Trinity Trio (The Bill Travis Mysteries Book 14)
Page 13
Here’s another confession, of sorts: I have interesting dreams.
This book is the only book I’ve ever written which appeared entirely in the course of a single night; a lone episodic saga. I was able to remember that dream—no, not in its entirety, but in its depth, its intensity, and in its feel. I’ll tell you, the dream was nowhere near as funny as certain passages in this book.
Humor, to my mind, is the knee-jerk reaction to “things that ain’t right.” It’s that plus the fact that you got the joke. You saw and understood it wasn’t right, and can therefore laugh at it. I heard a speaker once say that, “If you’re angry, then you haven’t gotten the joke yet.” I kind of appreciated that when I heard it. In fact, I laughed out loud.
Most of the humor in the Bill Travis books is unintentional. I’ll be in here (in my office, on my computer) writing, and Sallie will be in the bedroom across the way, reading what I wrote just a few
minutes before (I’ll sometimes dash off a page or two and get them to her so as not to interrupt her reading of them by allowing her to reach the abrupt end) and suddenly she’ll laugh out loud. I’ll get up, go in there, give her a funny look until she notices I’m standing there, and then I’ll ask her, “What’s so funny?”
She’ll say, “Oh, it’s this part here,” and then she’ll read it aloud to me, and I’ll be shocked to find out it was actually kind of humorous. I mean, I’m sort of stunned by that. I hadn’t set out to do it, this I promise you, it’s just that it sometimes works out that way.
And another thing I’ve noticed is that it doesn’t happen like that if I’m feeling the least bit off. If I’m having to force it, then it’s usually simply not right. I will, in fact, find myself backing up (a painful word here, but since we’re being all sober and truthful, the actual word is “deleting”) to where it first started going south and re-writing it, or even stopping and waiting until it feels right to proceed. Running that red light (by which I mean, writing when I shouldn’t be—when I have to expend effort to do so) can sometimes result in a pretty bad wreck.
All this by way of saying that if there’s not some real life humor on the printed page, then it’s just not a Bill Travis mystery the way it should be. Now, I know, sometimes things can get pretty dark. They can get downright real and dicey and the old pump is thudding in the chest and that old battery acid taste of adrenalin is coating the tongue, and man, even I don’t know what’s going to happen next. But even then, even there in the pitch blackness with the bad people running around in the dark trying to kill our friend Bill, there had better be something to laugh at, somewhere.
I suppose, in the final analysis, this is why Bill and I are still hanging together, and he allows me to ride along in the back seat, with him and Hank up front. It’s because we both know these old back roads, we know this neck of the backwoods like the backs of our hands. We’ve both been there, we’ve dodged fate and lived to fight another day, and we’re able to laugh about seeing the elephant. (By the way, that’s what the old campaigners used to call the action on the battlefield—“seeing the elephant.” I suppose that’s a nod to the Boer War, or something.) Because, let me tell you, we’ve seen the elephant—or at least the elephant as it exists in East and Central Texas—and it can still be a pretty big bastard.
That reminds me of the old redneck joke: The first guy says, “What are three most dangerous words you can hear?” The second one replies, “I don’t know, what are they?” The first guys says, “Hey, watch this!” You know when you hear that, you’re in some deep kem-chee. Or, at least you are where I come from.
Well, the truth of the matter is that I’m a bit older now, and hopefully most of my kem-chee days are in the dark years of the ancient past. They are, that is, until Bill Travis dredges them up for me and shows them to me.
But hey, what are friends for?
A few more anecdotes, and then I’ll leave you be. I promise.
First, I had to use a fictitious county and city in Texas, just as I have in several of the previous books. I believe you understand why, after reading the foregoing. Also, because it’s fictitious, and still in Texas—and specifically, East Texas—I felt I was on safe ground by using the
Neches River and Kickapoo Creek. However, I even re-arranged the geography there. First of all, Kickapoo Creek (named after the Kickapoo Indians, whoever they were and whenever and wherever they lived) begins up in Van Zandt County and flows south and slightly west, where its name changes to Cedar Creek, thence to Magnolia Creek, and finally is called Kickapoo Creek once more before it flows into Lake Livingston and joins the Trinity River (although every article I can find on it says that it is a tributary to the Concho. Yes, there is a Kickapoo Creek in Concho County, West Texas. No, it’s not the same creek. My entire life I’ve been confused about that, and I just now got it all straight! There are two Kickapoo Creeks in Texas. The state is simply that big!) However, Kickapoo Creek (the eastern one) and the Neches River flow awfully close to one another west of Palestine, Texas. You have to cross both the Neches and the Kickapoo if you’re driving that way, and depending upon your route, you might have to cross Kickapoo Creek several times.
Carter Texas, therefore, is completely fictional, although there once was a Carter, Texas, located up in North Central Texas, near present day Weatherford (or 10 miles north of Weatherford, to be exact). It is variously called Carter and Cartersville, but it finally demised in the 1920s after the post office closed up (in 1907). It’s now an official “ghost town.” That (the real) Carter, has no relation to my fictional Carter in any shape, form or fashion, other than that of name.
This reminds me: when I was a little fellow, my father used to take me with him exploring some of the old demised townships dotted across East and Central Texas. Sometimes we would take a metal detector with us and hunt up old coins buried beneath the sod, or bits of spurs, and in one instance, a huge wagon wheel rim, rusted all the way around, but still a big hunk of iron four or five feet in diameter and weighing in at about a hundred and fifty pounds or more. At any time, a seasoned blacksmith could have put it back in service, but we don’t have many carters hanging around these days. (That was a little joke there.) My father told me most of the names of the places, but I promptly forgot them. Places where ferries used to cross the river, or where the a new road was put through elsewhere or the railroad stopped going through a certain area, or the iron mine or the nickel mine played out and the town collapsed. I suppose the reason I don’t recall them is that possibly the town wanted to be truly dead, and didn’t want even a memory of itself to remain. But still, in every adventure we had together, he’d impart some gem about the history of the place, such as, “This used to be an old mill town. All this forest here was once fields of grain, and they would come to the mill here to grind it all up after the harvest.” And, of course, I’d nod and file the information away. “This place used to be a way-stop on the cattle drive, coming up from King Ranch. There wasn’t anything here but bars and whorehouses. Maybe it’s better it’s gone now.” Which is to say, when humans abandon a place in this part of the country, the land reclaims it, and quickly. If, however, it was enough of a going concern at one time such that it had a tin roof, why, that damn roof would last a hundred years or more. It would outlast the posts holding it up. Consequently, there’s no telling what you’ll find, if you’ll go looking for it. But, a piece of advice here: get permission to enter the land, first. Down here, people sometimes shoot first and ask questions later. It’s a bit like....hell, it’s a bit like Texas.
The history of the places I write about (the real places, that is) tend to be rich. My wife pointed out to me that folks visiting from the Old World (meaning, of course, Europe or Eurasia) tend to remark that everything here in the States is so confounded new. Over there, you can probably find some tavern in London that can claim, and rightfully so, that Oliver Cromwell drank his suds there. Or maybe Richard III. Here, down in Texas, the oldest places you will find are those left b
y the Spaniards when they were trying to claim the souls of the Indians—Concepcion, Goliad, the Alamo. Between two and four hundred years, at the max. The oldest paved courtyard in the entire Western Hemisphere is located in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and it dates back to within a hundred years of Columbus’s advent. I’ve walked those cobblestone spaces, both in this lifetime and in others. I know that part of the country as well. Just sayin’. I know of few roads I haven’t been down.
All this by way of saying that we’re at the point now—here in America, and specifically, here in Texas—where we’re beginning to have our own rich history, and it’s becoming a long one. And that makes me happy. And I’m also proud that my family had some part in those events. Yes, I’m a Native of this great state—once a Republic all to itself. Yes, I had family at the Battle of San Jacinto. And yes, I do recall personally being at the Alamo all those years ago—1836 to be exact, but I won’t publicly admit as to what side I was on! Regardless, I’m here. I’m what you might call ‘vested.’ And I intend to remain.
One last note before parting, regarding bank notes. Truthfully, the Federal Reserve no longer issues money in denominations larger that $100. It’s doubtful, actually, that there was a print run of $1000 bills in 1967, but the story required a good chunk of change, and I needed a good solid date from before the end of the large bank note era, which closed in 1969. I’ve always been interested in both numismatics (coins) and how money is printed, issued and tracked in general, so it wasn’t me simply throwing false dates around. I did it with malice aforethought, I assure you. So, for those purists out there who would cry foul, I’m relying on artistic license. So sue me.
I’ll make one last confession: I thoroughly enjoyed writing this Bill Travis book. This one flowed, and I had little trouble with it. And I must admit, I like it when it happens that way.
All right, I guess that’s about it.
Y’all take care, until the next time. And in the meantime...
All the best to you and yours,
George Wier
Austin, Texas
March 28, 2017