Chapter 26: Cry at the Funeral

Morton came walking down the bridge with his clipboard still in his hand.

The patch opened a lane for him without being asked.

"Thank God," he said, and dropped to one knee beside Rhett. "Brother, thank God. Are you broken?"

"Only a little," Rhett said.

Morton looked up at the men holding the road captain.

"That's one of the Lords' hires," he said. "I'd bet my chair on it."

Nobody answered him.

The road captain lifted his bloody face.

"I'm in your club, Mort," he said. "I've been in it eleven years."

"He's confused," Morton said gently. "He's hit his head."

"He hasn't," the biggest rider said.

He had the truck's registration in his fist.

He had pulled it from the glove box while two other men held the door.

He read it slowly, moving his lips.

"Orne Hauling and Salvage," he said. "Morton, that's your uncle's company."

"Everyone borrows that truck."

"The road captain says you gave him the key."

"I gave a hundred men that key."

"Morton," Mae said.

She had come through the crowd in her green funeral cardigan.

She held a square of pink paper between two fingers.

"This came in the carton with the memorial cards," she said. "It's a print-shop slip, and somebody filled it in by hand."

She held it out to the biggest rider.

"Look at the sevens."

He looked.

Then he looked at Morton, and I watched the whole front row look with him.

"Write me a seven," Mae said. "On the back of that clipboard. Right here, in front of everybody."

Morton didn't move.

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