HAND TALKER: The Life and Times of a Monster Slayer
A contemporary Native American saga of survival, family building and post-traumatic healing
Click here for info on purchasing a nicer hardcover edition (dust jacket included)
Back Cover: “With bloodied fists and no memory of what happened, Davy “Hand Talker” Judd, a mixed-blood Native American teen, disappears into the night and hitchhikes from the big city north to Canada, eventually becoming a wilderness trapper. He’s haunted by disturbing nightmares and visions of skinwalkers—the legendary witch-wolves whispered of during his childhood. Fifteen years later, Beth Winsley (an Australian teacher and animal rights activist related the British Royal Family) discovers his remote trapline. Beth is hiding from paparazzi. Hand Talker is hiding from his painful past. They forge an unlikely alliance as she becomes his nursemaid and he becomes her teacher. After Beth’s boyfriend goes missing, it seems the culprit is punished: Hand Talker’s son dies of an overdose and a massive wildfire leaves him homeless. Forced to make a change, he emerges from obscurity to become a tribal leader. But to beat his rival, he must come to grips with what transpired on that long-ago deadly night. Will Hand Talker and Beth survive the day of reckoning?”
POEM SAMPLES
"Death of Summer" (Copyright 2015 Johnny Doeskin)
a shroud of clouds
hanging from heaven
cries cool gray tears
on fallen red leaves
"My Sad Earth" (from Hand Talker: The Life and Times of a Monster Slayer), Copyright 2024 Johnny Doeskin)
I hum ancient hymns
to my sad Earth.
I chant old rhythms
learned before birth.
In the desert—dead,
in the gray rain,
my tears touch the mud,
soothing Her pain.
The trees have all died.
Fish belly-up.
White brothers have lied.
Poison—corrupt.
From charcoal-choked skies
foul waters fall.
More cities rise,
burying all.
What can I do? I’m
one man, no more,
my voice a whisper
against the roar?
I say in sorrow:
“Let live, why slay?”
“Maybe tomorrow—
progress!” they bray.
Dismissing the ancient
wisdom ways,
denying the climate
weirding days,
oil and coal nourish
their selfish gains,
politicos flourish
and ignorance reigns.
Chaos, mayhem,
economy crash,
disease, riots, famine,
artillery smash.
Now thirsting and dying,
they starve, they bloat.
The spoiled are crying,
no more to gloat.
Their sickening moans
echo, then falter—
entombed in false stones—
their concrete altar.
I eat roaches, mice,
rats and stale seeds,
the resistant lice,
mutated weeds.
Their world is ending,
yet life goes on.
Mine is the mending
for time—long—long.
"Old Roman" (Copyright 2013 Johnny Doeskin)
Gotta sun-bleached mane - tattered ears
Been scarred and cut-up o'er the years
He rakes the dust - pretends to doze
This one they call 'Old Roman Nose'
Ignores the stranger sneakin' in
Then like a whirlwind he spins
A one-ton kick, that familiar thud
Off limps another busted stud
White-hot crash with boom of thunder
An old mare trips - gets trampled under
Colts bolt downslope - fillies scream
Two dozen eyes in the lightning gleam
Twelve flags whippin' at full sail
Pushed ahead by the mountain gale
Old Roman gathers up his crew
This stormy night is nothin' new
Mornin' chill and chopper thump
Behind the ridge then o'er the hump
The herd pressed hard by bombardier
Old Roman's bringin' up the rear
With chopper flankin' low and loud
Into the willow pen they crowd
Our stallion smashes through the wall
Leads 'em to safety - one and all
"El Vago Viejo" (The Old Vagrant) (Copyright 2002 Johnny Doeskin)
Hunched there alone,
soaked clear to the bone,
shriveled, corpse-like,
shivering in the cold,
the hollow-eyed vagrant, thin, worn and old.
With rain comes despair,
gray sky, sooty air.
He eats, shits, starves,
thirsts, sleeps – with a mutter.
Another night...month...year in the gutter.
Bloody Tales Publishing 