Scene Two of "The Azure Shade of the Blue Bottle Tree"

    Out here there were family cemeteries every couple of miles. Pioneer families liked to keep their dead close for a lot of reasons. The county historical commission had tracked down and  inventoried hundreds of old cemeteries not long ago and more had been missed. It was impossible for anyone to patrol them all. The next one was three miles away.
    The Insall/Gauss Cemetery was looking neat as Pen drove up. Lisa Garrison’s SUV was near the gate. Pen parked along the bar ditch and looked around as he walked up. Lisa and Mae Insall were standing in the shade. Pen ignored them for bit as he tried to examine the ground. Not much traffic there lately, that was good. The ground was rock hard, not so good. The thin grass showed something had passed. Pen opened the gate and walked over to Lisa. The damage was glaring. Broken headstones littered the ground and tire tracks crossed the softer earth on some of the graves.
    Pen looked at the two women. There was quite a contrast. Lisa's faded jeans, Grateful Dead t-shirt, and feed store cap next to Mae's ancient house dress and poke bonnet. Lisa was taller, but Pen had have bet on Mae in a fight, especially now. She looked mad enough to eat nails and spit tacks. Mae saw saving the old cemeteries, and especially this cemetery, as her personal crusade.
    “This is sickening!” was Lisa’s greeting. “Mae saw the headlights.” Mae snapped out the words. “It was near midnight, I couldn’t sleep."
 “Could you tell how many?”
“Don’t think it was more than two pickups”, she said, “the motor’s weren’t very loud. I came over this morning to see if they’d left any trash. You  know how those parkers are. They leave the most disgusting stuff, horrible. Anyway, I found it like this. I tell you I just saw red! That's Grandpa Isom's grave with the tire track on it, and his second sister's stone is broken. They left the gate open. I had to chase them cows out!”
    Lisa patted her shoulder. “Mae called me, and Sarah Beth both.” Mae shrugged off Lisa’s hand impatiently. “It’s them Satanists again, I keep telling you how bad they are.” Pen and Lisa looked at each other behind Mae’s back. Both of of them pagans, they weren’t aware of any Satanists practicing around Shin Oak.
    Their shared glance wasn't lost on Mae, she was still pretty sharp. “Penrod Sadler! You know they’re always desecrating cemeteries and such. You have to catch them! The Insalls and Gausses have been here since Sam Houston. Grandpa Isom fought at San Jacinto right alongside him! He deserves some respect!”
    Pen couldn't help but agree. Mae wasn't mollified. She refused Lisa’s offer of a lift home. She tugged her faded bonnet snug on her gray hair, took her cane and stalked back through the gate and across the field to her house. “She’s right about one thing,” Lisa told me. “They do need to be stopped. These limestone markers are almost impossible to repair, and some are over a hundred years old!”
    “Stay put, let me look around.”
    Pen knew he wouldn’t be able to get any sort of forensics team out for this, so he got out his camera and sketch book to record whatever he could. There was one clear track of a mud-grip tire on a grave, and a few brown streaks of paint on a broken stone. Small metallic pieces on the broken stone jumped to the magnet on his flashlight. Steel, maybe from a hammer, or a fender. Poor boy forensics.
    “Okay, I think I’ll recognize that tire, and the paint. Must be a brown pickup, with mud grips, carrying some dents. Sound familiar?"
Lisa said, “Can't be more than a hundred or so trucks like that out here, but I’ll put the word out.” Pen knew she would. Lisa knew everyone. Between her and Mae the news would spread faster than the radio and twice as effectively.
    They walked back toward Lisa's SUV, a worried look on her face.       “This is awful, and always bad for us!” Many of their friends were in the "broom closet". Lisa and Pen were both fairly openly Wiccan, and this sort of thing always seemed to focus suspicion on pagans.
    Pen told her goodbye, and went back to the car. Once again, the radio was calling his name.
    “Pen, better get over to Dolly Holt’s place. There's been a shooting.”
Pen told Karen he was on his way, and drove off through the dust devils.

Welcome to Shin Oak Ridge

Welcome to the fictional town of Shin Oak Ridge, population 4,532. It is located in Copete County, deep in the heart of Texas. Deep, in fact, in the limestone, cedar brake, live oak and bluebonnet heart of the heart. A thriving little town before the 1930's, it straddled State Highway 411, a major artery from Austin to the Highland Lakes and west Texas beyond. Three busy cotton gins kept busy in season, and the railroad depot was central to the town. That heyday is gone forever, there is no depot, the occasional freight train doesn't stop, and the highway moved a mile out of town before it too was superseded by the new interstate fifteen miles away.


Main Street and downtown are laid out in a roughly north-south direction. Only a few struggling businesses are left. Others moved over to the highway, creating a strange dichotomy of trade. Divisions abound. Old Town resents New Town. The old timers resent the newcomers, a newcomer being anyone whose family hasn't been present for at least four generations. There are divisions on party lines, church lines, and business lines.


The school district is the biggest industry in town. School board elections are hotly contested and the meetings are highly attended. City politics are a close second. Although the town has existed since 1858, the city was only incorporated eight years ago. That was an election that sharply divided the town once again and along totally new lines, although many of the old-timers were on the "let's leave things the way they've always been" side, and many newcomers took the "if we don't do it now one of the big cities will swallow us up!" approach. The fight hasn't ended. It is re-fought with every city election, indeed with every city council meeting.


The city has no budget for law enforcement, or many other institutions. Instead, Shin Oak Ridge has an agreement with Copete County for patrols by the County Sheriff's department. For the most part, the Sheriff leaves the duty to Precinct 3 Constable Stan Hart, and most especially Deputy Constable Pen Sadler. Pen is an experienced officer and knows this town. His family is one of the older ones. More importantly, he lives just outside the city limits.



Soon we will further explore my fictional town and its citizens.