South of Barbourville Raylan turned off the four-lane and cut east to follow blacktops and gravel roads without names or numbers through these worn-out mountains of Knox County, the tops of the grades scalped, strip-mined of coal to leave waste heaps, the creeks down in the hollows tainted with mine acid. Raylan followed Stinking Creek to the fork where Buckeye came in and there it was, up past the cemetery, Crowe’s grocery store, the name displayed in a Coca-Cola sign over the door, CROWE’S GROCERIES amp; FEED.

He let Angel’s BMW roll past the screen door standing open and came to a stop. He’d had the car washed in Somerset and wore a dark suit and tie for this visit, wanting Mr. Crowe to make a judgment about him. In its piece about Stinking Creek, Newsweek called Pervis “Speed” Crowe the top marijuana grower in East Kentucky. Crowe said in the magazine, “Prove it. I run a store for these poor people come up from the hollers with their food stamps. When’s anybody seen me cultivatin herb?”

There he was behind the counter by an old-style scale he used to weigh potatoes, cuts of fatback, the shelves behind him showing sacks of flour and cornmeal. Eggs ten cents apiece reduced to four bits the dozen.

All these stores looked the same to Raylan, the same people coming in to buy necessities, then taking forever to spend ninety-nine cents on an angel food cake, some candy and Kool-Aid for their kids waiting, not saying a word.