Excerpt from Blood Is The Sky by Steve Hamilton, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

He smiled at me as he stood up. "Patience was never your strong suit."

"Vinnie, you always loved this cabin. You told me once you'd buy it off me for a million dollars. You remember?"

"I do," he said. "This was the best cabin I've ever seen."

"Put yourself in my place," I said. "If somebody burned this down, what would you do?"

"First of all, I'd kill whoever did it." He thought about it for a moment. "Did you kill him?"

"No," I said.

"But he's dead."

"Yes."

"Okay, then. The next thing I'd do is rebuild the thing, as close as I could to the original."

"Exactly."

"But I wouldn't do it alone," he said. "Not with a friend down the road who knows twice as much about building cabins as I do."

"Excuse me, twice as much? Since when?"

"Make that three times as much. I was trying to be kind."

"Yeah, well, if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do."

"You'll never even get to the roof," he said. "You want the snow to pile up in here all winter?"

"What are you saying? You really want to help me?"

"Your father's spirit sent me," he said. "He knows what this thing would look like if you did it yourself."

"Ah, Indian humor," I said. "I've really been missing that."

"Let me go get my stuff," he said. "I'll see if I have an extra pair of earphones, too."

"Yeah, get me those earphones," I said. "I have a feeling I'll be needing them now."

That's how I got my help. That's how we started being friends again.

We worked until the sun went down. I offered to buy him dinner at the Glasgow, but he took a pass. He said he was going over to the reservation to see his mother. The next morning, he was on the site before I was. He was spot-peeling logs with his drawknife.

"Let me ask you something," I said when I pulled up. "Aren't you supposed to be out in the woods this month?" Vinnie's regular job was dealing blackjack over at the Bay Mills casino, but every fall he'd make extra money working as a guide for hunters.

"I'd rather be doing this," he said.

"And your day job?" I said. "You're still dealing, right?"

"I asked for some time off."

"Vinnie, you don't have to do this."

"I needed a break anyway, Alex. Okay? Don't worry about it. Just help me peel these things."

"Those are already peeled, Vinnie."

"By what, a machine? Here, let me show you the right way to do it."

Somehow, I managed not to kill him that day. When we got to work, we found a good rhythm and added three more rows to the walls. We didn't talk much about anything except what log came next, and where it should go. There was not a word said about what had happened between us.

When we had run out of daylight, I invited him to have dinner at the Glasgow again. He seemed to hesitate for a second before saying yes. "If you've got a hot date or something, just tell me," I said. "I won't be offended."

"I've been over on the rez a lot lately," he said. "They can do without me for one night."

There was a whole story behind that one - Vinnie moving off the Bay Mills reservation and buying his own land. I knew it didn't sit well with the rest of his family, even though he made a point of spending most of his free time there.

"Come on," I said, "I'll buy you a steak."

Jackie did a double-take when we walked into the Glasgow together. "Well, look at this," he said.

"Two steaks," I said. "Medium rare. You know the rest."

"Good evening to you, too," he said. "I'm just fine, thanks for asking." If he was genuinely mad at me, it didn't stop him from opening a cold Canadian and sliding it my way.

From Blood Is The Sky by Steve Hamilton. Copyright © 2003 Steve Hamilton, published by St Martin's Minotaur. All rights reserved, reprinted with permission from the publisher.