Stranger Means Danger
Sep. 2nd, 2012 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madwriterTomorrow I go back to my normal schedule after working overtime every week for the last few months. I'm counting on that meaning I'll be able to write a fair bit more than one day a week.
PROGRESS REPORT FOR 9/1/12
New Words: 1700 on chapter 7 ("The Scalphunters") of Arizona. A newcomer, another trapper, comes to the Alvarez villa and sets off alarm bells for both Finn and Solana for reasons unknown.
Total Words: 158050.
Reason For Stopping: Needed to do more research before hitting the next section.
Book Years: 1827-28.
Mammalian Assistance: None. Vegas didn't realize I'd cleared off his box pile until later.
Exercise: A walk around the neighborhood and campus with Laurie and the dogs.
Stimulants: A glass-bottled sugar Coke.
Today's Opening Passage(s): Finn and the Alvarez clan came to one binding agreement early on: What mattered was what a man did with himself now, not the past and not where he came from.
The Spaniards were naturally curious about their American guest, who never asked about their own legacies. But when Solana asked one too many questions about Finn’s life in Europe, it was Mama Rosalie—perhaps still stinging from the memories of old rumors that her husband Alejandro spent his life chasing after an Apache woman—who finally shouted, “He was nobody before he came here! Nobody we need concern ourselves about. If you don’t trust him, then guard him with your eyes and what you hear in your heart. Otherwise, quit bothering him while he's helping Rodrigo tend the stock.”
Darling Du Jour: Rodrigo laughed with amazed pleasure, stopping at Finn’s scowl. The master of the villa moved the fence post back another ten feet—and Finn overshot that by ten feet too. Finally Rodrigo moved the fence post to thirty feet—still amazed, because he considered a vaquero to have mastered the rope when he could lasso a target at thirty feet. But Finn tossed the rope out to forty.
“You have the strength, Senor Alvarez,” Rodrigo told the fuming would-be vaquero, still using signs though Finn was picking up more Spanish every day. “You only need to learn control…”
Finn didn’t hear the rest as his mind was washed away in bitter and terrifying pieces of nightmare memories. Strength, but no control. Shades of the men he’d killed covered his eyes. He spun on his heels and stormed off. He let Rodrigo think he was just angry at his poor performance with the rope. Better that than his host knowing Finn was trying to plan a way to leave the villa alone so he wouldn’t risk the lives of anyone he trapped with.
What changed his mind was the arrival of a man Finn had a dark premonition might need killing someday.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Mainly skimming through a pile of newly-acquired non-fiction.
New Words: 1700 on chapter 7 ("The Scalphunters") of Arizona. A newcomer, another trapper, comes to the Alvarez villa and sets off alarm bells for both Finn and Solana for reasons unknown.
Total Words: 158050.
Reason For Stopping: Needed to do more research before hitting the next section.
Book Years: 1827-28.
Mammalian Assistance: None. Vegas didn't realize I'd cleared off his box pile until later.
Exercise: A walk around the neighborhood and campus with Laurie and the dogs.
Stimulants: A glass-bottled sugar Coke.
Today's Opening Passage(s): Finn and the Alvarez clan came to one binding agreement early on: What mattered was what a man did with himself now, not the past and not where he came from.
The Spaniards were naturally curious about their American guest, who never asked about their own legacies. But when Solana asked one too many questions about Finn’s life in Europe, it was Mama Rosalie—perhaps still stinging from the memories of old rumors that her husband Alejandro spent his life chasing after an Apache woman—who finally shouted, “He was nobody before he came here! Nobody we need concern ourselves about. If you don’t trust him, then guard him with your eyes and what you hear in your heart. Otherwise, quit bothering him while he's helping Rodrigo tend the stock.”
Darling Du Jour: Rodrigo laughed with amazed pleasure, stopping at Finn’s scowl. The master of the villa moved the fence post back another ten feet—and Finn overshot that by ten feet too. Finally Rodrigo moved the fence post to thirty feet—still amazed, because he considered a vaquero to have mastered the rope when he could lasso a target at thirty feet. But Finn tossed the rope out to forty.
“You have the strength, Senor Alvarez,” Rodrigo told the fuming would-be vaquero, still using signs though Finn was picking up more Spanish every day. “You only need to learn control…”
Finn didn’t hear the rest as his mind was washed away in bitter and terrifying pieces of nightmare memories. Strength, but no control. Shades of the men he’d killed covered his eyes. He spun on his heels and stormed off. He let Rodrigo think he was just angry at his poor performance with the rope. Better that than his host knowing Finn was trying to plan a way to leave the villa alone so he wouldn’t risk the lives of anyone he trapped with.
What changed his mind was the arrival of a man Finn had a dark premonition might need killing someday.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Mainly skimming through a pile of newly-acquired non-fiction.
