"My husband and I were in a shabby taco stand in Weatherford, Texas, on a
scorching Saturday afternoon after the annual peach festival. A noisy group sat
in an oversized booth to our right, deep into their beers. One man had added a
chair to the end of the booth, which put him a few inches from me.
The music blared as they received margaritas served in glasses the size of
fish bowls. The guy nearest me held forth with some story as our tacos were
delivered, and I tried to ignore the noise.
The fellow leaned back. "So I told him I'd do the whole roof for seven
thousand dollars, but I want the pig!"
The people at the booth roared with laughter, and I began to think what a
great first line that would be for a novel. In fact, I thought so hard that I
bit my bottom lip worse than ever before in my whole life. What situation might
surround this statement? Who might deliver that line, and why?
Later, I tapped the guy on the shoulder and told him he'd just given me the
first line to my next novel, and he chatted about how he'd been up on someone's
roof to give an estimate for the roofing job and spotted a pig in a small pen in
the back yard." Lee Carver, author of A Secret Life
Exclusive sneak peak of Lee Carver's upcoming book, Retreat To Shelter Creek
“I’ll do the whole roof for seven thousand dollars, but I
want the pig.”
Ashley squinted up at the plaid-shirted man in a wide,
used-to-be-white cowboy hat. A light sensation gurgled up from unknown depths
inside her. She threw back her head and let laughter overtake her. Nothing in
the past few months had triggered such light-hearted abandon."
The German Army of World War II rips Karl
Von Steuben from his family and privileged life, forcing him to
conceal his American sympathies and Jewish heritage. Stripped of
every tie to his home country, he determines to escape. As he
crawls to the Siegfried Line, only he knows the hiding place of
gold ingots melted from the jewelry of death camp prisoners.
Wounded after assuming the identity of a fallen American
soldier, Karl briefly deceives even himself. Discharged and
shipped to America, he discovers God's unmerited favor in a
beautiful Atlanta nurse. But he must return to Germany or
relinquish his family fortune and rear children under the name
of another man. Will Grace forgive his duplicity and accept him
as an American?
EXCERPT
Copyright
2014 © Lee Carver
Karl struck out for yet another green grocer or meat market. So
the cook was correct about all the nearby ones. There used to be
a fresh market a kilometer away. Probably down Kugelstrasse. He
turned right and picked up his pace.
Shopkeepers told him the way, begrudging more than volunteering
information. Queuing on the cobblestone sidewalk, he realized
how much his awareness of Germany’s condition had changed this
morning. Instead of the deference he had come to expect,
citizens who didn’t want to share the food remaining in the city
growled at him. His family’s money and profession mattered
little to those who had no money, no provisions, and certainly
no investments.
The roar of two German Army trucks startled Karl from his
thoughts. They pulled in front of the store, bracing the
customers right and left. Soldiers waved their Mauser 98 rifles
and dismounted from the cabs and canvas-covered backs before the
tires stopped rolling.
There goes the food. He stepped out of line, the urgency to
escape spiking his heart rate. These men were dangerous.
“Halt! Get back here. Where do you think you’re going?”
A soldier with several stripes on his uniform grabbed Karl’s
shoulder and shoved him toward the end of one of the trucks.
“Show me your Ausweispapier.”
Karl handed over his ID paper. The fellow glanced once and
slammed it on the clipboard of the other soldier. That man
copied the details then pushed Karl against the truck.
Stumbling, he braced on the high floor and found men staring out
from benches along the inside walls. The reality of forced
conscription stabbed his lungs. They would take him away without
a word to his family and send him off to die in a war against
his mother’s people and his father’s politics.
“Wait. I have a deferment. Von Steuben Investments manages
Reichland funds—”
The kick half-missed its target as Karl turned to explain, to
beg, whatever necessary to return home with or without food. His
rear end throbbed with pain.
The soldier’s laugh broke from a crack in hell. “Yeah, and my
son’s a lawyer but he’s serving. Get in. Now.”
An arm jerked him upward off the street, yanking his shoulder
joint hard. Dangling, he scrambled for a foothold, scraping his
shins on a metal edge, until he fell into the truck on his
stomach at the boots of another soldier. His rifle barrel
motioned for Karl to sit with the others. Its bore, aimed at his
head, killed any idea of escape.
A man, fifty or sixty years old, climbed up at gunpoint.
“That’s all. Let’s go.” The soldiers with the uniform stripes
swung into the truck as it lurched.
Shadowed occupants around Karl had to be too young, too old, or
too sickly to fight, while his own prime condition made him a
sure target. But nabbing him off the street was wrong, just
plain wrong.
The older man stared out the back with haunted eyes, his mouth
open as if in a silent scream. He slapped a hand over his heart,
showing a thin wedding band. A family man. With him gone, they
might not have food either.
A boy too young to shave sobbed, tears and slobber running down
his face.
Karl held back the sting in his eyes, blinking hard.
I. Will. Not. Cry.
He gripped the bare wooden bench as the streets of Munich passed
beyond the truck’s open back. Bumping over the rough
cobblestones, his bruised rear took further beating. Three times
the truck stopped to nab more men and boys. Three times his
heart pounded with the challenge to make a dash for it, but the
guard assumed a strong stance with his Mauser assault rifle at
the ready and a dare in his eye.
Would they tell his family? Could his father find out where they
took him and appeal his abduction? Most of all, he hurt for
Mother, who would wring her hands and walk the floor crying. He
had thought himself impervious to conscription.
Hours later, the captive recruits passed through a security
checkpoint and into a barebones camp. Was this a prison camp?
Had they found out about Mother?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lee has lived in six foreign countries
and studied nine languages including German and French. She and
her husband traveled extensively throughout Europe while living
in Spain. A five-week World War II history tour covering the
areas where her father-in-law fought created the stimulus for
this book.
Lee taught biology and chemistry,
served as a volunteer church musician, and in retirement was a
missionary in the Brazilian Amazon. She is a member of ACFW and
president of its ACFW-DFW “Ready Writers” Chapter, and is active
in Stephen Ministry and Kid’s Hope.
Learn more about Lee
on her website at
www.LeeCarverWriter.com.
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Lee, what a hilarious first line. I can picture the whole scene in Weatherford. Thanks for sharing the story. I can tell my husband I now have a reason to eavesdrop on nearby conversations. :)
ReplyDeleteDiAne Gates
I love your candid moment, Lee! You never know where an idea might spring from and real-life humour is the best.
ReplyDeleteI love inserting real moments in my fiction writing. It's like a special secret you share with yourself, grinning as you write it!
ReplyDeleteI SO agree, ladies. Who woulda thought I'd soon be interviewing hog farmers to write a book? Seriously, I met a prosperous hog farmer at my husband's 50th high school reunion right after that, and fired a few questions. "If you saw a pig that you instantly recognized as desireable and valuable, what would it look like?" Without batting an eyelash, he fired back the answer. "A white crossbread." And so the pig named Pearl is exactly that.
ReplyDelete