Excerpt

Now Delancey Jones came into town on a dust storm, okay? Matter of fact: he might have waited for a dust storm to come rolling through so he could roll on in with it. You know what I’m saying? I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a dust storm, but I can’t help but wonder how much practice something like that took: did Jones and his gang try and invade another town and get lost on the way? Did one of his boys try and rob a cactus as a result of all the visual obfuscation? I didn’t have the chance to ask, nor was I particularly inclined to venture down that rhetorical route in the name of scientific exploration, as I was comfortable in the tree house I’d fashioned together out of bed sheets and bamboo poles that stood within distance of the family home. “Couple of hearty boys,” I’d hear folks mutter, and, yes, my friends and I were healthy. It was no great feat taking to the trees.