A coat tree wobbled and little Newcomb kicked it over, a branch snapping off into a dance on the floor. Bob clicked a hammer back on a .45 caliber pistol and stuck it straight out to touch the nose of the agent who was standing up from his desk. “You keep those hands up and don’t say a blessed word,” said Bob. “Don’t even think about talking. Back up flat to the wall and sink down until you’re on your butt. If I look over and see your hands at all moved, I’ll lean over this counter and blow a hole the size of a bucket in your crotch.”

I stood there being ferocious while Doolin pushed a castered chair aside and slammed desk drawers over onto the desk top, picking up from the paper ruckus quarters and matches and a white box of Smith Brothers cough drops. Powers sat with his ankles crossed on a quiet hickory rocking chair at the front of the depot, a rifle standing in his lap. Newcomb was in the back room clawing boxes open with a garden sickle. Broadwell unlocked the money drawer and handed some limp paper bills through the grill to Bob. Broadwell pushed the drawer shut with his stomach and I saw the agent staring at the legs of Broadwell’s jeans, which were stickered with cockleburs and foxtail and had yellow seeds in the cuffs.

I wasn’t doing anything. I was the lookout, I guess. There was a calendar on the wall with a long arrow drawn through a week of dates and “Harold Higgins on vacation” printed over it. A glass ashtray cradled a crusty black pipe.

My brother Grat slouched around, smelling like green cheese and fish heads, making noise with a bleached axe handle he’d picked up, striking a bench seat, a sill, a waste can, a clock, like a circus bear with a tin drum. He bashed some mahogany wall pigeonholes and a stack of MK&T tickets slewed out. He stood in front of the ticket agent and before I could yell out Grat’s name, he whapped the axe handle bingo into the man’s nose, the sound like a snap of your fingers. The man cried out in pain and blood gushed over his chin and shirt and he fell down to his elbow with his nose skewed over like it was hinged. He kicked out at my brother’s shins and said, “You bastard, what’d you do that for?”

Bob stood on his toes to see the man’s bloody shirt. He asked, “Was that really necessary, Grat?”