The Seven Veils

The story begins in a small Texas hill country town of Llano. The main character, Robert Rhodes, is the editor of the local newspapers and a member of the city council. He was a decorated World War l hero, which is the prime reason he was accepted by the cliquish citizens of the tiny berg. It had been eight years since he had been discharged after receiving the Purple Heart medal for being injured in the battle of Chatel-Chehery near the Argonne Forest.
On a moonless summer night, a bronze statue, without any warning or fanfare, appeared on the town square while the town's occupants slept. After the mysterious arrival of the nude life-size bronze lady holding an infant had manifested itself in between the turn-of-the-century county courthouse and the WWI doughboy statue erected in honor of the veterans from Llano County who gave their lives in Europe, the city government was left with little time to do anything else but to deal with the fury of their religious constituents. They, with their superstitions and religious prejudicial minds, were holding the city commission accountable for the sinful nude woman exposing herself shamelessly on the Town Square.
The Llano city government consisted of a mayor and six council members, and each of their lives will be directly affected by the presence of the illicit statue blatantly displaying itself on the courthouse lawn. The unexplained visit by the statue of the naked young woman and child did more than ignite the anger of the religious community-it started the metamorphosis of each of the board members' lives. Each member of the city council viewed the statue in a different light. As their lives took on a new beginning, it started in motion a change that would affect not only each member of the city commission but everyone they were connected to.
The ripple of the rising tidal waters of social responsibility and reform were beginning to become apparent in the little hill country town and would soon be lapping on the pink granite steps of the Texas Capital Statehouse in Austin.