Friday, January 22, 2016

How Do You Like Your Westerns? With a Little Pop Fiction? So Do I...

  



 When I wrote the Bandita series, I wrote it with the intention of  crossing demographic borders: i.e., western to mainstream.  That meant that I had to find a way to employ literature (which I love, and belongs in a 19th century tale) into a novel that a modern audience could appreciate and enjoy, and that in turn meant incorporating popular fiction. I actually like to refer to my series as a Bio-Novel as, though it's historical fiction, it maintains the integrity of accurate historial references and events.

So taking literature and merging it with pop fiction was surprisingly easier than I thought. After all, I'm a modern girl--all I had to do was play the characters and have them behave the way they might under certain circumstances in the modern world we live in. 

 When people hear the word "western", they think old-timey cowboys and land disputes and gun fights out in the streets, etc., etc...  All of these things make for a great story in and of themselves, but in wanting to cross over into pop fiction I had to up the ante and have my characters become as relatable as possible to a modern audience. 

Below, you'll be able to read an excerpt from the second book in the Bandita series: Bandita Bonita and Billy the Kid: The Scourge of New Mexico (the first book in the four part series, Bandita Bonita: Romancing Billy the Kid, is available for download for Kindle, Nook, or iPad--it's availabe for purchase on Google Play as well. Book II will be available for these formats before the end of this summer, 2016.

   Please read on and I hope it tempts you enough to want to give a "modern type" western a try.

  -------Sincerely,

            Author Nicole Maddalo Dixon




To Purchase Books I and II, Please Click Your Preference of Bookseller.

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Or view my website for purchasing information: Nicole Maddalo Dixon

Book II not available as eBook format until this summer, 2016. 

Book I - Bandita Bonita: Romancing Billy the Kid



Book II - Bandita Bonita and Billy the Kid: The Scourge of New Mexico





EXCERPT from BOOK II, Bandita Bonita and Billy the Kid: The Scourge of New Mexico
             Chapter 11 /  June 1879




     We were about a day’s ride out from Vegas when Billy chose to put us up in a familiar, secreted cave he had found out about during one of his many tours through the territory before we’d met. As far as he knew the cave was concealed carefully enough so that he thought not many could know of the little cavern—if any knew of it at all. He told me that he had come to this conclusion based on the fact that whenever he had a use for it for the purpose of refuge it seemed to remain unexploited by others and was always as neatly intact as nature would have it, though, he explained, it had been a while since he had visited the earthen cavity. This would be our first campout along our way to Las Vegas as we had stayed at the Gerhardt Ranch on our first day out prior to staying in Puerto de Luna and Anton before arriving here.

         It was close to the rainy season, and so staying put inside of the cavern was a necessary condition for us should we find ourselves caught in a storm. The day had burned slow and was heated under a clouded, covered sky. Billy claimed that a storm was a real possibility, basing this, he said, on the friction he felt in the air.
         There was a natural enclosure positioned just below the cave which was surrounded by sturdy mountain rock outcroppings and boulders with a natural overhang where we could shelter the horses. This would provide them decent enoughprotection from any rain or should a flash flood manifest without warning—flash floods were always a source of concern out here; they were an easy and near unavoidable death if one were caught and exposed by a merciless desert downpour. Certainly, dangers abounded everywhere out west.
         The cave itself was set up high within the mountain, as was the cave in the hills of Patricio (where we had hidden out just before the 5-days-Battle in Lincoln), and it, too, had a precarious ridge one must climb to reach the earthen portico that spread wide before its mouth—the same swatch of land that created the overhang for the horses below. The cave was set back and nestled into the mountainside, and this particular cave boasted something of a fictile shaft made of rock inside that ran up through the mountain like a regular chimney which allowed for a fire to be lit beneath it, the shaft a flue that would suck the smoke right up and out, accommodating the terrene lodging in a way that made it cozy.
         We secured the horses and began our ascent of the hazardous, narrow ridge that hitched along the mountain up toward the cave’s portico, our backs sliding against the wall of dirt behind us, loosing earth and scree thatfell and bounced on its way down. With his right hand he took my left, guiding me along the dangerous edge as he negotiated it. With his left hand he held his gun aloft.
         He dragged me as we climbed, causing us to sidle faster than I had expected along the slim berth of ground. He seemed anxious, wanting to reach our destination and get settled, his gun poised and at the ready, ears tuned to any sound that might come from up above; he was primed for misadventure.
         He stopped for a moment, listening. An emerging ray of sunlight glinted upon something on the ground and caught my eye. I lent myself toward it with my free hand, attempting to grasp the object that had seized my attention. Knees and body bent, I reached out. The hand that Billy held kept my left arm anchored upwards as I angled myself toward the item, making my movement awkward. As he began to move again and pull me along he nearly caused me to lose my balance, but I had managed to grab the shimmering object and correct myself nonetheless. It was a pretty locket, covered by a fine sheath of dust. I wiped at it with my thumb as he continued to pull me along.
         We were cresting the ridge and approaching the level ground that surrounded the cave—a gaping maw set back by an atrium of dirt and rock. Suddenly, the wind kicked up and Billy turned his nose away, disgusted.
         “Oh Jesus...” he sighed.
         I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, but before I could speak I knew. A foul stench enveloped us both, causing us to hunker down into one another against the mountainside and cover our faces in desperation.
         “God. What is that?” I yowled.
         He only managed to say something incoherently and moan dreadfully into his hand.
         He rose and turned back, preparing himself to look upon the place in which we sought. Letting go of my hand he turned to me and told me to stay put. Still crouching, I placed my hands down to steady myself along the ridge while he left me there alone. I saw him disappear around the bend at the top and then heard the firm flapping of wings before seeing black carrion birdsscatter off into the air. And then...nothing. I waited as patiently as I could, but when his absence proved longer than I would have thought, the silence caused me to grow uneasy. Still attempting to protect my nose against the rotting stink with my hand, I called to him through my fingers. When he didn’t answer, I decided to make my way up the remaining stretch of path. Rounding the same bend Billy had disappeared around moments before, I saw him. His hand was over his face, eyes horrifyingly wide at the scene before him.
         Two bodies lay by the mouth of the cave. I shrieked in shock, causing him to turn and see me standing there. Reacting quickly, he began pushing me back toward the ridge, firmly instructing me to climb back down. After my initial confusion, I was finally able dig my foot in and slow him from pushing. He fought against my stubbornness, yelling for me to move, but I was able to calm him when he became aware that I was deliberately struggling to make him stop.
         “What are you doing? Go!”
         “Billy, we can’t!”
         “Like hell! Go! Move!”
         “Billy...the rain!”
         Just then a growl of thunder punctuated my point as it sounded in the near distance.
         He seemed to think on this a moment, then shook it off. “We’ll take our chances. Did you see what I just saw?” he barked.
         “We have to stay here; you know we have to stay here, unless there’s another place like this we can go—”
         His look turned derisive, sarcastically asking me, “Do you think this is likesome damned hotel? That we can just requesta different room?”
         Frazzled, I hollered back, “Well, I’m sure I don’t know!” I was feeling provoked and uneasy.
         We grew quiet together in our shock, and exasperated, I placed my hands to my head, pushing my hat back. So we stood together silently, lost in our own thoughts; Billy considering our situation.
         “What the hell are we supposed to do?” He asked out loud, almost as if to himself.
         “Move the bodies,” I casually responded. Resolute.
         His expression toward me could only be defined as repugnant. For the moment he seemed clearly put off and sickened by my suggestion, and then he looked at me as if I were short on sense.
         “You must be out of your cotton-pickin’, east-side mind! I ain’t moving those damned bodies. I ain’t touching the goddamned things—”
         “I’ll help you—“
         “Like hell—no way! If there’s one person between us two who definitely ain’t going near them things it’s you, and I ain’t going, neither.”
         He began to push me along again but I held fast to my position.
         “We have to do this, Billy.”
         I looked up at him, into his unblinking, wide blue eyes. He registered this truth. Twilight was peeking over the desert, and with the prospect of a storm and the sky growing steadily darker, another rumble of thunder closer off in the distance turned the simple possibility of a storm into a devastating reality. He began to nod to himself as if he were mentally gearing up for what he knew needed to be done—teeth working at his lips as his mind worked at the unpleasant task that lay ahead.
         “Okay,” he said. “Okay
         He started back toward the gruesome scene, and as I began to follow, he turned to face me and placed his hand against my shoulder.
         “Stay there,” he commanded.
         I stopped and let him walk on. I leaned against the mountainside, already feeling exhausted as I thought over the matter and the unpleasant undertaking that lie ahead when I heard him gagging. I moved toward him and peered around to see him sicking up as he knelt close to the body that lay the farthest from the ridge. When his stomach had expended its contents he stood and came back toward me.
         “I can’t. We have to go. Now!”
         “I’ll help you; we have to do this.”
         “Aw, hell no, Lucy. Get going!”
         I maneuvered around him and stood directly between both corpses, surveying the macabre tableau.
         Both carcasses lay with their guns drawn, the body that Billy had first planned to move lay half in, half out of the cave. The half of him that lay exposed was horribly rotted; the gray-green flesh of the head had disintegrated in places, exposing the skull and desiccated tissue. The face confronted me, its marbled, black and puffy green colored flesh blistered; tongue eaten at, with what was left of it protruding through teeth unsheathed by withered, picked-upon lips; eyes gone. I waved away at the flies that had swarmed, realizing for the first time the churning black veil that shrouded the moldering flesh which should have been impossible to miss; the buzzing incessant and quite loud.
         I felt my own stomach spasm at this. I hurried away from the bodies and wretched.
         Satisfied, Billy yelled over to me, “Not so tough now, are ya?”
         When my own body had quit shuddering, I looked back at the morose sight. Billy stood there, a strange look in his eyes as they flitted back and forth between the two dead men, coat sleeve covering his nose and mouth in an attempt to keep the malodor from entering his nostrils. I knew this had to be done; we could go nowhere else. Thunder lightly sounded again from the east, seemingly just beyond a small mountainous range. I studied the situation some more.
         Looking at the angle of the bodies I wondered aloud, “Was it a fight? Did they kill each other?”
         “Hell should I know? Looks like.”
         “Okay, let’s just get this over with.”
         He walked with me back toward the body we had both become unpleasantly familiar with.
         “Grab him on that side by the jacket,” He said. “We’ll pull him and slide him over the side.”
         I nodded and moved to do what he told me to, then stopped.
         “Do you think he has any money or valuables on him?” I asked.
         “Jesus Christ. I don’t know. Can we just get this done with?”
         Ignoring him, I scampered around and to the other side of the dead man. I was revolted, seeing a new horror of insects as they scurried and writhed over and around the corpse.            Cautiously, I gingerly placed my forefinger and thumb on the edge of the dead man’s lapel and slowly peeled back his jacket to look for an inside pocket, eventually flipping the panel over quickly. When I found it, I very warily placed my hand inside. Billy made sounds of aversion and vocally objected at this, but I pulled out a billfold. I looked up at him with a wide smile and nodded my head, pleased with myself. He frowned. I opened the billfold and found some dollar bills inside.
         “Count it later,” Billy demanded.
         I counted it right then. Nearly fifty dollars! That would do. I dropped the billfold and observed the body, still waving off the flies that consumed me as well, as if I could make them go away. The corpse’s legs lay one over the other and looked to be somewhat intact, but one could not truly tell as the carcass was fully dressed, and so his pants concealed his lower half. The flesh around his exposed hand had grown taught and leathery; the other hand was missing entirely. Thunder sounded again.
         “Lucy...”
         I glanced quickly up at Billy and, ignoring him a moment longer, checked the torso and found a clean, gold pocket watch which I hurriedly snapped away from the body for fear of the things creeping about, and then finally, returned to helping Billy. We dragged the body together to the edge of the bluff by the shoulder of its jacket and collar and, despite my dragging a festering dead body, of which I should have found very odd, all I managed to think to myself was how light it was. We slid him over the side and he fell a ways down to the ground but still made an audible thump.
         We looked at each other and then at the second body. This one was laid out fully in the elements. His right, near skeletal hand lay clutched by his chest, his naturally decimated left hand lay alongside him as he lie prone, his gun resting on the ground as if it had been dropped there after its owner had been drilled by a bullet. There was a rucksack nearby him. Billy saw me spy this and placed a hand on my shoulder.
         “After we’re through,” he said.
         I nodded, knowing he wanted to get this over with, but still, I was not swayed from considering the body, looking for anything of worth and seeing nothing. I thought to check his clothing, but this one was by far worse off than the other. The skin of the face was gone completely, the chest appeared sunken in and the rotting shirt had a thick looking, slick stain; the gut hollowed out. Liquefied, I thought. I noticed a sticky-like substance pooled around him; biological run-off. The iron nerve I had initially summoned and maintained fairlyfailed me at this particular sight and I ran off again, dry heaving, wracked by the discomfort it caused my body.
         When finally we had fulfilled our unpleasant deed and pulled this dead man over the ledge, we smiled oddly at one another.
         Disturbed and with a strange smirk, he said, “Ghoul.
            He walked off to fetch our things from the horses while I hung back and examined the substantiation of what was here—what remained despite the removal of the grotesqueries. There were brownish, sticky and dry looking stains left behind by both bodies, thinly coated by a layer of grime, but the concentration of the smell had seemed to dissipate. I supposed this might be due to the fact that we had removed its source from the immediate places, but likely it was also because I had grown accustomed

How Do You Like Your Westerns? With a Little Pop Fiction? So Do I...

  



 When I wrote the Bandita series, I wrote it with the intention of  crossing demographic borders: i.e., western to mainstream.  That meant that I had to find a way to employ literature (which I love, and belongs in a 19th century tale) into a novel that a modern audience could appreciate and enjoy, and that in turn meant incorporating popular fiction. I actually like to refer to my series as a Bio-Novel as, though it's historical fiction, it maintains the integrity of accurate historial references and events.

So taking literature and merging it with pop fiction was surprisingly easier than I thought. After all, I'm a modern girl--all I had to do was play the characters and have them behave the way they might under certain circumstances in the modern world we live in. 

 When people hear the word "western", they think old-timey cowboys and land disputes and gun fights out in the streets, etc., etc...  All of these things make for a great story in and of themselves, but in wanting to cross over into pop fiction I had to up the ante and have my characters become as relatable as possible to a modern audience. 

Below, you'll be able to read an excerpt from the second book in the Bandita series: Bandita Bonita and Billy the Kid: The Scourge of New Mexico (the first book in the four part series, Bandita Bonita: Romancing Billy the Kid, is available for download for Kindle, Nook, or iPad--it's availabe for purchase on Google Play as well. Book II will be available for these formats before the end of this summer, 2016.

   Please read on and I hope it tempts you enough to want to give a "modern type" western a try.

  -------Sincerely,

            Author Nicole Maddalo Dixon




To Purchase Books I and II, Please Click Your Preference of Bookseller.

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Or view my website for purchasing information: Nicole Maddalo Dixon

Book II not available as eBook format until this summer, 2016. 

Book I - Bandita Bonita: Romancing Billy the Kid



Book II - Bandita Bonita and Billy the Kid: The Scourge of New Mexico





EXCERPT from BOOK II, Bandita Bonita and Billy the Kid: The Scourge of New Mexico
             Chapter 11 /  June 1879




     We were about a day’s ride out from Vegas when Billy chose to put us up in a familiar, secreted cave he had found out about during one of his many tours through the territory before we’d met. As far as he knew the cave was concealed carefully enough so that he thought not many could know of the little cavern—if any knew of it at all. He told me that he had come to this conclusion based on the fact that whenever he had a use for it for the purpose of refuge it seemed to remain unexploited by others and was always as neatly intact as nature would have it, though, he explained, it had been a while since he had visited the earthen cavity. This would be our first campout along our way to Las Vegas as we had stayed at the Gerhardt Ranch on our first day out prior to staying in Puerto de Luna and Anton before arriving here.

         It was close to the rainy season, and so staying put inside of the cavern was a necessary condition for us should we find ourselves caught in a storm. The day had burned slow and was heated under a clouded, covered sky. Billy claimed that a storm was a real possibility, basing this, he said, on the friction he felt in the air.
         There was a natural enclosure positioned just below the cave which was surrounded by sturdy mountain rock outcroppings and boulders with a natural overhang where we could shelter the horses. This would provide them decent enough protection from any rain or should a flash flood manifest without warning—flash floods were always a source of concern out here; they were an easy and near unavoidable death if one were caught and exposed by a merciless desert downpour. Certainly, dangers abounded everywhere out west.
         The cave itself was set up high within the mountain, as was the cave in the hills of Patricio (where we had hidden out just before the 5-days-Battle in Lincoln), and it, too, had a precarious ridge one must climb to reach the earthen portico that spread wide before its mouth—the same swatch of land that created the overhang for the horses below. The cave was set back and nestled into the mountainside, and this particular cave boasted something of a fictile shaft made of rock inside that ran up through the mountain like a regular chimney which allowed for a fire to be lit beneath it, the shaft a flue that would suck the smoke right up and out, accommodating the terrene lodging in a way that made it cozy.
         We secured the horses and began our ascent of the hazardous, narrow ridge that hitched along the mountain up toward the cave’s portico, our backs sliding against the wall of dirt behind us, loosing earth and scree that fell and bounced on its way down. With his right hand he took my left, guiding me along the dangerous edge as he negotiated it. With his left hand he held his gun aloft.
         He dragged me as we climbed, causing us to sidle faster than I had expected along the slim berth of ground. He seemed anxious, wanting to reach our destination and get settled, his gun poised and at the ready, ears tuned to any sound that might come from up above; he was primed for misadventure.
         He stopped for a moment, listening. An emerging ray of sunlight glinted upon something on the ground and caught my eye. I lent myself toward it with my free hand, attempting to grasp the object that had seized my attention. Knees and body bent, I reached out. The hand that Billy held kept my left arm anchored upwards as I angled myself toward the item, making my movement awkward. As he began to move again and pull me along he nearly caused me to lose my balance, but I had managed to grab the shimmering object and correct myself nonetheless. It was a pretty locket, covered by a fine sheath of dust. I wiped at it with my thumb as he continued to pull me along.
         We were cresting the ridge and approaching the level ground that surrounded the cave—a gaping maw set back by an atrium of dirt and rock. Suddenly, the wind kicked up and Billy turned his nose away, disgusted.
         “Oh Jesus...” he sighed.
         I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, but before I could speak I knew. A foul stench enveloped us both, causing us to hunker down into one another against the mountainside and cover our faces in desperation.
         “God. What is that?” I yowled.
         He only managed to say something incoherently and moan dreadfully into his hand.
         He rose and turned back, preparing himself to look upon the place in which we sought. Letting go of my hand he turned to me and told me to stay put. Still crouching, I placed my hands down to steady myself along the ridge while he left me there alone. I saw him disappear around the bend at the top and then heard the firm flapping of wings before seeing black carrion birds scatter off into the air. And then...nothing. I waited as patiently as I could, but when his absence proved longer than I would have thought, the silence caused me to grow uneasy. Still attempting to protect my nose against the rotting stink with my hand, I called to him through my fingers. When he didn’t answer, I decided to make my way up the remaining stretch of path. Rounding the same bend Billy had disappeared around moments before, I saw him. His hand was over his face, eyes horrifyingly wide at the scene before him.
         Two bodies lay by the mouth of the cave. I shrieked in shock, causing him to turn and see me standing there. Reacting quickly, he began pushing me back toward the ridge, firmly instructing me to climb back down. After my initial confusion, I was finally able dig my foot in and slow him from pushing. He fought against my stubbornness, yelling for me to move, but I was able to calm him when he became aware that I was deliberately struggling to make him stop.
         “What are you doing? Go!”
         “Billy, we can’t!”
         “Like hell! Go! Move!”
         “Billy...the rain!”
         Just then a growl of thunder punctuated my point as it sounded in the near distance.
         He seemed to think on this a moment, then shook it off. “We’ll take our chances. Did you see what I just saw?” he barked.
         “We have to stay here; you know we have to stay here, unless there’s another place like this we can go—”
         His look turned derisive, sarcastically asking me, “Do you think this is like some damned hotel? That we can just request a different room?”
         Frazzled, I hollered back, “Well, I’m sure I don’t know!” I was feeling provoked and uneasy.
         We grew quiet together in our shock, and exasperated, I placed my hands to my head, pushing my hat back. So we stood together silently, lost in our own thoughts; Billy considering our situation.
         “What the hell are we supposed to do?” He asked out loud, almost as if to himself.
         “Move the bodies,” I casually responded. Resolute.
         His expression toward me could only be defined as repugnant. For the moment he seemed clearly put off and sickened by my suggestion, and then he looked at me as if I were short on sense.
         “You must be out of your cotton-pickin’, east-side mind! I ain’t moving those damned bodies. I ain’t touching the goddamned things—”
         “I’ll help you—“
         “Like hell—no way! If there’s one person between us two who definitely ain’t going near them things it’s you, and I ain’t going, neither.”
         He began to push me along again but I held fast to my position.
         “We have to do this, Billy.”
         I looked up at him, into his unblinking, wide blue eyes. He registered this truth. Twilight was peeking over the desert, and with the prospect of a storm and the sky growing steadily darker, another rumble of thunder closer off in the distance turned the simple possibility of a storm into a devastating reality. He began to nod to himself as if he were mentally gearing up for what he knew needed to be done—teeth working at his lips as his mind worked at the unpleasant task that lay ahead.
         “Okay,” he said. “Okay
         He started back toward the gruesome scene, and as I began to follow, he turned to face me and placed his hand against my shoulder.
         “Stay there,” he commanded.
         I stopped and let him walk on. I leaned against the mountainside, already feeling exhausted as I thought over the matter and the unpleasant undertaking that lie ahead when I heard him gagging. I moved toward him and peered around to see him sicking up as he knelt close to the body that lay the farthest from the ridge. When his stomach had expended its contents he stood and came back toward me.
         “I can’t. We have to go. Now!”
         “I’ll help you; we have to do this.”
         “Aw, hell no, Lucy. Get going!”
         I maneuvered around him and stood directly between both corpses, surveying the macabre tableau.
         Both carcasses lay with their guns drawn, the body that Billy had first planned to move lay half in, half out of the cave. The half of him that lay exposed was horribly rotted; the gray-green flesh of the head had disintegrated in places, exposing the skull and desiccated tissue. The face confronted me, its marbled, black and puffy green colored flesh blistered; tongue eaten at, with what was left of it protruding through teeth unsheathed by withered, picked-upon lips; eyes gone. I waved away at the flies that had swarmed, realizing for the first time the churning black veil that shrouded the moldering flesh which should have been impossible to miss; the buzzing incessant and quite loud.
         I felt my own stomach spasm at this. I hurried away from the bodies and wretched.
         Satisfied, Billy yelled over to me, “Not so tough now, are ya?”
         When my own body had quit shuddering, I looked back at the morose sight. Billy stood there, a strange look in his eyes as they flitted back and forth between the two dead men, coat sleeve covering his nose and mouth in an attempt to keep the malodor from entering his nostrils. I knew this had to be done; we could go nowhere else. Thunder lightly sounded again from the east, seemingly just beyond a small mountainous range. I studied the situation some more.
         Looking at the angle of the bodies I wondered aloud, “Was it a fight? Did they kill each other?”
         “Hell should I know? Looks like.”
         “Okay, let’s just get this over with.”
         He walked with me back toward the body we had both become unpleasantly familiar with.
         “Grab him on that side by the jacket,” He said. “We’ll pull him and slide him over the side.”
         I nodded and moved to do what he told me to, then stopped.
         “Do you think he has any money or valuables on him?” I asked.
         “Jesus Christ. I don’t know. Can we just get this done with?”
         Ignoring him, I scampered around and to the other side of the dead man. I was revolted, seeing a new horror of insects as they scurried and writhed over and around the corpse.            Cautiously, I gingerly placed my forefinger and thumb on the edge of the dead man’s lapel and slowly peeled back his jacket to look for an inside pocket, eventually flipping the panel over quickly. When I found it, I very warily placed my hand inside. Billy made sounds of aversion and vocally objected at this, but I pulled out a billfold. I looked up at him with a wide smile and nodded my head, pleased with myself. He frowned. I opened the billfold and found some dollar bills inside.
         “Count it later,” Billy demanded.
         I counted it right then. Nearly fifty dollars! That would do. I dropped the billfold and observed the body, still waving off the flies that consumed me as well, as if I could make them go away. The corpse’s legs lay one over the other and looked to be somewhat intact, but one could not truly tell as the carcass was fully dressed, and so his pants concealed his lower half. The flesh around his exposed hand had grown taught and leathery; the other hand was missing entirely. Thunder sounded again.
         “Lucy...”
         I glanced quickly up at Billy and, ignoring him a moment longer, checked the torso and found a clean, gold pocket watch which I hurriedly snapped away from the body for fear of the things creeping about, and then finally, returned to helping Billy. We dragged the body together to the edge of the bluff by the shoulder of its jacket and collar and, despite my dragging a festering dead body, of which I should have found very odd, all I managed to think to myself was how light it was. We slid him over the side and he fell a ways down to the ground but still made an audible thump.
         We looked at each other and then at the second body. This one was laid out fully in the elements. His right, near skeletal hand lay clutched by his chest, his naturally decimated left hand lay alongside him as he lie prone, his gun resting on the ground as if it had been dropped there after its owner had been drilled by a bullet. There was a rucksack nearby him. Billy saw me spy this and placed a hand on my shoulder.
         “After we’re through,” he said.
         I nodded, knowing he wanted to get this over with, but still, I was not swayed from considering the body, looking for anything of worth and seeing nothing. I thought to check his clothing, but this one was by far worse off than the other. The skin of the face was gone completely, the chest appeared sunken in and the rotting shirt had a thick looking, slick stain; the gut hollowed out. Liquefied, I thought. I noticed a sticky-like substance pooled around him; biological run-off. The iron nerve I had initially summoned and maintained fairly failed me at this particular sight and I ran off again, dry heaving, wracked by the discomfort it caused my body.
         When finally we had fulfilled our unpleasant deed and pulled this dead man over the ledge, we smiled oddly at one another.
         Disturbed and with a strange smirk, he said, “Ghoul.
            He walked off to fetch our things from the horses while I hung back and examined the substantiation of what was here—what remained despite the removal of the grotesqueries. There were brownish, sticky and dry looking stains left behind by both bodies, thinly coated by a layer of grime, but the concentration of the smell had seemed to dissipate. I supposed this might be due to the fact that we had removed its source from the immediate places, but likely it was also because I had grown accustomed

Monday, January 11, 2016

EXCERPT From Book II (Colorful Language; Be Warned!)

BOOK II NOW AVAILABLE AT AMAZON 
AND BARNES & NOBLE
eBook Available later this summer, 2016
NicoleMDixonAuthor.com







With the release of Book II in the Bandita series looming large above the soon-to-be launched pool of books due this year, I wanted to provide potential readers with the kind of humorous airs this literature/pop fiction dramedy series is built on. The Bandita series is literature with pop fition at its core. It belongs to a rare genre all of its own, which will hopefully, one day, spawn many more like it so that readers will be able to get the benefit of both worlds! 

Enjoy the aumusing insight of this latest installment, which is expected to launch this spring.

Bandita Bonita and Billy the Kid: The Scourge of New Mexico, Book II (a Novel).

Be forewarned as the blog title implores! There is course language, so turn back now if the slightest bit of sexual insight and offensive discourse upsets you



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From Chapter 13, July, 1879





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“Have we ever fucked?”
         His head whipped around astonishingly fast. He stared at me silently, his expression a strange blend of shock, fright, and confusion. That fatherly air of his was upon him, the one that came about when he would react to some ignorant blunder of mine that caused him awkward pains and forced him to maneuver an explanation or impart a sermon with the intent to learn me something.
         He embodied the tension of a tightly wound spring that would start if further provoked and so I stayed silent, letting him stare at me like that. He didn’t move as he looked at me, not one bit. I realized I had overstepped some boundary, but unsure of what boundary that was, I felt it best to remain quiet and let him make the next move.
         “Pardon me?” he asked, seeming to choke the words out.
         I curled my lips inward and bit at them. Clearly I had made him somewhat uncomfortable and I didn’t know how to correct myself. What was it that was wrong in what I said? Was it the vulgarity of that word? That mean word that meant “sex”? I had heard it so often and had even spoken it prior without consequence, so I didn’t understand his mood. I supposed I would need to puzzle this out by treading lightly.
         “When I’m with those girls they talk about a lot of things, many of them lewd in nature—“
         “I’ll just bet.”
         “Well…they asked me if we had ever done such a thing, and I thought to tell them yes, we must have. But the accounts I gave of our actions assured them we had not, and so now I’m uncertain. I never felt there was a difference, but they assured me there is.”
         I had vexed him with this confession. He took in a breath and pressed his lips together in an obvious attempt to keep his temper in check.
         “What business is it of theirs for you to even talk about... about what we do?”
         “I didn’t suppose it was any of their business at all, but all the same it was of interest to me. The conversation was intriguing. What’s the difference? Have we or have we not?”
         As he was all too familiar with my tendency toward accidental transgressions, his irritation relented and he reluctantly excused my faux pas, taking in another deep breath as he prepared to articulate for me an explanation while weathering a storm of discomfort.
         He scratched at the back of his head distractedly and made his eyes as big as saucers.
         “Lucy...” he began.
         I waited.
         “Yes, there’s a difference, and...”
         I stared on at him with anticipation, eagerly awaiting his explanation.
         “No we have not.”
         He spilled those words out as one: nowehavenot. It was apparent he wanted this conversation over with quickly. He must have felt confident that his brief reply had answered my question sufficiently, believing I’d have no cause to push the topic further, but I was never one to concern myself with the emotional collateral damage that sometimes manifests in the pursuit of knowledge.
         “But what is the difference?” I pressed.
         Exasperated, he rolled his eyes and blushed, annoyed with being stuck in this situation. I thought to take a different tack.
         “What is it we do, then?”
         “Oh Lucy, can’t you guess?” He replied, impatient.
         He was clearly ill at ease, and his anxiety caused him to raise his voice as he asked this of me. I looked away from him and furrowed my brow as I thought on his harried response. I suppose I could say that I could guess, but how could I be sure I was right?
         I decided to drop this, but not before I tried for a clue once more.
         “Have you done this with other women?”
         Galled by my ignorant nerve, he sighed and stood to leave without saying a word.

         Seeing Billy so troubled by my inquisition left me more interested than I thought I had been otherwise. What had started out as an innocent curiosity had now taken on a shade of obsession.

         I was sitting with Jimmy and playing a lackadaisical game of Knucklebones, neither of us caring much to keep score, when I thought to pose the question to him. Being my second most best friend, choosing to ask Jimmy seemed only logical. Unsatisfied with the answers Billy had given me, I was now armed with a newfound, keen need to know. I could only ask someone else to help me find the absolute answer. I thought nothing at all of asking Billy such a personal question, but despite being close to Jimmy, I didn’t share the same easy comfort; it didn’t manifest. I knew asking Jimmy would be plainly embarrassing considering the delicacy of the subject matter. Though I had once tried at seducing Jimmy, my attempt had only been halfhearted and trivial, which made the thought of asking such an brazen question all the more unpleasant. And then there was the realization that asking Jimmy would only serve to enlighten his familiarity of my private affairs with Billy. I would have preferred to avoid sharing my curiosity with Jimmy, but my resolve unhinged my rationale and gave me a profound sense of C’est la vie.

         “Jimmy?”
         In the middle of collecting his bones he acknowledged me.
         “I asked Billy what turned out to be an odd question, and he became disturbed.”
         His mind still on the game, Jimmy sort of grunted and followed up with “Huh?”
         “Well...” I began.
         I swallowed nervously and felt the color rising in my cheeks, burning them. I had to force my daring, lying like a heavy rock in the pit of my belly, to rise.
         With a great amount of hesitancy, I forced my nerve to the surface and let it do what it would.
         Forcing the words out while trying not to think of them, I said, “I asked him if what we did was...If what we did was...fuck.” I cleared my throat. “Why should that get him in such a state?”
         Jimmy produced a shocked sound, peculiar in its semblance of a laugh and cough, before rendering a similar version of the insecure stare that Billy had given me.
         Taken aback, he exclaimed, “What?”
         “He seemed upset by my question,” I explained again. “I realize it was a bit crude, but I’ve said that word before, and you must know that we’ve been...intimate…in such a way that I should be able to ask these things of him without repercussion, so I can’t understand his reticence.”
         Jimmy laughed somewhat hysterically out of astonishment before going back to the ball and picking up his quarry.
         “You really asking me this?” He marveled, stunned. Still, he gave me a rather mischievous smile.
         Mortified, I unintentionally shouted back in self-defense, “Well I don’t want to!”
         Still laughing, he shook his head. “All right, sweetheart, calm down. It’s all right; I’ll do the best I can to help you out.”
         He looked at me and smiled sympathetically, but I could still see he was amused.
         “Well,” he began. “I don’t think he cottons to the disrespect behind the meaning.”
         “Disrespect?”
         He stared on at me, wondering how to explain.
         “Yeah, disrespect. Like, he doesn’t think of you in that way. It’s like—that word…it’s usually reserved when talking about women of a certain…immoral profession, to put it plainly. If you understand my meaning.”
         “Was it too bold of me to ask, then?”
         “Well, maybe. I’d just bet with all the odd things you say, he wasn’t expecting that to come out of your mouth.”
         This thought sent him back into fits of laughter.
         “Well, what’s so wrong with my asking anyway? Our relationship is such that I should be able to ask such a thing without taxing his nerves. He knows how inquisitive I am.”
         “Yeah, but that’s something men do with whores. I don’t think he wants to think on you like that.”
         “But how’s it truly much different from what we do when we share a bed? I would’ve thought it was all the same. There’s only one thing to be done when a man and woman bed together.”
         “Well, there’s a few things to be done, now that you mention it.” He sniggered at his dumb little joke.
         “Yeah, I heard all about that other stuff. But mostly it’s just the one thing.”
         I waited for him to say something else. When he didn’t, I asked, “So?”
         “So what?”
         “So what’s the trouble?”
         “I told you what’s the trouble. That’s what whores are for. He thinks on you like...maybe like a man thinks on a wife, and men don’t do that with their wives—what they’ll do with a whore. That’s just the way it is.”
         “So was that what he was doing with Celsa and the others?”
         “Probably.”
         “But they’re not whores.”
         “Not professionally, but close enough, anyway.”
         “If they are, then it only stands to reason so am I, and I can’t rightly say that I am.”
         “No, I don’t think you are. Those others, they get around; you don’t because you’re his, and he makes damn sure it stays that way. I think that’s his problem with your forwardness on the matter.”
         “I don’t feel you’re explaining this to me right.”
         “Well, I guess it can be complicated.” Exasperated, he said, “Look...when a man fucks a girl, he’s just using her to get it out of his system. That’s all it is. There’s nothing else. No love, no sort of commitment. The man is in it for himself. It’s just sex, and it’s quick—and exhausting. It’s really actually quite a lonely experience, truth be told, because there’s no caring involved. But it’s something a man needs to do.”
         I thought on this. I’ve been there to help Billy get “it” out of his system before, and sometimes it could in fact be exhausting. Sometimes it even felt like work, but I had to admit that it was in fact a pleasant sort of work.
         Jimmy explained that when Billy was with me, the “it” Billy was most likely ridding himself of was his desire for me, and he guessed that probably he might just be ridding himself of that same desire for me with others as well, only there was no meaning behind it with them.
         “Now I’m almost positive you’re not explaining things right to me,” I asserted.
         “How should you know, anyway?” Jimmy said with an aura of affront. “You’re the one doesn’t know but is asking.”
         “Why not just be with me always then if it’s me making him so agitated? Why waste his time with others as a distraction?”
         I of course knew the answer to this, Billy explaining it to me time and time again. Our relationship was a complex mess. He wanted me, but he refused me so often because of the odds: he did not want to get me into trouble and ruin me; my future, should I choose to end this life and go back to my life in New York, would be irreparable if I were to fall pregnant, so he took his desire for me elsewhere. He took it to women who didn’t deserve it. Can it be imagined? My just desserts being offered to lesser women to enjoy? It was infuriating. So infuriating that, naturally, as was my way, I continued to ask Billy the same question, phrased differently, in the hopes of receiving a different answer for this, knowing damned well there wasn’t no different answer. There was nothing that would be said that could make me feel better about Billy’s warped sense of logic. Though, I was being unfair, wasn’t I? My frustration sometimes got in my way, I supposed. When my mind was well-grounded, I saw his logic perfectly. He still meant for me, at the very least, to present the illusion that I was untouched and perfect, doing whatever he felt necessary to keep my future intact. His illusion was, should I get out of this hell and go back to the fold in New York, I could parade myself under the guise of innocence and be accepted by my own people with open arms.
         The sound of Jimmy’s voice broke my reverie and brought me back to our conversation.
         “How should I know?” He said. “Except to say that maybe he just wants it over and done with—with them.”
         “So?”
         “So I guess he respects you too much to make it quick and run out the door. When he doesn’t want to miss out he’ll come to you. That’s why whores are so important—they’re there to serve a purpose: quick satisfaction.” He nodded matter-of-factly to himself, pleased to emphasize this justification.
         “How can you call those other girls whores but not me? As far as I know, Billy doesn’t lay so much with prostitutes because he has his little legion of townie admirers. They’re not unlike me. So at best, this all seems very confusing.”
         He gave me a smug chuckle and rolled his eyes at my naiveté.
         “He’s had his share of calico queens, Lucy. He may flirt with a lot of girls in the towns, but it ain’t like they allfall on their backs for him. He’ll go off with the rest of us and find relief in the town brothel.” He blushed a bit at this brazen confession to a lady that her compadres sought comfort in the arms of prairie nymphs. “And anyway…those other girls? In the towns? They’re not much like you at all.”
         “So tell then. How so?”
         He looked at me while considering his answer, slightly scrunching his face in thought as he did so.
         “Do I have permission to speak freely?”
         “Naturally.”
         “Some of them, the ones you’d think were proper? Well, it’s true that many do fall right on their backs. They cling to him, and when he chooses one, they encourage him to come to their bed.”
         “That’s just because Billy has this way about him. He’s charming.”
         “It’s just because they’re whores. They may not reside in a brothel, and they may seem as if they’re respectable, but they’re whores just the same. Lucy, do you mean to tell me that you think no girl could resist him?”
         “No, of course not. But—“
         “Even if a woman finds him irresistible, she still has pride, don’t she?”
         I saw his point, but myself being someone with a proud disposition who would not have been expected to fall prey so easily to a man’s charms, I knew something of this. I made this point to Jimmy who sat up straighter when he explained.
         “Billy doesn’t talk much about you, not in a personal way, so I don’t know much about y’alls private relationship ‘cept for what you tell me or the hints I pick up from watching the two of you. I know from your own mouth that you two were close before anything else. And knowing you as I believe I do, I’d guess that that’s not exactly what happened between you both; you succumbing easily to him because he fooled your pride. Fact, I believe you checked your pride when it came to him and found he was worth your trust.”
         This was true.
         “Yes, we were great friends, and I loved him. And he told me he loved me and I believed him then as I believe him now.”
         “I believe he did—I know he does. He respects you in a way he doesn’t anyone else. He answers to you, but them he could take or leave. It’s remarkably clear that you two have very strong ties and he’s certainly never shy to threaten anybody away from you. Do you think he cares if those other girls sport with other men? And they do, Lucy. Face it, Billy the Kid dotes on you, sweetheart. You’re different—he loved you first before any intimacy, and I know that’s a fact. He didn’t simply want sex, he wanted you, and that’s not so with anyone else. And I know it that the other girls want what you have. They want Billy the Kid, but they don’t have the history to truly have him as you do.”
         I frowned. “I know it, and I hate it. That loathsome cross of a name makes him that much more attractive to the girls, and in my opinion, I find that…that prestigious epithet ridiculous—a blight on his character. I find it foolish and scornfully reject it! But, Jimmy, he was never left wanting in affection from the fairer sex since before all of this.”

I considered the truth of what Jimmy had said, about the girls wanting Billy more because of his reputation as an outlaw. But the more Jimmy had talked, the more questions I had. The only person who could give me the straight answers I wanted was Billy.
         That night as I lay in bed, I waited up for Billy. As soon as he entered the room I started in on him.

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