“Motherlode,” By Thomas McGuane

This is a short story written in third-person limited from the perspective of David Jenkins, a guy who’s job is to inseminate cattle and check on whether cattle are pregnant or not. He gets kidnapped but then can’t resist an opportunity to make what he thinks would be the “Motherlode” by knowingly running drugs to workers, apparently, in the Bakken oil fields. Of course, he’s out of his league and it doesn’t go well.

This story didn’t do much for me, I’m afraid. I guess I couldn’t care less about David Jenkins or his career choice or about his decision to step off the straight and narrow. The people at the ranch were also just not totally believable. But this story did make it into The Best Short Stories of 2015, so what do I know.