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

"Might ought to head in before it gets too dark."

"Just a little farther," Wooten said.

He led them through a poison-ivy patch. The hounds sneezed and pawed their snouts. Some men threatened to turn back, but Big Connie Ward threatened them if they did. They traversed a hillside strewn with trash: drum rings, blown-out tires, a washing machine and a dryer. They weren't far from a road. Tammy, they hollered in echo of each other. A breeze carried woodsmoke upriver from Livingstown. Somebody mentioned Van Crews being absent from the search—and him distant Treeborne kin.

"Van's delivering a vehicle for me," Big Connie said.

The men knew what that meant, and they said no more of it.

They wandered into a maze of mountain laurel and let the hounds off chain rather than stop to untangle them every few feet. Wooten kept out in front of the group. Ren and Lee tried keeping up with him, but it was no use. All sudden, the unloosed hounds bayed and sprinted, and Wooten took off after them at a run.

They'd already sniffed his niece and backed off time Wooten got there. Her dress was torn at the neckline. She was dirty, pinestraw caught in her black hair, and she held on her hip the dirt boy doll her granddaddy'd made. Crusoe, they called him. Fear caused the girl to appear younger than her thirteen years.

"Where's your other boot at?" Wooten asked.

The girl did not answer.

"Sister," Ren said. He touched his daughter's head, still not used to the eye patch on her face. "Is that gasoline I smell? Listen to me, your aunt Tammy's gone missing."

The girl seemed stunned stupid.

"Give them some room," Big Connie said.

The men chained their hounds. Wrong scent idjit, they muttered. While Ren and Wooten tended to the girl, the men pulled ticks and smashed them against bootheels. Dusk came full. Dry-flies screeched in the treetops. The men grew more agitated till Big Connie Ward pulled a small blue-green bottle out of his shirtpocket. Then they held back their heads in turn and dripped dope underneath their curled red tongues till the bottle was emptied. They thought little of the Treeborne girl being out in the woods thisaway. She had plenty of her grandparents in her. That sort of blood, the men figured, which had them traipsing out here to begin with, was reason enough for her appearance.

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.