“I worked on The Longest Yard, a TV show called Kodiak.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s about an Alaska state patrolman.”

“I knew you were a fucking pig.”

“It’s a TV show,” Jason said. “I did the stunts.”

Chains wavered on his feet, a few of the boys rallied around him, standing behind and around him. Stillwell high as a goddamn kite, wearing big yellow circular glasses and giggling like an idiot, a can of Coors in one hand and cigarette in the other.

“Come on,” Stillwell said. “Give him a break, Chains. He don’t mean nothing.”

“What fucking shows?” Chains said. “I want to know.”

“W.W. and the Dixie Dance Kings, a western called Take a Hard Ride with Jim Brown.”

“That sounds like bullshit,” Chains said, scratching his dirty beard. “How you gonna be a stunt double for some big-ass nigger?”

“You know what? I don’t have to tell you who I am. Either you believe me or you don’t. I don’t give a god damn.”

Chains snickered. The door kept on opening and closing to the little beer joint. A couple lazy-eyed women came out and sat on the bikes, passing a joint to each other. His enforcer Gangrene shifting his weight. A lot of smoke. It was July, Mississippi heat coming up through the dirt and gravel.

“If you’re as tough as you say, how about I see you take a punch?”

Jason kept that eye contact with Chains. Here we go. Here we fucking go.

“You want to hit me?” Jason said. “OK. Maybe it will make you shut your mouth.”

Chains laughed, scratched his bare belly, and spit on the gravel. Music came from inside the joint. Led Zeppelin. “Candy Store Rock.” He stepped up two paces, Jason seeing it from five miles away, a big unwieldy roundhouse punch right for his head. Jason did not move, did not duck, did not flinch, took the blow to the jaw and staggered back a bit, rubbing his jaw, feeling the lights go off and on and his teeth rattling a bit. He spit out a little blood and nodded to Chains.

“Now you,” Chains said. “See what you got, man. Let’s see what you got, fucking stuntman.”

“I’m good.”

“I said fucking do it.”

“I’m good, man,” Jason said. “You wanted to take a shot. I let you take a shot. It’s what I do. I don’t feel things like regular folks.”

“I say a Fed would never mix it up with folks like us,” Chains said. “Might look bad in court.”

Jason felt his jaw swelling and shook his head. He spit some more blood.

“Unless you’re scared?” Chains said. “Scared it might hurt feelings and I might shoot your ass.”

Jason felt that familiar tension in his neck and shoulders. He nodded and took in a breath, catching the eyes of about everybody in the whole Born Losers standing out in the parking lot, an arrow on a cheap mobile sign offering 2 for 1 tonight. Zeppelin kept on jamming inside the Tupelo beer hall. Jason put his hands on his waist and looked direct to Chains, behind him all those gleaming Harleys, chrome and leather, lined up in just a perfect way.

“Boy is scared?”

Blood rushed into Jason’s face, heart pumping like a piston, and he walked up to that nasty, stinky, bearded son of a bitch with wolf eyes and threw a hard right into his soft, sweaty belly and then followed with a left hook that toppled Chains LeDoux over like an lumbering old sack. He was flat to the gravel, eyes closed, sucking in air, as his woman came over and started to comfort him. Big Doug walked up to Chains and spilled some Coors down on his face. Hank Stillwell kicked at him with his toe. And another rider they called Slow Joe helped Chains to his feet, still half conscious, as Big Doug tossed some more Coors in his face, a beer joint baptism.

Chains lolled his head to the side, his whole weight being supported by Big Doug, head and open gray eyes coming around to Jason. He was missing a couple teeth.

He elbowed himself away from Big Doug and staggered toward Jason, pulling out that .38, Zeppelin playing “Tea for One.” Jason knew all the songs, as he had the album back at his apartment in Venice that he’d probably never see again. Chains aimed the .38 right between Jason Colson’s eyes and said, “Scared now?”

Jason didn’t answer.

“God forgives,” he said. “Born Losers never fucking forget.”

Chains turned his head and spit out a mess of blood, “You know what I do when people look at me like I’m some kind of animal?”

Jason again didn’t answer.

“I fucking feed on it, man,” LeDoux said. “I love it.”

He stretched the gun out farther in his hand, thumbed back the hammer, and squeezed the trigger. Click. He squeezed it again. Click. And four more times, the hammer falling on an empty chamber.

“Fuck,” he said. “I guess I forgot to load the motherfucker.”

The Born Losers all started laughing, a big fat woman who rode with one of the boys with the shrillest of giggles. Even Gangrene smiled a row of rotten teeth. Chains tossed the pistol over his shoulder and embraced Jason in a big bear hug. “Welcome, brother.”

Over his shoulder, Big Doug held up a shiny new leather vest with a back patch reading BORN LOSERS and a front patch reading 1 PERCENTER .

“No need for probation for a crazy son of a bitch like you,” Chains said. “Put on your colors and let’s ride till dawn.”

There were hoots and rebel yells, and the boys showered him with Coors and Budweiser while the vest was slid on him by Chains LeDoux himself, the man’s mouth a ragged, bloody mess. Despite every lick of sense he had, Jason smiled.

The engines to the Harleys cranked and gunned louder than ever, Jason feeling the laughter and the brotherhood and thinking to himself, This may be the dumbest goddamn stunt I’ve ever pulled.

The boys pulled out on the long ribbon of blacktop.

And Jason followed.

How’s your ass feeling?” Boom said. “Heard about the supervisors’ meeting and all that shit.”

“Just like you said.”

“Some men don’t have a lick of honor,” Boom said. “Some don’t have no sense. Seems like those on the board blessed to have neither.”

“Bobby Pickens stood tall,” Quinn said. “I’ll remember that.”

“That’s because he ain’t on the tit,” Boom said. “Hadn’t been in the crew long enough to make it work for him. Give him time.”

“That’s hard,” Quinn said.

“But the truth.”

The paved roads and patches on the bridges had started to ice over across the county by midnight. Quinn and Boom kept to the dirt roads, roving up toward Carthage where the shootings had gone down in April. Quinn had been out officially a few times after the storm, walking the ground with investigators and looking for evidence of the unknown shooter. But since the summer, Johnny Stagg had locked up the front gate, surrounding the acreage with six-foot chain-link and wrapping the entire property with a lot of No Trespassing signs.

Quinn parked the Big Green Machine up into a fire road that wound through the woods over the eastern ridge of the valley. The road was grown up in brush and small trees and provided some decent concealment if Stagg had any of his people on patrol. But in all the times Quinn had walked that fire road, watching the airstrip, he’d not crossed paths with a single guard. Stagg too cocky to think anyone would scale the fence and see his operation.