Will went stiff, slow-motion like, bringing his back away from the tree and setting the fruit jar down by feel.

The foreman pushed back his straw hat, let his forehead wrinkle so all the men could see how there was nothing else he could do. "Thought you said you was from Dallas."

Will knew when to keep his mouth shut. He wiped all expression from his face and lifted his eyes to Overmire’s, chewing a piece of sour apple.

"You sayin’ that’s where you’re from?"

Will rolled to one buttock as if to rise. Overmire planted a boot on his crotch and pushed. Hard. "I’m talkin’ to you, boy!" he snapped, then let his eyes rove over his underlings to make sure none of them missed this.

Parker flattened both palms against the earth at the sudden jolt of pain. "I been there," he answered stoically.

"Been in Huntsville, too, haven’t you, boy?"

The strangling sense of subjugation rose like bile in Parker’s throat. Familiar. Degrading. He felt the eyes of the men measuring him above their half-formed, prepotent grins. But he’d learned not to talk back to that tone of superiority, and especially not to the word "boy." He felt the cold sweat break out on his chest, the sense of helplessness at the term calculated to make one man look small, another powerful. With Overmire’s boot exerting pressure, Will repressed the awful need to give vent to the loathing he felt, sealing himself in the cocoon of pretended indifference.

"They only put the tough ones in there, ain’t that right, Parker?" Overmire pushed harder but Will refused to wince. Instead, he clamped a hand on the ankle, forcing the dusty boot aside. Without removing his eyes from the foreman, Will rose, picked up his battered Stetson, whacked it on his thigh and settled the brim low over his eyes.

Overmire chuckled, crossed his burly arms, and fixed the ex-convict with his beady eyes. "Word came down you killed a woman in a Texas whorehouse and you’re fresh out for it. I don’t think we want your kind around here where we got wives and daughters, do we fellows?" He let his eyes flick to the men briefly.