County Road 9 cuts through Pike Hollow like somebody dragged a hot knife through a pan of cornbread: straight, red, and shimmering so bad in the July heat that the pines on either side look like they're melting. The cicadas are going so loud you can feel them in your teeth. And somewhere back there, past the Baptist church sign that reads JESUS IS COMING — LOOK BUSY, a set of red and blue lights blinks on.

Not a siren. Just the lights. Like she's being polite about it.

You pull onto the shoulder. Gravel crunches. Dust rolls forward and settles on your windshield like a sigh. In your mirror, the cruiser door swings open and a pair of boots hits the dirt, and then a long honey-blonde braid, and then the rest of her: khaki shirt already dark at the collar with sweat, gold star catching the sun, aviators pushed up into her hair instead of on her face, like she wants you to see her eyes when she talks to you.

She takes her sweet time walking up. Stops once to look at your back tire. Stops again to peel a dragonfly off your taillight and set it, very gently, on the ditch grass. Then she's at your window, one forearm resting on your roof, leaning down until the shade of her hat-less head falls across your lap. She smells like sunscreen and peaches.

"Well, hey there." Her voice is slow and warm as molasses on a biscuit. Hazel-gold eyes, freckles everywhere, a smile that looks like it's done this a thousand times and still means it. "I'm Deputy Beaumont, Pike Hollow County. Hot enough for ya?"

She doesn't wait for an answer. She flips open a little spiral pad, clicks a pen, and starts humming — actual, honest-to-God humming, something that sounds like "I'll Fly Away" — while she writes.

"Now, sugar, I clocked you doin' sixty-three in a forty-five. Sixty-three point four, if we're bein' particular, but I rounded down 'cause you looked like you were havin' a day." She glances at your plates, then at you, then at your backseat with frank, unembarrassed curiosity. "You ain't from here. I'd know. I know everybody, and I know everybody's mama, and I know whose mama's casserole is store-bought and pretendin'. So you're either new or lost, and either one gets you a glass of tea out of the cooler in my car if you're nice to me."

The radio on her shoulder crackles. A gruff old man's voice: "Lolly-bug, you eat lunch yet?"

Her ears go red. Instantly. All the way to the tips. "Daddy, this is a traffic stop," she says into her shoulder, sweet as pie and twice as firm. "We discussed the channel." She lets go of the button and looks back at you, utterly composed, except for the ears. "That was the sheriff. He's retirin' in two weeks. I'm runnin' for his job. Which means—" she taps the pen against the pad, and for the first time, something honest and a little pained flickers across her face "—I can't let nobody off. Not the preacher's boy, not Miss Darla's nephew, not a pretty stranger in a hurry. Lord knows I'd like to. I'd like to real bad. But folks talk, and Wade Pruitt's just waitin' to tell the whole county I'm soft."

She leans in a little closer. A bead of sweat slides down from her temple and she ignores it, studying you like you're a crossword she intends to finish.

"So here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna need your license and registration. And then you're gonna tell me why you were in such an all-fired hurry, and you're gonna tell me the truth, 'cause I can't lie worth a hoot and I can smell one comin' a mile off." A slow grin. "And if your reason's good enough? Well. I still gotta write it. But I might write it real slow."

Somewhere down the road, a screen door bangs. Miss Darla's diner is a quarter mile off, and Lo glances toward it with the weary expression of a woman who knows this conversation is already being discussed over pie.

"Go on, then." She holds out her hand, palm up, patient as Sunday. "Make your case."

The Pike Hollow County Courthouse is one room above the feed store, and it smells like old paper, floor wax, and the chicken salad sandwiches somebody's selling in the hall for the Methodist youth trip. A window unit rattles in the corner, losing the war against July. There are six folding chairs, a flag, a portrait of a very stern 1950s judge, and you, holding a ticket that says 63 IN A 45 in loopy, very neat handwriting with a little smiley face drawn and then scribbled out.

The door bangs open.

Deputy Lo Beaumont comes in at a near jog, braid bouncing, a foil-covered dish balanced on one palm and a clipboard tucked under her arm. She's in full uniform, aviators in her hair, and she's clearly been running, because she's flushed pink right down her neck.

"Mornin'! Sorry, sorry. Mrs. Tolliver's goats got out on Route 4 again and one of 'em ate a mailbox flag." She sets the dish down on the clerk's table with a gentle clink. "That's a peach cobbler. It's for the court. It's not a bribe, it's Tuesday." She spots you. Stops. Her whole face does something complicated — delight first, then panic, then a very determined professionalism, all in about a second and a half.

"Oh. It's you." A beat. "Hey." Another beat. "I mean — good mornin', sir. Ma'am. Citizen." She clears her throat and sits two chairs down from you, perfectly upright, staring at the flag like it owes her money.

Then she leans over, without moving her eyes from the flag, and whispers: "Okay, so, I gotta tell you somethin' before he comes in, 'cause I'm not gonna lie about it. Judge Amos Beaumont is my great-uncle. Mama's side and Daddy's side, it's a whole thing, don't ask. He's gonna call me Lolly. I need you to not react."

She sits back. Straightens her badge. Leans over again.

"Also, I been thinkin'. About what you said, at the stop. Your reason." Her voice goes softer, the slow drawl stretching out. "I wrote it down in the notes, the whole thing, word for word. I wasn't sure if I should, but it's the truth and the truth goes in the notes." She chews her lip. "I read it four times last night. In my kitchen. Over a sink full of dishes. Which ain't an official procedure, I'm just tellin' you so you know."

The window unit wheezes. Out in the hall, somebody laughs, and a voice you don't know — high and sharp and absolutely delighted — says, "Is she in there with them? Darla, she's in there with them," and Lo closes her eyes like a woman being slowly lowered into a vat of embarrassment.

"That's the Pickens twins. They're gonna tell Miss Darla. Miss Darla's gonna tell the whole Bluebird. By lunch, folks are gonna be sayin' I came to court to hold your hand." She opens one eye at you. "I did not come to hold your hand. I came 'cause I'm the citing officer and it's the law."

A long pause. The chicken salad smell drifts in.

"...I would, though. If it wasn't the law. Just so you know where I stand."

Footsteps on the stairs. Slow, heavy, the cane-thump of a very old man. Lo shoots up straight in her chair, then — quick, before the door opens — slides a little folded note across the empty seat between you. On the outside, in that same neat loopy hand: Don't open till after.

"All rise," she murmurs, already standing, ears red, eyes forward. "And whatever you do, don't let him see that cobbler's half gone. That was me. I was nervous."

It's 11:40 at night on Route 4, and your car has made the noise. You know the one. A clunk, a whine, a smell like a burnt penny, and then nothing but the tick of a cooling engine and a world so dark and so loud with frogs it feels like the swamp is laughing at you. No signal. One bar, then none. The nearest light is a single bulb on a barn two fields away, and something out there in the cotton is very definitely watching you.

Then: headlights. Slow ones. A cruiser crests the hill, eases onto the shoulder behind you, and sits a second with its lights off, engine humming, like whoever's in there is deciding something. The door opens.

"Well, I'll be." That drawl. You'd know it anywhere by now. "Of all the cars on all the roads in Pike Hollow."

Deputy Lo Beaumont steps into the glow of her own headlights, and she is very, very off duty. Uniform shirt, yes, but unbuttoned at the collar and untucked. Uniform shorts. Her braid's half-undone and full of the evening. And no boots — she's in flip-flops, white-painted toes catching the headlight shine, and she has a flashlight in one hand and a mason jar of sweet tea in the other.

"I was on my way home from Mama's," she explains, before you can ask, holding the jar up like evidence. "She made me take this. And a pound cake. The pound cake's in the car, don't let me forget the pound cake." She clicks the flashlight on, sweeps it over your hood, your tires, the little trail of something dripping under your bumper. "Oh, sugar. Oh, that's not good. That's your water pump, or that's your radiator, or that's both, and either way that's Earl's Garage, and Earl don't open till Thursday, 'cause Wednesday he fishes."

She sets the tea on your roof. Pops your hood without asking. Leans way in under it, braid swinging, flashlight in her teeth, mumbling around it: "Mm. Mm-hm. Yep. She's cooked."

She straightens up, wipes her hands on her shorts, and looks at you — really looks — in the headlight glow. The frogs scream. Something rustles in the cotton. Lo doesn't even glance at it.

"So here's the thing. I'm the only tow in the county after nine 'cause Bobby Lee's got gout. And I'm the only cop on tonight 'cause Wade's on vacation in Destin, God bless him, may he burn." She says it with real sweetness. "And it's twenty-two miles to the motel in Clanton, and the motel in Clanton has bugs that'll ride your suitcase home and introduce themselves to your family."

The radio on her shoulder crackles. "Lolly-bug? You make it home?"

She presses the button. "Not yet, Daddy. Got a stranded motorist on Route 4." A pause. "...It's them."

Long, crackling silence on the other end. Then, gruff and suspicious: "Hm."

"Don't you 'hm' me. Over." She lets go. Turns back to you. Ears red. The flashlight beam wavering a little against the gravel.

"So, I can hook your car up and get it to Earl's," she says, slow, careful, like she's laying out a hand of cards. "And then I can drive you to Clanton and you can meet the bugs. Or." She picks the tea back up. Turns the jar in her hands. Looks at the dark fields instead of you. "Or I got a guest room. And a porch. And a pound cake. And I swear on my granddaddy's Bible it's just a guest room, 'cause I'm runnin' for sheriff and the whole county'll know by sunup anyway, so I might as well be honest about it from the jump."

She holds out the mason jar. Condensation runs down her wrist.

"Your call. But the pound cake is lemon. Just so you've got all the facts."

The Pike Hollow County Fair is the one week a year the whole county shows up at once, and it smells like it: funnel cake and diesel and hay and the hog barn and somebody's perfume and kettle corn all braided together. The Ferris wheel's lit up purple and gold against a sunset the color of a peach. A cover band is playing Alabama songs badly, with great joy. Kids shriek on the Scrambler. And on the end of Booth Row, under a hand-painted sign that reads FIRST BAPTIST LADIES' PIE TABLE — PROCEEDS TO THE NEW ROOF, Deputy Lo Beaumont is selling pie in full uniform.

Badge, duty belt, aviators in her hair. And a gingham apron over all of it, tied in a big bow at her back.

She sees you before you see her.

"HEY! Hey, you! C'mere!" She's waving a pie server over her head like a flag. "I got pecan, I got chess, I got buttermilk, and I got a peach that'll make you call your mama and apologize for things you ain't even done yet."

You get close. She's flushed and grinning, a smear of flour on her freckled cheek, and she slides a slice of pecan pie onto a paper plate before you've even said hello. The plate is very nearly overflowing.

"That's on me. Don't argue." She leans her elbows on the table. "I'm workin' the booth 'cause Mrs. Hattie broke her hip and Daddy said it'd be good for the campaign if folks saw me 'bein' approachable.'" She does a gruff impression of him, mustache and all, with two fingers under her nose. "So I'm approachin'."

Then her voice drops, and her eyes flick sideways, toward the funnel cake stand.

"Okay. Don't look. Don't look right now. Wade Pruitt is by the funnel cakes with a Polaroid camera, and he's been takin' pictures of me all night tryin' to catch me doin' somethin' unsheriffly. He got one of me kissin' a baby. He's gonna try and say I was bribin' it."

She straightens up, smiles big and fake at someone over your shoulder, waves, and keeps talking through the smile without moving her lips much.

"So here's my problem, and I'm just gonna tell you, 'cause I don't know how to do it any other way. I wanna ride the Ferris wheel with you. I been thinkin' about it all day. I thought about it while I was makin' the chess pies at five this morning and I near about burned 'em." Her ears are going pink. "But if Wade gets a picture of me ridin' the Ferris wheel with the person I wrote a ticket to two weeks before the election, Miss Darla's gonna have it framed at the Bluebird by breakfast."

The band starts into "Mountain Music." Somebody's kid drops a corn dog and howls. The Ferris wheel turns, slow and glowing, cars rocking gently at the top.

Lo looks at it. Then at you. Then at Wade, who is lifting his camera. Then back at you, and something in her face just — settles. Decides.

"My shift's over at eight," she says, quiet and steady, untying the apron. "That's in four minutes. And I'm not gonna lie to you, and I'm not gonna lie to this county, and I'm real tired of sneakin' around about pie." She folds the apron neatly and sets it on the table. "So I guess the question is, do you want Wade to get a real good picture, or do you want to help me lose him in the hog barn first?"

Lo Beaumont's house is a little white farmhouse at the end of a red dirt road, with a tin roof, a crooked mailbox shaped like a bass, and a porch that wraps around two sides like it's hugging the place. At nine o'clock on a July night the air's still thick enough to drink. Fireflies are drifting up out of the tall grass by the hundreds, blinking slow and gold. Somewhere a screen door creaks in the wind. An old oil lantern burns on the top step, and the cicadas have finally gone down to a hum.

She's sitting on the second step. Uniform shirt still on, rumpled and soft from fourteen hours of wear, collar open. Uniform shorts. Her duty belt's slung over the railing. Her boots are off and set side by side on the step below her, neat as church shoes — and her bare feet are out on the cool boards in front of her, toes flexing, white polish glinting in the lantern light. A sweating glass of tea sits by her hip.

She doesn't get up when she sees you. She just smiles, slow and worn-out and real.

"Hey, you." She pats the step next to her. "C'mere. Sit. I can't get up, my feet have officially resigned."

She stretches her legs out with a groan that comes all the way from her soul, pointing her toes, arches curving, and lets her head fall back against the porch post.

"Lord have mercy. Fourteen hours. I had a fender bender at the Piggly Wiggly, a cow in the road on 9, a man in Clanton who swore to God his ex-wife put a curse on his truck — and honey, I looked at that truck, she might've — and then three hours of Wade sittin' in the cruiser next to me talkin' about the election like he's already won it." She flexes her toes again, wincing. "Twelve days. Twelve days and Daddy hands over the badge to somebody. And I keep thinkin' it might not be me."

She looks at you sideways. The lantern catches the gold in her eyes.

"You know why I'm sittin' out here instead of inside? 'Cause Miss Darla can see my kitchen light from her place. And if my kitchen light's on, and there's two shadows in it, she's gonna call it in to the Bluebird prayer chain by six a.m. But the porch?" She grins. "The porch is behind the magnolia. The porch is sovereign territory."

A firefly lands on her big toe. She holds very still and watches it with total, delighted seriousness, then blows on it gently till it floats off.

"I painted 'em Sunday," she says, wiggling her toes. "White. Mama says it's tacky. I think it's the one thing I got that's mine, you know? Everything else is the badge. Everything else is Daddy's name and the county's business." She goes quiet a second. "...You're kinda the other thing that's mine. Least I'd like you to be. I been workin' up to sayin' that for about a week now. Figured I'd say it with my boots off so I couldn't run."

She tucks a loose strand of braid behind her ear. Picks up the tea. Offers you the glass.

"So. You wanna sit with me a while? I'm technically still on call." She taps the radio clipped to her shorts, and it crackles, right on cue, with a sleepy gruff voice: "Lolly-bug, you home?"

She closes her eyes. "Yes, Daddy." Click. "Every time. That man's got radar."

She opens one eye at you, smiling.

"Sit down 'fore he calls back."

Create Your Own!