He worked the bottom edge of the pole into one side of the wooden wall and started to lever. He felt the nails in the frame start to give a bit. He probed at another spot and pushed his weight against the pole, his feet slipping and sliding with the effort. Twenty minutes and much sweat later, the top right edge of the wooden wall gave way and a big shaft of light lit the mine. Encouraged by this breakthrough, Stone really put his shoulder to the effort and only another twenty minutes passed before he was able to force the board enough away from the frame to squeeze out and fall on his back in the dirt.

Free.

He let out a deep, relieved breath. Then, blinking rapidly, he looked around to see if he recognized where he might be. He didn’t. There was a dirt road here that was actually colored black. It took him a moment to realize why. Years of coal trucks carrying the stuff away. Their tires had ground the black dust and bits of rock into the red clay and the black had won out. He looked down at his clothes. The black had won out on him too. He brushed himself off and walked down the road, keeping alert in case whoever had sucker-punched him was still watching to see if he escaped the snake party.

A mile later he cleared the trees and turned onto a gravel street. As soon as the stuff crunched under his feet something occurred to him and he put his hand in his jacket pocket. The empty bottle of Tylenol was gone. Great. His skull felt like it was cracked, and now he’d lost the only real clue he’d found in pounding the increasingly dangerous streets of Divine.

He hitched a ride on a truck to Rita’s and went in through the back but found out that Abby wasn’t there. Then he called her house from the restaurant but there was no answer. He ran to Willie’s trailer, grabbed his truck, drove pell-mell to Midsummer’s Farm and caught her as she was walking out to her car.

When she saw him she said, “What the hell happened to you?”

When he told her, she simply stared at him. “Oh my God, Ben,” she finally managed to stammer. “What is going on?”

“Have you talked to Danny?”

“Just a bit ago. I was just now going to see him.”

“I tried calling you from Rita’s.”

“I thought I heard the phone ringing, but I was drying my hair. What are you going to do?”

Stone thought about that. What was he going to do? “I’m going to see Trimble. And then I’m going to hook up with Tyree to see what he found out.” He took her by the arm. “Abby, I want you to be careful. I know you have the shotgun. How about a pistol?”