The Snake Dance

I moved to Oklahoma in 1979. I guess at that time you might have called me a typical Yankee insofar as I had absolutely no concept of what it would be like to live among Oklahomans, affectionately known as Okies. John Wayne movies and John Steinbeck were all I knew about Oklahoma and here I was far from the New York City where I grew up. I had never heard of religions that believed doctors were servants of the devil until I met a beautiful young mother with two equally beautiful daughters who had recently spent a week in hell praying for Divine intervention, but watching their husband and father die a painful, slow death from a burst appendix. This story is fiction, but inspired by the appendix tragedy. Any resemblance to real people is only coincidental. Harriet Josephine Baron, a.k.a. Harri, watches her baby brother being born and cared for by the women of the church and at thirteen years old she's not prepared to witness the pain her mother is going through. Earlier she had been arguing with her mother about wanting to cut her hair when her mother went into labor and now she feels responsible for bringing all this pain onto her mother. She had questioned God and the rules her people insisted she follow, but her mother had always been loving and kind when she insisted Harri do as she was told. God's Will was not a good enough explanation any longer - Harri's life changes forever when her mother dies. The story is about courage and the events in your life that change who you are. Other books by J.D.Becker: The Zookeeper - first in an adventure, romance, mystery series whose protagonist is a 50 year old New Yorker. To be published in May, 2014.