Chapter 1

Rednecks are people too, believe it or not. They have lives to lead, people to see, and places to go. No one would accuse a real redneck of being a member of polite society, and if they did, the redneck in question would probably knock them on their ass.

Rednecks don't call road assistance when they get a flat tire. They change their own damned flat and save the money to spend on fish bait, shotgun shells, or food - like biscuits and gravy or neck bones and turnip greens. Rednecks don't have much use for Tanqueray and tonic. They believe in natural food, like the corn squeezins from a Mason jar.

And I was one, born and raised. There were two ways to look at things at this late date. Life had used me hard or I'd used it hard; either way, we'd 'bout used each other up. That black wart that'd come up on my back started growin' faster and I finally made myself see a doctor. After just a glance he sent me off to another'n in a big hospital. After I got there the shit hit the fan.

I'd heard tales afore 'bout the way they treated a body in those fancy places, but t'wern't that'a way for me. Every one I met was nice as pie, but by now I was pretty sure why. Hell, I was dyin' - they knew it and I was catchin' on fast. When the doctor came in after a few days, for a little talk, he didn't tell me nothin' I hadn't figured out already.

That black wart was a cancer, malignant melanoma is what he named it. He told me it'd metastasized and then told me what that meant when I asked. He said it was in my lungs now. They were going to give me some chemotherapy if I wanted it, and he said it might fix things and it might not, but it was my choice to try.

"I ain't got much money Doctor. How much will it all cost?"

"Don't worry about the money Bobby Ray. It won't cost you a thing. If it helps you and you get well you can just make a donation someday," he said, but I could tell he wasn't expecting to ever get it. He was trying to be nice here at my end, and I preciated it.

"Would you like to talk to a preacher?" he asked.

"No thank you, Doctor. See, preachers always want their money up front."

Later, when they told me more about chemotherapy, I had a hard time understanding at first. Finally, it came to me they were going to poison me. They intended to give me enough poison to kill the cancer and hold the dose low enough that it wouldn't kill me too. I guess they gave me a little too much right at the last, cause I could tell I was a goner, and I didn't even have enough breath left to thank them for trying. Funny though, everything stopped hurtin' at the end and I felt better dyin' right now than I had for the last few months of slippin' away slowly.

Nobody could have been more surprised than me when dawn woke me up. The big hospital and all the machines I'd been hooked to were gone. I couldn't even hear the pumping noise anymore - the one from that machine that had been helping my heart work. I could hear birds singing though, and I figured somebody else had made a mistake too.

I didn't smell any smoke so I couldn't be in hell, and from what I'd been told, the only other place I could be now was heaven. That was sure as hell a mistake if even one of the money grubbing preachers I'd ever listened to had known what he was talking about. It shouldn't have been such a surprise to me though - I'd always thought they were full of shit.

My next clear thought was about being naked. I was out in some fairly dense woods somewhere and I didn't have a stitch on. As a matter of fact I didn't have a damned thing. There was plenty to see around me, but to me it all fell into the category of woods.

Being out in the woods wasn't a novelty; I'd spent a whole lot of my life in the woods and as far as that goes I felt right at home. In fact, I felt better than anytime I could remember back to. I did need to take a piss so I walked to a tree and marked it as if I's a dog or something. Had to since I couldn't see a privy anywhere 'round here. And that was another new thing; I didn't have a bit of trouble pissing. It came out as easy as you please. That hadn't been happening for the last three or four years.

Shit, last three or four years my ass. I hadn't had a good strong piss like that since back when I was in my late thirties. It was plain the Doctors hadn't been able to cure my cancer, but something they'd done had sure fixed up my pissing equipment. It was working good as new.

That wasn't all that was working just fine now either. My stomach let me know it was open for business again. I was hungry as a bitch wolf suckin' nine pups and I knew any type of something to eat would go real good, and the sooner the better. On the other hand I was naked and didn't have one damned thing to get any food with. My next move was looking for some good chunkin' rocks. If I ate any thing soon I'd have to rock it to death.

Now I could throw a rock as good as the next man, and probably better than most. That didn't mean there was anything just standing around waiting for me to kill it. I'd have to hunt something up, and something small at that. Squirrels were my first thought, especially since most of the trees in this wood seemed to be hardwoods. I commenced walking slowly, keeping as quiet as I could and looking around for small rocks.

After finding four that seemed smooth enough to fly half way straight, I took a better look around. It wasn't much trouble to find an oak and since most of its acorns had already fallen I figured it must be on along in the fall here. That might signify later, but right now I headed toward the oak, doing my best to stay behind other trees and not make a peep while I was at it.

Even though I was hungry I didn't rush things. When I was within ten yards of the oak I'd spied I could hear a couple of squirrels fartin' around and gathering acorns. I slipped up closer and damned if I didn't stun a big fox squirrel with my first throw. I ran over and wrung his neck before he came to his senses, twisting its head around to kill it.

With meat in hand my job was only starting. I had to get its hide off and its guts out somehow. Believe me, it was a job with no pocketknife. No matter, I had teeth and fingernails and there was even a small brook flowing somewhere close. I could hear it.

Raw squirrel with most of the hair off might not sound so tasty to everyone, but believe me; I didn't have any complaints. The water in the brook helped wash everything down and it let me wash off most of the bloodstains after I'd eaten. I don't guess it would have mattered much if I had left the stains where they were, but I didn't feel right doing it. Besides, no smell carries better than the smell of something freshly killed, and I didn't need to be broadcasting a warning.

I needed to be moving on though. If it was late fall I was going to need a place to stay before long. I'd have to build some kind of hut or something and I damned sure needed some way to start a fire. I didn't have any hope of finding a match and I'd never believed you could get fire by rubbing two sticks together, no matter what those boy scouts said.

The main trouble was I didn't know a damned thing about these woods, or about anything here. If this was heaven I was at least glad I hadn't been put down in some city with streets of gold, but that didn't mean I liked running around naked either. Still and yet it was first things first. It wasn't cold out, exactly, but it wasn't hot either and I had a feeling it might cool down a little before the sun came up in the morning.

Even though I knew I needed to find a better place to den up, there was no way for me to make an educated guess about the direction I should take. I didn't know where I was and I didn't know where anything else was either. If I just took off walking I'd probably end up going around in circles. It only took a few minutes to figure out that the stream I'd washed off in would have to be my highway.