I thought about what Jennifer had said about the big beasts and how they likely ate each other, even family.

As I looked out over the high plains and felt the weight of the oncoming storm at my back, it wasn’t difficult to feel small, transient, and ephemeral. I thought about the tenuous threads that held us here, that kept us going. I thought about the women in my life and what magnificent, life-engendering creatures they were. I’d like to think that Jen had been like that—that it was more important what you did with your life than how it ended or what somebody did with your bones long afterward. Still, her head rested in my jail’s holding cell. I couldn’t help but think that she deserved something better than that.

I guess I hoped that she’d end up at the High Plains Dinosaur Museum or with the Cheyenne Conservancy—somewhere near her home—but it didn’t look good.

I watched as a few hailstones the size of BBs struck the rocks outside the overhang, and I could almost feel the sagebrush holding its breath in anticipation of an ice storm. In the distance, lightning struck a point down near the Powder Breaks, and I started thinking that it might be best for us to get out of the two-track before the deluge began.

I looked around, but Dog was gone, probably following Vic, so I flipped up the collar of my old canvas hunting jacket and tugged my hat down tight against the gusting wind and the ice pellet buckshot.

Stumbling a few times, I looked to the west and could see the sky was a wall of purple and black, the only thing defining it the diagonal striping that indicated precipitation.

Thinking Vic and Dog might’ve shown more sense than I had, I went to the edge of the ridge and looked at the truck. Moving over a little, I peered down through the top of the windshield as the hail bounced off it with an unnatural, metallic ping.

There was no one inside.

The wind was really picking up, and I looked in all directions but could still see nothing. I pulled my gloves from my pockets and slipped them on—it was May in Wyoming, but I’d known spring storms to blow in with the ferocity of February, so I decided I’d better gather both Vic and Dog as quickly as I could find them.

There was a knoll at one end of the ridge, and I figured that was the spot where I’d be able to see the surrounding area. It was possible that my undersheriff had slipped and fallen down one of the steep hillsides, but I couldn’t be sure unless I could spot her, and it was doing nothing but getting darker.

I zipped my jacket and made my way upward as quickly as I could, slipping on the wet surface of the rocks as the hail melted into sleet. A small panic was setting in as I scrambled the short distance, and it seemed to take forever. The air from my lungs was billowing like a bison’s and clouding from the drop in temperature as I made it to the top.

Nothing.

Some of the hail was hitting the rocks and bouncing like marbles, while some exploded into tiny, icy shrapnel. Visibility was still dropping as I stumbled down a slope of scrabble, kicking some rocks loose and watching them fall some twenty feet to the ground below the ledge where I stood.

It was then that I noticed something beside my boot and stooped to pick it up. It was a piece of cardboard, sopping but still legible, and I read CASH PRIZES, PLAY MONEY in old-fashioned print; at the bottom was the outline of a coin and the words MALLO CUP, 5 POINTS.

As another lightning strike flashed to the east, the thunder shook the ridge where I stood with a resounding shudder like the footstep of a sauropod, and I thought I might’ve seen something or someone to the east on the opposite side of the narrow canyon. I took a step forward to the very edge of the drop-off as the hail continued to bounce around me like I was a target in a shooting gallery, the roar of the impact drowning out everything else.

There was someone standing at the very top of the other ridge with arms outspread like an eagle attempting to take flight. Evidently, she was trying to summon up a vision after all. I looked around but couldn’t see Dog.

I brought my hands up alongside my mouth and shouted, “Vic!”

The shadowy figure didn’t move.

“Vic!?”

Whoever it was turned and looked at me. I waved but stopped in midmotion when it became clear that it wasn’t she.

He was bigger, much bigger, and his hair was longer and he stood there looking at me. Confused, I thought of the giant Crow Indian who had saved my life in the Bighorn Mountains a few seasons back. “Virgil?” I felt rooted to the spot as the world shifted with a maelstrom of angry weather that couldn’t decide if it wanted to blow, rain, sleet, hail, or snow, so settled on all five.

I glanced at the distance between the two ledges, but it had to be at least twenty feet; no way I was jumping that. Racing my eyes around the hillside, I spotted a rutted deer trail leading into the gulley below. It was a good eighth of a mile, part of it downhill, part of it up, but I was determined to face him.

He hadn’t moved when I started down, but by now the ground was turning white with sleet, and the soles of my boots acted like skis as I negotiated the narrow path.

I struggled to stay upright but finally gave in and began sliding along on the seat of my pants. My clothes were soaked by the time I got to even ground. The view was obstructed by the fall of the slope, and I couldn’t see him anymore, so I grabbed stalks of sagebrush to help pull myself along. The hail striking the ground was as large as golf balls now, the strikes feeling as if I had taken a shortcut onto a driving range.

There was another rock shelf, and as I got near the top, I could hear barking over the incessant sound of the storm; maybe I wasn’t chasing ghosts and it was Vic and Dog after all.

I was trying to figure a way around the ledge when something shot out from underneath it and ran directly into me, knocking me backward. I grabbed at it with both hands and it yelped a yelp I recognized, so I eased my grip. “Good boy, easy, easy . . .”

I struggled up on one knee and covered the side of my face with my gloved hand, reaching out to him with the other, and he took my hand in his mouth and began gently pulling me. “What are you doing?”

He whined but wouldn’t let go of my hand.

“All right, all right, where are we going?” I followed him toward the overhang, giving one last glance up the hillside in hopes of seeing the figure again, but there was no one there.

Ducking under the rocks, I was glad to get away from the hail. It was dark, but I could see where sections of the rock strata had broken and been pushed toward the opening, leaving an alcove of surprising size. Somebody had used it as a campsite, because there were the burnt remains of a fire.

Dog kept pulling, until I could see that he was taking me to Vic, who lay crouched on her side, shivering and holding her head, blood dripping from her hair. He released me as I knelt beside her, huddled against the back rock wall, pulled her into my chest, and swept an arm around her shoulders. “What the hell happened to you?”

Her teeth were chattering as she spoke. “I fucking fell.”

I breathed a laugh and gathered her closer, trying to fight the drop in her core temperature. “You should’ve worn your jacket.”

She clutched me. “No shit.”

“Did you break anything?”

“My ankle—I think I turned my ankle.” She glanced up at me. “My head hurts, but I think I just bumped it.”

I looked at her matted hair. “There’s a lot of blood, but it’s a head wound and they tend to do that.”

She still shivered hard enough to break her teeth. “Where’s Dog?”

“He’s right here. You’re lucky I came over this way and that Dog found me and brought me to you.” I looked out from under the outcropping and could see that the hail had subsided but that a torrent of a thunderstorm was now washing the air like a chorus of vertical fire hoses.