Lincoln’s big forearm relaxes, and Snake slides just far enough down the tree for his feet to touch the ground. The old man coughs, then desperately sucks for air. When the oxygen hits his bloodstream, his eyes open, and I see life in them, awareness even. An instant after Lincoln sees the same thing, he pulls Snake away from the tree, then slams him back against it. The light in the old eyes goes dark, and Snake’s body slides down the tree as if it has no bones in it.

“Get the woman,” Lincoln says.

While Lincoln whips off his belt and ties Snake’s hands, I go to Wilma Deen, who’s lying on the ground, gripping her throat and staring at the sky with horror in her eyes. She’s still breathing, but she’s lost a good bit of blood. In this light it’s not worth pulling her hands away to try to gauge the severity of the wound. We’re twenty-five miles from Natchez by boat, but at least she stands a chance with us.

The truck door opens, and when I turn, I see Lincoln stuffing Snake onto the floor of the backseat.

“Dome light!” I hiss. “Goddamn it, they’ll see it!”

“Get your ass in here!”

Taking Wilma by the feet, I drag her to the Harvester, where Lincoln helps me lift her into the passenger seat.

“Why not the backseat?” I ask, my eyes on the headlights back on the town road.

“Somebody’s gonna have to keep pressure on that neck if she passes out. And somebody’s gonna have to shoot to keep them off us. You want to drive or shoot?”

“I’d better drive.”

“You know where the river is?”

“It’s a straight shot west, right? Two miles?”

“Yeah. But it ain’t much of a road.”

“I’ll find it. Let’s go.”

We close the doors with a creak of rusty hinges, but my heart sinks when I crank the truck. There’s nothing to be done about the noise.

“It’s a standard shift,” I think aloud, stepping on the clutch and throwing the truck into first gear.

“The river road’s about a hundred yards that way,” Lincoln says, pointing out to my left with his gun hand. “If you go out to the main road, they’ll see us. You’ve got to drive through these trees.”

There’s a moon out, but not enough to drive through trees at any speed. As we roll forward, man-thick trunks loom out of the darkness every few yards, sometimes in pairs. About seven miles an hour is all I can risk. Glancing to my right, I see that Wilma has braced herself against the passenger door. She’s got both hands clenched to her neck, and her face is the color of skim milk.