The Backwoods

get older—women, especially—that program begins to run faster, to try to become the priority over other programs. It’s trying to beat the inevitability of still one more program—one called menopause—an infertility program. In ten years—less, perhaps—your body knows that you will no longer be able to reproduce, so it’s lighting up your sexual awareness, going for that last chance of reproductive success. It’s all genetic, subconscious. It exists independent of your values and domestic and personal desires. What I’m trying to tell you, Patricia, is that an inexplicable sexual spike at your age is perfectly commonplace. It has nothing to do with your rape, and it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. It doesn’t mean that you’re a tramp or a cheat or a deceptive person. All it means is that you’re a perfectly healthy middle-aged woman. For your entire adulthood, you’ve excelled in everything, and you’ve been in total control of yourself. You still are. The reason it’s happening now is simply because you’re in a different place, away from your spouse, and your subconscious mind is selecting ‘targets’ of sexual opportunity. Almost every single female patient I have in your age group is experiencing the same thing. It’s normal, Patricia. And you won’t cheat on your husband even when it seems that your body and your mind want to. What’ll happen instead is you’ll return to your home soon and probably have a lot of great sex with your husband.”

Now Patricia was the one chuckling.

The doctor began to finish up. “But until you do return home, you’ll still experience this, so just be ready for it. It’s okay to masturbate; it’s okay to have sexually vivid dreams. It’s all part of your sexuality. The important thing is not to worry about it, and don’t get yourself worked up. Nobody knows you better than yourself, Patricia. You know you’re not going to cheat on your husband, don’t you?”

It was with every confidence now that she answered, “Yes.”

“In that case, I can say that I’m happy to have gotten to talk to you today, and unless there’s anything else bothering you, then we should hang up now so I won’t have to erroneously bill you for therapeutic services that I haven’t earned.”

The man was a hoot. ?Thank you very much, Doctor.”

“And thank you. The disappearance of your depression proves that . . . I must be a fairly good doctor.”

“That you are. Have a great day.”

Patricia hung up, feeling exuberant. I’m not a cheating, conniving sex maniac after all. And he’s right. I’m cured of my Agan’s Point depression. This knowledge was an optimal way to commence with the rest of the day.

With that off her mind, though, she was reminded of more serious matters. Judy, she thought. Just when she gets over one tragedy, she gets hit on the head with another one: the murder of the Hilds. By now, she was sure Ernie had explained what he knew of it, and Patricia supposed she should check on her soon to see how she was taking the news. But first . . .

She started up her laptop and went online. Her mailbox remained free of anything from the firm, so next she took to Googling around a little.

Crystal meth, she thought. She’d heard of it, of course, just errant pieces sometimes in the news, but she really didn’t know anything specific about it. In a moment, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s official Web site opened before her. A highly addictive Class II narcotic as defined by the Controlled Substances Act, she read. A superstimulant that produces long-lasting euphoric effects. When she added the word ingredients to her search, other, more obscure pages came up. Active ingredients: pseudoephedrine.

Never heard of it, she thought, until she read on and discovered that the chemical was derived from a complicated distillation and filtering process that began by dissolving over-the-counter allergy medications in certain types of solvent. She’d seen the cache of allergy remedies in the Hilds’ bedroom.

The next primary ingredient listed was a phosphorous compound called RD, something else she’d never heard of, but more recognition bloomed when she read the first few lines: that the easiest way for “guerrilla meth-heads” to obtain this compound was through another complicated distillation process using striker pads on paper matchbooks. Chief Sutter mentioned the same thing, she recalled, and she also recalled the veritable garbage bag full of matchbooks in the Hilds’ closet.

It’s hard to believe, she thought. The Hilds? But it didn’t matter how hard it was to believe; it still must be true. Judy wouldn’t believe it either, but she had a tendency to be naive. The Squatters are like her children, even the older ones. Nobody wants to believe their “children” manufacture hard drugs in secret.

And now they’d been brutally murdered by outside drug dealers.

Patricia read on. Crystal meth was a man-made stimulant; it didn’t occur in nature. Even small doses could last up to twelve hours, and the street price was relatively cheap: twenty dollars per dose. Clinical addiction rate? Around ninety percent, close to that of crack, and like cocaine it could be administered effectively several ways: snorting, injecting, smoking. The smoking form was called “ice,” (small crystalline chunks were placed in a pipe); the inhaled form was called “tweak” on the street.

Patricia was nearly amused when she came across the next street term: “redneck crack,” something Chief Sutter had mentioned. It was all logistical, she read. Cocaine was typically transported to large urban centers for the already existing market. It was harder to get, and riskier, because the base form for any type of cocaine was derived from the tropical coca shrub, which grew only in Africa and northern South America. But since crystal meth was synthetic, it could be produced anywhere, and didn’t require constituents that needed to be procured from other countries. Many a trailer park contained secret meth labs—hence the nickname of redneck crack. A thousand dollars’ worth of equipment and ingredients—all available at drugstores and hardware stores—could generate five to ten thousand in profit, if the person knew what he was doing. Crystal meth, in other words, was the perfect illicit drug for remote areas. . . .

Like Agan’s Point, Patricia deduced.

And, according to the government Web sites, crystal meth use was growing, reaching into society’s less accessible nooks and crannies. It was considered an epidemic in the drug culture, and like all narcotics it piggybacked HIV, hepatitis, and crime right along with it.

Jesus. And now this stuff is here. . . .

Patricia went back to the living room, dreading her sister’s reaction. Judy looked drawn-faced now, partly confused and partly infuriated. Ernie was pouring her some coffee as she mused: “I guess that’s the modem world. In the old days, people used to have stills in the woods and make their corn liquor. Now they’re making this stuff . . . this crystal stuff. And not just any people. My people. My Squatters.”

“It’s probably just isolated, Judy,? Patricia said when she came in and sat down. She wanted to sound optimistic, but didn’t really know if that was honest or not.

“It was probably just the Hilds doing it.”

“You think you know people,” Judy said, oblivious. “You like them, you help them, and they seem perfectly normal, perfectly decent, hardworking folks. Then one day you find out the truth. I give ‘em a free place to live; I give ’em work when they ain’t really suited for work nowheres else. And they do this to me. They been takin’ the money I pay ’em to make this drug stuff. And we got a lotta Squatters on the Point. I’d be plumb stupid to think it was just the Hilds.”

“Aw, Judy, you don’t know that,” Ernie said. “I think it was just the Hilds. They was always a bit strange any-ways, more’n most of the Squatters. And may God forgive ‘em, but it looks to me like they got what was coming. Ain’t no way I believe there’s a whole lotta this goin’ on at the Point. These people are crabbers, for Christ’s sake. Everd’s got ‘em cowed like he’s Jesus Himself. The Squatters don’t even drink. I ain’t never even seen one smokin’ a cigarette or chewin’ chaw. They all think it’s a sin to drink ‘n’ smoke, so makin’ . hard drugs is ten times worse. The Hilds was bad apples, is all. Every basket has a few.”

Judy leaned backed in her chair, brushing hair from . her eyes as if exhausted. “But that’s all I been hearin’ lately. Squatters gettin’ in fights, Squatter’s turnin’ lazy at the line, Squatters leavin’ the Point ‘cos it ain’t good enough for ’em no more, like the work I give ‘em ain’t good enough. I’m hearing all the time these days that somea’ the prettier clan girls’re sellin’ theirselves—whorin’—but all Chief Sutter ‘n’ everyone else says is the same blamed thing. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Judy. They’re just a few bad apples.’ Well—Christmas!—it’s startin’ to look like we got the whole orchard goin’ bad.”