An Ostrich Plume Hat

After listening to a rather pessimistic story on NPR about the odds of ever getting a book published, I decided to make the draft of the first three chapters of my not-yet-complete book available online.  Surely, the public will clamor for more, and publishers will be calling me night and day.  Maybe, readers will offer their own contributions to the story, revealing historical tidbits tucked away in their families' attics.

The book begins backwards, because, at least in San Antonio, everyone knows who shot Otto Koehler.

Chapter One

Hedda Burgemeister

October 1914

Leon Johnson’s deep, dark eyes are pooled with moisture, yet unblinking, staring sadly at her, morbidly transfixing her.  Turning away from him is not possible as he stands stoically… waiting. 

“I’ll meet you all in heaven,” he softly promises.              

Just as Sheriff Tobin reaches for the lever to drop the trap door, crackling abruptly saves Hedda Burgemeister from the nightmare’s end.  Sharp noises resound - firecrackers exploding in her head unleashing a flood of feverish recollections of gunfire.  Shots emanating from cold metal.  Cold metal in her hands suddenly too hot to hold. 

Forcefully exiting the fog clouding her head, Hedda realizes the sounds echoing from the corridor are merely pages of a newspaper snapped open and turned crisply.

Was it two days ago?  She is unsure.

Beads of perspiration pop out on her forehead; yet chills run down her spine. 

Her right hand reaches over to grasp her left wrist and finds it tightly bandaged.

Technically, she well understands how to slit a wrist.  The caseknife simply was not sharp enough to enable her to end it all, to spare her from this.

Hedda fights the urge to call out to a fellow nurse, to plead for something to put her out of this misery.  She just lies frozen with eyes squeezed closed, now acutely aware of every sound reverberating down the hallway.

The guard outside her room is summarizing details from the newspaper; he must be surrounded by a bevy of nurses.  Could not he at least whisper? 

She cannot refrain from speculating about what the glaring headlines say.  What does it read?  Perhaps something like, “Millionaire Whose Charities Were Many Meets Sudden Death?”

She refuses to allow herself to think about the sordid story that unfolds beneath the headlines; she knows how reporters revel in scandal.  An involuntary moan slips out with the realization of just how huge a scandal this is.  She, a trained professional.  

For years and years, she only experienced romance and drama safely.  Between the covers of books.  Yet she now is providing the fodder fueling the gossip-driven imagination of the entire city. 

Hedda needs no newspaper to tell her where Otto Koehler lies.  Elegantly attired and splendidly displayed, he is where he insisted all family weddings, christenings and funerals take place – the parlor of his beloved estate on West San Pedro Place.   

Long lines of people spill into the street, waiting to pay their solemn respects to Otto’s newly-made widow holding court in the solarium – her wheelchair framed on three sides by delicate orchids and billowy fronds of verdant ferns.

Drifting back into the drug-induced sleep, Hedda finds herself lying in the coffin. One stony, unsympathetic face after another peers down at her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

The nurses roll Hedda from side to side as they change the sheets under her, carrying on their annoying banter as though she were deaf. 

“They say 2,000 mourners attended his funeral.”

Surely they know she has sustained no injuries that would prevent her from hearing, or, for that matter, looking them squarely in the eye, screaming at them to stop and fleeing from the room. 

“My cousin Karl works at Hauser Floral Company, and he said they just could not find enough flowers to fill all the orders.  Why, the only flowers left in the whole city must be the ones growing right there in his own garden!” 

Hedda manages not to scream, keeps her body rigid and stares straight ahead, not even blinking as they continue to change the bedclothes. 

Instead, she concentrates on her longstanding peeve.  No matter how pleased the founding doctors of the Physicians and Surgeons Hospital are with their nursing school, the results do not impress her.  These San Antonio-trained nurses absolutely are not as professional as those from Germany.

“Karl told me that it took six automobiles just to transport all the flowers to the cemetery.”

Chapter 2

copyright 2007, Gayle Brennan Spencer