Perimeter Beacon

The culvert spat me out onto dry gravel. Complete blackness ahead. Operating without a forward marker is a blunder. I kicked through the loose shale until my boot struck an abandoned red plastic wire connector cap. Right size. Sticking it in the dirt achieved nothing, so I hauled a heavy rusted steel split ring from an old padlock shackle nearby. I forced the flared cone of the red cap straight down into the iron ring's gap with my heel. It locked tight, pointing its hollow socket skyward. A stray sliver of high sodium vapor glow struck the red plastic, refracting a clean crimson warning halo against the concrete embankment. Point marked. Forward perimeter established.