AND THE RAVEN WEPT

John Luke

Description

As two octogenarian fishermen float Colorado’s Green River in their antiquated wooden boat on what will prove to be the last day of their lives, one terror haunts them: veterans of World War Two who experienced wholesale death, neither fear that, but the possibility of extinction in a nursing home terrifies them.
For Dr. Tyrone Washington, NAU Professor Emeritus and Morgan Perkins, recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature, the specter grinds away as they float inexorably toward the thundering roar of Disaster Falls. While spirits rise and sink in search of a plan to avoid the home, the the anglers are visited by a huge Raven of superior intelligence and utter devotion to the sacred creeds of Ravenism. Outranking humans, the snobbish bird laughs at their childish philosophies.
“After all,” he cries, “Raven was created in the image of God!” Suddenly he notes: “One human is light-colored, the other, dark; why would men of a different feather flock together?“
Out of curiosity the Raven decides to haunt the fishermen, comes to understand their language, and, sensing their fears, becomes a muse who can inspire an answer to their problem. But how can he pervade the minds of men and trigger the solution? Their aging is relentless, and time is short...

Sujets

• Thrillers
• World War II
• Raven
• Suspense
• Fiction
• Colorado

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 04 décembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669847823
• Langue: English

Extrait

AND THE RAVEN WEPT
A Novel Of The Green River
John Luke
Paria River Ranch, Tropic, Utah, &
29 Palms, California, March, 2022

Copyright © 2022 by John Luke.
 
 
2022917342
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-4784-7
 
Softcover
978-1-6698-4783-0
 
eBook
978-1-6698-4782-3
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 05/10/2023
 
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
845933
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements And Introduction
Prologue
 
Chapter 1 The Green River Raven
Chapter 2 Master Of The Park
Chapter 3 A Fisherman’s View Of Fate, War, And Nursing Homes
Chapter 4 Cryptic Fishermen
Chapter 5 Of Bluestocking Women And Addicted Fishermen
Chapter 6 War And Insects Don’t Mix
Chapter 7 Getting Even
Chapter 8 Time-Space-Talk, The Big Bong, And Bad Birds
Chapter 9 You Cannot Lie To An Airplane
Chapter 10 The Carpenter’s Pencil
Chapter 11 A Gift Of Gold, And Talk Of Hawggs And Turkeys
Chapter 12 The Muse
Chapter 13 God’s Hospice
Chapter 14 The Magnificent German Brown Trout
Chapter 15 Of Timeless Avians And Mortal Ills
Chapter 16 A White Season Of Want
Chapter 17 Of Blondes, Bait, And Cannery Rows
Chapter 18 An Icy, Gray Priesthood
Chapter 19 Of Birds, Fishermen, And God
Chapter 20 Brothers Under The Skin
Chapter 21 Ravenism Enshrined
Chapter 22 Chaos Is Order
Chapter 23 A 1944 Chicken In The ‘Pot’
Chapter 24 The Spoils Of War
Chapter 25 The Idea
Chapter 26 Departure
Chapter 27 The Glory
 
Epilogue
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND INTRODUCTION
For a writer to pay respect and give proper credit to all involved in the development of a book is daunting, perhaps even impossible, because so much is owed to so many. Vast experience was needed for me to produce And The Raven Wept, and such knowledge primarily came from outside sources. All efforts for me to give due recognition would logically start with my parents, then chronologically proceed outward to a vast panorama of friends, teachers, employers and other associates in an endless trail of appreciation. In many ways such people are the real creators of any book; the author simply takes notes and transcribes them to paper, and so it was with myself and The Raven. All such contributors deserve my gratitude, but since it’s impossible to express that without writing another book, I’ll describe as best I can those events and people that were instrumental as primary sources for writing And The Raven Wept. But first, a word of explanation about the book.
What started as a simple tale about two fishing buddies on a simple fishing trip evolved into what might be called a literary parable. My own experiences in Brown’s Park, and on both the Green and Yampa Rivers as a whitewater-boatman in the 1970s wrote the gist of the story until the oversize, mercenary Raven flew in and rapaciously usurped the positions of author, editor and publisher. And here this is a curiosity: it is entirely possible that as a book is being written, it can take on its own life and leave the author holding the literary wooden forms, hammers and saws and concrete in its dust, wondering what happened to him. As unlikely as that may seem, the Frankenbird, (as he came to be recognized), totally cowed myself and the fishermen, and proceeded to write his own story. How did he do that? I have no idea, except to say I learned early on that he would win every argument of prose, style, length, direction, content of dialogue and philosophy thereof. He whipped me in every fight.
In reality readers owe that bird for his bright introspection that greatly influenced the anglers to think and speak their best thoughts, even infusing the book with a hope for spirituality among Ravens and men.
But on with the tale:
This is the story of two octogenarian fishermen, DR. Tyrone Washington, NAU Emeritus, and Morgan Perkins, a Nobel recipient for literature, as they spend the last day of their lives angling for trout while floating downstream in their ancient, cherished, wooden boat on western Colorado’s Green River. There they are joined by a larger-than-life Raven of unique, superior intelligence (and infused with the highly aristo centric dogma of Ravenism) who follows the anglers downstream, listening as they banter vociferously about ideas and opinions garnered through lives of extensively varied experience. Overriding their lively conversation of war, love, fishing and philosophy is an absolutely fearful abhorrence of the almost certain fate of being confined to a nursing home for the aged.
Fondly recalling many aspects of life as they lived it, yet continually faced with an unknown end looming as a dark specter, they vocally search all possible alternatives to the home before fully realizing only two things stand between them and that ominous reality:
1: Their newly acquired muse the, Raven and
2: The roaring cataract downstream aptly name d Disaster Falls.
But how could a bird allow the fishermen to avoid the home? How could a river? Calling on the experiences, creeds, and faith of both Raven and fishermen, I tried to solve the problem, but in the end could only lay the two possibilities before Raven and man. It was my hope they might discover a portal in time that would avoid a future in the nursing home.
Before any reader invests time in any unknown literary fiction it would be wise as well as practical and fair that a close look into the mind of the writer be allowed, and so I hope I will be forgiven in doing so by holding some of my inner experiences up for examination.
My own pathway of gratitude for this book stretches from the 1933 year of depression-ridden Southern California and my devoted parents, Dick and Ellen Luke, who nurtured me at our town of Inglewood from the start of life. That trail leads through the very lean times of the 1930s Great Depression as well as the deadly excitement and searing years of World War Two and beyond, to a life of family and modest accomplishment leading into advanced age.
Along the way I became indebted to both people and experiences that euphemistically emerge in And The Raven Wept, such as:
The legendary night flight of a phantom airplane on February 28, 1942 that scared the pants off the Los Angeles basin when a lone civilian pilot broke all defense rules by ferrying his harmless J-3 Piper Cub under the cover of darkness from Van Nuys to Long Beach. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor all Southern California had become an armed military camp, and the night-flight of any airplane was a dangerous breach of national security. The sound of the Cub’s small engine caused every buck-fevered G.I. waiting at an AA gun in Inglewood’s Centinela Park to awaken in a frenzy, wildly firing every available round at the ghostly intruder. Hundreds of other hopped up AA gun-jockeys scattered around Los Angeles joined the fun, shooting thousands of explosive shells from here to eternity. Air raid sirens wailed, city lights were doused, and armed soldiers in Jeeps raced madly about as searchlights and exploding shells lit up the night sky. We were under attack, and the attacker(s) had to be Japanese!
Fighter planes were launched from North American Aviation, (now LAX, Los Angeles International Airport, one mile from my house) their engines’ roar adding to the apocalyptic blast of guns. Expended shell fragments in the thousands rained back on L.A., crashing through roofs, autos, and chicken coops. Fortunately, the Cub and its driver survived, and wisely and fearfully has remained anonymous.
Reflecting current nationalism and not to be outdone by the military, I, age nine, went berserk and my mom had to forcefully jerk me off our lawn where I ran in circles, shaking my fists at the night sky while shouting: ‘GODDAM JAPS! GODDAM JAPS!’. (Next day Mom used Lifebuoy soap in an attempt to rid my mouth of its ills.) But such insane Keystone Cops antics as Angelinos exhibited that night caused much laughter in Tokyo, and Steven Spielberg eventually captured the madness with his movie, 1941.
Contrasting my war-borne nationalism at that time was the disturbing absence of my Japanese-American classmates as I discovered one morning upon arrival at Highland Grammar School in Inglewood, from which all my Nisei friends had disappeared. Later, I found they had been forcefully removed from the Pacific Coast to diverse western ‘relocation’ camps. This was a great injustice, and one cannot imagine the grief at rudely being torn from homes, possessions and jobs. However, given the height of resentment toward Japan at the time, internment may have saved hundreds of Japanese-American lives. But my friend Azusa Tsuenioshi was among the interned, and I ne