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Twin Wells: chapter one: a stranger comes to town.

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If the old car had been a horse with a broken leg, he would have shot it. It clanked and clattered as if its guts were falling out onto the highway. He pulled off to the side and cut the ignition. Clay Baldwin knew the symptoms. It had blown a rod. It wasn't going any farther except under tow. A sign a mile or so back had said it was ten miles to the next town.

Grumbling to himself, he lifted the hood and looked at the motor, though he knew he could not do a damned thing to fix it. He left the hood up as a signal of distress and sat back down behind the wheel, waiting for some kind soul to stop. He had not encountered much traffic. He resigned himself to along wait.

Baldwin mentally calculated how much this might cost him and how much was left in his wallet from that oil-patch job at Odessa. After his last alimony payment he still had a few traveler's checks and a credit card he could float a while to stall his creditors.

A sheriff's department automobile slowed, made a U-turn in the highway, and drove up behind him. Baldwin thought, Oh, hell!,...

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