Status Updates From Texas by the Tail (Mulholla...

"It's always kind of consciencesome triflin' with another man's wife, y'know, and it ain't ever been healthy in Texas."

Red would never be a drunk. She enjoyed life too much. She was too honest with herself, too clear of conscience.

One could not, he came to realize, approach every person and situation with a view to immediate gain. Interest and curiosity were not traits to be turned off and on at will. Nothing was ever lost. Knowledge gained at one time could be used at another.

Except perhaps for Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Texas was the only remaining pasture for the big time gambler's grazing. Here alone was there always another metropolis to move on to, lush with the long-green and stubbornly resistant to the blight of credit cards...here they liked the feel of money. Here were people who'd gambled their very existence for what they'd got, and who stood ready to gamble again.

One of the world's worst trains- the absolute worst, according to many- runs from Oklahoma City to Memphis. It has no diner. Its cars are of pre-WWI vintage, without air-conditioning or other common comforts. The many and prolonged delays are variously attributed to such causes as holdups by Jesse James, impromptu hunting & fishing parties by the crew, and funerals for passengers who have died en route of old age.

Once, even with the best of surgeons, the scalpel may slip. Once the most skilled of knife-throwers may throw a little too close. Once- only once- the high-wire walker may misstep to eternity. So with the dice handler.