Excerpt from Treeborne by Caleb Johnson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Everybody had it hard," Wooten said.

"I reckon so." Ren shook out a cigarette from a smushed pack then lit it. "You'll have to answer the sheriff about these last several days, you know it?"

"You might have to answer for some things too," Wooten said. "It ain't no secret you and Tam's been at odds over this mess with your momma."

Ren inhaled then blew out and coughed. "Well," he said.

"You really don't reckon I'd hurt your sister do you?"

"I sure hope not," Ren said. "I sure sure hope not."

At the river landing the men plugged tobacco into their mouths and pretended to look away while Wooten held the nightgown for the hounds to sniff. The sight of the gown gripped in his bad hand, which looked like a skint dove the way it shined with barbecue grease, sickened them. It was obscene too the way the hounds buried their wet noses into the silky fabric. The men were jealous—not only of the hounds, but also of each other, wondering which confederate among them had made it with Tammy Treeborne Ragsdale way back when. Of this they felt sure: Wooten had done something to his wife because she'd betrayed him. Killed her, chopped her up into a million pieces and sunk them in the lake, buried them somewhere off in the deep woods where they'd never be found. Still they had a duty to fulfill. They traced calloused fingers across a map, then set out in a loose line for the river.

The current picked up speed as limestone bluffs pinched toward each other. The men poked the ground with sticks and hoe handles, with the butt-end of rifles and handed-down shotguns. They swapped off hollering her name, and shared drink and cigarettes. Near downtown they spotted Deputy Polk at a landing other side the river. Big Connie bellowed directions while the deputy acted like he understood. After Polk drove out of sight the search party headed on.

Farther downriver they came to the Hernando de Soto Bridge. A pickup truck was parked beyond the guardrail. Lee Malone leaned against its side. Big Connie made a joke about a gorilla escaped from the zoo and Ren shot him a look. Big Connie said, "Come on and join us Brother Lee! And bring that mutt too!"

Lee and Buckshot ambled down the slope. Lee's clothes were sopping wet and he had, for him, a near frantic expression about his face. Buckshot hiked a leg and pissed on a sapling while staring up at Big Connie Ward.

"Everything alright?" Ren asked.

"Uh-huh," Lee said. "Yeah."

Ren trusted Lee's word, but he also understood how this appeared to the rest of the men. Folks knew about Lee's relationship with Maybelle Treeborne. Many predicted it would end in just the kind of tragedy that'd befallen her. The circumstances too perfect, Lee Malone squirrel hunting the exact part of The Seven where Maybelle'd been found dead. Some folks suspected Lee was involved with Tammy's disappearance too. Ren's word would carry only so much weight. Treebornes just a step above white trash to begin with. The further time distanced the town from the days of Mr. Prince, who, in many folks' minds, had crowned Lee Malone by bringing him out of Freedom Hills and letting him run the peach orchard, the less likely folks were to bend toward, what they saw as, the eccentricities of a dead man and the few folks, like Ren Treeborne, who dared defend them as just.

"Y'all hear they found a peach pit at the scene of the crime?" Big Connie Ward said. The men mumbled. "Seems to me like somebody who knows about peaches might could reckon why a pit'd be left behind thataway."

"Fuck you Connie," Lee Malone said.

"Not in this life nigger," Big Connie said back.

The men laughed and jeered.

"Let's keep walking," Ren said.

Sinkholes and gaps opened like mouths in the earth. Weak-rooted trees laid downhill, their tops baptized in the Elberta River. Limestone white as milk showed through thousands of years of dead leaves covering the unreliable ground. The men checked each hole best they could, letting the hounds nose the blackness till they just about slipped and hung themselves by the neck. Daylight was bleeding out, playing shadows everywhere they looked. Gnats circled the men's sweating heads, and mosquitoes lit onto their flesh and sucked and sucked. They slapped themselves and each other. To an onlooker, the men would've appeared insane. Nobody wanted to be the one to say it: They ought to just quit, come back and try again tomorrow. Ren picked up on this feeling and spoke for the group.

Excerpted from Treeborne by Steven Johnson. Copyright © 2018 by Steven Johnson. Excerpted by permission of Picador. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.