The first time I heard the story a shiver went through my body and I was forced to swallow spit before I could talk. ''A ghost river?''

''The Ghost River,'' he nodded. ''All she is. You believe in her, she's there to take care of you. If you're no believer that girl will take you down and teach you a rock-hard lesson. Don't expect her be spitting you back neither. You fuck up on her, you never be coming back.''

- ''When a fella has a clean soul the river takes hold of his body before it's lost, lifts it up and tells it to float along there until it finds a home. Tiny found a home in that old tree. That's why it fell over in the first place, back then, in the wet. That tree was waiting for him to come by.''

''Now, if a man's soul is dark and dirty, the ghost river drags that body to the bottom and buries it in the mud. The body is trapped there, like in old Purgatory there, for Mr Lucifer to come up through the earth and claim that fella for his own self.''