“What do you want to do with Bradley Wayne?” Reggie asked.

“When he comes to, charge him with agg assault,” Quinn said.

“And what are you going to do with Miss Dana Ray?”

“Maybe give her a lesson about improving her aim.”

*   *   *

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Skinner said, standing in the rain at the clearing along Highway 45. The dirt work just starting for the Tibbehah Cross, backhoes digging into the side of a sloping hill of orange clay. “We really shouldn’t be seen together.”

“I left fifteen messages with your secretary, Miss Ida,” E. J. Royce said. “I don’t mean to be all sensitive, but I have to say it sounds like a big ole brush-off to me. So this morning down at the pool hall, I heard y’all had broken ground on some civic project and I said to myself, ‘E.J., I’ll bet that’s why ole Skinner ain’t called you back. Maybe you should go visit him in person and get right down to the ole nitty-gritty.’”

Skinner leaned against his brand-new Dodge 2500, fire engine red, bought and paid for by the county. Some people took notice it had both a sunroof and deluxe leather package. But he’d been working on and off for Tibbehah County most of his life and figured it cut an impressive image when meeting with important folks around the state. Success brought on success. The rain tapped at the brim of his pearl white Stetson as he watched the bulldozers scrape away the hill, leveling out the earth where the new cross would stand tall and proud.

“What’re y’all putting in?” Royce asked. “Some kind of service road to get to the steak and titties faster?”

“No, sir,” Skinner said, leaning against the hood of his truck. “We are not. Don’t you read the newspaper, Royce?”

“These days only thing a newspaper is good for is wiping your damn ass,” Royce said. “That business turned to shit about twenty years ago. Now it’s nothing but stories about Hollywood elites and fake news from the goddamn liberal machine. How’s a white man supposed to know what the fuck’s going on in the world? Sometimes I wish I could punch Betty Jo Mize right in her fucking nose. The things that woman writes.”

Skinner felt his face flush, rain sliding off his hat and down the slick surface of his cowboy duster. “I’d appreciate you not using vulgar language in my presence.”

“Oh, I forgot, Skinner,” Royce said. “You’re the fucking Moral Majority of Tibbehah County. You and Anita Goddamn Bryant. Damn, I used to daydream about squeezing that woman’s big old fat titties like a pair of Florida grapefruits.”