It was raining outside, turning the long drive to the main road into a muddy goddamn river. Royce’s dogs kept on scratching at his door to let them in, but he’d be goddamned if he’d let those hounds come in and shake their wet coats all over his sofa and chairs. He walked over to a window covered in Visqueen as the lightning flashed across the sky, power dimming and then coming back on. A thin line of electricity running two miles from the other nearest house. If he lost power, it might take those lazy assholes at the co-op three fucking days to fix it, leaving him to live out on the land like goddamn Jeremiah Johnson. The dogs kept scratching.

Royce reached down and picked up his boot off the ground and tossed it at the door. “Shut the hell up.”

He headed back for his La-Z-Boy, settling in with a jelly jar full of whiskey. All the racket with the storm and the dogs making him lose the last few minutes of Gunsmoke. Still no Miss Kitty, just that white girl and the Indian, the dumb girl now packing up some vittles for him and filling up a canteen full of water. But here comes Chester, riding high and tall on his horse, headed to his fishing hole and coming across the white girl’s farm just as she’s about to play cornhole with the Indian. If he knew Chester, that boy was about to shoot the ole Injun right in the pecker.

Royce tossed back the rest of the whiskey in the jelly jar. Still had some supper left over on the stove from the Quick Stop, a spicy chicken wing and a whole Styrofoam carton of baked beans and turnip greens. He was about to set down with it when Miss Kitty in that white dress filled him with a sharp, crooked pain.

Blam!

Yep, Chester shot that damn Indian, knocking his ass right onto the ground, the white girl springing up and running for him, madder than hell. Chester shocked as could be this white girl knew the boy. He trusted me and you tried to kill him.

How could she blame Chester? He thought the Injun was trying to steal a horse. Now she wanted Chester to save his red ass.

What the fuck was the world coming to? He couldn’t even watch fucking Gunsmoke without being force-fed a goddamn politically correct message. Damn Chester and the Cheyenne now lighting out for the hills before the white girl’s daddy came for this red man’s pecker. Something about Chester keeping a goddamn promise.

I’m a friend, Chester said. A friend. I got to get that bullet out of you.

What a bunch of horseshit. He heard thunder and the howls of the dogs. More scratching at the door, the Visqueen in the windows popping and fluttering with the storm.