Drago #3 , livre ebook

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138 pages

English

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Description

The Coquille River is haunted. So the legend says.

When Nick and Sal see a ghost paddle wheeler, they're caught in a puzzling whirlpool that's historic and international.

Sujets

Fiction

Informations

Publié par	eBookIt.com
Date de parution	05 septembre 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781456604981
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0405€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Just a few reviews…
I love the Drago series, each story is exciting and full of surprises. This is a great book to purchase for yourself or as a gift; it's hard to put down and leaves you looking forward to future books featuring Nick Drago and his mystery solving friends. – Tracy A., California
Just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed your books, I even figured out the user name and password. However Drago and his buddy sure do eat a lot. Looking forward to book 3. – Diane M., Michigan
Great read!... Started reading and quickly got to the point I couldn’t put it down… -- ST , Oregon
Darn you, Drago. You made me late for work! – MJ, Oregon
…a 3-D jigsaw puzzle of clues… (Western World newspaper)
Great read capturing my attention from page 1. – CGM, Oregon
(My wife) liked your book… but can’t download (Drago #2) from Amazon! – U.K. (Author’s note: We’ll send a copy to her.)
Great books, next?? – FG, Oregon

For a free autographed Drago Bookmark, email your address and name to Arts@cnwmr.com
To have your copy of Drago autographed, mail it to
PO Box 744, Bandon, Oregon 97411
Include your mailing address. We’ll pay return postage.

E-books available at most electronic-book web sites or go to www.cnwmr.com/DRAGO for a link to our web store where you can download in any of multiple formats depending on your electronic-reader device.

DRAGO #3

Art Spinella

Copyright 2011 by Art Spinella

Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0498-1
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Art Spinella. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Most businesses and locations, however, are real. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. For a closer look at Bandon, Oregon, go to www.Bandon.com .

Cover design: D. T. Spillane
Audio book version in 2011 by Pasta Studios
Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATION

In memory of Sue Tate, a friend.

THANKS TO:
Grover Hatcher and Debby Johnson
(WinterRiver Books, Bandon)

Bill “Country” Hagedorn
(Showing mere mortals how it’s done)

Jesse Morrow
(For getting Cookie to ride)

Richard and Karen Line
(Dicky, would you like a 1664?)

David Kimes
(Always a joke or a puzzle to tell)

George Dukovich
(Big weapons for small problems)

Bubba Watson
(Little weapons for big problems)

Bruce and Kittie Lou English
(Hot rod builder, friends, fountains of ideas)

SPECIAL THANKS FROM THE HEART TO:

Tracy, Danielle, McKae, Rick, Jesse
(Kids. Don’t you just luv ‘em?)

And, of course, Cookie

WITHOUT THE ABLE ASSISTANCE OF THE BANDON HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM, DRAGO #3 WOULD HAVE NOT BEEN POSSIBLE.

COVER PHOTO OF THE DORA AND INTERIOR PHOTOS OF COMMERCE ON THE COQUILLE RIVER ARE FROM THE BANDON HISTORICAL SOCIETY ARCHIVES.

WHEN IN BANDON, PLEASE VISIT THIS RICH WAREHOUSE OF OREGON COAST HISTORY.
PROLOGUE
Americans are constantly barraged with information. More than most need or want. So it’s often difficult to take a step back and in hindsight look at what our ancestors had to do to simply survive. This is especially true among those rural folks in places like Oregon where distances are far and travel until the 1930s perilous.
On a trip through central Oregon, my wife and I ran across a small, worn and weathered plaque telling the story of a man whose “day job” was delivering mail on horseback between two distant towns. The trip would take days in each direction. The weather ranging from scorching hot to bitter cold. Toss in a few massive thunderstorms or the constant, irritating Oregon rain just for kicks. Living alone in the wilderness meant his second job was hunting and trapping for food to last through the long, frigid high-desert winters.
For farmers and ranchers in the 1800s and before, households didn’t survive on a single worker. They relied on both adults and all of the children busting sod or raising cattle or sheep or sowing a variety of crops or picking those same crops in order to sustain themselves.
Loggers’ wives nailed down the homestead because the man was often gone days at a time doing the often deadly work of cutting timber. Women not only raised children, they worked for a pittance as teachers, shop clerks, laundresses, and even some in the darker skills.
Ships’ crews spent weeks, often months, without benefit of communications with loved ones at home while wives and children earned meager income from performing what would now be considered menial chores for others.
Reading school history books provides a one-dimensional glimpse into the lives of Americans before the 1940s. To get the real picture of this country’s hard men and hearty women requires time in the many small-town historical museums. This is where true history is displayed, one village at a time. Look at the photos that hang on the walls. The rail-thin laborers, the rickety equipment, gritty towns, shabby houses and faces aged beyond their years.
Surprisingly, you won’t feel sorry for those rural folks. They somehow look stern, strong and independent. You might even find yourself admiring their guts, stamina and resiliency. I know that I do each time I roam through places like the Bandon Historical Society’s Museum.
Drago #3 is rooted in Bandon’s history with a parallel story line planted in today’s world of high tech. Let your imagination roam and wander the past and future. And if you get the chance, when in a small rural town that happens to have a history museum, drop in. It’s uplifting to see how far we’ve come and enlightening to see the lengths our predecessors went to survive. --- Art Spinella

As with Drago #2, we have included a User ID and Password for access to a hidden Drago #3 Page on our www.cnwmr.com/DRAGO website.
PREFACE
Sal and I slumped into a booth at the La Fiesta Mexican restaurant in Old Town Bandon, waved for a couple of Dos Equis and some salsa and chips. Both arrived in mere seconds.
“Topic of the night,” I said.
The big man swigged the first draught from his frosted glass.
“Best science fiction writer of all times. I vote for Jules Verne.”
“E. E. Doc Smith,” my response.
This was a habit we’d somehow gotten into years before. Nothing helps time pass quicker over a good heavy meal of burritos, refried beans and rice than a lively discussion.
“Who the heck is E. E. Doc Smith?”
“Only the greatest science fiction writer of all time, that’s who.”
The chips were extra crunchy tonight, the salsa hard on the spicy side.
Perfect.
“How about the economic reality of a weak dollar.”
I made a snoring sound that got the attention of the couple at the table behind us. Okay, so the disrespectful nose-noise bordered on a bellow. Sorry.
My turn. “Dogs make better pets than cats.”
“False. Cats are more independent.”
“Snotty.”
“Loving.”
“Demanding.”
“Easier than horses to keep.”
More Dos Equis , more chips and salsa.
Sal sighed long and hard. “The moon landing was faked.”
“We agreed on that one already. It was. Besides, we talked about this just a few months ago.”
My turn again.
“What’s the most physically demanding sport?”
“Hockey.”
“Soccer.”
“Football.”
“Baseball.” That made both of us laugh, but it had the potential to be an interesting discussion.
“Sports it is. You first,” I said.

CHAPTER ONE
“Pinch me.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Pinch me,” I repeated.
“Nick, it’s 3 o’clock in the morning. You talked me into coming down here. You haven’t said a word for maybe an hour. And now all you want is me to pinch you?”
“Pinch me.”
Sal opened one eye, tipped his big bearded head off his chest to look in my direction then saw what I saw.
“Holy crapola on a bagel.”
________________________________________________
It started when I couldn’t sleep. The bed felt empty, the night too warm and restlessness wiggled through my body. 1:17 a.m. No use tossing and turning so I climbed from the mattress and made way to the living room.
Night sounds in a rural house are different from those in a city or suburb. Here the outside noises are natural. No car tires hissing on concrete, no distant music or buzz of electric street lights, the air a low hum of activity somewhere, carried to even the most distant city-bound ‘burbs through atmospheric vibrations.
Willow Weep night sounds are simple. Wind through the pines, tree frogs croaking in unison then stopping in unison then starting again. A distant barking dog and the roll of the ocean. Scurrying feet of a stray cat looking for food or the thunking of raccoons taking apart the bird feeder to get the last morsel of seed. I’m pretty much to blame for the raccoon thing at Willow Weep, me with a semi-pet bandit named Lilly. She’s a loner who adopted me some years back and expects a bowl of dog food topped with a chocolate wafer every night.
Sal lives by the Middle Age’s two-sleep cycle. If he’s not hangin’ at Willow Weep, he turns in early then prowls his house’s many diversions from midnight to three returning to bed til seven. So I knew he was up and about when I called at 1:19 a.m.
“Hey sunshine,” he said.
“Can’t sleep. Going down to the river and sit for a while. Want to come?”
“The Volt and I will be there in five.”
Rocky Point is one of many fishing ramps along the Coquille River. Upriver, the city of the same name. Down river, Bandon. Many a time the boys, Cookie and I would put the 17-foot Smokercraft into the murky water at this spot. We’d head toward Coquille and basically just take in the sights. Fishing isn’t one of my strong suits so these rides were more a way to unwind from the grind of work, chores and the daily schmutz that clutters up a person’s life.
February had been unseasonably dry and warm which was fine by me. Whil