“Maybe,” Daddy said. “Y’all ran the house like a couple red Indians. Hiding my Jim Beam and car keys. Tying me to that goddamn chair. If it hadn’t been for Momma, I mighta killed you both. Har. Har. Remember that time I doused you with lighter fluid and opened up that Zippo?”

“I could never be like Chester Pratt,” Dusty said, sucking marrow from the bone. “That man was born soft.”

“He’s damn lucky to know us,” Daddy said. “Doing what we always done, cleaning up someone else’s goddamn mess. Making sure things done right.”

“You tell Momma?”

“Hell no, I didn’t tell her,” Daddy said. “Your momma and I got ourselves a deal. Long as I make money, she don’t ask where it comes from. She does what she does on our land, tending to her people and collecting all them Disney figurines. And me and you head out and do what needs to be done.”

“That Byrd woman had no call to stick you,” Dusty said. “You might’ve bled out.”

“So you don’t blame me?” Daddy said. “For what I done?”

“No, sir,” Dusty said. “I helped you. Didn’t I? Held her down while you did your cuttin’.”

Dusty scraped up the rest of the mac and cheese with a spork and then took to licking the inside of the container. Daddy Flem cracked open his second beer and sucked it down nice and quick, knowing he didn’t have much time before Momma Lennie cut him off.

“Momma ask what we was doing in the shed?”

“Processing meat.”

“Smart keeping them clothes and that saw around,” Dusty said. “I would’ve thrown ’em down in that ravine.”

“Shit, no,” Daddy said, wiping off the beer from his grayed goatee. “That was our fucking insurance policy. Them and that cell phone.”

“Wonder if the po-lice found that shit yet?” Dusty said. “Leaving that fancy pink boot sure was a nice touch, Daddy. Real nice.”

“That’s what I taught you,” Daddy said. “Wadn’t it? I might’ve knocked you halfway ’cross the room few times. Choked your ass till you passed out. But I made you learn to do a job right. Measure twice and cut once. Choose stable ground for your ladder. Wear you some good boots or you just might break your damn neck.”

“And don’t take nothing off no one.”

“The Nixes ain’t big people,” Daddy said. “My granddaddy had to stand on three Coca-Cola crates to bury his head in my mawmaw’s titties. Now that old boy didn’t take no shit, either. Kilt a man once for patting him on the head like he was a child. That Byrd woman, that goddamn whore, shouldn’t’a stuck me like she did. She didn’t give me no choice.”

“And maybe we’ll get something else, too?”