I continue to ask questions, but I don’t get much more information about the incident. Roy got up there too late to have a normal visit. He mostly tells me about Dade and can’t keep the pride from his voice as he describes his son’s athletic ability.

“A recruiter from Michigan told me when Dade was in high school there were wide receivers in the pros who didn’t have his speed and hands. I should have sent him up there, goddamn it. There would have been enough women there to keep him happy.”

Black women, he means, I realize. The Ozarks are good for chickens but not cotton, with the result that historically few blacks have resided in the northwest corner of the state, a fact that rival recruiters probably don’t overlook in their pitch to young men in their sexual prime. At six feet two and two hundred pounds, Dade has always gotten his share of attention from white girls, his father assures me.

“I told him to leave ‘em alone,” he repeats, shaking his head.

“With the shit that’s happened up there, that’s just looking for trouble.”

I know what he means. Every few years there seems to be a major incident involving Razorback athletics. Yet Roy must know that as important as the Razorbacks are in the scheme of things in this state, you can’t expect them just to stay cooped up in their rooms all year and only be let out on game days.

“Was he home this past summer, or did he stay in Fayetteville?” I ask, wondering again how well Dade might have known the girl. Despite his father’s injunction, this might have been a lovers’ quarrel that got out of hand.

“I had him home working in the store,” Roy says, edging forward on the couch.

“He didn’t want to be there though.”

I can understand why a twenty year old spoiled rotten by the special life of the big-time college athlete wouldn’t want to go home to share a room for the summer with his siblings in one of the poorest counties in the Delta. Sarah didn’t want to come home either. My feelings were a little hurt, but I tell myself I understand.