Chapters (110)
- Cover
- ALSO BY J. TODD SCOTT
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- PROLOGUE
- I
- II
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- PART TWO
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- PART THREE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- PART FOUR
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- SIXTY-FIVE
- SIXTY-SIX
- SIXTY-SEVEN
- SIXTY-EIGHT
- SIXTY-NINE
- SEVENTY
- SEVENTY-ONE
- SEVENTY-TWO
- SEVENTY-THREE
- SEVENTY-FOUR
- SEVENTY-FIVE
- SEVENTY-SIX
- SEVENTY-SEVEN
- SEVENTY-EIGHT
- SEVENTY-NINE
- EIGHTY
- EIGHTY-ONE
- EIGHTY-TWO
- EIGHTY-THREE
- EIGHTY-FOUR
- EPILOGUE
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Excerpt from LOST RIVER
- LITTLE PARIS
- DILLON
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
How many of these signs did he have? Forty, maybe fifty more, all cluttering the back of his Big Bend County truck. Bethel Turner’s signs had started springing up all over the county weeks ago. The former Texas Ranger had hundreds of them, as bright and white and numerous as the flowering yucca you could see from the highway. Bethel had pulled them out of some very deep pockets, and they were everywhere now. For Chris to make his right, he’d have to throw them out and start all over again.
Or throw them out and say the hell with it. To make a real run at this election, he should have started weeks ago, too.
He yanked at the sign, pulling it out of the earth that didn’t want it.
“Well, Marco, if the folks around here don’t know my name by now, I guess I’m not winning this election anyway . . .”
—
MARCO SILENTLY HELPED HIM get the sign into his truck, unwilling to look Chris in the eye, probably wondering how much longer he’d be his boss. It was the same thing Chris wondered, now more than ever. Marco had been attending college at UTEP until a year ago, when his parents’ house had been burned down on the orders of a violent member of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas named John Wesley Earl. Eight houses went up in flames that night, and many more would have, if the Murfee Fire Department hadn’t gotten a helping hand from a summer thunderstorm that had rolled through the area. The fires had only been a diversion, though, nothing more, for other crimes Earl and his sons Jesse and Bass were committing that night. But it was a costly one for Adalia and Jesús Lucero and their younger son, Emiliano—Marco’s brother—who was a freshman at Big Bend Central.
The Lucero house was the second to burn.
Adalia worked long hours at the Dollar General, but made it home in time to cook a real meal every night, and Jesús picked up hours at the Comanche cattle auction and the Monument Ranch. They, along with Emiliano, were asleep when the blaze started, and were slow to react. Emiliano’s tiny room was next to the kitchen, right where the flames first came through the wall, and he was up and running to the other side of the house to warn his parents when the combined explosions of a big sack of baking flour and two cans of Crisco cooking spray went off in front of him and knocked him off his feet.