Category: A Trilogy.
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THE MAN IN THE TURQUOISE LINCOLN, PART II: Men In The Ford
By late April, the town had stopped pretending this was all a coincidence. Strangers still came through Fort Stockton now and then—drillers, surveyors, insurance men—but not like this. Not in groups. Not all wearing the same bad shoes and the same worse haircuts. And not all orbiting around H.R. Cashe like he was the mayor,…
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THE MAN IN THE TURQUOISE LINCOLN, PART I: Arrival With Intent
H.R. Cashe returned to Fort Stockton the way thunderstorms roll in from the Davis Mountains—slow at first, with a low rumble, then sudden enough to make the whole town pause mid-sentence. It was late February 1961, and the sun hung like an overripe peach over the courthouse square. The air smelled like mesquite and unfinished…
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SIX FEET UNDER, Part III: Digging Up the Past
Cutter Bridges had only been in Fort Worth a few days when his uncle got the call. It wasn’t to prepare someone for burial this time—it was the opposite. They were to dig up the most infamous resident in the cemetery: Lee Harvey Oswald. At first, Cutter thought his uncle was pulling his leg. After…
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SIX FEET UNDER, Part II: Dying for Direction
The summer sun hung heavy over Fort Stockton like it always did—burning through clouds, paint, and whatever plans Cutter Bridges thought he had for his life. He was eighteen, freshly graduated from Jim Bowie High School, where the mascot was a snarling Bowie knife and the football team had a better record than the school…
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SIX FEET UNDER, PART I: A Chip Off the Old Slab
Cutter Bridges was the only boy in town whose childhood bedroom shared a ventilation system with a mortuary prep room. While other kids in Fort Stockton were arguing over who got next on the Atari or sneaking beers from their daddy’s truck cooler, Cutter was helping fold crepe streamers for casket displays and learning to…
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SPECTATOR SEAT, Chapter 3
A CHANGE IN PLANS Eleanor had never considered herself the type, but here she was, smoothing the collar of her housecoat while checking the streetlight through a slat in the living room blinds. The lamp above the cul-de-sac buzzed faintly, illuminating the driveway of the split-level ranch she and Stanley had picked from the RoadRunner…
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SPECTATOR SEAT, Chapter 2
FALL BREEZES AND CROSS RAM CONFESSIONS Eleanor Brewster had made three separate trips to Tumbleweed Dodge-Chrysler-Plymouth in as many days, each time hoping to catch Marvin Langley before he slipped out to lunch or back from one of his extended test drives. She’d timed her third attempt just right, parking behind the service bay in…
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SPECTATOR SEAT, Chapter 1
WHO KNEW BUYING A NEW CAR COULD BE SO EXCITING? The sky over Fort Stockton looked like a brushed nickel coin, all scuffed and gray, with the scent of creosote rising up from the wet streets. It was the kind of Saturday where things got done—errands, haircuts, groceries, and car shopping, if you had the…
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EVOLUTION OF A BOY, PART 3: Backseat Thunder
By the fall of 1975, Scott Williams had outgrown the Cotton Picker, outgrown the Freewheelers, and—if you asked him—outgrown just about everything that didn’t come with an ignition key. His friends called him Scooter now, though some said it with respect and others with a smirk. The name stuck, whether he liked it or not.…
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EVOLUTION OF A BOY, Part 2: The ‘Cotton-Picker’
By 1970, Scotty Williams had dropped the “-y” from his name and insisted on being called Scott. It sounded cooler, older. Five-year-olds were Scottys. Ten-year-olds—especially those with banana seat bikes and scraped elbows—needed something with a little bite. He woke to the whir of the neighbor’s sprinkler and the rustle of the West Texas breeze…