Coming Soon,
Montana Briscoe Book One
The Desert Stalker
The synopsis:
Montana Briscoe ...is a very lucky girl. WHY? I knew you were gonna ask that. She's lucky because she is independently wealthy and she works as a freelance photographer, and photojournalist! She travels the world over telling the story with pictures. She donates the proceeds of her work to charity. Unfortunately her wealthy parents died tragically while she was teen. She lives her life as a recluse on a small upstate NY ranch where she has her horses, her dog, and her art hobby to keep her busy. A failed relationship still loams over her as she isolates herself from people and the possibility of romance. So she buries herself in her work and her hobbies.
Montana is asked to go on location for an assignment from National Geographic that takes her to the desert of southern Nevada! Her job is to photograph the Western Diamond Back Rattle Snakes and Scorpions of the region. The newest desert hobby is four wheeling. The bad news is for native animals and plants in such a fragile environment the noise and over use has disturbed the breeding and feeding of these creatures. Montana's job is to bring the story to life and get the attention of readers and hopefully stir up enough opposition to bring about and back legislation to protect these creatures in their natural habitat.
Along the way Montana meets a local Fish and Wildlife officer an X-Marine, Matthew Greyhawk, a full blooded Paiute, now a ranger for the DOW of Nevada. He is torn between two worlds, the modern world he lives in and the old world he was taught in. His is guided by a code of ethics and discipline instilled in him by his grandfather, who taught him the old myths and the old ways.
When Montana runs into him in the camp supply store before heading out to her location, she is struck by his handsome face, but put off by his arrogant and self centered approach.
Traveling on the same time line is Sarah a beautiful young Navajo woman working toward a Geology degree. Sarah has found that she can earn a very good living by stripping in a gentleman's club. She lives a double life in a way, she has no interest in the sex for sale industry, but she makes a tidy sum that affords her a nice place to live, her jeep, and days off to go on her desert rock hunts to practice the craft she loves. Sarah has a secret admirer.
Montana and Fancy (her dog) are headed to Jim Camp NV to set up a base camp and look for the subject of her article, the diamondback rattlesnake. She makes her way along a gravel road and enters the ghost town of Jim Camp. Montana sets up camp near an abandoned junked bus.
Matt loads his horse Bo into the trailer and along with his dog, Blue they take off for the desert. He suspects one of the locals is poaching and allowing illegal hunting on his ranch. He is determined to stop him.
Montana spies a distant dust cloud as Matt makes his way to the Redknife ranch...Sarah sees the same dust cloud, and so does the Note Keeper...
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I started writing this story, my first attempt at a fiction novel, while still living in Brooklyn, NY. I guess you could say it was a great escape to the deserts I yearned to be exploring while I worked as a paramedic in one of the busiest cities in the world. I was there on 9/11 and just become an EMT 2 weeks before.
I found myself doing what Montana did isolating myself from people on my days off. I walked on the beach, stayed to myself and began to write. I published with Publish America a book based on my childhood adventures called Before Life Got Complicated. I wish now I had held out for a proper publisher but that's another story!!
This manuscript is not finished at the present time, (currently at 69,000 words and 223 pages) but I continue to work on it when I can. Right now I find it very hard to stay focused as I deal with other issues such as my aging parent.
I hope when my manuscript is done I can find an agent and get my book published in the mainstream book market! Below I have copied the first chapter of the book, I hope you will enjoy it!!
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Chapter 1
Hiding in the shadows Rubin watched as he went over it all in his mind. Soon it would be time. He felt the pressure building, the need rising. His selection had already been made. In his hand was a new notebook. Volume ten is a nice whole number.
Number ten’s coming and goings and with whom were all precisely detailed in the tenth volume. His research, his work would spell out when she most likely to be alone and in a spot of vulnerability. The profile began each volume then he would build upon that. He used every database available to gain information on his subjects.
The other nine notebooks were neatly tucked away in a safe deposit box in the National Bank of Nevada, in a Las Vegas branch. Not one soul knew of his notebooks, his fantasies, his stalking or the outcome of it all. None of the bodies had ever been found; his past subjects were just listed as missing. He knew right from wrong he simply chose to ignore that responsibility that the rest of society carried.
The note keeper, he liked thinking of himself that way, was the only person who knew the fate of these individuals. These nine volumes held the entire story of his past selections, the captures, the time it took to make them his, all in his neatly penned scrawl. Numbered and bulleted lists of all the wonderful ideas he had were included, such as how to get them to accept him as the love of their life? He had not perfected it yet, but there would be other chances, such as the one he was working on now…number ten, Sarah.
Rubin need only think of the women as numbers, neatly stenciled across the top of a notebook. Included was the mundane stuff like name and address along with every minute detail he had discovered about them. “I’m a stickler for details,” a reminder to self. Eye color, hair, size, shape he even drew detailed pictures of flaws, such as birthmarks. Some of those details were added later once he saw the entire body…the object of his desire.
His notebooks were divided into sections such as beauty, success and education. He rated each attribute. He developed a standard by which to measure his prize, his personal Miss Rubin pageant. Twenty-five was the highest award given. If her total added up to— or close to twenty-five—then she fit his standard for capture.
Sarah, or rather number ten, ranked high in beauty a five, in intelligence a five, in education, a five. In his sexuality column she ranked a five, and last but not least her place in society. The last category was tricky, the lower the position, the higher the score. No one sounded the alarm if there was no one to sound it! Sarah had a big five there too. She was a perfect twenty-five. It was as if she had chosen herself to be his next…possession.
Number ten had no clue he had been following her for almost two months. From home to work, he knew her routine as if it was his own; in fact now it was his own…he was always along for the ride. Number ten had something none of the others before had, she lived with structure in her life, more so than anyone he had every seen. He wondered about that considering her present occupation…it didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of her life.
Sarah, rather number ten, rose most morning at 9:45, dressed in sweats and worked at her computer, as she drank one cup of coffee, never more than one. At exactly 11:10 she locked the apartment door and drove her jeep to the gym where she worked out for exactly two hours, sometimes with a trainer. Then she showered, changed into street clothes, and drove to class at the Junior College. It was all in his notebook, the date, time, places…
He knew Sarah was trying to change her life, working toward a goal. He knew she studied geology, and she intended to get a masters degree, have a career. She’d had a rough beginning with a mother addicted to street drugs and an alcoholic father who ran off and left them both when she was three. Eventually Sarah had ended up at grandma’s house.
It seemed dancing at the gentlemen’s club earned her a large sum of money each week...best as he could figure. She didn’t turn tricks as her mother had done. Actually Rubin thought of Sarah as clean, wholesome, and beautiful. With a sexy shapely body, and long flowing raven hair she turned the head of every man, and Rubin wanted to be the last man whose head was turned by her.
He entered the club wearing a disguise. His black naturally curly collar length hair had been neatly tucked under a gray wig. He removed his glasses and replaced them with sunglasses hiding his pale blue eye. His square chin and long neck protruded from the shirt almost with arrogance. His unusually pale complexion and neatly shaved face was now under a layer of pancake makeup and face power purchased from the local Walmart.
He wore a pinstriped shirt, a pair of dark blue chinos, and brown loafers, purchased on that same day. He wore a red tie loosely around his long neck. His six-foot frame was lean and lithe. He now resembled a bored husband taking in a night of extra martial bliss an effort to cool his thirst for sexual excitement, and his longing to be someone other than who he was. He now looked thirty eight instead of his true age of twenty-eight. His normal attire of jeans with a black tee shirt under a short-waist tan London Fog jacket and running shoes lay in the back of his truck.
Wearing this disguise Rubin spoke to the dance manager and was finally able to bring the conversation around to Sarah. The fat man had plenty to say about her...he was an open book of information! Rubin wondered if this jerk got all these details from Sarah’s own lips, or were these just tidbits of hearsay. The fat manager wore black trousers held up by a pair of suspenders over a white collar and cuff-starched shirt. He was red faced and breathless when he spoke to Rubin. He injected how Sarah realized the effect she had on the opposite sex, but had no boyfriend. That was good to know, Rubin made a mental note. The fat man continued by saying she had told some of the other girls she was a virgin…Rubin thought, that also was good to know. Continuing the red faced fat man related how Sarah used her sex appeal to earn money, but it was not the rule of how she lived her life, she was a smart cookie and she would make something of herself…she was in college. “Some sort of rock studies,” he said.
The manager couldn’t stop talking about Sarah and he said she sure knew how to dance and, “kept that hot body in top shape.” At the age of twenty-one, perfection had been obtained by his Sarah, Rubin thought. Rubin thanked the manager and hi parting remark was,
“Well she gets my dollar every day, you got a winner mister.” Rubin would add all this new information to Sarah’s notebook.
The note keeper thought Sarah was perfect, the perfect female specimen. With perfect breasts, a trim waist and firm hips she was eye candy to every man and probably some women too. He watched as she danced in a rhinestone thong her glistening blue-black native girl hair. Sarah’s eyes were the color of maze, a yellow brown that seared through any that held her gaze. The natural olive color of her skin was a shade best described as bronze. Sarah was a bronze goddess, and he would posses her…soon.
* * *
Sarah’s dance name was Pocahontas. She didn’t choose it, the stage choreographer Jason, chose the stage names. Since he was gay, Sarah was not someone he would hit on, but he saw the potential for her to earn big bucks in the Sex for Sale business. Sarah could make enormous amounts of money in porn flicks and even as a high paid call girl, but he respected and was aware of Sarah’s wish to become a geologist and return to her native culture. He had conversations with her about it. Sarah explained many of the Navajo Legends to him. He especially recalled the legend of Dawn Boy each time the new Sun brought in the day, Dawn Boy was opening back the darkness for him and all the children of the Earth. The Dine’ as Sarah called her people had a philosophy that made perfect sense to him. They say they are “walking in beauty.” He may not be one of them but he was in agreement with their beliefs.
She was smart and he knew she would realize her dream. Jason respected Sarah even though she seemed an outright contradiction to him. She was pure, the outdoor type, the girl next-door, and yet here she was dancing for old men whose lust had outlived their ability. He thought they probably imagined themselves as young Navajo bucks as they watched the native beauty go through her routine. Sarah brought a peacefulness to her dance…he could almost hear the sounds of a native flute as she danced. She used her hands in a way that he was certain told a story from long ago passed to her by her Navajo grandmother, whom Sarah loved very much.
He knew she was no stranger to hard work either. She worked that cute little butt of hers off, exercising, practicing her routine, and making sure she had ample time to attend classes, and to study, and go on those field trips she made into the desert on her days off. Yep she worked hard he thought and it was paying off. She kept her GPA in the high 3’s he had heard.
Jason had great respect for this young go-getter, and wished he could be more like Sarah. He tried to interest her in doing a porn flick. “You won’t have real sex, come on Sarah, you could earn twenty-thousand maybe more and if you’re smart you can get royalties too. You should think about it, don’t just brush it off; think it over.”
“I don’t need to think it over, I’m not interested!”
“Okay darling, but you are making a big mistake,” he replied in his very feminine voice while waving his hands to emphasize the fact. Jason had hopes of convincing her, after all his finders’ fee would be ten percent!
“I don’t think so! I’m doing just fine. I don’t need twenty thousand,” she said this while she rubbed her forefinger on her thumb, making the sign of greed. She went on to explain, “I’m getting some aid for tuition, and I earn enough here to make my rent. I’m doing very good, just fine.” Sarah dismissed the entire idea.
* * *
Rubin was lost in his thoughts of Sarah. Soon she would belong to him; he would take her out of the world she knew and introduce her to his world. When everything was ready, she would know him, she would know him personally. He would be her Mr. Wonderful, Mr. Perfection, he would be her everything. He would hear her beg, she would beg. He would teach her all she needed to know in order to please him. He had to be pleased. Pleasing him would be her new life; she would be his to own, to control, to watch. She would be his personal dancer; she would do his dance, his bidding. Sarah would become his, only his. He would control how she lived and when she died.
