Al Pennyback will do anything for friend and kin, so when an offer is made to buy his cousin, Winston's land, an offer that seems to good to be true, Al is asked to look into it. Back in East Texas, a place that Al left as a teen and swore never to return to, he finds that nothing is what it seems. Things smell bad, literally and figuratively, and when Al starts digging, he unearths secrets that someone will kill to keep buried.