They went off the road over a culvert into the head of a beanfield and parked there, the rows of beans stretching down the fall of land before them, the hedges of the beanplants stricken with the light and the rows between dark shadow. What was left of the sunlight came filtered through the poplars and locusts and sweetgum growing up along the bottom. Foster took the silver whistle from the glove box and let the dogs out and the three of them went down through the beanfield, leaving Alexander Mebane sitting up in the car. The dogs raced quickly, leaping the rows of beans and then calmed and began to quarter, their heads up high in the still air for any feather of scent riding along there. Foster walked slow, his legs sore from the long sitting of the drive and the afternoon with the old man. He felt awkward and stiff, the man sitting up there watching him. He wished he’d saved some of the water for himself. He guessed whatever they’d find down in the bottom it would be no brook he’d want to dip water up from.

The dogs were working the beanfield now and he let them, although he guessed Mebane was right and the birds would be over at the edges or even down in the cover of the woods as dusk came on. Maybe even along the little creek down in there. But he wanted the dogs to learn something about where they were before they ran right into birds.

He did not like Mebane. And as he walked and loosened he understood it was at least part that he felt dependent where he had not expected or wanted to. And realized this was more than the vague threat the man had offered up to him earlier but was also some threat he felt from the place itself. As if he did not know exactly who he was or how to explain himself. In a place where clearly he would be expected to do so. And walking out then in that strange soft dusk that felt as if it rose right up out of the ground he felt lost, for the first time felt truly alone, missing everything he knew. He kicked his way through the rows of beans toward the trees with his throat and chest tight and he brought up the whistle and blew two short bleats and when the dogs turned, their heads popped up high over the beans as they arrested, he lifted his arm and signaled them down toward the woods and for a moment they both turned their heads to look where he directed and then they were gone, bounding over the rows to cut across in front of him and down into the woods and he loved them so.