgot that thunder cracking the quiet of day. Disembarking ships leaving Philadelphia would sometimes salute. And of course there were those occasional times the local militia would muster with their small brass field… Continue Reading