Your paragraph starts out "A small hamlet in McIntosh County, NC. ...
McIntosh is in Georgia. I read the book and was totally fascinated by it. I live in the county just south of McIntosh and remember sheriff poppel. There were a lot of wild hogs in McIntosh and if you shot one, It belonged to sheriff poppel and you had to reimburse him for his hog. Sheriff Poppell's hogs were all marked with a "hole under their tail".

McIntosh county now is growing in leaps and bounds. It is also the home of the recording artist, Vic Waters