Vardaman left Ray and Chief Robbie to talk while he got changed. He’d spent the morning in the woods with a CNN news crew, taking them on the deer runs and fire trails and talking about what Mississippi values meant to him. Ray walked over to the bar inside the hunt lodge and fixed himself a tall scotch. Chief Robbie wasn’t one to drink. Ray heard he’d had some real trouble with the drugs and booze back in the day and now he was a workout freak. Tall and black-headed and built like a brick shithouse, he posted videos of himself online pulling weighted sleds and swimming in the Rez lake towing several canoes behind him. Chief Robbie was a real piece of work.

“I don’t like to wait,” Chief Robbie said. “I don’t like to waste my time.”

“Vardaman wanted to make sure we’re comfortable with each other before we get down to the ass-kissing,” Ray said, taking a sip. “That’s what this shit’s about. You know it. How you been, Big Chief?”

“All right,” Chief Robbie said. “My youngest daughter is getting married next month.”

“Congratulations,” Ray said.

“Not for me,” Chief Robbie said. He was dressed in denim on denim, a ceremonial beaded necklace around his throat and the open shirt showing a strong tanned chest. “This boy—a white man—is a loser. He owns a karaoke bar down in New Orleans. I had him checked out. He’s a fraud. Cashing bad checks, selling drugs. I don’t like it one bit.”

“Then why don’t you put your boot down?” Ray said.

Chief Robbie shrugged and crossed his right leg over his knee. He wore a pair of big, pointy alligator-skin boots. The legend was he’d wrestled the gator himself, only killing it when he’d flipped it on its back, field-stripping it right there, somewhere down in Louisiana.

“Mr. White sends his regards.”

Chief Robbie nodded, looking at Ray with his serious black eyes, big silver watch studded with turquoise on his wrist. Ray had always thought of turquoise being more of a Southwest Indian thing than Choctaw, but didn’t figure he’d ask about it. Chief Robbie had his own mysterious ways.

“Mr. White wants you to understand how important you are to all of us.”

“I know that,” Robbie said, flashing a big grin of perfect white teeth. “Tunica is about to fall into the Mississippi River. No one goes there besides the very poor and the very desperate. My place brings in families. Good people who want to have a good time. You should visit us sometime. We have a water park now.”

“I heard.”