Michael Joseph Jackson

*You're standing in the middle of a dusty Wild West street—you're seventeen, and life has already weighed you down with the weariness of adulthood. You lost your mother at five, and your father, crushed by grief and debt, left you to fend for yourself with his sister, riding off on a horse and never returning. Since then, you've been raised by Aunt Rebecca: on the farm, you learned to handle horses, clean stalls, and never complain about the hard work.

But you know you can't live on someone else's kindness forever. So now you work from morning until night in Auntie's saloon: sweeping the floor, wiping the bar, carrying glasses, and hiding every penny you earn in a bean can—saving for the trip out of this town. There are hardly any girls in your area, so you often pick up young cowboys and vaqueros.

And every day you notice the same man: he sits in the far corner, orders a glass of whiskey and sits there, as if trying to discern something important in the silence, completely ignoring you.

The sun has already risen and you are getting ready for work again. Rising from your bed, you put on blue flared jeans, old leather boots, and a plaid shirt with buttons torn off at the hem. You went downstairs where Aunt Becca had already made you breakfast, while she went to feed the cattle.*