A Letter from the Dead & other stories

Jenny Closterman, of Lubbock, Texas, was engaged to Jim Westbrook.  

Jim was sent to Vietnam, where he was killed on Oct. 30, 1970.  

Jenny got Jim’s last letter twenty years later; 

"A Letter From The Dead.” The only thing worse then being Jim’s “widow,” was being Jim. Find out why. 

This book of four short stories include three other stories, two set in the “Old West.” Anyone who enjoys boys and ghosts and Texas, all in one, will love “William the Conqueror." 

Julia Robb began collecting psychic experiences from her Facebook friends, and found them so intriguing she decided to put them together in a book.  

One friend told her about a shadow spirit who flowed across the bedroom floor and physically attacked him, and another about a malevolent spirit who lived in his boyhood bathroom.  

One mother lost her beloved only son to an accidental overdose, but was not spiritually alone before or afterward. Spirits kept appearing to her, and she kept repeating, (about who we consider dead) “They’re Alive, They Really Are!”  

Julia herself has had psychic experiences, and she has stories to tell us.

Col. Mac McKenna's Fourth Cavalry recaptures white captive August Shiltz from the Comanche, only to find August is determined to return to the Indians. 

McKenna attempts to civilize August and becomes the boy's foster father. But when August kills another boy in a fight, McKenna rejects him. 

August escapes from Fort Richards (Texas), and when war with the Comanche breaks out, McKenna discovers August is a war leader–and his greatest enemy.

When daddy abandoned Nicki in Encendido, Texas in the late 1950’s, Nicki was too young to imagine her future. 

It seemed wonderful that Doña Paulita and her grandson, 

Frank Kendall, adopted her. She could not imagine falling in love with Frank, or the consequences if she did. 

David Rodríguez is Frank’s cousin. David didn’t fully understand how Frank felt about that particular kinship until he found himself in Huntsville Prison. 

Sheriff Robert Burkman needs his job. What will he do to keep it? Will he leave David to rot behind “The Walls” when he knows David is innocent? 

Father Dañiel Muñoz crawls down the aisle at his Catholic church, begging for forgiveness, inspiration, a visitation from God, anything to make life bearable. But he ends up the same way every time; heading for the Mexican border and its pleasures. 

Encendido, short for Santa del Corazón Encendido, Saint of the Burning Heart, is a town on fire.

The Union Army wants former Confederate Army general Beau Kerry for alleged war crimes, but he’s hiding out where the Yankees least expect to find him: in the United States Cavalry. Beau is fighting Apaches out West and praying nobody recognizes his famous face.

 But Lieutenant Kerry's luck changes when he runs into Sergeant Ike Jefferson and says, "The last time I saw you, I had you bent over a barrel and I was whipping you.” Ike is not only Beau's best friend (or worst enemy, depending on the day), he's Beau's former slave -- and Ike knows there’s a $5000 price on Beau’s head.  

Caroline Dietrich has vengeance on her mind. Married to Colonel Wesley Dietrich, the Union fort commander, Caroline believes the best path to getting revenge against the Yankees, her husband included, is seducing her husband’s officers. Especially Beau.  

From the killing fields of the Civil War, to the savagery of the Indian wars, the characters are also battling each other and searching for what it means to be human.

San Angela is a rough place in 1870, and Magdalena Chapas knows all about it; from the men who shoot holes in each other while drinking in her saloon, the Del Norte, to the man who loved her, married her and left her without a word. 

Now Ray Cortez is back, and Magdalena doesn't know what her ex-husband wants. Does it have anything to do with the gravestone she leaned on the Del Norte's back wall? 

The stone says, "Americo Chapas, 1823-1868, Asesinado, Dios Lo Vengara, Murdered, God Will Avenge Him." 

Sing Kum knows about men. She was freezing to death in a boxcar when Lan found her and nursed her back to health. But Lan has a past and ambitions Sing only discovers when it's too late. She already loves him. 

Dr. Wade Pickney knows what men can do because the Yankees locked him up in a POW camp during the war and almost starved him to death. Then they accused him of the unspeakable. 

Thomas knows what men can do because he was adjutant at the camp which imprisoned Wade. Thomas, Magdalena's partner at the Del Norte, also knows Ray Cortez is going to be the death of somebody if he, Thomas, doesn't stop him. Thomas tells Magdalena that Ray was not a good man but she can trust him, she can love him. 

"Shut up," Magdalena says, fending off the drunks, slipping the cards from the faro box, raking in the money, and waiting for her world to explode around her.

It’s 1876 at Scalp Mountain and Colum McNeal is fleeing gunmen sent by his Irish-immigrant father. Colum pioneers a Texas ranch, a home which means everything to him, but struggles to stay there: José Ortero, a Jacarilla Apache, seeks revenge for the son Colum unwittingly killed. 

At the same time, an old acquaintance, Mason Lohman, obsessively stalks Colum through the border country, planning to take his life. Colum has inspired the unthinkable in Lohman. In a time and place where a man’s sexuality must stand unchallenged, Colum has ignited Lohman’s desire. 

Other characters include Texas Ranger William Henry, who takes Colum’s part against his father while wrestling with his own demons. Henry’s family was murdered by Comanches and he regrets the revenge he took; and Clementine Weaver, who defies frontier prejudice by adopting an Indian baby, must choose between Colum and her husband. 

Scalp Mountain is based on the Southern Plains’ Indian Wars. Those wars were morally complex, and the novel attempts to reflect those profound, tragic and murderous complications. Everyone was right, everyone was wrong, everyone got hurt.