The Renegade Sheriffs

On a Friday afternoon in March, 2013, a sheriff’s sergeant named Jody Hoagland noticed a red Nissan pickup truck drifting off a road. Hoagland was two hours into his shift patrolling Liberty County, Florida, eight hundred square miles of the state’s Panhandle. He had just come from a small shed fire, and was driving through the Apalachicola National Forest, which carpets the southern half of the county in longleaf pines. Two-lane roads meander past grazing cows, Baptist churches (“Good News: Jesus Loves You”), Confederate flags, and roadside stands peddling stink bait. Signs of humankind vanish, save for the solitary roadside mailbox. You live here because you want to be left alone.