“That money was my money,” she said. “Left for me by my daddy’s momma. My momma didn’t have any more right to that insurance check than a man on the moon. And you come by, a goddamn vulture, picking across the bones of a poor sick woman that you didn’t even know. Do you even know her name? Or how she died?”

“I don’t know about any of that mess, kid,” Pratt said, reclining in the rattan chair, his head still fuzzy and thick from that nightmare and those cannibal women. “Your momma and I talked this over. Contracts were signed. Deals were made. Sorry, but that’s the way of the world. You got issue with what she done, talk to your momma.”

“I can’t,” she said. “She’s gone.”

“Whatever y’all cooked up between you two ain’t funny no more,” he said. “Where’s she at, TJ? Is she okay?”

“I’m not my momma’s keeper,” she said. “Don’t you ever go and send Johnny Law on my ass ever again.”

“I didn’t send no one on your ass, TJ Byrd,” Chester Pratt said, wiping the lid of the Yeti cup with his finger. He took a long pull.

“You’re not going to find her,” TJ said. “She met up with a new man and gone down to Louisiana for a little R&R. Mud riding. Drinking and partying. She’s sick and done with your sorry, wrinkled old ass.”

“That’s bullshit, little girl,” he said. “You know what I think?”

“I don’t really give a damn, old man.”

“I think you’re just upset about me and your momma being in love,” he said. “I don’t think you can handle that your momma found a little bit of happiness in this world. You don’t want that. I know all about you and your worship of your dead daddy. Jerry Jeff Fucking Valentine. Shit. I hate to break it to you, kid, but he wasn’t no Billy the Kid. He was nothing but a fuckup and loser. And I swear to hell you’re just like him.”

That’s when that little girl reached into her coat and pulled out a pistol.

“He left me his gun,” she said. “And if you and me don’t get square, I’m gonna shoot those low-hanging nuts right off you.”

“Come on now, girly.”

“You had a chance, Chester,” TJ said. “You stole my momma’s money. Money she only had ’cause she’d stolen it off me. You tried to threaten me, sending the police out knocking on my door like I did something wrong.”

“Get out of here,” he said. “I’ll call the sheriff.”