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Category:
Literary Fiction
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN-10: 1539680843
Type: Fiction
Pages: 376
Copyright: March 29, 2013
ISBN-13: 9781539680840
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
Paul Kingsley -- journalist, teacher, father and husband, veteran, story-writer -- fights the influence of a cultish secret society called the Scythians. Unknown to him, others also take up the struggle. This is the first volume of a series called "Witnesses".
This novel consists of several narrative threads with similar themes. Two 17th century colonial American women and a native guide travel through an area where a devastating war took place. Centuries later, American soldiers train to fight in an Asian war. Later still, several people contend with the Scythian cult that threatens to destroy the democratic way of life.
The story includes examples of private memories, personal creativity and references to the historical record of the American people. It takes up several questions: How do ordinary folks deal with major calamities like war? What do they say about their experiences? How do they interpret them?
Issues that come up in this story are developed in later novels of the "Witnesses" series.
Excerpt
THE FISHERMAN OF GUADALCANAL
It was a blustery, October Saturday afternoon. As he looked out the cadre room window at the western sky, Sergeant Paulitsky, who was much in debt, daydreamed about streets of gold inlaid with rubies. A scattering of leaves that rose in the wind high above the white barracks across the parade ground brought him a vision of doves, and the company sign swung so that the hinges sighed, he thought, like the whispering of angels.
He regretted that he had no one with whom to share his vision.
Except for a guitar player sitting by himself on a footlocker, the first floor bay of the second platoon was empty. Since the week’s inspection had gone well, most of the trainees had left for the service club or a movie. Two with passes had headed home. One, Private Braddock, was AWOL. He’d left the company the day before and no one had seen him since. Paulitsky didn’t like the idea that one of his trainees had disappeared.
He was alone in the cadre room. While putting his gear back in his locker and rearranging the contents, he listened to music coming through the open door from the bay.
The tune had a melancholy sound. He’d worked with military men for more than twenty-three years. The latest batch of troops was different: more spirited, more questioning, less respectful of authority. Paulitsky wondered on his gloomy days – and this was not one of them – if they knew something he didn’t.
He felt satisfied, in touch with history and the way things ought to be, as he returned to its usual place on a hook inside the door of his wall-locker a framed photo, patched and faded, of the Marine landing in the Solomon Islands. It had appeared years before in every major newspaper in the U. S. Despite its age and use (Paulitsky had carried it with him everywhere), a discerning eye could still make out a thinner Ted Paulitsky in the lower right-hand corner, in battle dress, knee-deep in the waters of Iron Bottom Sound, youthful, vigorous, full of dreams. Civilization had been easier to defend a score of years before. It was different now. The dithering of civilian leaders, he thought, led to poor morale on the platoon level. This factor, too, helped to explain his gloomy days, when, like Private Braddock, he longed for a different life: his retirement was only a few months away.
The guitar music in the bay continued to move through his thoughts. He lay down on his cot and hummed along – a country tune of lost love and the survival of hope.
A sergeant from the third platoon stood in the doorway, smiling nonchalantly as he chewed on a wad of gum. Paulitsky turned away without saying a word: they’d had a quarrel the night before at the NCO club. Sergeant Gareau, sober now, wanted to make amends and talk about the soldier who’d gone AWOL. He said there was a rumor that Braddock had been spotted on Range Road taking potshots at the birds with a rifle and some ammunition he’d stolen from the supply room.
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