I cut to the chase here--there's a chunk missing which ties up some loose story lines. But I wanted to showcase this bit because it is the first sign that Colton is going to be forced to do some real soul searching not just about Wyatt but about his whole philosophy of life.

Up to now, he's been sure of damned near everything. But this chapter pulls the rug out from under him. Took me by surprise, too. But it was a surprise I welcomed.

He kicks some ass literally toward the end--a full out brawl. But for him, it's a hollow victory. I think you'll be intrigued and maybe even as surprised as I was, at the way it all unfolds. Read on!

“Speakin’ of young guys,” Big Man said.

He’d spied the Goons, too. They were walking in this big bunch like they owned the place, but staring down everyone who looked their way. And I knew what they were looking for.

Me.

Yeah, that’s another thing I always do after hours on Christmas Day. Or that night. I go off with the Goons. And I almost looked forward to running off for a while in the past, but...well, I wasn’t alone this time, you know? I’d gotten a real nice present that year.

So when JR gave me this look and said, “Ready to rock, Boss Man?” I didn’t know what to say.

Aisha said, “Y’all see the child got comp’ny wit ‘im. Gon’ get your smoke on wit somebody else this time!”

But Wyatt said, “I am sure he’s tired of babysitting me by now. Go do nineteen for a while!”

“That was quick,” Mike said, giving me this little look.

“Because she’s cool like dat,” I said.

“She’s tired!” Tia said—she was yelling at me, mostly. For making her tired. She threw an arm skyward and said, “All these locos running around, running around—she’s a refined sort of woman! Educated. Not like these wild ones!”

“Oh, well excuuuuse the hell outta me,” Mike said, sort of raising an eyebrow, but just for fun.

Tia chuckled and sort of slapped at her playfully. If it’d been real, she wouldn’t have missed.

“You have been very good little mothers,” she said. Like she was talking to a five-year-old. “And because you taught him how to appreciate a woman, he should know how to treat one. Now that this one is here, maybe he’ll learn that, too.”

“Well, I guess you’re dismissed, girls,” Joie said. “Speakin’ o’ upgrades...”

JR had had enough.

He went, “Hey! Cut him loose for a minute!”

I leaned to look at Big Man mostly just to be polite.

And he said, “I’m eatin’ here.”

But what he was really saying was, “Not on your life, pal.” Him and the Goons didn’t get along too well. He has no patience for the kind of dopey shit they do and say. I mean, he puts up with me, but I come out with something reasonable every now and then.

The Goons...well...once in that blue moon they’ll manage to say something that doesn’t make you wince. But mostly, they talk a lot of stupid shit. Loud and proud.

I hugged Wyatt real tight and she nuzzled my chest the way I love so much and said, “Wake me...”

“Oh, believe me I will,” I told her.

And then she looked up at me and said, “This Christmas thing? Growing on me.”

I gave her a kiss for that. And then I didn’t want to have to wait to wake her up later on. I just wanted to skip on over to that scene right there and then.

But she looked at JR and said, “We don’t want to have to come rescue him, all right? You take care.”

“Yeah, no shit! I’m scared o’ you,” he told her.

And Tia barked, “Language,” so loud I startled as I was getting up.

“You’d’a been out there you wouldn’t be tryin’a protect her alla time,” JR said. “She can handle her business.”

“C’mon, before Tia decides to do likewise,” I said, giving him a shove before he got thumped upside the head.

It was a trip running with the “pack.” On our way through, we ran into a bunch of local kids who’d come over to hang out with the teenagers from the village—a rowdy bunch, they were. The girls were all made up like the ones at DeGrazia. And they were doing this killer cumbia like nothing I’d ever seen before—all these turns and intricate steps.

None of the trouble makers were there. Not the ones that had given me looks before. These were stealthier ones. Part of a little subculture the others probably wouldn’t be welcomed into. Not, like, emo kids or anything. Just more like city kids. Probably headed for the city. But their side of the city. I could see them over there with the kids in Wyatt’s classes.

Some of the girls ran over and got hold of me—they all know how I am about dancing up there. And this was ‘way hipper than anything the others would be doing. I got all into it while the Goons stood there smirking and making fun of everything.

But I was down. I didn’t know cumbia could be so cool. It’s one of the styles that always seemed sort of...I don’t know, just not so sophisticated to me. But it’s a really old dance. Started with slaves from Africa. A courtship ritual, I think it was, originally.

So that explained all the sneaky, suggestive things they were doing. Like, there’s this move where the guy sticks his knee sort of between the girl’s leg, you know? It’s done in fun but if you pay attention you can see all the sex in it. It’s pretty cool.

Of course, when they got a bunch of Goons by the hand, they were asking for trouble, those girls. They looked like penguins on roller skates, I swear. I mean, Metal men don’t dance. Not like that. They’ll pogo or head bang all night, but twirling girls around...nah.

So pretty soon they just started whining about getting outta there and how all everybody gives a shit about up there is all this old timey lovey dovey shit—they had girls, some of them. But they treated them sort of like...a “supplement” they had to take now and then to stay healthy or something.

No joke, they just went to see them for the one thing, mostly. I kind of understand that, especially since they were pretty young guys. But I mean, five minutes after I left Wyatt my whole soul started aching like a bad tooth.

And also I believe there’s this whole part of you that doesn’t grow or open up or whatever if you don’t go deep at least once. Which explains a lot, actually. About them.

Anyway, we went and got the baddest ATVs on the ranch and that part, I loved. The monster I chose was tight as hell and handled really smooth. So that Wyatt ache went away a little bit, while I was flying in formation with those crazy fools howling and yipping like coyotes the whole way.

You gotta love, and you gotta get your wild on sometimes, too, right?

So I was almost sad when they slowed down. And I was definitely sad when I saw all these people stumbling around drunk as skunks already. And the old beat up RV they’d hauled out there somehow—it looked like it’d been through a couple of wars, that thing. Old silver Airstream that was coming apart at the seams.

There were a bunch of kegs up on this table they’d made out of some of those big oil drum things and an old door they got from somewhere. And they’d set up some kind of sound system with an generator that was blasting so loud the damned Martians were probably head banging up there.

Perfect Goon party. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

I don’t drink or anything, like I told you, but somebody handed me a joint so I took some hits off that. No Ex, though—I didn’t want anything in pill form. Or powder or anything like that. They had damned near everything, too. They sort of tried to signal people to keep it on the down low, but I saw them snorting and swallowing shit by the fist fulls.

I let it slide because it was Christmas. And...a Goon party. Mostly guys, by the way--a couple of white girls had come along too, though, which was kind of weird. Both wearing the “uniform.” Ripped up jeans and a black t-shirt from some Metal concert they’d never been to.

I found a big rock to sit on and just watched for a while—there wasn’t a whole lot to see. But just watching them banging into each other and then giving a high five and a goofy, “What the fuck, dude?” was pretty entertaining.

And then a bunch of Goons came and sat all around me. And this Victor guy takes out his IPod and goes, “Check it out—‘member this?”

I laughed when I saw what he’d dug up. It was Mike playing drums with this band we knew—on YouTube, and it had made her an honorary Metal Mama for good, in their world.

She was just finishing that In the Heat of the Night song by Whitesnake—not easy, that beat, either. Drives the whole song. And then they slammed into the only Metal song that I ever ask her to play.

It’s Elvis is Dead, by Living Color. That black band that almost broke the Metalhead color barrier that one time. That one is more R & B than rock, kickin’ it on the one like a James Brown cut.

I know male drummers who can’t catch up with the original, but Mike totally nailed it. You can see all the band guys going ape shit over it. But I’ve seen her do that Sittin’ on a Rainbow song by Mountain without missing a rumble, too—do you know that one? It’s a real oldie, but it kicks.

It’s double basses rolling like a damned locomotive the whole time. I don’t know how anyone does that. Dude named Corky Laing came up with that—tight rock and roll name, right? It’s a helluva song. We never got a video of her doing that one, though. Should’ve.

“That’s some hot shit right there, man--she still play?” this guy I didn’t recognize asked. He was all herky jerky on something.

“Not a lot,” I said. “But she’s gonna be playing regular pretty soon. They bought a club, the girls.”

“They bought a fuckin’ casino, dude—they’re buildin’ one, I mean,” JR said, as proud as if he’d done it.

And there was another one of those moments where someone just couldn’t quite wrap their head around the idea that someone could actually build a casino. Herky Jerky dude just stood there sort of staring into space, like he was trying to visualize it or something.

And then he went, “Fuck...” when he sort of got the idea. The most reverent “Fuck” I ever heard. It made me cough up a whole bunch of smoke, when he did that. So I had to take a swig of someone’s beer and then I was worried about what might be in the beer so I knew the weed was strong as hell if I was getting all paranoid and everything.

So I gave him his IPod back—Ipod, right? I hadn’t seen one for a long time. And just as I was trying to get my head on straight, a whole bunch of people drove up—Indians from the real rez, who’d probably almost smelled the beer. You get that much alcohol close to the rez, you’re gonna have lots of company.

And it looked like they’d grabbed the biggest containers they could get their hands on, too. One of ‘em had a plastic pitcher like people make Kool Aid in, and he filled it all the way up, too, like a ginormous beer stein.

I knew I wasn’t staying long, once they got there. I loved the 49 songs, though—I hadn’t heard any for a long time. They’re these “after pow wow” songs about love and sex and “one-eyed Fords” and stuff like that. You can sing about your girl, you can sing about your world in general, at the 49. But mostly, they go to “snag.” That’s Native for “hook up,” you know? Sexually, I mean.

And they had some good songs. Native songs are pretty straight forward, you know? Sometimes they’re just vocables, that “Hey nay yah” stuff. But sung in a way that makes you feel what the singer is feeling.

But the ones with words don’t even rhyme or anything. They can be simple as, “I love you so much my pretty baby—why do you treat me so mean?” over and over again. But some of them are really deep stuff.

Victor got all indignant, though.

He goes, “What’s up with all this Indian shit?”

And I said, “Indians and shit. Out there singing.”

So you know I was high. But it made him laugh, so that was cool.

He said, “You like Indian shit, don’t you? Out there stompin’ around the arena with your old lady.”

“His old, old lady,” Mario said—you haven’t met Mario. He’s a doublewide Goon with a big Jack O’ Lantern head and real curly hair. So they tease him about his ‘fro all the time, Which gets on my nerves as much as it does him.

The joke got on my nerves, too. So I said, “Hottest one here.”

“Hey, I’d hit it,” Mario said.

“And then you’d hit the ground, fucker,” JR said. “He’s all business when it comes to that one. I never seen you like you are with her. You tryin’a get all domestic on me, man?”

“I might. Not, like, right now, but...I could.”

“He gots two kids, fool,” Victor said. “He’s already halfway there.”

“Yeah, guys have kids alla time. Doesn’t mean you gotta get married,” Wendell said.

“Well, that’s interesting,” I said.

“Girls be doin’ that shit, man,” Wendell said, to defend his twisted logic. “They jus’ get pregnant to trap a brotha.”

“I don’t see nobody tryin’a trap you,” JR said. And everyone laughed real loud and stupid. Including me.

“Well, I ain’t rich like this guy. I ain’t even got a dime on me right now,” Wendell said. “What the hell is it like to have that kinda money, fool? I mean, Gates money, you know?”

“He got more money than Gates,” JR said.

“Nobody got more money than Gates!”

Victor leaned in and said, “This one Mexican guy does. Richest in the world and he’s Mexican, right?”

The whole chorus went, “Bull SHIT,” but I said, “He’s right, you know.”

“What, you know ‘im?”

“We did some business. Owns media companies and all that—Telemundo, I think, maybe, too. I can’t remember now. But he’s at the top o’ the list in Forbes alla time.”

“Drug dudes got the bank,” the one I didn’t recognize said.

And they bobble headed awhile behind that one.

“Yeah, they make like, a billion a day or somethin’, right?” he added.

“Almost,” I said. “A couple do, anyway. Which is sick.”

“How much you guys make?”

“Takes us...a month, maybe. Personal bank, it does. I mean mine.

“To make a billion?”

“Yeah, about that. The girls make a couple a year now. And then the casino’s theirs, actually. I just have a little piece o’ that action, so...”

“What is this guy talkin’ about?” the new guy asked. He was in the weeds, man. From weed and everything else.

“He’s talkin’ about shit you don’t even need to know about,” JR said. “Shit you’ll never know about.”

“Aw, man, how come you guys say shit like that?” I said. “I mean, I was runnin’ the streets when I met JJ. Nobody woulda thought I’d wind up with that kinda money or anything—don’t say shit like that.”

“God don’t love us like He loves you,” Victor told me. And it sounded sort of angry, actually.

So I said, “How do you know?”

And he said something I will never forget. Swear to God, I got stone cold sober when he said it. Well, almost.

He said, “Because you’re white, fool! You like to front, but you know the score deep down—would you switch places wit me? Hell naw!”

“I wouldn’t switch places with anybody, though,” I said. Which was actually true.

But he snorted and said, “Yeah, well some guy jus’ handed you a billion trillion dollars one day! God don’t hand out money like that to people like us. We nothin’ but a little brown mud on His shoes. And anyway, if He gave us money, we’d just drink and piss it away—lookit that! Fucker’s drinkin’ from a goddamned flower pot!”

I went, “Victor...” and then just, “Wow. Wow...” Because I wasn’t sober enough to say how sad and angry and confused that made me.

Wendell sort of saved the day, though. He said, “Yeah, but when the earth gets totally fucked up, who’s gonna know what to do, huh? Who’s gonna still know how to make somethin’ outta nothin’? Poor folks, that’s who!”

And I went, “Yeah! What he said,” and everybody laughed like loons for a while. Only I was laughing because he’d said it, not at what he said. I hoped he meant it.

But I didn’t get a chance to find out because somebody slapped me on the back so hard I fell off my rock.

Tonk.

Slobbery drunk now. Just red slits for eyes.

And it sounded like he said, “Just the man I wanted to see! We need to talk—can we talk, lil brutha?” I mean, it was hard to understand what he was saying. He was all mush mouthed.

So I said, “Dun sound like it,” hauling myself up onto my feet with a lot more difficulty that I expected.

He gave me a laugh and said, “Aw, now, don’t be like that! C’mon!”

And when he came up and put an arm around my shoulders I could’ve gotten a contact high off the fumes, I swear. And to make it worse, he leaned in real close and said, “You’ll thank me later.”

I tried not to make a face behind that blast of alcohol that almost knocked me back down on the ground again. But before I could get loose he was walking me away from the Goons, and my own legs weren’t taking orders from me so good by then.

So I said, “Okay, what’s the big deal?”

He just kept hauling me out toward this weird little collection of boulders. They looked like some big giant had pooped out there or something—this is the state my mind was in, in case you haven’t gotten the picture yet. It was a little circle of ploppy looking rocks—giant cow patties they looked like.

He climbed up on one of the big ones, and I found a sort of flat part not too far below him on the same one.

And he said, “There you go! Take a load off!”

I leaned against the rock trying to look up at him, but that was a bad idea. It made my head spin. Only I was in that kind of mood where things like that were sort of fun. I mean, I just let whatever happened happen. Surfin’ the world, Mike calls it. One of my favorite expressions.

Tonk was all into his big secret, though. He got into lotus like a shit-faced Buddha and said, “I hate to kill your buzz, man, seriously. But...a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

“Oh, he does, does ‘e?”

He gave me this indignant glare and said, “Shit yeah! Cause these bitches be treacherous, man! Treacherous!”

I let him sit there listing to one side for a minute like he’d just shot some serious smack or something. And then he woke up again and said, “And that one you got...”

“Now we’re talkin’,” I said.

“Oh, I’m talkin’ all right. I’m gonna hip you to the whole deal, me. Cause I was there when it all went down.”

“All’s a sort of vague term.”

He gave me this angry grin again—like the smile I told you about before. And he said, “Okay, tough guy. Straight from the hip. She tell you she couldn’t have kids?”

I sighed and said, “Is that it?”

He sort of glowered down at me and said, “I’m tryin’a do you a solid, son! And you’re bein’ all pissy with me.”

“I told you. Whatever she did—“

“She got pregnant’s what she did!”

Okay that...was news. And I was high, so it was double news. I almost fell off yet another rock.

But then I said, “Shit happens!”

And he leapt down off his throne and came at me like an angry bear.

“This shit shouldna happened! You think you’re so high and mighty—this shit’ll bring you down, pal! I should just let it happen! That’s what I should do!”

“Great idea! Let us deal with the shit that happens—I like that!”

He shoved me with the tips of his fingers—hard, in the chest.

“Big man! Little Big Man—you ever see that picture?”

“What the fuck?”

“Nah, you’re too young--Dances With Wolves! That one you’ve seen probably. Alla same, those damned movies. Whitey to the rescue—izzat your deal? Big Chief Writes the Check! There it is! Tell ‘em I gave you an Indian name for Christmas.”

That cracked him up for a while. In that ‘way too stoned kind of way when everything you say is funny to you.

But then he shoved me with those fingers again, even harder, and said, “Coup!” And then laughed again.

“You’re just a laugh riot, huh? Counting coup now?”

“Yeah! I’m Crazy Horse’n’ you’re Custer! BAM!”

Another shove, but this time I caught the hand and flung it away.

And he goes, “Touchy little devil!”

“Are we done here?”

That is when he tried to slap me and I slapped his hand back.

And he goes, “Yeah, you’re bad. You’re the shit. Got alla girls chasin’ after you—mine, too! Ain’t that some shit—girl was grinnin’ from ear to ear out there! What’s your secret, man? You got a big old donkey dong or what?”

“Is that what this is about?”

He leaned in real close again and hissed, “This is about everything, Chief! This is history catching up with you—you cowboy, me Indian! Let’s make our own movie, okay? Only this time, the Indians—“ SERIOUS slap, “--win!”

I leapt up and shoved him real hard and when he stopped stumbling backwards he came charging at me and we wrestled for a minute. I mean, just sort of clamping down on each other’s upper arms grunting and shoving.

And pretty soon all these people came running over whistling and yelling all kinds of stupid stuff at us. But I finally broke it up with a head butt he wasn’t expecting—he leapt back looking all stunned.

But then he ran up and threw a right but I deflected the punch and came back with a round kick he wasn’t expecting, either—a round kick not a roundhouse kick, okay? The fast one that snaps way up in your face—POP! Taekwondo style—the Nam Vet taught us that.

It sent him flying, too. He hit the ground hard. And heprobably would’ve stayed there if the crowd hadn’t started yelling and egging him on, you know? They wanted the Indians to win, too, maybe. I mean, it wasn’t vicious stuff they were yelling, but you could tell they wanted us to really duke it out.

And Tonk was already pissed from the Della Mae thing, so he fought his way back up onto his feet and stood there looking all dazed but determined.

I said, “You don’t want this, okay?”

And he said, “Fuck you! Tellin’ me what I want! You...”

He couldn’t think of another Indian name for me, so he just came at me with his head, like a damned billy goat or something. So I popped him again and he dropped to his knees that time. And got up and ran at me again and got the same pop upside the head again, too. Only I did it harder that time, trying to make him quit.

He got on all fours and hung there a minute, all out of breath and disoriented.

And I said, “I’m done now,” and backed up, watching to make sure he wasn’t injured or anything.

And that’s when some other dude kicks me in the back, okay?

So then I felt like this wasn’t just a random thing. And I exploded. I mean, they had no time to think, whoever they were. I went full on Tony Jaa on ‘em—Google that shit. He’s like the Korean Bruce Lee. Made those Ong Bak movies.

I couldn’t jump up on their shoulders or any of that, but the elbow blows and head butts, that I could do. People don’t expect that for some reason, the arm stuff. And the crowd went nuts like it really was a damned movie.

I mean, soon there were drunk fools running at me like they wanted me to smash them in the face. I’m not kidding, it was surreal, I swear. And I was high, so I got a little dizzy I have to admit. But I was just throwing arms and elbows and feet in every direction—Nam psycho would’ve torn me a new asshole if he’d seen me just flailing like that. It wasn’t pretty.

But it was effective. And when the smoke cleared there were all these guys puking up all the beer they’d guzzled down in those big pitchers and whatnot. That’s a smell I’ll never forget.

The girls were fanning the air and running away and Tonk and his pals just stood there looking all pissed but not about to go at me again.

Instead, they started laughing. The last refuge, you know? After someone kicks your ass real good.

And Tonk said, “O-KAY! The winner and still champion of the world: WHITE man!”

And everybody started laughing then—the Goons especially. Only, I could tell they didn’t even get it. They were just diggin’ the action film they’d seen. I mean, on some level they did, but it was going to take a while for the symbolism to float up to a conscious level.

I got it, though. He had won. He had made me prove I was no better than all those movie guys, you know? In a way.

I mean, it wasn’t like I’d come there spoiling for a fight or anything. But I came at them with these weapons they couldn’t defend themselves against—talk about history repeating itself, right? I was the fucking Conquistadors with guns and cannons and whatnot, and they were the Aztecs. I was the Cavalry after Custer. The one that settled that score once and for all.

And I felt about two inches tall. And really sad.

I said, “That was fucked up, dude. I don’t even know what to say.”

And Tonk went, “You said it,” and started chopping and kicking all crazy and comical. And they laughed some more.

But I didn’t laugh with them. I went over to JR and said, “I’m gonna hat up, man. I gotta get outta here.”

He threw an arm around my shoulders and said, “What’sa matter with you? You kicked ass, Boss Man! I never knew you could throw down that hard—shit!”

I looked back at Tonk and he was really staring me down. And it wasn’t about the battle, it was about how it started. And who he’d been talking about when it started. I got that, too.

His eyes were demanding I go back and get the story from her. Another white man story that would tear my guts out.

But then he raised his chin, not like he was challenging me, but like he knew it hurt. And he was sort of trying to tell me to put my chin up.

I raised my hand to him—palm out, but up high, like...a salute, not a “stop.”

And he went, “Jeremiah Johnson. Last scene—you seen that one? Robert Redford—there you go! You’re good lookin’ like that--Pretty Boy! That’s your Indian name!”

And everybody laughed. But he put his hand up, too, just as I was dropping mine. And we stood there just sort of reading each other for a second or two.

And then he said, “I was going to see you at the rodeo tomorrow but I feel like a damned horse already kicked me upside the head!”

I just smiled. And then I got the hell out of there—told the Goons they didn’t need to escort me back like they wanted to. And I wondered...and then really hoped they understood why.