Just Passing Through
()
About this ebook
This is a collection of writings: journeys, places, lovers and friends; a magic knife, a motorcycle journey across France, a friendly werewolf, an exile and quiet hero, a bear hunting Crow Indian etre bien dans sa peau, and a meditation on beauty and death.
James Morgan Ayres
James Morgan Ayres served with the 82nd Airborne and the 7th Special Forces Group (Green Berets); he has also worked as a private contractor with various US government organizations. He graduated from the US Army’s jungle survival school in Panama and the winter survival school at Camp Drum, New York. During the past decade, Ayres has written dozens of articles and stories for Blade Magazine and the Knives annuals. His books include The Tactical Knife and An Introduction to Firearms. He resides in Southern California.
Read more from James Morgan Ayres
An Introduction to Firearms: Your Guide to Selection, Use, Safety, and Self-Defense Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tao of Survival: Skills to Keep You Alive Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tao of Survival: Skills to Keep You Alive Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tactical Knife: A Comprehensive Guide to Designs, Techniques, and Uses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Survival Knives: How to Choose and Use the Right Blade Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jaguar's Heart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKilling Mr. Jones Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Just Passing Through
Related ebooks
The Imposters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfter Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Here the Dark Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Generation's Lament (No More Dreams #2) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Never a Hero Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Boyfriend's Back: Angels in Love, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWanting Radiance: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmell the Blue Sky: Young, Pregnant, and Widowed Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWant To Date You: Brisbane City Hearts, #2 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Jokes My Father Never Taught Me: Life, Love, and Loss with Richard Pryor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLadies' Man: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUprooted: A New Life in the Arizona Sun Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChapter & Verse - James Joyce Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNorman & Bonnie: A Love Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNight Sounds and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConfessions of an American Gigolo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove Slave Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Seagulls Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlood Brothers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeath's Other Kingdom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories from the Pen of a Prisoner: Volume One Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMirror, Mirror: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Grandma Rose Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove Bites Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSecond Stanza Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlash of the Pen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPaper Ghosts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSoulstice Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Novel Thief: A Winter Falls Mystery, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Biographical/AutoFiction For You
Crow Mary: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Carnegie's Maid: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diamond Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Woman in the Room: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Euphoria Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count of Monte Cristo Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wolf Hall: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Einstein: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mystery of Mrs. Christie: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Clementine: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Second Mrs. Astor: A Heartbreaking Historical Novel of the Titanic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Post Office: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Train Dreams: A Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Curious Life of Elizabeth Blackwell Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Her Hidden Genius: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Postcard Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bring Up the Bodies: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lioness of Boston: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Empress Orchid: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Traitor's Wife: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5America's First Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jubilee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shame: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fire from Heaven Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Madame Serpent: A Catherine de' Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Auschwitz Lullaby: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Persian Boy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Just Passing Through
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Just Passing Through - James Morgan Ayres
Just Passing Through
Volume 1
James Morgan Ayres
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © James Morgan Ayres
Published by Nomadic Press
June 2011
Cover design: Shawn Carlson
Cover photo: James Morgan Ayres
Book design: ML Ayres
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to:
Joseph Shields for enduring friendship, the right title and professional advice and support beyond all expectations. Thank you my brother
David Shields for suggesting I do this collection
Ashley for insisting that I tell my stories
Shawn Carlson for a cool cover design
My family for everything
ML for pulling this book together, for loyalty, for love, for making it all worthwhile
Dedicated to
Wives and lovers
Family and friends
Traveling companions
ML always
Table of Contents
Introduction
Ruby
Walkabout In Werewolf Country
The Thin Blue Line
A Fine And Quiet Season
Moonwinds
Motorcycle Memories
Spanish Steel
Indian Time
To The Hills
Introduction
This is a collection of writings: journeys, places, lovers and friends; a magic knife, a motorcycle journey across France, a friendly werewolf, an exile and quiet hero, a bear hunting Crow Indian etre bien dans sa peau, and a meditation on beauty and death.
The thread that ties these pieces together and gives the collection its title is the sense that life is a journey and that we're just passing through. I’ve never truly settled in one place, never lived in a place that felt anything other than temporary. Perhaps that’s true for each of us. After all, we’re all on the way to another place.
They’re short stories that can be fitted into a busy life and offer a slight refuge from tedium and the work-a-day world. Memory is a fragile flower; details might be misremembered, but the stories are all true. I hope you enjoy them.
Sincerely,
Morgan
Ruby
Sloe gin, bathtub gin, fine imported gin, it’s all the same to me and I hate the taste of all of it. Gin and Ruby get mixed up in my mind when I drink too much, which I do from time to time when I think about that woman.
I first met Ruby on the sidewalk in front of Jesse’s, a hillbilly bar across from the train station where I used to go to watch the trains pull out and wish I was on one. It was one of those heavy magnolia scented nights near the end of summer the week before I turned eighteen. She was about twenty-five or twenty-six, right in there, had flame red hair to her waist, go to hell green eyes and a switchblade in the hip pocket of her long legged skintight Wranglers.
Ruby smiled her devil’s smile at me and snatched me off that sidewalk the way a hawk will take a backyard pussycat. Took me up to her room and didn’t let go. We slept a little after dawn. Midmorning sun was streaming through the lace curtains when she woke me again and… We didn’t leave her bed until she had to go to work that night and all I could think about was getting back to her.
Ruby lived in a one-room apartment over Jesse’s where she waitressed. At night the light from the red neon sign made her look like she was on fire. Hell, we were both on fire, all tangled in the sheets and each other. She played The Wayward Wind,
night after night and it almost drowned out the music from Jesse’s. She had one of those old style record players, played 33 1/3 records and she had a stack of them but only played the one song. We drank sloe gin, Beefeater gin, any damn gin she had. All she drank was gin.
I didn’t much like gin. But Ruby, well, she was something else. So I drank with her. The juniper tasting stuff was bad enough but that sickly sweet sloe gin was the worst, except when it was mixed with the taste of her summer hot body. She would trickle some of that sweet stuff over her breasts and belly and it would run down thick and slow and mix in with her fiery tangle and then it was just fine.
It went on for weeks and I lost my job detasseling corn because I just couldn’t get up out of her bed in the morning. I would watch the sunrise through the arch of her knee, my head on her smooth thigh, and then she would turn to me and her eyes would catch a shaft of sunlight and glow devilish green with flecks of amber and