Cover

Dedication

I’d like to dedicate this book to the people of Alabama because it is about them. I hereby submit this work to the gnarled Alabama family tree, which I find myself a part of.

Book I

One
Hollering

Paul Foldger listened to Louisville bark. The dog’s black-and-tan fur dripped with water that had turned her hair curly. The dog had been swimming in Rabbit Creek all morning. She loved to swim. Louisville was old, lean, all ears, long jowls, with some white around her snout.

The old girl howled for all she was worth, staring straight into the woods that sat behind the creek, which forked into Mobile Bay. She was a tracking dog. The most obedient dog Paul had ever trained. If Paul would’ve told the dog to build a ten-foot-tall sandcastle, Louisville would’ve gone hunting for a shovel and bucket.

The morning air had an oyster taste to it. Not like a fresh oyster—more like a horrible canned oyster, the kind Paul’s father ate. The air surrounding the bay always had that sort of taste. It was a smell that could gag a goat. A smell that only got worse when the weather got hot and the wind died. A day like today.

Louisville heard something. So did Paul. A high-pitched shriek cut the air. They listened to the screams together. Man and dog. Paul knew what Louisville was thinking. She wanted Paul to send her into the woods. But Paul was in no mood for tracking.

“Ain’t nothing serious, Louise,” said Paul. “Just simmer down.”

They stood on a shore littered with brown seaweed where the creek began and the bay ended. The sand near the water’s edge was so soft a man’s boots could sink halfway into the earth. Paul was up to his ankles in it.

He looked toward the bay, across the gray water, at the yellow grass that stretched sideways next to the great Mobile Bay. The morning sun was strong enough to fry your skin. Paul’s pale face was freckled and ruined from a lifetime in this sunlight. He’d been a redhead long ago, before his hair turned white and the sun made his skin look like it was covered in buckshot.

Louisville barked. Though it was really more of a baying. Louisville was like most bloodhounds, she didn’t bark. It was beneath her. Instead, she used her low voice, and it carried across the water, only to be interrupted by cicadas and crickets. The morning insect sounds were coming from all directions in swells. Loud, then soft. Loud. Soft. A man could get hypnotized if he closed his eyes.

“Quit it, Louise,” said Paul. “Ain’t got time for your yapping.”

But Paul knew Louisville was never wrong. Paul was listening with his eyes closed and letting the sounds of the world swirl around him.