* * * * *

The hookers showed up at three. A little guy with a mustache big enough to demand its own hairdresser was driving. They all got out of a big blue minivan. The three women were short, lacquered, and all business.

“We pay you now?” Chuck demanded immediately, nervous and breathless, almost a threat.

The little guy shook his head, adjusted his razor-thin sunglasses. “No man. You pay the girls, you know, when you get down to it. Know what I’m saying?”

“Sure.” Chuck nodded like he was an old hand at paying for sex.

The women didn’t interest Frank. He tried, picturing them under him in bed, writhing and moaning, thought it was the right thing to do, to fit in with everyone else. But it was like trying to get fired up over a black and white picture of some old woman with tits as thin as wet mudflaps, hair growing out of her ears, and four teeth. Instead, he couldn’t help thinking of Annie, back in town somewhere.

Maybe he should just take Petunia by the house. But Petunia had made it clear she didn’t want to go anywhere. At the vet hospital, she had two, sometimes three solid meals a day, a cool place to sleep, and most important, someone who was always around to pet and talk to her. Frank knew getting Petunia into a vehicle and taking her home would be difficult. He hoped it wasn’t because he was becoming fond of the damn dog. It was bad enough having a crush on the dog’s owner.

Everyone gathered on the back deck, overlooking the wilting garden. Frank didn’t stray too far from the keg, packed tightly in ice inside an oil barrel. But most everybody else stood in a tight circle around the women. The women all had tall glasses of Long Island Iced Tea, with straws and umbrellas and everything.

Sturm raised his beer. “Gentlemen…and ladies too,” he said, leering up at the women, “a toast, if you please.” Everyone raised their glasses. “First of all, my son.”

Everyone drank. “Today is his first real hunt.”

“Let’s hope it goes better than his first fight,” Chuck breathed to Frank and drank quickly.

Frank was more than happy to drink. He needed more, so he edged closer to the keg while Sturm rolled on. “Secondly, a toast to these fine, beautiful whores.”

The men howled in appreciation while the women smiled thinly and raised their glasses. Shockingly red lips found their straws and they drank quickly, sucking up the last drops. Theo fell over himself to refill their glasses. “That’s right, goddamnit, that’s right,” Sturm continued, determined to ride the wave of their adulation. “And to our guests,” he jabbed his finger at Bronson and Fairfax.

“And finally,” Sturm said, quieter now, taking a seat on the railing. “To the prey.” He fell quiet for a moment, letting it sink in. “We are men. We are men, last of a dying breed in a world that has failed to recognize man’s need for instinct, for cunning, for…sharp teeth. We are true men. We are men that exist to hunt.” He raised his glass. “To the prey…for without them, we are nothing.”

“To the prey,” the men echoed in voices that were swallowed by the wind, raised their glasses and drank.

* * * * *

They gathered their guns. Rifles mostly, but a couple of shotguns could be seen. They headed out across the field in a wide line, eyes on the truck and horse trailer. The sun threw their shadows behind them, thin and impossibly long, like scarecrows marching across the field, eyes sparkling like their cars in the sun.

Sturm came riding out in an Army surplus open jeep. Theo was driving fast, and threw up a cloud of dust that hung in the late evening air like a blood red fog. Theo stood up in the driver’s seat and rested his rifle, a thin, ancient lever-action rifle on the windshield. It was a .405 Winchester and Theo’s namesake had called this particular caliber “lion medicine.”

The men clustered in a ragged semi-circle, all eyes on the trailer.

When Theo signaled that he was ready, Pine threw the bolt with a quick jerk and Frank yanked on the rope tied to the gate. But nothing happened as the gate swung wide in the swirling crimson dust. Theo fired anyway. The .400 Nitro Express shell sent the solid copper bullet ricocheting off the bolt at the top of the gate, splitting it wide open. The gate tilted wildly as it crashed into the dirt.

The recoil put Theo in the back seat of the Jeep.

A short laugh burst out of Chuck, but a sharp look from Sturm killed the rest in Chuck’s throat.

Pine, the poor bastard that had had to open the gate, didn’t think it was funny either, though for different reasons. The falling gate had nearly snapped his wrist, twisting his entire body sideways, and leaving him in the dirt. At first, he’d thought it was the lioness, busting out of the trailer and landing on the gate. But when he picked himself up and danced around trying to look everywhere at once, he finally saw the lioness, still crouched inside the horse trailer. Then he got pissed. “What…the fuck I’m gonna sonofabitch me that goddamn time it never happened mother stumping fuck,” he blurted in a machine gun fire of hoarse words and came stomping up to the Jeep. “That was goddamn close.”

“Settle down,” Sturm said. “Bullet missed you by three, four feet.”

Theo got out of the Jeep, ignoring his father and Pine, stalking the lioness. Everybody else took that as their cue; safeties were snapped off, bolts were thrown and locked, sweaty fingers caressed trigger guards. Theo slowly and methodically put each step in front of the other, as if he was creeping up on some strange house for a game of Ding Dong Ditch, and approached the back of the horse trailer in exaggerated slowness, rifle held straight up in front of him.

By now Sturm and Pine had stopped arguing, and were both hastily getting their own guns ready. Sturm carried a Ballard single shot High Wall 1885 reproduction rifle, while Pine had his father’s M-1 Garand.

Theo froze when he saw the lioness, still coiled in the back of the trailer, dry and dusty and frozen in place like the great Sphinx. Theo straightened, gently but firmly tucking the butt of his rifle into his shoulder, and waited. The lioness didn’t move. Theo kept waiting, still as a stop sign at high noon. The dust sifted and fell over everything, leaching out of the air and onto any available surface. Theo coughed. The lioness only moved her eyes, watching the boy.

Theo coughed again and spit. Then he shot the lioness in her lower jaw. The big cat slammed into the wall, hind legs kicking in agony.

The Winchester’s kick knocked Theo back a few steps, but he stayed on his feet.

The lioness wouldn’t stop shaking her head, as if she could shake off the beast that had torn her dangling jaw loose.

“Finish her off this next time, okay?” Sturm said through lips drawn thin and tight.

It took Theo four more rounds to kill the lioness. He missed just once.

Blood collected in the horse shit at the bottom of the trailer and slid down the inclined floor, dripping out and collecting in a small puddle in the sandy soil. Theo walked back to the Jeep. Everyone climbed in and Pine started the truck. He drove back to the barn, following the Jeep.

They gutted the lioness and hung her upside down on a beam in the shade on the north side of the barn.

* * * * *

As promised, the abalone was served promptly at eight. The dinner was quite different than the town’s potluck. A long table was brought out to the deck and draped with a white linen tablecloth. Genuine silver utensils flanked antique pewter plates. Candles were lit. The abalone, pounded flat, then breaded and fried, was served with pasta and sautéed tomatoes and green peppers. Pungent garlic bread completed the meal. The men left their beers in the deck railing and drank chilled white wine with dinner.

The sun finally sank behind Mount Shasta, cooling the temperature somewhat, but it was still like sitting in an oven that had just been turned off. There was no wind.