He waited for Stump to get his hands beneath the seat, then heaved upward with all his strength. The two men grunted and strained until their lungs and bladders were near to bursting. They’d just about cleared the sixty-degree point when someone with a deep bass voice shouted, “Look out!” from the darkness behind them.

Stump lost his grip, backpedaled, then fell on his butt with a grunt and a curse. His hand shot into his leather jacket, but before he could grab the gun in the holster he wore against his ribs, a hand caught the collar of his jacket and snatched him to his feet. Another dug inside the jacket and yanked out his pistol.

Jimmy Gunn made the mistake of trying to hold the Harley erect by himself, which probably gave him a hernia before he let the eight hundred pounds of metal drop to the shell gravel. The ground shuddered from the impact. Jimmy, too, reached for a weapon—a butterfly knife in his boot—but before he could get it, someone caught him in a headlock from behind. Jimmy tried to twist, but the man behind him was too strong. He was black, though. Jimmy could tell by the smell. Not bad—just different.

“What the fuck?” gasped Stump, trying in vain to free himself from the giant who had grabbed him from behind.

Jimmy gaped in disbelief at the size of the forearm locked around Stump’s neck. The big head whose chin pinned the crown of Stump’s head was deep black, and the whites of its eyes shone with a bluish light. When the giant spoke, his voice was so deep and resonant that Jimmy felt the air in his own chest move.

“Ya’ll the ones messed up my li’l sister?” asked the giant.

Jimmy felt his face get hot. “What?”

“Don’t play, now. Ya’ll’s crew messed up my sister. She worked over in Natchez, at the newspaper.”

Stump’s eyes went wide. Jimmy prayed his friend wasn’t so drunk that he’d be unable to lie. Stump wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box when sober, and for the last hour he’d been laughing about the colored girl that Snake Knox’s bitch had splashed with acid.

Stump croaked, “We din’t have shit to do with that. We just heard about it on the radio.”

“Doc say she might not live,” said the giant.

The huge spade had the kind of face Jimmy could imagine smiling from ear to ear, his eyes twinkling with delight, his big belly shaking with joy. But he wasn’t smiling now. “Aw, come on now,” Jimmy said, watching Stump’s eyes. “That’s bullshit. I mean, we didn’t have nothing to do with it, but I know acid in the face don’t kill nobody.”