Lost deep in the ebon tangle and echoing against the starless, sullen sky, the owl’s dismal chatter came like the rattle in a dying man’s throat.
Jim Bellamy paused on the ties, the beat of his heart surging through his throat. The hoot of an owl meant that someone would die.
He forced a smile to his lips at that and shrugged, setting off again through the lonesome tangle which matted the ancient and decayed tracks. He had been a fool to start back this late. He might fall into a hole or through a rotten trestle and break his neck.
But for all his smile, his big shoulders were hunched under his checkered flannel shirt and the scuff of his calks on the gritty cinders fell upon his ears like thunder in the silence.
He had not particularly enjoyed this job of surveying, but in these days,
