I overheard snatches of conversation, and much of it was commentary on why it was a lucky thing that so and so had won the lottery this year. Someone mentioned the fact that poor Pete Hesiant’s beautiful young wife, Lonette, had passed away from leukemia just at the end of the spring, and another mentioned that Moses had always wanted a shot at the Night Whiskey but had never gotten the chance, and how he’d soon be too old to participate as his arthritis had recently given him the devil of a time. Everybody was pulling for Berta Hull, who was raising those five children on her own, and Becca was a favorite because she was the town midwife. The same such stuff was said about Ron White and Stan Joss.

  In addition to the well-wishes for the lottery winners, I stood for a long time next to a table where Sheriff Jolle, my father and mother, and Dr. Kvench sat and listened to the doctor, a spry little man with a gray goatee, who was by then fairly well along in his cups, as were his listeners, myself included, spout his theory as to why the drinkers took to the trees. He explained it, amidst a barrage of hiccups, as a product of evolution. His theory was that the deathberry plant had at one time grown everywhere on earth, and that early man partook of some form of the Night Whiskey at the dawn of time. Because the world was teeming with night predators then, and because early man was just recently descended from the tree tops, those who became drunk automatically knew, as a means of self-preservation, to climb up into the trees and sleep so as not to become a repast for a saber-toothed tiger or some other onerous creature.

  Dr. Kvench, citing Carl Jung, believed that the imperative to get off the ground after drinking the Night Whiskey had remained in the collective unconscious and was passed down through the ages. “Everybody in the world probably still has the unconscious command that would kick in if they were to drink the dark stuff, but since the berry doesn’t grow anywhere but here now, we’re the only ones that see this effect.” The doctor nodded, hiccupped twice, and then got up to fetch a glass of water. When he left the table Jolle looked over at my mother, and she and he and my father broke up laughing. “I’m glad he’s better at pushing pills than concocting theories,” said the Sheriff, drying his eyes with his thumbs.

  At about midnight, I was reaching for yet another beer, which Reed had placed on the bar, when my grasp was interrupted by a vise-like grip on my wrist. I looked up and saw that it was Witzer. He said nothing to me but simply shook his head, and I knew he was telling me to lay off so as to be fresh for the harvest in the morning. I nodded. He smiled, patted my shoulder, and turned away. Somewhere around 2:00 A.M., the lottery winners, so incredibly drunk that even in my intoxicated state it seemed impossible they could still walk, stopped dancing, drinking, whatever, and headed for the door. The music abruptly ceased. It suddenly became so silent we could hear the wind blowing out on the street. The sounds of them stumbling across the wooden porch of the bar and then the steps creaking, the screen door banging shut, filled me with a sense of awe and visions of them groping through the night. I tried to picture Berta Hull climbing a tree, but I just couldn’t get there, and the doctor’s theory seemed to make some sense to me.

  I left before my parents did. Witzer drove me home and before I got out of the cab, he handed me a small bottle.

  “Take three good chugs,” he said.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “An herb mix,” he said. “It’ll clear your head and have you ready for the morning.”

  I took the first sip of it and the taste was bitter as could be. “Good God,” I said, grimacing.

  Witzer wheezed. “Two more,” he said.

  I did as I was told, got out of the truck and bid him goodnight. I didn’t remember undressing or getting into bed, and luckily, I was too drunk to dream. It seemed as if I’d only closed my eyes when my father’s voice woke me, saying, “The old man’s out in the truck, waiting on you.” I leaped out of bed and dressed, and when I finally knew what was going on, I was surprised I felt as well and refreshed as I did. “Do good, Ernest,” said my father from the kitchen. “Wait,” my mother called. A moment later she came out of their bedroom, wrapping a robe around her. She gave me a hug and a kiss, and then said, “Hurry.” It was brisk outside, and the early morning light gave proof that the day would be a clear one. The truck sat at the curb, the prods strapped to the top. Witzer sat in the cab, drinking a cup of coffee from the delicatessen. When I got in beside him, he handed me a cup and an egg sandwich on a hard roll wrapped in white paper. “We’re off,” he said. I cleared the sleep out of my eyes as he pulled away from the curb.

  Our journey took us down the main street of town and then through the alley next to the Sheriff’s office. This gave way to another small tree-lined street we turned right on. As we headed away from the center of town, we passed Darlene’s house, and I wondered what she’d done the previous night while I’d been at the celebration. I had a memory of the last time we were together. She was sitting naked against the wall of the abandoned barn by the edge of the swamp. Her blonde hair and face were aglow, illuminated by a beam of light that shone through a hole in the roof. She had the longest legs and her skin was pale and smooth. Taking a drag from her cigarette, she said, “Ernest, we gotta get out this town.” She’d laid out for me her plan of escape, her desire to go to some city where civilization was in full swing. I just nodded, reluctant to be too enthusiastic. She was adventurous and I was a homebody, but I did care deeply for her. She tossed her cigarette, put out her arms and opened her legs, and then Witzer said, “Keep your eyes peeled now, boy,” and her image melted away.

  We were moving slowly along a dirt road, both of us looking up at the lower branches of the trees. The old man saw the first one. I didn’t see her till he applied the brakes. He took a little notebook and stub of a pencil out of his shirt pocket. “Samantha Bocean,” he whispered and put a check next to her name. We got out of the cab, and I helped him unlatch the prods and lay them on the ground beside the truck. She was resting across three branches in a magnolia tree, not too far from the ground. One arm and her long gray hair hung down, and she was turned so I could see her sleeping face.

  “Get the ten,” said Witzer, as he walked over to stand directly beneath her.

  I did as I was told and then joined him.

  “What d’ya say?” he asked. “Looks like this one’s gonna be a peach.”

  “Well, I’m thinking if I get it on her left thigh and push her forward fast enough she’ll flip as she falls and land perfectly.”

  Witzer said nothing but left me standing there and went and got in the truck. He started it up and drove it around to park so that the bed was precisely where we hoped she would land. He put it in park and left it running, and then got out and came and stood beside me. “Take a few deep breaths,” he said. “And then let her fly.”

  I thought I’d be more nervous, but the training the old man had given me took hold and I knew exactly what to do. I aimed the prod and rested it gently on the top of her leg. Just as he’d told me, a real body was going to offer a little more resistance than one of the dummies, and I was ready for that. I took three big breaths and then shoved. She rolled slightly, and then tumbled forward, ass over head, landing with a thump on the mattresses, facing the morning sky. Witzer wheezed to beat the band, and said, “That’s a solid ten.” I was ecstatic.

  The old man broke a twig next to Samantha’s left ear and instantly her eyelids fluttered. Eventually she opened her eyes and smiled.

  “How was your visit?” asked Witzer.

  “I’ll never get tired of that,” she said. “It was wonderful.”

  We chatted with her for a few minutes, filling her in on how the party had gone at The Blind Ghost after she’d left. She didn’t divulge to us what passed relative she’d met with, and we didn’t ask. As my mentor had told me when I started, “There’s a kind of etiquette to this. When in doubt, Silence is your best friend.”

  Samantha started walking back toward the center of town, and we loaded the prods onto the truck again. In no time, we were on our way, searching for the next sleeper. Luck was with us, for we found four in a row, fairly close by each other, Stan Joss, Moses T. Remarque, Berta Hull, and Becca Staney. All of them had chosen easy to get to perches in the lower branches of ancient oaks, and we dropped them, one, two, three, four, easy as could be. I never had to reach for anything longer than the 10, and the old man proved a genius at placing the truck just so. When each came around at the insistence of the snapping twig, they were cordial and seemed pleased with their experience. Moses even gave us a ten dollar tip for dropping him into the truck. Becca told us that she’d spoken to her mother, whom she’d missed terribly since the woman’s death two years earlier. Even though they’d been blind drunk the night before, amazingly none of them appeared to be hungover, and each walked away with a perceptible spring in his or her step, even Moses, though he was still slightly bent at the waist by the arthritis.

  Witzer said, “Knock on wood, of course, but this is the easiest year I can remember. The year your Daddy won, we had to ride around for four solid hours before we found him out by the swamp.” We found Ron White only a short piece up the road from where we’d found the cluster of four, and he was an easy job. I didn’t get him to land on his back. He fell face first, not a desirable drop, but he came to none the worse for wear. After Ron, we had to ride for quite a while, heading out toward the edge of the swamp. I knew the only two left were Pete Hesiant and Henry Grass, and the thought of Henry started to get me nervous again. I was reluctant to show my fear, not wanting the old man to lose faith in me, but as we drove slowly along, I finally told Witzer about my recurring dream.

  When I was done recounting what I thought was a premonition, Witzer sat in silence for a few moments and then said, “I’m glad you told me.”

  “I’ll bet it’s really nothing,” I said.

  “Henry’s a big fellow,” he said. “Why should you have all the fun. I’ll drop him.” And with this, the matter was settled. I realized I should have told him weeks ago when I first started having the dreams.

  “Easy, boy,” said Witzer with a wheeze and waved his hand as if wiping away my cares. “You’ve got years of this to go. You can’t manage everything on the first harvest.”

  We searched everywhere for Pete and Henry—all along the road to the swamp, on the trails that ran through the woods, out along the meadow by the shot tower and Henry’s own trailer. With the dilapidated wooden structure of the tower still in sight, we finally found Henry.

  “Thar she blows,” said Witzer, and he stopped the truck.

  “Where?” I said, getting out of the truck, and the old man pointed straight up.

  Over our heads, in a tall pine, Henry lay face down, his arms and legs spread so that they kept him up while the rest of his body was suspended over nothing. His head hung down as if in shame or utter defeat. He looked in a way like he was crucified, and I didn’t like the look of that at all.

  “Get me the 20,” said Witzer, “and then pull the truck up.”

  I undid the prods from the roof, laid the other two on the ground by the side of the path, and ran the 20 over to the old man. By the time I went back to the truck, got it going, and turned it toward the drop spot, Witzer had the long pole in two hands and was sizing up the situation. As I pulled closer, he let the pole down and then waved me forward while eyeing back and forth, Henry and then the bed. He directed me to cut the wheel this way and that, reverse two feet, and then he gave me the thumbs up. I turned off the truck and got out.

  “OK,” he said. “This is gonna be a tricky one.” He lifted the prod up and up and rested the soft end against Henry’s chest. “You’re gonna have to help me here. We’re gonna push straight up on his chest so that his arms flop down and clear the branches, and then as we let him down we’re gonna slide the pole, catch him at the belt buckle and give him a good nudge there to flip him as he falls.”

  I looked up at where Henry was, and then I just stared at Witzer.

  “Wake up, boy!” he shouted.

  I came to and grabbed the prod where his hands weren’t.

  “On three,” he said. He counted off and then we pushed. Henry was heavy as ten sacks of rocks. “We got him,” cried Witzer, “now slide it.” I did and only then did I look up. “Push,” the old man said. We gave it one more shove and Henry went into a swan dive, flipping like an Olympic athlete off the high board. When I saw him in mid-fall, my knees went weak and the air left me. He landed on his back with a loud thud directly in the middle of the mattresses, dust from the old cushions roiling up around him.

  We woke Henry easily enough, sent him on his way to town, and were back in the truck. For the first time that morning I breathed a sigh of relief. “Easiest harvest I’ve ever been part of,” said Witzer. We headed further down the path toward the swamp, scanning the branches for Pete Hesiant. Sure enough, in the same right manner with which everything else had fallen into place we found him curled up on his side in the branches of an enormous maple tree. With the first cursory glance at him, the old man determined that Pete would require no more than a 10. After we got the prods off the truck and positioned it under our last drop, Witzer insisted that I take him down. “One more to keep your skill up through the rest of the year,” he said.

  It was a simple job. Pete had found a nice perch with three thick branches beneath him. As I said, he was curled up on his side, and I couldn’t see him all too well, so I just nudged his upper back and he rolled over like a small boulder. The drop was precise, and he hit the center of the mattresses, but the instant he was in the bed of the pickup, I knew something was wrong. He’d fallen too quickly for me to register it sooner, but as he lay there, I now noticed that there was someone else with him. Witzer literally jumped to the side of the truck bed and stared in.

  “What in fuck’s name,” said the old man. “Is that a kid he’s got with him?”

  I saw the other body there, naked, in Pete’s arms. There was long blonde hair, that much was sure. It could have been a kid, but I thought I saw in the jumble, a full-size female breast.

  Witzer reached into the truck bed, grabbed Pete by the shoulder and rolled him away from the other form. Then the two of us stood there in stunned silence. The thing that lay there wasn’t a woman or a child but both and neither. The body was twisted and deformed, the size of an eight-year-old but with all the characteristics of maturity, if you know what I mean. And that face...lumpen and distorted, brow bulging and from the left temple to the chin erupted in a range of discolored ridges.

  “Is that Lonette?” I whispered, afraid the thing would awaken.

  “She’s dead, ain’t she?” said Witzer in as low a voice, and his Adam’s apple bobbed.

  We both knew she was, but there she or some twisted copy of her lay. The old man took a handkerchief from his back pocket and brought it up to his mouth. He closed his eyes and leaned against the side of the truck. A bird flew by low overhead. The sun shone and leaves fell in the woods on both sides of the path.

  Needless to say, when we moved again, we weren’t breaking any twigs. Witzer told me to leave the prods and get in the truck. He started it up, and we drove slowly, like about fifteen miles an hour, into the center of town. We drove in complete silence. The place was quiet as a ghost town, no doubt everyone sleeping off the celebration, but we saw that Sheriff Jolle’s cruiser was in front of the bunker-like concrete building that was the police station. The old man parked and went in. As he and the sheriff appeared at the door, I got out of the truck cab and joined them.

  “What are you talking about?” Jolle said as they passed me and headed for the truck bed. I followed behind them.

  “Shhh,” said Witzer. When they finally were looking down at the sleeping couple, Pete and whatever that Lonette thing was, he added, “That’s what I’m fucking talking about.” He pointed his crooked old finger and his hand was obviously trembling.

  Jolle’s jaw dropped open after the second or two it took to sink in. “I never...,” said the Sheriff, and that’s all he said for a long while.

  Witzer whispered, “Pete brought her back with him.”

  “What kind of crazy shit is this?” asked Jolle and he turned quickly and looked at me as if I had an answer. Then he looked back at Witzer. “What the hell happened? Did he dig her up?”

  “She’s alive,” said the old man. “You can see her breathing, but she got bunched up or something in the transfer from there to here.”

  “Bunched up,” said Jolle. “There to here? What in Christ’s name...” He shook his head and removed his shades. Then he turned to me again and said, “Boy, go get Doc Kvench.”

  In calling the doctor, I didn’t know what to tell him, so I just said there was an emergency over at the Sheriff’s office and that he was needed. I didn’t stick around and wait for him, because I had to keep moving. To stop would mean I’d have to think too deeply about the return of Lonette Hesiant. By the time I got back to the truck, Henry Grass had also joined Jolle and Witzer, having walked into town to get something to eat after his dream ordeal of the night before. As I drew close to them, I heard Henry saying, “She’s come from another dimension. I’ve read about things like this. And from what I experienced last night, talking to my dead brother, I can tell you that place seems real enough for this to happen.”

  Jolle looked away from Henry at me as I approached, and then his gaze shifted over my head and he must have caught sight of the doctor. “God job,” said the Sheriff and put his hand on my shoulder as I leaned forward to catch my breath.