There's a voter-registration drive going on in Shantyville. Otho's sidekick offers the new voters a shiny Otho button, with a shiny coin hidden underneath it. Iris moves through the tent, asking if anyone's seen Eleanor. Nobody has.

Rita Sue joins Stumpy in the chow tent and announces that Libby and Jonesy are gone. Stumpy calmly notes that their stuff is still in camp. Rita Sue sighs, "It's bad enough our baby married a gimp; now he's a killer, too." Stumpy defends Jonesy, and Rita Sue snorts that she heard Jonesy was drinking. Stumpy does not explain that he's the one who gave Jonesy the drink. His silence about that does incline me a little toward the idea that he set Jonesy up, but I'm not convinced. I believe he's capable of sabotaging the wheel and framing Jonesy just to keep Libby in the act; I'm just not sure he's capable of lying about it very smoothly. Anyway, Rita Sue asks Stumpy why he's defending Jonesy, and Stumpy chuckles, "He is family." Rita Sue asks him not to say that. Stumpy suggests that Libby and Jonesy are just off having a picnic, and reminisces about how he and Rita Sue used to sneak off together when they were newlyweds. Stumpy says, "They'll be back, and when they do, I bet Jonesy's ass is sporting a sunburn." He laughs heartily at his wit.

Vultures soar through the cloudless sky. It was around this point that Johanna called, because I'd left her a message earlier. She apologized for interrupting me when I was busy watching the show, and I told her not to worry about it because, really, this was not a sequence that required much attention. So anyway: vultures. Vultures are awesome. And huge. My grandfather had a ranch in northern California, and once I was riding in my grandpa's truck as we drove past a vulture perched on a fence, and it flew away as we passed. The wings blocked the whole windshield for a second. It was pretty cool. We pan down to two black shapes in the the vast, empty desert. Libby is kneeling by the side of a crumpled, tarred-and-feathered Jonesy. He's not moving. "Oh my lord, if he's dead the forums will go crazy," I tell Johanna. Libby pulls one of the feathers off of Jonesy. He moves his head a little. Not quite dead yet, then. Libby tries to pick off another piece of tar, and some skin comes with it. Ewie. She presses it back into place and tells Jonesy, "I'll stop dancin'. I'll do whatever you want me to do. I promise. Please don't die." Aw, poor Libby. But honey, he was being an ass, really. She lies down with her head next to Jonesy's. A wide shot reveals that he's also been tied to a rail.