Book description
In the autumn of 1915, Shaw Tucker, his brother James, and their sons,
go on a hunting trip to the derelict farm his stepfather had bought
years before. Instead of a quail, Shaw's dog, Buttercup, retrieves an
old boot with the bones of a foot inside. Buttercup then leads the men
to a shallow grave and a skeleton with a bullet hole in the skull. That
night, Shaw awakens to see a pair of moccasin-clad legs strolling by his
tent flap. He chases the intruder, who has disappeared so completely
that Shaw wonders if he imagined it. Had he also imagined the ghostly
voice that called his name? After he returns home, Shaw can't shake the
memory of the disembodied legs and the ghostly voice. His concern is
justified when he realizes that someone - or something - has followed
him home. His dread turns to relief when he captures a young Creek
Indian boy who says he is Crying Blood. The boy had followed Shaw,
hoping to find a white haired man who killed his brother. Shaw ties the
boy up in the barn, but during the few minutes he is left alone, someone
thrusts a spear through Crying Blood's heart. Who murdered a boy right
under Shaw's nose? The law is on the killer's trail, but Shaw Tucker has
a hunch about the identity of the white-haired man who called his name.
Only Shaw's wife, Alafair, might be able to forestall his dangerous
plan. So when the opportunity arises, Shaw sends her on a wild goose
chase. As soon as she is out of the way, he sets out to confront the
killer. Donis Casey was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A third
generation Oklahoman, she and her siblings grew up among their aunts and
uncles, cousins, grandparents and great-grandparents on farms and in
small towns, where they learned the love of family and independent
spirit that characterizes the population of that pioneering state. Donis
graduated from the University of Tulsa with a degree in English, and
earned a Master's degree in Library Science from Oklahoma University.
After teaching school for a short time, she enjoyed a career as an
academic librarian, working for many years at the University of Oklahoma
and at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. Donis left academia
in 1988 to start a Scottish import gift shop in downtown Tempe. After
more than a decade as an entrepreneur, she decided to devote herself
full-time to writing. The Old Buzzard Had It Coming is her first book.
The Oklahoma Writers' Federation awarded The Old Buzzard first place in
it's annual writing contest as the best unpublished mystery of 2004. For
the past twenty years, Donis has lived in Tempe, Arizona, with her
husband.
