Author: Amber Foxx

Author of Mae Martin psychic mystery series.

Bob Stories: A Cup of Coffee at the DMZ

Bob told me this story as he enjoyed a fresh cup of hot black coffee on the patio at the New Mexico State Veterans Home on a ninety-nine-degree day. In the shade. the weather wasn’t bad—dry heat really is quite tolerable—and his coffee stayed hot. Bob loves coffee, and it has to be strong, hot, and black. According to him “there’s no such thing as strong coffee, only weak people.” His favorite beverage led to the story of a welcome cup seventy years ago.

Bob remained in Korea after the armistice. He liked the country and preferred to be there rather than go back to a base in California. On a rainy night, he was one of the men on lookout duty at the edge of the DMZ, lying under some sort of waterproof shelter with his rifle at ready. Rain dripped from a tree nearby, but it just missed him. The ground was rough, “not a place where you would go out for a stroll.” They had to hold still and stay alert “in case hell broke loose.”

One of his fellow Marines was sent out with fresh, hot coffee, not a job the guy delivering it liked, since he had to get wet. Bob was so grateful, though. He found a place in his shelter where the coffee could sit on a rock right within reach, protected by another rock, so the rain wouldn’t get in to cool or dilute the coffee. And then the wind blew a dribbling tree branch directly onto it.

The man who’d been bringing the coffee around came back to check on Bob.

Bob indicated the branch. “Can you do something about this?”

“Better yet. I’ll bring you a fresh cup of coffee.”

 

A New Mexico History Review: The Villista Prisoners by James W. Hurst

The great strength of this book is its emphasis on the ordinary people involved in the international incident at Columbus, New Mexico in 1916. The book is not about Pancho Villa. It’s not about General Pershing. It’s about the men who were captured during Villa’s raid on the small town on the border of New Mexico and Old Mexico. One of the Villistas captured was a twelve-year-old boy. Their stories—how they came to be in Villa’s army, whether or not they knew they were in the United States, whether they wanted to be doing what they were doing—were matters of controversy at the time.

The author is an excellent historical detective, learning everything about these men that he could. Many of were illiterate conscripts who had been forced into Villa’s army; others had joined because they feared the army of his opponent, Mexican President Carranza. They didn’t want to be at war at all, though, and this issue came up in their trials, as did other questions Could the governor of New Mexico pardon them? Shouldn’t unwilling, illiterate conscripts be considered innocent? But there was a precedent set in both the United States and in Scotland that a soldier who follows an illegal order is still guilty of a crime.

I will not tell you how everything turned out them through the twists and turns of their of their trials. The book starts with the raid, not from the point of view of the leaders, but of the town’s people. And it ends with the fate of equally ordinary people entangled in international and national matters. I recommend this book if you have an interest in history and like to understand not only what happened and why, but who was involved and how they were affected.

 

The Back Room at Black Cat Books

On April 26, Independent Bookstore Day, I had the pleasure of doing a reading and signing at Black Cat Books and Coffee in Truth or Consequences. There were fresh flowers on the table where I was set up in the back room. To my surprise, the room was like a museum honoring a beloved Sierra County musician and luthier, the late Bill Bussman. He and his wife lived out in the middle of nowhere beyond Hillsborough, one of our living ghost towns, but people throughout this area and all over the country knew him because of his musicianship and the instruments he created. He was truly an original—warm and funny with irresistible charm. To learn more, read this article about him and this thread of posts from other musicians acknowledging his passing and sharing their memories of him. One of them mentions him playing the stand-up bass that had an Elvis head and a little red sneaker on its foot that tapped in time to the music. I heard him play that bass many times over the years. The bass wasn’t at Black Cat with me, but a number of his quirkiest creations were: the red chiles, the watermelons, and the bass bass. (Note the knives in the watermelons.)
While I was there, I had the pleasure of meeting fascinating people. Some were buying my books. Some of were there to talk—about my writing, about their writing, about their travels and families, and more. A retired New Age pastor told me about the life she left behind in California and some behind-the-scenes tales of famous spiritual teachers—a bit like something out of one of my books. When people tell me stories, it helps me write stories. And surely, the spirit of Bill Bussman lent light and delight to us all.

Senior Woman Seen Doing Flips!

An ad for one of the national EV charging networks shows a woman doing tree pose while her car charges. It seemed like a good idea to me, except for standing beside the charger. The charging station at the Dona Ana County Government office center in Las Cruces is right next to a busy street and in full sun. I plugged in my car and found a quiet, shaded place for yoga, a large, recessed area between the county offices and the sheriff’s department. I took off my hat and left it on the paved floor, then did basic standing poses (Warrior One, Warrior Two, and related poses), then some one-legged standing balance poses. I was right side up, which matters later. For seated poses, I moved to a bench, since I didn’t want to sit on the pavement. Then I collected my hat and returned to my car, relaxed and refreshed, but sneezing.

I was sitting with the door open taking a stinging nettle capsule for allergies when suddenly there were people outside my car. Two sheriff’s deputies, a young woman and a very large man.

The woman wanted to know what I was doing. I thought, “Oh my gosh, do they think I’m using drugs?” Alarmed, I said, “I’m taking my allergy medication.” I’d already swallowed it and couldn’t show it was a harmless herb.

“Someone reported that you were doing flips, and they wanted to know that you were all right.”

Flips? I got out of my car. “I was doing yoga. I was stretching. I didn’t flip.”

“This person was worried about you. You left your bag.”

“I didn’t have a bag. I’d put my hat down.”

“We needed to check that you’re okay.”

So, I executed a deep forward bend with straight knees, hands flat on the ground, then repeated the three one-legged balances in sequence, never putting the second foot down as I made the transitions. “I did that. I think that means I’m okay, right?

The female deputy said, “Yeah, I can’t do that.”

“Okay, then?”

They allowed that I was and left.

Bird Meditation

The mystery in the book I’m currently writing centers around a missing birder and the people who care about him. To enter the experience of my characters, I needed to learn more about birds. Learning facts is useful, but what’s even more meaningful is paying attention. I’m starting to understand why people become birders.

I discovered the small songbirds were quieter in Elephant Butte Lake Park on the trail in the middle of the desert than when I ran on a dirt road behind a nearby residential neighborhood. The further I went, the more songs I heard. Are the trees taller in this neighborhood? Do people feed the birds? Are there more predators in the park than in back yards? The park sounds different, full of Gambel’s quail and their single-note mews or squeaks and occasionally the loud, laughing calls of roadrunners.

On a recent evening the weather was beautiful, the end of a rare spring day without wind. I walked down to the Rio Grande, expecting that all the migratory birds would have left the river by now, but a scattered raft of coots still swam there, clacking and honking and grunting and beeping. A heron soared and circled without flapping its wings for much of its flight, even though, at an earth-level perspective, the air was still. It landed on the other side of the river a few bushes away from where a man was fishing. He acted excited when he caught a fish. The bird held perfectly still and did not catch a fish. Yet.

A coot flipped upside down and disappeared underwater for an incredible length of time. A red-winged black bird in a tree next to the river sang, and one answered from a tree in the wetland on the other side of the parking lot, trilling back and forth to each other. Birds in bushes along the hot ditch, where hot spring water from home tubs and spas empties into the river, were singing a chorus, a symphony. The extraordinary range of sounds silenced my mind. The human world has been a bit stressful lately. As I grew absorbed in the world of birds, everything else fell away, leaving only wings and feathers, swimming and flight, and music.

Bob Stories—Jobs and a Robber

My eighty-nine-year-old friend Bob has often said that he never had trouble getting a job. He described a job interview he had once as a young man. The employer asked him what kind of work he was looking for, and he said, “Anything you tell me to do.”

The employer said, “I like that attitude. But … what if I asked you to kill someone?”

Bob replied, “Well, I know how.”

The man said, “What?” And Bob explained he’d been in the Marines, trained in hand to hand combat. He assured him he really had no intention of taking that sort of job but was otherwise willing to do anything. That was good news for the employer, because what he needed Bob to do was shovel a lot of horse manure.

After Bob had been working for a while, the barn owner asked, “How do you stand the smell?”

Bob told him that his summer job in high school had been on a farm with sixty cows, so he could get used to anything. If you paid him, he’d do the work.

This leads into the next story. In Philadelphia, shortly after getting out of the Marines, Bob was, as he put it, walking on the wrong side of the street. A man came up close and shoved a gun in his ribs, demanding, “Give me your money.”

The way Bob describes it. “For some reason I wasn’t scared. I felt like I was in control. The robber made a mistake, getting the gun too close. He didn’t know what he was doing.”

Bob twisted the gun back at him and asked, “Why do you want to do that?”

“I need the money,” the would-be robber replied.

“Then get a job.”

“I’m desperate. I don’t have time.”

“Yes, you do. Have you got time for the trouble you’ll get into if you keep doing what you’re doing?”

The guy left.

Two years later, Bob ran into him in a bar. “You gonna stick a gun in my ribs?”

“No, actually, I did what you said. I got a job. I was starving for the first week until I got paid, and then I ate like a hog for the first two days that I had money. But now I’m doing fine. Thank you.”

Or that’s the way the story goes.

There is still beauty.

As I watered the forsythias, a soft, humming fountain of bees rose up from the flowers. The plants are hardy and ask for little, but they’re working hard now, the first to flower at the end of what passes for winter here. The bees gave me joy. Certain flighted creatures silence my mind into bliss—bees, bats, sandhill cranes circling with their purring, gargling songs. They sound like crows who took voice lessons from doves.

The internet did me a favor and cut off, waiting exactly until the end of a Zoom yoga class I was taking. I missed sharing “Namaste” with my teacher and classmates, but after that, I was free from listening to the news online or reading the news or my email.

When I needed a break from writing in the evening. I took a walk. Jupiter was glowing in the West, huge and pale gold. Straight overhead, Saturn shone. Further east was Mars, a steady red dot. The streetlights are weak and few in my neighborhood, and the night sky glitters. I invited a neighbor out to share the planet-and-star show. Disconnected from the world, we reconnected with the universe and each other.

 

Uphill Against the Wind

High winds. No rain.
Hot air blows. A dangerously early spring.
This land I love could burn before it blooms.
I run on desert sand so dry
it slips beneath my feet.
I’m going nowhere.
Firm ground tempts me to linger
on a sheltered stretch of trail.
Jogging back and forth. Going nowhere.
A parhelion glows, an opalescent shell in the cloudy sky.
Rose, violet and mango hues surround a turquoise eye.
I change my stride, long and low, and lean into the gusts.
I can do this.
Uphill against the wind.

Whole Series Price Drop

 

Book one in the Mae Martin Mystery Series, The Calling, is now $2.99, and the other books are now $3.99. Buy from your favorite store and stock up your e-reader.

Need to keep track of your place in the series? Here’s a guide to the dates and settings and sequence. Follow psychic and healer Mae Martin from North Carolina, where she first discovers her gifts, to her new life in New Mexico. Happy reading!

A New Mexico Mystery Review: Lost Birds by Anne Hillerman

The title refers to Navajo children who were adopted out of the tribe and raised without knowledge of their culture. Joe Leaphorn is hired as a private investigator by such a woman who hopes to find her Navajo family. Another lost bird is a woman nicknamed Songbird, not a lost bird in the sense of an adoptee, but a missing person. She is Leaphorn’s other case, as he’s been hired by her husband. And at the same time, the school where the woman was a music teacher and the husband works as a custodian is struck with an explosion. Bernadette Manuelito is brought in to help investigate.

The weaving of plot threads in this book is extraordinary. Navajo rugs and weaving play an important part—a rug found in the car of the missing woman along with the body of someone who might be her, and a rug in an old photograph that’s a clue to the lost bird, Stella’s, family history.

My sense of the whole book is of a masterpiece of weaving, of stories within the story. There’s the story of Cecil, the custodian, who narrowly escapes the explosion, fearing that someone did it to attack him. He has a terrifying experience, pursued by people to whom he owes money. Then there’s the story of Leaphorn’s beloved friend Louisa and her troubled adult son. When Leaphorn and retired Captain Largo race to be on time for a rescue, I couldn’t stop reading. It’s one of the most intense scenes in a mystery I’ve ever come across.

Though this book is layered with mysteries, chases, and moments of danger, it has none of the clichés, none of the tired tropes, of the mystery genre. It is entirely original.

The characters are, as always, portrayed with great depth. Navajo culture also portrayed with depth and knowledge. The family stories are woven fully into the plot, so you never feel like you’ve gone on a digression. The scenes at a trading post as Leaphorn discovers rugs that may be connected with his client’s Navajo family are quiet but profound and beautiful and just as absorbing as the more intense sections.

I was stunned by the end. I never would have thought that particular person had done that particular crime, and yet, as with any good mystery, it all makes sense.

It was a pleasure to spend so much time with Joe Leaphorn. He’s a character that Tony Hillerman wrote with insight, and Anne Hillerman has gotten to know Leaphorn equally well. I look forward to the next book in the series.