You know what a flock of crows is called?” Lowe asked. “A murder. That’s what they’re called.”

The Crows

CHAPTER ONE

The crows cawed a warning. Then came the gunshots. Three in succession, a pause, then two more.

The sound was close—too close—and a shiver of fear slid down my spine. Those shots had come from somewhere in my woods.

I immediately stopped walking and listened. This was April, not September. The wrong season for hunters to be shooting. At least, the wrong season for hunting deer.

As birds flew from tree top to tree top, a sickening, giddy sensation invaded my stomach. On the winding path ahead was my four-month-old Rhodesian Ridgeback pup, a potential show dog that had set me back fifteen hundred dollars. If some idiot poacher was playing Rambo and shot him, the guy was going to be mincemeat.

Baraka!” I yelled.

Branches snapped over on my left, and I looked in that direction. All I saw were tree trunks, brambles and junk . . . and maybe the dark, shadowed figure of a man.

Another shot sounded.

Read the rest of the first chapter of 'The Crows'.