That old ace in the hole. Annie Proulx. 2002.

That Old Ace in the Hole is told through the eyes of Bob Dollar, a young g Denver man trying to make good in a bad world. Dollar is out of college but aimless, and he takes a job with Global Pork Rind - his task to locate big spreads of land in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles that can be purchased by the corporation and converted to hog farms.

Dollar finds himself in a Texas town called Woolybucket, whose idiosyncratic inhabitants have ridden out all manner of seismic shifts in panhandle country. These are tough men and women who survived tornadoes and dust storms, and witnessed firsthand the demise of the great cattle ranches. Now its feed lots, hog farms, and ever-expanding dry lands.

Dollar settles into LaVon Fronk’s old bunkhouse for fifty dollars a month, helps out at Cy Frease’smOld Dog Cafe, targets Ace and Tater Croucher’smranchmformGlobal Pork, and learns the hard way how vigorously the old owners will hold on to their land, even though their children want no part of it.