Marian Webb BettsTall waving grass surrounded me, isolating me on the well-trodden path. In the distance I could hear the other kids still playing on the soccer field. I'd left them and headed home, only the chuff of a leopard froze my blood and my body. If I yelled ould the others hear me? No. How far was the house? Could I run fast enough? No. Woof! Woof! Woof! A black shape sailed past me into the long grass followed by the sound of a scuffle and a big cats scream. I leapt into action making a wild dash for the house. Pal, our Alsatian dog, caught up with me as I opened the screen door and collapsed inside. Good boy, Pal! Did you give it what for? He flopped beside me, tongue lolling, a happy grin on his doggy face. Episodes like this were common where I grew up in the back of beyond - South Sudan, Africa. The critters were different, a loose bull, a lion, a snake, a crocodile, even a hippo once! My parents were British pioneer missionaries. Dad ran a school for the young men of the area including several different warring tribes. Mum ran a medical clinic and training center. We kids were pretty much on our own, the older ones supposed to be watching the younger. It was a primitive life with no running water, electricity, radios, or that many books, either. In the evenings Dad would entertain us with stories of his adventures in the early days or he'd make up stories about the animals we saw daily, or children like ourselves and adventures we might get into. We learned from him to do the same as our toys were few, but we learned from the native children how to make figures from mud, using found items like thorns for spears, tusks, and horns. And we taught them how to build roads in the dirt. Between us we made whole villages, cattle, sheep, and warriors who could fight each other. Mum home-schooled us for as long as she could, but eventually we all went to boarding school in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Congo. As another civil war broke out in Sudan, Dad decided we would immigrate to the United States. We arrived on July 3, 1963, just a couple months before President Kennedy was assassinated. Although writing was not my first love, I learned early how to tell a good story with a pen, a paintbrush or a camera. So, when Father God gave me, in a vision the full version of one of Dad's short children's stories, I started writing. The musical came first - children's version of the story. The Adult novel came next. As I finished it I realized I had a potential series of books leading through history to present day, and so the Legend begins! And the series: Lost Legends of the Ruby Heart. Book two is Cataclysm and book three is Time Has Come! Read More Read Less