It had jaws he knew were gorged with poison. This was a cottonmouth, the most dangerous snake in the swamp.

Despite Mama’s warnings, he led Isaiah through the tangy wetlands choked with marsh grasses and vines, through willows half-sunk in slow-moving black water, and past oaks laden with Spanish moss and cypress roots in ghostly morning mist. Down into the bottoms they trekked, inhaling clouds of tiny insects, feeling cold spongy mud between their toes. Amon…