Kindle Edition
Amazon
Wild Blackberry Books
Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN-10: 1496094662
Pages: 358
Copyright: March 10, 2014
ISBN-13: 9781496094667
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
Joaquin is his friend's guardian after their stent in Korea where his friend lost his leg. Life on the ranch becomes his anchor, his salvation, while he continues to relate to his Hopi ancestry.
Joaquin’s story continues as he becomes the guardian of Rudy, once the two men return home from Korea, Joaquin with a plate covering a hole in his skull from shrapnel wounds, and Rudy less than whole, missing one leg. Even when he finds and marries the perfect woman, his life still has its share of loss and disappointments. His Hopi grandmother’s teachings guide him along the way, as well as the mental images of the lessons she taught him in his youth. The desert he loves remains as his solitude when life becomes too complex, and it turns up surprises that even he didn’t expect, surprises that turn his world on end.
Excerpt
Sihu sat up in the middle of their bed made of blankets on the floor with her arms folded and hugging her bent knees that were tucked into the swell of her belly. Joaquin stirred beside her, awakened from sleep by the rays of sun streaming in through the window, with the rays permeating the chill of the room. The sun was exceptionally bright and gave testimony to the snow that had arrived late in the season. It had fallen to blanket the desert in a crystalline layer throughout the night.
“You know, we really should start sleeping in the bed,” Sihu declared. Her glance came to rest on the quilt covered bed that sat unused across the room.
“Whatever for?” Joaquin sat up with his sleep laden eyes following her gaze.
“Because, to some it might be considered a little less than civilized for us to continue sleeping on the floor,” she said as she turned to look into his eyes.
“Oh for crying out loud, sweetheart, I couldn’t care less what people think about our sleeping on the floor!”
“But we want to bring up our baby right. After all, we don’t want the baby to think we’re uncivilized.” She glanced down and placed one hand alongside the bulge of the baby that was beginning to make its presence known more with each passing day, with its tiny feet that kicked and pushed visibly outward now and then. Sometimes the baby seemed to be performing gymnastics in her abdomen.
Joaquin chuckled and placed his hand to the other side of his wife’s belly in time to feel a little foot press outward. “You might be right about that. I guess we could give it a try.”
He smiled and remembered how the softness when he first tried sleeping in the bed left him feeling as though he was being smothered; as though buried in the fluff of one of the monsoonal thunderclouds so frequent in midsummer on the desert.
That night Joaquin and Sihu climbed into bed between the crisp white sheets. They settled into the unaccustomed feel of the plush cotton batting. It wasn’t a pleasant night’s sleep ahead of them, they tossed and turned and sought the firmness of the sleeping surface to which they were both accustomed.
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