“My name is Animal,” he said. “Call me Animal.”

“I’ll check the property records,” Quinn said. “And I’ll pay another visit if you’re trespassing.”

“Man,” Animal said. “Trespassing? We’re just moving in. This is our welcome-home party. Come on. Get that stick out of your ass and join us for some tequila and Mexican pussy. You look like you might like some of that, too, girl.”

Quinn blew a long stream of smoke in Animal’s face. He reached for his door handle. Lillie put a hand on his knee.

“Patience,” she whispered. She turned to Animal. “Listen, you ugly motherfucker. It may be tough for you to look me in the eye with yours headed in two different directions. But if you want to keep out of jail around here, you will address me as ‘Ma’am’ or ‘Chief Deputy Virgil.’ Do you understand me?”

The man pursed his lips and smiled. His eyes did head in different directions. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, splitting his index and middle fingers and flicking his tongue between them.

He staggered away. The corridas kept playing from the parked trucks, exhaust fumes from the dually pipes chugging into the brittle night air.

“This won’t end well,” Quinn said.

“Who are these guys?” Lillie said.

“My uncle used to tell me stories about the Born Losers,” Quinn said. “But you know what? He lied to me.”

“How?”

“He said he’d run the sonsabitches out of town.”

There was an ash on Luther Varner’s cigarette that must’ve grown about two inches long before he broke it in the tray, looked to Quinn, and said, “Of course we had problems with those bikers. Everybody knew the trouble they made, things they did out at that clubhouse.”

“What about the lynching?” Quinn said. He was seated at a small table at the VFW with Mr. Jim and Varner, getting to speak in private after Friday’s pancake breakfast. Quinn had been the keynote speaker that morning, after Mr. Jim had led the vets, young and old, in the Pledge of Allegiance. Luther had cooked most of the pancakes and provided the bacon.

“Sure,” Mr. Jim said. “We knew about what happened to that fella. He killed a couple girls and they took him out and hung his ass. One of the girl’s fathers was part of the gang. Most people didn’t have much trouble with it.”

Mr. Jim had the clearest blue eyes he’d ever seen and a giant bulbous nose. After he spoke, he hacked a nasty cough into a handkerchief. The cough had grown worse and worse over some weeks, Mr. Jim saying he just had a cold and to quit bothering him about it.

“One of the girls lived,” Quinn said.

“Oh, that’s right,” Mr. Jim said. “It’s been a while. You forget things.”

“But nothing ever happened to those bikers,” Luther said. “I don’t know what your uncle did about it, if anything. I think it was a pretty hot issue. Divided folks.”

“Black and white?” Quinn said.

“Nope,” Varner said. “Old Testament and New.”

“Where did y’all line up?” Quinn asked.

Luther thumped his pack of cigarettes, drew out a long fresh one, and lit it quick with his Zippo. “Whatever we thought at the time was wrong,” Luther said. “You’re saying the man they got was innocent? I wasn’t out there with them, uncoiling the rope. I didn’t even know what happened till a few years later. That’s why we have society, laws, and courts, so bullshit like this doesn’t happen.”

“Still can happen,” Quinn said.

“Guess it does,” Mr. Jim said. “But at least a man has a fighting chance to tell his side of things whether they listen or not.”

Luther smoked down half the cigarette, squinting through the smoke, only two other folks left in the old VFW. The hall was a cinder-block building with gray linoleum floors and a lot of plaques, photos, flags, and anything military or about America. Somewhere there was a framed article from the Tibbehah Monitor more than ten years ago about Quinn earning his Ranger tab.

“You know much about this gang?” Quinn asked. “The Born Losers?”

“They were some bad motherfuckers,” Luther said. “Nobody messed with them. They pretty much kept to themselves. Wasn’t like in no movies, where they were chasing the panties off virgins or breaking church windows. All you had to do was look at their head dude and know he meant business. They called him Chains, and the boy had that look in his eye. Haunted? Crazy? Long hair and a beard, animal-wild.”

“What about the men who followed him?”

“Some of them were pretty nice fellas.”

“Like who?” Quinn asked.

There was a glance, a very brief one, between Luther and Mr. Jim. Mr. Jim opened his mouth and then closed it. He seemed to think for a second and then said, “J.T. either rode with them or fixed their bikes. They spent a lot of time at his garage. But this was a long, long time ago. By the time you were in diapers, most of them had moved on.”

“Hank Stillwell,” Varner said. “It was Stillwell’s daughter they killed. You talk to him?”

Quinn nodded.

“Why are people talking about all this now?” Mr. Jim said.

“They’re coming back.”

“Who?” Varner said.

“The Born Losers,” Quinn said.

“Bullshit,” Varner said.

“Nope,” Quinn said. “Lillie and I had a meet and greet with them at their old clubhouse out on Choctaw. Met some cross-eyed fella with a throat tattoo. Real personable. We’re talking the next generation of shitbirds.”

“Seems like all the turds out of Memphis get shook out in Tibbehah,” Mr. Jim said. “Can’t they go somewheres else?”

The only two other folks in the VFW hall huddled by the front door, deep in conversation. One of the men turned, eyed Quinn, and then leaned back into his buddy. He was a tubby and dumb man named Clay Sneed who’d become a real estate broker—SNEED FOR YOUR HOME NEEDS—after one year at Ole Miss and some time loading trucks in the Guard. He was a couple years older than Quinn. And Quinn recalled something about him being a Peeping Tom at the dress shop who got off with a warning from his uncle.

Quinn sensed something and would have left it alone, except Sneed didn’t have the sense to quit turning around. Quinn heard something from the table about the short speech Quinn had just given about ethics, loyalty, and hard work. Sneed said in a whisper that “must take a lot of hard work for kickbacks and a free truck.”

Luther Varner and Mr. Jim couldn’t hear jack shit. Quinn’s hearing was excellent.

He excused himself and walked over to the table where tubby Clay Sneed was snickering. “Glad you enjoyed my talk,” Quinn said. “But just how much do you think I make with those kickbacks?”

Sneed’s face flamed a bright red. “What the hell you talking about?”

“You just said I take payoffs and got myself a free truck.”

“No I didn’t,” Sneed said. “You’re hearing things.”

“I was offered a sixty-thousand-dollar Dodge Ram by the county supervisors that I turned down,” Quinn said. “That big green Ford parked outside didn’t cost a quarter of that. It was customized by Boom Kimbrough.”

“This was a private conversation,” Sneed said. The other man, a kid in his early twenties, just kept his eyes down on his half-eaten pancakes. “I didn’t mean nothing.”

“People like you never do,” Quinn said. “Can’t fault a pig for grunting.”

“What the hell’s that mean?”

“Think on it,” Quinn said. “It’ll come to you in a couple hours.”

Quinn walked back to the table with the two old men, his two most trusted friends in Tibbehah besides Boom and Lillie. He reached for a coffeepot in the center of the table and refilled a thick ceramic mug with an Operation Desert Shield logo someone had added to the collection. He leaned back into his seat and crossed his boots at the ankle.