Three-Inch Teeth

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence and death.

Cates’s next stop is Jeffrey City, the hometown of his ex-cellmate, Lee Ogburn-Russell (LOR). The town was abandoned after its uranium mines shut down. Johnson wonders what sort of person would choose to live in the desolate, industrial landscape they are driving through. Cates tells her that it is the perfect place for someone as unusual as LOR.

When LOR was transferred to Cates’s cell, he was being tormented by La Familia, the Mexican gang operating in Rawlins. At first, Cates refused to help LOR, but he soon discovered LOR’s genius at crafting homemade mechanical devices, especially tools of violence, such as a rat-killing weapon fashioned from a spring, an iron pellet, and a ball-point pen. Realizing that LOR was a useful man, Cates helped him take down three members of La Familia. Soon, LOR was declared under WOODS protection and left alone. Cates believes that LOR owes him his life.

LOR runs a place called LOR Amusements, which houses mechanical creatures that he has built from spare parts from the industrial ruins around him. When Cates meets LOR at the theme park, Cates is instantly put off by LOR’s perpetual sneer and obnoxious manner—the same reasons why everyone in prison disliked him.