The Ride to Oblivion
A Short Story by Geoffrey K. Graves
Inspired by a True Incident
GINNY EVERS’ LUCKY DAY
“You lose, sucker!” Ginny Evers shouted. Sure, she should have waited to overtake the motorcycle rider until she’d entered the straightaway, but hadn’t. And, yes, passing proved risky so as they were coming out of the curve she clipped the bike. “So what? I didn’t even hit her that hard,” she griped to her beater Mustang’s dashboard. It was a kiss from the old car’s bumper, a glance off the motorcycle’s fiberglass saddlebag. “Hell, she’s the one who cut it too close, swerved out more than she should have into my lane didn’t she? Well, didn’t she?” The dashboard remaining mute, Ginny slapped it. “Damn right, she did!”
She’d checked her phone for one long second to see the thumbs up response to her text question. Yes, the meeting was still on. She’d been warned not to be late again or there would be consequences. The boss expected her in by eight sharp and not a second after. After the time she’d turned down the married man’s request for an afterwork drink in his office, he’d been a total jackass to her.
There was nothing to read in the text. Just the cartoon thumbs up was all it took to send Denise Cooper and her Harley Davidson Road King cartwheeling head over bike into a life of eternal pain and doctor-monitored addiction. Ginny considered pulling over to help the pony-tailed young woman, but she had that meeting to get to and boy it was her lucky day because there were no other vehicles around to witness the mess of mangled woman and machine flying through the air in her rearview mirror.
Ginny’s heart felt like it might blow out of her chest, but she was in the clear. If she stopped, there was no telling what kind of trouble she’d be in. She already had a DUI on her record. She could lose her license, insurance company would no doubt cancel her, and the woman could sue. She floored it out of there. Lucky day.
EASING THE PAIN FOR DENISE
Denise Cooper’s injuries read like a war casualty. Multiple fractures included a snapped femur (right leg), cracked ribs, and a left foot twisted completely backward. Internally, she had two ruptures, spleen and abdominal aorta. There were lacerations and contusions head-to-toe. Her brain bled because the half-helmet she wore flew off on impact. She was hospitalized for fifty-eight days.
Denise spent a half year in physical therapy learning to hobble along with crutches; you really couldn’t call it walking. When one of your legs has been replaced with a prosthesis and the other irreparably mangled, hobbling is about the best you can hope for.
“But you’re doing great!” her physical therapist encouraged.
Ginny knew better. Pain from extensive nerve damage was considerable. The doctor prescribed fentanyl, heroin’s synthetic cousin, an imperfect solution because the pain would never leave her body.
“You mean I’m going to be on the same stuff the cartels are bringing across the border that’s killing everybody?”
“These will be pharmaceutical grade, and we’ll carefully monitor you to be sure you’re getting the exact dosage you need. This is one of the few drugs we have that will handle the level of pain you’re experiencing.”
“You’re the doctor,” Denise said.
As long as she lived, Denise Cooper would need fentanyl, and it did help as one would expect of a drug one hundred times more potent than morphine. The doctor advised her not to mix alcohol with fentanyl.
“But, Cheryl, she isn’t the one in agony,” Denise explained to her bartender friend who provided a series of evening Vodka Collins that amplified the drug’s effect, helping Denise find a semblance of sleep on the rare good night.
She lost everything; job, house, an unfaithful husband who was no great loss, furniture, friends, and was forced to move to a one-bedroom flat in a dicey area of the city. It was all she could afford after the divorce. Even her best friend, Carolyn, dropped her. Carolyn felt Denise complained too much about her pain.
Carolyn’s good-bye text: “That’s all u talk about. It’s depressing (sad face emoji). Whining. Moaning. Groaning. Don’t want to (ear emoji) it anymore.”
She advised Denise to stop bitching about it or she’d lose the few friends she had left.
“U shld knsdr this a wurd to the (owl emoji),” implying other mutual friends felt the same. She finished with, “Hava nyz (happy face emoji) day. U R a decent chick win ur not (crying face emoji).” And there was this P.S.: “From here on out u can have ur food (delivery truck emoji),” meaning Carolyn resigned from grocery shopping for Denise, “cuz thaz what frenz R not 4.”
That did it. Denise Cooper started thinking about the payback she’d exact if she ever found out who did this to her.
BUSINESS PARTNERS
Denise’s savings went fast. Workers’ compensation covered medical care and physical rehabilitation, but only two-thirds of her salary. Her financial situation was dire. Her regular bills hadn’t been reduced by a third and she urgently needed money. An opportunity arose when the new grocery delivery kid and Denise got into conversation. Denise was sitting on the only piece of furniture in her living room, a ratty Lazy Boy. A neighbor had set the recliner out on trash day and Denise claimed it. For five bucks, the neighbor moved it inside for her. One leg was shorter than the other.
“Like me,” Denise had joked.
She evened it with the totaled motorcycle’s owner’s manual. She shared her accident story with the grocery kid because she knew he would ask. Once they saw her mechanical leg, people always asked.
The kid, who was trying to grow a mustache that was more blond fuzz than hair, was sitting on the floor. “Hit and run, huh? Betcha the guy was drunk or already had a DUI,” the kid said. “That’s why he didn’t stop.”
“Probably a good guess,” she said.
“What would you do if you ever found out who did it to you? Kill him?”
“Actually, it was a woman driver. I saw her coming in my rearview mirror. She was texting.” She shrugged, “I don’t know. Killing her would be stupid not to mention difficult given my disabilities. Wouldn’t mind putting her in the hospital, though.”
“Pain bad?”
“Indescribable.”
“What do they give you for it?” the kid wanted to know.
“Fentanyl.”
“Whoa. White China. Heavy shit. Opioid,” the kid said. “How long you been on it?”
“Six months.”
“You’re hooked.”
“No choice,” Denise said. “I’m the junkie, my doctor’s the pusher.”
“Fentanyl. Worth sweet money if you know the right people. Especially since Oxy’s impossible to get, now,” the kid said.
“Yeah. I’m lucky my insurance covers it. White China, huh?”
“It’s got lots of street names,” the kid explained. “White China, Murder 8, Jackpot. It’s all the same stuff, but sometimes laced with H.”
“Heroin?”
“Yup. Or coke.”
“You sound like an expert. How do you know about such things?” Denise asked.
“I get around.”
“Like how much money?”
“Good money. Too bad you’re not on the patch,” the kid said.
Denise pulled up her t-shirt, and the kid said, “Whoa, lady. I’ve a girlfriend.”
“Relax, lover boy. I’m not going to flash you. I’m just showing you my stomach.”
It was decorated with green/blue rows of tiny squares that formed a larger square that remained from the residue of her latest patch.
“See?” she said.
“Cool.” The kid’s eyes brightened.
“Why cool? What difference does it make?”
“Big difference.” The kid looked around as if someone might hear him though it was just the two of them with the door shut. The kid walked over to the blinds and pulled the chain that drew them closed.
“Hey, make yourself at home,” Denise said.
“I have this chemist friend who’s not really a chemist but has a brother who is,” the kid explained, “and he showed her how to extract the shit from the patch and turn it into pills supercharged with H or coke. Makes it more powerful.”
“And that’s good because?”
“Seriously? Packs more punch, dude, and that’s what your junkies want. A power punch.
I can score seventy bucks a patch for every one you get me.”
“Seventy?”
“For reals,” the kid said. Denise stared for so long the kid asked, “Dude, did you fall asleep with your eyes open?”
“No, I’m thinking. I’m an analytical person. What’s your name?”
“They call me Stinger.”
“I’m not going to call you that,” Denise said. “What’s your real name?”
“Ricky. Ricardo.”
“Ricky Ricardo? Please.”
“I meant it’s Ricky, short for Ricardo.”
“Got it. Okay, Ricky, what happens after this girl makes the pills?”
“Then I get it to a guy called the Medicine Man.”
“And who is that?” Denise asked. The kid gave the furtive look around again.
“Why in the world do you keep doing that? There’s no one here but you and me.”
“Force of habit. Dude, you can’t be too careful.”
“You’re being ridiculous, and please don’t ‘dude’ me again.”
“No prob, bro.”
“So?”
“Someone’s gotta sell it. Medicine Man’s our street rep.”
“A pusher.”
The kid looked around again. “You said it, not me.”
“Okay…okay…okay,” Denise said, mulling her way through the process. “So, my patches go to you. You take it to this chemist girl who turns the fentanyl into pills laced with who-knows-what. You take the pills from her and give it to The Medicine Man who sells it to….”
“…The users.”
“The users who give The Medicine Man the money, some of which comes back to you out of which I get paid seventy per patch. Have I got it right?”
“That’s the deal.”
“Swear you can keep me anonymous, no one ever knowing who I am but you?”
“Swear. That’s the beauty of my operation. Everybody’s isolated from everybody except me.”
Denise started thinking again, zoning out for so long the kid finally said, “Dude. I mean bro, come back.”
“Ricky, go into my bathroom and open the medicine cabinet.”
WHAT’S BOTHERING GINNY?
In one way, Ginny Evers got away with the consequences of the hit-and-run, but in another she didn’t. She drove that stretch of Pacific Coast Highway twice daily to work and back. She couldn’t pass the spot without remembering the image of the motorcycle somersaulting out of control, the woman’s body intertwined with the machine pinwheeling through the air. The memory haunted her. After all, she was a girl with a heart, a good person. She believed in the seven deadly commandments, or whatever they were called. She had feelings. She saw an article in the local throwaway paper several days after the accident. It said the victim survived with injuries, so that was pretty good, wasn’t it? At least the lady was alive. Maybe if Ginny could find out which hospital she was in, she’d send flowers. Anonymously.
She said a prayer, first in her life, for the unnamed person the paper only referred to as ‘the victim.’
“Hi, Jesus. Or Moe Hammad. Or Boo-duh. Whoever’s listening. It’s Ginny. Evers. Hope you can patch up that chick. Swear to God I didn’t mean to do it. I’ll never again text while driving. You got my word on it. Thanks, buddy. Over and out.”
No matter how remorseful she felt, Ginny’s contrition didn’t assuage her guilt. It wasn’t long before the weight of it physicalized into throbbing migraines no over-the-counter med could relieve. Every time she passed that blind curve, she felt worse about what she’d done, her brain thudding a kettledrum beat. She got in the habit of chugging down a beer or two after work, a little toke of weed for a chaser. That combination offered some relief, but soon she was up to a full six pack of Budweiser and a couple bowls of Grease Monkey, a brand of grass that packs the highest percentage of THC available in California, per the guy at the weed store. Even that combo soon failed her. The high just wasn’t high enough. No amount of beer or super weed could produce the intensity of stoned buzz Ginny Evers needed to sail away from Ginny Evers.
NIGHT WALKS
Ginny started taking late night walks for distraction, going nowhere in particular, meandering up one street, drifting down the next. She frequently ventured into the city’s most notorious neighborhoods of serious crime where pop-pop echoes of gunshots were as commonplace as the wailing sirens that followed. A coat pocket flask of vodka kept her company. She sipped as she strolled along, took the occasional puff from a THC vape pen that delivered a more potent measure than she’d been able to suck out of the bowl of her pipe.
Why was she doing this, she wondered? Punishing herself, beating herself up? Hell, the headaches were doing plenty of that for her. Why tempt fate rambling through parts of town where corruption and dark hearts ruled? Of course, she was beating herself up, she admitted in a rare moment of lucid self-analysis. Certainly, she was tempting fate. Damn, she had to quit thinking about that wreck. It did her no good. Let it go, Ginny. Be happy. You got away with it.
At least the night ventures took her mind off things, so she continued the walks. If there was to be any trouble during her dead-of-night outings, she could handle herself. She’d wrestled a little in high school. The guy who looked like a gang banger sitting on that shadowed porch ahead was of no concern. He wasn’t even a big guy, just a wimp in a Stanley Kowalski wifebeater shirt. On a half-moon night at two a.m., he was wearing pricey aviator sunglasses, going for the classic pachuco look with khaki pants, greased hair and an abundance of tats.
Closer, Ginny could see both arms were inked with rattle snakes that curled around and down to the backs of the hands where the snake heads appeared, fangs displayed. Rattles rose up out of the shirt collar on either side of the man’s gold-chained neck.
“Hey, chica,” the man flipped an unfinished cigarette onto the hood of a parked car. “What you doin’ out so late?” Ginny didn’t respond, eyes straight ahead. March on, her brain advised. “Hey! I asked you neighborly. What are you doing on my street at this lonely time of night?”
Ginny stopped and looked at him. “Just walking.”
“Just walking? Look like you might be a little stoned, too. All glassy-eyed. You stoned?”
“I’m not stoned.”
“Yeah, you’re stoned.” The short man stood, extra height of the porch bringing him eye-level with Ginny. “I saw you hit that vape pen, and that ain’t tobacco you’re pressing down in those cute little lungs. You’re stoned and you’re just walking, just walking in places you shouldn’t be walking. Looking for what? Hm? What you looking for, Señorita Just Walking? Boyfriend? Girlfriend?”
“No friend,” Ginny said.
“Weed not doin’ it for you anymore, muchacha? That why you’re just walking down this street which is a very fine example of urban blight? Ever heard of the street of dreams? All the homes top-of-the-line luxury mansions? Manicured lawns? Chandeliers? Swimming pools? Perfect families? Daddy, mommy, sonny boy and little sis. Heard of it?”
“No,” Ginny said.
“Don’t matter. Point is, this is not that street. This is a nightmare street in the barrio, chica. Hunh-unh. No sweet dreams, here. Here we got vacant lots. Condemned houses. Leaky roofs. Broke out windows, broke families, and broken families. Everything’s broke, here, muchacha. You, Señorita Just Walking, have happened down un calle de iniquidad, where villainous night-creature cholos,” he pointed at himself, “prey on almas inocentes,” and he pointed at Ginny, “which brings me back to you. Come on, why are you here, Señorita Caminando? Why you poking the bear on this hot sticky summer night? Solo. It’s as though you want something bad to happen. So, you’re walking to nowhere, while walking away from somewhere or something, am I right? Something chasing you? Monster? You done something bad? Algo malo?”
“Shut up,” Ginny said.
“Ah-ha. There we are. Something you need to atone for, hm? Because, you won’t find forgiveness here, muchacha, if that’s why un mujer como tu chose to walk down this tormented boulevard of hell. If you haven’t heard, there’s no forgiveness in infierno. No redemption. No rendencion aqui. Nada.”
He lit a Camel, sucked hard and blew an impressive smoke ring at the half-moon. “Tell you what I see, Señorita Just Walking. I see un mujer who is not forgetting what she wants to forget. Am I right? Hell, yes, I’m right. Know what I think? I think your self-medication ain’t working no more and you’ve moved on to self-flagellation. Like St. Francis with the whips, but even that’s getting old so you need something more. That weed and whatever you’re drinking out of that flask that’s making that bulge in your coat pocket is not getting you where you want to be. That’s why you’re just walking down this street, this sick and wicked calle de infierno. You, Señorita Just Walking, are looking for something that will help you fly away from where you are, and get you where you want to be.”
“Is that so?” Ginny finally said, knowing she should have trusted her instincts, moved on and ignored the man, but found herself mesmerized by what the odd little fellow had to say. He certainly had a way with words. It was if she’d been hypnotized by Satan.
“You know it’s so, chica,” the man said.
“Since you know everything, just where do I want to be?” Ginny asked.
“That is the question,” the guy clapped his hands, startling Ginny. “And this is your lucky day.”
“I hope it’s better than my last lucky day, because my last lucky day wasn’t so lucky,” Ginny said.
“Oh, it’s your lucky day, because I have the answer. I know exactly where you want to be. You want to be in the great state of o-bliv-i-on. That’s where you want to be.”
“Oblivion, huh? You a doctor?”
“Good guess!” the man chomped his teeth like a canine, revealing a flashy wall-to-wall dental grill designed around two sizable diamonds, each set in a front tooth. “I’m famous around here. I’m the medicine man, the doctor of o-bliv-i-on. Welcome to my office right here on Main Street Hell. Come one, come all. Walk-ins welcome. No appointment necessary.”
“You sound more psychologist than medical doctor. Anyway, thanks for the analysis, doc,” Ginny started away.
“Hold on,” the diminutive fellow jumped down, sidling along Ginny, hand to her elbow. “Don’t leave without getting what you came for. I got a present for you, Señorita Caminando.”
“No thanks,” Ginny said, jerking her arm away.
“Freebie,” he said. “Cost you nothing. Guaranteed to get you where you want to be.”
“Not interested.”
“Sure, you are.” He tucked the pill in the glassine envelope into Ginny’s coat pocket. “On the house.”
“You’re wasting your pill.”
“Thank me later when you come around begging for more. Ask anyone for La Serpiente.” He held up the backs of the snake-head hands, waggled his tongue, hissed and disappeared.
DENISE’S DETOUR
Denise’s motorized wheelchair finally arrived from the American Mobility Outreach Foundation. It proved salvation because the effort of walking with crutches was excruciating. She’d taken a few spills, most recently crashing onto lava rocks surrounding a tiki bar’s koi pond, her remaining leg gouged so deeply it required twenty-two stitches. Now with the wheelchair, there would be no more accidents. She could make her way from her apartment to the grocery store solo. Freedom.
Her business with Ricky was ongoing. They now met at a coffeehouse where, over cappuccinos, they discretely exchanged brown paper bags of fentanyl patches for brown paper bags of cash. Given the extent of nerve damage, it was easy convincing the doctor she needed more patches.
“Think about it. We’re just like those ‘Breaking Bad’ dudes,” the kid said, adding five sugar packets to his cup.
“No, we’re not, and if you keep that up, you’re going to get diabetes.”
“I think we are.”
“Well, we’re not!” Denise maneuvered her wheelchair closer to the kid. “Listen, Ricky, we’re small potatoes. We are going to stay small potatoes. We have no choice. I can only get so many patches before the doctor starts getting suspicious, and insurance will only cover so much. I need some for myself, you know. This is a short-term thing till I get back on my feet.”
“Back on your foot,” Ricky said.
“Ha-ha.”
“And when’s that supposed to be?”
“When I get a job.”
“So, never.”
“Screw you.”
“Hey, I thought of something,” Ricky said, adding yet another packet of sugar to his cup. “If you ever find out who did this to you, you could sue them for a bundle.”
“I have a better idea.”
“What?”
“I decided I like your original idea. I’m going to kill her.”
“Kill her?” Ricky laughed. “Are you kidding? You?”
“Yeah, she destroyed my life. I don’t know how, but I’m going to kill her.”
“Wow. How are you going to do it?” Ricky asked. “Hit and run her with your wheel chair? Like a tit for tat?”
Denise gave him a look.
“You know, a retribution hit-and-run. Except with you, it would be a hit and roll. Seriously, how many times do you think it would take, rolling back and forth, back and forth? Twenty-eight?” Ricky said.
Denise crossed her arms.
“Fifty?”
“You know, with that hysterical sense of humor,” Denise said, “you should forget this little business we have and go into stand-up.”
“Maybe I could kill the girl with my jokes.”
“If all that sugar doesn’t kill you first.”
“It’s raw sugar. Healthy.”
“Sugar’s sugar. Hope you like giving yourself insulin injections for the rest of your life.” Denise shook her head. “Okay, maybe not kill her, but almost kill her.”
“How do you ‘almost kill’ someone?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to work on that.”
A teenager with a concord grape-colored mohawk and nostrils full of nose rings slid up to the pair and whispered, “Hey, you bros got any Oxy?”
Denise rolled her eyes over to Ricky. “We don’t know what Oxy is. Beat it.” Denise grabbed a handful of Ricky’s shirt, pulling him alongside as she motored the wheelchair toward the exit.
#
Weeks later, Denise was halfway to the supermarket when she realized she hadn’t recharged the chair’s battery. There was a narrow alleyway full of trash bins she’d always avoided because she might meet a trash truck or other vehicle which would make passing difficult or impossible, but the alley offered a battery-saving short cut to the store. To be safe, this one time she took the alley and was half-way down when she saw the body.
GINNY’S IN THE HOSPITAL
“Ms. Evers, how are you doing?”
“You tell me, Doc.”
“All right. I’m happy to tell you, you’re doing better than yesterday,” she said. “You flatlined.”
“Flatlined?”
“Twice.”
“That right?”
“Yes.” She listened to Ginny’s heart, shined a light in her eyes. “The drugs in your system should have killed you. You could have been the next statistic in the opioid crisis. You’re a very fortunate young lady.”
“Yeah, that’s me, Doc. Ginny Evers, a very fortunate lady. They can chisel that on my tombstone.”
“Let’s hope that’s years away,” the doctor said. “We’ve had a flurry of fentanyl-laced heroin overdose patients, three others besides you in the hospital right now, two with you in ICU. One looks like she’ll make it, the other’s touch and go.”
“You said four.”
“The fourth is in the morgue. Like I said, you’re a very fortunate lady. These street chemists are dangerous people, Ginny. Murderers. They know nothing about calibrating proper dosages.” She placed her hand on her shoulder. “Keep that in mind for the future, won’t you? I really don’t want to see you in here again.”
“It was only one pill.”
“Next time you have a penny, take a look at Abe Lincoln’s nose. It takes that much fentanyl to kill a person. When it comes to street drugs, you’ve got fools impersonating pharmacists. The one in the morgue said the same thing when they brought her in. ‘It was only one pill.’ Her last words. She was sixteen. Short guy gave it to you, am I right?”
“How’d you know?”
“Same as the others. He seems to be a one-man drug cartel working the barrio streets. The police will be in to talk to you. They’ll want a full description. I hope they catch him soon. He may not know it, but he’s a serial a killer.”
A nurse stepped into the room. “She’s here,” he said to the doctor. “Ginny, do you feel up for a visitor?” the doctor asked.
Ginny waved the idea away with a flick of her hand. “Could we put the cops off for a while?”
“It’s not the police. They’ll be in later.”
“Doc, I really don’t know anybody I’d want to see. I’m kind of a loner.”
“This is someone you don’t know, but I’d like you to meet them and they asked to meet you. To put it bluntly, if it wasn’t for this woman, you wouldn’t be here,” she said. “In fact, odds are you wouldn’t be anywhere. She saved your life.”
“Oblivion’s where I’d be.”
“You could say that. Please? Might lift your spirits to meet her.”
“Sure. Whatever,” Ginny relented.
The nurse came in behind Denise Cooper in her wheelchair. Denise had a modest vase of carnations she’d purchased at the hospital gift shop. The nurse set the bouquet on the side table, and Denise and Ginny were introduced. It was a brief and awkward exchange with Denise describing how she happened upon Ginny lying between two dumpsters in the shortcut alley.
“It was agonizing because in my condition I couldn’t do anything for you other than call 911,” Denise said. “I wasn’t even sure you were breathing.”
Ginny nodded. “I guess I should thank you for, you know, saving me,” she said, only because she knew from the three sets of eyes focused on her it was expected. “I suppose you’re my hero,” she added, thinking it a nice touch.
“Right place at the right time,” Denise said. “That’s all. Believe me, I’m no hero. Heroes don’t usually come in wheelchairs. I’m glad you’re okay, Ginny.”
That ended the conversation. The doctor indicated the nurse should lead Denise out, but Denise gestured she had one more thing to say. “Take care of that heart, Ginny.”
“Heart? What do you mean?” Ginny asked.
“Oh. I thought…didn’t you have a heart attack?” Denise asked.
“No, that wasn’t it.”
“Sorry. I guess I was assuming,” Denise said.
“It was an overdose,” Ginny said.
“Overdose?” Denise said.
“Yeah,” Ginny admitted. “If some short guy on the street ever offers you a free taste of oblivion, turn him down.”
“Street drug laced with fentanyl,” the doctor said.
“Fen…fentanyl?” Denise said.
“It’s a powerful opioid,” the doctor explained. “Often deadly when laced with cocaine or heroin, which was the case here,” she added.
Denise stalled so long before responding that everyone wondered if there was something wrong. Maybe she was going to pass out, a not unusual occurrence in a hospital. “Well, glad you made it,” she finally managed.
“Thanks. I appreciate the visit,” Ginny smiled, wrangling herself up higher on her hospital pillows. “Thanks for the flowers, too. Say, before you head out, Denise, I have a personal question, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” Denise said.
“You mentioned your condition. Now that you know what happened to me,” she pointed at Denise’s wheelchair, “what happened to you?”
Author: Geoffrey K. Graves has been widely published and honored internationally: Pushcart Nominee 2023/4 (US); Finalist Cutthroat Nonfiction (US-2019); Winner Grindstone Literary Anthology (UK-2020); Finalist Tobias Wolff Award (US-2021); Shortlisted Bath Flash Fiction Award (UK-2021); 2nd place Periscope Literary (UK-2022); Writers Digest (US-2020 & 2023); Witcraft (Australia-2023); Longlisted Disquiet Prize (Portugal-2024), and elsewhere.
Discover the true life story that inspired Geoffrey’s story.
I really liked the way nobody was fully good or fully evil in this story (well, maybe the Medicine Man - but he was strangely compelling).
I also enjoyed the way the two protagonists came together at the end, and it was great to read about the inspiration for the story