We ran another large photo on the front page. It was Wiley's shot of the bomb before the police dismantled it. The headline above it screamed:

My story began with Piston and his unlikely discovery. It included every detail I could substantiate, and a few I could not. No comment from the chief of police, a few meaningless sentences from Sheriff Coley. It ended with a summary of the findings by the state crime lab, and a prediction that, if detonated, the bomb would have caused "massive" damage to the buildings on the south side of the square.

Wiley would not allow me to use a photo of his badly bruised face, though I pleaded desperately with him to do so. On the bottom half of the front page I ran the headline:

Again, my story spared no detail, though Wiley insisted he be allowed to edit it.

In both stories, and with no effort at being subtle, I linked the crimes and implied rather strongly that little was being done by the authorities, especially Sheriff Coley, to prevent further intimidation. I never named the Padgitts. I didn't have to. Everyone in the county knew they were bullying me and my newspaper.

Spot had been too lazy for editorials. He'd written only one during my stint as an employee. A congressman from Oregon had filed some nutty bill that would somehow affect the cutting of redwood trees—more cutting or maybe less, it really wasn't clear. This had upset Spot. For two weeks he labored over an editorial and finally ran a two-thousand-word tirade. It was obvious to anyone with a high school education that he wrote with a pen in one hand and a dictionary in the other. The first paragraph was filled with more six-syllable words than anyone had ever seen and was virtually unreadable. Spot was shocked when there was no response from the community. He expected a flood of sympathetic letters. Few of his readers could have survived the flood from Webster's.

Finally, three weeks later, a hand-scrawled note was slid under the front door of the office. It read:

It was unsigned, but Spot ran it anyway. He was relieved that someone out there was paying attention. Baggy told me later that the note was written by one of his drinking buddies in the courthouse.

My editorial began, "A free and uninhibited press is crucial to sound democratic government." Without being windy or preachy, I went on for four paragraphs extolling the importance of an energetic and inquisitive newspaper, not only for the country but for every small community as well. I vowed that the Times would not be frightened away from reporting local crimes, whether they were rapes and murders or corrupt acts by public officials.

It was bold, gutsy, and downright brilliant. The townsfolk were on my side. It was, after all, the Times versus the Padgitts and their Sheriff. We were taking a mighty stand against bad people, and though they were dangerous they were evidently not intimidating me. I kept telling myself to act brave, and I really had no choice. What was my paper supposed to do ignore the Kassellaw murder? Take it easy on Danny Padgitt?

My staff was elated with the editorial. Margaret said it made her proud to work for the Times. Wiley, still nursing his wounds, was now carrying a gun and looking for a fight. "Give 'em hell, rookie," he said.

Only Baggy was skeptical. "You're gonna get yourself hurt," he said.

And Miss Callie once again described me as courageous. Lunch the following Thursday lasted for only two hours and included Esau. I actually began taking notes about her family. More important, she'd found only three errors in that week's edition.

I was alone in my office early Friday afternoon when someone made a noisy entrance downstairs, then came clamoring up. He shoved my door open without so much as a "Hello" and stuck both hands in his pants pockets. He looked vaguely familiar; we'd met somewhere around the square.

"You got one of these, boy?" he growled, yanking his right hand out and momentarily freezing my heart and lungs. He slid a shiny pistol across my desk as if it were a set of keys. It spun wildly for a few seconds before resting directly before me, the barrel mercifully pointing toward the windows.

He lunged across the desk, thrust out a massive hand, and said, "Harry Rex Vonner, a pleasure." I was too stunned to speak or move, but eventually honored him with an embarrassingly weak handshake. I was still watching the gun.

"It's a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight, six-shooter, damned fine firearm. You carry one?"

I shook my head no. The name alone sent chills to my feet.

Harry Rex kept a nasty black cigar tucked into the left side of his mouth. It gave the impression of having spent most of the day there, slowly disintegrating like a plug of chewing tobacco. No smoke because it wasn't lit. He dropped his massive body into a leather chair as if he might stay for a couple of hours.

"You a crazy sumbitch, you know that?" He didn't speak as much as he growled. Then I caught the name. He was a local lawyer, once described by Baggy as the meanest divorce attorney in the county. He had a large fleshy face with short hair that shot in all directions like windblown straw. His ancient khaki suit was wrinkled and stained and said to the world that Harry Rex didn't give a damn about anything.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked, pointing at the gun.

"First you load it, I'll give you some bullets, then you stick it in your pocket and carry it with you everywhere you go, and when one of them Padgitt thugs jumps out from behind the bushes you blast him right between the eyes." To help convey his message, he moved his index finger through the air like a bullet and poked himself between the eyes.

"It's not loaded?"

"Hell no. Don't you know anything about guns?"

"Afraid not."

"Well, you'd better learn, boy, at the rate you're goin'."

"That bad, huh?"

"I did a divorce one time, ten years ago I guess, for a man whose young wife liked to sneak over to the brothel and make a few bucks. The guy worked offshore, stayed gone all the time, had no idea what she was up to. He finally found out. The Padgitts owned the whorehouse and one of them had taken a shine to the young lady." Somehow the cigar stayed in place, bobbing up and down with the narrative. "My client was heartbroken and he wanted blood. He got it. They caught him out one night and beat him senseless."

"They?"

"The Padgitts I'm sure, or some of their operatives."

"Operatives?"

"Yeah, they got all sorts of thugs who work for them. Leg breakers, bomb throwers, car stealers, hit men."

He allowed the "hit men" to hang in the air while he watched me flinch. He gave the impression of one who could tell stories forever without being unduly burdened by veracity. Harry Rex had a nasty grin and a twinkle in his eyes, and I strongly suspected some embellishment was under way.

"And of course they were never caught," I said.

"Padgitts never get caught."

"What happened to your client?"

"He spent a few months in the hospital. The brain damage was pretty severe. In and out of institutions, really sad. Broke his family. He drifted to the Gulf Coast where they elected him to the state senate."