Drago #3. Art Spinella
Just a few reviews…
I love the Drago series, each story is exciting and full of surprises. This is a great book to purchase for yourself or as a gift; it's hard to put down and leaves you looking forward to future books featuring Nick Drago and his mystery solving friends. – Tracy A., California
Just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed your books, I even figured out the user name and password. However Drago and his buddy sure do eat a lot. Looking forward to book 3. – Diane M., Michigan
Great read!... Started reading and quickly got to the point I couldn’t put it down… -- ST, Oregon
Darn you, Drago. You made me late for work! – MJ, Oregon
…a 3-D jigsaw puzzle of clues… (Western World newspaper)
Great read capturing my attention from page 1. – CGM, Oregon
(My wife) liked your book… but can’t download (Drago #2) from Amazon! – U.K. (Author’s note: We’ll send a copy to her.)
Great books, next?? – FG, Oregon
For a free autographed Drago Bookmark, email your address and name to [email protected]
To have your copy of Drago autographed, mail it to
PO Box 744, Bandon, Oregon 97411
Include your mailing address. We’ll pay return postage.
E-books available at most electronic-book web sites or go to www.cnwmr.com/DRAGO for a link to our web store where you can download in any of multiple formats depending on your electronic-reader device.
DRAGO #3
Art Spinella
Copyright 2011 by Art Spinella
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0498-1
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Art Spinella. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Most businesses and locations, however, are real. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. For a closer look at Bandon, Oregon, go to www.Bandon.com.
Cover design: D. T. Spillane
Audio book version in 2011 by Pasta Studios
Printed in the United States of America
DEDICATION
In memory of Sue Tate, a friend.
THANKS TO:
Grover Hatcher and Debby Johnson
(WinterRiver Books, Bandon)
Bill “Country” Hagedorn
(Showing mere mortals how it’s done)
Jesse Morrow
(For getting Cookie to ride)
Richard and Karen Line
(Dicky, would you like a 1664?)
David Kimes
(Always a joke or a puzzle to tell)
George Dukovich
(Big weapons for small problems)
Bubba Watson
(Little weapons for big problems)
Bruce and Kittie Lou English
(Hot rod builder, friends, fountains of ideas)
SPECIAL THANKS FROM THE HEART TO:
Tracy, Danielle, McKae, Rick, Jesse
(Kids. Don’t you just luv ‘em?)
And, of course, Cookie
WITHOUT THE ABLE ASSISTANCE OF THE BANDON HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM, DRAGO #3 WOULD HAVE NOT BEEN POSSIBLE.
COVER PHOTO OF THE DORA AND INTERIOR PHOTOS OF COMMERCE ON THE COQUILLE RIVER ARE FROM THE BANDON HISTORICAL SOCIETY ARCHIVES.
WHEN IN BANDON, PLEASE VISIT THIS RICH WAREHOUSE OF OREGON COAST HISTORY.
PROLOGUE
Americans are constantly barraged with information. More than most need or want. So it’s often difficult to take a step back and in hindsight look at what our ancestors had to do to simply survive. This is especially true among those rural folks in places like Oregon where distances are far and travel until the 1930s perilous.
On a trip through central Oregon, my wife and I ran across a small, worn and weathered plaque telling the story of a man whose “day job” was delivering mail on horseback between two distant towns. The trip would take days in each direction. The weather ranging from scorching hot to bitter cold. Toss in a few massive thunderstorms or the constant, irritating Oregon rain just for kicks. Living alone in the wilderness meant his second job was hunting and trapping for food to last through the long, frigid high-desert winters.
For farmers and ranchers in the 1800s and before, households didn’t survive on a single worker. They relied on both adults and all of the children busting sod or raising cattle or sheep or sowing a variety of crops or picking those same crops in order to sustain themselves.
Loggers’ wives nailed down the homestead because the man was often gone days at a time doing the often deadly work of cutting timber. Women not only raised children, they worked for a pittance as teachers, shop clerks, laundresses, and even some in the darker skills.
Ships’ crews spent weeks, often months, without benefit of communications with loved ones at home while wives and children earned meager income from performing what would now be considered menial chores for others.
Reading school history books provides a one-dimensional glimpse into the lives of Americans before the 1940s. To get the real picture of this country’s hard men and hearty women requires time in the many small-town historical museums. This is where true history is displayed, one village at a time. Look at the photos that hang on the walls. The rail-thin laborers, the rickety equipment, gritty towns, shabby houses and faces aged beyond their years.
Surprisingly, you won’t feel sorry for those rural folks. They somehow look stern, strong and independent. You might even find yourself admiring their guts, stamina and resiliency. I know that I do each time I roam through places like the Bandon Historical Society’s Museum.
Drago #3 is rooted in Bandon’s history with a parallel story line planted in today’s world of high tech. Let your imagination roam and wander the past and future. And if you get the chance, when in a small rural town that happens to have a history museum, drop in. It’s uplifting to see how far we’ve come and enlightening to see the lengths our predecessors went to survive. --- Art Spinella
As with Drago #2, we have included a User ID and Password for access to a hidden Drago #3 Page on our www.cnwmr.com/DRAGO website.
PREFACE
Sal and I slumped into a booth at the La Fiesta Mexican restaurant in Old Town Bandon, waved for a couple of Dos Equis and some salsa and chips. Both arrived in mere seconds.
“Topic of the night,” I said.
The