He offers me tea from the thermos, and I decline, knowing it will taste of nothing but ancient metal and the riverbed.
“You’re here to pick my brains about the wee poppet you found, aye?” he mutters into a lit cigarette before I can speak.
“I—yeah. How did you know?”
He shrugs, purses his lips upon the cigarette and exhales through his nostrils. Runt smokes like he used to breathe—in out, in out, without pause.
“I gave you a nice wee titbit yesterday. Course, I knew you’d be back to hear the rest. You like to chew on things, Mike. The stories and that. You chew them over, then spit them out.”
“Um. OK. I guess. So, are you going to tell me anything else?”
“What d’you want to hear?”
“Why would someone in Shallow Creek have made one of these things? And why would they leave it in the e
