From Dust, to Dust

The first touch of autumn was soft in its approach, the smell of sun burnt leaves and a coolness foreign to the dust covered man. Remembering the date, midway through the month of August, made the realization of the changing season more accepting. He affixed his hat on his mop of hair to better fight the growing wind. The dust here, same as one hundred southern miles, had been passed back and forth between the latitudes so long it no longer could call a single square mile its home.

“Always so much dust,” he mutters as a gust blows a fresh powder over his boots.

The man kept walking, feeling himself like the arid topsoil, migrant in nature through the environment, though grateful for shade and fresh water in his destination instead of more sun and wind.

He climbed the stairs to the hacienda laboriously and set his saddle on the fence railing. The pink stucco of the building had stood out in the grey dust because of the mountain backdrop behind the structure. Seated on the west side of the Rockies, this ranch played gateway to both the desert and the mountain alike.

Inside the door, the man found the office to be covered with as much of the fine windswept grit as the porch and the man himself. The shades on the windows had been opened, so the ranch manager, Glenn Shamus, wasted no time in the interrogation.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” he stated in his opening fact.

“No sir.”

“You lost my horse,” he stated, a frown growing below his bushy white mustache.

“I know where he is, but he won’t be riding again.”

Mr. Shamus grew dark, but for a change did not let his notorious temper rise above the constant simmer. He leaned back in his chair, pointed to the water cooler in the corner. The man went and took a few minutes to quench is parched and muddy throat.

“Do you plan to work off the cost of the horse?” Mr. Shamus asked when the man had finally released hold of the cool water.

“I do.”

A pause while he sat across the desk from the ranch manager. Mr. Shamus, having kept a watchful eye on the man, still sat back in his chair to decide what to do next.

“Well, I suppose you should tell me what happened.”

And so, the story goes.

With the drought having gone on too long to keep the cattle close and more convenient, management by the way of Mr. Shamus and the owners of the land had deemed it necessary to reduce the numbers and spread the last of the herd across more acers. Far out to the corners of the property, where roads do not touch nor the terrain favorable to modern machinery, these cattle had sought nutrition along dried washes and forgotten creek beds.

“How many more do we need to find?” asked the man to the leader of this corral party. Jim Saberson, a man taller than most horses and thin as a cane pole, surveyed the final corner of the property he had tended to for over a decade. The rest of the eight-man party had gone ahead, down through the first of three arroyos that came off the mountain on this southern most corner of the ranch.

Jim had adjusted his sunglasses, protecting his eyes from the microbial grit kicked up by the horses of the others and spitting what had infiltrated into his mouth. “Not too many, twenty head of cattle left then off to the plains where it should be easier.”

The man sat on his borrowed horse. This animal represented his sole mode of transportation and carrier of his worldly possessions mustering a nostalgic sense of history repeated. Without further discussion, Jim wheeled his own steed around to the second arroyo in the line of three that came down from off the wooded and steep mountain.

Dropping below the lip, and into more grass and shrub brush than near any other parts of the aired landscape, they road to cut off any cattle that may try and break from the six who descended first. Jim road quickly, with the grace of an experienced horseman and confidence in his animal. The man road slower out of practiced patience, ensuring his roping line was ready in case there was need.

The canyon was deeper than first appearances led the man to believe, the bottom wider still. This natural cattle pen lent aid to the six other riders and the bovine they found. Two cows were causing an issue as they had become nearly feral due to their isolation in the wild, their calves braying in panic and causing the herd to spook more than necessary. One of the calves got cut out of the herd by circumstance and made a break towards the two new arriving horsemen.

Jim, unable to pull his rope, moved to herd the animal back but was unsuccessful. He called out, but the man was already mid throw of the lasso. A throw, pull, and quick tie to the horn of the saddle found the calf now affixed to the horse though not secure. The man dismounted and made his way to the calf to better affix the rope.

The horse stood strong and kept the rope tight, the calf had backed under some tall brush to escape the horseman. The man was able to pull the calf from the brush and flip the animal to better affix the rope. Jim sat between the rest of the herd, now being pushed up the first arroyo, and the man as he worked.

Just as he loosened the lasso, the barrowed horse stomped and pulled the rope from the man’s hand. Turning to look while still on the calf he saw the barrowed horse up and kicking its front hooves. Like dust devil in a windstorm, a wolf had appeared, supposedly from the third arroyo, to make pray of the pack animal.

The wolf, grey and larger than the calf the man was on, lunged and ducked, nimbly escaping certain death form the hooves flying about his attempt at a meal. Horse screams and the pounding of hooves filled the air as thick as the sand being flung about by the embattled duo, though no sound came from the predator. It was smart though, the hunter of horses, turning and chasing the large animal around quickly in circles and tangling the horse’s legs in the lasso that captured the calf just a moment ago.

Jim, a stickler for the rules and following the standing order of no firearms on the trail, could lend no aid to the situation. He wouldn’t be able to aid in this incident if he had a gun, as his own horse began bucking and trying to remove its rider.

The man on the calf let go of the animal, the young one quickly running to rejoin the protection of the herd and passing two riders having turned around to the commotion. Now with four witnesses, seemingly enough to the wolf’s liking, it quickly changed direction in its circling of the borrowed horse and took up the lasso in its muzzle. This motion, accomplished by practiced jaws the size riveling an alligator, pulled tight the rope and finally brought down the horse.

Jim, having regained control of his steed, joined in the rescue being conducted by the two new riders. The three riders charged forward, armed with raised voices and hopes, towards the now gasping screams of the horse and wolf whose jowls were freshly blooded. The man had fallen to his back when the calf had run, now kicked back hoping to make distance from the animal brawl and the riders coming to lend aid. The three never reached the murder scene as the wolf, having completed ripping out the throat of the horse, leapt towards the oncoming riders causing their own steeds to rear back and paw at the air with their front hooves.

Once again, nimble with recent experience, the wolf circled the three riders as quick as a full pack of killers. Two of the riders, Jim and another man, collided and tangled reigns. At the same time the third rider, a man by the name of Andrew Eckerson, broke away from the mele. Andrew, assumingly in the hopes of having the honor of taking the wolf alone, was not quick enough. The horse murderer seemed to sense the sole rider’s intention thereby countering the offense by attacking from the rear flank after skillfully maneuvering around the equine maze and taking Andrew’s leg in its freshly blooded jaws.

With a scream rivaling that of the barrows horse, Andrew was pulled from his saddle. With a quick, powerful shake of the animal’s head, the entirety of the calf muscle attached to Andrewes right leg was removed.

The savage suddenness of the attack caused both horses and men to still, as if it was a natural thing to pay respect to the primal rapacious actions.

The wolf too sensed the pause and took the moment to step quickly on top of Andrew. A lone paw covered nearly his entire chest as Andrew tried to find more breath just to scream out. The wolf, with an animal abnormality none could name, looked down on its victim while chewing the meat it already had taken. This brought a pause, all eyes affixed on an unenvious situation as the animal held the power over man.

The beast, as now the true size of the animal could be ascertained, turned quickly running back up the arroyo it had come from with as much sound as the gentle breeze.

The man regained his feet and ran to Andrew. By the time he arrived Jim had already dismounted and was wrapping the nearly amputated leg in a sweaty towel to staunch the bleeding. Shock became the universal language as voice boxes were rendered useless in the wake of the attack. Wordlessly the three able body riders hauled Andrew onto the back of Jim’s horse.

“Get your saddle,” Jim commanded as he mounted his horse. “Take Andrew’s horse and meet us at the load point.” With no other fanfare, he turned to quickly ride out of the canyon with the last of the riders with him.

The man was able to find Andrew’s horse after unsaddling the barrowed and bloodied carrion feast. He was able to affix the extra saddle his new ride out while shaking uncontrollably from adrenaline and fear of an encore performance, as it truly felt like this senseless killing was but a message and not necessity.

He met with the riders where the trucks had been parked at the edge of the only road to this part of the property and still miles from the fateful canyon. The cattle had been loaded onto the two trailers to be taken directly into town another ninety miles away to be sold. The third truck that had been brought had left, Jim taking Andrew first on that journey to better care than the modern cowboys could provide.

The riders had loaded their horses in the back of the trailers, as was custom, and perched themselves in the cabs of the trucks to escape the sun and grime. The man road his newly barrowed horse in between the two modern steeds, greeted by lowered windows.

“We need to take this load into town,” said the driver of one vehicle. A dark complexion made darker by the events of earlier and favorable shade.

“Go on,” said the man. “I’ll ride back to the big house and report in person.”

“That’s a long ride,” said the driver, tired but not offering an easier solution.

“I’m the new hand, might be my hide if we can’t offload these cattle because I wanted to be pampered by the cool A/C.” The driver furrowed his brows, receiving the jab but too comfortable to rebut.

“Also, you won’t have service until you hit the city limits, I’ll be back and cooling off by then.” The man adjusted his gloves saying this, an unspoken challenge lingering in the air.

“Suite yourself.” The driver took the lead of the cattle caravan down the road. Unspoken was the knowledge that safety was driving away as much as comfort was.

The man turned north, on to the big house as the other hands call it, beginning a long ride through the soot once called grasslands. With every new furnace blast of air that constituted a breeze on this dry plain, more of the nomadic topsoil swirled to dance about. The man thought of the wolf, sometimes seeing it among the sand pillars the sudden windstorms brought on.

Glenn Shamus had sat and listened to the recounting of the story with little change in his expression. The wind had kick dust devils up that danced around the hacienda casting shadows as if nature intended to stalk the structure, brought here by the man from the scene of the crime.

“Andrew’s horse?”

“Watered and brushed in the stable.”

“Good, I saw you ride in and assumed you were doing just that. And Jim?”

The man, having degloved his hands, scratched his face where the beard and grit itched it. “I imagine you’re going to get a call shortly. He can corroborate this tall tell.”

The phone lying on the desk rang. Mr. Shamus picked it up and was promptly cut off before he was able to introduce himself.

“Slow down Jim start from the beginning.” The man stood and retrieved another glass of water, the window adjacent pictured the ranch. The wind-kicked dust floated like clouds on distant oceans to shadow the horizon. This artificial shade moved gracefully and invoked visions of the predator being discussed on the other side of the room.

“He’s here now,” Mr. Shamus said, bringing the man back to the moment. “Let me know what the doctors say and when the others get there to offload those cattle.”

The man turned to Mr. Shamus hanging up the phone by throwing it against the door that separated the cool dust from the scorched.

“I’m sorry you saw that.” Mr. Shamus said never having left his seat. He reached under the desk and pulled out another phone just like the one recently destroyed. The man picked up the pieces and brought them over to the desk where the SIM card was removed and inserted into the new device. The sounds of reconstruction filled the silence, both men excreting their energy on their respective worries.

“We’re down a horse and a rider. Again.”

“What happened to the rider I replaced?” asked the man, the miles of the day beginning to catch up to show in his face.

“Normally I don’t tell, don’t speak out of turn unless there’s something to be learned.” Mr. Shamus sat back and powered on the phone. “I tell everyone else to do the same, but never check if they follow that rule.” He glanced up, red faced in his anxiety, to question now how that rule stood.

“I can attest they do follow that rule.”

Nodding to this he continued. “But in this special circumstance I will share. A few months ago, it was just as hot and dry as it was now. Jim and the boys were to move the cattle to the pasture you picked them up from today.”

Mr. Shamus stood suddenly and beckoned the man to the door opposite of his entry earlier. This second entry led to the greater part of the hacienda reserved for the owners, manager, and special occasions preempted by a thorough bathing and finer starched clothing. The man entered to find a clean and even cooler grand hall leading to a living room. Feeling out of pace in his dust and filth, he followed the manager through the home to the kitchen, as clean as a surgery room, and saddled the barstool by the counter as if he were to order whiskey at a saloon.

“One of the boys,” Mr. Glenn Shamus continued while pulling fine glassware out of a cabinet and a bottle of a brown liquor, “cut off from the rest to investigate something. He didn’t say before leaving, at least that is what Jim reported to me. The boy rode up to the edge of the mountain, where the forest meets the prairie and waved for someone to join him.” Mr. Shamus poured the liquor into the glasses and handed one to the man. They both sipped the drink as only scared, stressed men do.

“We called the boy, really a young man, Nick cause he insisted on getting a nickname,” Shamus smiled at the obvious fond memories of a past bond. “Nick was from the tribes southwest of here, leaving the reservation years ago to work here and sending the money back to his family. Well Jim gets over there and says Nick pointed out tracks in the dust leading into the trees.” Having recent experience in that area, the man could conger in his mind where this event might have taken place. “Jim reported back that Nick was white as snow when he pointed down to the tracks.”

“What were the tracks?”

“Was a mix of footprints, like a man’s but a size fourteen shoe, and what we assumed were very large dog paws.”

Shamus had his new phone in one hand, drink in the other and sipping slower now. He paused for a moment to concentrate on the new device before turning it around. There on the screen were the tracks as described, evidently saved on the SIM card retrieved earlier. These prints were indeed from a man with a large foot, tall and thin with protrusions in front of the toe like the claws at the top of a dog’s paw. Intermingled with these, tracks of what the man knew to be a wolf nearly dwarfed its bipedal companion.

“Nick was quiet the rest of that trip, and when they got back, he didn’t unsaddle his horse before meeting with me. He was shaking like a rattler when he said he couldn’t work here anymore and needed to get home. I tried to convince him to stick around until the end of the month or until a replacement could be found but he refused. He left before nightfall. Didn’t even take his horse.”

“He left his horse here?” the man asked surprised.

“Said I can give it to the next guy who needs it. You were the next guy.”

Mr. Shamus took back his phone from the man and went to fix himself more of what was discovered to be whiskey. The man accepted a refill by quickly finishing his first glass. With fresh drinks, the manager led the man through the kitchen out to the back patio. The north and south of the sitting area were blocked by the wings of the hacienda so the east side faced out towards the Rockies.

They stood looking to the sunburnt shrubs and pines that worked their way heavenward out of laborious necessity. Even with the foliage as it was, there were evident clouds of fine powder and more dust devils traipsing across the mountainside peaking through the trees like wraths.

“Shame about the horse.”

“More of a shame about Andrew,” the man said.

“It is.”

The setting sun appeared to catch the mountain side on fire with light, shadows elongated and reached out to take hold of the coming night. Too far was the pair of men from the mountain side to tell if there were living things among those dark arms of night or swelling clouds of dust dancing in the trees.

“You had a hell of a resume before starting here,” Mr. Chamus said as he nursed his drink.

“Been around.”

“Ranched all over Texas and Oklahoma, was a tree cutter in Washington for a time too.”

“Can’t seem to find a calling I suppose,” said the man, knowing what may be coming next.

“Hunters guide and predator control in Montana, six years. You’re longest calling.” Mr. Shamus turned and faced the man with this last comment. The fact having been stated, the man waited if only to make the manager speak his mind even if it wasn’t already clear.

“You can pay off that horse by killing that wolf.”

The man stood looking at the mountain. The resume didn’t lie, nor did it tell the whole truth. His life had been spent outside, under the heavens more nights than shelter doing what was needed to afford the roof he seldom used. Montana was the longest run, until one day he realized he had done enough killing which is why he was here now, supposedly taken a job without the blood.

“Don’t have a gun.”

Mr. Shamus turned back to the door inside, nodding for him to follow. Through some rooms, a maze of which the man wouldn’t try to remember, they came upon a bedroom which held a tall fire safe in the corner. Setting his glass of whiskey on top of the safe, Mr. Shamus opened it to retrieve a rifle and a box of ammunition. He handed them over and wordlessly the man placed his own glass down on an adjacent dresser.

This was a modern rifle, black and foreboding. He checked the action and found it to be filled with burnt powder and cordite. The box of ammunition was a smaller caliber than what would be needed, though a magazine would hold the box and another half. The gun, light in his hands, felt frail and artificial, unable to fend for itself in the wilds it would be asked to survive in.

“This won’t work,” the mans said handing the gun back.

Mr. Shamus, reddened in the face as if a personal slight, turned to replace the firearm and pull another.

The next one was a bolt action rifle. Long and shining with bright chrome and fine wood, this looked to be a trophy that seldom saw the light of day, untested in the wilds. Upon further inspection, the assumption was proven right. The bolt held no blemish, no evidence of ever being fired though the caliber would be right for the job.

“Too bright, the sun will give me away.”

Mr. Shamus took a long deep breath with the gun in his hands, stifling the rage that was evidently growing.

“Fine. Pick. One.” He said through gritted teeth and again reddening face.

The man walked around to see an assortment of firearms of various makes and models, calibers and purposes, obvious needs, and wistful wants. He pulled from the safe a lever gun. The caliber of the rifle was 30-30, a standard for ranchers across the country and looked to be well worn. The lever worked smoothly, the hammer clicking loudly in the quiet room. The trigger, when pulled, felt smooth as fine silk, or the moon dust that covered this place, as it drifted to the rear position before dropping the hammer onto the firing pin with no destination.

The man retrieved a box of ammunition and placed it in his worn jeans before stepping back and retrieving his drink. His selection now made; he knew he had one last hunt to do no matter his personal opinions. Mr. Shamus studied him and his choice of tool. “It looks like you stepped out of a western movie with that gun,” he said before closing the safe.

Ignoring this, as the task was more present on his mind than theatrics, the man said, “I’ll leave before dawn. I’ll take Andrew’s horse with my saddle if you don’t mind.”

“Take whatever provisions you may need to go play king of the hill,” Mr. Shamus said as he led the man out of the room.

“Won’t need much.”

The sun was cresting on the eastern side of the mountain range, just beginning to brighten the new day. On the western side of the range, the man saw magnificent rays of sunlight striking their way through the early morning sky like a holy blessing to expel evil from the land. He had been asleep well before any of the other riders from the previous day returned and left so early in the morning the horses couldn’t be bothered with his arrival. He assumed Mr. Shamus informed the others of his new task but didn’t care to offer his own thoughts on the matter.

Andrew’s horse had ridden well, a light burden for the mount to bare as the man took only a gallon of water, jerky and assorted nuts, pocketknife, gun, and ammunition. They arrived at the edge of the mountain, the arroyos in sight behind them in the growing morning light. The southern wind began as the sun, slow though steady in strength to give the day its full potential. The sun and wind were diametrically apposed however, as the sun was trying to give light while the wind continued to pull more topsoil into its game of catch between the cardinal directions.

“The dust will be an issue,” the man said to his steed. The horse in response stood as a sentry to its duties.

They began up the mountain. As if by happenstance the man found some tracks of what he assumed was the wolf leading up the mountain as he worked to cover his lower face with a bandana. He dismounted, looking closely at the prints that survived the wind and sand when nothing else would. On foot, leading the horse with his left hand and holding his rifle in his right, he followed them up into the tree line. His years as a hunting guide began to come back to him, as if he stepped back in time to his own self with fresh experience.

Eyes to the ground following the trial for three steps, then up and to his surroundings for three more, the man made his way slowly into the trees and steep grade. The further uphill the hunter and horse went the harder it became to beckon the animal along. Mid-morning, when the sun seemed to almost peak over the top of the mountain, the newly barrowed horse stopped and planted its feet in refusal to move any further.

The man softly cursed, turned, and brought the horse’s head in close. “I know it’s fearful what we’re doing friend, but alone it will be worse.” They stood like that for a short time, both enjoying the reprieve from the climb. The man retrieved his water, giving some to the horse as well. After eating enough to staunch his hunger, he replaced his goods in his saddle bags and checked the rifle. Seven rounds were in the rifle, one in the chamber, five more along the stock in a small bandolier, and the final seven from the box of twenty rounds were in the pocket of the man’s warn jeans.

The wind continued to grow with the sunlight, kicking more of the soft powdery dirt around and into the eyes of man and beast. He looked, still seeing the tracks as if made of stone in the soft ashen dust. Around him the trees were still spread out wide, not quite the wooded alpine slopes he had once ventured through for game and adventure. Another half mile or so would bring the pair into more dense woods broken by rock ledges in the earth’s climb to meet the sky.

The sun was directly above when they reached a seemingly vertical wall of rock that the tracks lead to. By then the early morning breeze became a fight as the autumn winds of the north began to battle for supremacy against the south’s summer hold. The further the man ascended the mountain, the worse the winds became. He tied the horse off to a low and needleless pine branch to make his way forward alone to investigate the wolf’s assent. Nearing the rocks, the tracks changed.

Still unbothered by the growing wind, the tracks elongated from a paw into something truly prehistoric, like a monster from tails children would be told to behave in fear of. Claws reaching forward of pads that grew tall and lean like, the man said to himself in whispered awe “a foot.”

By the time the tracks met the rocks, they were all but human footprints, though the claws were still evident especially in the scratching marks up the rockface. A closer inspection of the hardened limestone the more evident the method of the climb became. Claws seemed to have impaled themselves through the rock like the climbing spikes he once wore to ascend trees. The man’s eyes continued following the trail of vertical mountaineering he wasn’t prepared for, losing sight of it when a low cloud of powdery earth was pushed between himself and the summit.

He looked through the dust and dry topsoil to see where that summit might be, then in a flash he saw it. Just for a moment, through a thin veil the earthly debris, the face of the wolf peered down and looked the man in the eyes if not the soul.

Ice filled the man’s veins. Timed slowed, details became clearer. Frozen as if in the dead of winter, the man stood and stared back into the eyes of this great beast. Pointed ears on a grey, near white, head. Fangs so large they could not fit inside the jaw the size of an alligator’s, sticking out at odd and unnatural angles. Eyes, blacker than a moonless night, conveyed an intelligence as if the animal taunted it’s supposed hunter with the climb and a more personal meeting.

A gust so strong it stumbled the man, pushing him against the rocks as if in encouragement, caused the eye contact to break. Searching again, the man could not find the creature. He turned to the horse with legs shaking like a newborn colt, he tried to understand what he saw by taking inventory of his own footsteps.

“Foot prints up a rock wall. I don’t think I brought a big enough gun.” He said to himself as he studied the ground to ensure he didn’t fall while walking back to where he tied the barrowed horse.

He looked up as he reached the tree. The open air of the mountain and a broken limb met his eyes. Far below, kicking up a cloud of dust undiscernible from the rest, the barrowed horse was quickly returning to its stables and back to safety. The view from so high made the galloping horse seem closer than it was, and the man sat.

“Shit,” he said to himself. Armed with only the rifle and a constant pocketknife, now he feared dehydration more than what awaited him further on the trail.

He stayed like that for some time, watching his mode of escape leave him stranded. The winds continued to blow as the sun gained even more strength. The shade of the dry pine only slightly abated the heat from above and showered the man with sharp, itch inducing needles. There he sat, enduring the discomfort like a prisoner awaiting judgement though his own future lay squarely in his hands.

The sun began plunging in the sky, the slow descent made faster by altitude. The man stood up and faced again the wall of rock, where he began the debate of a vertical ascent or continuing to hike and find a more favorable route ahead. The complexity of the climb, and the need to hold onto the rifle while ascending, became the factor that made the choice clear. Decision made, he retrieved his pocketknife and carved an arrow into the pine on the downward face, ensuring the vertical line of the arrow was wide and deep. When finished, he retrieved one of the 30-30 rounds in his pocket and placed it in the arrow.

He turned following the rock face in a northerly direction. Track of the beast was gone now though the pressure felt from unseen eyes never abated. As the day had grown older, the northern wind strengthened and threatened to dismantle the man from his place on the mountainside. Half a mile along this limestone gateway he found a ravine with a kinder grade and canyon walls that blocked him from the winds.

He started afresh now. The whistling wind assaulting the ridges around made the man deaf to other sounds but his own breath and footfalls. Shifting eyes tried to take up his senses slack, looking all around the edges of the high walls belabored by dirty squalls. Each fresh cloud, every dust devil, and even the corner of his eyes contained that nightmare of a beast that waited to greet him above.

Still, he ascended.

He reached the lip, the peak of this ravine, that flattened out to the join with the natural incline of the mountain. Slowly, matching his own speed with the descending sun, he peered over the edge.

Sunburned trees, dry grass that threatened fire with the slightest friction, and dust lay before him. He brought himself fully atop and level with the sloping ground. The gun was now to his shoulder, senses alight with enough electricity to power a town. Creeping forward into the trees, the man took long and slow breaths to calm a heart racing as the barrowed horse.

Further into the woods he went.

The tall, bone-dry grasses that held onto life long after its kin from the plains rolled like ocean waves, the man moved as the tall ships once did with a ponderously slow speed of necessity and engineering. The sun continued the destined marriage with the earth, encouraged by applause from the tree’s shadows growing ever higher on the hills, preparing to embrace the night.

Still, further into the woods he went.

The tracks were found again, transformed back into paw prints so thick and wide they laid the grass down flat as a black top. Slowly, with one eye on the path before him, the other continually scanning all around the growing shadows and dust, his rifle followed all suspicious movement. The man felt the ingrained habits of the hunt returned, truly making his movements slow though automatic while his attention focused on the target hidden ahead.

The highway in the grass paved by the wolf meandered into another ravine leading higher up to the mountain. Again, the walls of this small mountainside canyon blocked the wind from assaulting the man, and again the man continued higher up the mountain. Hunger was coming now, barely noticed through the focus if not for its sibling, thirst, threatening to pull attention from the patient task of ambush. With no solution to these problems, the man continued up the hill as he scanned his surroundings for the beast that haunted the corner of his eyes.

The sunset was growing eminent now, the last light causing the rocks around him to glow with the final heat of the day. Shadows pointing onwards to his goal. The man did not look to see how much day he had left in fear of blinding himself and making the shadows even darker than they already appeared to be. The light grew in orange ferocity as if engulfed in the fires of a furnace as he approached the last of the ravine. He lay low to the ground, slithering forward with his gun ahead of him until he could just see over the edge and onto a fresh dry meadow.

Grasses and trees again covered the landscape. Randomly placed as only nature can, rocks and boulders laid about checkered by shadow and sun. Ahead of his hiding place, the man saw how some of those rocks and trees had fallen together, bracing one another in a unique structure, to make a den. This is where the rifle’s iron sights now lay.

Orange light faded ever so slowly into the blue and grey of evening around the prone hunter. Soon the stars would come out. The ever-assaulting northern wind calmed as if instructed to by the night. In a sudden final gust in protest to the ending day, a cloud rose and obscured the den from the man for a moment.

The dust settled on the wolf.

Backlit by the den’s darkness and facing the rifle with no intelligent fear, the wolf stood with teeth chattering in anticipation.

The man adjusted his aim ever so slightly onto the chest of the animal.

Black eyes bore through time and space as the animal took a step towards a tree. Though not close, the proximity impressed upon the man how truly enormous this beast was.

The hunter followed, holding the sights true to their target.

The great paw of the animal was elevated and placed against a fully grown pine tree, dwarfing the truck in size, and shaking the tree in its weight.

The man, slow and controlled, placed his thumb against the hammer of the rifle.

“From ashes to ashes,” he whispered drily as a prayer while he pulled against the immense weight of that judge’s gavel.

A growl, unearthly in nature, reverberated from the wolf. Its jowls moved, working the teeth around in anticipation. With a gentle push of the paw placed on the tree, the animal stood on its hind legs and growled out “from dust to dust”.

“Jim,” Mr. Shamus called out as he navigated through the dark morning on horseback, trusting his mount to find safe passage to the arroyo.

“Here boss,” Jim replied. His two other riders with him on either side like bodyguards. The sun had just started lighting the mountain, granting all the blessed ability to see.

“Signs?” Mr. Shamus asked in the form of a yell before he met with the trio in the dawning light. All were prepared for a long day looking for the man, with plenty of water, food, and, more importantly they felt, ammunition for their firearms. Jim waited for his boss to get closer, poor sleep due to the nightmares kept him from exerting unnecessary effort when patience would due. Mr. Shamus arrived, he had been much further away than expected, but a windless prairie can carry sound for miles.

The light had grown enough for the men to see each other and make out details of the mountainside they faced. The night had brought clouds in from the north. Blessed rain seemed to be short to follow.

“No sign of him down here, but we should wait before going up.” Jim started. The manager nodded in agreement, though Jim felt it necessary to make his point. “More light the better. If it does rain, and we’re up there, we’ll get washed right back down here. We should glass the area first.”

Before Jim finished his points, the two other riders were retrieving their binoculars and looking up towards the trees and cliffs. Mr. Shamus stayed silent, this being his agreement to the plan. Without further discussion, Jim and Mr. Shamus joining the other two in their distant search for the man. “I’ll be.”, one man said under his breath before dropping his binoculars and pointing quickly to a high ridge with a shaking hand. The others followed quicky, each desperate to be done with the duties of the day.

Each man saw it, no two would say any different or call the other a liar. They saw that wolf, standing on the ridge with its bloody alligator jaw and black soulless eyes. They saw that wolf standing on its hind legs, staring back down at them, like a challenge.