setting – Ink-Stained Wretches

As some readers may already know, my husband is from Ecuador. I met him when we were both students at the University of Texas at Austin.

View of the harbor from the hotel – Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. My son being held by my husband’s cousin. Photo by NM Cedeño, 2003.

Most of my husband’s extended family still lives in Ecuador. On our second trip to visit them, in 2003, my husband’s grandmother asked if we’d like to go to the Galápagos for a few days. We said, “Yes, thank you!” So my husband, son, my brother, two of my husband’s cousins, his aunt and uncle, and I all flew from Guayaquil to Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristóbal Island. From the memory of this trip, the story “Galápagos People Watching” was born.

The boat tour featured in the story is drawn from a tour we took during that trip. We visited Leon Dormido and Isla Lobos to see blue-footed boobies, frigate birds, marine iguanas, sharks, and sea lions, just as the characters do in the story.

Those familiar with the history of the Galápagos will note the use of the surname Cobos for one of the characters. Manuel Cobos was the first owner of San Cristóbal Island and started a plantation there. The ruins of his house, left abandoned after a revolt by the prisoners he used as forced labor, can be seen on the island.

Characters’ names in the story are inspired by the Ecuadorian propensity to name people after famous historical figures. Top 100 Ecuadorian male first names include Washington, Jefferson, Lenin, Edison, Franklin, César, and Ulises. One can even find people named Stalin and Hitler.

The hardest thing about writing the story was not putting in too many details. Did I need to explain the different fees paid by foreign tourists vs Ecuadorian citizens when arriving in the Galápagos? No. Did I need to describe every activity a tourist can do on San Cristóbal? No. Did I need to mention the newer system that tracks how often Ecuadorians visit? No. My first draft of the story contained far too many details that had to be cut.

But once I cut all the extraneous information, a story of family, finding one’s path in life, and crime emerged. Editor Michael Bracken selected “Galápagos People Watching” for publication in Black Cat Weekly #164.

Eye Update

After several months attempting conservative treatment, my eye doctor sent me to a corneal specialist. The specialist formally diagnosed me with map-dot-fingerprint dystrophy of the cornea. The “fingerprint” patch on my cornea covered half my pupil, which left me seeing through the unaffected part of my cornea and the damaged part simultaneously. The result was blurred, double vision in my right eye.

To resolve the problem, in early October, the doctor performed a superficial keratectomy using a tiny laser to remove the damaged epithelial layer on part of my cornea. The procedure took less than five minutes and was relatively painless. About thirty minutes after the procedure, when the numbing drops in my eyes wore off, extreme discomfort started and lasted for about four days. My cornea took about three weeks to completely heal.

I am happy to report I am no longer seeing double through my right eye. My vision is back to normal. I can once again read print on screens and on paper without severe eyestrain forcing me to stop.

The eye condition hampered both my reading and my writing in June, July, August, September, and October. I definitely won’t meet the writing goals I set for myself this year. But at least the problem is solved. There’s always next year!

In other news, my story “Predators and Prey” was published by editor Rusty Barnes at Redneck Press! It’s free to read online.

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N. M. Cedeño is a short story writer and novelist living in Texas. She is active in Sisters in Crime- Heart of Texas Chapter and is a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society. Find out more at nmcedeno.com.

I have a couple short stories in the works set in the piney woods around the Houston area. One story, entitled Predators and Prey, features a homeless teenager who is forced into working for an illicit animal breeder hidden in the forest. The other story, for an upcoming music based anthology, features a mismatched couple in the piney woods: a young man who loves his small town Texas roots and a young woman who can’t get out fast enough. Both stories came together somewhat organically, growing from a lifetime of memories of the piney woods of East Texas.

My grandparents acquired a piece of property in the piney woods north of Houston, Texas, between New Waverly and Willis, before I was born. In pastures cut from stands of pines my grandfather kept a dozen or so white-faced Hereford cows. As my grandparents aged, they needed help. My parents moved to the property as caretakers for my grandparents and for the property. I visited the “ranch” frequently as a child and as an adult, bringing my own children to visit their grandparents and great-grandparents.

The piney woods are “lovely, dark, and deep” and full of who knows what.

People, who relinquish all claim to the word “humane,” drive from the city and drop unwanted pets there. Puppies, kittens, pregnant dogs, and pregnant cats are common sights on the roads, wandering after being dumped.

When they wandered onto the property, my mother sometimes collected puppies and kittens to take to the local animal shelter. When walking, she protected herself from dangerous, roaming dog packs by carrying a cattle prod.

However, people don’t only dump domestic pets. Sometimes they dump exotic ones.

Once on a walk with her dog, my mother spotted something large and black in the distance. She turned and walked the other way when she realized the that the creature she had seen was a crouched feline in hunting mode that was far bigger than a housecat. Not something she wanted tangling with her dog.

After spotting the “black panther,” she asked her neighbor, a retired doctor, if he’d seen anything strange, like a large black animal, recently. The retired doctor replied, “You mean that black panther? Yes, I’ve seen it.”

Now, there aren’t supposed to be “black panthers,” really melanistic jaguars or leopards, in the piney woods. In fact, a man was ridiculed in the news for claiming he saw one. Tigers aren’t supposed to be wandering neighborhoods in Houston either. Yet the sight of a tiger in a Houston neighborhood makes the news fairly regularly.

Who knows what non-native animals hide in those forests!

In addition to the non-native species, the area is home to a variety of predators, from alligators swimming in the lakes, rivers, and streams, to multiple species of venomous snakes including rattlesnakes, copperheads, coral snakes, and cottonmouths (also called water moccasins).

Once you’ve dealt with the animals species present, then you have to consider the people. With cattle ranchers, sovereign citizens, criminals, and people who simply like acreage and solitude, the woods of East Texas are full of characters. The farther East you go, the more likely you are to find the people speaking with their own dialect and a distinct East Texas accent. While some of the people are newcomers, some seemingly have been entrenched in those woods for generations, going all the way back to the Civil War.

Inhabited by critters both foreign and domestic and peopled with more than its fair share of odd characters, the forests of East Texas provide a fertile ground for setting crime fiction stories.

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