Chapter One

Shouts of men off to the north came clear in the morning air, and Cal left the pasture road and ducked under low pine branches, then knelt in front of a stone wall and looked down through an oak grove. He was worried about being shot by another hunter and was glad to be off the pasture road, but he didn't know where Joe was. Tipping his hunting hat back and scanning the woods, he could feel the sweat drying on his forehead.

He took off his right glove and gripped his father's Winchester carbine, the butt end resting in the pine needles, and studied the openings between the oaks. He was relieved not to be walking toward the deer drive where men would be posted somewhere further up the road. The sun slanted between openings in the oak grove below, and his little cavern under the low branches by the stone wall was soft and dark, the woods hushed. Shoutings from the deer drive were moving off to the north, and the only sounds in the silent grove were the soft tickings of the brownish yellow oak leaves drifting to the ground.

Cal loved the leaves in the woods in the fall. Maybe a deer would be circling back, away from the drive. Cal had never killed a deer, except in dreams, and they were always bad dreams.

A week before, coming out of Old Testament class, Cal spotted Joe Sterns in front of the elevator.

"Going up or down?" Cal asked.

"I'm going down to check the mail, then I'm going to play ping-pong with Prestwood if I can get past Paul Bennington's office. I've already gotten three tickets for parking too near the trash out back and he's probably looking for me. You?"

"I'm going up

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