Boom stood up, sticking the large gun into a holster on his belt along his left hip, looking like one of the gunfighters from the movie posters in Brandon’s room. The Man from Laramie. Code of the West. He walked to the edge of the porch, staring down the gravel road at the bridge spanning a meandering creek.

“Quinn said two of those boys followed you back from Tupelo.”

“That’s right,” Tashi said. “They’d been in our motel room, too. They trashed some of our notes and wrote some nasty things on the mirror over the sink.”

“What kind of things?” Boom said, looking to Maggie, moving back and forth on the glider. She was wearing jeans and a threadbare VOTE FOR COLSON T-shirt, no shoes.

“Mainly about us being outsiders,” Tashi said. “And about me being Jewish.”

“Wonder how they feel about a one-armed nigger carrying a big-ass gun?”

Tashi smiled, feeling an ease of the pressure she’d carried around for days. “Doubt they’d like it very much.”

Boom grinned back at her. “Quinn ever tell you about the time me and him took on some peckerwood racists out at Hell Creek?”

“I heard a little bit about it,” Tashi said.

“This was right when Quinn came home after his Uncle Hamp died,” he said. “Town had pretty much turned to shit.”

“Hold on,” Tashi said. “We just got some new recording gear shipped to us. Let me get it.”

Maggie stood up and said she’d put on some coffee. Boom kept still at the edge of the porch, nodding but continuing to watch the road. The man looked like a mountain, large and muscular, in ragged jeans and a faded flannel shirt, a CAT ball cap on his head. Back turned, he started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Good times,” Boom said.

“What?” Tashi said, opening the screen door.

“Putting those motherfuckers on the run,” he said. “You got to do that from time to time. Let them know where they all stand.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Quinn drove up through Birmingham and cut across the rest of Alabama and most of north Mississippi to talk to Vardaman. Vardaman wasn’t hard to find. He posted all his rallies and appearances on his Facebook page, a small picture of himself grinning in front of Mississippi and American flags, promising a RETURN TO VALUES, a larger picture for the banner showing him speaking before a huge crowd of his supporters, many in Watchmen caps and holding up signs. THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN. STOP REWARDING, START DEPORTING.