Meet them at the windbreak he’d been told, just before dawn. They’d be waiting there in the line of trees with a wagon, just don’t be late.

He couldn’t take the road of course, had to swing down around the swamp, then through the woods, in the dark. He had gotten turned around, had to do some calculating to come out to the fields, those endless fields. He came out all right, but at the wrong side of the field, the wrong windbreak.

His hopes hung thin as the morning mist as the hounds tuned up, tolling like bells.

Source: Shift ‘n’ Shake