Fits

YOU never can tell. Some things fit, and others don't. Some people inherit fits, others acquire fits, still others have fits thrust upon them. So much for our prologue. Let us proceed with our story.

It opens under a pitilessly glaring sky of early midsummer, up among the "balds" and ridges of Tuckaleechee County. Wicked heat; a stony, trail-like road leading skyward through forests of black-gum, beech, hickory and sourwood; an occasional razorback grunting beneath oaks; a far buzzard wheeling against the blue; four lathered horses that tug a buckboard creaking under the weight of six persons...