***

You stand on a low ridge, with the wind blowing through your hair. You’re looking out at a field, bare, but you know it used to be lined with corn. It’s cold, and you’re wearing a jacket with a quilted lining. Ahead, you see an older man, in his 50s, wiping his oily hands on a rag. He hangs the rag back on edge of the plow he’s been mending, adjusts his John Deere cap, and looks up at you as you approach. He claps a hand on your shoulder and gives you a concerned, stern look that is somehow empathetic. You just look at him blankly. He turns, and the two of you walk along the ridge—a water ditch that edges the man’s property—to the back field. You head out across the field, a long long walk, seemingly endless, til you feel like you’re in a wasteland, a desert of frozen soil. In the distance, atop another ridge, you see another man.

The second man is younger than you. He has a full beard, which makes him look older, but you can see the youth in his lips, his nose, his eyes. Straight brown hair blows across his forehead. He wears an olive drab military jacket that covers his waist and the pockets of his jeans. One hand is in his the pocket of the coat, while the other holds a long-handled shovel. You and the farmer approach from behind, and stand near the man. The farmer stands right next to the shoveller. You’re a few paces back. The three of you look out over the field. You’re on another ridge that borders a drainage ditch marking the boundary of the property, and you’re looking over someone else’s field.

“Found another one crawling along a ditch along the south end the Cooper place this morning.” The young man’s voice is calm, devoid of feeling. He stares off into the distance, at an indeterminate spot between a distant silo and copse of trees to the north. The sky is a solid wash of dusty grey. The trees are skeletal and their spindley limbs seem to be straining upward, imploring the sky.

“You burn it?” The farmer’s voice is chalky. His cadences are as lined and weathered as the crow’s feet crinkling his eyes and the calluses crusting his knuckles. He, too, stares into the distance.

“Yeah.” The young man shifts, and you don’t hear, but see, him swallow and take a deep breath. “I put it down with the shovel. Took two strokes, but I brought the head off, then burnt it right there.”

You search the horizon for the spot, wondering if either man can see the place they speak of, where they found whatever it was that has caused such concern. The young man speaks again.

“Stank.” His face wrinkles only slightly. The older man nods.

“Sure do.”

***

Shivering woke him. Ethan squinted in the darkness, trying to make out the round face of the clock through the gloom of far too early morning. The chill and the lingering grasp of sleep kept him motionless. All he needed was to reach down and pull the comforter off the floor, up and over his body, and he could sink once more into the warm arms of unconsciousness. He shuddered there a moment longer. He couldn’t take much more, but was loathe to move at all. Finally, he did it. A fluid motion that shocked his arm and shoulder with the cold for just a moment, then covered him with the thick quilted comfort of the blanket. He curled fetal on his side and let the ticking of the clock lull him back to sleep.