Since writing about my story of publication, I've had numerous people ask if they could read my fiction. Here is an offering in that direction, an excerpt from my unpublished novel Black Dog Man, just a little action snippet with some of my favorite dialogue.

Weary and road-sore, the illegal aliens clambered out of the bed of the truck onto a weedy vacant lot in a neglected Southwest Houston neighborhood. They looked resolved, strong despite the harshness of the journey and the burden of whatever came next. David wondered what did come next for them. He figured they had family or friends, or friends of family or friends, who expected them and had places for them to stay. The men would no doubt start looking for work early the next morning, standing on the corners along Kuykendahl and Steubner-Airline with hundreds of others, waiting for foremen in pickup trucks to come by and offer them day labor.

Conner gave each of them thirty-five cents to make a phone call but didn’t give them any goodbyes.

None of them thanked him. One man nodded, but that was the extent to which Conner’s help had been acknowledged. He’d been paid, after all, in amounts that took them and those they loved years to save. Without deliberation they shuffled off down the crumbling sidewalk and around a brick corner, in search of a payphone.

David and Saulo began climbing out, as well.

Conner interrupted them. “This is what I can’t figger.”

David’s feet crunched in the gravel. Saulo stopped cold, still standing in the bed of the truck. Conner’s right hand was inside the front pocket of his windbreaker.He smiled a cocky smile. "Which one’a you is Frodo, and which is Sam?”

David said, “What’s the problem?”

Saulo said, “There’s no problem. We’re going to climb out of this truck and walk down the street. We don’t even need change for the phone.”

“Here’s what else I can’t figger,” Conner said. “Why you reporters didn’t write a single thing down the entire trip.”

“Too windy?” David said.

“No writin’, no tape recordin’. You sure ain’t no journalists like I ever seen. Dressed like them metrosexuals and the white boy’s face all torn up. I been thinkin’ on it the whole ride.”

“You never thought we were journalists anyway,” Saulo said.

“Yeah, that’s true. I didn’t. That was one lie didn’t fool me. Sayin’ you was no trouble was the other. ’Cause I’m lookin’ at you, negro, and all I see is trouble.”

The lump in Conner’s windbreaker formed a point.

“Who were you talking to on the phone?” Saulo asked.

“Saw that, did ya? Let’s say I had the solution to the mystery on the line.”

Saulo crept to the edge of the tailgate.

Conner stepped back. “Not too fast, Jim.”

Saulo hopped down onto the gravel next to David. “So what’s the solution?” he said.

David whispered, “Take it easy.”

“I’m in a bit of a pickle here,” Conner said. “I can’t put you in the bed again, ’cause you’ll just jump out. I can’t put you in the cab, ’cause it’s a dang armory in there. And I just flat-out don’t trust ya. And, well, I can’t call nobody ’cause I ain’t even supposed to be in Houston. What do you think I should do?”

David said, “How about let us go?”

“Come on now, Huck. I can’t do that neither. I got a family to feed.”

“It would help,” Saulo said, “if you told us what you were talking about.”

Conner was visibly angry now. “For the mentally impaired, I will spell it out. You boys is wanted by Homeland Security. What’re you here for, huh? Gonna blow up the Astrodome or somethin’? Lots of Ay-rabs in Houston. Oil refineries and whatnot. I don’t know, stop me when I’m warm. ’Cause I can feel your bodies gettin’ colder the longer we stand here. You understandin’ now, Jim?”

“I think I understand,” Saulo said.

“Maybe Huck’ll explain it to you later. What I gotta do is figger out how to get you boys traded in for my pat on the back. But back in El Paso. Got any ideas how we might swing that?”

“We’re not going back to El Paso,” said Saulo.

Conner took the revolver out. “Boy, you ain’t even listenin’ to me.”

David said, “This is messed up. We’re not terrorists. I don’t know why Homeland Security would want us. What did the person say? Did they say our names?”

“No more questions,” said Conner. “Lemme think.”

He crossed to the passenger side door, never averting his eyes (or the pistol) from David and Saulo. “Swing your bag over here on the bed,” he said.

David slid it across to the passenger side corner against the back of the cab, and Conner lifted it out. Switching the weapon to his left hand and maintaining its hold on them, Conner opened the door with his right hand, tossed the knapsack inside, and began digging for something under the seat. He withdrew two plastic rings and then, making a wide arc to keep distance between him and his captives, returned to the rear of the truck.

“Turn around, face the bed,” he said. “And put your hands behind your back.”

“You don’t want to do this,” Saulo said.

“Sure I do,” said Conner. “Just can’t figger how to do it yet. Now face front, boy.”

David and Saulo turned, crotches to the tailgate. They heard the cautious drag of Conner through the gravel. He couldn’t cuff them with one hand, so after ordering eyes front, he stuck the revolver in his front waistband and moved in, Saulo to be bound first.

When Conner grasped Saulo’s left wrist, when Saulo felt the brief nudge of Conner’s knee in his thigh, the old man spun, twisting his arm to grab Conner’s wrist instead. In a flash, Saulo entered that intimate space of optimum damage so natural to him, pushing up into Conner’s sternum with the heel of his right hand, yanking the gun out with the same hand, and pulling Conner over his hip with his left. As Conner passed, Saulo jutted out, slamming him into the tailgate.

Conner oomphed in pain and sputtered against the sound of himself hitting the truck bed. David jumped back.

Saulo held Conner down and pressed the revolver onto his brainstem.

“Ain’t no bullets in it,” Conner coughed.

“Let’s see,” said Saulo.

David said, “Whoa whoa whoa.”

Saulo turned to look at him. David put his hands out like, Come on. The missionary’s conviction and the assassin’s instinct collided then, exploding with a spiritual energy that wounded them both.

“I . . .” Saulo began to say.

David’s brow furrowed.

“Pick up the cuffs,” Saulo said.

David did.

“Cuff him.”

David did that too.

“You boys are makin’ a mistake,” Conner said.

They put him in the bed of the truck, cuffing his ankles to one of the bench legs with the other plastic restraint. Saulo closed the tailgate to block Conner from passersby.

They’d run halfway down the street when David suddenly said, “I forgot my laptop!”

They stopped, huffing and puffing on the sidewalk outside a liquor store.

“You wanna go back?” Saulo said.

David straightened and bit his lip while looking back down the road at the edge of the lot from whence they’d come.

“No,” he said.