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About the Author
Copyright Page
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To
KATHLEEN O’NEAL GEAR, GAYDELL COLLIER,
and
JEANNE WILLIAMS,
who have always believed in this story
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel finally came to fruition as a result of three remarkable women. The first was, of course, my charming and talented wife, Kathleen O’Neal Gear, a New York Times bestselling author in her own right. Kathleen read the first draft of This Scorched Earth in 1984. I had sold my archaeological consulting business to write full-time and Kathy was still working as an archaeologist for the U.S. Department of the Interior. As I labored on the novel, she was constantly being asked by her federal colleagues, “So, has your deadbeat husband sold a book yet?”
Kathy, fortunately, had faith.
The second great lady was Gaydell Collier—who was instrumental in catapulting me onto the writer’s path in the first place. She had been reading my various attempts at fiction. I had sent her This Scorched Earth. Her response was: “You’re making progress. Would you mind if I sent this to my friend Jeanne Williams? And are you going to the Western Writers of America meetings in Fort Worth this year? Jeanne will be there and might be persuaded to discuss the manuscript with you.”
At the time we were unfamiliar with Jeanne Williams and her wonderful novels. We also hesitantly explained that as unemployed writers we certainly couldn’t afford to drive to Texas for a Western Writers’ conference. Gaydell’s response: “If you are serious about becoming published authors, you can’t afford not to go.”
We went. And true to Gaydell’s word, Jeanne Williams took time from her busy schedule to go over the manuscript with me. Her editorial notes were precise, cutting, and perceptive. Everything a budding novelist needed to hear. I remain eternally grateful for her kindness and insight.
We sold our first novels at that WWA in Forth Worth, and with contracts in hand for other projects, we took a different turn with our writing. This Scorched Earth has always been there, an itch under the skin. Kathy has urged me, Gaydell goaded me until her death, and Jeanne’s comments were still waiting to be addressed.
All these years later, I hope you find the story worth the wait.
1
April 12, 1861
Beginnings often hark back to a single, crystalline moment, as if it were a precursor for everything that followed. While mighty events unfold with what seems to be an inevitability, sometimes we are left to wonder at the implications of what seems a simple and inconsequential choice.
For Dr. Philip Hancock, that pivotal moment occurred in the back room of an upper-class New Orleans brothel.
For the previous three years, Philip Hancock had lived in a low-ceilinged, poorly lit attic in Boston where he had been attending medical school. In those narrow confines he’d frozen through the bitter winters, only to roast during the brief respite of summer. Nevertheless, he’d completed his studies, and though opportunities had abounded for a physician in bustling Boston, he’d longed for the semiwilderness of northwest Arkansas—the land of his boyhood.
To Doc’s way of thinking, the fastest way home had been by sea on a merchant vessel loaded with textiles. Its next port: New Orleans. He’d only been able to afford a cheap berth, the bottommost hammock on a dark lower deck. Nevertheless, he’d completed the first leg of his journey and emerged in the sultry air of the New Orleans waterfront a free, and almost penniless, physician and surgeon.
As Doc had strolled down the wharves that morning, he had overheard a young boy—an apparent street urchin dressed in rags—calling to one of his friends, “Me? I can’t play today. I gotta find me a doctor for Miss Meg!”
Doc had signaled the boy, asking, “And what service might your Miss Meg require?”
The black-haired urchin had stared suspiciously at Doc’s surgical bag and cocked his head. Defiantly he had propped filth-encrusted hands on his skinny hips—a gesture no doubt mimicked from a much older man—in order to impart an air of importance.
“You can fix a man’s leg?”
“I can fix as much as any physician can,” Doc had replied. “Assuming your Miss Meg is financially solvent.”
The boy’s round and freckled face had puckered as if he were having trouble with the words “financially solvent.”
Eyes still fixed on Doc’s bag, he seemed to come to a decision. “Reckon you can make terms with Miss Meg. Foller me.”
The way had led up cobblestoned streets where old French buildings rose to brood, gray-walled, with intricate wrought-iron balconies opening to cramped second-story rooms.
Miss Meg’s occupied a neighborhood substantially higher in class than the waterfront where the urchin had been prowling.
Nevertheless, Doc had a moment of hesitation as the boy pointed him down a narrow alley, saying, “We gots ta go in the back.”
“The back?”
The boy nodded with serene gravity. “The front door is for gentlemen.” He emphasized “gentlemen” as if Doc might be just another bit of riffraff like himself.
Doc had suppressed a smile, following the urchin past piles of rotting horse manure that left a rainbowlike sheen across puddles of black water. Broken whiskey bottles had been kicked to the side, and the entwined reek of urine and excrement hung pungently in the
