Dawson's Curve

Dawson dipped the mason jar into the cool running creek, took a deep drink and looked up into the stars. A sly grin crossed his thin lips, 2 hours past midnight and he only had 2 miles to go. He capped the jar, dropped it in his satchel and hopped across the rocks and up the thick grass of the bank. He looked back across the narrow clearing at the dark trees behind him, still nothing in sight but he could hear the baying of the hounds on his side of the ridge. Grin never faltering he turned back towards the harvest moon and began to sprint. He ran followed a curving path through the low brush, hopped over a rotten stump and ran down the fallen trunk. He knew the men chasing him would have the dogs walk the trunk and follow along each side. He left the leg traps for them, not the dogs. Dawson knew you couldn't grudge and animal for being an animal. Natures just nature, but man? Man has a mean streak right down the middle of him. He jumped off the narrowing log and across to the low pile of stone stacked on the edge of Pineman's field. He ran a loop around the pile of stones once or twice then cut across the soft turned earth. There was nothing special about it, he had helped old man Pineman pull stone from his potato field every year since he was a whelp, but after a couple traps they would be extra careful around any obstacle he crossed. Well the leg traps and the snares. Oh and the holes he dug near his still...and the dead-fall traps he had strung in the trees. Cant grudge a man for protecting whats his. His tracks crisscrossed the dark soil in several places but he doubted that would slow them down much. Didn't matter he was in the home stretch. He tried his best to run the rows and keep from trampling any of the plants, he didn't want to get caught but he dam sure didn't want another tongue lashing from the Old man. As he cleared the rows and found the road he heard the dogs break through the trees.