Tex

That would be all he needed, Cole catching him with cigarettes on top of everything else.

“For a cow horse you are a really good jumper.”

“You’ve never even seen a bear, you dumb horse,”

“I told you I sold them. I don’t know why you’d think I’d start lying to you this late in life. Don’t you ever close doors? No wonder I can’t pay the gas bill.”

“I blew it all in my fun-filled week at Acapulco. Where do you think it went? Food, gas, clothes. How far do you think a couple of hundred bucks stretches? Maybe if you took paying customers instead of mowing lawns for free…”

Then, worried that I sounded too sarcastic

Not in the near future. Anyway it’s none of your business.”

“Do I have to write everything down in letters three feet high and shove it under your nose? I wouldn’t ride in a car if Johnny Collins was driving.”

“In the daytime you aren’t afraid of anything,” Mason said.

That wasn’t completely true. There were people who go places and people who stay, and Mason was going. I was afraid of that.

“Charlie,” I said to him seriously, trying to get my eyes focused, “there are people who go places, and people who stay, and I think you’re going.”

“I’ve been going all my life, cowboy,” he grinned at me. “And I love it.”

I thought that was nice, and wondered how I was going to like staying.