FRONTIER GUARDIAN ANGEL
Louisa Ervendberg travels by wagon almost two hundred miles in 1845 Texas, to join her husband in the new town of New Braunfels. With a two-week old son and a five-year old daughter, she encounters Indians, cold weather and a flood before she joins her husband. Lack of promised funds from Germany make life hard in this new town. The plague kills four hundred new immigrants, leaving over sixty children without parents and home. Louisa takes the children into her inadequate home and from this act of kindness, establishes the first orphanage in New Braunfels. She copes with hardships with a determined spirit, finding homes for most of the children and in the end, raises nineteen of the orphans herself. She suffers loss of friends from Indians, nearly dies from a snakebite and is abducted by two outlaws. Louisa’s strength keeps her going, even with her husband, Ludwig, becomes preoccupied with other duties or traveling to help Louisa run the orphanage or help raise the children. Louisa personifies the strength of the early pioneer women of the 1840’s.
Excerpt
Louisa saw them! Three Indians, faces painted white, with black and red stripes running from mouths to ears, stood by her wagon. One held Auguste by her long braids, his other hand cupped over her mouth. He held a short, thick-bladed knife between his teeth. The other two had arrows nocked in their bows, bowstrings pulled back to their cheeks.
"Oh, my God in heaven. Help me, Lord," Louisa shouted as she pulled back the hammer on her gun. "Don’t you hurt my child," she screamed and ran straight toward the one holding her daughter. "Let her go! Turn her loose!"
Louisa rapidly closed the distance between her and the Indian holding her child. Without slowing down, she rammed the gun into his chest and pulled the trigger. The impact from the gun barrel and the lead ball sent the Indian reeling backward, pulling the small, frightened child down across his body.
THE GATES OF HELL
Sixteen year old Marie Duval has left home, determined to make it on her own, to find a better life. Jobs are hard to find in New Orleans in the late 1800’s and although Marie struggles to make it, she sees no way but to go to work for Madam Towngood, doing a job she hates, prostitution. Years later, prosperous, powerful, Marie assumes the name of Jose Arlington, owns one of the fanciest brothels in Storyville, becomes involved in politics, lynchings, death of friends and almost loses her own life. In the end, she finds love, a husband and a stepdaughter.
Excerpt
Marie moved the sharp fingernail file to her right hand then sat on the bed, not too close to Candy Boy.
"Here, have a snort," he said. "It’ll make you feel better."
Marie pushed the bottle away and felt a hard knot form in the pit of her stomach. She knew what he wanted. He wasn’t here to talk about a job. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. "I don’t want a drink." Marie gripped the nail file hard. "Just give me the address. That’s all I want from you."
First Place Houston Writer's Contest
CHINA MARY
China Mary, born in China as Mei Choy in the 1860's, leaves China because of the Ching Dynasty soldiers killing everyone they think is inferior to them. Her father is killed by pirates and she is forced to become one of them or die. She escapes two years later and arrives in San Francisco, California. She becomes a successful business woman but is summoned by the Six Companies and ordered to move to Tombstone, Arizona. She is to insure the safety of the Chinese immigrants who are landing in Mexico then on to jobs in America. She suffers adversity not only because she is Chinese but because she is a woman who organizes the Chinese workers. If Chinese workers are desired, citizens go through her. Wages are paid to her and then passed on to the Chinese worker. With strength, courage and physical ability China Mary overcomes the opposition to her and is accepted by the law-abiding of Tombstone.
Excerpt
Ying pressed the book away from Mei Choy with the tip of her sword. "I've decided not to kill you, lying woman. I can use a person who can talk to the English merchants in Hong Kong. You will tell them my terms and my price for my goods. If you agree then you will live." Ying placed the tip of her sword under Mei Choy's breast. "Well, lying woman, what do you say?"
"I'm not afraid to die. I would like to live to provide for my mother, so she can enjoy the remaining years of her life."
"Then you will speak for me?"
"Yes. Will you offer me protection in return?"
"I'll offer you nothing but your worthless life and I will take that when you cease to be valuable to me."
THE KING BALE
Christmas Green, a sharecropper on a Mississippi plantation, strives to maintain her cotton crop on her fifteen-acre allotment. Her husband, Ben, is in prison and Christmas finds it difficult to make a profit when the cotton is sold. She hears of a contest that will pit two men from rival plantations to determine who can be the first to pick a bale of cotton, a king bale. The winner will receive a hundred dollars. Fighting an up-hill battle, Christmas gets chosen to pick for one of the plantations. But, all is not good for Christmas. Ben escapes from prison and is being hunted by city and county lawmen; her three children narrowly escape being run over by one of the sons of the plantation owner and she is almost raped by another sharecropper. Only a strong-willed woman can overcome the many obstacles fate throws in her path.
Excerpt
"Lord," Christmas said almost in a whisper. "I miss my Ben. He be gone a long time. Sometime I feel like shouting at the top of my lungs. I need him, Lord. Sometime when I think of him, it most drives me crazy. Help me make three more years, Sweet Jesus."
She turned at the noise and held her breath. What was it? She could see as far as the fields in the moonlight. She heard it again and was about to turn her head in the other direction when a huge hand clamped over her mouth.