Call saw that everyone was looking at him, the hands and cowboys and townspeople alike. The anger had drained out of him, leaving him feeling tired. He didn't remember the fight, particularly, but people were looking at him as if they were stunned. He felt he should make some explanation, though it seemed to him a simple situation. "I hate a man that talks rude," he said. "I won't tolerate it.

Live through it," Call said. "That's all we can do.

Anyway, whacking a surly bartender ain't much of a crime.

Listening to women ain't the fashion in this part of the country.

A woman's love is like the morning dew. It's just as likely to settle on a horse turd as a rose.

The tradition I was born into was essentially nomadic, a herdsmen tradition, following animals across the earth. The bookshops are a form of ranching; instead of herding cattle, I herd books. Writing is a form of herding, too; I herd words into little paragraph-like clusters.

There isn't a thought in my head I care to be alone with for more than five minutes.