Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic ... Byram Hawkins thought his revving heart was going to throw a rod. No spring chicken, he’d been running for nearly an hour, painfully aware that he was being dogged by shirt-tucking, shiny-booted “revenooers” apparently tipped off to the moonshine he’d been distilling on the hillside overlooking the river.
The rapid-fire ticking filled his head with rattlesnakes and visions…