Call My Name the Wind
by
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"Over here." A voice bellowed through the fog. "Here. Hanging off the cliff. Oh God, it’s his wheelchair." "Down here," one of the firemen yelled from the foot of the cliff. "A rifle. Right here. Under Devil’s Rock. Those bastards better find him fast. Where the hell is he?" "Keep Gloria inside." Men splashed through tidal pools that flooded the beach. A small boat’s light wavered, and then steadied on the red buoy’s bell tower. Intertwined layers of seaweed circled the buoy and cloaked the body that hovered below whitecaps. Human sounds stopped. The ratchety harbor launch clicked away time. The rescue crew harvested the tenacious sea grass and laid
the body onto a stretcher. "Look at this. His head’s pulled all the way back." "Oh crap." A young fireman pulled slimy green dead man’s fingers from Steve Palmer’s mouth. "Couldn’t have breathed but must have been dead before this stuff got into him. Look how tight these weeds wrapped around his neck. Coulda’ drowned or maybe the weeds got the old man." "I thought weed was something you were using at Belle’s the other night." "No time for jokes." "Poor son-of-a-bitch, must’ve suffocated." "How could he of gotten all the way out here?" "These wild currents. He must’ve put up some battle to stay afloat." "He couldn’t swim. Couldn’t even walk after the friggin strokes." "Shoulda yelled." "Don’t be friggin’ stupid. He couldn’t talk. Told you he had them strokes." "Hey." Butch Moulder commanded from the top of the hill. "You dumb bastards get him up here. The van is on the way from my place." "The funeral parlor? You sure?" The fire chief was standing next to Butch. "Shouldn’t we get him over to the fire house or the hospital?" "Easier for Doc Felder to check him out, privately." "Butch," the chief wiped the rain from his face. "Who’s going to tell Gloria?" "Leave it to me. She’s up there in the house." Butch motioned toward the dark windows. "She’s strong like the old man. Won’t let anyone see how she feels." Butch Moulder lit a cigarette and leaned against moss covered boulders. Small plants and algae, plastered against the rocks surface by time and weather, blended with boulders Steve Palmer had imported from Vermont to lend the appearance of undisturbed centuries to the cliff. Oak trimmed glass windows filled the wide arc of the family room that emphasized the old house’s dominance. Butch lit a second cigarette. "Damn. Those bloody idiots are racing up the road with lights flashing. Probably have sirens wailing. Damn." He smashed his cigarette against the wall and started toward the front of the house. Headlights flashed intermittently as police cars passed Baron-Palmer Acres and moved along Diablo Beach Road. Oversized houses with rarely used front porches were referred to as Barren Acres. The land had been stripped of anything that could grow to accommodate Victorian style homes. Two vehicles turned past the barbed wire entrance to the Coast Guard Station and the hidden driveway to the Utility Company power plant. The police car’s orange and red spinning lights flickered through the short expanse of woods, past the Goose Island Road that led to the wetland island. A decaying wood sign was the only indication that the place was an abandoned Army Corps of Engineers project. Goose Island, once a desolate marsh, was now divided into two acre building lots with entrances hidden by poplars and hedgerows. The cars moved along the narrow road, past the small rocky beach. White clapboard houses, that created a bright border during daylight, were hidden in the stinging mist. Butch Moulder was about to knock at the front door when the cars screeched to a halt on the wet gravel driveway. He slammed a cigarette on the police car’s windshield. "Cut the damn lights and the siren. Want to bring every one of these jerks out of their houses and up here to gawk at what’s going on? You guys seal off this place so no one, no one of these nosey neighbors sneaks around here. No one has to know that we already moved Steve to the Funeral parlor. Head back to town, go about your routines, and do it quietly!"
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About the Book
Call My Name the Wind is introduced by a Native American myth that knits its way through the story and focuses on Matt Steele, who driven by blood inflicted events, conceals his Native background. He descends into the quagmire of white supremacist violence and despair until the epiphany that brings him together with Gloria Palmer who helps him return to the destiny tattooed across his genetic pool.
About the Author
David Oser, having grown up in the South Bronx’s intimacy of ethnic and religious diversity, has recaptured his romance with writing born in a public library. A graduate of New York schools and universities, the US Army, and early occupations that took him to locations as varied as Los Angeles, New Iberia, Kansas City, Tampa, Moultrie, Baton Rouge, and other small towns, all followed by high school and college teaching, he befriended memorable characters who inhabit his novels.