“No.” He coughed as he came to his knees, gripping the bumper of the white truck and tasting blood off his scalp. “No, Jim, thank you. I believe I’ll head back out now. Sorry I intruded. As I said, I’ll come back tomorrow.”

It seemed as if Golly hadn’t heard. He emitted a hiss. Tenderly the dog took Fanta’s entire hand in its mouth.

“Come cool off in the creek. Faith, get wine. Tippy, bring Mr. Fanta.”

Under a double umbrage of dusk and shade, as caterpillars gnawed the glowing canopy, Fanta drifted in and out of awareness, blood dribbling off his scalp and spreading pinkly through his wet shirt while he sat on the creek bottom in a cold, stony riffle.

“A man goes back to the land, Mr. Fanta, and the land attacks him. Our weary Mother makes an example of the fool. Makes a prophet of him. How’s that for an angle?”

Golly wallowed in a deeper pool, dammed by stacked cobble. There he soaked his gray skin flaps, his bloated hands. Splashing himself, he canted his skull to peer through the swelling murk of night.

“After twenty years of venison, my eyes are kaleidoscopes, Mr. Fanta, from the infected deer prions massed in my corneas. You, my friend, are carved into a dozen pretty pieces.”

He hummed and splashed himself some more.

“But it’s a gift. The gift of vision. This is how you write it up in your story, yes? The man was given a gift. He was chosen to see.”

“Sure. Yes.”

“Mother chose me. This is why I must live at all costs.”

“Yes, yes.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Of course not.”

“Nothing unjustified.”

“No.”

Fanta recalled Jim Golly’s recorded voice. Liar! This is what liars did. They accused others. Jim had lied to him years ago about the brothers’ background, while his quiet twin, Jon, had sat watchfully by.

“Jim… where is your brother?”

“Shall we stick to the story? Jim Golly was chosen to suffer, to see the truth, and to burn brightly for the world to see. How does that sound?”

Just then his silver-braided Faith appeared out of the dim forest understory, bearing along with her rifle and her dull frown two wooden cups and a tall green-glass bottle.

“Woman, you look hot.”

Obediently she stripped and stepped naked into the creek and from Jim Golly took a cracking slap on her flank. Randomly, it seemed, Fanta realized why the old white pickup was familiar.

That was Larry “Derp” Hubbard’s truck. He was sure of it. He knew Derp, a prolific trespasser and poacher, and an occasional performer over many years in the weekly sheriff’s report. Maybe it wasn’t much to look at, but the vintage International Harvester had great nostalgic value for him. He had made Derp an offer.

“Cheers,” Golly said, raising his cup.

Fanta complied, tasting elderberry wine with a mineral edge.