The onslaught of a winter not seen in a hundred years was bearing down with a blanket of ice and snow across America. Mismanaged cities downsized due to debts that could no longer be paid to support the needed complement of police, fire fighters, and maintenance crews. Affluent communities fell into a state of decay tangled with broken power lines no longer able to withstand the crush of ice and snow. Copper thieves brought darkness to abandoned streets. Arches of ice frozen in space hung above broken water lines. Trees that had stood for centuries fell on houses and cars. Hundreds of these giants lay scattered across roads making it impossible for crews to reach fires ignited when gas mains broke consuming entire communities. Factories, businesses, houses and apartments were going dark and cold when the power went off and gas was no longer available for heat. Churches, gymnasiums and community centers were swarming with desperate families out of money and nowhere else to go. Thousands of families out of work spent their depleted funds and final unemployment checks to head south in search of work in places that promised sunshine and warmth. The highways were scattered with abandoned cars draped in mountains of fresh snow. Trucks heading north into the cities whose shelves were bereft of even the basic needs of their patrons stalled in the snarl of abandoned vehicles to be pilfered by desperate travelers heading to places unknown. In the quiet remote forests of Arkansas, Austin and Gayle Milo cleared their land and built a prime herd of cattle raised on the land they had claimed from the encroaching grasp of Mother Nature. Into this quiet place, dangerous and desperate men and women planted themselves saying they came in peace, but they defiled the land.
About the Author: Arlen Davidian lives with his wife Debbie on a mountain in the Ozarks. He is the author of three books. In "Tales from the Hills and Hollers," Vol 1 and Vol 2, he tells stories of the lives and characters of some of the people who have etched in Mid-America a piece of history that must be told. In "A Mysterious Light," his first in print novel, Arlen tells the story of a lawyer and his family who have left city life to carve a cattle ranch out of the rugged forests of the Ozarks. A devastating winter shuts down the mid-west, and thousands of inhabitants are left without heat and power due to mis-management and corruption of the officials in charge of cities in the north. In desperation hundreds of families flee to find warmer places to the south. It is to this cattle ranch that a man has invited his friends with a promise of peace and solace. That promise of peace and quiet in fact brings mayhem and chaos.