Hour Glass: A Novel of Calamity Jane - Softcover

Rene, Michelle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1944995498 ISBN 13: 9781944995492

Verlag: Amberjack Publishing Company, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

Set in the lawless town of Deadwood, South Dakota, Hour Glass shares an intimate look at the woman behind the legend of Calamity Jane told through the eyes of twelve-year-old Jimmy Glass.

After their pa falls deathly ill with smallpox, Jimmy and his sister, Hour, travel into Deadwood to seek help. While their pa is in quarantine, the two form unbreakable bonds with the surrogate family that emerges from the tragedy of loss. 

In a place where life is fragile and families are ripped apart by disease, death, and desperation, a surprising collection of Deadwood’s inhabitants surround Jimmy, Hour, and Jane. There, in the most unexpected of places, they find a family protecting them from the uncertainty and chaos that surrounds them all. 

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Michelle Rene is a creative advocate and the author of a number of published works of science fiction, historical fiction, humor and everything in between.  You may have also seen her work under the pen names Olivia Rivard and Abigail Henry. She has won several indie awards under her Michelle Rene name for her historical fiction novel, I Once Knew Vincent. 

Michelle’s favorite places in the world are museums, galleries, and libraries. Everyone who creates tells a story of some kind or another. Whether she’s painting, writing, or making a video game, Michelle is dedicated to her obsession with story telling. 

When not writing, she is a professional artist and all around odd person. She lives as the only female, writing in her little closet, with her husband, son, and ungrateful cat in Dallas, Texas.

Michelle Rene is a creative advocate and the author of a number of published works of science fiction, historical fiction, humor and everything in between.  You may have also seen her work under the pen names Olivia Rivard and Abigail Henry. She has won several indie awards under her Michelle Rene name for her historical fiction novel, I Once Knew Vincent. 

Michelle's favorite places in the world are museums, galleries, and libraries. Everyone who creates tells a story of some kind or another. Whether she's painting, writing, or making a video game, Michelle is dedicated to her obsession with story telling. 

When not writing, she is a professional artist and all around odd person. She lives as the only female, writing in her little closet, with her husband, son, and ungrateful cat in Dallas, Texas.

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Set in the lawless town of Deadwood, South Dakota, Hour Glass shares an intimate look at the woman behind the legend of Calamity Jane told through the eyes of twelve-year-old Jimmy Glass.

After their pa falls deathly ill with smallpox, Jimmy and his sister, Hour, travel into Deadwood to seek help. While their pa is in quarantine, the two form unbreakable bonds with the surrogate family that emerges from the tragedy of loss.

In a place where life is fragile and families are ripped apart by disease, death, and desperation, a surprising collection of Deadwood’s inhabitants surround Jimmy, Hour, and Jane. There, in the most unexpected of places, they find a family protecting them from the uncertainty and chaos that surrounds them all.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Hour Glass

By Michelle Rene

Amberjack Publishing

Copyright © 2017 Michelle Rene
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-944995-49-2

CHAPTER 1

1894

IN THE CORNER OF the bar, a gaggle of fellows crowded around an unseen victim. Some poor bastard, no doubt. Tension radiated in a way that signaled someone was very near to death. People grouped together, afraid to say a word. Every person in the place held their breaths with the gravity of the moment. A single laughing voice cut the air. It was a laugh I recognized.

"Yer mighty big for yer britches, if you don't mind my sayin' so! What are you planning to do with that shotgun?"

As soon as I laid eyes on her, things went sideways.

There was no mistaking that voice and the person behind it. I pushed through the folks crowding around the men. Most clung to the fringes of the fray, but a few of the braver ones had closed in, hoping for a better view. There she was, as always, in men's buckskins, swaying back and forth a little, using the bar to keep upright.

"Call me a coward again, Jane. Do it so all the folks here can hear it fer themselves."

Jane snapped her head up and looked at the red-faced man holding a shotgun to her chest. She smiled. Nothing had changed. I nearly laughed like an idiot.

"I'm sorry, Randall Foster, did I offend you? I mean — and forgive me fer speakin' plainly here now — I was just callin' a spade a spade. If you beat on a lady, that automatically dubs you a fuckin' coward."

"Whores ain't no ladies," Randall sputtered.

"Well, there you go now. I reckon half-wits like you aren't known for havin' the mind to tell man from woman. I mean, let's face the fact that it don't matter much when yer favorite partner is of the livestock persuasion."

Enraged, Randall Foster lifted the shotgun and cocked it. The action cracked the air of the room but didn't seem to affect Jane. She slurred and wavered on her feet, then laughed into the barrels of her possible demise.

"See there's the problem now," Jane taunted. "Yer always pointing that there piece at women, or did you not notice that part?"

He faltered, sweat running down his face in little beads. I moved closer to him, so close I could smell the salty sweat collecting in the hair behind his ears. Killing a person in a flash was one thing, but staring someone down long enough to talk? That was another thing entirely. Especially when that person was Calamity Jane herself.

Everything was still. Jane looked relaxed, courting death at a ball only she seemed to be invited to. Some damn things never did change.

"Yep, that's what I thought. Coward."

Rage rippled through Randall's torso and into his shoulders. One squeeze of the trigger and the deed would be done. Jane, my friend, would be gone forever.

I pulled my pistol out, cocked it, and pointed at his temple.

"Drop it," I said.

Jane laughed and slapped her knee. "Ha! I tell you Randall, this ain't yer fuckin' day!"

"I said drop it," I repeated, pressing the pistol harder to his temple.

Randall slowly lowered the shotgun and placed it on the floor. Behind me, the rest of the room relaxed just a touch.

"You the law?" he asked, turning to look at me.

"I ain't. But the sheriff is on the way."

"Why do you care about an old drunk like her?"

He nodded his head toward wobbly Jane, bent over laughing. The whole affair was nothing more than entertainment to her.

"That ain't none of yer concern," I said with all the menace I could muster.

"She ain't worth yer life," replied Randall making a move toward his gun again.

"I think she is."

Before he could reach the gun, I turned mine and cold-cocked him with the butt on the back of his head. The fight went out of him instantly. Just as he hit the floor, the sheriff came racing into the saloon, mistaking me for the problem.

"Don't move! Put the gun down!"

I did as I was told, holding my hands up for the law to see. Jane slapped the bar, laughing for all she was worth.

"What happened here?" asked the sheriff.

"Well you see here, Sheriff, this cowboy you're yellin' at saved my life. All these good folks can testify to it."

The sheriff eyed Jane, recognizing her. She was, after all, very memorable, if not by sight then by reputation. He scanned the room of bystanders. Several nodded in agreement to her statement. He took this for truth, moving his revolver back to its holster.

"Who have we got here?" asked the sheriff, motioning toward the unconscious Randall.

"That hunk of cow shit is Randall Foster," said Jane, leaning against the bar. "Works as a hand at the Buffalo Bill Show I'm currently travelin' with. Beat on a girl. Now, he's wantin' to shoot me fer callin' him yella. That's the whole story. Anyone'll tell you the same."

The sheriff looked as though he smelled something funny and gestured to the bar behind Jane. "Fred? Fred Whittacker, you back there?"

A timid, balding man slowly raised up from behind the bar. He wore a striped shirt and the ugliest set of suspenders I'd ever seen outside a theater. "I'm here, sheriff. Right here."

"It all happened like she said?" the sheriff inquired.

"More or less." Fred said, his eyes glued to the bar.

"Good enough fer me. Get him to his feet."

The sheriff and his deputies lifted and dragged Randall out of the saloon. He moaned and protested, but there was nothing to be done. It was off to the holding cell with him.

Jane slapped the bar like a thunderclap. Fred jumped straight up at the sound, and then flinched when he saw Calamity Jane had turned her scowl on him.

"All righty, Fred, you lilly-livered rat. A bottle of yer finest Reverent. Hand it over."

"Jane, you ain't paid fer the last bottle o' whiskey you drank ..."

"Don't you sass me, Fred. You didn't come to my aid once. You hid back there like a skunk. Hand it over, else I tell everyone in town 'bout it."

Defeated, Fred retrieved a bottle of Reverent Whiskey from underneath the bar and pushed it toward Jane. She grabbed the whiskey and walked toward me, slapping me on the back.

"Come on, stranger. Let's have us a drink on ole Fred here."

Stranger. She called me stranger.

Like a duckling, I followed her out into the light, past the crowd outside the saloon, and into the thoroughfare. She didn't say much of anything, and I didn't either. There was no sign at all she recognized me. It had been eighteen years since we had last seen one another, more or less. I had the face of a twelve-year-old the last time she looked at me.

Jane led me just outside of town where a makeshift camp of painted wagons and crude stages constituted the Buffalo Bill Show. People milled about, aimless, in various stages of dress. Some in costumes and others painted to look like the clowns that taunted bulls for sport. I couldn't tell if they were setting up shop or tearing down.

We stopped at a wagon parked under a tree. The wagon was painted purple, and along the side a homemade sign advertised Calamity Jane, Famous Pioneer Woman. She plopped down in the shade, pulled the plug on the bottle of whiskey, and drank a hearty share.

I stood and watched her.

She tipped her hat enough to look up at me with one bloodshot eye. Little red spider legs infected the edges of her nose the way they do with habitual drinkers. There was a haze about her, but, apparently, not enough of one to soften the dubious glare she cut at my formality.

"What are you looking at?"

"The infamous Miss Calamity Jane, I reckon," I said, motioning...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Amberjack Publishing Company
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1944995498
• ISBN 13: 9781944995492
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 302
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: eucomply OÜ; hello@eucompliancepartner.com; ; Pärnu mnt 139b-14; Tallinn; 11317; Estland