Dear Mr. Oak Jones:

I am Carol Bridges, mayor of Chickasaw, Texas. We are located in the western part of the state, Big Bend Country if you know it. I thank you in advance for considering my injustice.

Chickasaw is the home of Hogan Consolidated, a family-run manufacturer of industrial parts. Hogan employs 70 percent of able-bodied adults in Chickasaw, and its philanthropy has sustained the town for ninety years. It's due to the Hogan family we have an arts center and turf field for youth football.

Recently, East Coast lawyers and investment bankers have have taken aim at the company. Multi-million dollar claims have been filed, accusing Hogan of putting out defective parts. It's rumored the company will be acquired or liquidated outright. Massive layoffs are feared.

My constituents work hard, Mr. Jones. They have mortgages and children to feed. I have tried to find answers about the Hogan family's intentions, to see whether I or the town can do anything to influence the course of events. Jay Hogan, the current CEO, does not return my phone calls—and is seen dining at sushi restaurants in El Paso (70 miles away) more often than in Chickasaw. I have gotten the runaround from our state and federal representatives. I believe it's their fundraising season.

As mayor, I have a duty to explore every possible solution to the challenges we face. I do not read Soldier of Fortune regularly, but our deputy police chief here showed me your ad soliciting "injustices in need of attention." I feel certain injustice is being done to Chickasaw, though I can't as yet name its perpetrator and exact nature.

Darryl (our deputy chief) knows you by reputation, and assures me these details won't trouble you.

Thank you sincerely for your time,
Carol Bridges
Mayor of Chickasaw, TX

———

Durwood got to the Chickasaw letter halfway through the sorghum field. He was flipping through the mailbox stack. Passing between sweet-smelling stalks, leaves brushing his bluejeans, dust coating his boots. As he read, he scanned for clumps of johnsongrass and picked what he saw. The first five letters he'd tucked into his back pocket.

The Chickasaw letter he considered longer. Steel-colored eyes scanned left to right. He forgot about the johnsongrass. An ugliness started in his gut.

Lawyers.

He put this letter in his front pocket, then read the rest. The magazine sent a bundle every month. In September, he'd gotten just three. At Christmas time, it seemed like he got thirty or forty.

Folks felt gypped around the holidays.

Today, he read about two brothers who didn't steal a car. About a principal who got fired for being too aggressive fighting drugs in his school. About a bad call in the Oregon state Little League championship twenty years ago. About a furnace warranty that wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

Durwood chuckled at the Oregon letter. This fella'd been writing in for years, every few months. Maybe he figured Durwood didn't read them. Figured some screener only put through a couple each go-round, one of these days they'd sneak his through.

But Durwood did read. Every last one.

He put the letter about the principal in his front pocket, with the Chickasaw letter.

Off his right side, Sue-Ann whimpered. Durwood turned to find the bluetick coonhound pointing the south fenceline.

"I see," Durwood said, of the white-tail doe nosing around the spruces. "Left my gun back at the house, though."

Sue-Ann kept her point. That bad hip of hers quivered from effort. Old as she was, she still got fired up about game.

Durwood released her with a gesture. "What do you say to some bluegill tonight instead? See what Crole's up to."

Durwood called Crole from the house. Crole, his fishing buddy who lived on the next sixty acres, said he was good for a dozen casts. They'd meet at the river that divided their properties. Durwood had a shorter walk and used the extra time to clean his M9 semiautomatic.

Leaving, he noticed the large red maple that shaded the house was slow leafing out. He looked closer and saw a pattern of holes running around the bark—that yellow-bellied sapsucker who came around.

Durwood wondered if the holes were related to the tree's poor vigor.

Out on the river, Crole limped up with his jug of moonshine, vile stuff he made from Jolly Ranchers.

They fished.

Sue-Ann laid in the mud, snoring, her stiff coat bristling Durwood's boot. The afternoon stretched out, a dozen casts becoming two dozen. Then three. In the distance, the hazy West Virginia sky rolled through the Smokies. The skeeters weren't awful bad. Just a nip here and there at the collar.

Durwood thought about Chickasaw, Texas. He thought about East Coast lawyers. About the hardworking men and women who'd elected Carol Bridges to be mayor, to stick up for them.

He thought about that CEO picking up raw fish with chopsticks.

He thought, too, about the principal who'd been fired for doing right.

Crole said, "Got you some letters today?"

Durwood said he had.

Crole grinned, showing his top teeth—just two, both nearly black. "Still running that ad in Soldier of Fortune?"

Durwood lowered his hat against the sun. "Don't cost much."

"They give a military discount?"

Durwood raised a shoulder. He'd been discharged from the marines a decade ago. He didn't accept handouts for his service.

Crole nodded to the letters in his pockets. "Anything interesting?"

"Sure," Durwood said. "Plenty."

They fished into twilight. Durwood caught just five bluegill. Crole, twenty years his senior and luckier with fish, caught a dozen, plus a decent-size channel cat. The men strung their catches on a chain. The chain rippled in the cool, clear water.

The Chickasaw job appealed to Durwood. The opportunity to fight crooked lawyers. Do something about these Wall Street outfits that made their buck slicing up American companies, putting craftsmen out of work until every last doodad was made in some knockoff plant in China.

Still, Durwood had trouble imagining the case. What would he do, flip through documents? Sit across a folding table from a pack of slicksters, asking questions?

Then he thought about the principal. About those gangs the letter had mentioned, how street corners you could see looking out the front window of the dang school were manned by dealers. Intimidators. Armed thugs.

Durwood had an easy time imagining that case.

The sky had just gotten its first purple tinge when Durwood lost his bait a third time running.

"These fish." He held his empty hook out of the water, head ticking back and forth.

Crole said, "There's catfish down there older than you."

"Smarter, too," Durwood said.

Still, the five bluegill were enough for him and Sue-Ann. Durwood unclipped the fishes' cheeks from the chain and dropped them in a bucket.

Back at the house, Durwood caught sight of the yellow-bellied sapsucker climbing the red maple. Not only was he pecking—the ornery fella kept pulling twigs from the gray squirrels' nest, the one they'd built with care and sheltered in the last three or four winters.

"Git down!" Durwood called.

The sapsucker zipped away to other antics.

Inside, Durwood scaled and beheaded the bluegill, then fried them in grease and cornmeal.

Sue-Ann ate only half a fish.

Durwood moved the crispy tail under her nose. "'Nother bite?"

The dog sneezed, rattly in her chest.

Durwood rinsed his dish and fork, then switched on his computer. He looked up Chickasaw. Plenty online. Population, land area. Nearly every mention of the town made reference to Hogan Consolidated. It appeared that Hogan Consolidated was Chickasaw, Texas, and vice versa.

On the official municipal website, he found a picture of Carol Bridges. She was wearing a hardhat, smiling among construction workers.

Handsome woman. Warm, lively eyes.

Next Durwood looked up the fired principal. The man lived and worked in upstate New York. For a few weeks, his case had been all over local news there. A city councilman believed he'd been railroaded. Nineteen years he'd served the school district without prior incident. The only blemish Durwood found was a college DUI.

Durwood got what he needed from computers. His calloused fingers didn't always strike the keys true, but he managed. He'd gotten his computer from the Walmart up in Barboursville, forty-nine bucks. Black Friday deal. It had its uses. A tool like any other.

"Well?" he said aloud, even though Sue was out on the porch. "Looks like a tossup."

Durwood changed computer windows to look again at Carol Bridges.

Then changed back to the principal.

At the bottom of the news story on the principal, he noticed a bubble with "47 comments" inside. He knew people who spouted off on the internet were unreliable and often foolish. He clicked anyway.

"Good riddance, got what he deserved!"

"TOTAL RACIST WINDBAG, glad they fired him"

Durwood read all forty-seven comments. Some defended the man, but most were negative.

It was impossible to know how much was legitimate. Durwood left judging to Him, and Him alone.

But Durwood did know that the petitioner—the one who'd written the letter to Soldier of Fortune—was the principal himself. Not some third party. Not an objective observer.

What'd seemed like a case of obvious bureaucratic overreach suddenly looked less obvious.

Now Sue-Ann did lope in from the porch. Appalachian air followed her inside, nice as perfume. Sue settled at Durwood's feet. Wheezing, aiming rheumy eyes up at her master.

He said, "What do you say, girl. Up for seeing the Lone Star State?"

She sat up straight, responding to the action in his voice. The effort made her mew. That bum hip.

Durwood laid his thumb down the hard ridge of the dog's skull. He felt pained himself, thinking of documents and folding tables.

—

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