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There was another guy in the front of the Ford, and two in the back, and they just sat. After a while, when the gas was done, the others got out and they all came in.

We watched them carefully. The big guy who had been driving and who put in the gas looked back at us and nodded. Just a regular guy, bigger than most regular guys, seeing some other regular guys, acknowledging us. We nodded back.

We kind of huddled over our food and whispered.

“They might not be anything,” Leonard said.

“Maybe not,” I said.

“Lots of brown Fords,” Jim Bob said.

“Yep,” I said.

“Bullshit,” Tonto said. “They’re somebody. They got guns. I can see the bulges under their shirts.”

“Maybe those are cell phone cases,” Jim Bob said.

Tonto looked at Jim Bob. They both smiled.

“But,” Jim Bob said, “probably not.”

“If they’ve been following us without me seeing them,” Tonto said, “they’re good. And Hap, you’re good. You spotted them and I didn’t.”

“They want us to know they’re following now,” Jim Bob said. “They want us to know they’re tired of playing.”

“I didn’t know we were playing,” Tonto said, “but now that I do, I’m ready to get out the toys. Ah, here they come.”

They came back and sat at the table next to us. My side of the bench was closer to the big guy, and on the other side of our table was Tonto, and he shifted a little so that one of his hands was under the table and the other was lying on top of it next to a gnawed chicken leg.

They were all big guys. Only the driver, the guy on my side, was as big as Tonto, but the others were easily bigger than the rest of us. I got to thinking we weren’t nearly as nifty as we thought. These guys had been on us for a while, and though I had gotten glimpses of them, they were good, damn good, at least as far as sneaking went. Thing I was wondering was when exactly did they get on us, and were they FBI guys or guys from the Dixie Mafia. I was voting pretty heavily on the latter.

The big guy had some chicken and was about to eat it. I said, “That chicken isn’t nearly as nasty as it looks.”

The big guy paused with the chicken close to his mouth. “Yeah. That’s good to hear. I was worried.”

“The links, they’re not bad either. You guys, you don’t look like fishermen.”

“Neither do you,” said the big guy.

“We’re just riding around,” I said.

“That’s a coincidence,” the big guy said. “So are we.” He bit into the chicken and chewed, then looked at me and nodded. “You’re right. That’s pretty damn good.”

He paused and wiped his hands on some paper towels that were on a roller in the center of the table. He shifted on the bench and turned toward me, said, “We’re more the hunter type.”

“Now that,” Jim Bob said, “is one big goddamn fucking coincidence. So are we.”

“Really?” said the big guy.

“Oh, yeah,” Jim Bob said. “Big fucking time.”

“What do you hunt?”

“Skunks mostly,” Jim Bob said.

“Oh,” the big guy said. “I don’t believe there’s a season for that.”

“What makes it thrilling,” Jim Bob said. “Ain’t nothing better than sneaking up on a skunk, or a weasel, and blowing them right out from over their ass.”

“I can see that,” said the big man, and he pushed the paper plate with the chicken on it away from him. “It sure was good to chat with you boys. You know, the weather looks as if it’s going to turn bad.”

“Yeah?” Leonard said.

“Oh yeah, big-time. I think I heard it on the radio. Thing is, I wanted to share that because you don’t want to get caught up in a big old storm that might blow you away. That would suck.”

“Yeah, and it would mess up our hair,” I said.

He gave me a smile thin as the edge of a razor blade. “You got any information for us? You might know where we can find a good place to stop for the day, and get some things we need, and then maybe the storm won’t come.”

“And what kind of place is that?” I said.

“Someplace with a couple of dumb kids with lots of money who aren’t any of your business.”

“Shit,” I said, “you know what another big coincidence is?”

“What’s that?” the big guy said.

“We’re in the same business,” I said.

“Are we?” he said.

“Sounds like it. We too are looking for two sweet kids with lots of money that could be a port in the storm, and we think of them as our business, all the way.”

“Huh,” he said. “Well, we wouldn’t want to cross up, would we?”

“It could happen, though, couldn’t it?” Jim Bob said. “I mean, us both looking for two sweet kids and some money and a nice place to ride out the storm.”

“Storm like the one that’s coming,” the big guy said, “it could blow your little port flat out of existence.”

“We’ve ridden a lot of storms,” Jim Bob said.

“Hell,” Leonard said, “we’re like storm chasers. We’re like the storm chasers.”

“I think you’re a bunch of amateurs,” the big guy said. “I think a good wind comes along, might just blow you completely out of the ball game.”

“You know,” Jim Bob said, “you were going pretty good there with the storm analogies, and then you got to go and screw it up with the ball game thing. That doesn’t scan.”

The big guy looked at Tonto, said, “What about the Indian? He talk?”

“Just smoke signals,” Jim Bob said. “And you know what, none of your buddies are talking, so I don’t think that’s fair to ask.”

“My buddies aren’t my buddies, and they say what I tell them to say and when I say it,” the big guy said. “And before I go, just so we stay with the storm analogy, you best not go out without your slickers and your hip boots, and maybe an umbrella.”

“We got umbrellas out the ass,” Jim Bob said.

Big Guy studied us for a moment, said to his boys, “Wrap this shit up, and let’s go.”

The big guy and his bunch wrapped their chicken and links, put them back in the sacks, and carried them out.

I watched them through the glass as they walked toward the Ford. I said, “Just so I’m certain, when he said slickers, boots, and umbrellas, he was talking about guns, right?”

“Yep,” Leonard said. “That was my take.”

“And they’re the storm?”

“Bingo.”

Tonto, who had just taken a bite of a link wrapped in bread, said, “This would be a lot better with hot sauce, some of that fancy mustard that’s got a tang.”

36

Full as ticks, we drove to another store near the lake where they sold fishing supplies and rented boats, and parked in front of it and sat in the van. Out front was a rack with T-shirts on it with Lake O’ the Pines logos. The wind moved them about.

The place was doing pretty brisk business for the time of the year. There were cars parked to the left and the right of us and people got out and went in and came out carrying fishing supplies, coolers, snacks, and items like caps and bait. One of the people who parked and got out was a blond woman in jogging pants with a tight top and a baseball cap with her long hair tied up in a ponytail hanging over the stretch band at the back of her cap. The jogging pants were tight and I worried a little about her circulation and watched her out of biological interest until she went into the store. I didn’t see her face, but she had the kind of body, hair, and walk that assured you she looked good and knew it.

Over the top of the joint the sky was losing its blue and turning the color of polished silver and there were starting to be dark puffs of clouds. The lake could be seen on either side of the building and the water was growing choppy; little white waves like nightcaps rose up and fell down. Jim Bob opened up the flooring and got out some handguns. I took a .38 automatic with a clip holster and put it on under my coat. I preferred revolvers—more dependable—but, alas, the times were a-changin’ and nearly everyone these days carried an automatic for more firepower. Leonard took a nine with clip holster and Jim Bob clipped on a .38 automatic similar to mine under his coat. Tonto had never stopped being armed. He still had his twin .45s.