posts, Fuller looked as if he’d swallowed his tongue. We passed loose groups of cows lying in shallow, drying mud pits and under large, lone pecan and oak trees, swatting flies with their tails and trying to escape the heat.
Down the road, a little single-story white frame house came into view, and Black turned in to the dirt drive. He had to slow down at the mailbox, on account of a group of guineas that wouldn’t move out of the road, and a skinny hound bayed and wailed as we circled to the front porch and killed the engine.
I knocked on the screen door, the door open into a shallow little hall. Junk spilled from the front door out onto the porch and into the front yard and driveway. Old washboards and bed frames, engine parts, rocking chairs, and piles of garbage.
I heard the chugging of a tractor nearby but didn’t see one. Black walked around the building and came back to the front porch, a man appearing from the far side of the property in overalls, no shirt, and work boots. He had dark circles under his eyes and didn’t look like he’d bathed in some time.
Black leaned against the spotless black Chevy and smoked. He nodded to me and I walked over to the man, not offering my hand but slow and confident.
“Mr. Clanton?”
He nodded. He was a hard country man, with brown parched skin and gold teeth. He wore an oversized straw hat and black-framed glasses. One of his eyes seemed a little crossed, or it could have been because of the light magnifying in the lens. Either way, it was damn hard to figure out which one to look at while you spoke.
I introduced myself, deciding to go with the left, and Black asked him what he did out here.
“Farm.”
“You do any other business, doc?”
“No, sir.”
“You ever rent your place out?”
He tilted his head at me, his stubble beard a stark white, and made a face like something stank. Then he looked to the backseat at Bert Fuller and his face changed, and he smiled and said, “Hey, Bert. I ain’t seen you in a coon’s age.”
Fuller didn’t say a word, just turned to look across the road at the fields and pretended not to hear.
CLANTON STAYED ON THE ROTTED JUNK PORCH AND SPOKE to Fuller, who we kept chained to a D ring in the backseat. The window was down, and after Clanton talked to him about what the drought did to his watermelons he asked Fuller to join him on the porch but Fuller said he was doing A-OK in the car. There was a chattering up in a chinaberry tree, and a small monkey skittered out from the branches, scratching himself and twirling a rock in his hands before dropping it hard.
“That little sonofabitch is Wilbur,” Clanton said. “Bought him off an Army sergeant who got him overseas.”
Clanton moved over to the tree, and, despite the chain, the monkey jumped up onto his back and took a spot on the old man’s shoulder. As Clanton spoke to the monkey, the monkey seemed to take on the exact same facial expressions as the old man.
I traded looks with Black, and the monkey noticed and stuck out his tongue.
“I think he wants you to give him a penny,” Clanton said.
“I don’t have any change,” I said.
The monkey ran off Clanton’s back and toward me, and Clanton yanked him back to the ground. “You got to be careful – you don’t give him a penny, and he’ll piss on your head.”
Clanton let the monkey go and went back to his failing front porch, sitting down on the steps and rolling a forearm across his brow. As we walked around the house, I heard Bert Fuller start a conversation with the old man.
“Mr. Clanton, may I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure, Bert.”
“How is your relationship with Jesus Christ?”
Almost out of earshot and around the bend, we heard Clanton respond, “I don’t know, Bert. ’Spec same as yours.”
We found a small shed out back where Clanton kept his tractor and feed, some spare parts, and a couple of discs that looked like they’d last been pulled by mules. He had some tanks of gasoline and little drums of oil. There was a workbench and a vise, and some files laid out from where he’d been sharpening a scythe.
I headed into a thick, wooded area that bordered a few acres of cleared farmland. Clanton was with us again and staring up at Black.
“You sure are a big sonofabitch.”
“Where’s that path lead?” Black asked him.
“That’s a hog trail. You must not be from the country.”
“I was raised on a farm,” Black said.
The man craned his neck at him and grinned a stupid smile.
“Never seen a hog who could drive a car,” Black said, and motioned down at the twin rutted tracks going over weeds and into the privet bush.
We walked into the woods and Clanton followed, asking if we’d like to sit down and have a discussion. And I asked him what about, still looking down into the mouth of the leafy tunnel, but he just said he’d just butchered a chicken and could fry it up. He said his wife could cook up some field peas, too, if we liked.
“You got family out here?” I asked.
“Just me and my boys.”
“How many boys?”
“Three. They all in town working in the mills. All of them at work, yes, sir.”
The path seemed to be maybe a fire road, and it ran up a slight hill and then disappeared up over the ridge. It was cool and dark in the thickness, a stifled heat, branches underfoot, dead leaves covering the tire tracks. Squirrels up in their nests and birds fluttering from branch to branch under the thick canopy of pecans, oaks, and tall, skinny pines. A few small leaves flitted down high from the ceiling.
I saw a movement up on a little hill, but it was quickly gone.
I stopped and held up my hand to Black. He stopped, too. He readjusted the shotgun in his hands.
“Ain’t no whores in them trees,” Clanton said, smiling to himself and thinking he’d said something really smart.
We crested the hill, and Black motioned his head to farther down the path.
“Is that a barn, Mr. Clanton?” I asked.
He stopped cold and looked to me and then looked deep into the woods. There was another flutter of movement, and I reached for the gun on my hip just as the old man’s lip curled above his gold teeth.
BERNARD SYKES MET BIG JIM FOLSOM AT A CATFISH HOUSE overlooking Lake Martin as the sun set through the pines and a dinner party brought laughter and shrill squeals along the shore of the lake. A band dressed in western duds took a stage decked out in Christmas lights, tuning their guitars and fiddles. Folsom waited alone, downhill on a small weathered dock, wearing a tent-sized seersucker suit. He rattled ice in a bourbon glass as he waved to a couple girls on a speedboat.
“Thought we were going fishing,” Sykes said.
“Come on up,” Folsom said. “I have some folks I’d like you to meet.”
“I’m fine right here, Governor.”
One of the girls on the boat dropped a pair of skis into the water and jumped in after them with the towline. Big Jim lit a cigarette and watched as the other girl in a black bathing suit drove the boat slowly away, making the line tight.
“You want a cigarette?”
“No, sir. Thank you.”
“Don’t call me sir. Call me Jim.”
“I’d rather call you Governor.”
“Call me whatever the hell you like. You want a drink?”
“Little early.”
