Dust and Empty Dreams - Paperback

by Wayne Orr (Author)

She waited until he was in the other room before she picked up the gun. She positioned the chair so she could rest her hands on its back supporting the pistol's weight. She stood there, the gun pointed at the door, waiting for Pedro to return. She heard him moving around in the kitchen, and after an interval that seemed to be a long time, he appeared in the doorway. He took two or three steps before he realized that Maria had his gun. He stopped and demanded angrily, "Put the gun down, puta, before I break your neck." Her body was trembling violently, and she was so frightened that she almost obeyed. Her legs were so weak that they felt as though they were about to collapse and let her fall. "Get out of my way," she whispered weakly. "Por favor, señor. I must leave." "I'll show you, you treacherous whore," he screamed. He dropped the wine glasses and rushed toward her. She braced, waiting to feel the crushing blows of his fists. He was almost upon her when she heard the gun firing again and again and felt it bucking in her hands. Pedro fell backward onto the floor. Blood was splattered on the wall behind him and flowed from beneath his body in scarlet streams. Maria is a young girl who is kidnapped by a ruthless cartel that sells Mexican señoritas to oil-rich foreigners. Cal Lovett is a callous con man who defrauds desperate cancer patients with a bogus cancer cure machine. Andy Calliope is a construction worker who meets Jesus in a remote and lonely canyon.

Author Biography

Wayne Orr is the third of eight children. He was born twelve miles northeast of Amarillo, Texas in a little house on his maternal grandfather's farm. When he was twelve years old, his father bought a small farm in southeastern Oklahoma, and the family moved there. Wayne spent his evenings, weekends and summers taking care of the cows and pigs, working in the fields, cutting firewood and hauling hay. The Orrs sold their farm when Wayne was a senior in high school. As soon as he graduated, the family left Oklahoma for the oilfields of West Texas. Wayne worked there for a while and decided that the work was too hard and dirty. He went to Austin and enrolled in the University of Texas to study for a Bachelor of Journalism degree. While he was a student, he met and married Esther Mata which he says was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to him. After Wayne received his journalism degree, he went to work for the federal government writing manuals and regulations, first in San Antonio, then in Dayton, Ohio and finally in the Washington, DC area including the Pentagon. He is retired from the government and hopes to write and travel. The characters in his books are based on people he has known. They are believable and real.