Inside it's dark and smoky, the pine coffee table littered with the remains of somebody's long night. A picture of Jesus hangs above the sofa, facing the console television. Ken struggles to his feet and offers me the best seat in the house. He's not using his crutch this morning. I sink very deep into the cushion.
Somebody switches off the television.
We start with the easy stuff. Ken Ayers grew up in the shadow of Brush Mountain, and left as a young man to be a policeman in Richmond. But he got homesick for the mountains, and in 1972, when the police chief's position opened up in Pine Grove, Ky., Ken moved back. So he came home to Ewing, Va. to work with horses. Which at the moment doesn't appear to be a whole lot kinder to Ken Ayers' health than police work.