The Dark Horse of Winding River

by L.A. Smith

Lynea, half way to her degree in geology, will soon turn twenty. One fine summer day she finds a photograph of her dead father and a woman she has never seen before; the two of them, obviously glad to be together, are looking right into the camera, right at our girl, as if they want to talk. So Lynea, brandishing the photo, bounces down the stairs hoping that her grandmother, the old dragon, will know who that woman is. She can't wait to show it to her grandma, but stops at the last step to look at it again.She turns the picture over: "Me and Tripp, July 20, 1964" -- four years and ten days after the day her mother died giving birth to her -- "me."But the dragon doesn't know who 'that woman' is -- at least, she says she doesn't. She refuses all assertions that she does. But her father and 'that woman' are still looking right into the camera, right at Lynea, as if they want to talk.On the truck's door in the photo Lynea sees her own last name, Dermody: "Tripp Dermody ~ Hauler/Transporter ~ Winding River, Texas." In small letters at the bottom: "We go back to get the cow." It takes her a couple of tries, but one day Lynea comes up with the right question.Meantime, Grandma Sarah has this to say: "But, yes, that is your mother's truck, that was how she made her living, you know, that big old box truck. You were born on the front seat, she bled to death right there, with her hands on the steering wheel. Fish House Road, my dear; right near the Holland Tunnel. Your mother was nothing but trouble, Lynea. Thank God she's dead."Lynea figures it out: first, grandma has known all along that Tripp is her mother and is alive and kicking; second, since she is still alive, her mother didn't die giving birth to her --"me;" and, third, nothing can stop her daughter--"me"--from knocking on "my mother's" front door. She asks grandma for the address, and she finally gets it. Soon thereafter she puts her geology studies on hold, throws her things into her pickup truck, and sets off to find her Mom. Toby's in the truck, too, her rat terrier dog.The voyage takes a week or more as she leisurely makes her way down the eastern seaboard to Charleston, then heads west, and at long last enters "Joe Dogg County," West Texas. One morning at seven a.m., Lynea heads south from the county seat toward Winding River, the little town of six or seven hundred souls where she will come face to face with her "dead" mother. She's been expecting a warm welcome and a big hug at Mom's, but a little something is in the air, and it is speaking to her now. Holding the photograph out in front of her as if it were a shield or a theater ticket, she knocks. The door opens, not much more than a crack, and Lynea's new life, eventually as a Texan, begins. Everyone has tried, or will try, to warn her away, but...I will ask the reader now to read the book. It has a forward thrust that will carry the reader with it, and, if it matters, it's a short book, too -- just over fifty thousand words -- with a sharp ending.But there's a caveat, and it is this. The book ends abruptly, right after Rack's murder. So abruptly that a reader might wonder: Did the author forget to finish the book? If that is a serious question, and it is, the serious answer is this. You'll find "the rest of the book" waiting within you where it's been building from the first word. While you were reading, hints and clues were coming into your awareness. And, Lynea -- hoping to do much, she yet does very little. The trouble is that she is not clear about her intentions. You'll find you know how the rest of the story goes after the last page. You'll understand -- I haven't the heart to walk you through the train wreck. You'll be there, by the side of the road, at the meeting in the dark of the moon, lit up "like a bathtub."One big sequel is foreseen, later. Another Mother-of-Many needs attention, first.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1973462044
• ISBN13: 9781973462040
• Release Date: December 2017
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.6" x 5.0"