PROLOGUE Diggin’ in the graveyard—finding all them secrets out I’m digging in the graveyard—I’ll be finding all your secrets out. —Oren Morse, “Midnight Graveyard Blues” This is a cruel cruel cruel world You have to live in each and every day You can’t hardly trust your next-door neighbor Or they just might steal your life away. —Eddy “The Chief” Clearwater, “Messed Up World” (1) The Bone Man was as thin as a whisper; he was a scarecrow from a blighted field. He stood on the edge of the hospital roof, toes jutting out over the gutter, his trousers fluttering against the stick slimness of his legs. His coat flaps snapped vigorously but silently around his emaciated hips. The only sound the wind made as it whipped by him and through him was a faint plaintive whine as it caressed the silvery strings of the guitar slung behind his back. Far below, the parking lot faded back from the glow of the emergency room doors, spreading out in a big half-circle that had been cut acres-deep into the surrounding sea of pines. Even this late there were dozens of cars down there, dusted with moonlight but asleep. All around the town there was a ring of black clouds that were invisible against the night, but above the Bone Man the stars flickered and glimmered by the thousand.