Chapter 16: The Empty Safe

My father rubbed his neck and looked at the road.

"There were two men at the table when I signed the note," he said. "Your father, Rhett, and one other."

"Who?" Rhett asked.

"I never got his name. He poured the coffee. He called me sir, and he was the only one who looked sorry."

"Tall? Short?"

"I was drunk, son. I was looking at the paper."

Rhett nodded slowly and put the envelope inside his vest.

"The paper with your name on it is in the club safe," he said. "I'll open it tonight, with everyone watching."

He held out his hand to my father.

It hung there for a moment.

Then my father took it, and neither of them said anything, and I looked away so I wouldn't cry on the porch.

The clubhouse was full again by seven.

Word had gone out that the president wanted the whole patch.

Men came in off their shifts with grease still on their forearms.

Rhett didn't go to the stage.

He walked to the long table at the head of the room, put both hands on the oak, and stayed standing.

"I called you here to step down," he said.

A noise went through the room.

"Not for good," Rhett said. "For thirty days, or until what was done to my wife is answered."

He looked down the table at the faces.

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