HE HAD a pair of headlights on his tail the whole way on the road out of Hopetown, like ghost eyes in his rearview, creeping out from behind the trees as he took one slight swerve in the road after another. He couldn’t see even a silhouette behind the blast of white light from the car’s front grille. He pictured the bearded man from the van, Gil Thomason’s neighbor Bo, the man who’d offered to get the others, a phrase that called to mind a mob or the wrong kind of clan. But he couldn’t be sure the driver of the car behind him wasn’t Mr. Page in the ’76 Buick Darren had seen parked along the side of his newly painted house, the old man wanting Darren and his questions to get the hell away from Hopetown. In any case, the message was being delivered with alarming speed. As Darren neared FM 727, the paved road back to the highway, the car behind him revved its engine and Darren saw the headlights approach. The other car was going fast enough that it stirred the air, lifting it into the open windows of his truck’s cab; someone, he smelled, was burning cedar somewhere. The other car made a drastic pull to the right, spun its wheels, turned around, and flew back to Hopetown, dirt swirling in the red haze of its taillights. The vehicle tipped a little as it made the narrow turn, and only then did Darren recognize the overloaded van of Gil’s neighbor. Darren slammed his brakes, then leaned out of the driver’s-side window, his service weapon pointed back toward Hopetown, waiting in case the van returned, along with the posse Bo had at his disposal. He sat rock still, heart thumping in his chest.