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CHAPTER ONE

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WHERE I'M FROM

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Buffalo Burrows lit up another cigarette and dragged deep on it. He watched the purple curls of smoke drift up from his campfire into the night sky and wondered, not for the first time, how he'd made it through this alive.

"Bad business," he said aloud to no-one but his beaten up old guitar and whistled a sigh of relief.

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As if in reply, a loon call echoed across the lake.

He took another pull of the cigarette and picked up his guitar. He pressed the burning coffin nail behind one of the strings on the headstock and strummed. The guitar sizzled and sang. Buff felt the vibration against his belt and looked up at the fading stars.

"I know, I know," he said impatiently to the guitar. "I need to start at the beginning. I guess that's as good a place as any."

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He started picking out a tune, strumming back and forth between two chords. As the first rays of the new sun scraped across the peak of the mountain, he began to sing...

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Well I grew up on the dark side of the mountain, Where it always seems to rain or fucking snow.

 

3

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