A Triker Christmas

By Narlen & Eveline Evans

A Triker Christmas is a short story of how a triker's death touched the lives of strangers bringing them together. The death helps these strangers put together some of the broken pieces of their lives. They each had things wrong in their lives but looking at the big picture they didn't see the missing pieces until this death brings them together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Narlen & Eveline Evans
• Release date: May 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476199436

Narlen & Eveline Evans

Narlen and Eveline Evans have been happily married for many years. They live in the Central Texas area. Narlen is retired and now spends all his time on trike building, woodcarving, and volksmarching. We worked on the stories together. The ideas are mostly his and she took them and typed them up. Eveline is also retired now and enjoys photography, volksmarching (AVA.org) and typing up the stories he tells.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

The chainsaw screamed as it chewed into the black walnut log. Slowly the crude outline of an elephant took shape. The man doing the carving was Evan Wright. The log stood outside his metal barn. Evan was a handsome man in his late 60s. He had a grey mustache and a full head of silver hair that grew long around his ears and collar. He had dimples when he smiled, which he did often. He handled the chain saw with ease.

Evan had retired from his job with the city five years previously and he’d taken up log carving. He carved for his own pleasure at first. He had a natural talent and he taught himself through trial and error. He had already given away several carvings as gifts, and donated some to be raffled off at fund raising events held at motorcycle and trike rallies.

Then one day he decided to take some of them in and see if he could sell them. He loaded up an angel, two Indians, and a cowboy riding a bear into the back of his pickup. He tried several shops but they were not interested in purchasing his art. He stopped for lunch at the Rustic Inn and while eating he decided to try another angle. Instead of selling them outright he asked the manager of the Inn if he could leave his art there on consignment. The Rustic Inn was a family restaurant and it was pretty plain. The manager agreed that the log carvings would spruce the place up. Both the manager and Evan were surprised when the angel sold within a week. Evan’s work became an overnight sensation. Everyone who dined at the Rustic Inn admired the two Indians which Evan named Running Bear and his squaw White Dove, but they were large and expensively priced. So far they remained unsold.

Saturday - December 20st

Un-seasonably Warm for December

Chapter 1.New Cop In Town

Almeada is a city in West Texas. It is surrounded on three sides by small bedroom communities and on the fourth by a river. Almeada is the big city where most of the people who lived in the bedroom communities work.

Abram Yost was a rookie cop in Almeada. He rolled into Almeada on a Harley Softtail. He found a duplex he liked and had his things shipped in. He quickly got settled and reported to work.

After his interview with the Police Chief he’d been assigned an experienced officer as a partner to teach him the ropes. They patrolled the city in the cruiser. There wasn’t much happening that needed their attention. So far all they’d had to deal with were a few traffic tickets and a couple of family disputes.

Abram liked to talk so before long his partner knew everything there was to know about him.

So how did you end up here in Almeada, his partner inquired the first day.

I’m from the Midwest, Abram began filling him in. Born and raised there but my parents are deceased. I was an only child and all my Aunts and Uncles have passed.

No reason to go back there, he continued. I’ve got a lot of cousins, but the weather in the Midwest is like Germany’s, cold with snow. So I applied to Texas for the police training course and looked for work here.

I took my equivalency of training course in Houston, and I liked it there; but they wouldn’t hire me. I applied in Dallas, Houston, and several other big cities, but they all turned me down. They told me they wanted people that had some civilian law enforcement experience under their belts. So when Almeada offered me a position I took it

So we’re just a stepping stone, his partner inquired. A place for you to get the required experience so you can move on to a bigger city.

Yep, Adam admitted with a shrug.

I figured as much, his partner stated.

Within the next few days Abram told his partner that he was a retired Army MP and he’d spent most of his military time stationed in Germany. He confided that he’d enlisted right out of high school.

An Army recruiter had come to his high school to give a presentation. Abram had taken German for four years and thought it would be great to enlist and get to go there. He hadn’t wanted to go to college, he had no career plans, and he’d just broken up with my girlfriend. He was ripe for adventure. There were brochures on a table and he picked up the one for Military Police. He’d fallen for the bait and enlisted.

How long were you in, his partner inquired.

15 years, Abram told him

Why not stick it out and get a retirement check?

I just got tired of being told what to do, I guess. I want to find a good woman, settle down and raise a couple of kids, he c onfided with a wistful smile. I want a nice house, with a white picket fence around the yard where my kids can play with a dog.

Are you married? he asked his partner.

Naw, divorced! his partner admitted.

Being a police officer isn’t much better than being an MP, his partner continued. While other people sleep and take holidays, we’re on duty. That’s not the kind of life my wife wanted. Luckily we didn’t have any kids.

Abram was ethical, honest and he worked hard to stay professional. He was surprised at the end of his second week when his partner told him to report to work the next day in jeans and a shirt instead of his uniform.

What’s the deal, we going undercover? he asked facetiously.

No, we’re going to put in a sidewalk for the Chief at his house, his partner informed him.

Excuse me! Abram exclaimed indignantly. I wasn’t hired to make sidewalks for the Chief.

If you want to keep your job you’d better suck it up, his partner replied.

And don’t even think about reporting it because the Chief is friends with the Governor. He comes out every year to deer hunt on the Chief’s ranch.

So are you going to work on this sidewalk too? Abram asked.

There will be four of us. The Chief wants the sidewalk poured out of concrete. And he expects it to look professional. It’s his Christmas present to his wife.

But I don’t know a thing about pouring cement, Abram objected.

Well we’ll all just have to do the best we can. We all have to play the Chief’s games to keep our jobs.

Their conversation was interrupted when the radio on the cruiser announced a disturbance in progress.

Chapter 2.Assault With a Deadly Weapon

Larry Williams sat relaxed in his recliner with his feet up watching TV the last Saturday before Christmas. His wife of seven years, Eloise, had hit the mall for some last minute gift shopping. His eight year old step-son, Brad, was at a Boy Scout camp-out. It was such an unseasonably warm December that the Scout Master wanted the boys in his troop to get outside and enjoy it.

Their Christmas tree was set up on a table in front of the picture window. The table was draped with a long cloth so the presents underneath were hidden from view. Larry hadn’t wanted the tree in front of the window, but that is where Eloise wanted it so he gave in. He had to admit it did look pretty at night when you looked at the house from outside. Eloise had sweet talked him into putting twinkle lights around the window too. He’d adamantly refused to climb up a ladder and do the eaves of the house though.

He glanced away from the TV at the Christmas tree and past it out the front window at front yard.

I guess I need to mow the yard again, he thought to himself. The recent rain and warm weather sure has made it grow.

He noticed the warm weather had also made the purple hyacinth think it was spring. The plants which edged the yard were loaded with blossoms.

His eyes wandered over to the small utility trailer with the For Sale sign parked in a corner of the yard. Eloise had asked him to move the trailer off the front lawn.

How am I going to sell it if people don’t see it and know it is for sale? his thoughts continued. Why doesn’t she understand that I need to contribute to the family income, beyond handing over my Social Security check? Making and selling trailers is my reason to get up every morning.

Larry was retired. Not because he wanted to be though. He’d lost his construction job when the economy went south. He didn’t want to work at a fast food restaurant or as a greeter at some discount store, so they were living on his small social security check and his wife’s salary as a hair dresser. Larry supplemented their income by building trailers out of pickup beds and selling them.

He searched the local green sheet for wrecked pickup trucks. If the bed was good he’d buy the pickup and strip off the cab. Sometimes if the engine was good he was able to sell it too, but most of the time everything but the bed went to the scrap yard. He made the trailer by cutting the frame rails of the pickup and bending them to make the trailer tongue. Getting the ends to meet square in the middle was a talent that had taken him some time to develop. Once he got the two ends to meet properly, he welded a trailer hitch on the bed to turn it into a nice trailer. He made pretty good money doing it.

This latest trailer was made from a small