In the first chapter of Bearskin, the accomplished and evocative debut of James A. McLaughlin, we meet a man on the run named Rice, living alone as a protector in the depths of the Appalachian landscape, battling swarms of bees and locking eyes with careening vultures. A shaggy mountain man with an indecipherably thick twang wanders onto his property, begging for water; Rice obliges, only to find his visitor with an ulterior motive: a discovery to reveal. Rice is guided
