The Night Watchmen

The woods here are relatively young. Young in tree time, in any case. Their ancestors were felled long ago, cleared to make way for pasture. The rusty relics of barbed-wire fencing still wind through the forest floor marking old property boundaries, paddocks, and hay fields. Once strung to contain livestock, and make good neighbors, they now serve mainly to rest beneath the leaves and lie in wait to snag the preoccupied backwoods' wanderer.