Desmond.

That was the name Lila’d given him, one Luther remembered half agreeing on back before he’d run afoul of the Deacon. Desmond Laurence, after Lila’s grandfather, a man who’d taught her the Bible while she sat on his knee, probably gave her that steel in her spine, too, for all Luther knew, because it had to have come from somewhere.

Desmond.

A good firm name. Luther’d taken to loving it over the summer months, loving it in a way that brought tears to his eyes. He’d brought Desmond into the world and Desmond would do fine things someday.

If Luther could get back to him. To her. To them.

If a man was lucky, he was moving toward something his whole life. He was building a life, working for a white man, yes, but working for his wife, for his children, for his dream that their life would be better because he’d been part of it. That, Luther finally understood, was what he’d failed to remember in Tulsa and what his father had never known at all. Men were supposed to do for those they loved. Simple as that. Clean and pure as that.

Luther had gotten so sucked up, so turned around by the simple need to move—anywhere, anytime, anyhow—that he’d forgotten that the motion had to be put in service of a purpose.

Now he knew. Now he knew.

And he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Even if he took care of McKenna (one hell of an if), he still couldn’t move toward his family because Smoke was waiting. And he couldn’t convince Lila to move toward him (he’d tried several times since Christmas) because she felt Greenwood was home and also suspected—quite understandably—that if she did pick up and move, Smoke would send someone to follow.

Going to come out of my skin, Luther thought for the fiftieth time that day, right fucking out.

He picked the paper up off the bench and stood. Across Washington Street, in front of Kresge’s Five & Dime, two men watched him. They wore pale hats and seersucker suits, and they were both small and scared-looking and they might have been comical—stock clerks dressed up to look respectable—if it weren’t for the wide brown holsters they wore over their hips, the pistol butts exposed to the world. Stock clerks with guns. Other stores had hired private detectives, and the banks were demanding U.S. marshals, but the smaller businesses had to make do by training their everyday employees in the handling of weaponry. More volatile than that volunteer police force, in a way, because Luther assumed—or hoped anyway—that the volunteer coppers would at least receive a bit more training, be afforded a bit more leadership. These hired help, though—these clerks and bag boys and sons and sons-in-law of jewelers and furriers and bakers and livery operators—you saw them all over the city now, and they were scared. Terrified. Jumpy. And armed.

Luther couldn’t help himself—he saw them eyeing him, so he walked toward them, crossing the street even though that hadn’t been his original intention, giving his steps just a bit of saunter, a dash of colored man’s edge to it, throwing the glint of a smile into his eyes. The two little men exchanged looks, and one of them wiped his hand off the side of his pants just below his pistol.