Leonard picked up speed and the chain rattled over the edge of the bridge, into the water and out of sight, pulling its connection after it like a pull toy. The last sight of Leonard was the soles of his bare feet, white as the bellies of fish.
“It’s deep there,” Vinnie said. “I caught an old channel cat there once, remember? Big sucker. I bet it’s over fifty feet deep down there.”
They got in the truck and Vinnie cranked it.
“I think we did them boys a favor,” Pork said. “Them running around with niggers and what they did to that dog and all. They weren’t worth a thing.”
“I know it,” Vinnie said. “We should have filmed this, Pork, it would have been good. Where the car and that nigger-lover went off in the water was choice.”
“Nah, there wasn’t any women.”
“Point,” Vinnie said, and he backed around and drove onto the trail that wound its way out of the bottoms.
About the Author
With more than thirty books to his credit, Joe R. Lansdale is the Champion Mojo Storyteller. He’s been called “an immense talent” by Booklist; “a born storyteller” by Robert Bloch; and The New York Times Book Review declares he has “a folklorist’s eye for telling detail and a front-porch raconteur’s sense of pace.”
He’s won umpty-ump awards, including sixteen Bram Stoker Awards, the Grand Master Award from the World Horror Convention, a British Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, the Horror Critics Award, the Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature, the “Shot in the Dark” International Crime Writer’s Award, the Golden Lion Award, the Booklist Editor’s Award, the Critic’s Choice Award, and a New York Times Notable Book Award. He’s got the most decorated mantle in all of Nacogdoches!
Lansdale lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, with his wife, Karen, writer and editor.
Find him online at www.JoeRLansdale.com.
Also by Joe R. Lansdale
“Hap Collins and Leonard Pine” mysteries
Savage Season (1990)
Mucho Mojo (1994)
Two-Bear Mambo (1995)
Bad Chili (1997)
Rumble Tumble (1998)
Veil’s Visit(1999)
Captains Outrageous (2001)
Vanilla Ride (2009)
Hyenas (a novella) (2011)
Devil Red (2011)
Blue to the Bone (???)
The “Drive-In” series
The Drive-In: A “B” Movie with Blood and Popcorn, Made in Texas (1988)
The Drive-In 2: Not Just One of Them Sequels (1989)
The Drive-In: A Double-Feature (1997, omnibus)
The Drive-In: The Bus Tour (2005) (limited edition)
The “Ned the Seal” trilogy
Zeppelins West (2001)
Flaming London (2006)
Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned the Seal (2010)
The Sky Done Ripped (release date unknown)
Other novels
Act of Love (1980)
Texas Night Riders (1983) (published under the pseudonym Ray Slater)
Dead in the West (1986) (written in 1980)
Magic Wagon (1986)
The Nightrunners (1987)
Cold in July (1989)
Tarzan: the Lost Adventure (1995) (with Edgar Rice Burroughs)
The Boar (1998)
Freezer Burn (1999)
Waltz of Shadows (1999)
Something Lumber This Way Comes (1999) (Children's book)
The Big Blow (2000)
Blood Dance (2000)
The Bottoms (2000)
A Fine Dark Line (2002)
Sunset and Sawdust (2004)
Lost Echoes (2007)
Leather Maiden (2008)
Under the Warrior Sun (2010)
All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky (2011)
Edge of Dark Water (2012)
In Waders from Mars (children's book) (2012)
The Thicket (2013)
Hot in December (2013)
…And that's not counting the pseudonymous novels, the short stories, the chapbooks, anthologies, graphic novels, comic books and all the rest. Get the full story at www.JoeRLansdale.com.
Copyright
High Cotton was first published in 2000. This digital edition (v1.0) was published in 2014 by Gere Donovan Press.
If you downloaded this book from a filesharing network, either individually or as part of a larger torrent, the author has received no compensation. Please consider purchasing a legitimate copy—they are reasonably priced, and available from all major outlets. Your author thanks you.
“The Pit,” first published in The Black Lizard Anthology of Crime Fiction, 1987.
“Not From Detroit,” first published in Midnight Graffiti, Fall 1988.
“Booty and the Beast,” first published in Archon Gaming, 1995.
“Steppin’ Out, Summer, ’68,” first published in Night Visions 8, 1991.
“Incident On and Off a Mountain Road,” first published in Night Visions 8, 1991.
“My Dead Dog, Bobby,” first published in The Horror Show, Summer 1987.
“Trains Not Taken,” first published in RE:AL, Spring 1987.
“Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back,” first published in Nukes, 1986.
“Dog, Cat, and Baby,” first published in Masques #2, 1987.
“Mister Weed-Eater,” first published by Cahill Press, 1993.
“By Bizarre Hands,” first published in Hardboiled #9, 1988.
“The Fat Man and the Elephant,” first published in By Bizarre Hands, 1989.
“The Phone Woman,” first published in Night Visions 8, 1991.
“Letter from the South, Two Moons West of Nacogdoches,” first published in Last Wave #5, 1986.
“By the Hair of the Head,” first published in Shadows #6, 1983.
“The Job,” first published in Razored Saddles, 1989.
“Godzilla’s Twelve Step Program,” first published in Writer of the Purple Rage, 1994.
“Drive-In Date,” first published in Night Visions 8, 1991.
“Bob the Dinosaur Goes to Disneyland,” first published in Midnight Graffiti, Fall 1989.
“The Steel Valentine,” first published in By Bizarre Hands,1989.
“Night They Missed the Horror Show,” first published in Silver Scream,1988.
Copyright © 2000 by Joe R. Lansdale, www.JoeRLansdale.com.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Errata
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High Cotton: Selected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale Page 32
