In the sultry twilight gloom, the place looked as if Sherman had already passed through. Flint Murtaugh guided his car past a rusted cannon that defiantly faced the north. A tattered Confederate flag drooped on its warped pole. The motel’s office was constructed to resemble a miniature plantation manor, but the rest of the place was definitely meant for the slaves. Trash floated on the brown surface of the swimming pool’s water, and two men sat sharing a bottle beside an old Lincoln up on cinder blocks. Flint stopped his car before the door marked twenty-three and got out. Beneath Flint’s shirt, Clint twitched in an uneasy sleep. Flint heard a man’s and woman’s voices tangled in argument through an open door, cursing each other purple. Beer cans and garbage littered the parched grass. Flint thought that the South wasn’t what it used to be. He knocked on the door of number twenty-three. A dog began barking from within, a high-pitched yap yap yap yap. “It’s all right, Mama,”
