In November 2025, before either novel was fully underway, I wrote this scene based on a story told to me years earlier. The names Mary Ellen and Chester (Chet) Rawlins were already forming, though I did not yet understand how large their lives on the page would become.
This short piece became the foundation for the novels that followed.
The morning sun over the Madisonville, Texas ranch looked like it always did—hard and white and already mean by nine-thirty. The fences shimmered silver, cicadas shrilled in the pines, and the smell of hay mixed with motor oil drifted out of the shed where Chet Rawlins kept his tack, race cars, sports cars, trucks, and other detritus picked up in his various endeavors.
He was out there that day on one leg. The other was in a plaster cast up to the knee, scrawled with phone numbers and crude jokes from the Houston crew. Two weeks earlier, that same leg had been bent sideways after a horse named Rattler pitched him into the dirt like a sack of feed. Any reasonable man would’ve stayed inside, but Chet Rawlins wasn’t raised on reason.
He was halfway through cinching the saddle when the kitchen screen door banged. Mary Ellen stepped onto the porch, apron still on, rifle tucked under one arm like a broom she meant to use. Her hair was beautifully coiffed, not a single curl out of place. She wasn’t angry yet, just studying him the way she did when she thought he was doing something he ought not be doing.
“You can’t even walk, Chet,” she said. “What’s your plan if he throws you again?”
“I won’t give him the chance,” he said. “He’ll mind this time.”
“Uh-huh.”
Mary Ellen leaned against the porch rail. Her rifle gleamed in the sun.
Chet limped around the horse’s flank, cussing softly, trying to act like the leg didn’t hurt. The horse flicked an ear, unimpressed.
“You and me are gonna get along today,” Chet said. “Ain’t that right, boy?”
Rattler stamped once. Dust puffed around Chet’s boot.
Mary Ellen called out again. “You remember what Doc told you about that leg?”
“I remember,” he said, adjusting the stirrup. “He said don’t do anything stupid.”
“And here you are, doing exactly that.”
Chet grinned. “Darlin’, I’ve been thrown by worse horses than this nag.”
“That’s what worries me.”
He swung the saddle up, nearly lost his balance, caught himself on the fence. The cast made a dull thump. Pain flared bright behind his knee. He swallowed it and kept working. The horse turned its head, eye rolling white.
Mary Ellen disappeared back inside, and for a moment Chet figured he’d won. Then the screen door creaked again. She walked back out with the Winchester lever-action .30-30 leveled across her arms, the same one Chet had bought her years ago, beautifully engraved with gold flowers by the Fort Worth artist Weldon Bledsoe. She carried it light, casual, but there was a look in her eye that meant she’d made up her mind about something. He heard the distinctive click-clack of the lever being cocked.
Chet froze halfway through tightening the girth strap.
“Now hold on,” he said. “You fixin’ to shoot me, Mary Ellen?”
She didn’t smile.
“No, Chet. The horse.”
For a heartbeat, even the wind quit moving.
Then Rattler snorted, stamped once more, and backed off like he’d understood every word. Chet stared at the rifle, at Mary Ellen, at the horse, and finally sat himself down on the fence rail, breathing hard.
Mary Ellen walked closer, resting the Winchester against her shoulder. “You’re gonna bust that leg clean off if you keep at it.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But he’s gotta learn who’s boss.”
She tilted her head. “Looks to me like he already has.”
He wanted to argue, but she was right, and they both knew it. The pain was blooming up his thigh now, sweat darkening the brim of his hat. He reached down and loosened the cinch, muttering under his breath. Mary Ellen watched until the saddle hit the dust.
“That’s better,” she said. “Now come eat before I feed your breakfast and your favorite pie to the dogs.”
He laughed, half sheepish, half proud of her nerve. “You scare me sometimes, Miz Rawlins.”
“Good,” she said. “Keeps you alive.”
She turned and walked back toward the house, rifle swinging easily in one hand. Chet sat there a while, watching her go, the cicadas picking up again, the heat pressing down. The horse lowered its head to graze beside him, quiet now. Chet reached out and rubbed its neck.
“Guess we both got lucky,” he said. “She’s got better aim than sense.”
The horse flicked its tail, unimpressed as ever.
Inside, he could hear the clatter of dishes and the faint sound of Mary Ellen humming some tune from church. The day rolled on like every other on the Rawlins ranch—too hot, too bright, too alive to waste arguing with horses or wives who were usually right.
And that, Chet thought, was probably why he loved them both.
