TJ didn’t answer. She hadn’t finished pumping thirty dollars but hung up the nozzle anyway and got back behind the wheel, cranking the engine, and wheeling out hard and fast to the front of the convenience store. She honked the horn and Chastity and John Wesley came running out, holding armfuls of candy and Cokes. They were laughing like hell as they jumped into the Land Cruiser.

“What’s so damn funny?” TJ said, spinning out onto the highway, headed south.

“We didn’t pay for nothing,” John Wesley said. “Chastity said I had two minutes to grab everything I wanted to eat.”

“That’s not us,” TJ said. “That’s not what we do.”

“Bullshit,” her little brother said. “Since when?”

TJ cut her eyes over at Chastity, who smiled and popped the sunglasses down off the top of her head. TJ looked up into the rearview mirror to see if she saw that old Chevy truck anywhere. When she didn’t, she let out a slow, easy breath.

“A man back there recognized me,” TJ said.

“You need some sleep,” Chastity said. “You’re not thinking straight.”

“He looked at me like he knew me,” she said. “Kept on talking about this Toyota like it was a woman.”

“Men are gross.”

“He had these small, crazy eyes,” TJ said. “I could smell him through all the spilled oil and diesel fumes.”

“So what?” Chastity said. “He stinks.”

“I smelled that somewhere before.”

“When?”

“When I washed Momma’s bloody clothes,” TJ said. “That funk was all over her.”

*   *   *

That fine bright morning, Johnny Stagg was finished with a tour of the halfway completed Frontier Village with ole Randy Nichols and Danny Hayes from the county supervisors. Both of them good ole boys since birth; Stagg working with both their daddies while they were still in diapers. Stagg was glad to learn they knew the ways of the world while promising unlimited and unconditional support to Stagg’s plan to give something back to the community. Of course, a tidy little campaign contribution would be made to both in their private accounts at Tibbehah First National.

The boys tipped their baseball caps and climbed their fat asses in the shiny new trucks provided by taxpayers. The best part about it was the truck was theirs for the taking, along with a brand-new metal barn and all the equipment they needed. Ain’t a better dodge than being a Mississippi supervisor. Stagg sure hated that he couldn’t run again because of slanderous lies and his current criminal record.

Stagg stood in the parking lot waving goodbye to Randy and Danny when his phone jingled in his pocket. One of his waitresses had set the ring to the tune of “(What This World Needs Is) A Few More Rednecks.”

“You got Johnny Stagg,” Stagg said. “Start talkin’.”

“That Bloodgood girl’s with TJ Byrd and her squirt brother.”

“I told you not to call unless you needed something.”