10.

Outside, Marshall shot out the off-roading tires on the preacher’s charcoal F-150, whooping along to the echo of the shotgun blasts when they came back to him. I took off through the field on my own, but it wasn’t long before Marshall’s bootheels kicked through the grass and passed me, trailing one-hundred-dollar bills behind him. It got me so tickled I couldn’t run, so I tried to snatch up as many of them as I could.

Marshall waited for me at the edge of the tree line. The clouds were scattered now, and the moonlight shined bright enough for me to see the crazy glint in his eye. “You believe all that shit back there? Can’t believe we came out alive.”

I shoved the money Marshall lost into his hand. “Let’s not waste no time standing ’round talking ’bout it. Who knows how long they’ll be stuck in that hole.”

Marshall stuffed the bills down the front of his jeans. “You think they got anybody that’ll come unlock that door for ’em?”

“I figure your shotgun blasts woke somebody else up,” I said, “who knows how long it’ll take ’em to figure out they’re down in that hole, and I don’t wanna be here when they do.”

Marshall didn’t argue with my line of reasoning and jogged to catch up with me. My truck was parked just down the hill from where we’d snuck in the fence, and I didn’t waste no time heading to it.

At the fence, I pumped the action on the shotgun until there was a pile of shells at my feet and busted the gun’s barrel over a fence post. Marshall did the same, and when he dropped the gun in the grass, I pulled the barbed wire up for him.

Marshall grabbed me by the shoulders on the other side, helping me get back to my feet, and said, “Hey, Coy, we’re fucking rich.”

The truth was we’d stolen only a few thousand dollars, but it was some of the easiest money we’d ever come by, and it would spend easier than any money we’d earned from an honest day’s work. I slapped Marshall on the shoulder. “First round is on me.”

“Hell yeah.”

We hopped our way down the hill, and when we reached my truck, we jumped inside. I didn’t wait for Marshall’s door to shut before I had the engine started and shifted into drive. I turned to him and said, “You know we need to take a few days and lay low, right?”

He agreed, and I peeled ass out of there.

PART TWO

Lo! On the water’s brink we stand

To do the Father’s will

To be baptised by his command

And thus the word fulfil

1.

Me and Marshall ain’t never been no good at laying low. We got our Deddy’s way of peacocking in us, and over the years, it’s got us into more than a truckload of trouble. For instance, one time in high school, I stole the answers to Miss Stanley’s Algebra 1 finals. She didn’t like my brother and threatened to have him kicked off the Titans if he didn’t pass with better than a B+. Instead of keeping my theft a secret, Marshall recognized an economic opportunity because everyone at Tugalo County High School knew Miss Stanley gave the most miserable finals. We sold the answers to each of his classmates for twenty bucks apiece. When the whole class passed with an A, she gave them all ISS until we got ratted out. Coach made us run Oklahoma Drills until we both got carried off the practice field on stretchers.