Two people climb up the sides of Mount Coffin on a dusky-dark November morning, only a half-mile apart, though they don\u2019t know about each other yet.<\/p>\n
Baron Barker was once a Boy Scout, and being prepared, set his alarm last night before he started drinking. After he got drinking, he got bragging. Baron had poked a hole in the side of an elk cow\u2014a sweet 450-yard shot with his .308 Winchester. And only then saw a colossal bull elk step out of dark spruces to sniff the blood seeping into crusted snow. Dammit. Rueful laugh. Lingering hunger left unspoken.<\/p>\n
Zack Sanchez still looks like a Boy Scout, but his pickle-green uniform isn\u2019t for playing around. His Glock isn\u2019t for hunting wild game. Other hunters told him about this massive elk with his cows in the meadows north of Wyoming Peak. Zack needs to wait around anyway, to ride herd on the hunters leaving the woods now elk season\u2019s over. Make sure no one\u2019s camp trailer is buried in snow.<\/p>\n
Baron, thinking of his buddies sleeping off their rum-and-Cokes, can\u2019t believe his luck. Not ten minutes after the sun crests over the mountain\u2019s convex lid, the magnificent bull stands silhouetted on a limestone outcrop across a precipitous draw, tawny cows spread in the drifted bowl of grass-heads. He pulls the rifle from his scabbard, aims and shoots, twice, and watches the bull pitch forward, tumble off the cliff.<\/p>\n
Baron points his four-wheeler down through tangled deadfall. No one expects a person to carry a bull this big out on his back. He\u2019ll just make a trail.<\/p>\n
Zack hears shots, and cusses. Sun blinds him, and the mountain\u2019s sharp ridges send echoes in circles so he can\u2019t pinpoint a direction. He loves his job\u2014most days.<\/p>\n
At the sound of a four-wheeler starting, Zack turns. Through his binoculars he scans steep scree, and his nostrils strain for gas fumes. He smells faint iron of snow, cinnamon from sun-warmed lodgepole, dank duff where morning melt begins. A Steller\u2019s jay, swinging indigo in the air, screeches.<\/p>\n
Baron guts the bull, rank steam lifting from entrails direct to the beaky noses of ravens. He hears his mother\u2019s voice harping on him, as always. How are they ever going to eat this much elk? Just the two of them in the house. His mother doesn\u2019t understand him. She still darns her socks, for Chrissakes, and Baron\u2019s cravings bug her. Nothing\u2019s ever enough, she grumbles. Funny how she can\u2019t say it often enough.<\/p>\n
Being satisfied\u2019s the same as being dead, he tries to tell her.<\/p>\n
Zack sees ravens gathering. Hurrying, he slips in snow, but he\u2019s agile, scrambling up to slip some more. He needs to get there before this renegade hauls his kill off the mountain. He tries not to lose elevation as he crosses the head of the drainage.<\/p>\n
Baron straps the carcass\u2019s bulk on the back of the four-wheeler, chandeliered head on front. He guns the engine to climb out of the brushy hole. The pitch is sharp. He feels the machine rearing up, and as he leans forward, antler tines poke at his eyes. He can\u2019t throw his weight where he needs to. If only he had a bigger side-by-side machine. With more power.<\/p>\n
The ATV flips and four tires spin skyward. Baron is pinned. Though the machine isn\u2019t big enough, it\u2019s more than he can budge. He flails against gravity. The elk\u2019s loose legs crack into his cheekbones as if stomping him. The machine crushes his chest, and pain fills his lungs, his guts, his throat. His thighs are going numb. The remaining rum-and-Coke in his blood isn\u2019t nearly sedative enough.<\/p>\n
His mother\u2019s repeated accusations grate through sawed-off nerve endings in his head. Risking an illegal kill, for nothing. For this. Pain screeches, rust-orange, through his eyes. His hands scrape for purchase. In his fingerbones, rage pulses. The rifle is in his hands, with the satin smoothness of its oiled walnut stock.<\/p>\n
Zack is close. He isn\u2019t sure the guy will be alive enough to sign the citation. Worse than having to write up a poacher\u2014having to save the fuckhead from his own idiocy.<\/p>\n
Baron thinks again of his mother, though he doesn\u2019t call for her. His breath rises hot, an angry ghost in cold air. He knows enough now\u2014enough agony, enough dissatisfaction. He wants his mother to appreciate his realization. So he has to get rid of this damn ranger, sliding downslope to rescue him.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Phone in hand, Julio stared across his gravel driveway at the trucks and cars parked at haphazard angles in the weedy, unfenced space between him and his neighbors\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cPakwasi County Dispatch\u2014What\u2019s your location?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c2041 Lincoln, in Callisto.\u201d Across Moon Valley\u2019s farms and ranches, between cattle and unfathomable numbers of appaloosas and paints and quarter horses, people spread out. Except of course, right here, where his trailer hunched too close to the bulked-up family that claimed the high school\u2019s current football star.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can I help you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m reporting a party\u2014disturbin\u2019 the peace.\u201d He glanced at the plastic wall clock, splattered with chorizo grease in a pattern resembling the Virgin Mary\u2019s melancholy face. He thought to take a picture, but the weak kitchen light wouldn\u2019t show it off enough to make money anyway. Ancho chile and cinnamon scents still saturated the air.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn what way is the party bothering you, sir?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fuckin\u2019 after midnight? Some of us have to work in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand that sir. But what exactly is the complaint?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need details?\u201d He looked to the Virgin Mary for help, as if a grease stain could understand his frustration. \u201cTheir pinche musica knocked me outta bed, and there\u2019s trucks parked all over my lawn.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll have someone there right away, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDamn well better.\u201d The click came to Julio\u2019s ear immediately before he finished talking.<\/p>\n
Immediately afterward, his hounds struck up keening howls, despairing of their beauty sleep in the thumping bass. Julio considered five a.m. a hellacious time to meet up with a couple doughy white guys looking to shoot a trophy mountain lion. Steeling himself for the day was tough enough when he managed to sleep first. He liked hunting, but he wasn\u2019t sure how much guiding money might make all the ass-kissin\u2019 worth it.<\/p>\n
Sirens off, flashing blue-and-white wigwags rolled to a stop in front of the house. Bare-footed, Julio stepped out on his porch to watch.<\/p>\n
Despite the cold, several partiers visited privately over the open tailgates of two trucks. One blue-shirt strutted toward them. He began shaking hands in the yard, laughing at the witch decorations, flying brooms crashing into the side of a gray metal garage. The cop slapped the taller guy on a shoulder, then headed for the arched front door.<\/p>\n
The other cop sauntered over to Julio\u2019s trailer.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood evening sir, I\u2019m Sargent Turner.\u201d Backlit by still-strobing lights in the driveway, he paused on the lowest step, but loomed over Julio. The cop\u2019s thick hand rested on a belted hip, near all the tools of his trade. Baton, tazer, pepper spray, Glock.<\/p>\n
Julio\u2019s back straightened, and he licked cracked lips. His eyes flickered toward the party house. Over the smell of spruce floated a burnt sugar stink. The door opened and a boisterous, familiar greeting drifted into the night. Julio shifted his weight onto his heels, splintered floorboards radiating cold.<\/p>\n
With his clean-shaven chin, the cop gestured toward the dogs. \u201cThese your hounds?\u201d<\/p>\n
Julio didn\u2019t answer. The voices of the hounds wailed, one higher, one deeper, as the music next door halted. The Catahoula\u2019s ice-blue eyes followed two departing pickups and she lifted her nose again, singing them into the obsidian distance.<\/p>\n
\u201cSir, I\u2019ll need to take those dogs in for the night. We\u2019ve received a complaint about their noise. You can collect them after 8 o\u2019clock, along with the $150 fine on each of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Julio turned, shrilled a whistle through his teeth. \u201cNo man, you\u2019ve got it all wrong.\u201d The blue tick male put his head down and wheeled, long-legged and smooth, toward his insulated dog house. Into the dust lifted by spinning truck tires, though, the Catahoula called defiance. Silver squad car headlights turned drifting dirt into angelic shapes. Through translucent, floating bodies, Julio saw the football star\u2019s blond crewcut haloed by flickering flatscreen light. The kid\u2014inscrutable, or just stupid\u2014watched him.<\/p>\n
Sargent Turner unclicked the dog run\u2019s galvanized latch. Julio suddenly stood before the open gate, blocking his way. \u201cI need these dogs to work. Early. You can\u2019t take \u2018em.\u201d<\/p>\n
Julio heard laughter from the crewcut\u2019s open door. Before he could lift his arm to pull the gate closed, the second officer clamped a handcuff over his wrist. His elbow was twisted back, and pain surged, volcanic, through his shoulder. The moment, the motion, was inevitable. His left fist shot forward.<\/p>\n
From the squad car\u2019s windows, Julio watched his dogs pace, unsettled, soundless.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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