Showing posts with label Dietrich Kalteis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dietrich Kalteis. Show all posts
Monday, November 04, 2024
Saturday, January 01, 2022
Sunday, December 05, 2021
Sample Sunday: Excerpt: Under An Outlaw Moon: A Novel by Dietrich Kalteis
Please welcome back Dietrich
Kalteis back to the blog today with an excerpt from his new book, Under An Outlaw
Moon: A Novel.
.
. . one
June 12, 1937
In the eyes of men I am not just
But in your eyes, O life, I see justification
You have taught
me that my path is right if I am true to you.
Sixteen, huh? Well, I might’ve
guessed older.” Flashing her the honest blue eyes.
“Well, maybe you’d’a been wrong then, huh?” Said her name
was Stella Mae Redenbaugh, looking at him like she saw something underneath his
smile, this guy with the wavy hair, skating around the roller rink, looking at
her now and then, finally coming over when she was alone next to the boards.
Making a fast stop and showing his moves.
Stella knowing her friend Liz and the other girls were
looking over from the concession stand, whispering and giggling to each other.
Made her feel good, lying to him that she was sixteen.
“Well, I been wrong a time or two,” he said, “but still, I
guess you’d pass for older.”
“Older, like how much?” Crinkling her nose — Stella guessed
it looked cute like when she practiced it in the mirror — smiling at him,
liking the way this Johnny O’Malley was flirting with her, something no boy had
done before. Not feeling that unease she often felt around men. Been that way
since her real father just walked off, Stella thinking good riddance, happy her
mother wouldn’t get hit and bruised anymore. Her stepfather, Lester, being made
of better stuff, a quiet man working hard for the family. Maybe dull in that
way, but at least the man didn’t leave those awful bruises on her mother.
Fifteen and Stella wasn’t sure what the look meant that
Johnny D. O’Malley was putting on her, but she was thinking maybe she wouldn’t
mind finding out.
“I don’t know, let’s see . . . eighteen maybe.” Johnny
grinned, saying, “Guess I ain’t saying it right.”
“Well, I think you’re saying it just fine.” She liked the
way his cheeks flushed then, yeah, starting to feel easier with him. Not tall,
but a nice build and good looking with the blue eyes and wavy hair. Older by a
mile, even if she had been eighteen. Stella liking the way Liz was watching
from the refreshment stand, talking to some boys, the rest of the girls gone
home.
§
Bennie Dickson had been feeding
lines to the pretty blonde, this Stella Mae. Now he was getting caught up in
it. Laid it on pretty thick, saying he was a prize fighter in training. That
part was true, and Johnny O’Malley was the name he used when he stepped through
the ropes.
Not sure why he used the name on her, the name the promotor
had come up with, telling Bennie it gave him the Irish edge, a young fighter
showing promise, along with a punishing right hook, something they could build
on.
Bennie didn’t tell her anything about the trouble he’d been
in, the stuff he got into back when his old man told him he was acting more
loser than winner, anything but a Dickson man. Strike one coming for the stolen
car, doing time in that reformatory and shaming the family. Bad Bennie not
learning life the easy way, then taking a second swing when he got mixed up in
the Missouri bank job, giving up six more hard years in the Missouri pen, same
place they kept Pretty Boy Floyd, the place inmates called The Walls on account
of that high gray limestone surrounding the place. Life’s lessons kicking
Bennie hard that time. Working in the prison library and learning to box while
inside. Finally convincing the parole board he got the message and wasn’t going
to make the same mistakes, released into his father’s custody. Just turned
twenty-six, and Bennie swore to go straight this time.
Might have been partly why he was feeling more Johnny than
Bad Bennie right then, telling this girl about the job he just took driving a
cab, the money he made allowing him to sweat and work the bag in the Hard Rock
gym. Then switching the focus, telling her she skated like a pro.
“You been watching me, huh?”
“Admit I was.” From over by the boards, betting all the boys
looked her way. From the corner of his eye now, he caught the three mutts
eyeing him from over by the food stand, the ones chatting to Stella’s friend.
The looks meant they guessed who he was and knew about the time he served. Thinking
they were better and wanting to prove it. Bennie feeling glad his older brother
Spencer had showed up at the rink today, two years older and born on the same
day, the two of them of the same blood. Spencer known around town as a tough
customer. And although the oldest of the three wasn’t there that day, the same
went for Darwin, a reputation for watching out for his brothers, likely the
main reasons the mutts were keeping their distance. Still, they had that look,
like they had something to prove.
§
“Me, pffft, nobody sees me.
Just a place I meet Liz and the girls and have a few laughs, is all.” Stella
Mae thinking who had money for roller skating, a nickel just to get in the
place, wondering again if Johnny meant what he said, that she looked eighteen,
maybe older. Could be on account of the way she’d pulled her hair back that
day, not wanting it in her eyes when she skated around, the sweater showing the
promise of changes coming, and the ruby lipstick from her mother’s dressing
table completing the picture. Liked her lips red like that, Stella doing it
more these days when her mother was out of the house. Always wiped it off
before she went back home. “How you like it, the music?” Johnny asked. Not sure
what the number was piping from the speaker cone. Admitting to her he had a tin
ear.
“This one’s Lionel Hampton, called ‘Hot Mallets.’ They play
it all the time, everybody skating to it. One the girls like to dance to.”
“That right? Well, lucky for Lionel, how about it then,
let’s see you do it. Dance or skate, either one.”
“Just ’cause you say so, huh?” Stella acting indifferent,
the smile letting him know she was playing too.
“Just like to watch you move.” The blush in his cheeks
betrayed him, and he pushed off the boards and skated around the rink, turning
and going backwards, moving faster between and around the couples and singles,
pretending he was doing it to the music, moving his hips and clowning, looking
her way, smiling from across the rink. He swished around and grabbed hold of
the boards next to her, saying, “So, come on, girl, catch up if you’re any
good.” And he was off again, going around and looking to see that she was
watching. “I’ve Got a Pocketful of Dreams,” coming through the speakers now.
The three mutts over at refreshments watching him too.
Standing with a hand against the boards, Stella glanced over
at Liz still talking to the boys, likely saying something dumb. Pushing off,
she windmilled her arms to gain her balance, half the rink between them.
Johnny coming around and past her, calling out, “Hey,
slowpoke.”
Picking up speed on the rented skates, she ducked and went
under a couple with joined hands, nearly ended on her butt as she bumped them
apart. Johnny slowed and let her catch up, holding out his hand, then catching
her again from falling, the two of them moving around the rink, holding hands
now. Going around two more times, he stopped over by Spencer and introduced
her, asking how old Spencer guessed she was, mouthing eighteen behind her back.
Also pointed at himself and mouthed to call him Johnny.
Spencer said,
“It ain’t right to guess a lady’s age.” Smiling at her, offering his hand.
Stella
liking this older brother calling her a lady, told him it was nice to meet him.
Taking her hand again,
Bennie did it like it was a natural thing. Stella not pulling away, thinking
maybe he did it to keep her from falling, but she liked the way her friend Liz
kept looking, the three boys looking too. And she lost track how many times she
skated around with him, talking about where they went to school, places around
town they both knew. Bennie saying he was serious about his boxing, and driving
a cab too. Then asking about her, where she lived, how she liked the school she
went to, getting to know her.
Letting him buy her a soda after, the two of them just kept
talking, not running out of things. Playing at being eighteen, she pushed away
thoughts of her mother worrying about her being out as the afternoon gave way
to evening. Then realizing Liz had gone home, Stella told him she’d better get
on home too.
“Well, I got my car, can give you a lift if you want?”
Wanting to trust him, but knowing her mother’s rule about
getting in cars with boys. Saying, “I’m okay, I can walk.”
“Well, I’m just offering is all.”
They stood talking a few more minutes. Bennie didn’t push
it, offering to return her skates to the rental desk, asking, “So, how do I see
you again?”
“Well, you come next Saturday and maybe you will.” Smiling,
she let him take the skates.
“Not the brush-off, I hope — I mean, you’re gonna show,
right?”
“Guess you’re gonna find out.” Smiling, she started walking,
knowing he was watching her, not sure how she’d get another nickel, but she’d
get it, and she’d be here next Saturday alright.
Excerpted from Under an Outlaw Moon by Dietrich Kalteis. © 2021 by Dietrich Kalteis. All rights reserved. Published by ECW
Press Ltd. www.ecwpress.com
Dietrich Kalteis ©2021
Dietrich Kalteis is the
award-winning author of Ride the Lightning (bronze medal winner, 2015 Independent
Publisher Book Awards, for best regional fiction), The Deadbeat Club,
Triggerfish, House of Blazes (silver medal winner, 2017 Independent Publisher
Book Awards, for best historical fiction), Zero Avenue, Poughkeepsie Shuffle,
Call Down the Thunder, Cradle of the Deep, and Under an Outlaw Moon. His novel
The Deadbeat Club has been translated to German, entitled Shootout, and 50 of
his short stories have also been published internationally. He lives with his
family on Canada’s West Coast. More info at https://dietrichkalteis.com/
Tuesday, November 30, 2021
Guest Post: Dietrich Kalteis on Writing, Research, and his new novel, Under An Outlaw Moon
Please
welcome Dietrich Kalteis to the blog today. In
addition to the guest post on the blog today, Dietrich will be back on the blog
this Sunday with an excerpt from his new book.
Under an Outlaw Moon follows
the true story of Bennie and Stella Mae Dickson. He’s reckless and she’s an
outsider longing to fit in. When they pull off a bank robbery to celebrate her
sixteenth birthday, their lives take a turn that they never could have
imagined.
While researching for my novel Under an Outlaw Moon, also set in the 1930s, I came upon the story of Bennie and Stella in
an old news story, and I was intrigued. They were newlyweds when they committed their
first bank robbery in Elkton, South Dakota, right around Stella Mae’s sixteenth
birthday. Once in the bank, they drew guns and were faced with the vault’s time
lock, having to wait it out for twenty minutes.
Without a shot being fired, they ended up getting away with just over
twenty-one hundred dollars, driving across the state border hiding out at
Bennie’s family farm in Tyler, Minnesota.
A couple of quiet months and Bennie was thinking about a bigger heist,
promising Stella the good life was coming. Walking into the bank in Brookings,
South Dakota, only a few miles from the Elkton robbery, they were faced with another time
lock, having to wait this one out for an hour and a half before the vault
popped open. Refusing to take off empty handed, Bennie posed as a bank
inspector, his shotgun and pistol kept out of sight below the
counter, compelling the bank staff to deal with the customers as if nothing was
wrong, promising nobody would get hurt. Stella stood like a sentry by the door
as over fifty customers came and went, doing their banking. The couple walked out of there with over seventeen thousand in cash, plus another
sixteen thousand in stocks. Keeping their cool a second time, they pulled it
off without a soul being harmed.
The media dubbed them ‘the time lock bandits’. And although they
committed just two robberies, and did it without a shot being fired — a far cry
from more notorious criminals of the era like Dillinger and the Barrows — the Dicksons ended up at the top of the FBIs most-wanted
list. J. Edgar Hoover considered them Bonnie-and-Clyde copycats, and he wanted
to stop them from gaining the folk-hero status that other criminals had gained.
With considerable influence on the media, he
wanted them stopped, putting his agency, resources and manpower behind a
coast-to-coast manhunt, wanting the Dicksons brought down dead or alive.
In getting to know the couple, I found two beings clinging to each
other, one wounded and one misguided, dealing with something they got caught up in. In spite of his past scrape with the law, there was a sense of
fairness about Bennie in the way he dealt with people that crossed his path.
And in spite of her naivety, there was a growing depth to Stella that went well
beyond her years. She came from an abusive home,
her father walking out on the family at an early age. After she met Bennie, she
saw her way out of her hometown and her past life, looking to a brighter
future.
Through my research, I came to understand how the hard times shaped
them and their choices. In spite of having to run from the law, they remained
devoted to each other and there were close ties to both their
families. How they were depicted in the media was in sharp contrast to who they
really were; and how they were hunted down was brutal and unjust. And that’s
what inspired me to want to tell their story.
I found out everything I could about the Dicksons, and the way of life
during those hard times in the midwest. There were numerous texts, plenty of FBI files
from those times, daily newspapers, along with personal accounts and photos. I
compiled the details I wanted to include, laying out the sequence of events
before I started the first draft. Adding some
color and fleshing out the characters, I worked to bring the scenes to life.
This was a departure from my usual approach to writing fiction, in which I
start with a single idea and grow it into a chapter, researching as I go, and
moving on from scene to scene.
The story shifts from her POV to his, then back again. As I have in
other novels, I used a lot of dialogue to carry the scenes forward and paint the world around
them. That was my favorite part of writing the book, getting to know them and
writing their words, letting the characters come to life and do their own
talking. At times, I felt like I was just typing
their words and following their actions.
I hope anyone who picks up the novel enjoys it as much as I did while writing it.
Dietrich
Kalteis ©2021
Dietrich Kalteis is the award-winning author of Ride the Lightning (bronze medal winner, 2015 Independent Publisher Book Awards, for best regional fiction), The Deadbeat Club, Triggerfish, House of Blazes (silver medal winner, 2017 Independent Publisher Book Awards, for best historical fiction), Zero Avenue, Poughkeepsie Shuffle, Call Down the Thunder, Cradle of the Deep, and Under an Outlaw Moon. His novel The Deadbeat Club has been translated to German, entitled Shootout, and 50 of his short stories have also been published internationally. He lives with his family on Canada’s West Coast. More info at https://dietrichkalteis.com/
Tuesday, February 04, 2020
Saturday, February 16, 2019
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