making its last stand. He knows what will follow is a killing season.
He hears the rattle long before the mist around him begins to glow from the headlights, and then the truck passes, an old pickup, the bed fitted with rickety slat-board sides. Thirty yards beyond him the brake lights flash. The truck slows, stops. As he approaches, he sees that the bed is filled with feed sacks stacked half a dozen high in neat rows, and a contraption of wood and metal with gears and a long handle whose purpose is unknown to him. He opens the door. The smell of manure greets him.
“Hop in.” The man at the wheel beckons. He’s in overalls and his boots are caked. “Where you going?”
“North,” he says as he climbs in and slams the door.
“Whereabouts?”
“Just north.”
“Big place, that.” The man grins in a friendly way and gears into the mist.
In a moment, the truck is lost, heading north, which is indeed a big place, but not big enough.
