Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the Tarzan series without ever seeing Africa, but whenever possible, I try to visit the places I write about. To complete a Civil War scene in my first novel,Gully Town, I waited for the sun to come up on the exact October day the Battle of Westport took place. I wanted to get a feel for what the troops saw the morning before the battle. And for my novel, Incident at Simms Center, I went to the Chase County Courthouse in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas during a thunderstorm. The climactic scene in the novel takes place on a stormy night, with Herb Tully running up the stairs to the bell tower.

The hub of my third novel, The Ghost Dancers, was Kansas City’s Union Station. When the station opened it was the second largest train station in the country at 850,000 square feet, with a 95 foot high ceiling, 3 chandeliers weighing 3500 pounds each, and a grand clock with a 6 foot diameter face. In the 1930’s and 1940’s meeting under the clock was a way of life inKansas City. It would be the meeting place for the characters in my novel. However, there was no way for me to get into the station. It had been closed for years while litigation went on between the city of Kansas City and the Trizec Corporation about who was responsible for the station’s deteriorating condition. I tried calling the Mayor’s office and also Trizec to get permission to set my scene under the clock, but was told no one could get in, not even the Mayor. All further pleas were forcefully rebuffed.

A few days later I was lost in the bowels of Union Station holding a lantern. It was very dark and very scary outside the edges of my lantern’s light, and I wondered what I had gotten myself into. After stumbling around in the dark for half an hour, I turned a corner and was attracted by a light shining from above. I headed up an old stairway feeling very much like a character in a Dicken’s novel to seek out the source of the light. At the top of the stairs, and to my complete amazement, the light was pouring in from the 90 foot high arched windows at the front of the station and had led me into the North Waiting Room. It was only a short walk to the clock where I wanted to set my scene.

The station, even in disrepair, was magnificent and I was spellbound. After spending some time setting my scene under the clock and in the North Waiting Room, it was time to explore. I headed up a stairway at the front of the station and encountered a security guard who was headed down. For a moment we were both too shocked to respond, and then he reached for his gun and I put my hands up in surrender. I began explaining why I was there, trying to put the guard at ease. He was not buying it however, and he called for backup. Two more security guards arrived, and I gave them my best pitch about literary pursuits and why they should let me go. But they weren’t buying it either, and they called the Kansas City Police Department.

I was in some serious trouble and wondered about my fate. After a bit of conversation, the security guards realized they were not dealing with John Dillinger. They relaxed and started asking me questions about the station. We were doing a mini tour when the giant doors at the front of the building banged open and three police officers entered and headed my way. They were immaculately dressed in crisp uniforms and their polished boots clicked off the station floor in military precision. I wondered why I rated an elite unit of the police ​department. The security guards gathered round to listen. The sergeant in charge put his chest close to mine, and the conversation went like this:

“Do you know what the penalty is for breaking and entering?” he asked. I shook my head.

“Are you ready to go downtown?” I remained silent.

“What is your name?” I told him.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m a writer and I wanted to set a scene under the clock.”

“What have you written?” the sergeant asked skeptically.

“You probably haven’t heard of it. A novel about Kansas City called, Gully Town.”

The sergeant hesitated and looked me over.  “I read Gully Town and I liked it,” he said. I let out a deep sigh of relief.

The sergeant wiped his brow and looked around in awe at the magnificence of the station.

“You know Mr. Schultz,” he said. “I haven’t been in here since I was a kid. My dad used to bring me here all the time.”
And that’s when I knew he was more interested in the station than in me. His two companions were mesmerized by the station and had already headed to the North Waiting Room to look around.

“Are you going to thank me for getting you in here?”I asked.

“Don’t push your luck,” he muttered.

We began talking about the history of the station, and after a few minutes we got more comfortable with each other and began telling stories about Union Station. I was now giving a tour to three security guards and three police officers when those big doors swung open again and in marched a man dressed in a suit. He headed for us and the three police officers greeted him. I asked him who he was, and he replied that he was a police observer, and he joined our group. I suspected that he was there to observe the station, and wondered if the entire police force was going to show up.

We started a discussion about the Union Station Massacre. The officers wanted to know the route that federal agents had taken as they escorted the notorious criminal, Frank Nash, to a waiting car in the front parking lot. From there they would head to the penitentiary inLeavenworth, where Frank had escaped years before. But out in the parking lot, Vern Miller, Adam Richitti, and Pretty Boy Floyd waited to ambush the officers and free Frank. In the ensuing gun battle, four agents and Frank Nash were killed. We were deep into the discussion when the station doors banged open again and the Trizec executives marched in. I knew my moment of truth had arrived. Law enforcement left me like I had the plague and went to confer with Trizec.

They huddled in a corner of the station with glances in my direction. I suspected they were weighing the benefits of my arrest against the possibility of some bad publicity for jailing me for trying to research a Kansas City landmark. The conference lasted long enough to make me sweat, and then one of the executives marched over and stuck out his hand. I shook it. He told me that I was not going to be prosecuted, but that I was never to do it ​again. I now knew how Frank Nash must have felt surrounded by police officers and I wanted no part of a jail cell. I shook hands with all of the officers and they escorted me out of the building.

The next day a story appeared in the Kansas City Star about the escapade and how the power of the station brought us all together. The article summed it up very well and I was glad the story had a happy ending. A few years later the station opened and was once again an important hub in the Kansas City scene.

–

G.P. Schultz was born in Longacre, West Virginia to a coal mining family. He grew up in wild, wonderful West Virginia, where he loved to play sports. He then served with the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii where he met his wife, Vicki, who was attending the University of Hawaii. They have two daughters and currently reside in Kansas City.

His writing career began in mid-life, with the publication of his first novel, Gully Town. His idea for the novel came from years of working with the Irish and the Itailans in the River Quay area of Kansas City, and he wanted to revive the city’s rich history in a novel.  He currently divides his time between his one man marketing business and writing, but also enjoys golf and gardening, and follows any sporting event that requires the use of a ball. For more information, please visit www.gpschultz.com.

1. Purchase a copy of The Elements of Style. It is a timeless instruction by Professor William Strunk Jr. on how not to use needless words.

2. Before publishing, hire a content editor, a grammar and punctuation editor and a proof reader. Mistakes in the manuscript can be invisible to the writer because they are imprinted on the brain.

3. There is some truth to the theory that waiting at the computer for inspiration is the correct way to go. However, that inspiration might also be waiting on the golf course or at the movies.

4. Buy a book of baby names. You will know instantly the name of your character when you read it.

5. Do research and hire the best people to produce a book. It will be judged by the quality as well as the content.

6. Writing about sex is risky. It should be erotic and exciting without going into too much detail.

7. There is no rhyme nor reason to book reviews One of my novels received a tepid review from the book review department of a large metropolitan newspaper. Later, that same novel won a prestigious literary award named after the longtime book review editor of that newspaper.

8. Don’t bet the farm on any writing project. Use money you can afford to lose and you will sleep better at night.

9. Trust your instincts. Twenty years ago the establishment warned me not to self publish because the conventional wisdom was that my novel would not be taken seriously and would not be reviewed. The establishment was wrong. My novel, Gully Town, received a ton of publicity and rose to number three on the Regional best-seller list.

10. Don’t forget the most important two word question of all before starting a writing project. Who cares? If you don’t know the answer then reconsider the project.

11. Writing is like a good wine. It needs to age before being consumed.

12. Be passionate about your writing. An example of how I almost ended up in jail for the sake of research is detailed in one of my previous blogs: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING THERE.

–

G.P. Schultz was born in Longacre, West Virginia to a coal mining family. He grew up in wild, wonderful West Virginia, where he loved to play sports. He then served with the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii where he met his wife, Vicki, who was attending the University of Hawaii. They have two daughters and currently reside in Kansas City.

His writing career began in mid-life, with the publication of his first novel, Gully Town. His idea for the novel came from years of working with the Irish and the Itailans in the River Quay area of Kansas City, and he wanted to revive the city’s rich history in a novel.  He currently divides his time between his one man marketing business and writing, but also enjoys golf and gardening, and follows any sporting event that requires the use of a ball. For more information, please visit www.gpschultz.com.

My journey into self publishing was born out of necessity as well as out of frustration. In 1991 there were no publishers of novels in the six state area where I lived. My frustration grew as rejection letters kept piling up from major publishers in New York who were emphatic that no one would be interested in a historical novel about Kansas City. In those days it was a risky venture because no other writer had self published a novel in my area of the country. The prevailing wisdom was that the novel would not be taken seriously and would definitely not be reviewed.

However, after working on the novel for 10 years, the thought of it languishing in a dresser drawer would be a sad ending to what I thought was a good book. The plunge into self publishing was daunting because I knew from the beginning that for the novel to be taken seriously the quality would have to be as good as, or better than books put out by major publishers. And it would be expensive to make that happen. But in spite of all my reservations I began the process by hiring the best rated editors, typesetter, and book publisher.

When the book was finished I took it around to bookstore managers and left them a free copy of the novel with the proposition that if they liked it they would give me an order.They did, and the book was stocked in every bookstore in the city. My strategy for publicity was to leave a copy of the book with two of my favorite newspaper columnists with the same proposition. If they liked the book they might give me a mention in their column. One of the reporters wrote about current affairs in Kansas City and the other wrote about business. Both reporters wrote a story about me and about how much they enjoyed the novel and that led to more articles and then radio and television appearances.

Although book sales for Gully Town were excellent, and the novel made it to number 3 on the regional best seller list, the greatest satisfaction came in an article about the history of Kansas City in the Kansas City Star. The reporter printed the cover of three books that were significant in the history of the city: Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, Elmer Gantryby Sinclair Lewis, and my novel, Gully Town. And that alone made the self publishing venture worthwhile.

–

G.P. Schultz was born in Longacre, West Virginia to a coal mining family. He grew up in wild, wonderful West Virginia, where he loved to play sports. He then served with the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii where he met his wife, Vicki, who was attending the University of Hawaii. They have two daughters and currently reside in Kansas City.

His writing career began in mid-life, with the publication of his first novel, Gully Town. His idea for the novel came from years of working with the Irish and the Itailans in the River Quay area of Kansas City, and he wanted to revive the city’s rich history in a novel.  He currently divides his time between his one man marketing business and writing, but also enjoys golf and gardening, and follows any sporting event that requires the use of a ball. For more information, please visit www.gpschultz.com.

Emily and Caesar chased some cattle out of a small canyon and they joined the growing herd of cattle she had assembled on the prairie. In the distance, she could see wisps of dust drifting into the air from the large herd of cattle that Zeke, Jake, and the others were moving to a greener pasture. Behind her she noticed some angry-looking clouds that had appeared on the horizon and were making her uneasy. Zeke was a lot like her grandfather. He relied more on his instincts than weather radios or forecasts. She quickened the pace so they could catch up with the others.  Jake saw her coming and rode back to help her with the herd. He rode up next to her.

“Looks like you’ve had some success.”

“I remembered that some of the more independent cattle like the shade in those canyons. How many head have we found?”

“It has to be several thousand. We have so many that Dad’s getting kind of concerned.”

“I know. That storm looks like it could get nasty.” Emily turned and looked to the southwest, where large thunderheads were billowing thousands of feet into the darkening sky. “I haven’t seen a storm like that in a while,” she said.

“The cattle are getting real nervous,” Jake said.

“What’s the plan?”

“Dad wants to work them southeast over to the plateau where we can ride out the storm. Why don’t you head back to the ranch?”

“Nice try, but not a chance.”

Jake smiled. “Dad may make that an order.”

“When he gives the order, I will go.”

Two hours later the wind had ceased and the prairie was deathly still. Streaks of lightning flashed across the evening sky and claps of thunder from the approaching storm were ominous.  Jake and Emily were at the back of the herd when Zeke rode up to them.

“It feels like the air is being sucked right out of the prairie,” Zeke said. “I’ve never seen cattle this nervous without stampeding. Jake, you and Emily ride up the bluff over there and take a look to the southwest.”

Jake and Emily urged their horses into a run across the wide, flat prairie. They rode a few hundred yards and then headed up a short bluff that would give them a view of the prairie for miles around. When they made it to the top, Emily looked to the southwest and her heart seemed to stop.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Jake said.

They were mesmerized for a moment as they looked at a huge tornado a few miles away that was churning up the prairie as it headed straight at them.

“That’s got to be at least an F4!” Jake said. “Look at the size of that monster!”

They knew they should warn the others, but they couldn’t seem to take their eyes off the massive tornado.

“Let’s go!” Jake’s yell broke the spell, and they went tearing back across the prairie.

Zeke saw them coming and rode to meet them.

“Tornado!” Jake called out. “It’s huge and it’s bearing down on us!”

“It has to be heading northeast,” Zeke said confidently. He had learned the tendencies of Kansas’s tornadoes over a 50-year career on the prairie.

“We have to get the cattle moving quickly to the southeast, so we will have to start a stampede. Jake, go tell the men to start shooting when I give the signal. Take most of the men up front and turn the lead cattle. We’ll probably lose the backend of the herd, but we have no other choice. Emily, you need to warn granddad. That tornado is headed straight ​for the ranch. You get moving, and don’t look back!”  Zeke smacked Caesar’s flank and the horse jumped ahead into a run.

Caesar moved even faster as gunfire erupted and stampeding cattle shook the prairie. Emily rode him like a racehorse, with her weight on the stirrups and off the saddle, as they tore across the flat prairie headed for the ranch. She ignored Zeke’s advice and looked back. As the cattle herd was turning to the southeast, the giant black monster of a tornado churned over the bluff and slammed into the tail end of the herd. She prayed that Zeke, Jake, and the others were far enough ahead and out of harm’s way. She was really concerned about her grandfather and she hoped that he was outside where he could see the approaching storm and take cover.

Emily heard a thump ahead that startled Caesar, and she realized that it was a steer that had been thrown viciously out of the storm. Keep your focus and stay in the moment, she thought to herself. Forget about everything but surviving and making it to the ranch. She looked back again, and what she saw made her heart race. The sky was full of debris and cattle. The tornado was growing larger by the minute and it was gaining on her. She leaned over Caesar’s neck and urged him faster.  She knew the average speed of a tornado was 30 miles per hour. A fast quarter horse could do 50 miles per hour in a sprint, but she had a five-mile run and she hoped Caesar could do 35 miles per hour in a mad dash across an uneven prairie. If he stumbled and they went down, there would be no recovery. The sky ahead of the storm was an eerie green and the prairie was like a still-life painting, as if every living thing was bowing to the power of this force of nature.

“Come on, Boy, run!” Emily urged Caesar ahead, with the prairie disintegrating behind her. This storm threatened everything she held dear— her future, her romance with Jack, the ranch, her grandfather — and suddenly fear turned to anger and it was a battle of her will against the storm. She calmed down and became one with Caesar and with the prairie. They would win this race because they were a force of their own.  She was a Covington and she was riding the fastest quarter horse in Kansas.

Wes Covington was tinkering around in the blacksmith shop when a ranch hand ran up.

“Mr. Covington! You better come quick!”

Wes walked behind the man over to edge of the bluff. His ancestors had built the ranch on high ground to prevent flooding and guard against surprise Indian attacks. You could see for miles around, and on the opposite side of the gradual bluff there was shelter for livestock and caves for protection. To the southwest there was a dark, sinister cloud blotting out the horizon.  For a moment he thought it was just a thunderstorm, and then he saw the movement on the horizon.

“You’d better get the horses out of the barn and below the bluff,” he said. “And bring me my horse.” Out of habit, he wanted his horse close by in case he had to move quickly. The ranch hand ran to the barn.  Wes was watching the approaching storm when suddenly he was able to make out the churning mass in the darkness that was the form of the tornado.

“Holy Jesus!” he whispered. He had experienced many a Kansas tornado, and he hoped this one stayed on open ground and missed the homes of his neighbors, and that Emily, Zeke, and the others were out of harm’s way. The ranch hand came back with the horse and pointed to the southwest. “Look out ahead of the storm! It’s a fast-moving horse and rider!”

Wes strained his eyes to see. The ranch hand ran to the bunkhouse and came back with binoculars.  He handed them to Wes, who took them and scanned the horizon. He focused in on the horse and rider. They were definitely in a run for their very lives. Wes looked closer, and what he saw made him hold his breath.  The rider was crouched low in the saddle, so he couldn’t quite make out who it was, but he would recognize the horse anywhere. It was Caesar. The rider had to be Jake or Emily. Wes kept his focus on the rider, and then he saw the golden brown hair flowing beneath the Stetson.

​“It’s Emily,” he whispered with dread. Behind her the tornado was churning up the prairie, sending debris flying in every direction.

“Come on, Emily! Ride that horse! ” Wes yelled. The worst part was that this churning mass of destruction was trying to consume his granddaughter and there was nothing he could do but watch. Emily had her own hopes and dreams, but his were tied up in her as well. He had met with his lawyer several months before and had left her everything except some of the oil wells that would provide for his children. She was the only one who truly loved the land and the only one he could trust to be a good steward to the Covington legacy.  It didn’t matter that she would be living in a different part of the country. She would always protect the ranch and the jobs of the dedicated people who worked here.

From his vantage point, Wes calculated that Emily was a few minutes ahead of the tornado. When Caesar started up the bluff, though, his lead would be meaningless because he would be operating on tired legs. Their only hope was in an old Indian legend that claimed the bluff would deflect tornadoes to flatter ground and would sweep them away to the northeast. The trouble was that some old legends never held up. Regardless, he wasn’t going to stand here and watch. He handed the binoculars to the ranch hand and got on his horse. There was no point in trying to rescue her in an all-terrain vehicle because she would never leave Caesar. He took off down the bluff at break neck speed. If the tornado were going to get Emily, it would have to get them both.

About two hundred yards out, he judged where they would meet and then turned his horse back toward the ranch. He needed about a 50-yard lead because Caesar would pass him quickly. He was about 100 yards away from the bluff when Caesar’s thundering hoofs caught up with him. The tornado was directly behind them and the roar was getting louder. They made it to the bluff and started the uphill ride. Wes knew by the sound of the tornado barreling down on them that they were not going to make it. He could feel the suction of the winds trying to pull them back into the swirling mass of debris, and then suddenly they were free of it and the horses jumped ahead of the storm.  He turned and looked at the wall of destruction and couldn’t believe what he saw.

“Emily! Look!”

Emily turned, and they both reined in their horses. They watched in fascination as the tornado inexplicably swerved away from the bluff and churned away to the northeast.

Emily got off Caesar and slumped to the ground. Wes got off his horse and kneeled beside her. “You okay, Emily?”

“Yes. I’m just exhausted.”

“What about Zeke, Jake, and the boys?”

“I don’t know, Grandpa,” she said breathlessly. “Zeke sent me to warn you. I saw the tornado hit the back of the herd.”

“That was some ride, Girl. I’m damn proud of you.”

“You shouldn’t have taken that kind of risk, Grandpa.”

“We had better get some medical people out here,” Wes said. “And I’m sure we are going to need Doctor John and the other vets to get antibiotics into the surviving cattle.”

They would be prone to foot rot and respiratory disease from the cuts and bruises resulting from injuries in the storm.

“You had better get to the house and get some rest.”

“I’m going back with you, Grandpa.  I couldn’t rest thinking about what might have happened to the others.”

They rode to the top of the bluffs and dismounted. Wes went in to make his phone calls while the men loaded all the supplies they would need into his truck.  When Wes returned, they sped back across the prairie. Debris was everywhere. Rocks were torn out of the ground and trees had been decimated, their ravaged trunks standing like lonely sentinels on the prairie. As they drew near the place where they had first encountered the tornado, Emily ​peered ahead with dread. There were injured cattle moving about aimlessly and dead cattle strewn over the landscape. Wes stopped the truck and Jake rode up to them. Wes waited for his report.  They were both men of the west and they took pride in their calm demeanor in emergencies. To them it was just another battle in their never-ending war with the elements.

“I’m glad you made it, Emily,” Jake said. “That must have been some ride.”

“Caesar made the difference. You trained him well.”

“Mr. Covington,” Jake tipped his Stetson. “Dad and the others have the main herd a couple of miles away. As you can see, we lost some to the tornado and a few others in the stampede we had to create.”

“Are there any injuries to the men?”

“Tom has a broken leg. His horse flipped in the tornado. I have him resting over there by the rocks. The horse was killed.”

“The medical people are right behind us. We’ll have Tom flown out on a chopper.”

“I’ll start tending to the cattle,” Emily said.

She grabbed a box out of the back of the truck and took out some gel wound dressing and spray, plastic gloves, and medicated oil. Her grandfather grabbed his .30-30 lever-action Winchester from the back of the cab. As Emily began helping the wounded cattle, she flinched every time a shot was fired that put a steer out of its misery.  She worked fast to save as many as she could, but a lot of the cattle were beyond hope.

They worked with the vets until night was beginning to fall. Tom had been evacuated by helicopter. The tornado had climbed back into the clouds after hitting the herd and had spared the neighboring ranches.

“I’m sorry this had to happen on your last day at the ranch,” her grandfather said.

“I’m going to stay another week.”

“What about Kansas City?”

“I’ll spend a day with Dad after I leave here. You need me a lot more than he does.” She was still shaken by the wild ride across the prairie to warn her grandfather and by the injuries to Tom and to the cattle.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and they headed for the truck. “Darned if I can figure out how we get along when you’re not here,” he said.

She smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

–

G.P. Schultz was born in Longacre, West Virginia to a coal mining family. He grew up in wild, wonderful West Virginia, where he loved to play sports. He then served with the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii where he met his wife, Vicki, who was attending the University of Hawaii. They have two daughters and currently reside in Kansas City.

His writing career began in mid-life, with the publication of his first novel, Gully Town. His idea for the novel came from years of working with the Irish and the Itailans in the River Quay area of Kansas City, and he wanted to revive the city’s rich history in a novel.  He currently divides his time between his one man marketing business and writing, but also enjoys golf and gardening, and follows any sporting event that requires the use of a ball. For more information, please visit www.gpschultz.com.

G.P. Schultz

His writing career began in mid-life, with the publication of his first novel, Gully Town. His idea for the novel came from years of working with the Irish and the Itailans in the River Quay area of Kansas City, and he wanted to revive the city’s rich history in a novel.  He currently divides his time between his one man marketing business and writing, but also enjoys golf and gardening, and follows any sporting event that requires the use of a ball. For more information, please visit www.gpschultz.com.

Q. Why did you decide to write this book?
A. I wanted to create an exciting run for the presidency combined with interesting, fast-paced historical events.

Q. Do you have any secret writing tips you’d like to share?
A. Always use a content editor, a grammar editor and a fact-check editor.

Q. Tell us a quirky or funny story about you!
A. I was almost arrested for doing research by 3 security guards, 3 police officers and a police detective. The story is on my blog under the title of “THE IMPRTANCE OF BEING THERE.”

Q. Have you ever battled writer’s block? How do you deal with it?
A. Yes. You just have to wait it out. You miss the bus if you are not at the bus station when it arrives.

Q. What’s your favorite quote?
A. Celebrities are people who make the news, but heroes are people who make history. Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities. Daniel Boorstin.

Q. Who inspires you the most?
A. Anyone who handles a serious illness with grace, dignity and good humor.

Back in the animal shelter, he resumes a life of sordid, empty days. Dogs come and go. Filling the hours, a welter of sensory overload gives way to boredom. Harsh Florida sun hangs all day in front of his crate; at night, shards of lightning stab down through the skylight. Being brought back this way, he has trouble eating. In four days, he loses two pounds.

Then, on the fifth day he is let out in the morning with others, in the fenced yard. Hot and humid, the air is something to push through. By noon the sky has darkened, and by two the trees bordering the adjacent barns clatter and sway. Dust whips through the yard. A plastic bucket flies against the stucco wall, then a lawn chair. One of the animal-shelter staff is now crossing from the sheds where public works equipment is stored. Hunched and facing away, she is holding on to her broad Smokey-the-bear hat. As she nears the gate, her phone rings. She unclips it from her belt and starts talking, holding her hat, working to open the gate. The hat blows off. Still talking, she turns and chases it, back toward the sheds. The hat whips and bounces.

The gate bangs open.

–Come on.

The German shepherd is already outside. Skillfully mastering his injured leg, he starts loping away. It’s wrong, the dog thinks, watching. Running away is a bad thing you get scolded for, even hit on the nose with newspaper. He watches other dogs scuttle out, the woman still chasing her hat.

He chooses, and runs. Digging his hindquarters, racing for the gate he bangs a Weimaraner–and then he’s out, racing to catch the shepherd. It’s easy to do, the shepherd hobbled. But he is now loping in a steady, altered three-legged canter, clear of purpose. The dog reaches him. The message coming from the shepherd has to do with distance, the need to leave the shelter behind. In back he hears shouting, faint in the ​wind. Ahead, a fallen palm frond whisks across the road. In seconds they reach the highway. They run west, side by side on the shoulder.

–Just run, the shepherd signals.
–Don’t look back. Run.

They do, together. He paces himself to match the slower dog. Everything now is wind. Everywhere leaves and torn seeds fly at them–they’re running directly into the first hours of a storm that has brewed for days in the Caribbean. Now rain falls in sheets. It doesn’t start small, there’s no light pattering first, no slow build. It’s thrown, pitched and dumped on all beneath. On the right the hot asphalt steams. Traffic barrels past, lashing the two dogs with waves. Horns bray. Headlights and fog lamps seem to charge all at once through the rain curtain, whipping past.

How far? A mile? All there is to know lives in his big legs and chest, energy and instinct. And the shepherd. Would he have run without him? Either way he has made another choice on another road, this one in Florida, in hurricane season, dodging a limb torn from a cabbage palm.

And in the clatter and steam of it, the slashing spray of passing cars–something registers. He knows this place. In his brain, narrow but deep in terms of sound and smell, he is certain. Ahead, lights are flashing. Some cars have pulled off the road. Nearing them, he leads the shepherd, picking up more clearly the scent and certainty that he is right.
–This is good, he barks.
–On the other side. I know what this is.

No time or need to think. He cuts right and dashes over asphalt. This is where he lives, this is the mister and missus, the pool and rugs, the bed to be under in storms like this. Tires skid, a horn blows. Still it blares. On the wide median he stops. The shepherd isn’t with him. He whines and barks, a surprise even to those hard pressed to get where they need to be in such a storm. For a moment, distracted from worry about their cars and houses, they point at him. Slowing, they inch along the right lane as others race in the left, many talking on cell phones, telling one more detail from this squall-soaked day on ​Davis Boulevard, telling the person on the other end about some crazy dog out on the median, maybe a Lab, a big one barking his damn head off in all this weather.

If this afternoon the dog’s owner were traveling in one of the passing cars, deafened by drumming on roof and hood and slowed by the storm, so that he all at once saw what was there, on the median, it would break his heart. With furious drivers honking and yelling, he would stop his car, get out and call to his dog.

But he isn’t there. And what’s happening on Davis Boulevard is months away. Right now it’s late spring, with things as they always are.

–

Along with his own blog (www.barryknister.com), and his novel about dogs, Just Bill,Barry Knister writes a weekly column for the Florida-based news publication, The Naples Daily News. His first novel, a thriller titled The Dating Service was published by Berkley. His third novel, Blue Sky Six—another thriller—will be published as an ebook later this year.

Q. Why did you decide to write this book?
A. I don’t really think I did. In the spring of 2004, back in Michigan, my wife Barbara and I were talking about getting a dog. I started visiting Petfinders.com, a great website for people looking for a rescue dog. And some time earlier, a friend had told me about how he came by his own dog, a stray. In August I went alone to our place in Florida, just to write. But what I had in mind just wouldn’t jell. Being there alone must have led to more thoughts about my friend’s story, and the plan to adopt a dog. The result, by way of imagination, was that I did adopt a dog, named Bill. In October, we adopted a real dog named Chelsea, a border collie.

Q. Do you have any secret writing tips you’d like to share?
A. Research has proved word processors sap our precious bodily fluids, so always use a quill pen, That’s my way of saying no, I have no secret writing tips. If I did, they probably wouldn’t work for anyone else. But if I thought they might work for others, I’d be crazy to give them away for free.

Q. Tell us a quirky or funny story about you!
A. I’m a liberal. Telling people this never fails to get a laugh in Naples, Florida. But all the really funny stuff about me begins with my wife Barbara. She’s the smart one around here. Every winter in Naples, local socialites hold a set of gourmet dinners as a run-up to a charity auction. At one of these dinners, according to the Naples Daily News, the forty guests used 400 different glasses. That’s ten apiece. The night of the event, during our own humble evening repast. Barbara said, “Well, with your dinner you get one glass, and it’s plastic, so you know where you stand.” And I do.

Q. ​Have you ever battled writer’s block? How do you deal with it?
A. I have, and I found the only way to deal with it is to cut myself off from alternatives to writing. If you allow yourself access to distractions, you aren’t being serious. This means not logging on in the morning to read email, not reading the newspaper with morning coffee, not talking to others, not doing more “research” instead of working to get down the first draft. For me, that’s the whole thing.

Q. What’s your favorite quote?
A. I can’t tell you, it’s too nasty. My second favorite is suitable for others: “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.” I should say, though, this idea had much wider application before I got old.

Q. Who inspires you the most?
A. Most? Second most? Least? I can pinpoint sources of admiration, but I don’t really know who or what inspires me. I admire my wife for her wit, certain friends for their courage. I admire President Obama for his grace under pressure before the shabby, cynical attacks from his enemies. For that matter, I also admire my dog. She never does anything “bad.” Inconvenient sometimes, but never bad. I suppose all those who strike me as admirable are sources of inspiration.

In my novel Just Bill, a sick dog serves as the catalyst for a revived sense of purpose and meaning in the lives of four people. The book thereby dramatizes how, with the exception of our children, it’s dogs who give us the chance in a tough world to be kind.

That’s a windy way of getting to the point: my wife Barbara and I spend winters in Naples, Florida, and we have lost our best friend here. Her name was Peg, and she loved animals. She cared for feral cats, and was so good to them, so trustworthy that several gave up life in the wild to come inside with her.

But at her core, Peg had a special place for dogs. In the ten years we were friends, I never saw her without treats–in her pockets, her van, the art gallery she owned. After her death, family members came to town to see to her affairs. When they went through her wardrobe, I’m sure they found biscuits and cookies in all the pockets. I can imagine whichever dry cleaner Peg went to alerting employees to be on the lookout for them.

Peg’s passion for dogs did nothing for her image in our gated golf community. Stopping in the road to dole out goodies (only the best kind, of course, politically correct, all-organic, etc), with traffic backed up behind her, she would saunter over, the lucky dog’s tail an ecstatic blur from the first sight of Peg’s gold Nissan van.

No, Peg was not appreciated by all. But she was by us, and by our own dog.

Unless you not only love dogs, but are also especially tolerant and sympathetic, our rescued border collie Chelsea is likely to strike you as “difficult.” In this way, she’s something like Peg. When we adopted Chelsea seven years ago and brought her from Cincinnati, Ohio to Michigan in late October, she spent the whole trip staring abjectly out the window. Once in her new home, she never failed to leave the living room whenever either of us entered.

Had she been mistreated? She had come into our lives out of the void. All we knew was that when she’d been dropped off at a local humane society in Evansville, Indiana, she’d been covered with mats, and dying of heart worm. That meant neglect, but not necessarily abuse. Only the generosity of a humane society volunteer had kept Chelsea from being put down. The dog, so withdrawn and wistful-looking, made my wife and me feel terrible, as though we’d failed. Maybe adopting her had been a mistake, maybe we were too stupid to figure out the basic needs of a dog.

We weren’t wrong, just ignorant: the needs of a dog are not necessarily simple. That certainly proved true with Chelsea. But we kept trying—talking to her, stroking, walking, taking her with us in the car so she wouldn’t feel given up every time we left the house. It drew my wife and me closer together. Longtime empty-nesters, now we had a new joint venture, a unifying mission.

A month or more later, one night as we ate dinner and listened to smooth jazz as we often do, we looked up to see Chelsea appear in the living room. She settled on the oriental rug facing us, and seemed to be listening. It heartened us.

From that point, things got better. But it was slow going. We came to think of Chelsea as sad, and believed the word was apt. One detail can serve to highlight this fact: for over three months, she never barked. Not once. When she finally did, we lavished her with praise. This seemed to work. Slowly, she became less withdrawn, more confident she wasn’t going to be dumped again. Of course, leaving the house without her was not easy, so we usually didn’t. She loved the car, associated it with being “included.” To this day, she is our constant silent partner in the back seat.

What this has to do with the friend we’ve lost is that Peg, too, was different. Over six-one and big, with a deep voice, she made herself known in no uncertain terms. From their first meeting years before, it had been clear Chelsea was intimidated by her. We had always known our rescue was more shy with men than with women. She seemed to think Peg was a man, and always left the room.

Clearly, this bothered the local Pied Piper of dogs and cats. When Peg came to dinner, her pockets stuffed with treats, she always had one in hand before I opened the door. Chelsea would already be on her hurricane escape route, headed for the back bedroom. Peg would sigh, leaving treats in a trail on the floor, like Hansel and Gretel.

But over time—over years—Chelsea grew less fearful of Peg. The collie started appearing, checking out the treats before Peg had left, growing accustomed to Peg’s deep voice. Just last year, before we left Naples in early May, our sweet dog had at last screwed up the courage to take a treat from Peg’s hand, to let her stroke her head and talk to her.

Only a dog lover can appreciate what this breakthrough meant to our friend. Back in Michigan when we talked to her on the phone, Peg made no bones about calling mainly to ask after Chelsea. Only afterward did she inquire about our own health and activities. Last September, a freak storm caused a hundred-year-old tree to fall on our Michigan house, to the tune of 50 thousand dollars worth of damage. “That’s too bad, how’s Chelsea taking it?”

So, after Christmas, as we have done now for years, we packed the van and the three of us headed down to Naples. Peg was there to greet us, getting the pleasantries out of the way as quickly as possible, so she could resume her new connection with Chelsea. It now gave her great pleasure to be greeted at the door, Chelsea’s tail doing what all dogs are supposed to do when seeing Peg.

Then Peg died. She was seventy-three, with many gifts: art dealer, classical pianist, reviewer of concerts for local newspapers, author, publisher. We miss her every day, but comfort ourselves in knowing she and Chelsea had made their peace. It means nothing to others, but a great deal to us.

———————

Along with his own blog (www.barryknister.com), and his novel about dogs, Just Bill, Barry Knister writes a weekly column for the Florida-based news publication, The Naples Daily News. His first novel, a thriller titled The Dating Service was published by Berkley. His third novel, Blue Sky Six—another thriller—will be published as an ebook later this year.

My second novel, Just Bill, deals with the special importance dogs hold for those in need: the elderly, the very young, those who grieve.

The only connection this has with what follows is that a dog figures. Season two of “Downton Abbey” recently ended, and my wife and I are still in withdrawal. Irreverently, I called it “Little House on the Plutocratic Prairie,” but now I have no idea what to do with myself Sunday evenings between nine and ten. The Brits’ latest classy soap opera had us each week, from the opening shot of a yellow Lab’s butt working as the dog headed toward the baronial pile for which the series is named.

Later, the Lab figured importantly. A servant (Thomas to those also seduced by this potboiler) who has fallen from grace, attempts to reestablish himself by seeming to do a good deed. He steals the dog, locks it up in a shed and intends, after a time of anguished searching by the peer and his many family retainers, to “find” the dog, and return him to the lord. But the dog gets out, and all seems lost. Except the bad servant’s continuation next season must be assured, so he does accidentally recover the dog, and get credit for saving her. In other words, Thomas will be back. Needless to say, so will the dog.

None of which has much to do with anything, except for a dog being attended to by servants. This simple detail helps to highlight just where my wife and I stand in relation to our own dog.

Chelsea is the name of our rescued border collie-plus-we’re-not-sure. NOTE: she is not to be confused with either the dog on the cover of Just Bill, nor with Hotspur, the border collie who figures in the book.

Chelsea is a senior dog, both sweet and aloof as befits a matriarch. We think of her as soulful as well as stoical, sad, meditative, vigilant, indifferent, and passive-aggressive-tyrannical, the latter especially when it comes to her rigid timetable for walks.

The point is, we think about Chelsea a lot. We attribute to her a wide variety of traits and qualities, mental states, philosophical and religious ideas. We share knowing looks when she confirms one of these features of her character. At such moments, we share a sense of “contact superiority” in being in her service, instead of being with one of the perfectly decent dogs who live with friends, but who are, necessarily, lesser beings.

What might be called the end result of this mentality is that, after seven years with Chelsea, our own identities have become blurred. No, not blurred so much as highly dependent on our dog. We communicate to each other through her, we plan and organize in relation to her, we assess what’s happened at the end of the day in terms of how it has served Chelsea, or failed to. As Chelsea goes, so goes the pack.

By now, I’m sure you get it. In our own Lilliputian Downton Abbey, Chelsea is upstairs, we are downstairs. My little joke, all too often repeated, is really meant to conceal how true it actually is: we aren’t owners or masters of Chelsea. We are staff. We have our place, our tasks. We earn our keep and feel secure in the domestic hierarchy, gratefully waiting for bells to ring (actually, a paw on the knee), summoning us to meet this or that need. But my wife and I don’t have names. Not really. Or, if we do, the name is preceded by “staff member,” as in staff member Barry, or Barry the footman, or Barbara the cook.

But in real terms we serve, and our places in the domestic flow chart don’t really require names. Like both the worthy and devious family retainers on Downton Abbey, we can’t really understand ourselves except in relation to our Leader Dog, our Chief of Staff, etc.

If this is tiresome to you, be confident I understand. I have many friends whose tolerance for doggy chat has been tested all too often. As servants a hundred or so years ago must have learned to do, I have tried to train myself to not talk about family matters when I’m with these people.

But when I’m with other dog nuts, like nannies or au pair girls at the park with their small charges, I let myself off the leash and go into detail. Say, on things like Chelsea’s odd, ancient Roman habit of eating meals lying down, or graciously allowing her flunky dog-walker exactly twenty minutes more snooze time between the first morning bedside summons, and the more forceful second call.

As in talking about children, other, more intimate subjects related to bodily functions figure as well when talking with this second group of like-minded nanny/butler nut cases. But since other people may—mistakenly—be reading this, I won’t go into those details. Not now, anyway.

———————

Along with his own blog (www.barryknister.com), and his novel about dogs, Just Bill, Barry Knister writes a weekly column for the Florida-based news publication, The Naples Daily News. His first novel, a thriller titled The Dating Service was published by Berkley. His third novel, Blue Sky Six—another thriller—will be published as an ebook later this year.

According to the American Pet Association, 45 million people own 78.2 million dogs in the United States. 32 million of these people buy Christmas gifts for their pets, and ten million celebrate their dogs’ birthdays. Half of all dog owners consider their pets to be family members.

63% of all U.S. households–71 million–have at least one pet (according to American Pet Products Manufacturers Association.) The top pet is the dog (44.2% of pet-owning households have at least one). Second is the cat (38.4%).

Any thinking person who stops to reflect on these statistics is likely to conclude they are more than just data. They confirm what dog and cat owners already know about the relationship they have with their pets. More importantly, such stats should surprise those who can’t make sense of their pet-owning friends.

Note: please forgive me at this point for inserting a self-serving blurb (is there any other kind?): the stats also lend credence to someone writing, and others reading a fable about dogs written for adults, called Just Bill.

If you live with a dog—especially if you live with one mostly for company, not for herding, guarding, hunting, etc—you will be familiar with the sense of exposure that comes on realizing one of your non-dog-lover friends has been watching you in “one of those moments.”

Say you’re out walking your dog with such a person. For some, the awkward moment comes when you reach down to enjoy the pleasure of touching your dog, his head, flank, ears. This will be accompanied by cozy mumblings of endearment, not infrequently in the form of baby talk.

A glance at the face of your human companion will tell you a lot. If he or she is a co-conspirator, the look will be knowing and approving. It will communicate something like, “I absolutely understand what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and I approve.” Otherwise, the look will say things like, “That’s nice but can we get a move on here?” or “I’m sorry, up to now I hadn’t seen symptoms of early-onset dementia,” or, “I realize now I won’t be able to vote for you in the next condo association board election.”

For other dog owners, such moments rely on language. The dog walker is suddenly talking about something or someone ahead, speculating on why the man now approaching would wear a muscle shirt, when whatever muscles he has serve mainly to shore up his enormous belly. Or, how it is that the woman getting into her car up the block, someone in her late-sixties or early seventies, would freely choose to emulate the fashion statements of Barbi dolls. Or, the dog walker, without segue, suddenly resumes some earlier monologue about a stupid business partner, or a small-minded family member, etc.

Lost in time, the dog owner is so immersed in the special intimacy of sharing these confidences with his dog that he loses track of his human companion. Or forgets he is visible through the windshields of passing cars, or audible to the foursome putting out on the seventh green as he and Rover pass.

Coming to awareness, what follows are efforts to pick up some point of normal human interaction—shared allies or enemies, a new restaurant, those amazing Red Sox/Yankees/Tigers in last night’s game, etc. This is often introduced with self-deprecation (“I warned you, I’m a dog nut”), or, in the case of more self-confident people, a quick return to some topic under discussion earlier—next summer’s travel plans, shared political commonplaces, scheduled surgeries and the like.

In such behavior, is there anything for which dog nuts need to apologize? If like me you are committed to the pleasure principle—if you believe the meaning of life involves unlocking as many avenues to happy experience as possible—the answer is no, you don’t. When I treat my dog as a person, when I share intimacies with her, and food, when I celebrate her birth, and think she should have a gift on Christmas Eve, because it’s unthinkable that the moment being celebrated over two thousand years after it took place in a barn somewhere in the Middle East did not include a dog—well, life enjoys a nice upward bump.

And so the walk proceeds. Until it’s over, my cool-to-pets companion will just have to make do. Play with his I-phone, maybe, or study clouds. Whatever works.

———————

Along with his own blog (www.barryknister.com), and his novel about dogs, Just Bill, Barry Knister writes a weekly column for the Florida-based news publication, The Naples Daily News. His first novel, a thriller titled The Dating Service was published by Berkley. His third novel, Blue Sky Six—another thriller—will be published as an ebook later this year.