“Right there’s your sleeping quarters. Just move my pelts onto that old table. You might want to shake the covers off a bit before you rest. I’ll leave this here flashlight with you so you can see to move around. If you gotta go, don’t be doing your business in my cellar. You go back out into the bushes for that.”

And with that, she started up the stairs.

“Hey, lady! I don’t even know your name.”

“And I don’t know yours, so let’s keep it that way,” she said, and shut the door between them.

Hoover heard her turn a lock and then shuddered. He didn’t want to go back to prison, but this place was as close to a hellhole as he’d ever been in.

He clutched the flashlight in one hand and began moving the piles of pelts with the other, then set the cot on end to shake out the rags on the bed. When he glanced up to where the light was shining, he saw a huge snake curled up on a shelf.

“Oh, hell no,” he cried. He dropped the flashlight and ran up the steps and out into the woods without looking back.

Chapter 14

The search was in full swing up in the hills. Despite the run Hoover had made through the water and the random application of deer urine the old woman had left on the trail, the dogs eventually tracked the scent straight up to her house.

The sun was setting, the air already turning cooler as the searchers came out of the tree line into the clearing surrounding the house. There was a light shining through one window.

Someone was home.

And someone was in the cellar, because the dogs were at the outer door, baying and scratching. Their handlers were holding them back, waiting for orders from the police, when the old woman came out onto her porch with a shotgun.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked. “Somebody shut up them dogs. I can’t hear myself think.”

The dogs were called off as a trio of officers approached.

“That’s far enough until you tell me what you’re doing on my property,” she said.

They quickly produced badges as one of them took the lead.

“Detective Inman, Georgia State Police. Ma’am, what’s your name?”

“Tansy Runyan. Now I’m going to ask you again. What are you doing on my property?”

“We’re chasing an escaped prisoner, and our dogs tracked his scent to your cellar,” Inman said.

Tansy gasped. “Oh laws! You mean that man is down there?”

“I don’t know, but we need to search your house and the cellar,” he said.

“Yes, yes, come right this way,” she said, and started back into the house, while several of the officers started to go into the cellar from the outside.

“Wait!” Tansy yelled. “Wait! Larry’s down there, and I don’t want nobody scaring or hurting him in any way.”

“Who’s Larry?”

“Just a big old black snake. Best mouser I ever had. Let me go down from inside to make sure y’all don’t hurt him.”