it wended its way up into the central appalachians , through towns with names like cornstalk and trout and cold knob , where bony women in faded pioneer dresses or worn jeans and tee shirts put their hands with cigarettes on their hips and stared suspiciously at them ; where hard-eyed men in john deere and caterpillar caps spat tobacco juice from their rocking chairs on their front porches or out of their pickup truck windows ; where every rickety house had an american flag on an angled pole nailed to the front post , and every store , no matter what kind , added bait and tackle and guns and ammunition and beer and cigarettes to its signage .