“I heard Brad told half the county the slope was his, but those yellow steel signs don’t have his name on them.”

“Brad doesn’t own one handful of this dirt,” I said.

I looked at my wristwatch as the kitchen clock ticked past four forty.

“We head out in ten,” Dale said, standing perfectly still by the back door.

We left the driveway with the truck headlights off, letting our boots find the gravel lane from memory.

By five thirty the sky above the eastern woods was still pitch black.

I walked next to Dale along the narrow deer trail that wound up through the oak ridge.