Art said, “Or we get the state cops to lean on ’em till they give up the doctor.”

“I don’t know,” Raylan said, “I’m starting to think it might be the doctor running the show. Calls the Crowes when he needs heavy lifting done.”

Pervis drove out to the camp in his Ford V8, a blower sticking out of the hood, and watched Bob Valdez approach from the barn. It was home to field hands who’d come to plant and return in ninety days to prune and trim Pervis’s marijuana, the crops in this part of Knox County.

The day Pervis hired him he said, “Bob, you keep what you maas what yke off your patch. You catch anybody growing weed on their own without my say, snap a varmint trap to their foot and fire ’em.”

Bob Valdez cocked a willow root straw close on his eyes in the afternoon sun. He wore a. 44 revolver holstered on his hip and liked to stand around the yard with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt and make remarks to girls in the crew. He liked that hot-lookin black girl, Pervis’s housemaid, and would stop by there when he knew Pervis was at his store. Rita would tell him, “Mister ain’t here.” Told him every time he pulled up in his ATV making a racket. A few days ago she said, “Bob, you want to fuck me, huh? Mister finds out you come by, he can have your ass deported.”

“Hell you talkin about?” Bob said. “I’m as American as Daniel Boone, born here in Kaintuck.”

“You gonna die here he finds out you messing with his maid.”

“You kiddin me?” Bob said. “Mister’s not once ever tried yellin at me. He knows better.”