“He’s got clean clothes and cleaned up some,” Brandon said. “He’s not as mean as he used to be. I don’t know how to explain it. But he’s just gotten real quiet. Kinda sad. And he ain’t fighting nobody.”

“You mean he’s not fighting anybody.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “That’s what I mean.”

“You know what happened to his mother?”

“I do.”

“Be kind to the kid,” Quinn said. “He could use a friend.”

“Also heard his sister’s in prison now, too.”

Quinn shook his head, reeling in the worm to the boat, and then recasting back into the same place, right into the crook of that big arm of the oak, where the bass could find a nice place to hide.

“She’s not in prison,” Quinn said. “But she’s in jail. There’s a difference. She’s got to answer for something bad that happened over in Shreveport.”

“What happened?”

“A man attacked her and her friend,” Quinn said. “She protected them.”

“What’s the crime in that?”

“I agree,” Quinn said. “But sometimes it takes a while for justice to shake out. For some it never does. Lot of times it depends on who you are, what color you are, or how much money you’ve got.”

“The Byrds don’t have any money.”

Quinn smiled, reeling the hook back in just as slow and deliberate, careful to tilt the end of his pole away from the tree and free from any snags. “I think that might change,” Quinn said. “Some fella tried to accuse John Wesley’s sister of all kinds of things and now he’s the one paying for it. I think when the truth is out, the Byrds may own everything that man’s got.”

Brandon looked deep in thought as he faced Quinn on the opposite bench. He had cast his hook but hadn’t started to reel it in. The kid had something pressing on his mind.

“Something you want to talk about?” Quinn asked.

“Well,” Brandon said. “I was wondering if after we go fishing, we might stop off at that new place by the truck stop?”

“Are you talking about Johnny Stagg’s Frontier Village?”

“Yes, sir,” Brandon said. “We got coupons at school yesterday for free tokens and free slices of pizza.”

“Hate to break it to you, Brandon,” Quinn said. “But nothing’s free with Johnny Stagg.”

“You know him?” Brandon said. “He came to our school yesterday to talk to kids about finding faith and family values after he’d made a few bad mistakes. Straying from the Lord and all that.”

“I bet he was wearing a cowboy hat.”

“How’d you know?”