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“That's right.'

She fell silent. Of course. She probably had relatives who ran moonshine. I'm the big bad government, he realized. To her. I'm the guy who makes her life that much harder.

'Where you headed?'

'Up near Filbert.'

'No problem.'

He cruised on, over long rolling roads, side-eyed her once or twice. A pretty little girl, 16 probably, ample- bosomed. A trace scent of sweat hovered off her, something Cummings had grown used to. She was a stereotype sitting right next to him: the barefoot hillgirl, lank dark hair flecked with straw, peevish, unbra'd beneath the thread-bare sundress.

'Pretty day.'

'Shore is.'

'Let me ask you something.' he said, finally remembering his talk with Jan Beck. You got a couple hundred grand in the trunk, try earning your pay today, Stew. 'You ever heard of a guy named Travis Clyde Tuckton?'

'Oh, shore. Nice fella 'fore he went up ta the county prison. Never knowed him well, but he were nice.' Her hair, now, was a brunette tumult in the open-windowed breeze. Plain, pretty. A simple girl with fine hair under her arms. 'He's still up there.'

No, he's not, honey. He got out, skipped his parole, and now he's...fucking people's brains. Nice fella, huh?

'Well, I heard his folks got killed, and his house burned down.' Cummings tried to bait her.

'Yeah.' was all she replied.

'Well, Travis got released recently, and with his house burned down, where would he go??

Her eyes narrowed. Her hands lay in her lap like small white birds. 'He in trouble agin’?”

'Naw, naw, nothing like that. State tax office owes him money, that's all. Like to know where he's staying, so he can get his proper refund.'

'Oh, well.' she spoke right up at the lie. 'I doubt he'd come back here. This county's dead.'

'Yeah, you're probably right. But if he did come back here, where would he go?'

She brushed hair out of her eyes, picked out a strand of straw. Cummings couldn't help but notice the high, full breasts, and the nipples distending through sweat-moist cotton. 'Well, he's got a grandpap on his mama's side. Jake Martin. But he's problee dead b'now. He was old, an' he didn't have no feet, doctor hadda cut 'em off likes 'bout over five years ago on account of some disease. Hadda ol' cottage up the woods offa the ol' Tick Neck.'

Tick Neck Road, Cummings thought. South county. He'd heard of it. just had never been up there. Lost his feet? Probably diabetes-related gangrene, and she's right. He's probably dead. Hill folk didn't go to doctors much. Cummings was pissing into the wind.

'Here's your stop.' he said and pulled over at the crossroads. The sky opened bright and blue before him. A swarm of birds passed.

'Thanks much,' she repeated, opening the door.

'Sure—hey, wait.' There was something else he could ask, wasn't there? The plaster casts. A sole imprint that wasn't indexed in the stale computer. Handmade boots. Jan Beck had posited.

The girl remained leaned over, fresh cleavage like a beacon. There was something pleasant or even erotic about the faint sweat-scent.

'You know anyone around here who makes boots, shoes, leather gear ?' he asked.

Her bland face pinched up in some perplexion. 'Well, yeah, an' that's a might funny ya asked.'

'Why?”

'On account of what'cha asked before.'

'I don't get it.' Cummings admitted.

Her face seemed to float before the sky. 'See, there was a fella who made boots 'round here, fine boots they was, an' it's the same fella I'se just told ya ‘bout. Jake Martin. Travis Tuckton's grandpap.'

........

She'd given directions, at least to the best of his comprehension. The information put a fast spark in him. Yeah, this Jake Martin, he's probably dead, state cops've probably already cheeked it out, but—

Header, the word came like a spirit's voice. Head-humpin'.

Cummings had more important things to worry about now, like where to secret a veritable shitload of bands of $100 bills that he'd ripped off of a drug dealer he'd murdered. But the case—this bizarre, inexplicable set of sexual homicides—had long-since put a hook in him. At the very least, it couldn't hurt to look into the loke.

Off Tick Neck, he thought. He was there now, cruising slowly up the road's winding cant. There were a lot of side roads, but...

No mail routes, no addresses. Anybody who lived back here wasn't a legally censused resident. These roads had no street names, some of them weren't even on the county map grid.

Cain't's remember too good, the girl had told him just before she'd left. But I'se think ya turn 'cross from the deadfall, the big 'un. You'll's see it...

Just when Cummings would give up, there it was: a deadfall of logs, branches, and cut brambles. The county left them all the time after storms, but this one. Cummings noted, was large as it was old. Rotten and falling in on itself. He veered left up a dirt-scratch lane barely wide enough to admit the car.

Wound up and around. And—

Wham.

A cottage, just like the girl had said. Ramshackle old place, falling in on itself like the deadfall. Ivy growing up rotted sideboarding, missing shingles like missing teeth. A human pock in the woods. But—

What the fuck?

This was the craziest thing he'd ever seen. A squatter cottage, yes, but parked right before the crumbling front porch sat a gleaming Rolls Royce Silver Shadow.

Guess this old man Martin's not dead after all, Cummings assumed, but the rest was folly. A hillfolk shoemaker? Must sell a lot of shoes to be able to drive a car like that...

Cummings pulled right up. If he wanted the element of surprise, he'd blown it royally: anyone in the cottage would be able to hear his car ease up. But, wait—

No, he thought.

They wouldn't be able to hear at all. Because another sound permeated the surrounding woods.

A high-pitched screech.

A... Cummings' ponderings were guillotined by what he next thought. It couldn't be. No cop was that lucky.

The screech sounded like a power tool. A power drill.

No way. no way, he thought. He disembarked, walked up to the house, peeked into a side window.

Cramped room. Would've been large were it not for all the junk. Tools, leather sheets hanging. Rows and rows of hand-carved wooden shoeblocks. And—

A table.

No way, no way, Cummings thought yet again, but this time the thought was drained as a bled pig.

The screeching ceased. Then a voice erupted, a crotchety, old hillbilly voice.

'Get it, son. Ooo-eee! Cut yerself a good peckerhole in that cracker head! I ain't lyin' ta ya. Travis! This here's the white trash bastard who done head-humped yer maw!'

Was Cummings gazing into a rent in hell? On the table lay a well-dressed man, on his back, a cleanly cut hole gushing blood as a ham-hock hand withdrew a knife from the hole. The hand belonged to Travis Clyde Tuckton, the boy whose photograph Cummings had already seen at the state crime lab. And sitting off from the table was a