The narrator of "Death in the Woods" introduces the central character of the story: an anonymous old woman who periodically comes to town to sell a few eggs and buy a few supplies. The woman is known only by her last name, Grimes.

The story is the narrator's fictionalized account of her life and death, focusing on one fateful trip into town.

The narrator recounts what he knows of Mrs. Grimes's background, things that "must have stuck in my mind from small-town tales when I was a boy." The old woman's husband, Jake Grimes, was a known horse thief. He came from a family that had once been prosperous, but Jake and his father had squandered their money.

Jake met his wife when she was a young "bound girl," an orphan working for a German farmer in exchange for her room and board. There were rumors...