They sit on Antonia’s Harley. She starts it, and they ride slowly around to the front of the motel. Bob hears the engine clatter as they set off and thinks, Good riddance.

“Your turn,” he shouts to Jesse.

The black man from Beaumont’s limps out of the trailer with a blood-soaked rag tied around one of his legs. He walks between two cabins toward the road. When he’s gone, Bob says, “I’m getting up now.”

The shotgun wound hardly hurts at all when he stands, and his foot’s okay too. He keeps his gun pointed at the ground.

Jesse appears in the doorway of the trailer, carrying a pistol and a knife. “Drop the iron,” he says to Bob.

“You too.”

Jesse flings his pistol into the scrub. Bob does the same with the shotgun. As the men advance toward each other, Bob frees his knife from its sheath on his belt. They stop ten paces apart.

“One,” Bob says, going into a crouch. He’s grinning, can’t wait to cut this motherfucker to pieces.

“Two.”

Jesse twists his feet to plant them in the dirt.

“Three!”

Bob rushes Jesse, going hard, but Jesse sidesteps and jabs with his knife. He misses and has to spin around. Facing each other, the men shuffle sideways, circling. Bob waves his empty hand, and when Jesse glances at it, lunges, slashes him across the chest, and skips out of reach. This is his plan: Get in, strike, get out. If he keeps it up, Jesse’ll soon be so weak, he won’t be able to dodge.

They go back to circling. Bob feints a few times, but Jesse doesn’t take the bait again. Instead he speeds up, shuffling faster and faster, forcing Bob to speed up too. “Haw!” Jesse shouts, like he’s steering a mule. “Haw!” When he stops suddenly and reverses direction, Bob trips trying to mirror him. Jesse’s on him in an instant, stabbing and pulling away before he can strike back. The pain’s not bad enough to bring him down, but he tastes blood, and every breath is a struggle. He’s got to keep circling, though, keep his eyes on Jesse. The fucker knows he’s hurt and isn’t going to give him time to heal.

Sure enough, he moves in again, knife raised for an overhand strike. Instead of trying to get out of the way, Bob shifts just enough so that the blade sinks into the fleshy part of his shoulder instead of his chest. He then grabs Jesse’s wrist with his free hand to stop him from pulling the knife out and at the same time stabs him in the back. Jesse lets go of his knife, jerks his arm free, and stumbles backward.