Mary Relindes Ellis

AUDIO EXCERPTS: One | Two

THE TURTLE WARRIOR, excerpt

Snapping turtles were like nothing else Bill knew. Not like humans or animals. Not even like their cousins, the box and mud turtles. Snappers were sometimes algae-covered or muddy or even mossy looking at times. They appeared ugly, wise, and ancient all at once. The combination lifted them to a transcendent beauty, an otherworldly magnificence that thrilled Bill. They were the nearest thing to a dragon that he would ever experience. They couldn't move their bodies very fast on the ground.

It was their heads and jaws that gave them their name. The head could suddenly shoot forward, snapping down on prey with jaws that could not be pried apart. Bill liked to put his bare feet on top of the empty shells of the turtles his mother had used to make soup and feel with his toes, the ridges and leathery points of the carapaces. Like most turtle shells, snapping turtle's shells were not round but slightly oval, some of them with a one distinct ridge running straight down the middle from the head opening to the rear of the shell where the turtle's tail protruded.

He had picked the largest shell and asked his brother to drill a hole on the right and left side of the shell, where it was the widest to protect the vulnerable skin between the turtle's front and back feet. Bill threaded and knotted one end of a rope through the one hole, pulling the rest of the rope across the interior of the shell and through the opposite hole so that it was taut. He cut off the excess rope and knotted it. He could then insert his left arm up through the inside of the shell so that it functioned as a shield.

His small feet danced and dodged around his imaginary enemies on the packed down dirt of the barnyard. He held the turtle shield high to keep the sun out of his eyes and its jagged edges cast a shadow over his face. He rarely had to use his shield as protection for his face and chest. His sword moved too fast for him to learn the names of his enemies before they died. But they knew his name. Bill imagined that his enemies called him The Turtle Warrior and swinging the wooden sword that James had made for him, he punctured their chests and sliced their hearts in two. Bill knew that almost nothing, not even bears, bothered a snapping turtle. So, he reasoned, nothing would mess with The Turtle Warrior either.

Debut Novel: The Turtle Warrior—Excerpts