“And where will you be?” I asked him.

“Right here with you by the old wooden ladder stand,” Dale said.

“If Brad sent anybody up this hill, they’ll be coming from the south gate.”

I turned up my collar against the sharp, cold wind coming up off the bottomland.

“It’s nearly six,” I said.

The gray light of dawn began seeping slowly through the bare oak branches along the south fence line.

At six fifteen, three flashlight beams flickered in the brush near the south boundary gate.