Carved in Bone

surrounded on all sides by kudzu, a vine that is notorious in the South for engulfing trees, barns, broken-down vehicles, and—I’d heard it sworn to be true—even the occasional napping cow. At one edge of the clearing stood a weathered farmhouse, its sides and front porch fringed with vines. More of the ropy tendrils were already creeping onto the roof at the back of the house and spiraling up the mast of a small satellite dish. As I followed Waylon up the steps, he kicked at the vines snaking around the base of the porch. “Damn stuff grows two foot a day in the summer,” Waylon said. “Turn your back on this house for a week, and it’d be gone. You’d never find it again.”
    The side of Waylon’s fist tapped the door frame twice, and the house shuddered. “Boss? We’re here,” he called through the screen door into a dark room beyond.
    “Thank you, Waylon. How about keeping an eye on things to make sure we’re not disturbed?”
    “Yessir.” With a swiftness and stealth that belied his size, Waylon slipped off one end of the porch and melted into the kudzu vines hanging from what had once been trees at the edge of the clearing.
    The screen door screeched open, and a man stepped onto the silver-gray boards of the porch. “Dr. Brockton, I’m Jim O’Conner. Thank you for coming. I apologize for sending Waylon to shanghai you that way.”
    I felt an almost electric jolt go through my body. My captor stood perhaps five-five in his cowboy boots; if he didn’t take them off to weigh, he might tip the scales at one-forty. If I’d seen him up in horse country, I’d have taken him for a jockey. “You’re Big Jim?”
    He smiled, a touch ruefully. “ ’Fraid so. It started out as a joke, when I was a kid,” he said. “Seems to have stuck.”
    But the name somehow seemed to fit. The small man positively radiated authority and power, from his piercing blue eyes to his whipcord forearms and springy legs. It wasn’t the sort of brutish, aggressive force wielded by bullies and cowards; it was the quiet, confident strength of a man sure of who he was and what he could do under almost any circumstances.
    “By the way, I’ve read about a lot of your forensic cases. It’s quite an honor to meet you, sir.” He held out a sinewy hand. Out of years of reflex, I took it, but I cocked my head and gave him a questioning, dubious look, the one I use on students I suspect of some sort of fraud. He met my gaze openly, like a man with nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of, and his grip tightened briefly. Then he nodded slightly, smiled faintly, and let go.
    “Please, have a seat. I’ll tell you why I needed to see you.” He motioned to a pair of oak rockers on the porch, and planted himself in the farther one. I sat, stiffly at first, then found myself rocking in time with O’Conner’s slow arcs.
    “Cooke County’s a funny place, Doc. The most fearless, loyal people you’ll ever meet—and the meanest, orneriest sons of bitches on the face of the earth. Being an educated man, you probably know that back during the Civil War—the ‘War of Northrun Aggression,’ as some of my South Carolina kinfolks persist in calling it—Cooke County stayed loyal to the Union.” I nodded, wondering where he was going with this. He continued rocking and talking. “The citizens of Cooke County actually tried to secede from the state of Tennessee. We always got by without slaves, figured other folks could, too. Couldn’t see dying for some rich Memphis cotton kings. At one point, a band of Confederate vigilantes came in to teach us a lesson. Never came out again.”
    He paused to watch a hawk circling above the valley floor. I took advantage of the opening. “I’m not sure I quite take your point.”
    “Not sure I do, either. Guess I haven’t quite stumbled onto it yet. Please forgive me for rambling.” He was an oddly courteous kidnapper. “I parted company with the law a long time ago, Dr. Brockton. I won’t go into all the reasons; all I’ll say is that it was my family that first stood against the Confederacy. That, and it’s damned hard to make a law-abiding living in these mountains.” I thought I detected something like sadness in his voice and his eyes. “But there’s certain lines I’ve never crossed. One of them is murder. I killed when I was a soldier in Vietnam. After I got home, I swore I’d never do it again. It hasn’t always been easy up here, but I’ve kept that vow for over