INTRODUCTION

Lumber trucks speeding by the window shake our car as the four-lane narrows to two-lanes and we twist through the piney woods of north Louisiana past huge paper mills, lonely, old small towns and the Kmart strip malls that have sapped their energy. Reaching the northernmost point in the state, Claiborne Parish, we called ahead to our contact, who said he'd meet us at a place called the Linder Motor Lodge. “I'll be driving a gray towncar.” The unassuming one-story brick motel sat alone at the crossroads of two rural highways at a place appropriately called Deer Crossing. There the gray car was running, parked well away from the front windows of the motel office and from what appeared to be a popular coffee shop for truckers. He stepped out of his car, said hello, and we suggested we talk in the coffee shop.

“No, check into your room, we'll talk there.” He said with a serious smile. “That place has ears – this is a small town; you never know who's listening around here.”

Back outside with the key, we circled our cars around to the back to the end of the parking lot and the last room. In the low-ceilinged, wood-paneled, mildew-smelling room, to the steady rumble of the air conditioner, our informant plunged into a story that began more than a decade earlier.