Title: Louisa: Iron Dove Of The Frontier
Author: Will Edwinsons
Genre: Western, Historical Fiction
Release Date: 15th December 2014
BLURB supplied by Silver Dagger Book Tours
THE IRON DOVE
OF THE FRONTIER...
At twenty-one, LouIsa was already a sagacious woman. She had been privileged to
attend finishing schools in the East where she learned the ways of
"Ladyship" and studied piano under the tutorship of masters, becoming
proficient with the classical works of Mozart, Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, Liszt,
and many others.
LouIsa: Iron Dove of the Frontier is a story about a tough, but well-educated
genteel woman of quiet strength who, when it became necessary, could get down
and dirty and fight as adeptly as the best gutter rats. But also, when
necessary, she could don a party dress and be perfectly comfortable with Vassar
graduates.
PURCHASE LINKS
Kobo
EXCERPT
Prologue
Tombstone,
Arizona, March 18, 1882.
The pistol roared, the assailant
heard Morgan cry out, “What the hell…?” and then saw him fall face down on the
pool table.
“We finally got you, you law dawg son of a bitch.” Pete Spencer
stood trembling outside the poolroom, the smoking gun still in his hand as he
uttered the words quietly to himself.
Before he made his escape, he
glanced through the window at the stunned crowd. His action had caught them
completely off guard. Not one of them suspected what he might be up to when he
quietly removed himself from the poolroom earlier that evening.
With two people on each side of his
collapsed body, they carefully lifted Morgan off the pool table and laid him on
his back on the floor.
“Go fetch LouIsa,” one of them said. Another said, “Better get
Wyatt and Virgil too, and the Doc. I don’t think Morgan has much of a chance of
makin’ it, but he’s still alive and needs a doc.”
*****
Louisa was cradling Morgan’s head in her lap when Wyatt entered the room. He knelt beside his brother; his vision blurred from the tears that welled in his eyes. He blinked to fight them back; his gut wrenched. When his eyes finally focused, he looked around the room.
Louisa was cradling Morgan’s head in her lap when Wyatt entered the room. He knelt beside his brother; his vision blurred from the tears that welled in his eyes. He blinked to fight them back; his gut wrenched. When his eyes finally focused, he looked around the room.
“Who did this?” he asked. “Did anyone see who did the actual
shooting?”
One man spoke up and said, “I didn’t
actually see the shootin’, but I did see Pete Spencer leave the poolroom about
a half hour before Morgan was shot.”
“Come to think about it,” said another, I saw the little weasel
sneak out of here m’self.”
“But none of you actually saw Spencer fire the shot,” Wyatt said.
It was more of a statement than a question. They all agreed, none could swear
to seeing the shooting.
Wyatt looked at LouIsa. He agonized
at the pain he saw in her eyes, and the tortured expression on her face. He
sensed she was in another time, another place. He reached out and lightly
touched her shoulder.
LouIsa looked up at him. Again, he
saw her pain. “Come, LouIsa,” he said, “I’ll have someone escort you home.
She heard nothing of what he said.
She was aware only of her own thoughts. She continued to hug her husband and
rub his face softly with her hand, her mind engulfed in her own private
thoughts.
Why, Morgan, why? You said you
would hang up your guns if I accompanied you to Tombstone. Why couldn’t you
have stayed out of the law business like you promised? If you had stuck to
prospecting or gambling, this would never have happened. But when you saw the
lawlessness that was here, I guess I should’ve known better than to think that
you could let it stand without trying to do something about it. And then worst
of all, my darling, you forgot the last thing I told you before you walked out
of the house tonight. ‘Don’t turn your back on anyone.’
She nestled him closer to her bosom.
Morgan had been unconscious the whole time and knew nothing of what she had
been thinking. She heard a gurgle come from his throat and felt him give one
last desperate gasp for air. She realized he had just died in her lap.
She loved this man who lay in her
lap more than life itself. She had only longed to devote herself to living for
one man building a life with him and raising a family in a little cabin with
flowers and a white picket fence. Her health had prevented her from having a
family, and now the rest of her dream had just been shattered by an assassin’s
bullet.
LouIsa was part Cherokee Indian, and
it was now that she needed the inner strength that her Cherokee grandmother had
instilled in her. She never let LouIsa forget that part of her heritage as she
taught her the ways of her people. Cherokee life was hard; their women had to
be strong.
LouIsa broke into a soft wailing of
the mourning song of her Cherokee people, and as she mourned her husband’s
death, she relived the last several years.
Title: Buddy His Trials And Treasures
Author: Will Edwinson
Genre: Contemporary, Historical Fiction
Release Date: 15th February 2005
BLURB supplied by Silver Dagger Book Tours
Do you need a
little stress relief in your life?
Travel back to the world of Buddy Crawford, a simpler, slower- paced world
where Cokes were a nickel, movie tickets were a dime, and ten cents bought you
a double dip ice cream cone. These engaging, award-winning stories about a
young boy growing up in rural America during the 1940s provide a relaxing
respite from today's fast-paced world. They may even revive old memories of
your own childhood.
Follow Buddy and Cousin Mont as they gather beer and pop bottles from the
roadway barrowpits. Join him and his friends at the river swimming hole
for a swim, or go fishing for carp in the irrigation canal. Experience the fun
as he tours the countryside in an old Model T Ford with his friends. What
better way to spend a relaxing two hours than immersing yourself in these
stories.
Buddy is somewhat reminiscent of Tom Sawyer in that he quite often finds
himself in hot water. Unlike Tom, Buddy's misdeeds are without forethought.
They happen because Buddy is...well...he's just Buddy.
Comments From
the Author
We all have
stories from our youth we like to tell our offspring. I used to tell some of
these stories to my family at the dinner table or in the car while traveling on
family trips. After much cajoling from my family members, I finally acquiesced
and decided to share some of these stories with you the reader.
Excerpted From the
Prologue
….I sat at my word processor putting to
paper some of my boyhood experiences. I began by describing to my readers the
era in which the stories were set and telling something of the country where I
grew up. The adventures that follow are
fiction based on real events in my own life.
They are written from memory as best I can recollect after the passage
of nearly sixty years. As it is with any
storyteller, I have embellished where I felt embellishment was necessary to add
interest.
The characters are based on real people
who were part of my life during this period.
Some of the given names have remained unchanged. The surnames, wherever used, are fictitious
or are used fictitiously.
The Trials and Treasures of Buddy
Crawford, I wrote, is a compilation of adventures in the life of a small boy in
a simpler bygone era of ten-cent movie tickets, five-cent Coca-Colas, penny
licorice sticks, five-cent Hershey bars, and ten-cent double-dip ice cream
cones. These stories are set in a farming valley in the southeastern Idaho
highlands during the 1940s. It is an era
in America’s history when a rural town with a population of five hundred
people—give or take ten—could support
most of the services needed to sustain a full life.
State Highway 34 ran straight through the
middle of Buddy’s hometown; within the town’s borders, it made up Main
Street. Beginning at the north end, if
you were to stroll down this street in the 1940s, the first building you would
see would be the movie theater, where kids could buy a ticket for a dime and
their parents could buy one for fifteen cents.
Next to the theater you would find one of
the town pool halls where men—young and old—congregated to play cards, shoot
pool, and discuss the latest news concerning the war. You would hear some singing President
Roosevelt’s praises while others called him a warmonger who got the country
into a war only to bolster the economy.
Moving on down the street you would come
to a café and then the drugstore. The
drugstore was one of Buddy’s favorite places to hang out because it had a soda
fountain. If you had lived in those
days, you would remember that soda fountains usually had gray marble
countertops and wire-backed stools. You
would remember that fountain clerks were known as “soda jerks” because they
mixed drinks right in the glass using various flavored syrups and carbonated water
from the fountain. You would also
remember that hand-dipped ice cream was the main ingredient in thick creamy
malts and milkshakes, ice cream sun dies, root beer floats, and twin-scoop ice
cream cones.
Along the remainder of Main Street in
Buddy’s little town was another pool hall, another café, Roghaars’s general
mercantile, a clothing store, a five-and-dime store, two grocery stores, a
liquor store, a blacksmith shop, and three car agencies. On one of the side
streets were two farm implement dealerships, another blacksmith shop, a doctor,
and a dentist. The town also supported
two churches.
Last, but not least, there was a local
attorney who was nearly poverty-stricken,
because most
people in those days settled their own grievances using common sense. His busiest time seemed to be when he would
rescue the town wino from jail every Monday morning, or when he would file
divorce papers for Mrs. Walton—she’d file a complaint against her husband once
a month and then later withdraw it.
Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, Tom Mix, and
Gene Autry were the matinee idols of the day.
Lux Radio Theater, Bing Crosby, Kate Smith, Amos ‘n’ Andy, Fibber McGee
and Molly, Blondie and Dagwood, The Great Gildersleeve, Jack Benny, Red
Skelton, and Bob Hope were the mainstay entertainers on the radio. And America was at war on the other side of
the world.
On the whole, Buddy was a happy kid who
enjoyed his boyhood days growing up in this tiny rural town in southeast Idaho,
in spite of the times when bigger kids would tease him, or when the school
bully would pick on him, or when he got into trouble with his parents, as most
boys do. But Buddy overcame with no
lasting scars. His summers were spent
fishing, swimming, bike riding, horse-back riding, playing baseball, and going
to the farm with Dad.
Come, journey back in time and join Buddy
in … His Trials and Treasures.
Will Edwinson is an award-winning story
teller for his fiction, and an award winning columnist. His second book, Buddy
... His Trials and Treasures, won a first place in state competition, and a
second place at national. His "A Bit Of Nostalgia" column that he
wrote under another name, won second and first place, awards in two separate
competitions from the Utah-Idaho-Spokane Associated Press Association.
Edwinson grew up in rural Southeast Idaho during the 1940s. After his college
stint, he made his living on the family farm in Southeast Idaho as a dry land
farmer raising barley and wheat, always holding onto the dream he had harbored
for most of his life-that of being a writer-but still not confident that he had
the necessary abilities and skills for such a career. After reaching mid-life,
he determined that if he were ever going to be a writer, it was time to begin.
His first book was launched when he was in his mid-fifties.
Edwinson is basically a self-taught author. His passion lay toward
storytelling, so he began reading fiction of every genre to get a grasp of
different writing styles and writing techniques. He also took advantage of the
many books and manuals on writing that were available. These are mentioned on
his Links & Lists page at his website, www.willedwinson.com. He is also a
graduate of Writer's Digest Short Story Writing course.
In his younger years, Edwinson was also a semi-professional singer, performing
on stages from Sun Valley, Idaho, to Lake Havasu City, Arizona. He also
demonstrates a flair as an inventor. Out of necessity,to teach his two youngest
daughters some rudimentary money management skills, he invented and Trademarked
a children's allowance management system, "The Child's Checkmaster."
which enabled parents and children to keep better track of the children's
allowance draws and which also taught the children some rudimentary money
management skills.
Will Edwinson currently lives in Tucson, Arizona.
AUTHOR LINKS
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