The centerline was barely visible, and my old DeSoto lugged along, bald tires humming as I bare-knuckled it home.

My wife was gonna be mighty pissed off this time. Me and Billy had been out since before dark, and now it was almost December daylight again.

I glanced over at my drinking buddy. He was out like a light. I would wind up throwing him on the couch. That is if we made it inside the house alive. Perlene was liable to pitch the bitch of a lifetime.

Next thing I know we was in the ditch, snow up to the DeSoto's hood. And another mile from home.

Billy had snored right through the whole thing. Typical. He could sleep through a tornado.

I had a shovel and a whole lotta angry, but they weren't enough to get us up outta that drift.

"Hey, Billy! Billy, man, wake up!"

I pushed on my friend's shoulder.

"Huh?" He was comatose.

"Come on, man, we gotta walk!"

"Hmmmmm"

"God damn it, Bill, come on now." I was starting to lose patience. He burped and opened one eye.

"Where're we?"

"In a ditch. Come on, we gotta walk."

" 'Kay ... "

But no movement. Just more snoring. I stepped out of the car and sank down into three feet of snow bank. I felt something hard beneath my left boot, and I dug down to it with the flimsy ice scraper, hoping we hadn't landed on top of a guardrail.

Dark leather appeared, and I pulled up a medium sized suitcase. It wasn't even locked. I sat it on the backseat of the car and slid in next to it. Curiosity killed the cat.

What I found though, sobered me up faster'n eggs and black coffee.

Money. And lots of it. I should've woke Billy up, but I didn't. Greed grabbed me by the hand and off we went.

I had visions of Reno, the beaches of Mexico. And jail too. But I sensed this was stolen or drug money. I would send someone for Billy.

But, in every game, Fate always deals a hand and here it was this time too.

I hadn't gotten a quarter a mile, when Old Man Winter conjured up a snowdevil on me.

Twisting and dancing out of the snowstorm, it knocked me flat, straight down into the cold drifts and the old suitcase flew apart, sending that money to Kingdom Come. I put my face down in the snow and almost wept. But why cry over spilt milk? Like they say, easy come, easy go ...

I bet folks'll be picking twenty dollar bills up all over the state of Kansas come spring. And I bet I'll not be telling anybody why either.