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got to put it in the
wind!” Jimmy shouted, waving his arm in a wide arc. “Let’s go!”
     
    Bill nodded, still talking as he did so,
unable to stop without finishing what he’d started. Jimmy rolled
his eyes and noticed a battered cargo van ease out of the lineup at
the pump, giving up its place in line. The void was quickly filled
by the Chevy behind it. The van looped around and headed over to
the diesel pumps, the driver apparently unaware that there were no
gasoline pumps at this island.
     
    “Come on, Bill. Let’s get the show on the
road!”
     
    “I’ll be right there, Jimmy. Go on and get
in!”
     
    Jimmy shook his head and unlocked the driver
door. He hopped up into the warm truck, reached across the cab and
snapped the passenger door lock open. He inserted the key into the
ignition and started up the Mack, the engine catching instantly
with a quick puff of blue smoke. A moment later, Bill was hopping
up into the cab, slamming the door shut behind him.
     
    “Nice guy,” Bill said. “Did he tell you that
he’s got his whole family living with him at his farm? Could you
imagine that—only one bathroom? That’s what he said: twenty-three
people and only one bathroom. That’s crazy, man. Crazy.”
     
    Jimmy nodded, noticing that the van had
stopped in front of the Mack. Two men had stepped out and were
approaching both sides of the truck. One wore a white shirt and had
a cowboy hat angled low over his eyes. He was tall and broad in the
shoulders and was rapidly approaching Jimmy’s side of the truck.
The other was short and thin and wore a dirty flannel shirt with
the sleeves cut off, exposing black tattoos on thin, rust-colored
arms. The way he looked back and forth in the parking lot gave
Jimmy a bad feeling. He quickly reached for the button to the air
brakes, but was too late. The one in the cowboy hat had already
jumped up on the fuel tank. In one hand he held the chrome mirror
bracket and in the other was a pearl handled stiletto. He smiled at
Jimmy as if the two were old friends.
     
    “Hey,” he said in a deep, almost jovial
voice. “I think we’ll be taking your truck. You don’t mind, do
you? ”
     
    “Shit,” said Jimmy.
     
    “Oh, no,” said Bill, as his door was pulled
open by the other man who merely smiled, revealing half a dozen
yellow teeth.
     
    “So, get out before I cut off your nose,”
said the big man, waving his knife in Jimmy’s face. “We don’t want
any trouble. We just need your truck. That’s all.”
     
    “Give it to them,” said Bill. “Just give it
to them, Jimmy.”
     
    Jimmy took a deep breath and sighed. They had
the drop on him, and he wasn’t going to risk losing a nose to this
serious-looking man. Bill was stepping down and Jimmy nodded,
holding his hands up as Cowboy Hat opened the door for him.
     
    “What’s going on here?” asked a familiar
voice from behind the truck. Jimmy immediately recognized it as the
farmer’s.
     
    “Nothing, old timer,” said Cowboy Hat
dismissively, “nothing that concerns you. Why don’t you just make
like a tree and leave?”
     
    There was a distinct clacking sound and
Jimmy’s heart soared. He’d heard it many times and there was no
other sound quite like it. It was the sound of a pump shotgun
racking up a shell.
     
    “Doesn’t concern me?” asked the old man in a
voice that was as cool as ice water. “Well, let’s just say I’m
making it my business. Call your buddy over here. Drop the knife
and get down on the ground, amigo. Now, or I’ll blow your hide
straight to hell.”
     
    Jimmy peered out from the cab. The farmer had
the shotgun held up to his shoulder, the barrel aimed squarely at
the big man with the knife.
     
    “Hey now,” Cowboy Hat said, dropping the
knife and holding his hands up. “Take it easy there, old timer.” He
was walking toward the farmer in slow measured steps. “Ain’t
nothin’ to get excited about, we don’t want any trouble.”
     
    “Get back!”