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then.
    “I’m Levi Goodeau.” He had a round, good-natured face, a contrast to the ascetic, almost suffering countenance of his companion. “I hope we weren’t trespassing. I’d hate to run up against that Smith.” He nodded at the revolver in Willie’s belt.
    “No problem,” Willie said. “Only person has to worry about this is the one that killed my father.”
    “Killed?” Wascom asked. “You don’t think it was accidental?”
    “No.”
    “Dear me. Well, don’t do anything rash. You don’t want to end up as Levi’s guest.”
    And I remembered where I’d heard Goodeau’s name.
    “You’re the warden at Angola,” I said.
    Levi Goodeau shrugged. “That’s me. I took a few hours off to come down and see Carter. We’re cousins, you know.”
    Carter Wascom nodded. “I was going to show him what’s flowing in the bayou. I was trying to prove I’m not the only one that’s affected.”
    “What are you talking about?” Willie asked.
    “Come on back. I’ll show you,” Wascom said and we followed him out of the pasture and into the woods, the dog bounding along beside us.
    The sun’s glare abated, but the humidity was high, so that rivers of sweat were streaming down my arms and I felt my shirt sticking to my back. The ground smelled of decayed vegetation and my feet sank into the soft leaves. Out of habit, I kept my eyes down, looking for snakes.
    We were on a finger ridge, an ancient plateau of finely ground clay that jutted out into the floodplain of a small bayou which, in its turn, joined the Mississippi River a mile or so to the west. When we threaded our way through the last red oaks and stood on the edge of the bluff, Carter Wascom pointed at the area below.
    “Can’t see it from here, but down there’s the bayou. You game to go look?”
    “Why not?” Willie asked and we followed down the bank, grabbing at vines and tree roots as we went. The bottom, twenty feet below the bluff, was sand, deposited from endless cycles of flooding. Wascom was already at the water’s edge, pointing, and when I came even with him I saw what he was talking about. There was a sudsy-looking residue on top of the water, floating gently toward the river.
    “This bayou goes right past that damn nuclear plant,” he accused. “You can’t tell me they aren’t dumping something into it.”
    I stared down at the suds. Wherever it was coming from, it was a stain on what would otherwise have been a primeval setting.
    “It couldn’t have come from some other place, say another house, or maybe a dump?” I asked.
    Carter Wascom withered me with his stare.
    “My wife died, sir, and it wasn’t from some other place or house or dump . She was a beautiful woman and she died a cruel, agonizing death. Cancer of the liver. It spread.” He took a deep breath and went on: “For several years, before the disease was diagnosed, there was this scum on the surface of the bayou. Only none of us knew what it was then. It was the first year that abomination they call a nuclear plant was in operation. After I raised enough hell with them, the stuff stopped for a while. Now…” He pointed down like an Old Testament prophet. “It’s started again.” He turned on Willie. “That’s what I told your father, that anything he bought now was ruined anyway, I didn’t want to take his money that way.”
    I saw Willie shoot a questioning look at Levi Goodeau. The warden put a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “Well, Carter, I think you’re right to have some samples taken. Maybe that’ll get to the bottom once and for all.”
    Wascom gave his kinsman a skeptical look. “Like it did before? They ruined the samples at the lab. Those people got to them, had them say the samples were innocuous, if you can believe that . Levi, you’re too decent a man for your job. How can you run a farm full of cutthroats when you can’t even see how deeply the corruption has reached into every part of this state?”
    “Oh, Carter, it’s not