FFB – Blind Justice at Wedlock

This was my fourth western novel, published under the penname Ross Morton in 2011. I’d toyed with the idea ever since seeing Rutger Hauer’s film Blind Fury; though it had probably been gestating as a concept even earlier, since about 1970 when I read Dan Galouye’s Dark Universe (1961).  Galouye was praised for creating ‘the country of the blind’ – two underground races have been marooned in darkness for generations; one sees by using sound and echoes while the other has learned to recognise outlines through infra-red sensitivity. To write a story without visual cues is no mean feat.

I was up for that challenge. I’d create a protagonist who was blinded but didn’t allow that to deter him on his quest to rescue his wife. The hard part was writing Clint’s POV with only reference to sounds and smells.

Here’s the prologue: Brutally disrupted life.

When Clint Brennan came to, he felt Mutt’s tongue licking his temple and cheek. Maybe the dog had brought him back to consciousness. He opened his eyes and realized that the world had changed. It was forbidding and dark. In more ways than one, light had gone out of his life. He raised his left arm and stroked the animal’s matted hair where the bullet had entered Mutt’s flank; it had bled some, but the fur was now just slightly tacky. He heard the dog’s steady panting and smelled his breath, but he couldn’t see him. The brutal truth was that he couldn’t see anything. He was blind.

            His memory was hazy at best, so he attempted to take stock. The sun was up and burning the left side of his face, its position and intensity telling him it was about noon. He guessed that he’d been out of it a good two hours or so. He was lying on his belly and something was digging into him. Ignoring the pounding in his head that wouldn’t go away, he rolled over and then felt the pain in his left leg. Scattered shards of memory started to pierce his thoughts, flickering like a lantern show, but they didn’t present a coherent picture.

            The sun – or perhaps fear – made him sweat. Fear for himself, thrust into this unwelcome darkness, an unknown territory. Fear for Belle, his wife. Where was she? Why wasn’t she here to help him now, when he needed her? As much as he wanted to worry about Belle, some hidden knowledge or instinct shied his thoughts away from his wife.

He felt his forehead crease with the confusion of his mind, and he raised a hand to the dried blood around his eyes and the bridge of his nose. God Almighty, but his head pounded.

            Heaving a great sigh, Clint pushed away the dark foreboding that threatened to envelop him and eased himself up onto his knees. That hurt some. His hand touched the wound: he’d been shot in the thigh. When or how, he wasn’t quite sure. Crippled and blind, with Belle unaccountably absent from his life, an all-consuming despair soaked into his bones and made his shoulders slump.

Slowly, methodically, he scrabbled in the dirt and found what he’d been lying on – his Winchester rifle. He gripped its stock. Perhaps it would be for the best. He didn’t believe he could exist in this condition and it wouldn’t be fair to abandon his wounded dog. With a heavy heart he levered a .44 rimfire cartridge into the barrel. ‘Well, Mutt, I guess this is the end of the road for both of us.’ His voice croaked and his mouth was terribly dry. ‘You first, old boy, then I’ll join you.’

            Mutt seemed to sense his fate and shuffled closer on his forelegs, rubbing his wet nose against his master’s knees. Trusting to the end.

            An almighty surge of humility and grief overwhelmed Clint Brennan. He closed tight his unseeing eyes and swore. He couldn’t do this: it was against everything he and Belle believed. In the three years they’d been married, they’d buried two babies out back. The heartbreak and the tears were testimony enough that they cherished life, and mourned its loss. Life was precious, to be savoured, despite the aches and pains. As his father used to say, ‘If we never had any storms, we’d never appreciate the sunshine.’

Lowering the weapon, he stroked his dog. ‘Let’s have a look at that wound, eh?’ Then he laughed bitterly at his choice of words.

Gently, he ran his hands over the faithful animal’s body; Mutt yelped just the once – only the single wound, then. He experienced another flashing image from his recent past. It was all coming back now.

Painful though it was, the returning memory helped to impart some kind of sense to his present predicament. The irony was not lost on him, that in his mind’s eye he could see what happened. Terrible though it was, it seemed that it was going to be the last thing he would see in this life. If he was destined to lose his sight, and it looked that way, then it would have been more bearable if his last view of the world had been a pleasant one.

***

I chose the name Clint as a nod to my childhood idol, Clint Walker. As he remembers what happened, Clint recalls his wife being kidnapped by three desperadoes. Despite his new blindness, he resolved to track them, using his dog. Astride his donkey Beatrice, he followed their scent…

On the way, Clint encounters two men who rob him, and also an ex-soldier who befriends him.  Belle believes Clint is dead – she saw him shot as her abductors dragged her off. When she is rescued by Gamlin, a rich gent, and taken to his opulent home in Wedlock, the man’s housekeeper and others are convinced she will make a good match for Mr Gamlin. The housekeeper, Mrs Kilbride, is a creepy creation; slowly, her motivation is revealed.

Ultimately, this is a psychological suspense quest novel with a smattering of the gothic. I enjoyed writing it.

 

This hardback book can still be purchased from the book depository post-free worldwide:

http://www.bookdepository.com/Blind-Justice-at-Wedlock-Morton-Ross/9780709091424

People who viewed this bought The $300 Man, Wyoming Strong, The Son, Blood Meridian, Lonesome Dove and Treasure Mountain, so it is in good company.

 

BLIND JUSTICE AT WEDLOCK

Latest Black Horse Western available on 30 May 2011. Can be ordered now! Even if Amazon has my penname reversed as Morton Ross...













The blurb goes something like this:

Clint Brennan interrupts two men kidnapping his wife Belle and he’s shot and left for dead. When he recovers his senses, his wife has gone and he discovers he is blind. Most men would give up there and then, but not Clint. Astride his donkey, he sets out with his faithful dog Mutt on the trail of his wife’s abductors.

Belle believes her husband is dead. She’s rescued, but not by Clint. Her saviour is protective and takes her to his grand home in Wedlock where she meets the charming housekeeper, Mrs Kilbride. Maybe here, they say, she can forget her husband and start a new life…

On the trail, Clint is waylaid by robbers but soon learns to combat enemies at night, when darkness is his ally. Distracted and delayed, he’s still determined to locate his missing wife.

A tale of betrayal and lies, it will all end at Wedlock, amidst flames and bullets.

Short story - Nourish a blind life

A recent online group discussion on writing about brain damage prompts me to republish this prize-winning short story; the judge’s comments are at the end. It is based on a real life. After the competition, it was published in the small press magazine Scribblers’ News. It's included in my collection of supernatural short stories seeking a publisher and also provides the collection's title.


NOURISH A BLIND LIFE
by Nik Morton

For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain
If, knowing God, they lift not hand of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
- The Passing of Arthur, Tennyson


Not long now. My tenacious hold on this mortal coil is weakening but I have no regrets as I look down and for the first time in sixty years see myself, lying there, still trapped within that faithful, old husk. There is no bitterness in me; the poor body served me well enough, impaired as it is: it kept me going until I met her and fifteen years beyond.

This floating sensation is unique. Perhaps it is euphoria, at being able to see, even if as through gauze; an out-of-body experience, a precursor to the final journey. Now I find myself with an adequate way with words, at long last able to express myself.

These gifts, of sight and using words, are blessings, but compared to her they are meagre.

For too long have my links with the world only been through touch, taste and smell. Before I die I would like to hear music rather than sense the marvellous vibrations.

Born deaf seventy-five years ago, I received little help. They were unenlightened times, at least in my village. People meant well, but shied away when I made strange noises, inept struggles to seek understanding and love.

Now, I realize they probably thought I was mentally retarded. Even if I had been, that was no reason to shun me. But people are like that. At least the ones I saw were - though that was only until a hereditary illness left me blind on my sixteenth birthday. The sudden immersion into perpetual darkness was horrifying, worse because I couldn't talk about it; nobody had bothered to teach me to vocalize.

Until I was 40 I sat at home every day.

I never knew my father: apparently, he deserted us, unable to cope with my presence, as if I was a stain on his manhood.

My mother ministered to my physical needs, but she was unable to provide any abiding sensory stimulus. That day when she did not come to get me up was almost as comparable to my abrupt descend into blindness. She'd died in bed. Trembling, I barged into her bedroom. She was cold, lifeless. I cried: I was intelligent enough to know that my existence was destined to change.

The next couple of days were a waking nightmare; strange, to talk of nightmares, when every waking moment is night.

(In retrospect, I know I should have fought the blindness Fate had thrust upon me, by familiarizing myself with my near surroundings, by going out with a stick. I should have learned to speak or at least voice comprehensible sounds. In mitigation, I can only say that if someone had guided me, if someone had had faith in me, then I would have managed these accomplishments. Instead, during my seeing years I was not even taught the rudiments of reading.)

As the well-meaning representatives of the Local Authority shepherded me from pillar to post, I tended to withdraw into my shell. Any attempts at communication were considered the movements of a severely retarded adult; I had long ago smelled their fear of me; perhaps my frustrations were interpreted as violence. I don't know; I can't remember...

What I can remember, though, is when she visited the home for the blind fifteen years ago; I was sixty.

I remember her first touch, gentle, inquisitive, her curiosity almost palpable in the air: I must have sensed her wish to communicate with me, for with great difficulty I refrained from responding in my usual slightly uncoordinated manner. Instead, I smiled.

Now, blessed with hindsight and visual memories previously unavailable, I can see how inane that smile must have appeared. But it offered her encouragement.

Over the weeks, and I had plenty of time, she gained my trust, and I hers.

She began to write letters on my palm; simple alphabet shapes, then stringing them together to form words, usually of things to feel and identify by shape and smell. 'Spoon' was one of my first words. She persevered, and I never gave up.

Eventually, we formulated gestures for 'Yes' and 'No'. I could almost feel her smile when we established this communication: it will probably be like this when we converse with another species, if we haven't already done so with the sadly persecuted whales...

Yes, with my pre-death blessings has come understanding of the world around me, a world taken so much for granted by the majority.

When she was permitted to wheel me outside into the garden it was a glorious sunny day. I delighted unashamedly in the sun on my face, in the breeze on my cheeks. Oddly, the scent of flowers seemed richer, more powerful in the gardens than in vases.

Months later I learned she had a family; they too had taught themselves some blind and deaf language and imparted it to me.

My joy was difficult to contain; I was being included in a family after so many many years.

I managed to build up a vocabulary of over two hundred nouns and a dozen or so abstract words like 'hot' and 'cold'.

Until my near-death astral revelations, though, I could not comprehend words for 'love', 'sad' and 'happy', so no matter how many times she showed me them and I could write them with letter-shapes, I couldn't understand them. Now I can. And of course I realize that you don't have to understand the words to feel their meanings. To me they are 'feelings-words', and I have experienced those emotions. I was sad on the days she or her family were unable to visit, I was happy when my surrogate family came.

A couple of years later I was taken to a Christening and was even allowed to hold the baby. It was a peculiar sensation, holding a young life in my arms. Infants are so trusting, so gentle and soft. I smiled, suffused with a glow of happiness, to know that this child was entire, not the guest of an imperfect body.

It must have been as a result of the christening that she learned that I had been confirmed shortly before being stricken blind.

A half-century after that fateful time I was offered the wafer and the wine; solemnly, I handed the chalice back, having taken my delicious sip. The glow of being received by her family was equalled by that moment; on my knees, I leaned back and smiled, content: I truly belonged again.

For fifteen years they included me in their family, in their world. They gave light to a blind man, faith to a nonentity, and words to relieve my silence.

They know I am failing fast.

Here she comes.

All those years and I have never seen her face.

It is a gentle, motherly face, with tear-brimmed eyes of hazel, her auburn hair slightly streaked with grey.

I remember how she last saw me, rocking on the chair in their garden, laughing out loud. I don't know why I was laughing, and I'm sure she doesn't either. Perhaps it was a presentiment of my imminent departure.

I so want to wipe her tears.

I can hear music, music of the spheres: all the beautiful music through the centuries flooded into my mind.

I smiled, knowing she would see that smile as I let go.

Judge's comments:
'I read a lot and like to think that I’m fairly hardened to the human experience. Your story, Nourish a blind life, however, moved me enormously. With a powerful understanding you avoided any mawkish melodrama. The ending, although sad, gave satisfaction knowing the narrator was soon to be free! Thank you.' – Eve Blizzard, dramatist and author