Page 1

“No way a coyote could take down a steer like this,”

Marshall finally said.

It was near midnight. Summer daylight kept long hours in the Prairies, but not long enough. Above, the stars burned cold and distant.

To the west, the Rocky Mountains took jagged bites out of the sky. And below—

Everett was trying not to look.

“There’d have been a commotion if a grizzly came up through the herd,”

Marshall said, frustrated. “We’d have heard it.”

“A cougar?”

Everett offered doubtfully, keeping his face tipped skyward.

The steer was the fifth animal they’d lost in a month. Moving two hundred head of cattle, they expected to lose a couple as they drove west from Saskatchewan into the Porcupine Hills — illness, lameness — but nothing so drastic.

Something was following them.

It didn’t sound like any coyote Everett had ever heard, and it didn’t eat as much as he figured a bigger predator would.

He didn’t know what kind of animal that left.

Something rabid, maybe.

But something rabid wouldn’t have survived so long.

Neither he nor Marshall had caught a good look at the thing, no matter how late they kept watch.

Everett had seen its eyes once, flat circles reflecting the campfire in the dark, but in the second it took him to haul his rifle up and aim, they blinked away.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were still on him, even in the daytime.

A tiny itch in between his shoulder blades, digging at him like a thorn under the saddle blanket.

That had been a week ago.

The steer was a mess.

Even with its throat torn open and its guts pooling into the dust, it had been alive when they found it.

Eyes rolling in their sockets to show the whites, breath coming hard and fast in panicked wheezes.

Deep gouges marred its sides, and the lake of blood under it was black and sticky in the darkness.

Marshall had put a bullet through its skull to end its misery.

How long it had lain there, disembowelled and bleeding out, they couldn’t tell.

A few minutes, or half an hour.

Longer.

The stars had seen what happened, but they weren’t saying.

Marshall had been the one to look it over afterwards, trying to figure out what could be responsible.

Everett had turned away to be sick.

“Ain’t a hungry animal doing this,”

Marshall said, full of conviction. “Show me any animal in its right mind that makes a kill and doesn’t take more’n a bite or two.

The flies ate more of the poor bastard than whatever killed him.”

“Whatever it is, it’s been after us since the July moon.”

Everett didn’t look at Marshall to mark his reaction. “I’ll take first watch.”

He hadn’t been sleeping lately anyhow, lying awake more hours than not.

Marshall didn’t argue, just moved past him and headed back to where they’d pitched their camp, a little fire burning low between their bedrolls.

Time was, he’d have clapped Everett on the shoulder, and that change was Everett’s fault, too.

“Two hours,” he said.

Everett used to dissect every touch, trying to read Marshall’s intentions in every jostled shoulder, every tap and nudge.

Every glance.

It hadn’t done either of them any good.

It was better, he told himself, that the contact was gone.

All that analyzing and second-guessing was a waste of energy.

But no matter how he tried, he found himself missing it at the strangest times.

They’d spent too many years roughhousing, then working together, sharing space and living in each other’s pockets, to give it up so abruptly.

Marshall was a physical man, more so than Everett.

That physicality was familiar enough, even if it didn’t come naturally to him, that its sudden absence left him off-balance now that it was gone.

It would be better, maybe, to straight-up ask what Marshall wanted, instead of pussyfooting around the matter, waiting to see what he’d do next.

Or not do.

The problem was, Everett couldn’t fit those worms back in the can once it was opened.

He’d already cracked the lid; he didn’t need to go opening it any further.

They had stopped hobbling the horses after the first cow got killed, figuring to give them a fighting chance of escape, if it came to it.

Everett rode his raw-boned gelding in a wide circle around the herd, watching for movement in the dark.

His trusty Yellowboy lay against his thigh, ready to swing up at the first sign of anything that wasn’t bovine.

Everett was a crack shot at a distance, even if he could never beat Marshall at hitting bottles off the fence with a handgun.

He glared into the night, tapping his fingers against the brass frame of his rifle that gave it its moniker.

They ought to have dogs for this, those big livestock guardian dogs that farmers used for sheep, the ones unafraid of squaring up against something wild.

Dogs could work in the dark a damn sight better than he could.

And they were loyal, too.

That unconditional loyalty Everett could do with studying.

His gelding tensed under him, ears pricked and head high, blowing hard through his nostrils.

Everett couldn’t see Marshall’s horse past the cattle, but he imagined the animals talking to each other, riding each other’s nerves.

He dismounted to steady the gelding and the horse danced around, nervous as anything, before bolting.

The reins ripped out of Everett’s hands and he cursed as both horses high-tailed it, their hoofbeats thundering away.

“What happened?”

Marshall called, his voice groggy like he’d managed to catch a few minutes of sleep.

“Horses ran off,”

Everett said tersely.

The prickle in between his shoulders dug deeper like claws hooked in his spine, the anxiety enough to make his bones rattle.

Hefting his rifle in both hands, uneasy sweat slicked his palms.

Nothing but wide-open space all around, and the light from the campfire didn’t reach far.

The full moon’s silver glow was muted as clouds rolled in.

“Shit.”

With a groan, Marshall got up, rolling his shoulders and shaking off his slumber before reaching for his revolver.

The nights used to be peaceful.

Beautiful, the way the world looked beautiful in between the pages of Whitman’s poetry.

Velvet dark like they didn’t get in the city, the whole Milky Way sprawled overhead like jewels spilled from a bank robbery, the fire crackling and spitting out sparks.

Cool enough compared to the daytime that they could take the excuse to sit close, shoulders rubbing, thighs pressed together through their jeans.

Close enough to pass a can of beans back and forth while they waited for their supper to warm up over the flames.

Potatoes baking in the coals, grouse or rabbit turning on the spit.

They shouldn’t have needed the excuse to get close, not in the middle of nowhere without a single witness for a hundred kilometres in any direction, no sounds but the distant yipping of coyotes in the foothills and the soft lowing of the cattle as they settled in for the night.

Marshall wouldn’t have needed the excuse at all, but Everett was a coward.

Even after he decided he wanted something, he had dropped that wanting in Marshall’s lap for him to take responsibility for it and decide what to do next.

Self-loathing twisted his guts at the memory.

His back to the fire, Everett flexed his fingers around his rifle, holding it at the ready.

Marshall had been hot and solid in his hand that night; Everett could still feel him every time he let his mind wander.

Something shifted in the dark.

Everett froze like a rabbit, heart hammering.

A footstep, and then a rush of movement towards the fire, something huge and ragged — a gust of humid breath washed his face, rancid like rotten meat—

He squeezed off a single shot, firing blind.

Hot, wet pain seared his right side.

He was distantly aware of Marshall shouting, shots fired, and the sense that the thing was retreating, but all he could hear was the pounding of his own blood in his ears.

His rifle fell from useless fingers as he dropped to his knees.

Time slipped; the stars wheeled drunkenly.

“Fuck, c’mon, get up,”

Marshall ordered, hauling Everett to his feet. “Can you walk? We gotta go.”

Everett staggered against him, dizzy and weak. Marshall slung Everett’s left arm around his shoulder and set off. Everett’s right arm swung loose by his side, dead weight, until Marshall clamped a hand over it.

“Did you see what got you?”

Marshall asked. “I saw it against the fire for a second, but I don’t know what I was looking at. Too big for a coyote, that’s for damn sure.”

Everett shook his head. “Don’t know.”

“How bad are you hurt?”

His arm felt wet. He couldn’t figure out more of a sensation than that. Every lurching step he took against Marshall’s side felt more unstable than the last.

“You know that cabin by the bend in the creek?”

Marshall asked, not slowing his pace.

“Where we stayed a night last year? We’re gonna hole up there, get you fixed up, and then we’ll take care of whatever the hell this thing is come daybreak.

Okay? I’ll track the fucker to its den and put it down for good.

You just stay with me.”

“Sure thing,”

Everett mumbled.

The cabin was half a night away: a long trek with their horses run off, and Everett was losing blood by the pint.

“Too easy to pick us off like this,”

Everett slurred against Marshall’s shoulder. “Gotta keep your gun up…”

“I clipped it, whatever it was,”

Marshall said grimly. “It’s run off to lick its wounds. You shut up and let me worry about it.”

“That thing’s the devil. We got the devil after us.”

Marshall didn’t miss a step, but his grip tightened around Everett’s shoulder. “That’s the blood loss talking. Ain’t no devil here or anywhere else.”

When Everett stumbled one too many times, Marshall hefted him over one shoulder like a sack of flour and kept at it, his mouth set in a thin line.

The sudden movement made Everett’s stomach swoop as the last of the blood rushed away from his brain.

His body felt like it belonged to someone else, hollowed out and buzzing full of flies.

His thoughts were scattered over the range, driving down into the dust and the rocks.

He couldn’t do anything except hang limp over Marshall’s arm, clinging to consciousness by a thread.

The thought of slipping under terrified him.

If he passed out even for a second, Marshall would be setting down a corpse in that cabin.

A corpse with Everett trapped inside, unable to move, unable to so much as scream.

The horror was offset by guilty relief at the same thought. If he was dead, that was the end of it.

The cabin by Pekisko Creek wasn’t more than four thin walls and a rickety roof against a backdrop of evergreens stabbing into the sky like knives, but Marshall carried him inside and shut the door behind them like he expected it to keep them safe.

Stripped of his duster, propped up on the narrow bed, Everett tipped his head back against the wall, staring blankly into the ceiling beams.

Black splotches swam around the edges of his vision like big ugly catfish, and he couldn’t get his eyes to focus.

When Marshall tore away the sleeve of Everett’s ruined shirt, Everett couldn’t feel it. His arm was hot from the shoulder down, but touch and pressure didn’t register.

“Let’s see how bad it got you,”

Marshall muttered, more to himself than to Everett.

He had the oil lamp lit on the little dresser, enough to take the edge off the night, but barely good enough to see by.

Everett wasn’t sure he wanted to see anyhow.

Marshall put a rumpled pillow in Everett’s lap and moved Everett’s bad arm to lay on top of it, peeling the tattered blood-soaked cloth away.

“Shit,”

he hissed.

Cold fear trickled down the back of Everett’s neck. He tried to lift his head from the wall.

“Don’t look,”

Marshall said quickly.

Everett’s stomach twisted. “That bad?”

“Nope,”

Marshall said after a split-second-too-long pause. “Just messy, and you’re a pussy about blood. Once I get this clean, you’ll heal up just fine.”

Marshall wasn’t a liar, but Everett didn’t believe a word out of his mouth.

“Here,”

Marshall said, tossing something over Everett’s arm. Everett forced his vision to cooperate and found Marshall’s coat covering him like a shroud. “Let’s get some booze in you. Take the edge off.”

He searched Everett’s duster for his flask, offering it to Everett’s good side.

“That bad,”

Everett repeated.

“Just don’t look,”

Marshall repeated in turn. “It looks worse than it is. It ain’t gonna kill you and you ain’t gonna lose the arm. Drink this, shut your eyes, and don’t worry about it.”

As Everett took his first drink, Marshall got a fire going in the tiny hearth and set a pot of water to boil over it, shredding strips from the bedsheets to sterilize for bandages.

Everett watched him, not totally present, like he’d watch the herd milling in a pen, following the movements without investment.

He couldn’t move his fingers.

Couldn’t sense anything but wet, blinding pain.

From the elbow down, his arm felt like something attached to him that wasn’t his anymore.

He gulped down more of the booze, clumsy enough to spill it over his chin and down his front.

If he drank enough, it would numb the blind panic; that was more important than the pain.

His stomach twisted, half hunger, half nausea.

The booze would get him drunk quicker on an empty stomach.

The blood was so thick in the air he could taste it, but under that, he could smell Marshall’s sweat, the scent as familiar to him as the cattle, or the smell of gunmetal, or fresh rain stirring the dust under the grass.

More familiar, maybe, with the way it was burned in his memory.

His stomach growled, though he doubted he could keep solid food down if he tried.

When the flask was empty, he let it drop to the bedsheets and Marshall wordlessly handed him his own to keep going.

“Should we talk about it?”

Everett asked eventually, once he was good and drunk.

Marshall was quiet for a minute, keeping his head down as he focussed on his ministrations. They both knew exactly what Everett meant. “Do we need to?”

“Don’t see a better time for it.”

Everett kept his eyes shut. Keeping them open was disorienting, what with those catfish, and he couldn’t raise the subject open-eyed anyhow.

“We ain’t talked about it these four weeks, and you want to unearth that shit now?”

“Drunk enough that I’ll barely remember, come morning. If I even make it through the night.”

Drunk enough that he wanted to talk about it. Drunk enough that his self-loathing over the whole thing wanted a voice, and he was far enough gone to think it was a good idea to give it one.

“You’ll make it through fine. I just don’t see what there is to talk about.”

“You don’t think having this thing on our tails changes anything?”

“You think we got the devil after us because of what we did?”

Marshall shook his head and kept cleaning the wound.

His hands were shaking; Everett could feel that much.

They hadn’t been shaking when he’d been working them down the front of Everett’s jeans.

“This thing’s flesh and bone, same as any other animal. This one’s just sick or something. It’s got a fever in its blood hot enough to boil its brain and drive it crazy, that’s all.”

Everett swallowed.

It tasted grimy, like copper and iron.

He brought the flask to his mouth again, hoping to taste Marshall’s lips on it.

He didn’t.

“Whatever it’s got, you think it’s catching?”

“You’re already crazy.”

“Marshall.”

“What do you want me to say?”

Marshall snapped, pausing his work to glare at him.

“I’ve been taking my cues from you ever since that night. When to get close to you, where to touch you, for how long. Where to bunk down, where to look. I didn’t make the first move, so I ain’t apologizing for shit. You said it wouldn’t happen again and it hasn’t, so what’s there to talk about that we ain’t already covered?”

“I just want to clear the air.”

“Air’s already clear,”

Marshall returned churlishly. “And quit acting like you’re on your goddamn deathbed. I ain’t a priest and I ain’t taking your last confession.”

He worked in silence for another minute, winding the bandages tight.

Everett watched the crown of his head, the bunch of his shoulders, the set of his jaw, to avoid looking at Marshall’s hands or the blood on them.

Looking was what had set them on this path in the first place, but the damage was already done.

Something hungry in Everett, unfamiliar in its recklessness, wanted to make it worse.

“I like it,”

Everett confessed around the mouth of Marshall’s flask. “The attention. Knowing you want me like that.”

Marshall’s breath gusted out, the rhythm of his hands stuttering. “Jesus Christ, Everett.”

Everett’s drunken tongue wouldn’t quiet. “Don’t know what that makes me. Selfish, I guess. I just want you to know that I always liked you looking. Wanting. All of it.”

“Looking and wanting ain’t doing.”

Everett knew that, but the drink blurred the lines between the three.

He looked, and he wanted, and he might have done again.

But his body was something else now, an empty, mangled thing that didn’t listen to what he told it.

Then again, it had always been a traitor. Always wanting things it wasn’t meant to have.

“Look,”

he managed, “I’m not proud of stringing you along like I did.”

“I know you’re not proud,”

Marshall retorted. “Fuck, you got enough shame in you it must feel like dragging around a dead horse.”

The drink urged Everett forward, begging him to reach out, touch, hold, his inhibition shaved down to shivering bare bones. The blood loss kept him seated. Guilt made him heavy.