The Chronicles of Dr. Orek Nebelwerfer

by Michael Morgan © 2018 All Rights Reserved

This is the first chapter of a Cattlepunk/Steampunk story I have been playing with. Hopefully, I can flesh this out into a series, and maybe a book. Quien sabe?

— 1 —

 

A screech-lurch and the tempo of the iron wheels clacking over rail joints changed. Roger shifted position in the angle of bench seat and wall as the sway of the second-class passenger car lulled him back to sleep beneath the heavy felt hat being crushed out of shape against the window.

“Clarksville next!” called the conductor as the door at the end of the car slammed open. “All out for Clarksville!” Another screech-lurch shook the car as the conductor stopped next to Roger’s seat. “Hey mister. Clarksville next.” At Roger’s feeble wave, the conductor shrugged and yanked open the door spilling the sulfurous reek of sooty coal smoke through the car.

The slamming door brought Roger fully awake. Pinching the crown of his hat, he straightened in the seat before settling the hat back on his head. The scrubby second growth trees crowded the window threatening to overrun and take back the land cleared by the Texas & Pacific through Fannin County, Texas.

Cleared fields broke out on either side of the car leaving the no obstacle to the westering sun as the tempo of the wheels slowed again and the engine’s wailing cry signaled arrival. A quick glance confirmed his soogan and the fringed rifle scabbard sporting Comanche beadwork still lay in the overhead rack.

The town rolled slowly past the filthy windows. People going about their normal business was no comfort. Roger’s toe gently tapped the sole of the boot worn by the man sleeping on the facing seat, “Up you get Gordon. We’re in Clarksville.”

“Yeah, I heard the man.” A gloved thumb pushed back the brim of the tan felt hat exposing an exceptional walrus moustache that had once been a luxuriant black before the silver took over, and friendly green eyes looking out past the crow’s feet in their corners. Gordon fished in his pocket and thumbed open the cover on his watch, “Damn. Stopped again.” He held it up to his hear and shook it gently before taking the finger of a glove in his teeth and tugging his hand free before winding the stem and returning the watch to his pocket.

Roger swayed on his feet as the train lurched to a stop along the station platform. He threw the bulky soogan over one shoulder, and held the cased Winchester at the balance. “I’ll circle and come in from the west. Meet you at the hotel.” At Gordon’s nod, he joined the other passengers headed for the front door of the car.

That kid is always in a rush, Gordon levered himself off the bench, and grasped the handle of the ratty carpetbag that had been lying on the seat like an old hound napping. Gordon tipped his hat to a passing woman and stepped in behind the last of the departing passengers headed for the rear exit. Just hope the folks hereabout are none too lively.

Roger turned right as he stepped onto the platform and began hurrying through the crowd ignoring the occasional complaint as he glanced rapidly left and right. Coming to the end of the platform, he took the wooden steps two at a time and stretched to jump the foul puddle at the bottom.

“Hey Mister!” The caller suddenly blocking Gordon’s path was a skinny younger fellow wearing a miserable excuse for a moustache and a dark green suit with brown velvet lapels. Weak-seeming gray eyes looked into Gordon’s, “May I have your name sir? For the Clarksville Times. That’s the paper I work for…” The man’s voice stumbled to a stop at Gordon’s noncommittal gaze. “Uh, We like to report on important folks coming into town…”

“Orek Nebelwerfer,” Gordon spoke the name slowly. “He come through town?”

“I-I don’t rightly know, sir.” The reporter glanced at the rapidly thinning crowd of passengers from the train, “If you’ll excuse me!”

Gordon watched the reporter hurry up to his next victim before turning left and heading for the stair at the end of the platform. Everybody in a hurry these days.

Roger turned between two buildings and found himself on what looked like the main street through town. The boardwalk along the shop fronts thumped a brisk rhythm of passersby.  Nodding to a matronly woman who shot a glance in his direction, Roger stepped up on the walk and proceeded to take in the town with a purposeful stride. Everyone he passed looked to be going about the business of the day in an unhurried pace. Any sound of raised voices was easily explained as necessary to the task at hand. When the commercial buildings faded into houses, he crossed the street and headed back.

Gordon reached the edge of town and stood quietly looking at the east Texas pines jutting above horizon on the far side of the cleared acreage. A few wagons and mounted riders were visible, but not the wagon they sought. “You lost mister?” The boy looked to be seven or eight. Sun-bleached hair, nut-brown skin, and dirty bare feet looked up at Gordon.

“No sir, I’m not lost,” Gordon’s smile spread his moustache like eagle wings. “Just wonderin’ if a friend of mine had come through town. You hear tell of a revival or medicine show comin’ through recently?”

“Naw. Nothin’ like that,” the boy pinched his chin in the manner of an old man thinking. “If there was a Revival Meetin’ around, Ma would have made me wash and put on my Sundays.”

“Thank ye kindly,” Gordon turned and started back into town.

“If I see ‘em should I tell ‘em you’re looking fer ‘em?”

Gordon looked back over his shoulder, “No need. Just stay away from those medicine shows. What they sell is poison.” He left the boy standing in the road as his attention turned back to the town.

 

A Chance to Succeed

“I want to, but…” is a recurring theme I hear from people I talk to. The “what” of their stated desire is irrelevant to their more important message that says, “I’m afraid to fail.” I hear this same theme expressed by the amazon that lives at my house regarding her schoolwork, and it vexes me regardless of who the speaker is.

To combat these expressions of negative thinking, I have stopped using the phrase “Take a chance”, replacing it with “Give yourself the opportunity to succeed.”

To my mind, this is a far more useful and affirmative way of looking at the things we might like to try.

If you “Give yourself an opportunity”, you are granting yourself permission to attempt to do something new that might be uncomfortable at first. More importantly, you are removing the negative connotations of failure if things do not work out. After all, you had permission.

By focusing on the positive outcome of successfully accomplishing an objective, the fear of failure whether self-condemnation or even public embarrassment is removed.

When I started writing, I had several choices. I could keep a private journal, make my work public online, and hope someone noticed, or I could give myself the opportunity to succeed by taking the big step of trying to make money from my work. I held my breath and began approaching publishers. Eventually, I made friends with fellow author Eric Bradley who writes awesome collector’s guides to a wide range of amazing things. He was kind enough to offer some advice that helped me connect with a publisher, and The Handbook of Modern Percussion Revolvers was published.

Has my book been a huge success and financial windfall?

• The book sold out the original printing.
• It is still available as an e-book on Amazon.com and other places.
• Readers in several countries have given the book good reviews.

 

Since I still get up and drive to work every day, I cannot say the financial rewards have been great, but this little success has encouraged me to continue writing. As announced in previous posts, I have won several awards in regional writing contests, and I have completed my latest novel Ladies, Fish, & Gentlemen.  Every little success build my confident to take the next step. Now I just have to find an agent.

 

When feeling uncertain, try giving yourself the opportunity to succeed. You might surprise you.

Betrayal of Trust

Many young people solve the problem of affordable housing with roommates, but this did not work out well for Harvard graduate Leyla Pirnie who is now facing eviction from her apartment because of her legally owned firearms.

“The Washington Free Beacon reports that Pirnie’s roommates allegedly rummaged through her belongings while she was away from the apartment, discovered her guns, and emailed the landlord to complain. One of the roommates told the landlord: “We discussed with Leyla that all of us are uncomfortable with having firearms in the house, and that their presence causes anxiety and deprives us of the quiet enjoyment of the premise to which we are entitled.”

This situation hits my hot buttons on several levels.

(I know this happened in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, but my training is in Texas Law, so I will refer to the Texas Penal Code for definitions.)

Texas Penal Code section 1.07 (39) “Possession” means actual care, custody, control, or management.

Ms. Pirnie failed to maintain control of her firearm(s). If the roomies were able to locate the guns by searching her room, those weapons were not correctly secured. Before the hate mail starts to flow, I am not taking about mandatory storage standards as defined by law. I am talking about the responsibility every gun owner has to insure his firearms cannot be accessed by children, criminals (especially criminals), and the terminally stupid like Ms. Pirnie’s roommates.

In my home, all firearms are stored in a safe with the sole exception being the handgun that is always either on my person, or within immediate arms reach. Had Ms. Pirnie followed the simple practice of securing her firearms in a safe, there would have been nothing for her roommates to find, and this would have been a non-event.

Texas Penal Code section 6.03 (c) “Reckless” A person acts recklessly, or is reckless, with respect to circumstances surrounding his conduct or the result of his conduct when he is aware of but consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result will occur.  The risk must be of such a nature and degree that its disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all the circumstances as viewed from the actor’s standpoint.

Texas Penal Code section 6.03 (d) “Negligence” A person acts with criminal negligence, or is criminally negligent, with respect to circumstances surrounding his conduct or the result of his conduct when he ought to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result will occur.  The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all the circumstances as viewed from the actor’s standpoint.

I’m on the fence about whether Ms. Pirnie’s situation falls into the “Reckless” or “Negligent” category.

Q: Was it reasonable for her to believe that her room was safe and that her privacy would be respected by her roommates?

A: Maybe. But even if the roommates were top notch people who would never step into another person’s room to borrow something, what about their guests and significant others?

Personally, I would leave my door locked at all times. Plenty of theft occurs by house guests. A lot of it is prescription medications, but cash, or an unsecured handgun, would be equally vulnerable. Sexual assaults are most commonly perpetrated by persons known to the victim. You can never be sure a roomie’s boyfriend might not drop by unexpectedly to do more than say hello. If you have roommates, KEEP YOUR DOOR LOCKED. Just sayin’.

Some folks are going to chastise me for blaming the victim, but I am not doing that. I merely hold this up as an example of simple things that could have  been done to protect oneself from the terminally stupid among us. These steps would also reduce the number of accidents involving children and the number of firearms stolen every year, and thse would be good things.

Ms. Pirnie had every reasonable expectation that her room and her possessions were to be respected. In a reasonable world, they would have been, and this would not be news.

But we no longer live in a “reasonable” world do we?

The roommates were the bad actors in this case. They broke a critical trust, and created a bad situation that injured an innocent person just because they drank the kool-aid and checked their brains at the college door.  (On the way in.)

I have to wonder: What were they planning to tell Ms. Pirnie if they had found nothing but a MAGA hat?

I hope Ms. Pirnie learns from this situation, and finds some more like-minded roomies in the future. (I suggest putting up an ad at the local gun ranges that offer Ladies’ Night.)