Peanut sat kicked back in his rocking chair when Wiley led me out onto the porch. The kid did a good job of acting like everything was normal and passed around everyone’s beer. Marshall took one from me but walked to the other side of the porch and stood next to Caudell. Peanut noticed this, but Wiley finally made it to him with his beer. He took the can from Wiley with a swipe, popped it open, and sucked the suds from the lid.

“Goddamn, Wiley, I thought you were fixing to let me dehydrate,” Peanut said.

Wiley shrugged it off and said, “Sorry, Peanut, I got yelled at by Miss Katie for walking in on the boys. Woke Ramsey up after she just got him to sleep.”

“What the hell were you doing walking in on them in their playroom, Wiley? I told you upstairs.” Peanut pointed above his head, and his voice raised in volume. “The upstairs bedroom. That’s where I told you Mack was.”

“Sorry, Peanut,” the kid kept playing dumb, “I just forgot where you told me to go.”

“You know what’s gone happen now?” Peanut leaned forward in his chair and was almost in Wiley’s face. The kid froze the way a deer does after being spotlighted but didn’t look Peanut in the eye. He looked down at his boots and did his best not to shrivel up. “You’re on Buford detail until further notice. Take him to run his errands, pick up his medicine, or to hang out at the Elks Lodge. It don’t make a shit to me what he tells you to do, just keep him outta my hair. And I swear to God, Wiley, if I get an earful about this from Katie, I’m gone have your ass. Hear me, boy?”

Peanut snatched Wiley by the face when he didn’t answer. My whole self went stiff. I grabbed the porch banister to stay put. Caudell noticed it and kept his eyes on me. Peanut said to Wiley, “I asked you a question, boy. You answer me whenever I do that.”

“Yessir.” The word shot from Wiley’s mouth like a dart, and he couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

Peanut held onto his face until he’d smushed it up and then shoved the kid away. The banister kept him from tumbling into the yard, and he braced himself in case there’d be a second round.

Peanut rocked back in his chair, took a long swig from his beer to settle his nerves. “Get your ass down to the gate and send Tommy up here. Let him know he’ll be going with us tonight because you’re too goddamn stupid to follow simple directions.”