The Purse Bearer: A Novel of Love, Lust and Texas Politics

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  ONE  

They were nearly an hour behind schedule when they left Sulfur Springs headed for Lone Star. The speedometer needle was flirting with 90 as Aboy drove toward the steelworkers’ gathering he had set up for noon. Why noon, and why on the side of the road, in the middle of a day as hot as Hades, Purse couldn’t figure out. And neither could Red.

Purse could tell Red was none too happy, and what made it worse is that Aboy, with his labor connections, had pushed for it. It wasn’t something Olene Whitten, Red’s scheduler, had set up. Neither had Bobby Ray Evangeline, the campaign manager who had just come on board a month or so before. Fortunately for Aboy, they got to Lone Star before Red could really vent her spleen.

Coming over a rise, they could see—in the wavy distance like a mirage—a dozen or so diehard supporters in a gaggle on the side of the road. Apparently they had nothing better to do than risk getting run over or laid low by a heat stroke or breaking out in the screamin’ meemies. They were milling around on the side of the road. Their blue work shirts, sleeves rolled up past the elbow, were sweated through, and their gimme caps were pushed back on their flushed, dripping foreheads. Purse was thinking they might be delirious already.

Across the highway a big battleship-gray mill loomed up out of a pine forest. It was quiet as a graveyard these days, its parking lots empty, its smokestacks cleaned and scrubbed. The men had nothing better to do, because they were out of work. Every last man of them had been laid off for months. Every one of them was standing in the heat because he was desperate. They needed help, and Purse ached for them. He remembered his dad being in the same situation when the farm went bust.

Maybe, just maybe, Rose Ryder as senator could figure out something to do for them. They sure as hell knew the other guy wouldn’t do anything. They were bugs on the windshield of the speeding capitalist Cadillac, mere collateral damage in the free-trade war. That’s how Aboy put it.

Aboy pulled up beside them in a cloud of red dust. The hard-charging Ford motor pinged and smoked when he switched off the ignition. Red got out and talked for about 10 minutes, shook everybody’s hand and then got back in the car. She didn’t jack around with them. She knew they were hurting. She told them she’d do what she could if she got to DC, and she hoped they’d vote for her. Purse figured they appreciated her honesty.

They drove on into the little town of Lone Star and stopped at a Dairy Queen.This is where it will happen, Purse was telling himself as he climbed out of the car, stretched his arms above his head and trudged to the smudged glass front door.

Purse went up to the red formica counter and ordered the usual—a fish sandwich for Red, mayonaise on the side, a cheeseburger for himself—while Red went to the ladies’ room. Aboy walked up to the counter beside him and ordered what he called the works: steak finger basket with country gravy, an order of onion rings, a chocolate malt to swish it down, a DQ Dude for dessert. They sat down and waited for Red, waited for what was coming, at a table near the window.

Sitting across from them, two older couples were having cheese burgers for lunch and sharing a large order of fries drenched in ketchup. I’m telling you I’ve worked hard as a mule all my life, one of the women was saying, "but what I’m sayin’ is I’m not gonna keep on workin’ that hard if these little Meskin girls ain’t goin’ to pull their fair share.

I went into Lloyd Stenholm’s office the other day, and I told him, I said, ‘Lloyd, I’ve been here way too long and seen way too much just to take what’s goin’ on without havin’ my say. You know me, Lloyd. You know I’m the type that when I see somethin’ that ain’t right, I’m not gonna keep quiet about it.’

Red, apparently unrecognized by the Dairy Queen diners, came to the table. Aboy stood up to pull out her chair. Purse walked up to the counter for their order. He could hear the couples at the nearby table.

You reckon those boys gonna have two-a-days this year, hot as it is? asked the old man sitting next to the woman who must have been his wife. He was asking the man across the table, a tall, skinny fellow in a faded John Deere gimme cap who was working hard on his burger.

‘Lloyd, you gonna have to get your little BE-hind out from behind that desk and come out on the floor and see what’s goin’ on,’ that’s what I told him, the woman said to whomever was listening.

Purse distributed the food. He noticed Red stare at Aboy’s bounty. She didn’t say anything as Aboy poured a stream of ketchup on the meat and French fries, the red sauce swirling into the grayish-white gravy.

It was quiet at the table, a kind of calm-before-the-cyclone quiet, and Purse caught himself staring at the pictures of DQ-sponsored Little League teams on the walls, while the voice of the woman at the next table droned on. He was just about to reach for the ketchup himself when the storm set in, when Red lit into Aboy. The couples nearby stopped talking and started eavesdropping. Purse wasn’t sure they knew who Red was, but when she started lambasting Aboy before he could even get one of his steak fingers down, they started listening. You can bet it made their day.

Purse kept his head down and waited for her to finish with Aboy about his piss-poor scheduling, about his advance work, even about his driving. He figured she was mad enough that he would be the next punching bag.

But Red, Aboy tried to say, his voice beginning to whine. You harbor a fundamental misunder…

Stuff it, Ewell, Red said, in a voice low and powerful like a mama tiger’s rumble.

Ewell was his real name, Ewell Suskin, and when Red got mad, that’s what she called him. Stuff it this minute. If I told you once, I told you a thousand times, I don’t want to hear your lame-brained excuses when things go haywire. And I’ll tell you another thing: Too many things have been going haywire lately.

Red took a quick sip of water. Her lipstick left a red print on the side of the glass. Purse was thinking that if she got elected senator, that glass would be a souvenir.

Let me get one thing straight, Aboy, she said, and I don’t care if Purse hears it. You make damn sure you know who you’re working for and why. You make damn sure you clear things with me before you go to setting them up. I’m telling you, I’ll bounce you all the way back to that little ‘medical facility’ where you were when I rescued your sorry ass. You understand me?

Purse noticed a rosy flush rising from her neck.

But, Red, Aboy started to say—before Red slammed the table with the flat of her hand. The ketchup bottle skittered off the table and came to a stop underneath another table. The two couples stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Purse glanced back at the counter. Three girls in white DQ uniforms stood staring, as well.

Aboy didn’t notice. He just stared at Red, a baby-Huey ’bout-to-bawl look on his face. Cream gravy from the steak finger he held halfway to his mouth dripped down the side of his ham-sized hand.

Purse got up and walked over to the nearby table, crouched down and retrieved the ketchup bottle. He noticed that one of the men was wearing black socks with a pair of sandals. Sorry, folks, he said.

Well, I’ll swan, one of the women said.

Back at the table, Red had sort of softened, and Aboy looked down at his plate. He got a napkin out of the dispenser and blotted at his hand. The storm was over, and it had passed Purse by.

Actually, Red never got on the younger man the way she got on Aboy. He wondered what he would do if she did. Sit there and take it, he guessed. That’s what he did in the Army when some fat-ass mess sergeant got on him for not peeling enough potatoes. And then he would lie in his bunk at night thinking of things he should have said, or making up schemes in his mind about how he would get even. But he never did.

Aboy, who was closing in on 50, was the same way, Purse had come to realize, maybe because Aboy still considered himself a man of the cloth, and men of the cloth weren’t supposed to have a temper. Or maybe he was just a big chicken-shit. Whatever he was, on this day at the Dairy Queen, he sort of sulled up and his face turned plum-red. He looked like he was on the verge of talking back or tossing his steak fingers on the table and walking out, leaving Red and her purse bearer in lonely, little Lone Star, but he didn’t. The heat and the campaign drudgery were getting to him too, but he had apparently decided he would see it through to the bitter end.

They finished eating with nobody saying much. Y’all have chock-fulla-cherry blizzards? a weary-sounding female voice coming through the scratchy drive-through microphone wanted to know. Purse could hear kids in the back seat squabbling and whining.

The day had started out badly. Only a handful, maybe 30 or so, had turned out in Sulphur Springs, despite the signs local folks put up on the highway and the ads the campaign bought on K-S-U-N, The Country Giant. The ground was so hard at the courthouse, Purse and Aboy had to lean the Red for Senator signs up against the trees instead of jabbing them into the ground. Even East Texans had enough sense not to venture into the blazing sun unless they had to. On the courthouse grounds they edged in closer, tracking the perimeter of the shade, as the candidate unspooled her funny story. At least, she hoped it was funny.

Here I was with my granddaddy and my grandma, Red was saying, her voice a bit drawlier than usual. They were in Sulphur Springs for a gospel singin’. I was just a little freckle-faced kid, but I loved the singing. Lord, I remember those golden-throated, God-lovin’ voices filling the First Baptist Church with heavenly strains. Liketa lifted the roof off. We stayed at a big hotel across the street from the courthouse here, and after we climbed up the stairs to our room and got settled, Pa went back to the singing. Mama and me, we decided to rest up a little and then go get something to eat in the dining room.

Purse had seen old photos of Red as a little girl. A freckle-faced tomboy, that’s for sure. She reminded him of a tough little girl with squinty eyes and balled-up fists he had seen on The Little Rascals.

Red glanced across the square at a ramshackle red-brick building, four stories, nothing but an empty shell now. Above the front door, in faded block letters you could barely make out HOTEL.

Now, what you need to know, she said, "is this was the first time I was ever in a hotel. First time I ever was in a town any bigger than Prairie Hill or Dripping Springs. First time, I reckon, I ever wore shoes. Just a little ol’ country girl, I was, from the blackland prairie over in Hill County. Folks decent, God-fearin’ dirt farmers. Didn’t have much, but they were as hardworking and honest as the day is long. But as I was saying, we saunter out into the hall, and I see these brown steel doors down at the end of the hall. Mammy sees ’em too.

There was this old fella standing there staring at the doors. Now, I’m sure he was a good, upstanding old timer, but to tell the truth, he’d seen better days. You know how it is when time’s wingèd chariot sorta knocks you down and runs you over. I can tell you, it happens to the best of us. Well, he’d been knocked down and run over, maybe even drug a bit down the bumpy road of life. But those doors opened up all of a sudden while me and Mammy watched. He kinda shuffled on in to a little closet, and the doors closed him up in there.

Purse scanned the crowd. Some of them were looking up at Red, half smiles on their faces, waiting for the punch line. Some of them were wiping their faces with handkerchiefs, glancing at their watches.

Well, in no time the doors opened up again, Red was saying. "I had not the foggiest idea what happened in that little closet, and neither did Mammy, but when that ol’ man come out, he looked like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. Yall’ve seen that movie, I bet. Tall, blonde, strong. Just a real man’s man. And he was a lovely golden color, not sort of reddish-tan with that white line on his forehead where he’s been wearing a hat out in the pasture, and then sort of red on his cheeks and arms. Not like some of you good-lookin’ fellas, God love you. He was the same shade of golden brown all over. You could smell his after-shave just waftin’ down the hall. I’m tellin’ you, he was a hunk; I hope that word doesn’t offend you, ’cause that’s the only word I know to describe what we saw that afternoon here in Sulphur Springs. Who knows, maybe he’s here today.

Mammy and me just stood there staring. She looked at me, I looked at her, and then she says, ‘Quick, Rosie, run on down to the church and get your granddaddy. That brown box there done worked a miracle on that ol’ coot. Just think what it’ll do for Pa!’

Red, her face a bit flushed, chuckled at her own story. The old men in khakis and straw hats laughed with her. A few secretaries who had been herded out of the county clerk’s office clapped their hands, then left their hands clasped together and pointed in a V beneath their chins.

Purse laughed, loudly, even though he had heard the joke before—in Clyde and Gladewater and Cumby, in every little burg in Texas that might have had a hotel with an elevator at one time or another. He had heard it that very morning in Greenville. Reporters covering the campaign gave her a break on the repetitions. Every politician does it.

Red glanced down at her navy-and-white pumps. From where he was standing a couple of steps behind her and over to the side, Purse could see the veins of red sand in the creases of the white buck leather. He knew she didn’t like getting her shoes mussed. When they got back in the station wagon and Aboy got behind the wheel, she would take them off, hand them over the seat to Purse and he would go to work on them with a little brush he kept in a box on the back seat floorboard. For now, she favored the crowd with her smile.

Let me tell you, she said, I’ve come a long way up the elevator of life since those days, a long way. And with your help, I’m gonna go higher. In 66 days and counting, I’m gonna be your United States Senator—the first female senator this state has ever seen. I just wish my dear ol’ mama and daddy were here to see it.

She looked down and shook her head, then looked up again. It’s a high office, she said, her voice quieter than usual, though still carrying, but I give you my word, I won’t be high and mighty. It’s a high office, because it’s the people’s office—and that’s something my esteemed opponent can’t understand.

Red could see the crowd shuffling and sweating just as Purse could. He noticed a man in boots and a short-sleeved white shirt, buttons straining across a belly splayed over his football-shaped western belt buckle, take off his glasses and wipe his brow with a sweaty forearm. Red began to wrap things up.

Now, this morning I don’t want you lingering out here in the hot sun any longer than need be, she said. "You know better’n anybody what this great state of ours needs. You know why I’m running, and if you don’t, Wily here will give you all the information you could ask for.

Yay, Wily! some guy in the crowd shouted. Everybody laughs, and Purse’s face turned red.

That your boy? someone else yelled.

No, Wily’s not my son, Red said, looking back with a grin. I don’t think he’d claim me; I’m too hard on him. Folks, this handsome young man holding my purse is Wily T. Foxx, the pride of Elm Mott, Texas, and I want you to know I couldn’t do without him. He’s a gem, I’ll tell ya. And all you single girls out there? He’s unattached. Wily, take a little bow.

Purse felt ridiculous, but he put one hand on his stomach and one on his lower back and took a bow, like a French waiter he had seen in a movie. People clapped and whistled, so he took another one. Go get ’em, Wily! somebody shouted. He lifted Red’s purse above his head like it was the Stanley Cup, and shook it once or twice. People laughed, but he noticed Red frown. He pulled it back down. He knew not to get on the wrong side of Red.

Now, Wily’s gonna circulate out among you with our campaign literature, Red said, and I want you to read it, and then I want you to put it in your neighbors’ mailboxes. I want you to stand next to the preacher when he’s shaking hands at the back door after Sunday-morning service, and I want you to put one of these brochures in every hand he shakes. I want you to tack it up on the bulletin board at that big Piggly Wiggly we passed coming in to town. And then on election day I want you to call everybody you know. If you know folks who’re laid up at home due to age or infirmity, or just plain ol’ laziness, I want you to carry ’em to the polls. I wanna be their senator too. The people’s senator. That’s what I intend to be.

He hung the shoulder strap of Red’s purse over his shoulder and draped her white suit jacket on the stone wall of the courthouse steps. Weaving his way through the small crowd, he handed out every brochure he had. People looked at the cover with her no-nonsense face and her helmet of curly red hair and knew she meant business. This was the State Comptroller, by god, the woman who shut down businesses big and small if they weren’t paying their taxes. And then, if they turned it over, they saw the friendly, heart-of-gold Red, frolicking in the yard with her little grandkids and with Waylon, an old beagle.

ROSE MARIE RYDER (‘RED’), the words said. A DOER, NOT A TALKER.

Joe Frank Golden wrote the words. He was the campaign press guy, and would have been on the East Texas swing, but he tended to get carsick on long trips. Purse knew the words by heart:

WHAT WILL SEN. ROSIE RYDER DO FOR YOU? SHE WILL:

GIVE THE LITTLE GUY A SAY IN WASHINGTON.

EDUCATE THE KIDS THE WAY YOU WANT THEM EDUCATED.

MAKE THE BIG BOYS PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE.

FORCE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO WORK FOR THE UNDERDOGS, NOT THE TOP DOGS.

PUT THE JAM JAR ON THE BOTTOM SHELF, SO GOOD, HARDWORKING TEXANS CAN HAVE A TASTE.

BE THE PEOPLE’S SENATOR.

Purse was learning. He knew the claims were long on sentiment and short on specifics—that’s what the Dallas Morning News said—but like Red told him one night at the Wagon Wheel, the voters would be choosing a person, not a program. A vote for Rosie Ryder would mean they trusted her to do what’s right.

By God, she said, slapping the table that night, as well, that’s what I intend to do.

Only problem was—and Purse didn’t find it out until they got on the campaign trail—what he heard an ol’ boy say at the cattle auction in Cumby earlier: Rosie’s fine, I like her as a COMP-troller; I mean it’s the little lady in my house that pays the bills. But ain’t no way in Hades I’m votin’ for her as a senator. This state’s not ready for a woman in the U.S. Senate. That’s a man’s job.

And that wasn’t the first time he had heard somebody say it. It was always a man, but he suspected there were women who felt the same way.

Any questions? Red was asking as Purse finished handing out brochures. He was hoping the answer was no, since they were already late for the roadside meeting with the out-of-work steelworkers.

How you feelin’ ’bout your chances, Red? a weather-beaten old man in khaki work clothes wanted to know. That’s what people always called her—Red, never Mrs. Ryder or Madam Comptroller. They felt easy with her. The old man had a green DeKalb Feed gimme cap pulled down to shade his eyes. He scratched the back of his pant leg with one of the red K-Mart running shoes he was wearing.

I feel good, real good, Red said. ’Course, we can’t be taking anything for granted. Anytime you run against a wheeler-dealer like Jimmy Dale, you’re running against the fat cats, and they can make it awful hard. They’ve got pockets so deep….

She paused, and a grin lit up her face, like she was about to be naughty and wasn’t sure how these God-fearing, flag-waving East Texans were going to take what she was getting ready to say.

You know what they remind me of? she said. "They got so much money weighin’ ’em down, they remind me of an ol’ Piney Woods mama possum, her saggy tits draggin’ the ground, if you’ll pardon my French. They got money for TV, and we don’t. They got money for big ol’ signs out on the Interstate, and we don’t. They got money for pretty ads in the newspapers, and we don’t.

But you know what we have? She looked around the yard, as if waiting for an answer. What we have is the people. We have the people on our side, and thank goodness there’s more of us than there are of them. Like I say, I feel good. But I’m gonna need your help. So dig deep—and vote right.

And vote often! some fellow in the crowd yelled out.

That’s the Texas way, Red shouted. She crinkled up her face and laughed, and so did everybody else.

Red surveyed the crowd for any more questions, then started edging toward Purse and her purse and jacket. Another old-timer started shouting a question. What you gonna do about the house? he said, looking a little wild-eyed, like an old hound about to get plopped into a tick dip. What you gonna do about the house?"

At least, Purse thought that’s what he was saying. It sounded like he had a mouthful of mush; maybe he had lost all his teeth. He had on one of those short-sleeve, see-through sport shirts, light blue, with little puckered squares all over it. Purse remembered wearing one when he was a kid; he was surprised they were still made.

What’s that, young fella? Red said, looking back over her shoulder as she retrieved the jacket.

What you gonna do about the house?

Red looked at Purse, who could only shrug his shoulders. Did the old gentleman mean the House of Representatives? His own house?

I’m sorry, friend, I’m having a little trouble getting your drift, Red said.

Oh, don’t pay no mind to Simon, Red, a stocky man in a blue seersucker suit shouted. He wore a snap-brimmed straw hat pushed back from his round, grinning face. Don’t pay him no mind a’tall.

The man in the suit put a hand to his mouth and said in sort of a pretend whisper, like this Simon fellow wouldn’t hear what was being said about him, You know how it is with some folks. He was making little curlicue designs around his ear with his index finger. Ol’ Simon here means well, but you might say he’s one enchilada short of a combination plate.

Some of the folks still standing around laughed. With a last name of Simon, Purse could imagine what they called him around town. All in good fun, of course.

The suit, he figured, owned the local hardware store, probably president of the Chamber of Commerce, a pillar of the community. For years, he and his daddy and his granddaddy, no doubt, had been Democrats. But these days, you couldn’t count on it. As the pros said, these little small-town businessmen were in play, and Red had to have them, if she was going to have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected, or just making the race halfway competitive.

Mr. Chamber of Commerce smiled his salesman’s smile and put his arm around the agitated old gent, who kept mumbling and grimacing, carrying on a heavy conversation with the only person who’d really listen to him—himself. Mr. Pillar of the Community started nudging him out of the crowd.

Just a minute there, hon, Red said. She walked down the courthouse steps, red head held high and toes pointed like a model. Smiling and looking concerned, she began to make her way back to where Simon stood. Maybe I can help a fellow Texan in need, she said, patting shoulders and shaking hands as she went.

The man in the suit took his arm away, and Red put a hand on Simon’s shoulder. Now take it slow and easy, young man, she said, patting him on the shoulder, and tell me what seems to be the trouble.

The old man had his head almost on Red’s shoulder. He glanced up out of the corner of his milky old eyes at the clean, fresh-looking woman standing beside him. What he was saying, it turned out, was that the little house where he had lived for years, this little house on the outskirts of town, had burned. Not down to the ground, but enough so that the fire department or the health department or somebody had to move him out. So he didn’t have a place to live, and while he was away, somebody was stealing him blind. Furniture and keepsakes and stuff that hadn’t burned.

Dagnabit, last night they bust in there and got my chester drawers! Simon spluttered, jerking away from Red at the thought of it. His face was red, like a tomato so ripe it’s fit to burst. A little blue vein was pumping like mad at his temple. I don’t know who in tarnation you are, lady, but you look like you might could do somethin’, he told Red. I’m telling you, I want you to do somethin’ about it!

Well, who I am, Red said in a kindly voice, is Rose Marie Ryder. My friends call me Red, Mr. Simon, and you should too. My job is being the Comptroller for the state of Texas—that means I keep tabs on the taxpayers’ money—but I’m running to be your U.S. senator. And what I’m going to do right now is help you get the justice you so rightly deserve. Let’s walk on in the courthouse here and talk to Sheriff Moody. He’s a good friend of mine.

Red and the old man walked slowly up the courthouse steps. The rest of the crowd followed. A camera crew from K-N-O-W in Tyler scrambled to get in front of the gaggle.

The dim first-floor hallway of the old courthouse was cool as Longhorn Cavern. The crowd headed in a herd past a bulletin board outside the county clerk’s office. Purse glanced at the auction notices for foreclosed farms, an agricultural extension service bulletin about a blackberry jelly-making class and the wanted posters for scary-looking dudes. They came to a halt at the door marked SHERIFF in black lettering across frosted glass. Jim Ned Hossman Moody, the high sheriff himself, stepped out into the hall and surveyed the crowd.

Good to see you again, Madam Comptroller, Hossman said, his thin mouth—the only thing thin on him, as far as Purse could see—stretched into a tight smile. He wrapped up Red’s dainty hand in his ham of a hand and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek.

Hossman Moody was big. Not just fat. And not just tall. The sheriff was tall and wide, big as the side of a barn, Purse’s mother would say.

Purse remembered him. Before he moved back to Sulfur Springs and ran for sheriff, he wrestled professionally in Big D. Any night the Wild Hossman of the Osage was on the bill at the Sportatorium, that old tin-can arena would be packed like a popcorn popper. The Hossman would come into the ring in his black tights, black high-top boots, a black vest like Wyatt Earp wore and a black cowboy hat, and before you know it, he would go berserk. He would pick guys up and toss them out of the ring, go after folks up in the bleachers. Purse saw him once or twice, back when he was staying with his Uncle Clyde, delivering eggs for Martinez Produce. Right before he went off to basic training.

Aboy told him later that Moody ran a bail-bond business near the courthouse square for about ten years after he retired from the ring. Used some of his old wrestling buddies as bounty hunters. Had been sheriff for a couple of terms.

Purse also knew how the Hossman met Red. Except for Aboy, he didn’t know if anybody else in the crowd knew about Red breaking up a cockfight near Blooming Grove one Sunday morning. Aboy talked her into it. She raided the place, not so much to break it up, but to make sure the promoters paid taxes on their proceeds. And for the publicity.

What she didn’t expect to find was the Wild Hossman of the Osage fronting a few banties himself. Red let him slide out of the crowd, didn’t confront him. But instead of feeling grateful to her, Moody resented her for what she saw. He figured Aboy put her up to it, so he didn’t have any use for Aboy either.

Plus, he had something else he didn’t like about Red. He had gotten religion since he got to be sheriff, and the religion he got believed in a woman being man’s helpmeet; that’s what he and fellow believers called it. Let the women keep silent in the church, the Bible said. Or, as Aboy said, Hossman was one of those God-fearin’ Christian men who believed it was a woman’s God-given duty to have her biscuits in the oven and her buns in the bed. A woman running for public office was against God-given human nature, as far as the good sheriff was concerned. Eve was shaped from Adam’s rib, Purse had heard a preacher say one time, not the other way around.

Y’all come on in, Hossman said. He ushered Red and the old man into his office and shut the door. Everyone else waited in the hall.

It was a good 10 minutes before they came back out. Red got everybody arranged so that the old man, grinning and looking a little wild-eyed and bewildered, was standing between Hossman and herself.

What Sheriff Moody has agreed to do, Red said, holding on to the old man’s bony, chicken-skinned arm, is to have a deputy drop by Mr. Simon’s house now and then, just to check on things. And he’s pledged to track down the perpetrators of these dastardly crimes. He has a suspicion maybe some kiddos with too much idle time on their hands—and you know about idle time being the devil’s workshop—anyway, he thinks these little devils’ve been finding a way to furnish their clubhouse in one of these venerable buildings on the square.

Some of the secretaries in the hallway began to clap their hands and cheer, but Red held up her hand. That’s not all, she said. Members of Sheriff Moody’s church have volunteered to rebuild Mr. Simon’s house this weekend. Paint it and everything.

Now the women really did cheer, and the sheriff broke into a genuine grin.

What church is that, Mrs. Ryder? asked an earnest-looking young woman wearing glasses. She waited to write down her answer in one of those skinny, little notebooks reporters carry. No one else can get them, Aboy had told Purse.

Sheriff Moody spoke up. It’s the Sulphur Springs Primitive Holiness Church of God. We’re not perfect, just protected. Shielded by the mighty hand of God.

Sheriff, Red said, looking up at his big red face, you’re a big man in more ways than one. And young man, she said, looking the old man square in the eye, her hands on his shoulders, I hope what you’ve seen today restores your faith in your fellow man. And in government of the people, by the people and for the people. And that means the good people of Sulphur Springs and Hopkins County! She gave him a kiss on his wrinkled, liver-spotted cheek.

Everyone clapped and cheered. A photographer from the Sulphur Springs Citizen squeezed off a flash of Red, the sheriff and the old man. He had to turn his camera sideways to get the Hossman in the picture.

Red gave Purse a quick nod toward the door, and he politely extricated her from the women in the hallway. The two of them walked toward the door, Purse with her purse under his arm like a halfback carrying a football, Red walking backward and waving, calling out farewells to the sheriff and to the good people of Hopkins County. Aboy was waiting at the curb, the station wagon running and the air conditioner on high.

Two months out, and the crowds weren’t showing. Part of it was the heat. You’d drive through neighborhoods in these little East Texas towns, and you’d see panting dogs in scooped-out holes in dried-up flower beds. Folks felt the same way. They were tired and draggy, just worn out, They were ready for summer to be over and done with. Ready for football and fall and feeling a breeze at night, so you had to pull a sheet over you when you sleep.

You could say it was still a little too early, that voters usually didn’t start paying attention until after Labor Day, and that may have been true. It reminded Purse of when he played junior high football for the Elm Mott Screamin’ Eaglets. He could tell even when they were behind—and they were behind a lot—when there was a spark or a spirit or something you couldn’t quite put your finger on. And pretty soon they would take off, sometimes anyway. That wasn’t happening with the campaign.

Even though this was his first election, he could tell that Red’s run for the U.S. Senate, so far at least, was like a little Piper Cub bouncing across a grass runway trying to get off the ground, It was bumping along, bumping along, with no spirit to it at all. It was like they knew there was no way they could beat Jimmy Dale Sisco and all his millions and all his power people, the people who ran the state and knew how to get what they wanted, no matter the cost. It was like they were toying with Red, who was just playing out the string.

It didn’t help any that right outside Lone Star, on their way to Paris after the DQ fiasco, they passed a huge billboard on the side of the road with the grinning face of Jimmy Dale Sisco underneath his big white cowboy hat. BORN TO LEAD, the sign said. JIMMY DALE SISCO—THE MAN FOR TEXAS.

Why? he asked Aboy. Red was dozing a bit in the back, her red head leaned up against the window.

Why what?

Why is Jimmy Dale Sisco the man for Texas?

Aboy glanced toward the back to see if Red was still dozing. You poor child, he said. "So naïve, so trusting. What you must come to realize, Master Foxx, is the Calvinistic inclinations of the esteemed Mr. Sisco and his ilk, the bastards that have their greedy, grasping paws on the tender scrotum of this state. They may not know it, but they believe in what Calvin—John Calvin, that is—called predestination. Our boy Jimmy is rich, he’s powerful. He runs a big Texas bank, and on his ranches oil pulses up out of the ground as regularly and incessantly as a John Wayne wet dream. Those