My lifelong best friend and mentor Jaybird warned me not to be deputized, but our little Mississippi Delta farming community was too remote for the law’s long arm to reach quickly, so I accepted the badge offered by the sheriff.
“We’ll soon learn how tough a deputy you are,” the old black man said, as we left church. “Tump Thompson is trying to court Pete Plugg’s daughter, Lottie Lou. Don’t dare do deputy duty.”
