My Vietnam War navy novel At Sea will be free on Kindle March 18-20, 2016.

Description: Even though he wanted to dodge the draft in Canada or Sweden, David Ward joined the navy during the Vietnam War. He ended up on an aircraft carrier. Unlike the pilots, he couldn’t say he went in harm’s way unless he counted the baggage he carried with him. As it turned out, those back home were more dangerous than enemy fire.

Here’s a short excerpt to tempt you out to Amazon. . .

David stood on the back porch on a spring evening listening to the slow sweet rising and falling howl of a wolf calling her pups while the wind stilled and the dark lavender lupine flowers disappeared into the gathering twilight. Behind him, the house was empty, his dinner long gone cold on the kitchen table along with the passionate Sparrow singing his chanson favorite “La Vie en Rose” again and again, and rather than stare at the letter in the silent company of canisters and chrome appliances, he brought the telephone and pinot noir outside where the world was less closed in on itself.

At the end of the long cord, he dialed her number, wondering—while the wolf pups yipped back at their mother—if her hello would still sound like her hello.

“Davey, how nice to hear your voice. I also hear wolves. Where are you?”

“On the porch looking down toward the box elders and the creek.”

“Don’t remind me. It hurts too much.”

“How are you?”

“Fine. I knew you would call. While practicing my flute this morning, I found myself playing a song we once knew.”

“I’ve lost myself to the war,” he said. “The letter arrived today. I report in July.”

“Davey, no. What do your parents say?”

“Not to rock the boat.”

“I hoped you went to Sweden with Brita. Then I heard the wolves.”

“I could never come home from Sweden.”

“If you die in Vietnam, I’ll forget you. If you survive, you’ll forget yourself. Either way, the vine may kill the elm.”

“You’re cold,” he said, “and dragging out old symbolism of fruitful grapes smothering their supporting tree.”

“Then stand quiet with me again.”

The wolves were silent. He heard her breath and her heart. The first stars were out. When she was at the ranch four years ago, she said, “Night is liquid magic; we’re stirred together. You’ve taken me beyond myself, higher than the wolf trail stars, and what we have of each other, we own.”

In the great quiet, he wept for the parts of himself that were no longer his.

“David, the baby’s crying. I’ve got to go.”

“Unfair! But I love you, Anne.”

“No doubt,” she said, hanging up and extinguishing the moon’s pure light.

He carried the wine bottle up to the chokecherry tree, sat beneath white flowers and watched the night where he once watched it with her.

She knows I’m here, he thought, because she knows me well. She despises me, too, because she believes some places are sacred.

He got an axe and chopped down the tree. It was neither the best thing nor the worst thing he’d ever done, but it was close.

–

If you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can always read the book for free through Amazon’s program. If you’re not a KU subscriber, now is a great time to download a novel about sailors and bar girls and mountain climbing and a young man wrestling with his conscience about military service.

I hope you enjoy the story.

–Malcolm