Yella Gage was a slim young man, perhaps a shade or two over six foot, not fillin' more shadow than a two by six plank. He'd reached the age of eighteen, an' somehow he'd never managed to amount to much. His pappy had abandoned his wife an' child some fourteen years ago, never lookin' back as he lit out on board the sway backed cayuse they'd had. His ma, lovely, kind, frail Ma, she'd passed on some years back, ailin' from a lung disease that sapped her strength an' her breath. The boy was left to his own devices at thirteen. It didn't occur to him that he'd have to redefine his role as town coward, an' that there was some who wouldn't take kindly to the abrupt change.