Spring Fever but still here!

I'm torn between enjoying the wonderful false spring--we still can have some chilly days and hopefully some rain in the lower elevations and snow in the mountains--and part of my heart is in Alaska, where the Jr Iditarod was run this weekend and the big race starts next Saturday. But with only thirty days left to sell my Deirdre O'Dare tales in their current form. I have to put some attention to that too! This time I will feature some of my menage tales. I did several and no two are quite alike just as no trios of friends and lovers can be quite the same.

Jesse's Girl was my entry into another song title PAX that five AQ authors put together. The title of course comes from a Rick Springfield song. I was intrigued by the idea of two friends who are almost split apart when one finds a special lady and the other one wants her too but this tale has a twist; do the two guys secretly have the hots for each other too? You might have to read it to find out!

Here is the blurb and the cover.

LuAnne Lockner, the new lady in Sand Creek, Colorado, finds herself coming between two long-term buddies, the sexy Burton Hart and Jesse Greenwood.

Determined not to destroy the life-long friendship between the two men, and sensing they both would like to take things just a little farther with her as well as each other, LuAnne arranges a wild weekend in Las Vegas—for the three of them.

Just as LuAnne anticipates, a very good time is had by all...

Paint a New Scene grew out of real life. I had moved to a small town in southwestern New Mexico and my landlady had a couple of guys working on the house I rented which was in bad need of painting and some refurbishing. A lot of ladies have at least a secret fantasy of being loved to ecstasy by two hunky guys. No, that part was not based on real life but it was sure fun to write!

Here is the blurb and cover.

Young widow and artist Keely must reinvent her life after her husband’s sudden death. Her first step is

to move from Tucson to southwestern New Mexico. When her landlady hires a couple of hunky itinerant handymen to refurbish the rental house, Keely begins to awaken from her grief-spawned isolation.

Jerry and Tim have been drifters, working their way around the west while trying to put their painful pasts behind them. In Keely, they discover a reason to stop moving for a while and perhaps put down roots in the colorful old mining town of Copper City as they ply their trade.

Beguiled by the sexy handymen, Keely discovers a new subject for her paintbrush. Her new "friends with benefits" introduce her to the erotic pleasures of a ménage relationship and inspire her to paint a new scene.

Eres Tu-Times Two spun off from my first Canine Cupids story. In it, Brandi, the granddaughter of one hero's Latino friends and employees, plays a key role in getting the two men to acknowledge their mutual attraction. It turned out she needed a story of her own and here she got one. It happens several years after Doggone Love and may be just a teensy bit tongue-in-cheek but it was a fun romp all the way!

Here is the blurb and the cover.

Brandi Montoya has overcome a rough youth and made something of her life. It may not be what her mama dreamed for her, but being a top flight exotic dancer is fun and pays very well. Whatever she does, Brandi seeks to be the best. A wise mentor has set her on a positive path to success and she’s making good.

Darren Hathcock and Darryl Winstead have come to the outside world from a sheltered commune in the mountains, enjoined to seek converts for their extended family’s narrow sectarian religion. Although the naive young men were told how wicked things were outside, they also had no idea how much fun they could have being thoroughly bad. Brandi is just the person to help them acquire the kind of wild education they didn't even know they needed.

Can the young men convince Brandi to convert for them, or will she be the one doing the converting?

The last two M/F erotic romances

The last two hetero erotic tales I had published at Amber Quill were a historical and a fantasy. Both genres are a notch off my regular style but I am an avid reader of both and felt competent to write in them, as well.

Miss Bea and the Blacksmith came about because someone made a disparaging remark about a blacksmith being an unlikely hero in one of my yahoo groups. If you know me at all, you realize that something like that smacks me in the chops as an outright dare.  A blacksmith can't be sexy and handsome and totally cool? Betcha he can! So I st down and opened the gates to that "otherwhere" that is residence to all the characters whose story has not yet been told. Out came Miss Bea and then Angus. I really enjoyed telling their story!

Here is the bulirb and the cover.

Bea McIntyre fell for an old scheme and ended up the mistress—or actually, the sex slave—of a

dissolute rancher named Murdock. Escaping in the middle of the night with only a few small treasures, she has no real plan except to get away.

When her mare bruises a hoof, Bea winds up at the blacksmith shop of Angus O’Toole. All she can offer him for his help is herself, but he seems to be satisfied with that bargain.

When Murdock sends his hired guns after her, things get dicey. But Bea is no hothouse flower. Between her and Angus, they heat up the days and nights, yet will they also triumph over the black hats?

The Farm Girl's Dragon owes some inspiration to tales by a couple of semi-contemporary fantasy authors, Elizabeth Moon and the late Anne McCaffery, both of whom I have greatly enjoyed. Several of us were working on a PAX collection about dragon shifters. My initial idea was not working so I slept on it and lo and behold, here comes Yerna, a farm girl who wants to be a knight, and a somewhat unlikely younger-son prince who is the scion of an ancient family of dragon shifters where none have used the power for several generations. Again I had a great time writing their tale!

So here is it's blurb and cover.

Yerna Yatskievych left her humble beginnings on a poor farm to become one of the few female knights in Draconia. As a guard for the kingdom’s handsome younger prince, Yerna finds her role both wonderful and challenging. Of course, the prince is far above her reach, but a girl has to dream sometimes.

For Hazwell the Disposable, the trappings and perks of royalty hold little appeal. He wonders what will become of him when his older brother, Crown Prince Maximilian, becomes king. Now, with Max away, a few duties fall to Hazwell, revealing a life of which he will never have more than a tempting taste. But things start to go wrong when his young guard’s hesitant request to be relieved of a problem starts a chain of events with incinerating consequences. Then treachery and mischance bring about huge changes.

With this courageous young female knight at his side, Hazwell dares to reach and strive farther than he had ever dreamed, even to claiming an ancient family power and rising to incredible heights.

The Wild Bunch--Deirdre does cowboys!

The three stories that make up The Wild Bunch Collection are almost a continuing story although each one has a complete romance. They are all set on a very special dude ranch in southwestern New Mexico--solely the object of the writer's imagination!-- called The Rainbow Ranch. This guest ranch caters strictly to well off gay men who want to experience both soe outdoor western adventures and some private fun with a very hunky cowboy. Stace, Spark and Casa are three friends who have given up the rodeo circuit to work on this ranch. The ranch is rainbow in another way too: Spark is anglo, Stace is African American and Casa is Latino.

There is a good chance that I may revise these stories fairly soon and make a single book of them and add ore emphasis to the mysterious angle of the three tales that is finally brought to a solution in the thrid tale. However, they are fun, sexy and adventurous reads just as they are! Here are the blurbs and teh very striking cowboys in their portraits on the covers! Aren't they all delish?

The Wild Bunch: Stace

Stace, Spark, and Casa have been best buddies since their high school rodeo days. Now they work for an exclusive guest ranch in New Mexico that caters to gay men who need an escape from their high-stress, fast-lane lives. Rainbow Ranch has a reputation for providing the precise Wild West adventures each guest needs, and quenching their desires with the cowboys of the guest’s hottest fantasies.

Jared Longford runs a cutting-edge media company and wishes he could put aside the burdens of management and be valued for himself and not his prestige. Persuaded to take a week-long vacation at Rainbow Ranch, he finds exactly the reprieve he needs and all the thrills he could hope for. The experiences he has with ranch employee Stace may just turn his whole life around and set him on a very different course.

Stace never intended to fall for a guest—and it’s never happened before. So why now? What is so unique about the sexy Jared Longford that has Stace dreaming of a long-term relationship?

The Wild Bunch: Spark

Stace, Spark, and Casa have been best buddies since their high school rodeo days. Now they work for an exclusive guest ranch in New Mexico that caters to gay men who need an escape from their high-stress, fast-lane lives. Rainbow Ranch has a reputation for providing the precise Wild West adventures each guest needs, and quenching their desires with the cowboys of the guest’s hottest fantasies.

Spark is all a-twitch when he learns a former guest, Lou Vetrano, is returning for a second visit to the ranch. Spark’s not used to guests making a lasting impression on him, but something about the dashing Chicagoan made it impossible for him to get Lou out of his system. Now Spark wonders, is too much change coming into his life too fast?

Lou had a great time during his initial visit to Rainbow Ranch, and he knows much of it was due to the blond hunk of a cowboy he’d met. Now, Lou can’t wait to see Spark again, but soon he senses things are starting to get a lot more serious than he expected or planned.

How can Lou make a cowboy fit into his high-finance life, and why does he want to try? A dangerous situation helps Lou put his conflicting feelings into perspective, and makes all the pieces of this emotional puzzle come together...

The Wild Bunch: Casa

Stace, Spark, and Casa have been best buddies since their high school rodeo days. Now they work for an exclusive guest ranch in New Mexico that caters to gay men who need an escape from their high-stress, fast-lane lives. Rainbow Ranch has a reputation for providing the precise Wild West adventures each guest needs, and quenching their desires with the cowboys of the guest’s hottest fantasies.

Casa is worried when he sees Stace and Spark have found special partners in guests who’ve visited the ranch the past few months. He hates to be the only one left out, but he doesn’t think finding romance with a guest will work for him. He’s carried a secret torch for his boss Jason way too long to change now.

When Jason is hurt in a rodeo accident, Casa is the one who steps in to help and keep things going while the man recovers. A few small incidents lead Casa to wonder if maybe—in spite of all that says it is impossible—Jason might be a little bit interested in him also. Having dealt with prejudice because of his Latino ethnicity, however, Casa is afraid to let the other man know his feelings.

But will matters be taken out of his hands?

Stace’s new partner Jared bears a striking resemblance to Jason, which makes the three cowboys wonder—is there some connection and maybe even bad blood between the two men? In an effort to bring the two men face to face and discover the truth, the three cowboys engineer a barbeque, unsure whether the result will be terrific or terrible...

Time is flying by!

I just realized that over half the three months that remained when the Amber Quill authors got word of the firm's closing has passed. So I need to remind friends and fans that the Deirdre O'Dare books are going to be gone in just over five weeks. Right now you can still get them at the Amber Quill site and on various venders such as All Romance E-Books.  I encourage you to check out Deirdre's pages at the Amber Quill site and see which books you do not have and want to add to your collection while you can. Here's the link to get started. http://www.amberquill.com/store/m/137-Deirdre-O-Dare.aspx There are four pages following the first one listing all my titles, both the Amber Heat (straight) and Amber Allure (GLBT).

I am still trying to decide what I m going to do with this bunch of tales. Some of them I will probably re-release as self-published books but it's hard to decide which ones. Several of my favorites have not been my best sellers so will it be worth reissuing them?  I am pretty sure the Canine Cupids series will be available somewhere within the coming year. Beyond that it's pretty much up for grabs!

So for now here are a couple of other titles to perhaps pique your interest. These are two contemporary gay stories that released a month apart a few years back. We were in a monochrome cover style right then!

You Were Always on My Mind is of course the title of a song covered by a range of artists over the years. We were doing a PAX collection based on song titles and this one reached out to me.  I saw almost at once a pair of men who had known each other in high school as friends and one night late in their senior year they got drunk together  and things went off in a new direction. They parted very soon afterwards but as it turned out, neither one ever quite forgot...When events put them back together, would the old attraction come alive again?

Here is the blurb and the cover--which illustrates one scene just perfectly...

Blurb: Garth Talent could never forget Peter Nightrider, his best bud from high school, or the one drunken night they shared exploring each other’s bodies. He’s spent fifteen years with that memory and has never found anyone to erase it.

Now Garth is a high-priced attorney and Peter is a celebrity, heading an exciting Native-Pop music group. But Peter is in serious trouble and Garth is the only one who can help him.

Garth is on edge when Peter arrives...will his friend remember that wonderful night? Will the spark still exist between them? Ethics say Garth can’t have an affair with a client, however, even if it turns out Peter is willing.

Will those old memories get in the way or will Garth and Peter find themselves making new ones? Garth plays by the rules, but to Peter, rules are meant to be broken. Who can win in this struggle of wills and wants?

Muscle Car Man is quite a different tale. I've been somewhat fascinated by men who are released from prison and trying to make a new life for themselves. Of course they urgently need a friend and a mixture of an advocate and a mentor. A Cop and A Con was one of those but this is another.  As to the muscle cars, well I was a kid of the 1960s and loved those loud, powerful gas-hogs that the bad boys of that era were so fond of!  I went with a friend to a 'junkyard' somewhat like this one just before I began to write this tale and that reinforced the atmosphere I wanted to capture! So come along for the ride and the adventure here.

Blurb: Jeff Castle has changed lanes from the high-tech world to that of the classic muscle cars and

their fans when he inherits his uncle’s glorified junkyard. His new life is complicated when help is hard to find. An impulse leads him to pick up a hiker on a remote road, and the man turns out to be just the kind of muscle Jeff needs in every way.

Released from prison after three hellish years, Mike needs help. All he can offer is his willingness to work and his background in repairing and racing stock cars. He gives this freely to Jeff and soon finds he wants to give more. Will his benefactor be willing to accept the love of an ex-con who still has a blot on his name? Mike is scared to ask, but nature takes matters out of his hands.

Together, Jeff and Mike begin racing toward an amazing future...

One More Gwynn Title

Hearts to Heal is yet another of my special stories. It was born out of an accident I had in 1999.
My husband and I were hiking in the Huachuca Mountains in the spring of that year with another couple. We got to the end of the current road up Miller Canyon and continued on foot to try to reach an old mine dump where we had found some nice crystals many years before. For those not familiar with hard rock mining, a mine dump is usually a cascade of rock running down a hillside from the shaft (vertical) or drift (horizontal) that was blasted and dug into the mountain to reach the valuable ore. I am not sure what minerals were sought in this area but molybdenum and some others were mined in the region.

While the two guys took a trail, the other lady and I tried for a shortcut. We came to a spot where a bulldozer had gouged a trench along the hillside. The steep drop to its floor was about ten or twelve feet. I sat on the edge and then slid off on my butt. At the bottom I landed wrong and my right ankle turned on a rock. I heard the two cracks like breaking sticks and knew what had happened. Esther scrambled down and said, "Get up. You're okay, aren't you?"

"No," I replied. "I think I broke my leg." Then she noticed that my foot flopped sideways at a very unnatural angle. She shrieked and then took off to find our husbands. I crawled a distance--maybe twenty or thirty feet--to reach a more comfortable place to sit and I waited. From the very first, I kept any panic at bay by thinking I had to take careful note of the whole incident because it was going to be in a book, sooner or later. The trip down the mountain in our SUV was rough but I had a mantra: "It's just pressure, not pain," for my foot was swelling to the maximum space of my hiking boot. I had to have an open (surgical) reduction and a piece of metal attached from the tip of my ankle about six inches up the outer bone. Both bones had both snapped right above the joint. I had a great orthopedic surgeon--who was darn good looking ;-) --and made a full recovery. The itch inside the cast was the worst of it!

So Hearts to Heal (originally published as Healing Hearts by a small firm that folded before it was out too long) came to be. I love the ethnic diversity of Arizona and the rest of the southwest and often reflect it in my fiction. The medical professions both fascinate and slightly repel me but I had to give my doctor a book, albeit fictitious and a somewhat backhanded compliment. Actually he was happily married and not a bit like Dr. Jerry! Bonnie is a composite of several spunky, go-getter type young Latina women I have known and admired. But despite the doubts some readers have expressed, the whole broken leg business is absolutely authentic because I basically lived it all!

So here you have the blurb and cover for Hearts to Heal, a slightly above PG-13 level romance! There are a few pretty steamy scenes but it is not quite erotica. You can find it at: http://www.amberquill.com/store/p/1895-Hearts-To-Heal.aspx

Blurb: Raised by her father after her mother’s death, Bonnie Verdugo has grown into a focused and driven woman, her ultimate goal is to become a doctor. Meanwhile, she works as an EMT while taking courses to become a nurse practitioner, each effort a step toward her dream. Bonnie has no time for romance or a social life, until a hiking accident puts her in the care of Dr. Jerry Bertini, a fine orthopedic surgeon, but an alluring man known as a womanizer.

Jerry has always been a rebel, going against the family tradition to become a physician instead of a lawyer. He also enjoys being the black sheep. But despite his reputation as a playboy, he has a serious side. Nowadays, his career has almost become his entire life, apart from the hours spent trying to raise his motherless daughter. Jennifer is now a teenager and, suddenly, a handful of trouble. So is Bonnie, the saucy little Latina EMT who ends up under his care when she breaks her leg. Jerry doesn’t suspect how quickly Bonnie will get under his skin. And although he can heal her bones, what about her overly cautious heart?

When two determined healers bump heads and hearts, something is eventually going to give...

Back to the Books!

Since I am still kind of going to the dogs--sled dogs that is--I will feature two more of the Canine Cupids stories this time. By the way, I am getting ready to attempt to put together four or five of them into a single offering and--gasp--self publish  the result! These stories have always been my best sellers and I've realized it is silly to let them languish out of print. (When an e-book is off the market do we still call it out of print? Darned if I know!) At any rate, without further ado, here is Rescued by Love.  Both books can be found at http://www.amberquill.com/store/m/137-Deirdre-O-Dare.aspx

We all have heard about the heroic dogs who helped save people and search out those who did not survive on 9-11. If you are a bit of a dog lover as I am, that amazing internet knows about it and dog stories come your way a lot  and rescue dogs are often in the news.  Last night I saw a neat feature on avalanche dogs which are trained to dig out victims of avalanches at ski and other winter recreation areas.  I really enjoyed that. Anyway this led me to feature a rescue dog in a story. Thus Rescued By Love came to be! Here is the blurb and cover:

Blurb

With his life torn apart by tragedy, Garrett finds a true life-saver in the Golden Retriever pup Mandy that he rescues from a local shelter. Inspired by search-and-rescue heroics he sees on television, he and Mandy become a trained SAR team. Their first big challenge comes when a series of violent storms with vicious tornadoes rip through the high plains.

Dan has returned home from Iraq, shattered by the horrors he witnessed. Like his father and grandfather before him, he takes off on an old motorcycle to try to find peace and outrun his nightmares. Instead, he finds a storm that threatens to take his life.

But a special SAR team comes to Dan's rescue. And in Mandy and Garrett, Dan finds the unconditional love he desperately needs to become whole again...

The next Canine Cupids story was Burrito Belle's Gringo Guy. It features a feisty little Chihuahua and was one of the first stories I set in my new home state of New Mexico. I used a lot of Arizona settings because that had been my home for the greater part of my life. I tend to make settings almost a key secondary character so where a story happens is important! So here is Burrito Belle's Gringo Guy.

Blurb and cover:

Juan is on the run for his life when he stumbles across an abandoned Chihuahua pup. What better companion for his flight, and a mascot for his initial foray into free enterprise in his new home? But dangerous enemies are determined to track him down. It takes a strong friend to help him survive.

Troy grew up in poverty and has clawed his way to success. Until he builds a foolproof security, he hasn’t got time for relationships, or so he tells himself. Then an amazing little dog and her equally amazing master charge into his life and Troy’s captured in a net of lust, danger and obligations he never expected to find...

Still here but...

Having computer problems and juggling stuff as I set up a temporary desktop--yep, still prefer to work that way although I do have a laptop and a netbook--so I'll be back posting again in a day or two. Hang with me, okay?? And keep reading those wonderful AQ books before they are gone or scattered to a dozen publishers to be tracked down.
Luck 'n love!
Deirdre

One Deirdre story--Love is Snowblind

This is a Canine Cupids tale and in honor of the Yukon Quest sled dog race starting tomorrow, I want to feature Love is Snowblind. For those who are not sled dog racing fans like I am, the Yukon Quest is another thousand mile race, less well known but equally tough and challenging with the Iditarod. I follow both since there are women mushers in both races, something I am researching and immersing myself in as much as I can due to a non-fiction book in progress. For info on that project, visit my gwynnmorganalaska.blogspot.com page.

At one point when I began to get really involved in the extreme sport of sled dog racing, or as much as a desert rat could, I intended to write a regular romance set in that environment. I never quite made that happen but then another story took shape and it became Love is Snowblind. I could probably do a better and even more authentic coverage of the mushing community now than I did in 2010 when this story was written and published but I did my best to be as factual and accurate as I could with a minimum of artistic license.

I fell in love with both my heroes and especially with the dogs! The dog pictured in the cover art is a Siberian Husky. They are more the traditional dog we think of when we hear the word "Husky" but now many of the mushers have bred and use dogs called Alaskan Husky, still not a recognized breed, with a lot of different breeds mixed into their pedigrees. They really do not look like the stereotypical "sled dog" at all but that is another story!

Here is the blurb and the cover for Love is Snowblind.

Dylan Norgard is a loner, seeking to heal old wounds as he pursues a newfound dream of training a sled dog team and winning the big one, the Iditarod. Instead of seeking a win in a preliminary race, however, Dylan makes a difficult choice to rescue a stranger lost in a blizzard. This choice and the results throw an unexpected but major change into his solitary life. The question is, can he accept and adapt to these changes?

Grey must prove himself, pursuing his dream of seeing Alaska firsthand and writing about the world of sled dog racing in such a powerful way it will jumpstart his chosen sports-and-feature writing career. Green and naive, he almost pays with his life for a bad decision. Can he learn and grow fast enough to survive in the unforgiving environment and overcome a rocky start with his new hero, musher Dylan Norgard, or has he sold that proverbial outhouse?

The cover, BTW, is the second style we used for the series. I'm not sure which style or layout I liked best!

Take a deep breath

At least I will. I've featured right at half of my back list titles in a  month. I have to concentrate on a couple of other projects for a few days and will pick up on the book talk after those things are done.

I am still looking at options and considering what is the best way to handle re-releases, rewrites and adding some new work to the collection. All of this takes some research and also some soul-searching on my part. Do I want to dare the challenges of self-publishing? How can I be sure that a new publisher will not also succumb soon to the Amazon steamroller? If I am going to re-home existing titles pretty much unchanged, which ones should go first?  Which oncs should I redo and make them hotter, longer, maybe merge two or more into a single longer work, etc. Like they say, it's complicated!

Whenever I reach some decisions and put them in play you will be the fist to know I promise. Meanwhile I do hope you will visit the Deirdre O'Dare pages and gather up a few titles before they are gone. I am pretty sure that some will not appear again anywhere, even in changed forms. Which ones? I really have no idea yet but I am pretty sure there will be some. I write all over the map so there  should be something for every reader, whatever sub-genre, setting or other factors may be involved!

That page link once again is http://www.amberquill.com/store/m/137-Deirdre-O-Dare.aspx  Gwynn's books can be found on http://www.amberquill.com/store/m/57-Gwynn-Morgan.aspx

Another Gwynn Morgan book

Back to Tomorrow is a time travel, as perhaps the title implies. It is also a 'western' and this one, unlike The Man in Black, really does feature Tombstone and Bisbee, two active mining towns in the late 1800s. The core of the idea came from a Hallmark made for TV movie, The Love Letter. In it a letter found in an old desk by a modern person builds a bridge to the past. In Back to Tomorrow, a journal left in an old trunk serves that purpose. You can find the book at http://www.amberquill.com/store/p/40-Back-To-Tomorrow.aspx

At 95K it is thus far the longest of my novels but I think it reads fast although the prose is deliberately fashioned in a voice and tone reminiscent of the era in which Zach lives and Emily finds herself early in the tale. I love the Victorian English but I hope it isn't too dated for modern readers. Still, I am almost a stickler for authenticity and did my best to be historically accurate except for the fact that in 1889, Nellie Cashman had actually left Tombstone. She's the only real character I feature as I very deliberately stayed away from the Earps, Clantons and their ilk!

Here is the blurb and the cover.

Librarian Emily Dennison has always loved history, but catapulted into 1889 Tombstone, she finds life far from the idyll she imagined. Meeting Zach Tremaine, a newspaperman from Philadelphia, she gets involved in his quest to rescue his younger sister from her abusive paramour, gambler Jake McEuen. This leads to more adventure than Emily ever thought possible. Eventually she has to confess to Zach that she is from far away, not in distance but in time. Fearful of being torn back to 2000, but missing her modern conveniences, she hardly dares to love him, though she aches to.

Zach isn't quite sure what to make of Emily, so different from any woman he has ever known but so sweet and spunky that she wins his admiration and soon his heart. Just when he thinks he has convinced her they belong together, a bolt of lightning tears her away. Or was it Joker Jake McEuen, seeking revenge? Can Zach live long enough to search until he finds her? Can she get back to tomorrow in time to save him from McEuen's murderous rage?

The cover from the first edition is shown at left, again my interpretation as executed by Linnea Sinclair, herself a noted Sci Fi author.  In the Amber Quill cover, the lightning image to the figure's left came from a photograph I took. I called it "The Spirit of Huachuca." As I stated in the book, huachuca (pronounced wa-CHOO-ka)  comes from the ancient Native American word translated as "where the thunder walks." Lightning is very significant in the tale!  Here is the actual photo:  With just a little imagination you can see a native shaman holding aloft a buffalo or antelope skull!