PROLOGUE THE GUTHRIE FARM And I think I’m gonna drown I believe I’m gonna drown I think I’m gonna drown Standing on my feet. —Mem Shannon, Drowning on My Feet Sing it like the midnight wind, Sing it like a prayer; Sing it on to the way to hell, Them blues’ll take you there. —Oren Morse, Dead Man’s Song (1) It was October when it happened. It should always be October when these things happen. In October you expect things to die. In October the sun shrinks away; it hides behind mountains and throws long shadows over small towns like Pine Deep. Especially towns like Pine Deep. The wind grows new teeth and it learns to bite. The colors fade from deep summer greens to the mournful browns and desiccated yellows of autumn. In October the harvest blades are honed to sharpness, and that’s when the sickles and scythes, the threshers and combines, maliciously attack the fields, leaving the long stalks of corn lying dead in haphazard piles along the beaten rows. Pumpkin growers come like headsmen to gather the gourds for the carvers’ knives. The insects, so alive during the long months of July, August, and September, die in their thousands, their withered carcasses crunching under the feet of children hurrying home from school, children racing to beat the fall of night. Children