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like he was trying to hide a bowling ball under his shirt as he hopped through the mud with his ambling gate. Heck, short for Hector, ran a bait shop up near the Split Rock reservoir. He never had a whole lot of business since not many people bothered fishing up there; carp were about the only fish that could live in the brackish water.
    Bert called, “Hey, Junior? Junior?”
    Meanwhile, Slim had caught up with Junior in the middle of the highway. “You listen to me when I’m talking to you, you little—” Slim started to yank Junior around, but Junior twisted out of the rancher’s grasp and shoved the bull skull into Slim’s chest.
    “Fuck off!” Junior shouted up into Slim’s face. “Look what you fucking did to my truck!” Dark spittle flew out of Junior’s mouth and landed on Slim’s cheek. Slim did an admirable job of ignoring it, even as it slid down his cheek and collected at the corner of his lips.
    Slim’s voice dropped dangerously low. “Now, now you listen to me—”
    Junior jerked the skull up in a quick, savage motion, cracking the heavy bone into Slim’s chin. Slim’s head popped back as if he’d suddenly found something amazing in the clouds above him; then he took two stuttering steps sideways.
    He turned, and I thought he was going to say something to the group of ranchers behind him, but he toppled face-first onto the hood of his Cadillac instead. He slid down and his chin bounced off the front bumper, snapping his teeth shut with a solid crack that made me wince. It knocked him straight out; his eyes rolled back and he dropped to the asphalt, landing on one knee and his left ear.
    None of the men from the procession moved. Somebody brave shouted, “Hey, that ain’t right,” but that was all.
    The passenger door of Slim’s Cadillac opened and the one and only Misty Johnson stepped out. Everything stopped for a second. Even the rain. She slammed the door and said, “Junior, didn’t your mother ever teach you any manners, you goddamn dumb redneck prick?”

CHAPTER 5
    Misty had hair the color of blond sin, curling slightly around her bare shoulders. A black dress clung to a body with curves like those on old cars from the late forties, early fifties: curves that hinted, suggested, promised the exquisite soft heat underneath. Man, oh man, those curves. There was something about the precise mathematical nature of those smooth angles that triggered something in my brain like goddamn voodoo; overloaded, overheated the circuits, sent the synapses barking at each other in different languages, fogged up the connections in a monsoon of lust. Maybe it was wrong to feel that way about somebody who had just lost her father, and at the man’s funeral no less, but I didn’t care.
    Junior pointed the bull skull at her. “You better watch your mouth, talking about Ma.” He turned back and ambled down the highway toward his truck, still looking for the broken horn. “Bert! Let’s go. Get the lead out!” Then he saw me and stopped. His heavy-lidded stare froze my blood.
    “I … I told you I didn’t know how to drive,” I stammered.
    Junior just shook his head ever so slowly. He never took his eyes off of me. “See this?” He shook the skull at me. “You’re gonna pay for this.”
    “Hey, Junior? Junior?” Bert crawled out of the weeds next to the hearse. Although his right arm hung at his side at an unnatural angle, I could see that the broken horn was clutched in his fist. He lurched toward the truck, holding his right wrist close to his waist, and met Junior at the double yellow lines in the center of the road.
    Junior looked Bert up and down for a minute. They exchanged a few quiet words.
    Misty leaned forward, crossing her arms and resting them on the top of the door frame. She watched silently, her perfect chest framed in the car’s window frame, and looked at me.
    Junior helped Bert toward the truck.
    I blinked and watched as a couple of the men skittishly came forward and