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Raven’s Run 4

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Chapter Two

I laid her out alongside the deckhouse, and checked her breathing and her pulse. Then I had to tend to the boat. Wahini was wallowing uneasily in the swells, heading up to the wind, losing way, and falling uncomfortably back again. I topped the mainsail again and sheeted it in. The wind was up to force four and freshening, and shifting around further to the south. I pointed Wahini a little higher than a broad reach. That would give her a reasonable motion while I tended to my unexpected guest, and would carry us more or less in the direction of Bermuda.

The cruise ship was below the horizon by now. If I strained my eyes, I could just make out a smudge of light where it had gone.

The girl had not stirred. She lay in a pool of salt water with her long hair knotted and tangled about her. I had been aware of her nakedness in the water, but I had been too busy keeping the two of us alive to think about it. Now, however . . .

Her hair was coarse, black, heavy, and long. Her cheekbones were wide and her nose arched slightly. Her mouth was just wide enough to balance the rest of her features. Her breasts and the muscles of her flanks and thighs were firm and resilient. She was wearing French-cut panties, soaked to absolute transparency. Her skin was coffee-and-cream with a lot of cream; the kind of color that comes at birth. No tan could be that perfect. When she woke and spoke, I would bet on an Hispanic accent. She looked to be in her early twenties.

You don’t get to rescue a mermaid every day. If the fates let you pull a girl out of the ocean, it would be unfair if she were less than beautiful. I did not feel cheated.

I untied the line from around her shoulders, but she didn’t respond. The cold water, the shock and fear, had sapped her strength. I slid the hatch back and hoisted her onto my shoulder, bracing awkwardly against the motion of the boat. She was a handful of slippery, sweet-smelling girl. I was breathing heavily for more than one reason by the time I got her toweled off and into a bunk. Her shoulders and sides were crisscrossed with angry welts where the rope had dug into her. She cried out when the rough towel hurt them, but she didn’t come to full consciousness.

I stuck my head out of the hatch to look for other ships. There was nothing in sight that wanted to run us down, so I stripped, toweled off, and put on dry clothes. 

On deck again, I hung my wet clothes and the towel from the shrouds. The wind had shifted another point to the south and Wahini was pinching. I eased the sheet and let her fall off. At this rate, Bermuda would be directly to windward in a few hours. 

I had gone to a lot of trouble to avoid Bermuda. Six weeks refitting in Jamaica had shown me as much island paradise as I cared to see for a while. Will Hayden was waiting in Marseille for me to deliver Wahini, so I had sailed through the Windward Passage and headed due north, picking up the Gulf Stream and swinging a big arc above Bermuda before lining out for Gibraltar. Now I was over a hundred miles northwest of Bermuda, and facing into a rising wind.

To judge from its course, the cruise ship had been heading for New York. I had no intention of making a thousand mile side-trip to deliver my mermaid back to whoever was waiting for her there. That left only two options. If I could make Bermuda, she could fly home. Otherwise, she would have to go on to Europe with me, and find her way home from there. more tomorrow

213. Borders

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I don’t need to remind you what Europe is like today. Everyone knows her troubles. Refugees, and terrorists disguised as refugees, are flooding in, and once they arrive, they can move more or less freely from country to country. BREXIT came largely as a result of this crisis, with the threat of terrorism and economic dislocation driving the vote.

It was very different in 1989, the year in which the novel Raven’s Run (see Serial) takes place. There were no open borders, even between friendly countries. When my wife and I traveled from Switzerland to Italy during that era, the train crossed the Italian border at 2 AM. It stopped and a cadre of officials came aboard, moving from car to car, waking everyone up and checking passports. Of course, as Americans, it was a formality. Our passports carried us through without strain, but if there had been an irregularity . . .

There was an irregularity later, coming back from Hungary. A young and carefree European, French as I recall, had gotten into Hungary – God knows how –  with a passport, but without a visa. He confessed his lack to everyone in the coach, and laughed about it. Some very surly individuals took him off at the border. I never saw him again, but I had to wonder how funny it seemed a few hours later.

I had my own irregularity, harmless but thought provoking, earlier that same summer. My wife and I were camping at Innsbruck, Austria. When you camped or stayed in a hotel in those days, the owner confiscated your passport when you checked in and returned it when you left. It was the law throughout most of Europe.

We took a day trip from Innbruck to Reuthe, also in Austria. We did not know that the train passed through Germany on the way. As we crossed the German border, some very severe guards, with automatic pistols at their hips, came demanding passports. My wife had hers; I didn’t.

I took German in high school, which is very close to not taking it at all. I tried to ask why, but my one word “Warum?” (Why?) got me nowhere. The border guard repeated his demand for my passport. My weak German “Ins camping.” (It’s at the campground.) must have made sense to him. He had to know that holding passports at campgrounds and hotels was the law. It didn’t melt his icy stare.

Now I have met many people traveling through Germany, both before and after this incident. They were universally friendly and helpful, and they all spoke English, especially after trying to deal with my attempts at German. Not these guys. They just looked pissed. It was probably an act, but they had me convinced at the time.

Those of us with passport irregularities were taken to another car, without explanation, with just gestures and an intense glare, where we were sealed in. We passed through a piece of Germany and back into Austria, and were released.

It wasn’t life threatening, nor the stuff of spy novels, but it was very much a part of the system the Eurozone was designed to overcome. Open borders did away with a lot of annoyance, and allowed a freedom of movement that helped bring prosperity to Europe.

Today, new circumstances are bringing Europeans to reconsider that openness.

Raven’s Run 3

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Then there was a disturbance in the water, too weak to be called a splash. I called out again, but there was no reply.

I saw her then. She was no longer struggling. I already had a life ring in hand, hanked onto thirty meters of line. I sailed it out beyond her. She made no response when it hit the surface and none when I dragged it back to within three feet of her. She was too far gone.

Wahini was drifting down upon her, but also slipping away by the stern. She would pass off the starboard bow, only yards from safety. By the time I maneuvered around again, it would be too late.

I unsnapped the lifeline from my safety harness and dove in. The water was as black as the inside of a whale. I came up swimming in a low, fast crawl. 

There had been no time to drop the mizzen. Behind me the Wahini would be slipping away. I porpoised to gain a foot of altitude, saw the girl, and corrected my direction. I caught the floating life ring as I passed. Then my fingers found the mass of her hair just as the line attached to the life ring tightened to drag me away. I dragged her after me.

The rope tightened and loosened with every surge as the yawl pitched in the rising seas. I brought my body up double and got a foot into the life ring. With the next loosening as Wahini’s bow came down, I straightened, dragging the girl along by a precarious grip on her hair. I nearly lost everything as the motion dragged me under. There was an eternity of blackness beneath the water with lungs caught unprepared, until the wave passed and I came to the surface again. In the moment of slack, I managed to attach my safety harness to the line and drag the girl closer.

She gave me nothing to hook on to. Somehow she had managed to get rid of the dress. She was eel-slick and hard to hold. I just got a breath and managed to get my arms around her waist before the next surge pulled us under.

She was too limp to still be living, but I could not give her up now.

We were tailing out like a fish on a line as the Wahini moved through the water. I put my ear to her mouth and heard the faint rasp of her breathing. I just managed to slap my hand over her mouth and nose before we were hauled under again, and when we came up, she began to struggle feebly.

I took her long hair in my teeth and pulled us up the rope hand over hand. We went under again, and I had no hand free to cover her mouth. The resistance of her body through the water nearly tore my head off. Up again, and repeat. Under. Black as hell. Cold tropical waters and desperation, with her twisting and turning like a hooked tuna on the strands of her hair. Then air and stars, only a little less black than the pit of waters.

Now I had fifteen feet of slack. I dragged the bobbing life ring to us, made a pillow of it under her head and looped the line packstrap fashion under her arms and across her upper chest. Then I let her go and went up the line hand over hand.

Five minutes later, I had her on board. more tomorrow

212. Old Posts Retrospective

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I would have preferred to post this last Wednesday, one year after the first posts on this website. However, the introduction of Raven’s Run over on Serial took precedence.

I did some of my best post writing during that early period when no one was reading. Everything was fresh and new, and I was introducing myself for the first time. I reposted a few when it was appropriate, particularly in March of 2016 when I began Jandrax over in serial, but most of those early posts are still unread by those who are with me today.

Eventually, I plan an annotated index of all posts, but for now, here is a partial version so you can dip into the past if you want.

2. Turn Left at Chicago – How a fortuitous failure set me on the road to writing.

3. It Was 40 Years Ago Today – The act of sitting down to write a first novel.

6. Planet Oklahoma (1) – From birth to my first encounter with a library.

7. Planet Oklahoma (2) – A library changes my life.

9. Old Libraries – Old libraries, old books, and re-reading.

10. Book Words – Being the only person who reads

11. Why the Tractosaur Wouldn’t Go – Hearing and speaking Okie.

12. Why Okies Can’t Use the Dictionary – Mispronunciation guides.

Raven’s Run 2

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Chapter One

Some things are automatic. Like man overboard drill.

One moment I had been leaning against the backstay of my yawl Wahini in mid-Atlantic, watching through binoculars as a cruise ship glided by in the night, brightly lighted, automatic-piloted, and oblivious of my presence. The next moment I froze in that first moment of strong perception that accompanies an adrenaline rush.

Someone was falling from the cruise ship’s deck, twisting and struggling all the way to the water. 

The ship plowed on. I locked my eyes on the spot where she had struck the water, and marked her position as the stars reappeared behind the fast moving cruise ship. Under Orion, just to the right of Sirius.

She?

I examined the afterimage in my mind. A young woman had been pressed against the rail, a woman with long black hair in a silky sheathe gown. There had been two others, two men, and they had been struggling with her.

She had not fallen; she had been thrown overboard!

I spun the wheel, lined up the masts on Sirius, and trimmed the sheets. My speed was about five and a half knots. The cruise ship had passed less than half a mile away. I would cross the ship’s wake in about four minutes.

No time at all for me, but an eternity for the girl in the water.

Unless she had seen the Wahini from the rail – unlikely in the darkness – she would think that she was alone in mid-ocean. The cruise ship had not even slowed down. Terror might have frozen her. She might already be drifting hopelessly down through the water.

When my watch said four minutes had passed, I still hadn’t seen her. I put the wheel hard over and brought the Wahini into the wind, sheeted the mizzen hard amidships, released the topping lift on the main, and rushed forward to drop the jib into untidy pile on the foredeck. Then I went up the mizzen mast, gripping the mast hoops with bare fingers and toes.

The cruise ship was halfway to the horizon by now, with no sign of turning back. I scanned the water, first close in, then further out.

Nothing!

I bellowed into the night, but there was no response. I squeezed my eyes shut, and fired the Very pistol I had brought from the cockpit. The flare spiraled upward and burst into a ball of ruddy light. I scanned the ocean again and saw a frantic splashing down to leeward.

I went down the mast hoops at top speed. The dingy was inaccessible, lashed down amidship for the long passage. If I swam to her, the Wahini would drift away downwind and we would both drown. 

I raised the jib. Wahini moved with ponderous dignity through the water toward where splashes had been. I scanned the water, but the flare had died out and I could see nothing. more tomorrow

211. Raven Comes Aboard

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New month, new year, new novel.

Today we begin the second year of this website. In the Serial half, Jandrax, my first novel, published in 1978, just wrapped up in a serialized and annotated form. I spent enough time and effort explaining the decisions behind the text that it has become something of a how-to for new writers.

Today, in Serial, we begin the novel Raven’s Run. This time I plan to keep most of the commentary over here on the AWL side, but we’ll see how that works. I make no promises.

Raven’s Run was written in the early 90s, roughly speaking. I never kept a writing diary, but it was fashioned after events from my 1987 and 1988 trips to Europe, but not written until after I had finished Symphony in a Minor Key. Early 90s is as close as I can come.

I spoke of Raven’s Run in 24. Following the Market. Notice that I haven’t put a tag on that reference. You don’t need to go there, since I am covering the same ground today, with a fair amount repeated.

*          *          *

Some people say write what you know. Some say, follow your passion. Some say find your natural readers. Others say follow the market, write what the reader wants to read, position yourself just back of the leading edge of the latest trend.

I only followed the market advice once, when my science fiction and fantasy work was hitting a brick wall for sales. I decided to write a contemporary adventure story. It was something I had wanted to do anyway, from the beginning. After going to Europe I had enough material to start.

By today’s standards, Raven’s Run would probably be classed as a thriller. Ian Gunn, the protagonist, is an ex-PI, sort of, now assigned to the State Department, waiting for his first posting. Despite that, there are no spies involved (except in the prolog), and the detecting is minimal, so not espionage and not a mystery. An adventure, because a girl falls into his life (literally) in chapter one, bringing troubles with her. In terms of the time it was written, it would have sold as a men’s adventure. That sounds like a Mickey Spillane woman bashing story, but in its day men’s adventures were filled with a wide range of character types, some quite civilized.

I had always wanted to write my own equivalent of Travis McGee.(see 49. The Green Ripper) Who wouldn’t? Neither detective nor spy, he went his own unique way and provided adventure for a generation of readers. But McGee was too much of con man for me, and he wasn’t enough of a loner. His buddy Meyer accompanied him in every other story. My guy, Ian Gunn, would be younger, better educated, but very much at odds with the world his education had prepared him for.

So I wrote it, and I liked it. When it was finished, I sent Raven’s Run to my agent. He was full of praise, especially for the exciting opening chapter. Then he said, “. . . but I’m afraid I can’t sell it. The bottom has completely fallen out of the men’s adventure market, and nobody is buying.”

So much for following the market.

Raven’s Run is now twenty-seven years old. I am not referring to the date it was written, but the the date of the internal action. It exists in that limbo state between contemporary fiction and historical fiction, not quite fully one or the other. That provides both problems and opportunities, some of which I will talk about in future posts. For now, I’ll simply note that the prolog which forms today’s post in Serial was added to place the main novel in context.

Raven’s Run 1

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Comment on this prolog can be found on today’s AWL post.

May 4, 2012, Luisanne, Switzerland

The first man to arrive on the terrace was clearly an American. He spoke quietly to the maître d’ while glancing at his watch. 

Behind him a voice said brightly, “Ian, you need not worry. I said 2100 and here I am. I think you are a moment early.”

Ian Gunn turned and put out his hand, and said, “That must be it.” They seemed to be old friends. It was calculated appearance but, in this case, also the truth. “It’s good to see you, Kurt.”

Ian Gunn knew his friend as Kurt, or Karl, or Klaus, followed by any of a number of surnames. Tonight he was using Kurt Heiss, which was his actual name, as far as Ian knew.

They were led to a table overlooking Lac Léman. As they ate, each enjoyed the other’s company; there was business to attend to, but this was a rare chance to be easy with one another, since their latest venture was now concluded.

Except that both men were extremely fit, and had the look of lions, they could have been taken for businessmen. In fact they were, but their business was blood and death. Or its avoidance.

Gunn asked, “Did the transfer of goods go as we had hoped?”

Kurt replied, “Yes. There were some tense moments, but eventually everything went to the right buyer.”

By this, Kurt told his American counterpart that five hundred AK-47s had not gone to the Taliban as both their governments had feared, but had gone instead to a different insurgent group in a different country. Ian nodded, passed a flash drive to his friend, and received another in return. They moved on to other conversation.

As the meal wound down, Kurt said, “Ian, you seem troubled. Is it business or personal, and can I help in either case.”

Gunn smiled and shook his head. “Not troubled, Kurt. Nostalgic. I ate here once before, in this same restaurant, looking out at the same view with a young woman in 1989.”

“A very good year.”

“For you, Kurt, yes.” Kurt Heiss had been a very young man then, and in November he had stood with sledge hammer in hand, shoulder to shoulder with other young Germans, pounding down the Berlin Wall. “For me, it was a bit more complicated.”

“The young woman . . .?”

“It’s a very long story.”

“Which you cannot tell . . .?”

“No,” Ian said, “nothing like that. I was not yet working at our craft. It’s just a long story.”

“A précis then. I no longer go looking for young women to take back to my room, since I married Anna. She has lie-detector eyes. It will be a long night, and I am not going back to Berlin until tomorrow.

“Besides,” he added, “even though you say nostalgia, your eyes are not smiling.”

Ian shrugged and surrendered to his friend’s concern. “All right, a story. 1989. The best thing about that year was that I was 28 years old . . .”

210. Close to the Ground

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During 1987 and 1988, we spent 130 days in Europe, traveling by train, backpacking, and living in a dome tent. The tent cost twenty-nine dollars at K-mart. It kept the rain out until it rained; then it kept some of the rain out. All the summer of 1987 the fiberglass tent poles kept eroding at the ends, and the tent got progressively lower to the ground. Finally we started patching it with branches harvested from bushes at the campgrounds. When we got home, we took the ragged remnants back and they gave us a replacement. That one got us through 1988.

It was a vacation, and a cultural and historic tour, but I also had the rough outline of a novel in my head, and I was looking for places to let it happen. I visited the American consulate in Marseilles because I intended to have my protagonist make connections there. At the American embassy in Paris I mentioned that I was planning to write a novel about an American in Europe on the run from gangsters. The information clerk sighed wearily and said, “We wish you wouldn’t.”

We left looking like Americans. We came back looking like very fit Americans. Walking every day and eating very little will do that to you.

During those two summers we went all the way to the northernmost point in the Orkneys and as far north as the Arctic Circle in Norway. Looking out from the train from Myrdal to Flam, I saw a grassy cliff and knew that it would become the scene of the climax of the novel. We went northeast to Finland, southeast to Budapest and Greece, south as far as Pompeii, west as far as Portugal, and ten thousand places in between. We did not go to Berlin, because that was still East Germany and Eurail didn’t go there. Germany was a fairly tense place, those summers.

We took the train everywhere. Without Eurail passes, none of this would have been possible. We also walked, probably more than a thousand miles, around towns, on Alpine trails, and daily to and from the campgrounds which were always far out on the edge of the cities we visited. Those campground trips took us through back alley parts of cities normal tourists never see – seldom scenic, but always interesting. We only ate in restaurants where the exchange rate made them cheap; in Switzerland, we at a lot of bread and apples.

Being poor, or something like poor, can be an advantage to a writer. It’s hard to imagine Steinbeck writing Cannery Row or The Grapes of Wrath while living in a penthouse. Poverty, or something like, can seem exotic to those who have a little money.

Of course, most people want to read about the rich. After all, the James Bond novels wouldn’t work if he wore ragged clothes and drove a ten year old car.

I find life close to the ground interesting, and all those experiences allowed me to build a story in which my protagonist, Ian Gunn, has reason to live like I did, at least for a part of the book, and draw on those experiences for the rest of it. It is called Raven’s Run and it begins in Serial tomorrow.

At one point, he and his girlfriend meet a street musician, and Ian thinks:

On the ladder of affluence, we were near the bottom. Eric was one critical step lower. We knew that we could not eat in a restaurant; Eric did not know where his next meal was coming from.

Ian Gunn is about thirty, as we were, and on the verge of moving into better circumstances, but not quite there yet. He finds himself traveling on the cheap, like a teenager, but his age makes him a misfit in that crowd. I could tell you more, but check out Serial tomorrow and read it for yourself. 

Contents of the First Year of Serial

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On August 31, 2015 – one year ago today – I began this website in two parts, A Writing Life and Serial. Confusingly, the name of the overall site and one of the two blogs was the same. I wouldn’t make that mistake again, but there were many things I didn’t know about running a website when I started.

This half of the site, Serial, is technically a separate blog, but it isn’t treated like a blog. It was a way to let me publish short stories, articles, novels, and novel excerpts in serial form. I always intended to remove the results, as each was completed, to a separate section called Backfile. Blogs place entries last to first; that works for a serial, but for a completed piece it would mean reading from end to beginning.  In Backfile you can read from beginning to end.

Here is a summary of the first year of Serial.

Blondel of Arden     Blondel is a peaceful, small statured bard of small magics, but he is also more than he seems. Blondel of Arden and Prince of Exile are my only non-Menhir fantasies. Look for it in Backfile.

Koan     Short and snarky. Look for it in Backfile.

Into the Storm     A day’s recreation with strong undertones. Look for it in Backfile.

To Go Not Gently     Ram David Singh, formerly of Ozarka, NorAm, now of India, the last, great scientific country on a post-apocalyptic Earth, is trying for immortality. Lots of luck. Novella, originally published in Galaxy, a modified excerpt from the novel A Fond Farewell to Dying. Look for it in Backfile.

The Best of Lies     Selenchuk came to slay a dragon and stayed to live a quiet life. Now another would-be dragon slayer is about to mess that up. Set in the World of the Menhir. Look for it in Backfile.

How To Build a Culture     Non-fiction.  The is the text of a talk given at Westercon 34, held in Sacramento, CA  in 1981. Look for it in Backfile.

Symphony Christmas     This is as excerpt from the novel Symphony in a Minor Key.  I still intend to publish the novel, so this will eventually be removed from Serial and not placed in Backfile.

Over the Christmas season I printed five favorite poems, written by others. They will eventually be removed from Serial and not placed in Backfile.

The Prince of Exile     Nothing is what it seems, in service of the Prince. Prince of Exile and Blondel of Arden are my only non-Menhir fantasies. Not yet moved to Backfile.

Voices in the Walls     This is as excerpt from an uncompleted novel, heavily annotated for the benefit of new or would-be writers. It will eventually be removed from Serial and placed in Backfile.

Jandrax     The entirety of my 1978 first novel, annotated for the benefit of would-be writers. It will eventually be removed from Serial and placed in Backfile.

Starting tomorrow, Raven’s Run, another unpublished novel.

209. Travel

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When I was a child, my family took only one vacation. We drove a hundred miles south to see the reconstructed fort at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. We left at seven in the morning, right after milking, and got back by five in the afternoon.

That’s how it is on a dairy farm. I left Oklahoma for Michigan when I went to college, but that wasn’t a vacation. That was an escape. By the time I got married, I was ready to do some traveling.

Travel was cheap in the U.S. in the seventies. Gas was seventeen cents a gallon and the old car usually ran. We slept in a pup tent and cooked on a camp stove. We crisscrossed the western two-thirds of America and visited nearly every National Park. Eventually however, as I continued doing more writing than selling, the car got old and times got lean. Then I started teaching and a few years later, with a mostly healed up bank account, we toured the Atlantic states. That trip gave me the start on a new novel (see 55. Voices in the Wall and Serial for February and March of 2016).

By 1987 we had saved enough money to tour Europe. Perhaps tour is not the right word. In those days you could get cheap air fares if you paid months in advance. Eurail passes cost quite a bit, but they took care of all your travel costs once you were in Europe. That left just food and lodging.

We were following the advice of Rick Steves but planned to outdo him on cheapness. We bought a tent and a pair of rucksacks. A set of clothing on our backs and another pair of jeans and shirt in the backpack, and we were ready to go.

We were 30 years old that year and planning to travel like teenagers – minus the hitchhiking. We had very little money, but we had lots of time. Seventy days, in fact. Being a school teacher is a real pain sometimes, but it gives you summers off.

As we waited for our flight out of San Francisco that spring, the gate attendant announced that they were overbooked, and offered a pass for future flights to anyone who would volunteer to wait for a later departure. We volunteered, and then watched our flight leave without us. It was logical; the pass was worth almost as much as we had paid months earlier, and it would only mean a short delay. Still, after waiting a lifetime to see Europe, it hurt to see our plane go on without us.

It felt good when it returned twenty minutes later. They had had engine trouble, but the problem was quickly resolved. Meanwhile, we found out that the flight had not actually been overbooked. It was a computer error. We took off about forty minutes later, on the same plane, with passes in our pockets to cover a future plane flight. All the way to Europe in 1987, we planned for our second trip in 1988. more tomorrow