“You ain’t never gonna compete with J. Wilbur, E. P., if that’s what you’re thinking.”

The big man’s face turned stiff. His mouth became tight and his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t say anything about J. Wilbur.”

“We’re a small outfit, we can’t afford a jaunt to Texas. Every vehicle we got is ragged, nearly shot to pieces.”

“We got a window of opportunity, and it won’t last. Once Coot’s full-grown, he’s finished. That’s the way it works.”

“Coot’s a good preacher. I don’t see the need to push him any harder.”

“He ain’t that good a preacher, he’s just young. If he were a grown man, we’d starve to death. No, if we have any shot at making a name for ourselves, it’s while he’s young.”

“He’s a better preacher than his daddy is, I can tell you that much.”

“You got a big mouth, Blake.”

“Only telling it the way it is.”

He scoffed. “That child ain’t mine, and you know it.”

“Everybody here knows where he come from. And everybody knows who he takes after.”

“Shut up,” said E. P., waving his hand in the air. “That boy’s a bastard whose mother was a—”

“A beautiful human being.”

Silence hung in the air. Blake held his glare on E. P. This made E. P. laugh to himself. It was a low-pitched laugh that began in the man’s belly. “You’re too much,” said E. P. “Got too much integrity for your own good, you know that?”

Blake only smiled and prayed to the peanut butter gods to hurry up.

“Oklahoma,” said E. P. “That’s where we go. I’m sick’a this dumb state. I’s ready for a change. We go up to Oklahoma, then up to Texas. That’s what we do.”

“Down to Oklahoma, down to Texas. Where’d you go to school, you hick?”

E. P. was almost finished with his sandwich, and Blake didn’t want to miss the look on his face when the tranquilizer finally made the big man as useless as a steering wheel on a mule.

“Didn’t you ever want anything?” E. P. said, licking his fingers. “Didn’t you ever wish you could have a little spot of earth that was all your own? Didn’t you ever have dreams?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“I’m talking about making some real money, Blake. For once in our lives. The folding kind.”

“I wouldn’t know about money. You make more money than the rest of us.”

“Chicken scratch. I’m as broke as anyone else. Don’t you wanna have enough to buy new shoes instead of polishing the old ones so much you can’t even remember what color they were? Don’t you wanna retire one day?”

“When I retire I’m going back to Alabama.”