Excerpt from A Dredging in Swann by Tim Garvin, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"What's your name, son?"

"You call me son, I'm the one looking down? A thousand a month for peace. What's your answer?"

"Let me think on it."

"You already thought on it. What's your answer?"

"All right, then."

"You got my thousand to start?"

"No, sir. I must go to the bank."

"I'll be back tomorrow. Don't get squirrelly."

The hole brightened again as the man vanished. Leo swung the shovel down, folded his hands on the handle top, laid his forehead across them. He had been thinking of the lovely rain. Now he thought of a gun, thought of the bank, thought of the young deputy that had been coming around. He craved to sit, but the buckets were already full of mud and couldn't be inverted. He leaned against the well wall and let his head fall onto his chest, deeper and deeper.

Excerpted from A Dredging in Swann by Tim Garvin. Copyright © 2020 by Tim Garvin. Excerpted by permission of Blackstone Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.