When he was older than Hardy is now, but still just a boy all the same, he used to steal a little peace of mind at the family plot beneath Lower Wolf’s black cherry trees. Lay himself down on them cool, cracked gravestones, where it was quiet and calm and still, where all them old skeletons and ghosts didn’t seem intent on bothering anyone, to watch the bluing sky slow to a stop between the leaves and dream about everything and nothing at all.

Not a care in the world.

But it’s never quiet now and the world never stops spinning and even the dead can’t seem to keep their goddamn mouths shut anymore.

They talk to him all the time.

He hears ’em calling his name.

Like the Good Book says, there’s just ain’t no goddamn peace for wicked.

Little Paris can’t even count on his fingers the last time he slept peaceful the whole night through, and though he ain’t dead yet, no gravestone pillow for him, he can’t help but wonder what someone might see now if they looked hard and straight into his goddamn sleepless eyes.

Imagines it ain’t no pretty sight anyway—

Maybe a bunch of yellowjackets, big as your thumb, circling and circling and circling.

Angry as hell.

Trying to fly free of his goddamn skull.

—

This wetback here sure didn’t see much of anything when Little Paris blew his fucking brains out four days ago now.

Never even saw it coming.

He and Jamie drove him back here wrapped in some Cabela’s camo tarp and he has a vague memory of telling Jamie afterward to toss the whole fucking mess into Rockhouse Fork or even Yatesville Lake, but Jamie’s now standing by Little Paris’s Mustang, staring down at the dead man like he’s never seen one before.

Like this one just fucking magically appeared here flat on its back with two bullets in its skull, turning autumn Kentucky colors and going soft, setting off a mighty righteous stink, where his amigos will soon smell him all the way down in ole Me-hi-co or wherever the hell it is they breed ’em.

If Jamie wasn’t already his Glasser blood, weak and thin as it might be on his side of the family, Little Paris might find himself inclined to shoot this sonofabitch too.

“What’d I say?” Little Paris asks, toeing the gassy body with one of his boots, but gently, so it don’t rip like an overripe Granny Smith and explode shit and pus everywhere.

A sweet, crisp Granny Smith is one of Hardy’s favorite things.

“What the fuck did I say about this?”

Jamie shrugs but won’t quite look at him ’cause maybe he really can see all them angry yellowjackets behind his eyes.