Shots Fired

In “One-Car Bridge,” one of four Joe Pickett stories, Pickett goes up against a “plain mean” landowner, with disastrous consequences, and in “Shots Fired,” his investigation into the radio call of the title nearly ends up being the last thing he ever does. In “Pirates of Yellowstone,” two Eastern Europeans, strangers in a strange land, hear that American tough guys can be ruthless, but it’s not till they try strong-arming one that they discover the real truth of the statement; and in “Le Sauvage Noble,” a Lakota Indian takes a job in the Wild West Show at Disneyland Paris and finds its perks to be pleasant – good wages, decent food, and French women who find his “noble savage” act to be pretty exotic – that is, until he meets Sophie. Then he finds out what “savage” really means.