Toxin

EPILOGUE

Wednesday, February 11th

The dilapidated, recycled UPS van coughed and sputtered, but the engine kept going. The van climbed a gradual incline after fording across a small stream.

"By golly, that's the deepest that crick's been since I've been in these parts," Bart Winslow said. He and his partner, Willy Brown, were driving along an isolated country road, trying to get back to the main road after picking up a dead pig. It had been raining for almost two days, and the road was awash and the potholes full of muddy water.

"I been thinking," Bart said, after spitting some tobacco juice out the driver's-side window. "Benton Oakly's not going to have much of a farm if his cows keep getting the runs like the one we picked up before the pig."

"Sure as shootin'," Willy said. "But you know, this one's not much sicker than the one we picked up a month ago. What do you say we take it to the slaughterhouse like we did the other one?"

"I suppose," Bart said. "The problem is we gotta drive all the way out to the VNB slaughterhouse in Loudersville."

"Yeah, I know," Willy said. "That TV lady got Higgins and Hancock to close for a couple of weeks for some kind of investigation."

"Well, the good part is that VNB is a hell of a lot less choosey than Higgins and Hancock," Bart said. "Remember that time we sold them those two cows deader than a Thanksgiving turkey right out of the oven?"

"Sure do," Willy said. "When you reckon Higgins and Hancock gonna reopen?"

"I hear by Monday next 'cause they didn't find nothing but a handful of illegal aliens," Bart said.

"Figures," Willy said. "So what you think about this cow we got?"

"Let's do it," Bart said. "Fifty bucks is better'n twenty-five in anybody's book."