Dusty could hear Daddy Flem’s raspy breathing and without asking permission, grabbed him by the back of the belt and helped him back into the truck. He left the old truck door hanging open while he walked back to where Pratt was standing, smoking and looking like a cocky rich man. The kind of fella who’d never done a hard day’s work in his life.

“What did y’all do?”

“Why’d you want us to give her a scare?”

“That’s none of your business,” Pratt said, sucking on a cigarette, burning it down to a nub and tossing it into the weeds. “Is it?”

“You see that blood coming out of my daddy?”

Pratt nodded. It had grown cold and the breathing and talking between them came out in clouds.

“That woman cut him bad,” Dusty said. “Cut his ass down to the bone.”

Pratt said he was real sorry about that. But Dusty could tell he didn’t care. He’s the kind of man who hires Mexican folks to do a job because they’ll never sue your ass when they fall off the ladder and break their damn necks.

“If she done that to my daddy,” Dusty said. “Just what do you think she’d do to you? I figure we done you a real favor, Mr. Pratt.”

Pratt got real still in the low beams of Dusty’s truck, squinting at Dusty’s face, finally getting around to asking the question that he knew the answer to all along. Pratt walked toward Dusty and punched a finger in the middle of his chest. “What did y’all do?”

Dusty didn’t answer. He grinned.

“What did y’all do?”

“Don’t you worry none, Mr. Pratt,” Dusty Nix said. “That bitch ain’t gonna give you no more trouble. Me and Daddy got us a special place way out and far away from Tibbehah County where we toss out things that ain’t no use to us anymore.”

Dusty watched as Pratt turned around and yelled through his teeth, hammering his fists over and over on the back of that fine black car. The man looked to be plenty upset.

*   *   *

Holly and Ladarius were at the trailer with John Wesley when TJ got home. Holly had waited on the porch, arms open wide, offering her a big hug. It wasn’t until then that the private idea of her mom being dead was really true for TJ. She leaned into Holly and cried, careful not to be too loud for John Wesley. Holly rubbed her shoulders and her neck, telling her how sorry she was and that she knew that her momma was in a better place, up in heaven looking at them and all their troubles.

“Troubles,” TJ said.

“What did the sheriff say?”