Jackalhound on the Trail

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Mister Eclectic

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INTRODUCING A PROTAGONIST ABSOLUTELY UNCONNECTED WITH ANY STORY WRITTEN BY ME UNDER MY MORE FAMILIAR USERNAME OF "COPPERFOX." WHAT I'M DOING ACTUALLY REACHES BACK TO MY TEENAGE YEARS, WHEN I TRIED INVENTING AN AVENGING HERO LIKE "THE PUNISHER." HE WOULD POSSESS MIND- OVER-MATTER POWERS-- THIS, DECADES BEFORE I EVER THOUGHT OF MY FUTURISTIC HERO GREY EAGLE.

>>>> JOHN "EVENING STAR" BURKITT, FOUNDER OF TRAIL LIFE U.S.A., HELPED MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR ME TO SET UP THE MISTER ECLECTIC IDENTITY, WHICH WOULD ENABLE ME TO MAKE THIS NEW STORY ESPECIALLY DISTINCTIVE. NOW, GUESS WHY I AM STICKING THE WORD "TRAIL" INTO MY NEW SHORT NOVEL'S TITLE.

<<<< THOSE WHO KNOW ME AS COPPERFOX KNOW THAT I OFTEN INVITE READERS TO BREAK THE FOURTH WALL FROM THEIR SIDE, SO THEY CAN *WITNESS* THE CREATIVE PROCESS AS IT HAPPENS. HERE, I'LL FLIP THE METHOD. THIS WILL BE THE FIRST TIME EVER THAT I'VE WRITTEN A STORY IN FIRST-PERSON NARRATIVE. IT'S A STYLE COMMONPLACE FOR DETECTIVE NOVELS.

IF YOU WILL, I'M SUGGESTING THE WHAT-IF: SUPPOSE MIKE HAMMER, SAM SPADE OR PHILIP MARLOWE HAD MIND-OVER -MATTER POWERS LIKE THE GREY EAGLE. STILL ANOTHER DETAIL NEEDS TO BE PROVIDED: LIKE THE PARALLEL-TIME NOVELS OF ERIC FLINT, OR THE OLD TELEVISION SERIES "SLIDERS," I'M NOT WRITING ABOUT ANY 4TH-DIMENSIONAL TRAVEL TO THE PAST OR THE FUTURE. THE MOVEMENT IS SIDEWAYS. THE STARTING POINT IS A VERSION OF EARTH WHICH ISN'T OURS. THE YEAR AS WE START IS 2011; THE DAY IS SAINT PATRICK'S DAY.

OUR SOLILOQUY- TELLING PROTAGONIST IS PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR JOHN PEPPER .......THE JACKALHOUND.



CHAPTER ONE: Cleaning House In Kalifurnia

Whoosh-WHACK! The woman with the caustic whip had good aim; her flesh- burning lash darted between the two nearest of her henchgoats without touching them. Not only her aim was cunning, so was her timing. Barely two months after I'd been pinged by the carcatels, many jackals had formed an estimate of my telekinetic aim-shift. I'd been on a strong inward phase, yanking those men off balance, and she snapcracked in an effort to get ahead of my next outward push and yank ME toward her.
 
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We interrupt the above begin-with-action fight scene to grumble about how easy it STILL IS to miss just one of those confounded bracket-with -forward- slash commands. And then the code status WON'T LET YOU go back and correct your obscure mistake. I could simply delete the above post and restart from scratch; but that would have me rewriting for another ten or fifteen minutes, when I should be getting near to bedtime. Wood Nymph's already retired to her room, and we were up late last night for a show in Colorado Springs.

On the plus side, having underline and color continue too far HAS NOT AT ALL made the existing fragment of opening scene unreadable; it merely looks amateurish, but you can understand what John Pepper is in the middle of.

I have said more than once that I like to let my readers watch my story-writing experience with me; well, THAT sure is happening. And I can make some lemonade from the blankety-blank fumble. Hence, a packet of UNSUBTLE EXPOSITION, more than I otherwise would have put up front.

The powers enjoyed by John alias Jackalhound were _NOT_ externally imposed on him without his consent, the way I have imagined Grey Eagle being. Telekinesis is organic to John. The single most distinct attribute of John's native Earth-variant is that persons with telekinetic ability do exist there.

The amateurish story called "Jackalhound" that I made up at around age fourteen had the hero's power be a secret. But on the Earth- variant where New Model Jackalhound was born, he is already known to be a metahuman.
 
CHAPTER ONE

Author speaking briefly: Might as well do a bit more of the backstage revelation for my readers' benefit. Here, in anticipation of resuming in earnest, I've returned to what works. I just fenced in a corral of writing space. I prompted the type font Courier New, then positioned multiple segments of place-holding words INSIDE the space between font-start and font- go. Eventually, I will write the rest of my disrupted combat scene, after which the mere place- filler words / gibberish will go away. That is, unless I decide that THEY ARE part of letting readers watch my process as an author.

The next voice you hear will be John Pepper, private detective, reporting to us a skirmish with organized criminals: not his first or twentieth such encounter since he became a consultant for many police departments in the Unified States of America.
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I bounded straight rearward. I could have added a backflip for effect, but it was more important to keep my eyes on her. My generalized sense of things around me wasn't sharp enough to be sure what she and her men did next.

They also chose to be cautious, wanting to be sure of what I did next.

A telekinetic downward-and-rearward push gave me the feel of my landing trajectory. Must keep the initiative. I swung my feet farther behind me; shot repulsion force back; and-- unexpected by foes who outnumbered me-- I flew to be a little above them. Then I reduced levitation output while still remaining airborne, and started aimed fire with my high- penetration rounds. My left hand grav-drew my backup gun, a shotgun-shell revolver. High-pen was for Tebbraline Mead; the enlisted stooges would be stung by hard pellets.

Mead was powerful enough in the door-splitter subculture that Provosteons would leave her alone if she kept her crimes below a certain severity, but not powerful enough that she could expect immunity from docket-call if she tried to kill honest people. Yestertime, I had learned to let my cerebral clutchlines assist my downrange peek. In case my memoirs ever get read by indigenoids of psychoneg worlds, this means my subliminote aim guided my sharp-nose bullet along the inside of Tebbraline Mead's left arm, without rupturing her brachial artery.

Sky canoes bore down on us from north-over-northeast. Liquid oxygen sprayshots, from high enough back that the dissipating oxygen wouldn't freeze their skin and ruin their lungs. Them glacking their breath out was enough pacifying to safeguard bystanders.

I hadn't seen Rosabel Curtis since last winter, when I'd passed her clues to a dream-steam smuggling ring. Now as she headed the roundup and I got out of the way, I saw her new ranksign elbow patches. Already up to Provostean Dawn Prime. Great work, Rosabel, bet you'll make Sky Prime in less than two years.


{{ On John Pepper's native Earth-variant, Biblical history is intact, the real God being the real God.}}

"The Consequence Room will rise," declared Judge Edgar Sebring. His Decency knew how often I had helped to prove guilty people guilty and prove innocent people innocent. He accordingly had an inclination to let me take the stand early in any trial. So I would soon be at liberty to grant a request from Sempel my nephew. Good kid. He'd been showing the telekinetic potench for almost a year now.

With Tebbraline Mead looking at eight winters non-parole, I headed for Las Gaviotas Bay. {{"Gaviota" means "seagull," and the place thus named equates to Monterey Bay.}} Sempel would be on the beach with his kite- enthusiast amigos, and (with their cooperation) he would be experimenting with nudging kites against the breeze from the Pacifist Ocean.

Till I could find an esposa- designate who was willing to share my hazards, encouraging my nephew was a no-subsidy self- taught hands-on curricarum for eventual fatherhood.



My father Huff Pepper was thermokinetic: not so powerful as to freeze a wide river or thaw out an already- frozen one, but he could relieve excessive heat or cold for anyone within arm's reach of him. This would last over an hour if helping no more than one adult companion; less time if more people needed help.

My still-living mother, born Lineeva Brown, has no metahuman gifts, but her credentials as a forensic chemist keep her in demand with every Provosteon center and insurance company west of the Messysippi River. She's also regarded, across an even wider territory, as the most eligible widow over the age of forty. Mind-reading doesn't exist on the Earth we know, but I don't need a psionic tip to know that Mom will never give the clock of day to any man who isn't worthy to walk Dad's trail.
 
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CHAPTER TWO

"Be honest, kids: how many of you envy people with mind-onto-matter talents?" Almost half of the girls in my audience, and several of the boys, raised their hands. It eyeballed for me like all the eldest children were among the non-hand-raisers. Naturally, those have had time to learn that conventional talents are valuable too. Like in classic illustrabooks: even though Seagull Man isn't bulletproof and can't organically fly, his non-psionic technology is just as valuable as Earthquake Man's jet-leaps, tremor-punches and immunity to burning or freezing. The Apostle Paulos did spell it out when he wrote about the variety of gifts.

"To make this personal," I remarked, "If I had tried levitating my nephew and myself down here from Bakersfield, walking when we weren't hop-flying, your next graduating class would be registering for college before Sempel and I arrived." My sister's son and I were paying this visit to a church school in San Diego, under the auspices of the Open Scroll denomination. Every child attending this boarding-optional school was made to understand that Zhesu Christ existed in the reality of every known Earth. Easier to grasp the same point about the other two Persons of the Triadity, since the Father and the Holy Spirit had never been confined inside palpable bone- and-blood bodies.

Tebbraline Mead's "culpable on all charges" verdict was old enough news by now that I could allocate more time to my between- missions activities. Sempel had asked me to take him to Washington D.C. to tour the Smithsonian Quadrangle, and to hear a lecture about the pre- Columbian Zapotec people escaping from the Aztecs to merge with the Catawba people in the Carolinas.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH-VARIANT IN MY STORY DO NOT AND CANNOT KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT "PRIMARY EARTH" TO KNOW THAT 20TH-CENTURY CATAWBA INDIANS THERE NEEDED HELP FROM FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT. ON JOHN PEPPER'S EARTH, COMBINED PSIONIC ABILITIES OF CATAWBAS AND ZAPOTECS IN JOHN PEPPER'S WORLD GAVE THEM SUCH PRESTIGE AS TO STAND HIGH IN THE RESPECT OF RED, WHITE AND BLACK PEOPLE.
 
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"Ameyal Coztic, while far from being the most powerful psychokinetic in history, was assuredly the most powerful among Zapotecs of her generation, and her gift was the most narrowly unconventional, never- duplicated type of manipulation." I knew Lecturer Trudy Biller had no psionic talent herself, but she could hold an audience with her elocution.

"When word reached her village that numerous native clans were lining up with Hernan Cortez, Ameyal saddled up her long- necked, woolly kawya-- which could not gallop so swiftly as the horses of the metal-clad newcomers, but which was teachable and possessed fine stamina-- and made for a Toltec village whose elders were known to have declared for the Spaniards. A Franciscan priest was present there, busy at learning the Toltec language.

"Ameyal carried an Aztec-style sawtoothed sword for self-defense, because her special power was not so strong as to guarantee thwarting an attack." Trudy paused to look here and there at the younger members of her audience. "Can someone tell me: if she was on the lookout for bodywise danger, what advantage did she perceptify in the maquihitl?"

I noticed how a tall black female, her attire suggesting she was an exchange student from the Greater Jamaican Union, gathered herself and rose. "Miss Biller, Mexicans living in my town say that Ameyal Coztic's psychokinesis always had to work in a circling, spiraling way. So if she carried a slashing melee weapon, holding it while her body whirled, she could mow enemies down."

This woman was a total stranger to me, and likely to remain so; but my instinct for observation had no Off switch. So the noticing part of my brain remarked to the processing part of my brain: Whoever she is, and whether we ever make her acquaintance or not, it remains true that she has a voice so sweet, we could pour it onto pancakes and eat it for breakfast. I freely agreed with myself on this point; but it was destined to remain a moot point. Although I would have welcomed social upandovertures from her had she made them, I and myself and me were not destined to see her again. Oh well, stuff happens, or doesn't. So, back to business, with a faint cerebral whisper about roads not taken.

"That's right," Trudy replied. "When Ameyal came within sight of Cortez's troops, they mistook her for an enemy and opened fire on her. But she had realized this might happen, so she was ready in her brain to execute the exact psychokinetic tactic to save herself and her kawya without harming others. She angled her force in such a way that all incoming musket balls and crossbow bolts went slanting and curving up and aside, soon expending their momentum and falling harmlessly to the ground. Before anything worse could ensue, Cortez understood what was happening, and ordered his men to regard Ameyal as a friendly. Before very long, Cortez and his priest were facilitating exactly the cooperation which they AND Ameyal desired to produce."





Trudy later urged me to take a train east and see the biggest family-friendly tourist attraction in Arkansas: the classic live- action play "The Shepherd of the Ozarks," from the story written by Howard Wright. To increase my interest, Trudy added that there was an electrokinetic lady performing in the cast. When I asked for details, she filled in:

"Zelda Bolt is her name, surname purely coincidence; there hadn't been any psionickers in all the combined known family trees of Mister and Missus Bolt. Zelda's mutation didn't emerge till after her fourth birthday."

Next I asked whether Zelda's gift had been written into the play as currently directed. Trudy answered no, the Shepherd story had place for that-- although of course mutations did exist in the nineteenth century. She went on: "Part of her assuming the personality of Aunt Mollie the Wisetalker was donning a wig."

"Because the script specifies Mollie as a different hair color?"

"Because it specifies Mollie having hair. Zelda is naturally bald; the electricity generated by her brain sort of cooks her scalp, not letting hair follicles get started. She does affect a sort of symbolic hair, by having tattoos which run in wavy lines from her upper forehead down to the back of her neck."

I was one of nearly six hundred tourists parked on the well- maintained outdoor benches. The actor playing the wise man Daniel Howitt was seen moving into a rented cabin belonging to "Old Matt." The sweet, spunky girl-next-door called Sammy enhanced the rural setting. And the intriguing wisetalker played by Zelda Bolt nudged and cajoled other characters into discovering love, answers, forgiveness, and so forth.

This performance of "Shepherd of the Ozarks" received a standing ovation. And it isn't a metaphor to say that Zelda took the curtain-less curtain call with a gleaming smile.

.......................

 
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I interrupt myself to share a sort of policy statement.

If you've read this far, you're aware that for "Jackalhound" I'm using first-person narrative, which I have _never_ done as Copperfox. There would not have been any point in slipping on the Mister Eclectic mask if I were only going to do the _same_ things I was already doing as Copperfox. Accordingly, I am _officially_ making it my thing, as Mister Eclectic, to write all my fiction in first person. But the Jackalhound premise is the only one which will continue into _additional_ stories.

\\\\\\\\\\\\ The next first-person story I have in mind, unlike "Jackalhound," is totally devoid of sci-fi or fantasy, and IS quasi- autobiographical. In early adulthood, while I still dwelt in Rockford, Illinois, I worked at a nursing home not very far from my family's house near Alpine Road.

I will put "THE FOSSIL FARM" in a separate thread from "Jackalhound." Note that I did not then regard senior citizens as fossils; even less do I regard them that way since I _became_ one. The idea is that the _management_ of the semi-fictional nursing home views the elderly that way.

I have said "quasi-autobiographical" and "semi-fictional" because the nursing-home setting reflects my experience, but the _character_ in the lead role is not "me." He will be an Asian-American, "Jerry Chan."
 
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WE NOW RESUME THE JACKALHOUND STORY WHERE JOHN PEPPER, P.I. LEFT OFF, RIGHT WHERE HE WAS IN ARKANSAS..........

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I balanced moving nearer the stage against not acting like I was better than the ninety-nine point nine nine percent of humanity which had no psionic talents. I lev-leaped clear of the crowd, but did so in a way to land over on one side. Resultance: I would be able to just-plain-walk toward Miss Bolt soon enough, but I was noticeably not pushing forward.

Fiddle music had been part of the show. The fiddler, an appealing young woman called Hedy Kaske, might be one of twenty thousand fiddlers in America, with not one such fiddler able to levitate anything; but unless I expended loads of time learning to manipulate the bow separately while both my hands tried to figure out fretting the strings, there was no chance of my becoming able to play a fiddle even slowly. A kazoo, maybe. But on with my post-performance timing.

"Miss Bolt? My name is John Pep--"

Her smile was sincere enough to help any man forget that eyebrows and eyelashes were the only hair on any visible part of her. "Yes, the Jackalhound, from whom the jackals hide. Hedy over there also knows who you are, and she has asked me whether you have a younger brother she can date."

I had to smile at this. "A younger cousin will do, won't he? Patterson Brown, on my mother's side. He does know what 'Shepherd of the Ozarks' is, and he knows it uses a fiddler. For his part, he can play a regular six-string guitar, but prefers the octave-down bass-pitched guitar, so he can provide the low foundation for other instruments, yet also play standard guitar licks. Hence a sufficient melodic foundation to underlie any higher-pitched sustained-note instrument, obviously including fiddles but also any wind instrument. Have your fiddler come join us."

Hedy had been watching, and very nearly levitated to stand beside Zelda.

"Mister Pepper, it's wonderful to meet you."

Zelda faced her. "Mister Pepper says he has a cousin about your age who's a musician. Would you be willing to relay contact information through Mister Pepper for that cousin?"

The girl beamed back. "Does clam chowder use clams?"

I put out my hand. Levitating her airphone from her hand would have been tacky. I entered Patterson's outer-level code for Hedy's benefit, with notification to him.




Hedy having her own crowd to orbit with, Zelda and I trucked over to the nearby family-owned steakhouse. New to me. I asked the desk lady, "Do you serve gristly bear meat here?" She told me they did, subject to annual hunting limits.

Zelda scored points with me by agreeing to a gristly platter for two. She told the head chef, "Better to cook it too rare than too done. I can complete the broiling in my mouth if necessary." Not to be outdone, I said, "And I can create rips across the grain of my meat; less chewing work for my teeth."

Zelda's pleasant face assumed a lightbulb-comes-on look. "That reminds me, John, is it true that you pulled one of your own teeth out when it grew loose in the gum?"

"So I did. Not from fear of dentists; it was an exercise in tight-focus telekinesis. I have the tooth stashed in my office."

Zelda was an actress, and no one but God can read minds on the Earth we know. But I was prepared to believe that she was flirting, and that she intelligently speculated I was interested in turn. Yeah, she was right, and I was okay with us moving at her own pace. The trail of her choice led to a spot Hedy had told her about while the play was in rehearsals: a commemorative marker at the site where the Osage and Chickasaw tribes had made peace more than a century and a half ago.

"Look up, John! See all the twisted branches? Hedy was told that the ceremony released so much resolute will straight up, the growth alteration became discernible just four years afterward. Some call this the Mystery Place. By now, the shape of the limbs is permanent. I wonder why the Smithsonian Quadrangle didn't include this in its presentation?"

"Maybe because the Zapotecs and Catawbas wanted it to be visited only by persons inclined to take their time and contemplate."
 
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No, folks, don't assume that things became hot and heavy that very night. I'm not so hot-blooded as private eyes in sheetbound novels. But some cultural fun awaited us the next afternoon. The weather was nice enough that we could join a welcoming crowd of theater people and locals for midafternoon square dancing. Hedy Kaske and five local musicians formed the hoedown band, with a well balanced instrumental ensemble. The first dance tune to have human voices included in the music had the singing done by Hedy and two of the local men.

"Hear the happy hoedown hopping,
Courting couples cute and crazy!
Every afternoon and evening
Mingles merriment and music.

"Fight fatigue with friends and family!
Humor's here, so halleluya!
Bless the band of bouncing boppers,
Champions of cheerful chanting.

"Applaud our affable Arkansas,
Where winter winds won't wildly whip!
Spring sleeps, then stands when sunlight stirs;
Thus roused, it revels, well renewed.



The rest of that day, with all of the following day on until next morning, was pleasantly ordinary. (No, I don't relish gunfights for the sake of bragging about my manly courage; it's enough if I do my duty at need.) On the afternoon following that space of time, Zelda told me that a nine-day farmers' market was getting set up in a park near the Saint Louis Arch. "Guests in the event space will include sons and daughters of the telekinetics who helped to hold up the unfinished arch till it was well anchored on the Illinois side."
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MISTER ECLETIC'S NOTE: For the benefit of readers who were never in or near Saint Louis, the Saint Louis Arch has both bases on the Missouri side, thus oriented in a plane paralleling the west bank of the Mississippi (not MESSY-sippi) River. In our world, after all, the absence of mind-over -matter assets would have made it insanely hazardous to river traffic for construction to loom over passing boats and barges.

We now resume our scheduled science fiction novelette. once more narrated by its protagonist John Pepper.

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Since I left this post half completed last week, the estimable EveningStar has come in and typed a reply which indicated that he had cracked my code .....or he assumes that he cracked it. He typed:

-.- o-o 0-0 O O 0-0 o-o


He replicated the form, but the function eludes him. The key resides in the way that I, Joseph Richard Ravitts {long A in the surname!!!!!!!} of Aurora, Colorado, have long sought to make myself clear in the written / typed word.

Practically everyone else on T.D.L. automatically defaults to a sans-serif type font (not sheriff or seraph), wherein there is no visible difference between a lower- case ell and an upper-case eye. Moreover, they don't underline, change letter sizes, or use colors. But I do, because I want to distinguish chapters from chapters, emphasize big moments, and heighten the emotions of a character who is talking.

However, the software here understandably defaults to the usual choices. Which means that I have to dig in my heels....

REAL-TIME OBSERVATION: Just since I typed the words "dig in my heels," the forum software has literally forced me back into sans-serif six or seven times, because it _wanted_ me to be stuck in sans-serif.

When I bracket an intended writing space with characters which are in the desired font, this _usually_ guarantees that what I write between those characters _will_ be in the desired font: Tahoma in this case. _Sometimes_ using the top-edge icons works for this purpose. But with _really_ careful preparation, I'll almost always succeed.

And if I see it's working, I run with it for three or four posts' worth, in order to have it smoother when I'm a narrative roll.


OKAY, I GUESS THE EXPLANATION IS ADEQUATE, SO I'LL JUST CONTINUE JOHN PEPPER'S PRIVATE-EYE ADVENTURES.
 
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CHAPTER THREE

Several days after the Saint Louis visit:

******************** Absorb this into John's narration when ready *****************


I I I I Narration here could enable more alliteration singing.

I I I (Potawatami Indians will be seen in western Iowa. They will have used Nikola Tesla's alternating current both to generate power for industrial use and so improve conditions in western Iowa, and to produce a greater light which weakened vampires as did sunlight, and made them vulnerable to ordinary attacks. Edison was therefore discredited. Knowledge of this reached other nations, making this whole Earth-variant untenable for vampires. Clergy had managed to cure vampires who wanted to be human again. As for impenitent vampires, clerics could always turn them back; laypersons could slow them from attacking by interposing fire, which could kill or disable them; piercing the heart would also weaken them enough that normal attacks could kill them. And severing or splitting the head _always_ killed them. Also, vampires could not enter a home if anyone good was there. Animals counted.)





00ooooI uuu
 
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