Chapter Eleven
David “Cowboy” Kawalski was born in a shotgun shack twenty-seven miles northwest of Pitchfork, Wyoming. The house was old when his mother traded a 1959 Ford pickup and a hundred dollars for it. The five acres of land surrounding the place was thrown in for an additional fifteen dollars.
It wasn’t farmland, nor was it wooded, except for scrawny hawthorn, blue spruce, and lodgepole pine in scattered small copses. The open areas were filled with Indian ricegrass, sedges, and forbs. There was also a small saltlick that drew elk, deer, and other animals. A stream of fresh water ran across the southeast corner; that’s where they got their water for drinking and bathing.
Cowboy had three older brothers he rarely saw. He knew the oldest was in California, going to college. The ne
