SkullValley

SkullValley
The way Home

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

It's a New Month, and time for a teaser...

Wow! Where has the time gone? It is November already and the New Year is looming on my calendar. I was looking at the stats to this blog and saw that friends from Europe were the most plentiful viewers in the last two weeks. I just wanted to remind you that "Ghost of the Black Bull is available at all Amazon outlets in Europe and I believe that it is available on Barnes and Noble there as well. Thanks for being such loyal followers.
Here is a short excerpt from "Black Bull":

  
"Pappy went to the mine because he knew that although JR was strong enough to work there, he was terrified of being underground. It wasn’t just the damned stories that miners told while he was around, Tommy Knockers and such, but on one trip underground the miners had put their lanterns out. It took all of them to hold JR down after he started screaming and running into the walls of the mine."

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

The Black Bull is Loose! Rampaging on Amazon and Nook.

 

The Ghost of the Black Bull is a story of bad luck and trouble for two families that have little in common. Yet their lives intersect in a collision that will leave you breathless. The Black Bull is a real and ethereal symbol of evil and violence that haunts them until the shocking conclusion. Available at Amazon   & Barnes and Noble
 

 


Friday, October 3, 2014

 Undaunted Publishing, LLC is proud to announce the release of "Ghost of the Black Bull" a novella by Michael D. LeFevre. He is a native of Utah and incorporates the awesome geography and rich history into his stories. The following is a short synopsis of the story.

Bitter memories of Mrs. Burnett’s past come to her mind as she stands on her porch. Recollections bring tears that quickly evaporate in the hot, dry air of Skull Valley. Miles away, JR, a big, thick kid is running to shelter behind his beloved Pappy, a fat chicken swinging from a thick fist. Cruel fate pushes the two families together in a shocking collision that will test the universe, its ironies and whims. Four people with a life of sadness, grief, and death. And yet, happiness can and does intrude into their lives, only in small and rare flashes.
But, you take joy where you can find it…don’t you? 

The Black Bull is finally on the loose! You can pick up a copy in the Amazon Kindle Book store and through Barnes and Noble's Nook store. Both of these booksellers are online. Readers of this blog may recognize portions of the story from posts under the title "Death in the Valley. I think that you will like the finished story.

Check out  Undaunted Publishing webpage. Just click on the highlighted text and follow the link.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

And GOD said...


 

#1

Short play adaptation from 2001


From out of nowhere, the voice of GOD, sounding suspiciously like James Earl Jones, said,
LET THERE BE LIGHT!!!”
James and Chris sat at a small round table in the food court of the Mall. On the table in front of them was two cups of lemonade, refreshment against the extreme heat of outside. They jumped a mile at the voice and both started to say “DID you hear…” and then realized what they were about to say. Two mouths clicked shut in unison. Nervously they looked around. Surely everyone else had heard that, but everyone else was going about their own business as if GOD hadn’t spoke at all, if indeed HE had spoken. Shaking off their confusion, they sipped their lemonade.
James changed the subject, “Whew! It sure is a hot one out there!” Gesturing towards the windows in the far wall, “This lemonade really hits the spot.”
Well, Chris, who was still shaken from the faceless voice, didn’t quite catch the context that James was striving for. “What spot is that?” he said, looking around.
“You know…the spot!” James was now becoming confused at Chris’ wandering eyes.
This really messed with Chris whose mind was racing for a way to save face. He continued on. “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about. What spot?”
Suspicious that Chris was messing with him, but a bit irritated as well, James forcefully answered, “Jeez, are you being obtuse on purpose or what? The spot! The spot! The place where everything is just right! A giant figure of speech. The spot! This lemonade hits the spot, it is so friggin’ hot out there!” His voice almost rose to a shriek, then thinking the other people in the food court were looking at him, he lowered it to a normal volume but still forceful.
Chris had focused on the “on purpose” part of James’ tirade. He decided to play the clown as he so often did. “You are so easy, I was just screwing with you. Hell, bro, I think I invented that figure of speech. If not me, then somebody I know.”
Indignantly, James retorted, “Yer ass! You can barely talk, let alone invent a figure of speech.”
Chris’ hands went to his chest and he slumped in the chair, “I’m wounded! Skewered by the barbed tongue of my best friend. Oh the pain!”
This drew a smile from James. He was well acquainted by Chris’ shenanigans, but even so, they were almost always funny. He often fell into the verbal trap of being the butt of Chris’ quick wit. He had decided that he could play the straight man in the joke. James thought that maybe he could change the subject so he asked, “So, what’s up?”
Chris straightened up, running his hand through his hair trying to tame the spikes raised when he rolled around in his chair, he answered with a shrug, “Just hanging out, waiting for Fall semester to start.”
“How’s your folks?” James carried on.
Chris grimaced, “The same. Nothing changes there. They are always gone to work or at the club after work. I sometimes wonder if they will ever have enough bread, money I mean.”
“I hear you. Mine haven’t changed either, I thought they might fly the coop after I moved out, but no, they’ll be here for the rest of time. Ha! Mom read one my essay’s for English class last semester. She just shook her head. I asked her what that was for and she said, “I wonder where you came from.” James paused, “I didn’t think I was that weird.”
Chris jumped on this, “Weird! Man, you’re the strangest cat I ever saw. Bent, real bent.”
“You know the pot shouldn’t call the kettle black. You’re not the straightest arrow in the quiver.” James snorted.
Chris chuckled, “Speaking of pot…You ever? You know, inhaled?”
“Me?” James said with a poker face.
Chris leaned forward intently, “Yeah, you.
“Like ol’ Cheech says, ‘a little magic dust for you, a little magic dust for me, a little more magic dust for me…’ then Farrrrr out, man.” James laid it on thick for effect.
Chris wasn’t impressed with the act, so he asked again, “So?”
“I made the mistake of my life. It’ll never be the same, my life I mean.” James’ eyes settled on a point over Chris’ head, up towards the ceiling. He kind of drifted off like he was somewhere else.
“So?” Chris waited for James to tell his story.
James snapped to and looked Chris in the eye. “You never let up do you? Remember the kid we called Fats?”
“Wasted dude, real skinny?” Chris squinted trying to remember. There were a lot of kids they hung out with that were not on the “A” list. School had been pretty well segregated by class and clique. He and James had been on the borderline of the “B and C” list. They had had friends in both groups.
James went on, “Yeah, he convinced me to smoke with him. He told me to hold the pipe stem up to my nose, then he blew on the bowl…mainlined the smoke right up my nose. Almost the last thing I remember…”
“Almost? What do you mean?” Chris was eager now, to hear the rest of the story,
 James was still in that place up near the ceiling, he went on automatically, “Well, I got to feeling funny. I decided to leave, and I ran into Julie who convinced me to go to the movie with her. It was bad, real bad.”
“Julie? The movie?” Chris interrupted.
James hardly paused, “The movie…it was Jonathon Livingston Seagull. I steer clear of ‘em to this day, I’m afraid they’ll start talking to me and lead me off into another dimension. Besides I couldn’t breathe.”
“Couldn’t breathe?” Chris’ mind was racing again, trying to find a way to make a joke of all this.
James took a deep breath, as if remembering that smothering feeling, “Yeah, my lungs felt like they were two walnuts dangling on a string in my chest. Never again.”
“It didn't affected me that way.” Chris said confidently.
James came out of his past, now curious what experience Chris had had. “Really. So did you get high?”
“So high, I could see T’peka.” Chris smiled in anticipation.
James took the bait, “Topeka, Kansas?”
“I’m tellin’ you, you are soooo easy! I think I invented that figure of speech too” Chris laughed at his own joke, pointing to James while he did.
James shook his head in chagrin, “Damn you.”
“Let’s have another lemonade before we go back out in that heat.” Chris patted his friends arm.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

The Exotic Woman Book 2, Part Deux

An Irrational Dream continues...

My feet started moving of their own volition, walking directly over to where she sat, willing me to come to her with her eyes.  I felt as if I had no control.  I arrived to stand in front of her and reached down and took her proffered hand.  “Her skin is like silk”, I thought as I helped her to stand.  As she did, I took her other hand in mine and looked deeply into those dark eyes.  “What am I doing?” in wonder, I gently pulled her to me.   I leaned toward her, intending to kiss those scarlet lips. Just as our lips were about to touch, she lifted her head so that I kissed her chin.  Startled, I jerked back with a question on my face.  She chuckled low in her throat, lips curled in a smile.  She then let my hands go and took my head in hers and pulled our lips together.  An electric spark literally exploded fireworks in my brain.  The sweet fruity taste of the ruby lipstick filled my head, temporarily overpowering the clean, womanly aroma of her skin.  I wanted to crush her body to me, full length, welded together lips to knees; one hot, seething nuclear power-plant of desire.
            I held myself in check, I don’t know how, and pressed my lips back to hers a bit firmer and opened slightly.  She didn’t respond at first so I let the tip of my tongue caress her soft, scarlet lips and as she relaxed, our tongues touched in the real duel of love.  When our lips had first met, my eyes had closed in reflex to the bliss that had spread through out me.  As our kiss deepened, my eyes opened and found her looking at me, eyes dark, deep, and unfathomable.   Who knew what thoughts were flashing in their depths.
            As the desire in both of us increased to just this side of unbearable, our hands started roaming in a more passionate embrace of…how to describe what this was.  Out of nowhere, a rough hand grabbed my shoulder and jerked me away from this woman, rudely pulling our lips apart, leaving a tingling, yearning, coldness where only heat had been before.  As I stumbled back from the force of the hard treatment, my right arm drew back in an instinctive, defensive act, fist clenched hard, ready to pound the intruder.  “Get away from my woman!” this stranger’s harsh voice ground out.  “What in the hell are you doing?” he asked of her.
            The woman stepped in between, preventing us coming at each other.  My clenched fist ached to drive through the stranger’s face, it vibrated with the effort to restrain it.  The woman looked at me, shook her head slightly and turned to the stranger.  She grasped his hand and turned to go.  He turned and muttering threats, dragged this beautiful woman off like so much baggage.
            I watched them go; the clenched fist relaxed and my arm dropped to my side.  The stranger and the woman swept through the exit doors and at last, she turned and looked straight at me.  Her lips that had so recently held mine in an embrace of love mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”  Silently spoken, loudly received.  My shoulders slumped and my head drooped so that I was looking at my shoes.  “Oh my God Mike, who was that woman?”  Marla asked.  I looked back at the empty doorway, sorrow on my face, “I don’t know, but she called my name.”