?Yes,? Bobby Lee said, pressing a .45 hard between Nick?s shoulder blades, screwing it into the softness of his muscles.
The cows in the yard of the farmhouse had strung shiny green lines of feces around the pond. In the moonlight Nick could see the cows watching him, their eyes luminous, their heads haloed with gnats. An unmilked cow, its swollen udder straining like a veined balloon, bawled with its discomfort.
?Go toward the house, Mr. Dolan,? Preacher said.
?It ends here, doesn?t it?? Nick said.
But no one spoke in reply. He heard Hugo doing something in the luggage area of the SUV, shaking out a couple of large vinyl garbage bags and spreading them on the carpet.
?My family won?t know what happened to me,? Nick said. ?They?ll think I deserted them.?
?Shut up,? Bobby Lee said.
?Don?t talk to him that way,? Preacher said.
?He keeps sassing you, Jack.?
?Mr. Dolan is a brave man. Don?t treat him as less. That?s far enough, Mr. Dolan.?
Nick felt the skin on his face shrink, the backs of his legs begin to tremble uncontrollably, his sphincter start to give way. In the distance he could see a bank of poplars at the edge of an unplowed field, wind flowing through Johnson grass that had turned yellow with drought, the brief tracings of a star falling across the sky. How did he, a kid from New Orleans, end up here, in this remote, godforsaken piece of fallow land in South Texas? He closed
his eyes and for just a second saw his wife standing under the colonnade at the corner of St. Charles and Canal, raindrops in her hair, the milky whiteness of her complexion backlit by the old iron green-painted streetcar that stood motionless on the tracks.
?Esther,? he heard himself whisper.
He waited for the gunshot that would ricochet a .25-caliber round back and forth inside his brainpan. Instead, all he heard was the cow bawling in the dark.
?What did you say?? Preacher asked.
?He didn?t say anything,? Bobby Lee said.
?Be quiet. What did you say, Mr. Dolan??
?I said Esther, the name of my wife, a woman who will never know what happened to her husband, you cocksucker.?
Nick could hear the tin roof on the farmhouse lift and clatter in the wind.
?What?s wrong, Jack?? Bobby Lee said.
?You swear to God that?s your wife?s name?? Preacher said.
?I wouldn?t cheapen her name by swearing to a man like you about it.?
?Don?t let him talk to you like that, Jack.?
Nick could hear Preacher breathing through his nose.
?Give me his piece. I?ll do it,? Bobby Lee said.
?Bring the vehicle around,? Preacher said.
?What are you doing?? Bobby Lee asked. He was taller than Preacher, and his top hat was silhouetted against the moon, giving him the appearance of even greater height.
?I?m doing nothing.?
?Nothing??
?We leave this man alone.?