Buck McDivit Revisited

The protagonist of my first novel, Ghost of a Chance, was Oklahoma cowboy detective Buck McDivit. A mysterious lake in east Texas was the backdrop for the novel that highlighted lost Confederate gold, Indian artifacts, the ghost of a girl, and murder. I’m presently working on a sequel to Ghost of a Chance, this time with the action occurring in Oklahoma.

The working title of my new book is Panther Stalking and the story involves modern-day cattle rustling, a compound populated by female pagans, and of course, murder. I’m about twenty thousand words into the novel.

Before starting on Panther Stalking I wrote a Buck McDivit short story to reintroduce myself to a character that I haven’t visited in almost three years. Prairie Thunder plants McDivit back in his home turf of central Oklahoma. Moonlighting as an assistant medical examiner, McDivit helps investigate the death of an American Indian artist. The story leads him to Oklahoma City’s historic Paseo District.

Anyone who read Ghost of a Chance and is interested in reconnecting with Buck McDivit is invited to visit my website http://www.ericwilder.com . Sign my list and I will email you the short story in PDF format.

No Better Place on Earth

I served in Vietnam from July, 1970 until September, 1971. As a draftee, it was not a place I chose to be but I met many wonderful people during my tour. It is also impossible to spend fourteen months of total hell. There were moments of total hell but most of the time was almost normal, some moments even fun. Tonight I was remembering an event I still can't believe, even after all these years. To say that I had fun is a lie because my rear end was puckered the entire time. The event took place almost four decades ago, at the non-com club in Bien Hoa.

I spent the first six months of my tour in the boonies as an infantry foot soldier. I've told the story of getting poked in the eye with a bamboo limb. Recuperating in Song Be - relative civilization compared to where I had been - I played chess and became close friends with the company clerk of Headquarters Company. When a position as a clerk-typist came open, I was offered the job. I didn't have to be asked twice if I was interested.

A time came when I was asked to fill in as Battalion Courier for a soldier on R & R. Long before the days of personal computers, the courier physically transported a satchel of papers and documents from our outpost in Song Be to the main headquarters in Bien Hoa. I was a spec 4, the equivalent of a corporal but not considered a NCO. A friend that I will call Sergeant Brown was going to Bien Hoa at the same time and wanted me to accompany him to the NCO club later that night.

"A hell of a place," he told me, "With the best steaks, beer and whiskey in Nam."

"But I'm not an NCO. I'll get in trouble."

"No one knows you in Bien Hoa. I got sergeant's stripes for you. Tonight you're going to be an E-5 sergeant."

We made it to the club that night. It was dark, smoky and loud, a Vietnamese rock band playing on stage. We ate our steaks and we're well into our second whiskey when who was to suddenly appear but my worst nightmare. It was E-8 Sergeant Roper (I will call him). Sergeant Roper was big, easily three-hundred pounds, and he was black - a little scary for a southern boy that had never known many blacks, much less ones in authority. I had never seen him smile. Totally frightened of the man, I once witnessed him take away a live grenade from a drugged sky trooper that was threatening to blow up an officer's hooch. To say that my heart was in my throat was an understatement and I fully expected to spend the rest of my tour locked in the infamous Long Binh Jail.

I waited for the other shoe to fall. Instead, he asked, "How are you tonight Sergeant Wilder?"

When I noticed the man standing behind him, I realized why I wasn't already in handcuffs. It was our company commander, Captain Ahab (I will call him). Officers, like enlisted men, are also unwelcome in an NCO club. Captain Ahab, white like me, was wearing sergeant stripes - he was an E5. That night I was his equal, Sergeant Brown his superior.

Sergeants Roper and Ahab joined us and we all proceeded to drink, listen to the band and even exchange a few pleasantries along the way. I fully expected to be court martialed the following day, as I'm sure did Sergeant Brown. Instead, nothing was ever said of the incident and we never again acknowledged even a passing hint that we may have consorted illicitly.

Years have passed and I still wonder about the incident. Why had I taken the chance of being court martialed to visit a place where I shouldn't be? Moreover, why had a Captain, the company commander, taken the same chance? The answer surely has to be that there is a deeply buried need in all of us to visit that one place, at least just once, from which we are forbidden to enter. It's a location where everyone is equal. Most of us never visit but there is surely no better place on earth.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Big Easy Book Trailer

Murder Etouffee Book Trailer

Name of the Game

Eric Wilder's Book Covers

Fun Junkies

Happy Super Tuesday to all you political junkies and happy Fat Tuesday to all of you fun junkies. Politics affects all of our lives and I watch what's happening with the same interest as any other concerned citizen. Still, when it comes to being a junkie I fall into the latter category more than the former.

Many other cities celebrate the pre-Lenten season with both festivities and frivolities. Most prominent, other than the Big Easy is Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Much of the year's income for many of Rio’s inhabitants is the direct result of Carnival Season. Fat Tuesday is always the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Because this date, like Easter, is governed by the moon's cycles, it occurs on a different date every year. This year, it is on February 5th, the earliest it has been in twenty years.

An official in Rio wants the date for Carnival to be on the same day every year. This is because the earlier the event occurs, the less revenue it generates. My close friend and fellow author r. r. Bryan, himself a devout Catholic, assures me that this will never happen. r. r. wrote All the Angels and Saints, a novel about a Catholic missionary in Guatemala.

While a devout Catholic, r. r. is also a fun junkie who lived in and around New Orleans for many years. His son Matt (whose birthday is today, incidentally - he as waited for this day all his life!) didn't believe it when we told him that crowds were often packed so tightly on Bourbon Street during times past that you could literally raise your feet off the pavement and remain suspended in the air.

I find it hard to believe that today is the third Fat Tuesday celebration in New Orleans since the devastation brought by the monster hurricane season of 2005. While far from full recovery, NO is moving in the right direction. It was 84 degrees in the French Quarter today and I sit in front of the TV watching the early voting returns, I am wishing I was there instead of here.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Night Stalker

I took this picture two days ago with a wildlife camera mounted on the flagpole in my front yard. I had a strange feeling when I downloaded my pics that I was going to have captured the image of a werewolf, or a bigfoot. Instead, I had this pic of a gorgeous fox. My wildlife camera also managed to snap pics of a couple of possums, a raccoon and, of course my cats. I'll keep you posted if I manage to discover a bigfoot, werewolf, or some really weird person. Meanwhile, I'm contacting Stephen King with an idea for an absolutely frightening story.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Hey, my connection is slow and I can't get the picture to upload. I'll try again later. Until then, imagine a beautiful red fox, in the snow, checking out the food in my cat's food bowls. - Eric

Peppers, Football and Sex

Last night on Nightline there was a segment on the world's hottest pepper. The pepper comes from a remote part of India and one restaurant in Chicago uses it to make what they advertise as the world's hottest chicken wings. A Nightline reporter interviewed the chef who informed him they made their customers sign a waiver before serving them their specialty hot wings. This is because the Indian pepper is 2000 times hotter than a jalapeno on the SHU scale, a scale for measuring the caipusun content (the chemical that makes it hot) in a pepper.

The Nightline reporter mentioned that humans are the only creatures that will eat a pepper. Supposedly, not even a rat can be trained to eat one. Why then are hot, spicy foods so ingrained in the diets of many cultures, Americans as well?

A psychologist interviewed by Nightline said that hot wings prepared with the super-hot pepper was probably consumed mostly by young men, often as a challenge and often during a televised sporting event such as Sunday's Super Bowl. Hot spicy foods do have at least one benefit. They cause the release of endorphins and provide the effect of something similar to a runner's high. When couples consume the spicy fare together, they are often more sexually attracted to each other. This, I guess, should make hot wings and other hot, spicy foods the date food of choice.

The report got me to thinking what else that humans do that other creatures don't. For one, only humans run marathons and play team sports, such as football. There is an important connection here that I haven't yet grasped but one thing is sure - Americans, Nightline reports, will consume 90 million pounds of hot wings during the Super Bowl. That's right, 90 million pounds!

That brings me to the Super Bowl tomorrow. The most watched television event of the year has little to do with whether the Patriots or the Giants are the best football team. It's really all about peppers, team sports and sex, and you can bet there won't be a single rat watching the event.http://www.ericwilder.com/