But the Old Man was gregarious in a way that Tom wasn't. Tom never dealt with anyone straight up. He was always a little ways off from everyone else, always a bit to the side, always figuring, always looking for the edge. Sisson supposed that, too, was the Old Man's doing. He'd known horses that would let you come right up to them, let you rub their ears, check their teeth, then, soon as you turned your back, they'd take a bite out of you. That was Tom. He didn't seem to trust anyone, and God help anyone who trusted him.

The Old Man, he was what he was. If he was going to take a swipe at you or fuck with you in any way, you saw it coming. If he was mad, he was mad, and he made no attempt to hide it. His temper would flare of a sudden, and you could get caught off guard, but not if you were paying attention. Tom would smile at you and then kick you in the balls before you finished smiling back.

If the Old Man was smiling, he was happy. He wasn't happy that often, but when he was happy, he was happy, and he was glad to share the feeling. He would stand a man a drink or a meal or slap him on the back. Of course, he would steal your horse or cow, too, if it came to that. But you knew that about him, and you kept an eye on him. And he didn't try to hide what he was.

The Old Man used to say that there were folks who hated a nickel because it wasn't a dime. But that wasn't his way. He loved currency of all kinds, and there was nothing he loved better than a free dollar. He would do the work of eight men to grab ahold of a dollar.

Nights up at the mine cabin, the Old Man was usually the entertainment. He would tell stories of when he was a boy or young man. Sisson would nod appreciatively at the stories, John would laugh long and hard like a hyena, and Tom would just sit and stare and sometimes crack just a smile.

Sisson remembered a story the Old Man told on himself from back in his Texas times, in the days before he met the boys’ mother. He was courting a girl from up the road. And he was dirt poor, but he had come up with a couple of dimes, enough to take her to hear an accordion player in town. The trouble of it was that his pap wouldn't let him take the horses or even a mule to go to town because he wanted the animals rested up for the next day. His pap told him he could take a horse come May when all the planting was done.