screen swung open again and a forty-year-old version of the first one appeared. Ben took this one to be Hazen, with the same slicked-back dark hair as his dad but more of it. He wore a striped shirt hanging open with his jeans and what looked like lizard boots. Ben thought Avery, the dad, could stand in for Harry Dean Stanton, looking enough like him to be his twin. Hazen looked like half the stuntmen working today, the kind Kim referred to as rough-trade good-looking, blue-collar guys with an easy slouch to their pose. Trees going to hell and they sat in the house drinking beer.
Ben came to the porch steps and looked up at these Grooms from Arkansas. He said, 'I like to know what you're doing in my house.'
The one, Hazen, raised his eyebrows saying, 'Well, you must be the movie star,' sounding glad to see Ben, till he said, 'Come to check on us, huh?'
'I'm here to kick you out. This is my home.'
Avery said, ' 'Fore you start eating anybody's ass out, I'll show you the paper says this property's ourn for two years, stamped and signed by a noterary in the real estate business. You go on get outta here.'
Ben said, 'You took advantage of an old man didn't know what he was doing.' And looked at Hazen. 'You tell him you're gonna work shares, only I don't see nothing a-tall getting done. You got cows grazing on pecans falling off trees haven't even been sprayed.''
'I changed my mind about growing pe-cans,' Avery said.
'Gonna test for oil instead. They was some pretty fair wells here at one time and they's always some left.'
'The wells were plugged,' Ben said. 'Cement poured down 'em.'
'They's still oil. You heard of stripper wells?'
Ben said, 'Look,' keeping his tone flat, and it was hard, 'even if there's oil, and even if your lease stood up in court, you'd only have surface rights. Mineral rights are something else.'
'You mean to tell me,' Avery said, 'we hit a gusher you don't want to go shares on it? Boy, you're ignorant you think you can make more growing pe-cans. You know what oil's selling for these days?'
No, and he didn't imagine they did either. It wasn't about oil. They were having fun with him, but in a serious way, see where it would lead.
Ben said, 'You people are the Grooms, come here from Arkansas?'
Avery, looking past Ben, said, 'That's right, and so's this one coming,' sounding happy to see whoever it was.
Ben half turned. A pickup came across the open ground to pull up behind his SUV, the driver in a cowboy hat looking this way, then inched up to get his front bumper within a foot of the SUV's rear end. This would have to be the one called Brother, walking toward them now. He had size but looked slow, about twenty-five, a big kid in a cowboy hat and curltoed boots. The belt cinched around his jeans bore a rodeo winner's buckle, one he must've bought if he didn't steal it. Looking at Ben he said, 'Who's this?'
'The movie star,' Hazen said.
'No shit.'
'You tell by his shades,' Hazen said, 'and his beauty parlor hair.'
'What's he play in movies,' Brother said, 'queers?'
'Ask him,' Hazen said.
Now their big boy was here they were getting to it. Ben told himself to walk away, and said to Avery, 'Why don't we have this heard in court?' But couldn't leave it at that. He said to Brother, 'You take a swing at me I'll put you on the ground, hard.'
Brother stared and Avery said, 'Now you got my boy looking sideways at you, like he might want to give you an asswhuppin'.'
Ben walked toward Brother saying, 'I'm tired, been driving all day. Why don't you whip my ass tomorrow?' Put his hand on Brother's shoulder as he passed and kept walking to the SUV. Ben got in and laid his arm on the windowsill. He said to Brother, 'You want to back your truck up a few feet?'
Brother folded his arms and gave Ben a stare that worked pretty well under the hat brim pointing this way. Brother said, 'You can't get out, then you have to stay, huh? Get you ass-whuppin' right now.'
Ben turned the key, went ahead a foot or so, revved, said fuck it, and slammed his rear end into the pickup, went ahead, reversed and revved and hit the truck again. Ben slipped out of the space, put the gas pedal on the floor and went into a power slide to head for the road through the trees. He looked back to see Brother going to his truck.
Coming up on the old house Ben stopped at the side of Lydell's porch, the old man still sitting there.
'Lydell, don't you have a daughter lives in Chouteau?'
He said, 'Lemme think, I believe Isabel's the one there.'
'Go stay with her a while.'
Ben turned onto the country road and held his speed at thirty miles an hour with an eye on the rearview mirror. In less than half a minute he saw Brother's truck coming up on him fast, closing in at sixty or better. Ben waited till the truck's hood and windshield filled his rearview, saw the cowboy hat, Brother by himself in there, the big boy wanting to handle this deal on his own. Ben mashed the gas pedal and watched the truck lose ground like it was being sucked away from him. He shot past the road to town doing ninety and held it there, horses in a field raising their heads at the tail of dust rising, the truck behind him hidden as Ben got ready to bring the game to Brother, see if he was any good. Approaching the next intersection he watched the speedometer ease down to forty-five, came to the crossroads and punched his left boot down on the parking brake - tires screaming as the rear wheels locked - cranked the steering wheel a quarter turn, released the brake and let his rear end swing around in a tight one-eighty to head back toward Brother. The fat kid would see from under his cowboy hat a black shape coming dead at him out of the dust and realize, the distance between them closing at top speed, he had seconds to decide how much nerve he had.
Not enough. Brother bailed, swerved off the road to his right, and Ben watched the truck in his mirror dive into the ditch and wedge itself against the bank. Ben stopped and backed up all the way to the truck. Brother, his hat gone, blood coming down his face, turned and looked this way at Ben watching him. Ben shook his head at the dumb kid, put the SUV in gear and headed back to his property.
Avery was still on the porch, sitting in a squeaky wicker chair with green cushions, waiting for Brother to come back with his story, Avery expecting it to be a good one. Hazen was in the house. Avery raised his voice to say, 'I told Brother bring him on back here. I was thinking, put that pe-can shaker on him, get his nuts to fall.'
Hazen came out to the porch pushing the screen ahead of him.
'I said to Brother, bring him on back, we'll put the pe-can shaker on him.'
'I heard you. Where's the number for the real estate office at?'
'By the phone in the kitchen, last I seen of it. You know Brother'll likely have to chase that Mercedes all the way to town to catch it.'
Hazen said, 'She's pretty, huh? Once we tend to the movie star I might keep her.'
'Suppose to be in pitchers - I never heard of him.'
'Me neither, but it's what they say.'
Both of them heard the car coming and looked out at the yard. Avery said, 'Don't tell me,' seeing it was the black Mercedes back again but no sign of Brother. Now it circled, bringing the driver's side close to the porch steps. The smokeglass window lowered and there was Ben Webster looking up at them.
He said, 'You all want to settle out of court it's fine with me. My offer, you have till noon the day after tomorrow to get out of my house and off my property. You don't, I'll be back here to run you off.'
The smoke window started to go up and Avery said, 'Hold it there. Where's Brother at?'
'He needs to get winched out of a ditch,' Ben said, 'and some Band-Aids.'
Avery watched the window slide up all the way and the sporty black SUV circle out of the yard and into the trees, gone. It got Avery frowning, saying to Hazen, 'The hell's he talkin about, Brother's in a ditch?'
'Like he put him there,' Hazen said.
'Brother was chasing him.'
'Brother ain't the issue,' Hazen said. 'You heard him, he's gonna raise the law on us we don't leave, have
