"Silence didn't bother Cheney. In the woods, he took on the quiet, singular disposition of a man who didn't care about shit but fish. Primed up with a graphite rod and his favorite flies, he'd wrassle the river all day for trout. But come sundown while the rest of the guys would crack beers and gloat, telling grandiose lies, he'd sit alone with a can of Planters peanuts, reading a book on military history or the Soviet political economy. That was Cheney. Fish and politics. The second one you talked about, The first you just did.

"So that afternoon, swishing through the hills, Cheney kept to himself... But as they came around a bend in the trail, one guy named Mealey got his fishing pole caught on a rock. It bent back, slapped his horse on the ass, and all hell went free. The horse lit up like a brushfire, thrashing and bucking, and pretty soon Mealey hit the ground, where a set of hooves caught him hard in the chest. Mealey lay still. his rib was broken. His breath came thin and sharp. The guys rode over for a look, but nobody spoke at first. Cheney sat high in the saddle, with that half-crooked smile of his.

"'Well Mealey,' he said after a while. 'We going fishing or what?'"