Chapter 11

The shuffling near the barn entrance is what brought Joshua out from the deep sleep brought on by the exhaustion of hauling tractor parts half the night. Even in the dark, looking through sleep and fog, he knew what he was looking at:

Two men, sneaking in. They left the door open, allowing for a sliver of light to sneak into the box, giving Joshua a bit more to work with. Heavy, bloated men who’d never seen the inside of a bathtub.

But he did not react, instead letting them grow close, listening for anything to give away who the intruders were. And almost right away they did, the tell bringing Joshua to grab at the shovel lying beside him.

“Gon find that sumbitch,” one of the men, an obvious idiot, said, “rough him up real good for what he done did to us.” The other snorted and laughed, probably through missing teeth and they moved closer.