BooksBarbecue
Back The Heathens
Chapters (33)
  1. ALSO BY ACE ATKINS
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  33. What’s next onyour reading list?

Dusty Nix stood up, the top of his head not even reaching Chester Pratt’s chin. He had his hands on his hips and his skeletal head hung high. Both of the men stinking to high heaven, like old rotten meat and rancid urine.

“No, sir,” Dusty Nix said. “Me and Daddy just getting started.”

“What’s that mean?”

Nix looked back to the kitchen and across the restaurant to six, seven other folks out of earshot. “Don’t you worry, Mr. Pratt,” he said, raising his voice. “We’ll get you that estimate right quick.”

“I don’t need y’all’s help,” he said. “I don’t need anybody’s goddamn help.”

“You sure about that?”

THIRTEEN

The house was endless, a maze of dozens of halls and rooms with all the furnishings coated with a thin layer of dust, black on TJ’s fingertips. She and Ladarius had slept up in that big bedroom on the second floor, while Holly and John Wesley slept downstairs by the big rock fireplace where they watched a marathon of Harry Potter DVDs on a screen nearly as large as a movie theater’s. As she got up that morning, standing on a second-floor balcony and looking out on the lake, she thought this had to be the most beautiful place she’d ever been in her life. If only she’d known there was a world outside Tibbehah County, she would’ve left a long time back.

Ladarius had slipped away early but had come back a half hour ago, carrying in a big wine box loaded down with frozen meat, eggs, and sausage. He and Holly cooked up a mess of it while John Wesley wandered from room to room, sometimes coming up to tell TJ all the amazing things he’d found and asking what he could keep. One room, painted pink with lots of lace and frills, had more toys in it than the Tupelo Walmart, he’d said. John Wesley found a couple of remote-control cars and a few Marvel action figures, TJ saying don’t steal nothing but play with what you like.

She carried a bedspread over her shoulders, her breath clouding before her while she looked out onto the lake, as she stepped off the balcony and back into the room with the big four-post bed. The bathroom had a shower as large as their trailer and a big jacuzzi under a huge oil painting of a naked white woman. Her breasts as thick and heavy as two bouncy pink water balloons. TJ figured that must be the woman of the house, spread-legged and big-jugged for only the select few to see.