It's the summer of 1963, and three teenage boys are busy destroying their innocence, provoking the local law, and sitting in silence as grizzled elders dispense the local lore. Just the usual stuff if you're a kid growing up in the Texas Hill Country. But for one of them, that summer would never end.

Forward to 1986, and Thomas Kessler is waiting in a bar for the arrival of his old friend Pete, now an attorney who has long been obsessed with a pair of murders that coincided with the disappearance of Bennett, the third member of their youthful tribe. Thomas has long held knowledge that could unlock the case, and has chosen Pete to be his confessor.

But the beer is cold and Pete's arrival is still an hour or two away, so there's plenty of time for one more trip back to '63 and the secluded stone house strewn with old Colts and fables; to the dingy Gulf station awash in profanity-laced burlesque that offered enlightenment in its darkest corners; to the towering palisade that revealed the town beyond the river without divulging secrets of its own. And Thomas takes us with him.