The kids all followed a long, straight route across the goal line, waiting for the coach’s whistle, and then followed down the sidelines, up ten yards and across the field, up another ten yards and across the field again, snaking their way back and forth to the other goalpost. Caddy was glad she wasn’t down there in the heat. There was barely any shade up in the stands, her mother bringing them seat cushions and travel mugs filled with iced tea. Although if she really wanted to make an issue, she was pretty sure her momma had filled her own mug with ice, margarita mix, and a double dose of tequila. The woman never missed happy hour. Jean’s eyes shone a bit in the fading sunlight, pointing down toward little towheaded Brandon, three years younger than Jason, trying to keep up with the big boys. He reminded Caddy of herself, trying to keep up with Quinn and Boom Kimbrough when they were kids, never facing a trail or a treehouse that didn’t need conquering.

“How about Hondo?” her momma asked. “Did he bring that dog to the Neshoba County Fair?”

“Hondo won’t leave Quinn,” Caddy said. “You know that.”

An old brown GMC truck rambled down to the edge of the field and parked crooked by the goalpost. The front door opened and an old black man got out and walked around to the passenger side and held open the door. Boom Kimbrough, twice as big as his father, crawled out of the truck, his own, planting a big foot on the field and then a cane and hefting himself to his full height. He had on a ball cap, long khaki pants, and a plain white tee, loose on the right sleeve where he’d lost an arm in Iraq. He’d grown out his beard since he’d been beaten by those two thugs, walking slow and steady toward the team he used to coach.

“I can’t believe it,” Jean said, taking in a long breath of air and reaching for her special cup.

“Did you really think Coach Boom would miss the first day of full practice?”

Some of the boys broke from formation and ran toward him, the other coach on the sidelines blowing the whistle but soon stopping, seeing who’d arrived. The swarm of children enveloping the big black figure with the wide smile.

*   *   *

“Buster wants Wes Taggart gone.”

“A little late for that,” Fannie Hathcock said, on the fifth floor of the casino, looking through the windows at the flat roof over the conference center and out onto the Mississippi River, muddy and snaky all the way up to Memphis. “Don’t you think?”

“He thinks you might can get to him.”