THE CHOCTAW COWPOKE THEY CALLED TWO SPUDS was inside his cabin on the southwest corner of the ranch, wrapped tightly in his quilt trying to sleep, when he heard an explosion. At first he thought maybe Jenny Hoot Owl had just farted in her sleep. Jenny could let loose farts that cracked like a rifle shot, but this was more like the sound of a hand grenade dumped into an outhouse. Two Spuds had been a seventeen-year-old private in the Great War, scared shitless as he crawled through the Ardennes Forest, convinced that a shard of screaming hot shrapnel was going to tear off his balls. He’d heard plenty of grenades go off in France, along with about two hundred other kinds of ordnance, most of it meant to kill him dead. This did not sound like a grenade. He lay there shivering, wishing Jenny would get her big ass out of bed and put more coal on the fire. His nose told him how cold it was. Too damned cold to get out of bed, but the only way to get warmer was to stoke the fire again. He would have to climb out of that warm quilt into the icy air, shovel more coal into the stove, make sure it was burning good, jump back into bed, wait until the stove warmed the room. Or he could curl up tight next to Jenny, but if he did, she was apt to break his nose.

You cold, fool! You think I wanna take a bath in ice water? Don’t touch me when you’re froze like that. Get your skinny Indian ass back where it belongs before I cut your nuts off!