Without warning, Henry suddenly saw a vision of Glenn Morehouse fighting for his life in his sickbed, struggling against friends who saw him as a traitor. He knew he was going to die, Henry thought. He knew talking to me would cost him his life, and he still did it. Henry closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for the murderer who’d chosen him as confessor. When his cell phone rang, it took a few seconds to register that it was his, not Sherry’s. He didn’t recognize the number, and he almost decided not to answer. But in the end, he did.

“Henry Sexton,” he said, holding his breath.

First he heard only staticky silence. Then a voice he placed as belonging to a rural man of African-American descent began to speak. He hardly met men who talked this way anymore.

“Yassir. I heard you lookin’ fuh dat tree wha all dem boys died at.”

Henry’s belly clenched. Unlike so many would-be tipsters before, this caller was the real thing. “Where did you hear that?”

“Man I know told me tha might be some money in it, if a body could show you that awful place.”

“That’s right.”

“How much you payin’, suh?”

Henry’s personal finances were modest, and always stretched to the limit. He was willing to pay up to five hundred dollars, but he didn’t want to pay more than he had to. “How much do you want?”

“A thousand dollah. Cash money.”

Henry felt a cold sweat break out on his face. A thousand dollars? Most black folks he knew around Ferriday would do a hard month’s work for that sum.

“That’s a lot of money. How can I be sure you know what you claim to know?”

“I guess you can’t. But I knows everything they is to know ’bout that ol’ swamp, and that be my price. I’s liable to need some luck just to live to spend it.”

Henry couldn’t argue with this logic. He was trying to think of a way to bargain with the man when it struck him that Penn Cage would probably be glad to subsidize the discovery of the Bone Tree. And Penn wouldn’t hesitate to pay that sum. “All right,” Henry said in a voice just above a whisper. “One thousand dollars, cash. But not a dollar more.”

“Aiite, den. When you wants to go?”

“When can you take me?”

“Not till Wendsy, mebbe T’ursy. I call you back in a day or two.”

“That’s fine. Could I ask what you do for a living?”

Low, rich laughter came down the line. “I helps people find game when it be’s scarce. Mebbe take a little out o’ season, sometimes, you know.”

A poacher, Henry thought. A poacher might well know the secret paths of the Lusahatcha Swamp. “Will you tell me your name?”

“Toby,” said the poacher.