Chapter 1

People who think something bad has to happen to you for you to get depressed don't know shit about it. Sometimes it just happens. The world can go to shit around you and you can be doing just fine anyway. Or things can be going great for you and you can get depressed, or start suffering from depression or whatever you want to call it. You're just depressed. For me, I didn't feel bad; I just didn't give a shit, about anything.

I couldn't go out and do something that would make me feel better, because I didn't want to do a fucking thing. I didn't even want to feed my dogs; I had food at the house and just couldn't go give it to them. I had to make myself.

I didn't want to bathe, didn't want to take out the trash, and didn't wash the dishes. It got so bad I didn't even make a good try to get things into the trash. I'd eat something and throw the wrapper at the trashcan, if it landed on the floor instead, fine.

I knew something was wrong and I was sure it was probably depression and I knew I should see a doctor, a shrink. Every time I thought about making an appointment I got mad. Here's a guy making two bucks a minute for listening to you piss and moan, and you have to keep going and going - just like the energizer doctor-payer - for what? Will it ever end? Not if you keep having the two bucks a minute. Where's his motivation? Because he's a doctor and wants to help you? Give me a fucking break.

After a couple of months it didn't matter anymore anyway, because I lost my job and my health insurance, and then I'd spent up all my money and I didn't even have the two bucks a minute to pay the fucker.

Before I lost my big house, my three bedroom two bath brick, I sold it and cleared enough to buy a shack, free and clear. No, it wasn't a major financial coup. I took a fucking like often happens when you have to sell something or lose it completely and the one doing the buying knows it.

Even though I didn't want to do shit, the house wasn't mine anymore and I knew I had to move. Since my pickup was already paid off, I hadn't lost it. The move was trip after trip after trip though, and there sure as hell wasn't enough room in my new home to put all my furniture. So it was yard sale time for Johnny.

I was surprised by how well it went. At first I was intending to hold onto my own bedroom suite, but I had it out in the yard anyway. A guy and his wife thought it was great and though I asked twice what I figured it would bring, they couldn't get their money out fast enough.

The living room and dining room furniture were on the block all along but I'd jacked up the asking price thinking I'd have to come down to move it. Apparently I didn't have a clue about what furniture was worth. Another couple bought it with no arguments and then asked about the price of the china and silverware that was in it.

I might be depressed but I wasn't stupid, or not completely anyway. The china and glassware had been my mother's and she'd been gone for years. In fact I don't ever remember us using it in my life. Truthfully, I'd intended to just let it go with the big cabinet thing it was in, but after the lady asked, I at least had sense enough to tell her to make me an offer. I didn't have a clue about what it was worth.

When she asked about the silverware and glassware I just said, "Make me an offer on all of it. It was my mother's and as far as I know it's never been out of that cabinet during my life."

Apparently my mother had collected one hell of a set of dishes, because the woman offered me three times as much for them as they'd paid for the furniture. It was hard as hell for me to act like I was considering it without jumping up and down screaming, "Sold, sold, sold."

Even though I was surprised to get so much for it, I think they were even more surprised to get it so cheap. They must have known more about what it was really worth than I did, because the woman stayed with it while the man went off and rented a U-Haul and came back with dozens of boxes, a mountain of tissue paper and big rolls of bubble wrap. They spent all afternoon carefully wrapping each piece individually.

Still, I was happy with what I got for it, and they seemed happy with their purchase, and long before they had it packed up, I'd sold every bit of furniture I had except my big gun case. I hadn't moved it outside with everything else because it was full of rifles and pistols.

Yes, like any self-respecting (or is that self-important?) Texan - depressed or not - I had guns out the ass. In fact, guns and shooting had been the biggest part of my life. Since my depression came on, I've read dozens of self-help books, and almost all of them say you should get rid of firearms if you are depressed. Maybe that's good advice for most people, but if I didn't have any guns I'd just slit my throat, so what's the point?

I did intend to sell most of them but I figured it would take months. I suppose I was just stalling if the truth were known. I hadn't sold any guns today because no one knew I had any for sale.

Since everything else was gone; the bedroom suite I'd intended to keep and the bed I'd intended to continue sleeping in and with another day of my two day yard sale to go, I supposed I was going to have to put the gun case outside tomorrow and sell my children too, most of them anyway. There were a few I wouldn't sell for any price.

I slept on the floor that night. I had at least hung onto a couple of pillows. My carpet also had great padding under it, since a guy in the business told me long ago that cheap padding would make carpet wear out faster than anything. Hell of a lot of good spending money on great carpet pad did me. It just made the carpet look good for the asshole that had skinned me on the house deal.

So, as I was saying, I slept on the floor and with the success of my yard sale I didn't even have a fucking radio to listen to. What the hell, I'd never paid much attention to TV. The set I'd sold today was probably ten years old and getting a little dim, but some asshole - excuse me, some nice young gentleman - bought it, and I'm sure he could have got one nearly as big for the same money at Wal-Mart.

It was a surprise to me that I dropped off to sleep so fast, because ever since the depression crept up on me I'd had hell going to sleep, and even more trouble keeping asleep. Some of the articles I read even said the irregular sleep patterns caused the depression. That's a real relief, when you're trying to get to sleep and can't, and you realize that it could be making your depression worse.

An even bigger surprise was that I didn't wake up until I'd slept almost exactly eight hours. I hadn't been able to sleep all through the night for months and months. To top it all off, it seemed I felt great this morning.

I hadn't sold the washer and dryer because they went with the house and damned if I didn't start washing clothes after I'd finished breakfast and had a load of dishes in the dishwasher.

Of course I'd already had to force myself to wash most of the dishes because I sold them too, most of them anyway, and most of the pots and pans. In fact I only had one cast iron skillet left and one three-quart saucepan.

With a load in the washer and one in the dryer, I made a quick trip to Wal-Mart to grab one of those airbed mattresses and a foot operated pump so I'd have something to sleep on besides the floor.

Next was the gun cabinet. I had to get it outside under the carport, so people could see it. I had to take out the shotgun, all twenty of the rifles and the fifteen pistols before I moved it. Then I put eighteen of the rifles and twelve of the pistols back

I only kept my custom made 8mm x 57 bolt action rifle, my Browning Buckmark 22LR, my sawed off LC Smith 12 gauge double barrel, my Glock 34, my Colt Python 357 magnum, and my Colt Diamondback 38 Special.

I guess that might sound like a lot of firearms for some people but for me it was only the bare necessities, except for the LC Smith. It probably wouldn't bring much anyway, since some dumbass sawed the barrel off the priceless antique, so I kept it just for the hell of it.

I hid all of the keepers back in my smallest bedroom with my reloading equipment and supplies. I'd separated that out two days ago. I was also selling the dies and supplies for the calibers I wouldn't have any longer, but I sure wasn't getting out of the reloading business for anything I kept.

I was sitting out under my carport in the one lawn chair I'd refused to sell yesterday at eleven AM when the first car drove by. They kept driving and I guessed they didn't see anything that interested them. I got my hopes up for a second that no one would be out on Sunday wanting to by a gun cabinet or a bunch of guns.

Wrong. Ten minutes later a big camo painted pickup came by and he stopped at once when he saw that there were guns for sale here, just like the classified add had said.

He was only a looker though. No doubt he thought that I'd sold all the good stuff yesterday and he'd find a bargain today. He had another thought coming. I didn't know shit about what china was worth, but I knew the value of every weapon in that case down to the penny. He was on his way in only a few minutes.

I was surprised when he came back twenty minutes later with a friend in tow. The friend nearly shot off in his pants when he saw the M1 I'd sporterized with a synthetic stock, a new barrel, and a 4 to 12 low light scope. The guy couldn't wait to count out thirty-nine hundreds and take it home.

I figured they knew just as well as me that there was no paperwork for the government for a firearm sale between private individuals, especially when it was strictly cash. At least there wasn't if even one of the individuals had a lick of sense.

Just as they left, one of those small foreign four-wheel drive pickups pulled up and two guys piled out of it. They looked things over and from the way they talked I realized that the first guy had told them about my sale.

They were tickled shitless to have a chance at a custom rifle that was ready to go without having to wait months to have it made. The driver bought both the rifles I had with thumbhole stocks, and the other one just had to have the 45/70 with a stainless barrel and camo synthetic stock.

Since they'd been talking about white tail hunting, I idly wondered what a poor white tail was going to look like after the guy smacked him with a 300 grain bullet out of that 45/70 cannon. You notice I didn't call him a dumbass? That's because he had nice crisp hundreds.

Things slacked off for a minute and then a guy came up in a new Caddy and got out wearing a dark suit. I knew at once that he understood completely about the lack of paperwork involved. He strolled over, bought my 220 Swift, my 22-250, and every pistol I had except the Thompson Center Contender and the Ruger Super Redhawk in 454 Casull, he never even asked about a package deal, which surprised me.

I started gathering up the reloading dies and other reloading supplies that went with them and he told me I could keep all that crap. He did seem pleased when I dragged out the hard cases, but he insisted in cramming two or three guns in each one and left me all the others.

As he was leaving I had a feeling he was a shooter all right, or at least he supplied shooters. No doubt my babies would be fired one or two more times each and end up disassembled and at the bottom of large bodies of water. Oh well, you can't tell a man how hard to ride the horse after he's paid for it.

Damned if the first guy with the camo truck didn't show back up with another buddy. While his buddy was drooling, the first guy happened to notice the Thompson Center, for the first time I guess.

"Man, I didn't see that before," he said.

"Well there were a lot more pistols, but a guy just bought them all except for that one and the Super Redhawk in 454 Casull," I said.

His buddy for this trip perked right up and wanted to see the Ruger. He never let it go until he put it in the hard case. I don't think he wanted to then, but he had to let go to count out the money. Wait until he tried to hold that anchor up and fire it. With his skinny wrist he'd probably need a cast after the first time he touched it off.

The first guy couldn't stand it any longer; he was slobbering for the Thompson Center, and when I told him I had a couple of rifle length barrels and a buttstock for it, that finished him off.

It was the oddest thing that fascinated him. When I'd first bought it, Thompson Center wouldn't make rifle barrels for it; in fact, they were hard to come by. This meant if you put a buttstock on it you weren't legal anymore, and that mattered to me then.

So, I had my favorite gunsmith graft a couple of inches of a fucked up 20 gauge shotgun barrel onto a 7mmTCU pistol length bull barrel. He did a hell of a job and it looked really good, until you looked directly at the business end and all you could see was that giant 20-gauge hole.

I'll swear that barrel and the one in 357 maximum, done the same way, sold the whole thing. Or course he got dies and other crap, and all nine of the other barrels, but it was those two weird ones he was in love with. I warned him that it was going to be really loud out in front of it when he fired, but he didn't seem to care.

Within another hour I'd sold out and the guy that bought the Thompson center bought the giant gun case too. That left me with nothing but the hardcases, dies, and supplies for the guns my main pistol buyer didn't want. Since the first guy had been so helpful toward my efforts, I just gave it all to him. He couldn't believe it at first.

He knew I'd been hardassed about coming down on any of the prices, since he'd been there when two or three people had left because I wouldn't give a nickel. I guess it might have seemed a little funny that I'd just give him about fifteen hundred bucks worth of stuff.

What the hell, he'd helped me out by telling others about my sale and I was tired of fucking with the stuff, besides, nobody is going to come looking at a yard sale with nothing but odds and ends reloading equipment and a few hard cases for sale. At least I hung on to my lawnchair.

I went on back in the house and warmed up a can of Wolf Brand Chili with some Ranch Style Beans added to the mix, opened a bag of Fritos, popped the top on a Lone Star Long Neck, and pigged out. After that, I pumped up my airbed and went right off to sleep.

I woke up a little after four AM but I'd gone down at eight PM the night before so I'd slept the night through again. Wasn't this the drizzlin' shits. Now that I barely owned a damned thing, I was fine all of a sudden. Hell, it wouldn't last. While it did though, I got on with moving. I loaded up my 1976 four wheel drive, short wheelbase pickup and headed for my new shack.

It wasn't really a shack, it wasn't a hovel either, and it was in a wonderful neighborhood, since there were no neighbors. The house was small, about sixteen by thirty, but well built.

It was a weird old house, made almost entirely of local stone, and I don't mean stone veneer with stud wall construction behind it. The walls were made of stone, and nearly two feet thick. Windows and doors were in short supply too. With only the front door as a way in or out and one two by two window at each end.

The floor was made of the same stone, but some care had been taken so that it was mostly flat and level, and over the years it had become fairly smooth.

There'd been no interior walls in the original construction but at least an indoor bathroom had been added at some time in the past. From the looks of the fixtures, it had probably been added in the fifties.

Access to the attic was a permanent narrow staircase which happened to be the most prominent feature of the south wall, since its opening into the ceiling was on the centerline. The stairs were steep too, they had to rise eight feet with a run of only seven feet, and the rest of the south wall behind and below the stairs was taken up with shelves, all the way over to the back wall, with only the two by two window for decoration.