Author: Amber Foxx

Author of Mae Martin psychic mystery series.

New Book Coming in November

That’s my excuse for not blogging at all in September. I was finishing the book.

Smoking Mirror

The ninth Mae Martin Psychic Mystery

 Is she a good witch, a bad witch, or not a witch at all?

A house healer arrives in Truth or Consequences, claiming to make houses sell by removing negative energy, but disasters follow her healing efforts. Disaster is also plaguing Mae Martin’s former high school teammate Jen. Mae has a few things in common with her: an ex-husband, a desire to run her own fitness business, and a background in sports. But not much else. Mae’s stepdaughters are visiting for a month, and they’d rather never see Jen again. But Jen asks for Mae’s help with what she thinks is a curse—in Maine.

It’s a terrible time to leave town, and not only because of the kids. Important relationships are fraying. Rumors are spreading about Mae not being a real seer and healer. Compelled to act when there are no good choices, she confronts the most powerful enemy she’s yet encountered—and she’s not even sure she can remove a curse. In trying, Mae risks more than she ever thought she could lose.

The Mae Martin Series

No murder, just mystery. Every life hides a secret, and love is the deepest mystery of all.

 

 

A New Mexico Mystery Review: The Sacred Bridge by Anne Hillermann

This is Anne Hillerman’s best book yet, a crime novel but also a book about culture, land, and history, set in various parts of the Navajo Nation in both New Mexico and Arizona. As always, her research is thorough and woven naturally into the flow of the story. The character development is deep, and the plot revolves around the inner workings of people— the victims of the crimes, the perpetrators, and the people solving the crimes.

The beginning of the book is a masterpiece in building tension, suspense, setting, plot, and conflict, when there’s only one character present: Jim Chee hiking alone at Lake Powell, discovering a crime as he’s contemplating what to do with his career. Meanwhile, Chee’s wife, Bernie Manuelito, is investigating another crime that she had the misfortune to witness. This second crime is somewhat based on actual events on the Navajo Nation that I’d read about. I immediately recognized the farm that inspired this story, and its misuse of Chinese laborers. The discovery of the full character and life path of the victims of these two different crimes is a fascinating and integral part of the process of solving them.

Bernie’s career development and Chee’s professional decisions and spiritual explorations are inseparable from the plot. Bernie’s younger sister Darleen’s maturation and use of her talents fit perfectly into the mystery. There’s not a single loose thread. Every subplot is tightly woven into the main plots.

This book kept me awake. When Bernie is coming to the end of her undercover assignment, the pace is intense and full of surprises—surprises that fit.  I like when a mystery hits me this way: Oh wow! I never saw this coming! But yes, of course that’s what happens.

Everything’s wrapped up and yet the book also ends in a way that makes me want to read the next one. Starting immediately.

The Heist

 I don’t know that it technically was a heist, but it felt like one. Is it illegal to rescue a rare plant from city property if the city is considering selling that land for development? The open space has been torn up by all-terrain vehicles that created rutted gullies, much rougher than the official marked hiking trail that runs along the edge of the bluff above the Rio Grande. The city wouldn’t sell the hiking trail, but they might sell the rest of the mesa. Despite the damage, it’s a cactus garden.

In the spring a few years back, I took to running in the gullies created by ATVs to escape the wind. As a result, I discovered an unusual, stubby little cactus with hot pink flowers and starry- patterned thorns. They were unobtrusive the rest of the year, and I could hardly find them when they weren’t in bloom.

Once the city decided they might sell the land. I worried about the little cacti. I put their picture on a New Mexico native plants website’s discussion board, and the unanimous reaction was “Save them!” Though not endangered, they’re rare and special. An expert in desert plants volunteered to rehome them to the arboretum she manages.

She drove all the way to T or C. We met on a road near the trail, I escorted her in, and she dug them up. I’d worried about how to do that, afraid I would hurt them or myself. She didn’t even use gloves, just stuck the shovel in the ground as if she could see through the soil to the exact span of the first plant’s roots, picked it up by those roots, and put it in a paper bag. Then she dug up the next one and laid it on its side on top of the first one’s bag in a plastic bucket with another bag on top. The third one was bigger, so I held a large tote bag open, and with flawless shovel management she slid the stoutest of the little cacti in.

As we returned to her car, the cactus I carried poked and scratched at my left leg through the plastic side of the tote bag, as if to say, what are you doing to me? I’ve lived here for years. We’ve been friends. You’ve admired me every spring, even brought me water once. What’s going on? How do you explain to a cactus that you’re trying to save its life in case its habitat gets razed for houses?

Anyway, off they went in bags and a bucket in the back of her car, and now they have a new home where rare desert plants are cared for and where visitors can admire them. I’m happy for these little cacti, even though I won’t see them on a regular basis anymore. I plan to visit them in the spring when they flower in their new home. And I will say no more about exactly where that is, in case this rescue really was a heist.

 

Never Tired of Miracles

Yes, I’m writing about rain again. Rain in the desert. I never tire of miracles.

I ran, despite the thunder, despite the lightning, daring the storm to get closer to me. The air was so soft, so cool, barely drizzling, not really a storm yet. Above, there was a blue hole in the clouds. The birds seemed excited, a pair of desert cardinals chattering and flying from bush to bush. Something in another bush made a loud ticking sound like someone running a stick across the slats of a wooden fence. I stopped in surprise, trying to see the source, but all I got was another noisy round of clicks. The temperature dropped down from the 80s to the 70s. I ran until the thunder moved in, and the sheer wall of gray across the lake became dark and solid, rain driving straight down from the sky as the gloriously cold wind grew stronger.

I finished my run a little sooner than I would have liked. I wanted to stay out on the trail, but the last time I’d lingered thinking, “Oh, that cloud sliding across the lake is just mist,” it turned into a storm that suddenly whipped through and drenched me. So this time, I left a little early, and the storm got stuck just behind the turtle on Turtleback Mountain. Still beautiful. Still a miracle.

 

Recharging while Charging

A few years back, I posted about buying gas for the last time.  It turns out the EV charging station I use most often is at a gas station.

That’s where I do some of my most relaxed reading. There’s something special about reading at a charging station. I have few choices how to spend that time. I could take walks, but charging stations most often are located at car dealerships and in parking lots. The one at a gas station in Elephant Butte is definitely not a scenic place for a walk. So, I put the sun shades in my windshield, and I pull a book from the stash on the floor of my passenger seat. There is nothing else demanding of my time, nothing else to do. It’s a little retreat, a little vacation.

People sometimes come up to me and ask, “How long does it take to charge that thing?” I answer that I only have to charge a couple of times a month, but it does take longer than buying gas. They say, “Oh, I wouldn’t be able to stand that.” They don’t grasp how much I enjoy having twenty or thirty minutes committed to nothing but reading.

I have a whole collection of charging station reads. Obscure New Mexico history books happen to be my favorite. I’m currently reading the memoir of a woman who married a cowboy when she had never ridden a horse or lived on a ranch before. She tells how she learned to be a cowgirl. Every chapter is another anecdote of ranch life back in the 40s and 50s on a place that didn’t even have electricity. What would the author think, to know I’m reading her life story while I plug in my car?

The only distraction is people-watching, a writer’s favorite hobby aside from reading. A gas station is still good place for that, even if I’m not buying gas,

 

Another Bob Story

A resident of the New Mexico State Veterans’ Home, Bob likes to talk about his years in the Marine Corps. I recently asked him to retell this story. It’s one of my favorites.

The war was over. Just barely. The troops had occupation duties in Korea. In Bob’s opinion, everything was fine, nothing to complain about as long as he wasn’t getting shot at. But there was the usual inequality between officers and enlisted men when it came to adult beverages. Enlisted men got warm beer. The officers had a new club. It was a Quonset hut, set on uneven ground, with dirt piled up around the edges where it didn’t sit flush to the earth, but it served good liquor. And the bartender was a friend of Bob’s.

The floor of the new club wasn’t finished. The bartender made sure a few boards remained loose. No one noticed since they were covered with a mat. The more remarkable thing is that no one noticed the tunnel. Granted, it was short, from the loose boards to some of the loose dirt at the edge of the Quonset hut, but Bob and his buddies must have dug silently. Men on guard duty at night were in on the plan. That also helped.

When inventory was taken at night in the club, the enlisted men tending bar made sure it all looked fine, then slipped a bottle under the boards into the tunnel. Later, someone would crawl in to retrieve it and hand it off to the guard. Somehow, it then got transported to a cache under a natural-looking pile of rocks. And the enlisted men occasionally got to enjoy as good a drink as the officers did.

The discrepancy in the inventory was eventually noticed. An officer confronted Bob, who assured him he wouldn’t do such a thing. “Risk six months in the brig for a sip of whisky? Not worth it.”

“We know you took it. But we can’t prove a thing, and you won’t crack. All I can say is that if the enemy ever captured you. I’m confident they couldn’t get a word out of you, either.”

Book Review: Heroes and Villains of New Mexico by Bud Russo

The short chapters in this historical collection cover times dating back to the Pueblo Revolt all the way up to the early days of space program research. Each character is thoroughly researched and portrayed with color and flair. I can’t possibly summarize all of the stories, but there were several that particularly struck me. Two had to do with a flood of the Dry Cimarron River, so called because it seldom flowed fully.

In the early 20th century, a tremendous monsoon filled the river to overflowing. One of the heroes in this book was a telephone operator named Sally Rook. By staying on the job despite the raging flood, she saved the lives of almost everyone in town as she called them while the storm and the waters closed in. Her courage truly moved me.

The aftermath of that flood allowed a cowboy named George McJunkin to discover what became known as the Folsom Site, with the famous Folsom points. It changed the understanding of prehistory in North America. McJunkin had been enslaved in Texas until age fourteen. After the Civil War, the free young man moved to New Mexico, became a cowboy, and worked in exchange for reading lessons as well as  money. He became a self-educated naturalist. He was riding fence when he found what he was sure were not modern buffalo bones exposed by the recent flood. And he noticed indications of human activity in the area. He tried to get scientists to study what he had found, but they ignored his letters and even the bones he sent. After all, he was just a cowboy. Many years after he died, the site was finally investigated.

The heroes range from people who made great discoveries to people who risked their lives or lost their lives to save others. Chester Nez, author of the outstanding autobiography, Code Talker, is one of those portrayed. I highly recommend his entire book, as well as the chapter about him in this book, I took my time reading it, getting absorbed in each vignette. The writing is a little over the top, but it definitely keeps you engaged. And I haven’t even mentioned the villains!

You know you’re in New Mexico when there’s a lizard on the dance floor.

When I arrived for the fund-raising party on the equine rescue farm, my favorite local blues band was playing in the shed where the feed for the animals is kept. A friend waved me to me through the window, encouraging me to come in and dance. There was a hole in the cement that I quickly learned to dodge, even while my dance partner spun me and swung me in and out. He pointed out a beautiful lizard running across the floor. It had patterns in its scales that reminded me of the eyes in peacock feathers done in shades of brown, probably a Holbrookia Elegans—elegant earless lizard. It ran into a corner. The band admired it and kept playing.

Most of the guests sat around tables outside and on the porch of the house, drinking, eating the potluck dinner. The view of Turtleback Mountain and the rough dirt hills was stunning, Bright blue sky, 101 degrees, a fine June evening. In a pen behind the shed where the band was playing were two gray-and-white donkeys, a white pony, a tiny brown-and-white mini horse, and a couple of mules. The pony was apparently upset with the mini horse, charging at him, kicking up dust. I approached the pen to pet the donkeys, and they both turned their backs to me. I took it as rejection, but was later informed that it was a gesture of trust. They were asking me to scratch their butts. I just don’t speak donkey.

When I returned to the shed, one of the party-goers was drinking tequila straight from the bottle. He was a round-bellied, very white man with tattoos on both arms and long white hair, but a rather young-looking face. He lives across the dirt road from the donkey farm, and said that he felt fine drinking the tequila, since he only had to walk home—which could still be a bit hazardous, though safer than driving. One night, he had stumbled and spent about twenty minutes in the ditch, which we agreed sounded like it could be a blues song. “Twenty Minutes in the Ditch.”

He said, “You can do anything out here that you want, and no one bothers you.” He also said there’s a cave you can see from Sixth Street, and that people sometimes live there for months at a time. I’m not planning on drinking in the ditch or sleeping in the cave, but it’s good to know that there are places that wild within the city limits. Dancing on the donkey farm was wild enough for me.

Did You Miss Something? Gifts and Thefts on Sale

Book 7.5 in the Mae Martin Mystery Series, Gifts and Thefts, is on sale for 99 cents through the end of July. This suite of six short mysteries fills in the year in Mae’s life between the end of Shadow Family and the beginning of Chloride Canyon. I had fun bringing back several characters from earlier books for roles in the short stories. Readers shopping on Amazon can click on a button to buy the series or remaining books in the series, but that click will deliver only the books with whole numbers. Other retailers sometimes show Gifts and Thefts on the series page, but they don’t have a series buy button. And you don’t want to miss this book. A lot happens in it!

Rodeo Regrets: Will Baca receives a cat from an anonymous giver, and his girlfriend suspects it’s from another woman. Mae Martin’s psychic journey into Will’s past on the rodeo circuit takes a puzzling twist while she’s solving the mystery behind the gift.

Responsible Party: Mae’s internship in fitness management gets stressful when her supervisor starts accusing other employees of theft and tells Mae to find the responsible party. Her efforts bring results neither of them expected.

Guardian Angel: When Jamie stops at a roadhouse in west Texas, a woman who won a pool tournament is in trouble and needs a guardian angel. Is he up to the job? Was he somehow called to it?

 Hidden Fish: Mae’s stepdaughters create an elaborate trivia treasure hunt as a Christmas gift for their Uncle Vaughan, leaving a trail of clues and origami fish hidden around downtown Truth or Consequences. But the fish vanish before Vaughan can solve the puzzle, and the children ask Mae to find out what happened. At Jamie’s New Year’s Eve concert, she’s caught between the suspects.

Tipped Off: Who would leave a hotel housekeeper that big a tip, and why? Montana Chino has a birthday surprise for Mae, but first she needs Mae to do a psychic investigation into the suspiciously generous tip. Was there a mistake, or did the guest have mischief in mind?

Elephant: On the weekend Mae and Jamie attend two weddings, she can tell he’s keeping something from her. He has to resolve a problem before he can talk to her, though. A problem that began almost a year before, with the arrival of Will’s gift cat.

Pictures I Didn’t Take

I often get a powerful urge to stop and take a picture. Then I don’t do it, for many reasons, but primarily because it takes me out of the moment. Instead of experiencing where I am and what I’m seeing, feeling, hearing, and smelling, I’ll get wrapped up in composing a picture to post. Granted, I would love to share the experience, but this urge usually occurs when I’m by myself out in the desert on a long run. If I pull out my camera and try to find some shade where I can actually see my screen and then make adjustments, I’m missing part of part of the joy of running. If I were a photographer, this would be joy to stop and take a picture. I admire and deeply appreciate the work of gifted photographers.  But that’s not my creative form. Words are. So, here are the words.

A fox den that lasted two days. I think the fox realized it had dug in too close to a well-used trail. So much work for a couple of busy nights, and now there’s a cobweb draped over the entrance. It’s been there for a long time. Sometimes location is everything. The shade of that big juniper, alas, was a bad location.

The bats. At sunset, they come pouring out from behind the mural on a roofless building. I met a friend on the way there one evening. She also loves the bats. As we watched them emerge in an erratic cloud, a complex aerial ballet, she laughed in delight. They have that effect on me too, as if their sonar is vibrating something positive deep inside us that creates pure happiness.

Other things I haven’t taken pictures of are odd moments where something looks out of place on the street, and I think “I should take a picture of that. That’s strange.” Maybe nobody else would think it was odd or interesting. I don’t take the picture. I have my moment and keep going.

I often think of a friend who told me about being near the edge of a woodland with her father when a herd of deer exploded from the trees. Her father was scrambling in the car for his camera so he could get a picture of the deer while she watched them leaping past. By the time he got his camera out, the deer were gone. Pictures I haven’t taken are moments that I lived. I’ll share them some other way. Some will show up in my stories. I’ll remember them when I need them. A pyrrhuloxia, a desert Cardinal, perched atop of a half dead tree in the desert has a place in the book that I’ve just started. He’s going to show up near the end as a significant and meaningful sight, with his brown-gray body and his red crest and his three different songs pouring out. I saved him in my memory, but I didn’t take his picture. (Someone on Wikipedia did.)