“Ranchers hate fire.” Donny paused to take a closer look at the wood post immediately in front of him. He tilted his head and craned his neck, careful not to touch the fence or the post. “The ranchers shake their heads at rejuvenation. The way they look at it, why destroy and waste all that valuable feedstock.”

Finally he straightened back up, put his hat back on and announced, “We’re okay. It’s not hot.” But then he tapped the wire with his fingertips like you check a hot burner to make sure it’s been turned off.

Satisfied, his huge hands grasped between the barbs, one on each strand of the middle two, separating a space for her.

“Go ahead,” she told him.

She had to wait for him to shift from a gentleman to a fellow law enforcement officer. It took a few minutes for his blank stare of protest to disappear. Then he finally nodded and readjusted his grip to the top two strands instead of the bottom two so he could accommodate his longer legs.

Maggie watched closely how he zigzagged his bulk between the wires without catching a single barb. Then she mimicked his moves and followed through, holding her breath and wincing when she felt a razor-sharp barb snag her hair.

On the other side of the fence they continued walking through the knee-high prairie grass. The sun had started to slip below the horizon turning the sky a gorgeous purple-pink that seeped into the twilight’s deep blue. Out here in the open field, Maggie wanted to stop and watch the kaleidoscope affect. She caught herself tucking away details to share later with Benjamin Platt, only she’d relate them in cinematic terms. Think of John Wayne in Red River, she would tell him when she described the landscape. It was somewhat of a game they played with each other. Both of them were classic movie buffs. In less than a year what started as a doctor/patient relationship had turned into a friendship. Except recently Maggie found herself thinking about Ben more and more.

She stumbled over the uneven ground and realized the grass was getting thicker and taller. She struggled to keep up with Donny.

He was a giant of a man, wide neck and barrel-chest. Maggie thought he looked like he was wearing a Kevlar vest under his button-down shirt, only there was no vest, just solid, lean muscle. He had to be at least six feet, five inches tall, maybe more because he seemed to bend forward, slightly at the waist, shoulders slumped as if walking against a wind or perhaps, uncomfortable with his height.

Maggie found herself taking two steps to his one, sweating despite the sudden chill. The sinking sun was quickly stealing all the warmth of the day and she wished she hadn’t left her jacket back in Donny’s pickup. The impending nightfall seemed to only increase Donny’s long gait.

At least she had worn comfortable and flat shoes. She’d been to Nebraska before so she thought she had come prepared, but her other visits had been to the far eastern side near Omaha, the state’s only metropolitan city that sprawled over rolling river valley. Here, within a hundred miles of the Nebraska/Colorado border the terrain was nothing like she expected. On the drive from Scottsbluff there had been few trees and even fewer towns in-between the miles. Those villages they did drive through took barely a few minutes and a slight decrease of acceleration to enter and exit.

Earlier Donny had told her that cattle outnumbered people and at first she thought he was joking.

“You’ve never been out to these parts before,” he had said rather than ask. His tone was polite, not defensive when he noticed her skepticism.

“I’ve been to Omaha several times,” she had answered, knowing immediately from his smile that it was a bit like saying she had been to the Smithsonian when asked if she had seen Little Bighorn.

“Nebraska takes nine hours to cross from border to border,” he told her. “It has 1.7 million people. About a million of them live in a 50-mile radius of Omaha.”

Again, Donny’s voice reminded Maggie of a cowboy poet’s and she didn’t mind the geography lesson.

“Let me put it a perspective you can relate to, no disrespect intended,” and he had paused, glancing at her to give her a chance to protest. “Cherry County, a bit to the northwest of us, is the largest county in Nebraska. It’s about the size of Connecticut. There are six thousand people in 5700 square miles. That’s about one person per square mile.”

“And cattle?” she had asked with a smile, allowing him his original point.

“Almost ten per square mile.”

She had found herself mesmerized by the rolling sandhills and suddenly wondering what to expect if she needed to go to the bathroom. What was worse, Donny’s geography lesson only validated Maggie’s theory, that this assignment – like several before it – was yet another one of her boss’s punishments.

About a month ago Assistant Director Raymond Kunze had sent her down to the Florida Panhandle, smack-dab in the path of a Category 5 hurricane. In less than a year since he officially took the position, Kunze had made it a habit of sending her on wild goose chases. Okay, so perhaps he was easing up on her, replacing danger with mind-numbing madness. Maggie specialized in criminal behavior and profiling. She had advanced degrees in behavorial psychology, pre-med and forensic science. Yet, it had been so long since Kunze allowed her to work a real crime scene she wondered if she would remember basic procedure? Even this scene didn’t really count as a crime, except perhaps for the cows.

Now as they continued walking, Maggie tried to focus on something beside the chill and the impending dark. She thought, again, about the fact that there was no blood.

“What about rain?”

Almost instinctively she glanced over her shoulder. Backlit by the purple horizon, the bulging gray clouds looked more ominous. They threatened to block out any remaining light. At their mention Donny picked up his pace. Anything more and Maggie would need to jog to keep up.

“It hasn’t rained since last weekend,” he told her. “That’s why I thought it was important for you to take a look before those thunderheads roll in.”

They had left Donny’s pickup on a dirt trail off the main highway, next to a deserted and dusty black pickup. Donny had mentioned he asked the rancher to meet them but there was no sign of him or of any other living being. Not even, she couldn’t help but notice, any cattle.

The rise and fall of sand dunes blocked any sign of the road. Maggie climbed behind him, the incline steep enough she caught herself using fingertips to keep her balance. Donny came to an abrupt stop, waiting at the top. Even before she came up beside him she noticed the smell.

Donny pointed down below at a sandy dugout area about the size of a backyard swimming pool. Earlier he had referred to something similar as a blowout, explaining that the areas were where wind and rain had washed away grass. They’d continue to erode, getting bigger and bigger if ranchers didn’t control them.

The stench of death wafted up. Lying in the middle of the sand was the mutilated cow, four stiff legs poking up toward the sky. The creature, however, didn’t resemble anything Maggie had ever seen.

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