Cully yawned again and went silent and they drove that way for another ten miles, the plains spread out around them, frozen stiff under a hard white sky. The cold gave everything the look of metal that had been rubbed with steel wool. Gray wisps of frost swirled along the edges of the road and kicked up in front of the grille. They reached a railroad crossing and Cully stopped the truck in the middle of the tracks, the engine giving off a low chug as he turned in his seat and looked over at Luther. He smelled of tobacco, though Luther had yet to see him smoke, and small pink veins sprouted from the corners of his eyes.

“They string coloreds up here, Jessie, for doing a lot less than stealing a car.”

“I didn’t steal it,” Luther said and immediately thought about the gun in his suitcase.

“They string ’em up just for driving cars. You in Missouri, son.” His voice was soft and kind. He shifted and placed an arm up on the seat back. “Now it’s like a lot of things have to do with the law, Jessie. I might not like it. Then again maybe I do. But even if I don’t, it ain’t for me to say. I just go along to get along. You understand?”

Luther said nothing.

“You see that tower?”

Luther followed the jut of Cully’s chin, saw a water tower about two hundred yards down the track.

“Yeah.”

“Dropping the ‘suh’ again,” Cully said with a small lift of his eyebrows. “I like that. Well, boy, in about three minutes, a freight train is going to come down these tracks. It’ll stop and take on water for a couple minutes and then head toward St. Louis. I recommend you get on it.”

Luther felt the same coldness he’d felt when he’d pressed the gun under Deacon Broscious’s chin. He felt ready to die in Cully’s truck if he could take the man with him.

“That’s my car,” Luther said. “I own it.”

Cully chuckled. “Not in Missouri you don’t. Maybe in Columbus or wherever bullshit place you claim to come from. But not in Missouri, boy. You know what Bernard started doing soon as I pulled out of my station?”

Luther had the suitcase on his lap and his thumbs found the latches.

“He got on the horn, started calling around, telling folks about this here colored fella we met. Man driving a car he can’t afford. Man wearing a nice coat too big for him. Ol’ Bernard, he killed him some darkies in his time and he’d like to kill more, and right about now, he’s organizing a party. Not a party you’d cotton to much, Jessie. Now I ain’t Bernard. I got no fight with you and lynching a man ain’t something I’ve ever seen and not something I ever want to see. Stains the heart, I suspect.”

“It’s my car,” Luther said. “Mine.”

Cully went on like Luther hadn’t spoken. “So you can avail yourself of my kindness or you can get plumb stupid and stick around. But what you—”