Opening paragraphs..............

     "Selfmade men always do a lopsided job of it, and the sheriff had come out conspicuously short on the capacity to sympathize with anyone but himself.  No doubt ears were still burning at the Fort Peck end of the telephone connection; he'd had to tell that overgrown sap of an undersheriff he didn't give a good goddamn what the night foreman said about dangerous, get the thing fished out of the river if it meant using every last piece of equipment at the dam site.  This was what he was up against all the time, the sheriff commiserated with himself during the drive from Glasgow now, toward dawn.  People never behaving one bit better than they could get away with."
-Ivan Doig, Bucking the Sun