This is Fort Collins, Colorado. It is in the west and once it was a wild, nothing more than a scrub of dusty bushes and a spring. The pioneers came and built a wooden fort to protect them from the natives and better enable effective massacre. Then more people passed by on their way westwards and some stayed, first under canvass and then in timber buildings. Once the railway arrived the new town brought in stone and craftsmen to build a fine wide thoroughfare of handsome storefronts, hotels and town houses. Now it is not wild at all. It is dull and pleasant.

Betty Shoemaker is as dull and pleasant as the town. Right now she is reckoning her portion of life, as she sits at her table with a nice slice of pie and a glass of iced tea. She lives in a sleepy street just off the main road. The house is set back with a wire fence and a driveway in which she parks the beast, an oversized Chevrolet, brown and battered and much too big for such a small old lady. She has to prop herself up on cushions to see over the wheel on the three outings she allows herself each week.

Ever Saturday she drives up to Cache le Poudre, a canyon 20 miles out of town that was used as a hiding place for ammunition by an outlaw gang of yesteryear. Her daddy used to own a small holding up there and whilst it is long gone Betty still makes a weekly pilgrimage to the old place. On Sundays she takes the car to church, an evangelist modernist monstrosity with a preacher in a three-piece suit and a wide tie who grips her hand and bellows “do you know the lord is your saviour!”. It is never a question. The third outing for Betty is to the store, for groceries on a Monday. The rest of the time Betty stays at home with her husband Ethan.

Bettys house is very dark inside. In her sitting room is the large oak table at which she sits. It is covered in a heavy brown velvet cloth, edged with beige tassels. Against one wall is a piano, above which is a faded yet treasured rendition of Jesus with blue eyes and a beatific half smile, even though he is bleeding heavily from his stigmata. Betty looks at Ethan where he sits in a brown leather armchair, dressed in a buttoned-up shirt and high waisted tweeds. He dribbles constantly onto his shirt front and occasionally gets up, giggles and walks out of the room. Sometimes for a change he will shove all his fingers into his mouth and gnaw at his nails until they bleed. Betty has passed the stage of trying to stop him doing any of this. He is a dam cussed old fella.

Betty is the only one who knows that Ethan had been a genuine cowboy, a rodeo rider who made enough of a living to get them this house, before one fall too many.

She blesses him for that every morning and prays every night that he will soon die.

As she sits and considers her slice of pie Betty knows it could be better but it washes down perfectly nicely when all is said and done. Thank you, Jesus.