Here’s another Irish surname in my work: Hogan! As in LeAnne Hogan, main character in The Right Side (not a #ChetandBernie novel). But I didn’t have Ireland in mind when I picked it. Instead – hogan as in the traditional solid-looking Navajo dwelling. Here’s a look at LeAnne when she was a kid:

LeAnne raised Little P. “Let the weapon find the target,” Daddy always said. Also pretty funny, to LeAnne’s way of thinking. Because how could it do that on its own? The weapon was just a thing. But she’d learned early on that it turned out to be kind of true. She peered through the sight with her right eye, not looking at the distant taillight at all, just at the space inside the little V, let out every puff of her breath, stopped time, and in the moment before time would start up again she pulled the trigger, pulling not being the right word. Pulling was too strong. This was more like the force you’d use to press the thingamijig at the top of a ballpoint pen to make the tip stick out.

Crack. But not a loud crack. This was only a .22, after all. Neither was there much in the way of recoil, just the slightest of kicks, like a baby in the mommy’s tummy. Then came the soundless shattering of the taillight, and tiny red shards went flying in the sunshine. Real tiny, like solid blood drops. Weapon finds target.