R.J. Luce

My outdoor experience parallels that of my main character, Whip Sawtell. I worked as a wildlife biologist in Wyoming for three decades. I conducted radio-telemetry studies on deer; counted elk, pronghorn, and moose from small planes and helicopters, and traversed hundreds of miles of caves and abandoned mines counting bats. I also spent a lot of time driving 4-wheel drive roads to count big game animals, run traplines to survey small mammals, and conduct songbird surveys in remote areas.

On my personal time, I traveled the Wyoming backcountry extensively big game hunting, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and caving; and took a 7-10 day backpacking trip in the mountains each year. I also spent time each year canoeing rivers in Wyoming, Utah, or Montana. In 2010, two friends and I backpacked the 820-mile National Arizona Scenic Trail from the border of Mexico across Arizona to the Utah border.

I have authored a number of technical wildlife publications, written wildlife-related articles for outdoor magazines, including Wyoming Wildlife and others, and contributed images to wildlife identification guides. Treble Heart Books published my first mystery novel, Disappearance Creek, in 2009. Amazon published Outlaw Creek in 2012. Also in 2012, MyPublisher published my photo/essay book, River of Life: Four Seasons along Arizona's Rio San Pedro.

I spend most of the year at my home along the San Pedro River near Sierra Vista, Arizona; but frequently visit my former homes: Lander, Wyoming and Ravenna, Nebraska where I attended high school and lived on my parents' farm. I travel annually to South Dakota to hunt pheasants, and along with my labrador retriever, pursue desert quail and doves during the fall hunting seasons in Arizona.

I also travel a lot. I like to camp in remote locations in my pickup pop-up camper in Arizona and adjacent states. I also like to travel internationally, usually unstructured, independent travel. I have traveled a lot in Mexico, including camping the full length of Baja. My partner and I spent the summer of 2011 traversing Central America from Belize to Panama by bus; and I have visited Brazil, the U.S Virgin Islands, Kenya, Tanzania for birdwatching and photography. I enjoy hearing about other people's independent travel experiences.

Please visit my website: www.rjluce.com.

Excerpt from Disappearance Creek by R.J. Luce

Sawtell swung the flashlight in his left hand up toward the noise and picked up a gray blur of movement at the far edge of the beam of light. He'd just cleared his pistol from its holster when the gray blur morphed into large white fangs and a gray head the size of a basketball. The wolf-dog charged down the passage like a runaway locomotive, bark-howling like a demon.

The dog hit Sawtell in the chest with both front feet, knocked the breath from his lungs and drove him into the wall. The sound of his fiberglass helmet hitting the rock wall boomed like a rifle shot and his shattered headlamp flew off into the darkness. The impact threw Sawtell's right hand against the rock wall, dislodged the pistol from his hand and catapulted it down the lower passage. Momentum swung his body to the right and he instinctively raised his left arm for balance. The dog, true to his training, fastened his teeth onto that arm, the one that held a weapon--the flashlight.

Long, sharp fangs dug into the heavy leather gauntlet but did not penetrate. Sawtell's arm felt like a vise had closed over it, jaws tightening every second. He dropped the flashlight and it blinked out when it hit the floor. He knew he couldn't defeat the dog with brute strength. His right hand stung from its collision with the wall, but he moved it to his left side and flicked off the leather thong holding a survival knife in its sheath.

Sawtell felt his left arm weakening, creeping inexorably toward his face. He remembered what the dog had done to Hill--went for the arm first, then the face and throat. Hot, rancid breath coursed over him. He knew he didn't have much time, so he grasped the knife handle, pulled it from the sheath...

Excerpt from Outlaw Creek by R.J. Luce

Sawtell felt the floor of the abandoned mine shift slightly, then the bottom dropped out like the trap door of a gallows. He experienced weightlessness, heard the crack and boom of cascading rocks, then both felt and sensed a rumble like a summer thunderstorm in the Rocky Mountain high country. Somewhere removed from the deafening roar he heard the voice of his partner, Cat Bonner, shrieking his name. Clouds of billowing, chalky limestone dust stung his eyes and threatened to plug his nose as he catapulted downward. The vision of a near endless fall to the bottom of a thousand-foot shaft seared his brain.

A human body falls at a rate of one hundred twenty-five miles an hour after it reaches terminal velocity in twelve seconds. Sawtell's mind processed that useless bit of information in the millisecond before he even thought to cry out.

Excerpt from River of Life, Four Seasons along Arizona's Rio San Pedro by R.J. Luce:

A desert river is a both a linear oasis and Mother Nature's psychiatrist. Sitting quietly along the bank of a river is a soothing experience, and one simply cannot help but feel more relaxed and positive after a half hour therapy session. However, at another time, a river experience can be thrilling: noisy riffles, massive bank-to-bank logjams, or huge, old cottonwoods creaking mournfully in the wind. Unexpected encounters with wildlife are always just around the next curve. Ken Lamberton, in Dry River, quotes Alan Weisman, "Every bend of the Santa Cruz (River) is worthy of a gasp." I can think of no better way to describe the San Pedro.

The San Pedro is not just a river it is an ecological experience. Life is sparse in the desert, but abundant within in the thin, magical riparian corridor of trees, shrubs, grasses, water plants, and wildlife that thrives along any slow, meandering river. That is especially true along a desert river.