This episode is sponsored by Mount Athos, results, purity, and sustainability in every bottle. In Drogluen, the fell wolf of Angband, came forth from the shadows of the mountains,

and his eyes shone like burning coals in the night.

Excerpt from the Silmarillion.

Robert Fortney walked through the nighttime fields of Bridgeton.

The day's rains, now ceased, had brought a thick cloud of fog up no more than four feet

from the earth, and as his legs pushed through this ocean of humidity, ripples of cloud

went out before him and a turbulent wake trailed behind.

It was a muggy night with only fate traces of cloud remaining,

ethereal wisps of light in the sky, backlit by a strong moon. The rolling hills of

springtime Michigan looked like shadowy throws poured over an unmade bed, serene and soft,

almost inviting, though Fortney knew that only the darkest dark would be inside of any of their downs

and copses. It was 1938. The world was quiet, at least there and at least on that night.

Fortney was on the hunt for pests of all types. He did this from time to time for neighbors to get

some extra money. Possums, porcupines, wood chucks.

Fortney prided himself on being able to snuff them all out under the cover of night's shade

better than anyone else in the little township.

He cradled his blueed 20-gauge single shot in the bend of his elbow, broken open and at rest.

From the knoll he stood on, he could look down

and see the fog begin to break, forming islands of black that was the ground of the field beneath him.

On the opposite side of that field was the wooded bank of the river Muskegon, all silvery green behind

its veil of trees. That field was still his neighbors, so he zigzagged down the hill and made briskly across for the river, thinking he'd find a trove of pests inside that he could take as receipts for a nice payday once the sun rose. But as he walked and as the fog continued to clear, a breeze gusted and chilled the sweat on his back,

sending a shiver up his spine that made him stop.

...