Strip mining’s done left everything raw and exposed, slag scabs and stitches in the hollers. Years back a slurry spill sent a whole mess of arsenic and mercury right into Coldwater Fork and damn near flooded Lower Wolf too.

Damn near poisoned everything, but folks picked up and moved on as they do.

Eastern Kentucky bears such trials and tribulations proudly, wears her scars openly, the way Little Paris shows off all his ink: colorful tats up and down his body that Daddy hates something fierce, so he gets more of ’em, just to piss the Old Man off.

To remind him he ain’t Danny and never will be.

Any day of the week Little Paris can run into a third-generation miner grabbing a cold one at the Crow Bar, men who know their way around a Caterpillar D11 or a Komatsu crawler dozer. Not his daddy, or even his daddy’s daddy before him, but his people all the same.

His land too . . . all cut up and forever bleeding and downright poisonous in some places.

When it rains hard, Lower Wolf’s colors come back to life.

These here surrounding hills run red and black like old blood.

—

Today’s gonna be a real corker later, hot as hell, and somewhere through them trees, tiny bugs are already dipping and dancing off the Coldwater.

Bugs like the ones working away on this dead Mexican.

Little Paris scratches at his naked torso, his latest ink still itching him something fierce, a wolf’s head all shot up with arrows.

Now he says, “Seems to me Danny’s got no say in it, so you better be cleanin’ this up. Today.”

And Jamie nods through pale cigarette smoke. “Awright, coz. I got it. I said I got it.”

“Damn straight you do,” Little Paris answers, as he takes another pull from the bulb, setting them yellowjackets buzzing angrily again, before realizing it’s just his goddamn cellphone.

When he checks the message, he can’t help but smile to himself, ’cause this shitty morning just be shining up already.

Jamie eyes the phone. “You comin’ on up to the Big House? We still got rest of that shit to deal with.”

They need to step on the last bit of the Mexican’s H, make it last as long as possible, since they don’t know when they’re gonna get more in . . . a problem with Little Paris shooting the messenger the way he did. But it helps this batch is so damn strong, damn near killing folks left and right.

A little goes a long fucking way, but they always come back for more.

“Yeah,” Little Paris says. “But toss me some of that new stuff, I gotta run up the way for a short bit. Just a little errand.”