Despite the venomous words, both men kept their voices down.
The one called Sam stomped off and Skee Matusik bent over Braz, who still writhed in agony on the ground.
“Come on, kid,” he said. “Let ol’ Skee help you back inside.”
He pulled the younger man to his feet and guided him around to the back of the trailer, where he pushed up the retractable rear door and pulled down the folding steps. Braz climbed them shakily and collapsed onto the mattress, half crying in his pain and anger. “The bastard!”
“You got any aspirin?” Skee asked practically.
Braz pointed toward the black zippered bag that held his toothbrush, razor, and other toiletries.
The older man found the bottle, shook out three in his hand. There was a water bottle next to the pillow, and he handed both to Braz.
“Thanks,” he muttered, and lay back on the makeshift bed, drained and exhausted and hurting all over.
“Anything broken?”
Braz shook his head wearily.
“Didn’t think so. And he stayed away from your face, too,” said Skee. In this light, his missing teeth left dark holes in his tight smile. “Smart. Your shirt’ll cover all the bruises you’re going to have tomorrow, but Tally would’ve noticed a black eye or cuts on your chin.”
“How come you didn’t pull him off me quicker?” Braz asked resentfully, wincing as he pushed the pillow into a more comfortable position.
“Like Sam wouldn’t make two of me? You’re just lucky I could stop him when I did. What’d you do to piss him off like that?”
“None of your business. But I’ll tell you one thing: This is my last time out. Come October, I’m finished with the carnival for good and all.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Skee, who’d heard it before. He went over and pulled the side door nearly shut and turned the fan full on Braz. “Want me to turn out these lights?”
“I mean it,” Braz said drowsily. “Who needs this fuckin’ life?”
“Some of us, kid,” sighed the old carny. “Some of us.”
CHAPTER 1
JUDGE DEBORAH KNOTT
FIRST WEEK IN SEPTEMBER
I was holding court over in Widdington and it was our fifth drunk-and-disorderly of this hot September morning.
Actually our fifth, sixth, and seventh since there were three men involved in the same incident.
“Call Victor Lincoln, Daniel Lincoln, James Partin,” said Chester Nance, the ADA who was prosecuting today’s calendar.
If James Partin had ever stood before me, I didn’t remember, but the Lincoln brothers, Vic and Danny, were husky young white men whom I’d found guilty of larceny more than two years ago. Itinerant carpenters, they had been stealing appliances from the newly finished houses in Tinker’s Landing before their owners could move in.
I gazed from one set of bloodshot eyes to the other. “Time sure does fly. I didn’t realize you guys were out already.”
“Time off for good behavior,” Vic said, trying to look upright and respectable. He and his cohorts had already waived their rights to an attorney.
“Too bad your good behavior didn’t last,” said Chester Nance. “Class-one misdemeanor, Your Honor. Injury to personal property. Misdemeanor assault. Intoxicated and disruptive.”
It was the usual story except that this time, the personal property destroyed was the Pot O’Gold Rainbow.
“The what?” I asked.
“An inflatable carnival ride, Your Honor.”
“How do you plead?” I asked the accused.
“Not guilty,” Vic Lincoln said confidently. “We might’ve had a couple of beers, but we won’t drunk. Just having a good time. We didn’t really hurt nothing.”
“Just put a three-hundred-dollar cut in my ride,” the woman seated at Chester Nance’s table observed.
“Mr. Nance,” I warned.
The ADA stood hastily. “Call Mrs. Tallahassee Ames.”
The woman rose from the table and moved easily across to the witness stand, where she placed her hand on the Bible.
She looked to be pushing forty—at least three years older than me—and her slender body had an air of muscular hardness to it. Her shoulder-length dark hair framed a square face that was attractive, if a little weather- roughened like farm women who’d sized up too many crops under too many hot suns, which, come to think of it, probably isn’t too much different from sizing up crowds in strange towns. The big gold hoops that swung from her
