Jonas

I've lived in Dorsey Falls my whole life.

I've been on every back road from here to Green Hollow, but I haven't been up Milner since, and I never will again.

A high school out in Eastern Boone County didn't offer much once the bell rang.

No clubs, no theatre, nothing that held my interest.

So I picked up a side job through a family friend, clearing out old hunting cabins tucked into the hills.

I'd gotten used to working alone, especially in late fall, when the brush thinned out and the snakes weren't a problem anymore.

One Sunday in early November, a guy named Marshall, he handled property management for a few absentee owners, dropped off a key on a hand-skitched map.

He always drew, his map's hand said GPS couldn't be trusted out there, this one was for a cabin about a mile off the old gas line near Rujadot, the owner had left for Arkansas or Missouri or somewhere years ago and just abandoned it, but the land was finally going up for sale, I'd have to do a full sweep and get it ready for a photographer, he warned me.

his truck couldn't make it all the way and said the last half mile was too chewed up from spring runoff and Danlem's I'd have to walk in I left after lunch, hit the road around to.

That time of year, the air already had that sting to it.

Not snowy yet, but you could smell it coming.

The trail curved around a few overgrown turns and dropped into this little hollow where the cabin sat, leaning hard to one side like it was giving up, half sunk into the earth like it didn't want to be there anymore.

The windows were streaked with grime and the door barely held on.

It was the kind of place that looked like, if you cough hard inside, something would fall off.

Nothing unusual, honestly.

Inside, it looked like someone had been living there.

Torn sleeping bags bunched in a corner, empty cans of beans, some cigarette butts smashed into the floorboards.

It wasn't the worst I'd seen, but it made me pause.

The air was thick, and sire, old sweat and mildew, maybe a bit of something else I couldn't place.

I made a mental note to tell Marshall, maybe see if he wanted the locks changed.