Jesus, Joel thought. He wasn’t even home and already he was jumping at taxidermy.

Joel caught sight of the first sign of fresh paint since Austin. A billboard that read MY HERD MY GLORY appeared, listing the names and numbers of every player on the team. He strained to spot his brother, though he needn’t have bothered. Just past BENTLEY: 2 MILES his brother’s face rose up from the fields. DYLAN WHITLEY, SENIOR, the sign read. “THE BOY WITH THE MILLION DOLLAR ARM.”

The convertible’s speakers sputtered, the music playing from Joel’s phone cut out. Bentley took shape on the flat horizon. As the truck ahead of him rumbled toward town, a dark light rose in the bison’s dead eyes. Joel jumped. He would have sworn he’d just seen the thing blink.

As if in reply, a cold voice seemed to whisper through the static of the convertible’s speakers:

imissedyou.

CLARK

On what she would later consider the last easy night of her life, Sheriff’s Deputy Starsha Clark pulled her cruiser into the football field’s parking lot and spotted two other police cars near the end zone.

Deputy Browder smiled as Clark pulled up. God help him, when Browder smiled he looked too young to drive. Hulking Deputy Jones, his uniform black with sweat, was propped against the end zone’s fence, bellowing something down the field.

Clark’s heart stuttered when she saw the score: 14–13, favoring the Rattichville Cougars, the Bison’s competition that evening, and with only a minute-three remaining in the half.

“We been lucky as the devil tonight,” Browder said.

Jones spat a sunflower seed into the grass. “With them Cougars o-line against us, we need him.”

Dylan Whitley stood at the sidelines: even from downfield the boy was unmistakable. He stood just north of six foot, making him one of the shortest quarterbacks anyone in Bentley could remember, but he was broad-chested and long-legged and possessed the sort of sturdy shoulders a town needed to drape its hopes on. He paced near the water coolers, poker-faced, only the mouth guard that bobbed fitfully between his teeth betraying any hint of anxiety.

Jamal Reynolds, the team’s backup quarterback, stood a few steps behind Dylan in a pristine jersey, murmuring something that made Dylan nod his head and chew his mouth guard harder. Clark struggled to remember the last time she’d seen Jamal play.

Crouched beside Dylan, adjusting a stubborn knot in his laces, was KT Staler, the wiry tight end whose performance on the field fluctuated so wildly he had earned the nickname Mister Powerball—with Staler you either got the jackpot or nothing at all. If Clark wasn’t mistaken, the skinny boy looked like he’d somehow lost even more weight lately.

Luke Evers, the Bison’s running back, stood beside the team’s offensive coordinator, raising an arm with a bicep the size of a honeydew to point at something on the coach’s clipboard. Evers was the sort of strapping boy that Texas athletics bred on a yearly basis. He only seemed to be getting bigger.