The Golden Hawk

"In The Golden Hawk, Tommy Gallagher made a bad choice, a hasty decision rushed by Benzedrine and fear. Now, with the nephew of a mobster in the trunk of a stolen car, Tommy's bender finds him hundreds of miles from Vegas on a mountaintop in central Arizona. Haunted by his own folly and specters at the edge of mental collapse, Tommy comes to terms with his planned revenge and opts for mercy instead." 

Yup, that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

I have not written many tag-lines... proof of this is I don't think that's what they're called... but for this story I have and this does pretty much sum it up.

This story was finished March 18, 2019, coming in at 5,748 words. Yes, it broke the 5k barrier, but rules are meant to be broken in need and this story presented that need. My wine-peddling Lovecraft-pushing pal holds to the date of this writing, where I am at 73 Tales, that this, the 39th, is my best, or at least his favorite. I am kind of fond of "The Golden Hawk" as well.

In tracing the development of this Tale, I recall a submission call for "cozy" dark tales taking place in the mid-20th Century. That set me thinking, where can I find any cars from diverse eras wherein a representative of such from the period requested might be found? The answer was obvious, the Amalgamated Metals Incorporated AZ-09-AU mine up near the headwaters of the Bajazid.

"The Amalgamated Metals Incorporated AZ-09-AU mine?" you ask.

Yes, and thank you for your prompt prompt. Way back on story #7 when I was still wandering around these hills without direction, I was following a character whose name, believe it or not, I still do not know, not even after nearly 22,000 words. I followed him for three days as he let his anger build and fester. It was on the second day when he had his only true reprieve and that is because he took off and wandered around with his sketchbook and his Tupperware container of weed. One of the places he visited was an old abandoned mine at the top of the mountain. There is structural reasons why he travels up there as a different journey is underway at the same time. His presence there though establishes this location early on in the history of these Tales. Its inclusion in this story, "Anger", was in part because I already, even back then, knew I needed to enshrine this location. It stems from one of my earliest considerations. Why it was of interest here is because of the number of old cars from diverse eras parked here and there. In "Anger", there was no need to mention their make.

Just on a quick side, the AMI is about to play a monstrously huge role in the Tales of the Bajazid as it is the centerpiece of the project I am currently working on, "A Sestina Writ in Darkness".

So, I had my era and I had a geographical excuse for a temporal spread of automobiles. That's nice and good, but I had no idea what to do. Being that I give people gas five days a week, I see a lot of classic cars in my central Prescott location. As they come through, I always admire as I may, often heading out to talk to the people because old guys with well loved restored cars just hate talking about their dearest hobby.

It was around this time, shortly after "The Dutchman" slipped into my rear-view and I was watching the cars roll past that this absolutely beautiful machine pulled in at pump #2. It was a lustrous midnight black beauty perfect in shape and design and as I made excuse to be out looking like I'm working for the cameras, an idea was forming in my mind. Oh, he was ever so willing to speak about his car, a 1958 Studebaker Silver Hawk. So willing was he that upon request, he opened the trunk so that I may see how much room was inside, explaining that for a story I was considering, I needed such a car with just enough room. How much? Well, I need to transport the nephew of a Las Vegas mob-boss...

I had my story and it was desperate. My last impediment was the introduction, a decision determined when that first line came crashing through the tall grass. With the geography known and ready calculations available, the era understood through a lifetime of absorption of Americana with emphasis on film noir subculture, my primary research, outside of my regular guides on time-specific phrases (and the reason you won't hear me mention "stooges" when out in the desert), was into the Studebaker Hawks. Holy smokes! I think I done fell in love here 'cause the '56 version of this series, the one to hold the name Golden Hawk, well, that decided my story as well as determined an artifact new off the lot I plan on picking up as soon as my time-machine is ready. Gonna put it in storage and wait.

Of all these Tales, of all these stories that I have written, the singular connecting thread between them all beyond locale is that they all fit in the speculative realm, in particular the genre of the weird. That said, "The Golden Hawk" is the least speculative of all these stories. Indeed, read without context to any of the other stories, I believe a reader might just consider what happens naught but the extreme edges of a near two-day Benzedrine bender backed up by exhausted levels of panic, adrenaline and dread. That speculative element that exists, or those speculative elements haunting at the edges, may easily be so misconstrued. If however the reader of this Tale has encountered any other story so sub-titled with many directly noticed amongst this small catalog of mine, then those elements cannot be missed taking a relatively horrifying ending for the uninitiated and turning it into a nightmare for those who recognize the shadows.

From the opening line unto that surety condemned, this is one of my personal favorite Tales. With the exception of artifact addition, the revelation of one of those vehicles spied by my nameless hero with an anger issue and a sketchpad, there remains no other connection to any other Tales for these characters beyond that spied at the edges of exhaustion. It was not accepted into the anthology I wrote it for... mainly because I think I mistook the concept of "cozy" as being the space in the trunk of a 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk. Crashing from a two-day adrenaline freaked high isn't that cozy. That's all good though because I have this story because of it. As well, I don't think that publisher is a going concern anymore. Another Tale I would write shortly after this was accepted but that was some time ago and I've heard nothing in, well, let's just say that if they had published it within six months of their acceptance, the rights would have returned to me by now.

By the way, um, my conception of mercy might not be universal here...