I stayed here in the Econoline after my last entry earlier today, reading my Bible and trying to figure out my next move, had cold chili for dinner. Shortly after dark, as I was about to settle down to sleep, Czarnecki came out of the cabin mushmouth drunk.

“There’s something else I need to show you,” he said.

I got out of the van reluctantly and followed him to his pickup. He climbed into the camper, undid the locks on the crate, and opened it. The kid had been chained inside since last night and looked like hell. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his bones would’ve torn his thin skin if he’d moved too quickly. Czarnecki backed out of the camper and stood beside me.

“Come on,” he snapped at the kid.

“I need—” the kid began.

“I know what you fucking need.”

The kid lifted himself slowly out of the crate. He took a second to reset his balance, then stepped onto the bumper and down to the ground.

Czarnecki had his .45 in his hand. “The shed,” he said.

The kid staggered to his prison, walked inside, and yanked the string to turn on the bulb. The light it threw was the color of a flophouse bedsheet. The kid sat on the cot and fastened his ankle chain to the bolt in the floor. Czarnecki passed the .45 to me.

“If he tries anything, put a bullet between his eyes,” he said.

I qualified for a marksmanship badge in the Army, but that was twenty years ago. I was as likely to hit him as the kid if I had to shoot.

He drew a hunting knife from a sheath on his belt. Grabbing a bottle of rubbing alcohol off a shelf, he doused the blade and pulled up the sleeve of his coveralls. The inside of his forearm bore a series of short crosswise scars, twenty or so, some old, some freshly healed. They followed the arm’s main vein from elbow to wrist. He laid the blade on a patch of unmarred skin and sliced into it. Blood dribbled from the cut. Stepping to the kid, he held out the arm. The kid grabbed it and pressed his mouth to the wound.

“You have to give him a little every now and then to keep him going,” Czarnecki said. “He’ll tell you he needs it once a month, but I make him go two. Doesn’t matter to me how lousy he gets to feeling. I want him weak.”

“How long has this been going on?” I said.

“I trapped him in ’67, so nine years or so. Me and Mr. Otto had a couple others, but he’s lasted longest.”