Bounty

Bounty

by G. L. Payne

Jupiter Moody was an eight-ball. Just what kind of eight-ball, Dalton Brindle wasn’t certain, but he was definitely an eight-ball. Jupiter was also a big guy. A really big guy. His girth was functionally spherical and he always wore these bizarre pullover sweaters decorated with horizontal lines of gold, brown, red and orange as though he was trying to embody in human form the living presence of his namesake, the King of Planets. Most folks chalked it up to some sort of benign eccentricity or the man attempting to brand himself with a public persona that had all the gauche panache of a late-night-cable infomercial host. Dalton, frankly, couldn’t have cared less. A bounty was a bounty and Jupiter, whose ranch included over 4000 acres of virgin timberland butting up against the Tahatchapuku National Forest, had the resources to offer a very fat bounty.

Make no mistake, Dalton Brindle loved animals—just not the way someone who swooned over kittens and puppies loved them. Dalton loved to hunt them. He loved to track them, blow them away, skin them, eat what he could and make trophies out of what remained. The more exotic the critter, the better. In his perfect world, he’d have been the Great White Hunter leading a safari into the African veldt to bring down the King of the Jungle. Or he’d be in the sweating tropics of remotest India, tracking the spoor of a man-eating tiger for some Maharajah.

Unfortunately, Dalton was born in the wrong time and place for such earthy adventures. Instead, his tracking was done in the forests of the mid-west USA. His prey were nuisance animals; skunks, coyotes, bobcats or wild dogs; the kind of pests that knocked over garbage cans, raided chicken coops and bedeviled livestock. It was nothing spectacular nor anything that would result in him becoming a legendary hunter. As far as Dalton was concerned, the forests of the central United States were for the most part tragically spare of any truly glorious trophies.

Whatever Jupiter Moody wanted to hire him to bring in, he didn’t yet know. Jupiter had been bashful on the phone, causing Dalton to wonder if the quarry was something out of season or—worse—illegal. But Jupiter had means and Jupiter’s means were Dalton’s motive, so opportunity was the only ingredient still outstanding.

It came when an early morning dusting of snow—which would make tracking in the field a breeze—fell a couple days after Jupiter’s phone call. The tires of Dalton’s Dodge Ram crackled and snapped as they crawled over the sloppy terrain to the front gate of Jupiter’s ranch. Dalton’s 30-Aught was racked in the back window of the cab.

The Human Planet himself waited there for him, wearing a battered tan duster the like of which an old-west adventurer might sport. It hung open over—you guessed it—a stripped, horizontal-lined King of the Planets pullover. Perched atop his head was an overly generous Stetson. It was a hat that, instead of the usual 10 or even 20 gallons, clocked in with enough surplus to fill a kiddie pool. The damn thing was so cartoonishly ill-fitting that Dalton couldn’t help wondering if the occasion might have been the first time Jupiter had ever actually placed it on his head.

The morning was crisp but not bitter. Even so, Jupiter was breathing hard and twin jets of steam shot from his nostrils as he heaved anxiously, impatient for Dalton to climb down from the truck.

“Jupiter.” Dalton nodded as he stepped off the running-board, successfully managing, albeit briefly, to short-circuit the Planet’s ubiquitous—and annoying—customary greeting. Jupiter bulldozed it out there anyway.

“Hey, Buddy!” he sang, with searchlight-bright enthusiasm. He threw out his hand to shake. Dalton ignored it, taking his winter gloves from his coat pocket and making a show of pulling them on slowly, demonstrating an unsubtle disdain for Jupiter’s overly indulgent conviviality. Jupiter looked down, performed a vaguely shocked comic double-take at his own hand flapping in the breeze, like it was a strange appendage he didn’t quite recognize, then dropped it to his side. He tried his salutation again.

“Hey, Buddy,” he repeated, with notably less vigor than before.

Dalton pursed his lips. Jupiter’s smarmy ass could never just say, “hello” like a normal person. He always threw out his meaty hand and lobbed a cheesy, “Hey, Buddy” at everyone he encountered. He probably intended it to function like a showman’s catchphrase. Dalton wasn’t yet sure if he wanted the job but, if he did, he was anxious to cut through the gas giant’s sideshow BS and get the hunt going.

He opened the passenger side door of his cab and hauled down his 30-aught from its nest. “What am I here to bring in?”

A look of consternation passed over Jupiter’s face, flickering so quickly it was almost subliminal. “Well . . .” he drawled out. “It might be easier if I just show you.” His attitude was more serious now, his bubbly demeanor dialing in about three shades darker than before.

“Show me? Show me what?” This wasn’t making Dalton feel any better about the potential for the job.

He noticed Jupiter staring past his shoulder. Turning, he saw before he heard it a USPS delivery truck drawing near. Jupiter’s expression resumed full wattage as the driver stopped the vehicle in front of them and reached out his window to hand over a sheaf of mail wrapped with a rubber band.

“Hey, Buddy!” a beaming Jupiter crowed to the postman. If not for the bundle of mail filling his mitt, Dalton had no doubt Jupiter would be offering to shake the postman’s hand.

“Mr. Moody.” The postman nodded. He didn’t seem to appreciate Jupiter’s aggressive cheer any more than Dalton. He shifted gears. The truck rocked slightly then pulled on down the drive back toward the main road.

Jupiter stared after it until the truck made the turn onto the highway, his expression flat.

“Let’s go inside,” he said.

“Inside” was an enormous Quonset building behind Jupiter’s equally enormous ranch house. If there had been stalls and horses, it could have been a stable. Put some planes in there and you’d have a hanger. Whatever the building’s original purpose, it likely hadn’t been to house a single long folding table with a wooden footlocker perched on it. But that was the sole furnishing in the center of the single large room. A domed aluminum light fixture with a single spartan bulb hung on a wire above it, glaring down upon a series of irregularly shaped plaster casts of what appeared to be huge human footprints set on the table beside the footlocker.

“Th’ hell is this shit?” Dalton snapped. To say he was feeling ungrateful for the private tour was an understatement.

Jupiter shifted around uncomfortably like he was embarrassed.

“What’s it look like?”

Dalton’s mouth pulled to one side in a grimace. “Looks like a waste of my goddamned time.” He started for the door.

Jupiter hurried past him and inserted his girth between Dalton and the door. “Wait. WAIT! I cast those tracks myself,” he squawked. “It’s been all over this ranch.”

Dalton threw him a dead-pan stare. “It? Bigfoot? You’re telling me you’ve got a Bigfoot problem.”

Moody blinked and his eyes wandered the room uncertainly. “Well, I don’t know that it’s so much a ‘problem’ . . .”

Dalton started to push past him.

“It’s an opportunity,” Jupiter barked. “Bigfoot,” he said. “Sasquatch. Wild Man. Whatever you want to call it.”

“I call it bullshit,” Dalton said. He pulled open the door and a rush of cold air blew in from outside.

“I’ll double my offer,” Jupiter sputtered.

“You haven’t offered anything,” Dalton’s boots crunched on gravel as he exited the building. A light snow had again begun to fall, whipping in swirls in the winter air. Somewhere, a lowing of cattle rumbled, unnoticed by either man but growing more urgent.

“$50,000,” Jupiter threw out. Dalton kept walking. Jupiter bounced back and forth like a kid needing to take a pee. “$100,000.”

Dalton threw him the Evil Eye. “Moody, I don’t know what kind of con you’re running—”

“It’s not a con,” Jupiter said.

“Then someone’s conning you.” The chorus of cows bellowing was almost frantic now and hooves on the ground thundered as the herd in the field behind the Quonset raced back and forth. Dalton glanced that way to see a heavy bull charging opposite the rest of the animals, head down, horns displayed in an aggressive posture. Then he saw something else at the edge of the enclosure—the same thing that was the focus for the bull. It stopped him cold.

“I’ve seen it a dozen times,” Jupiter announced.

Dalton wasn’t listening to him.

“What the HELL. . .?” he whispered. He raised his 30-aught and brought the scope to bear, landing the crosshairs on the huge, shaggy figure moving along the fence at the edge of the field. He saw it for just a fraction of a second before it moved, disappearing into the overgrowth of the forest beyond the field, leaving the angry bull scuffing at the dirt, standing in defense of the herd.

Dalton lowered his rifle, stunned.

“Jupiter, are you sure you’re not bullshitting me?”

Jupiter followed Dalton’s gaze into the field, but he hadn’t seen anything himself. “No bullshit.”

Dalton stretched, pulling himself up tall enough that his back popped so loud Jupiter heard the crack. “Then I’ll take half,” he offered.

“Half of what?” Jupiter asked.

“Everything we get for the damn carcass.”

**********

The snow was coming down harder, hardly snow at all at this point, more icy pellets of sleet. The advantage in tracking the powdery light precipitation had brought this morning was being erased by the heavier fall. Under the canopy of pines deep in the forest, the pellets spreading through the branches of the trees made a gentle hissing sound.

As cold as the day was turning, the trail remained hot. Dalton was able to make out deep depressions in the snow and, though the detail of the human-like tracks was lost, the enormous size of the footprints was unmistakable. Whatever he’d seen through the scope, there was no mistaking the creature was huge.

And clever. He’d been tracking it for a couple hours now; a winding path through the woods, over tangles of underbrush that were almost impassible for Dalton. The thing’s stride made the goliath stretches over the rough terrain that made Dalton seem like he was taking baby steps. He hustled to keep up and a couple times he thought he was near enough he could hear the beast rustling through the brush. He had a grudging sense that he was being messed with though. Every time the trail was about to go cold, he heard a snap of branches or a crunch of twigs that led him back to the path—a wandering spiral that was taking him deeper and deeper into Jupiter’s forest.

Something snapped just ahead and the hair on the back of Dalton’s neck went up. It was a sixth sense he had; an instinct that let him know his prey was near. He hunkered low, pulling his 30-aught tight against his body and froze, his every sense going into overdrive.

Then it hit him. He didn’t need any sixth sense to recognize this—a rolling stench that wheeled in to fill the slight clearing among the trees where he stood. It was bad enough to make his eyes water. Some primitive reflex kicked in and Dalton one-eightied gears and suddenly, he felt he was no longer the predator. He was the prey.

Lured, he realized. He’d been lured into the deep woods by this creature that abruptly seemed all around him yet nowhere at the same time. Whatever he’d been tracking, this was no man in a costume. It was a real creature—an apex predator, no less. And now it had the drop on him.

His eyes searched the curtain of trees, trying to spot the beast. Dalton was exposed on all sides while his prey had cover all around. He cursed himself a fool and vowed not to underestimate the animal again. He was about to move when he heard a loud knock of wood on wood just ahead; a branch hitting a tree trunk. It sounded deliberate.

A signal? A warning? He had no idea. Maybe the thing was marking its territory or maybe it was the equivalent of a rattlesnake’s rattle, telling him to back off. The stench seemed to grow, making it difficult for him to think. The smell filled him with a primitive dread and it crossed his mind to wonder if it might contain some sort of panic-inducing pheromones as a defense mechanism for the creature. Dalton had never felt such irrational fear on a hunt. He tried to temper it, thinking about the money and glory he’d receive being the first hunter to bring in the final proof the creature was real. His reputation would be set for life. Not to mention his bank account.

The smell was too much though, He started to back out of the clearing. He had only moved a step or two when, now, came the snap of twigs from that direction. Clearly, it was a heavy foot coming down on debris on the forest floor. Dalton changed course again, heading for the opposite side of the clearing.

Snap!

Branches rattling from that way as well.

Was there more than one of them?

He was on the precipice of panic. The snow was more intense now, drawing swirling figures in the air. Then the wind began gusting slightly, finally clearing away the stench enough to give Dalton a few clean breaths. His head began to calm.

CRACK!!

Another thud of a branch against a tree trunk, this time to his right, followed by silence. A moment later, a rock the size of a grapefruit came out of the brush, missing him wildly. Dalton had a sense it was less an attack than an effort at intimidation. It was working.

He held his breath, listening intently. Silence, followed by more silence. Just when he thought the creature might have retreated, another crackle of twigs and leaves on the forest floor focused his attention.

There’s only one of them, he realized. It was moving all around him, totally silent when it wanted to be, making noise at other times to confound and frighten him.

Dalton recognized he wasn’t being stalked.

The thing was playing with him! TAUNTING him! Trying to intimidate him.

Anger boiled up from deep within his gut. Dalton Brindle resented like hell the idea that some goddamned animal was leading him around by the nose. But the pieces fell into place and he recognized that all morning, the creature had been manipulating him, running him ragged through the woods like it was some silly game. Bigfoot, Sasquatch, whatever the hell you wanted to call it, in the end, it was just a giant monkey. Brindle’s face flushed hot with humiliation.

Six hours ago, he wouldn’t have believed in the thing if you’d told him about it. Even Jupiter’s lame-ass cast tracks hadn’t moved him. But that creature, that huge, shaggy . . . MONSTROSITY he’d seen at the edge of the field, that had fired his hunter’s instincts like nothing he’d ever pursued before.

Now, he felt a fool.

None of it mattered. He was here. The animal wasn’t far. Jupiter Moody was just a side-show barker and a scam artist. But it was clear he’d lucked into something special and, while Jupiter had the tools to make a trade for profit, Brindle had the skills to bring in the prey. And, by God, he intended to do exactly that.

He crouched in the middle of clearing, kneeling like a lost child. The monster was watching him, he had no doubt. His fury had tempered his senses and calling on his many years of hunting and tracking experience, he was able to reach out with an almost Zen-like ability to feel his surroundings. The critter had been clever. Brindle would be more clever.

He closed his eyes, listening intently to the hush of the falling snow and the rattle of the trees in the winter breeze, attuned for a hint, any cue that would tell him his next move. His 30-aught was clutched tightly against his chest, so close he could feel his heartbeat thumping against his gun hand. The creature had lured him. Now, it was his turn.

Nothing.

Wait . . .

Nothing.

Wait . . .

The knock of a branch against a tree. It was trying to scare him.

WAIT!

The sound of a rock passing through the branches, hitting the ground near him . . . An implied threat.

WAIT!!

His head was down. His eyes screwed tightly closed. Not a muscle moved. He was barely breathing.

The soft noise of heavy feet scuffling almost silently through the underbrush.

NOW!!

Brindle brought his rifle to bear, aiming by instinct, allowing the sound and his experience to guide him. He saw a flurry of motion, a dark figure flickering in and out of sight among the trees. He pulled the crosshairs of his scope off the target and aimed, not where it was but where it was going to be.

And he fired.

There was an almost human whoomph of air blowing out of lungs, followed by a bass groan and the thud of a very heavy body hitting the ground. For a split second, he was elated. He’d beaten the goddamned thing. He’d won.

Then . . .

Shit, Dalton cursed silently. SHIT!

He’d clearly scored a hit. But in his anger, he’d violated his most cardinal rule. He’d fired blindly without fixing his target first. A human-sounding moan announced from the brush and ice-water filled Dalton’s veins.

Moody, he thought. What if the asshole had played him? What if it had all been a set-up? Some kind of stunt and it was a man in a goddamned monkey-suit up ahead? A cold fever built up in Dalton’s gut and for the first time since he could recall on a hunt, his hands began to tremble. Reflexively, he worked the bolt on his rifle and chambered a new round.

He stood, staring into the brush where he’d heard the body drop.

Silence . . .

He waited, frozen in place for a moment, listening intently. After several seconds, he heard a heaving sigh—a moan almost—and the heavy breathing of a creature in distress. Hesitantly, he moved forward, the underbrush crackling beneath his boots, the thin rime of icy snow making a soft crunch.

Then came another sound.

It was a soft, repetitive sound; almost a chittering or sorts, interrupted here and there by a gasping struggle for breath. And then . . .

A cough!

The labored breathing was replaced by a wet wheezing. Blood in the lungs, Dalton recognized.

God damn it, he thought. It wasn’t a clean kill, as much as he’d hoped it might have been, but it was obviously a fatal shot. The desperate respiration ensured the target wasn’t long for this world.

Dalton crept through the curtain of trees, trying to see without being seen. As he moved closer, the form of a large, dark body became visible, lying in the snow. The arms and legs were akimbo in unnatural postures and Dalton knew immediately that he’d landed a shot to the spine. The inert shape had the unmistakable form of a body paralyzed.

Relief swept over him as he recognized it wasn’t a human being he’d shot. No man could possibly be so large. The figure on the ground was at least nine feet tall and probably weighed over six hundred pounds. It was no costume it was wearing but a shaggy coat of long, reddish-brown hair, matted and tangled in some places, smooth and flowing in others. Dalton’s trepidation at having possibly committed murder was supplanted by a fascination at viewing a creature the like of which he’d never dreamed could actually exist.

He had no fear. It was obvious the animal was no threat, unable to rise and showing no indications of voluntary movement. A pool of red emerged from behind the form at the shoulders in a crimson tide, spreading across the forest floor, melting the snow it touched. Dalton came close enough to view the animal’s face. It was ape-like, yet human as well. A large domed crest was at the top of the head above a thick brow-ridge. Wide, gaping nostrils and a flat nose sat on a simian-looking snout above an intensely heavy jaw. A line of blood trickled from one corner of the creature’s mouth. And the eyes . . .

My God, Dalton thought. The eyes!

Almost human, the eyes were almond-shaped with clear white sclera and large brown irises. They were dark, filled with an expression of pain. Those eyes contained an awareness, a look of understanding as though the beast knew what was happening to it.

But there was no fear.

Its lips trembled and the rhythmic chittering it uttered became more defined in structure as Dalton neared. There was a vaguely Native American intonation to the pattern, sounding now more like a chanting or some kind of incantation.

God damn, Dalton thought.

The sounds it was making, the repeated rhythmic utterances—they were words.

The goddamned thing, Dalton suddenly understood, is talking. It's PRAYING.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, doing a little praying of his own.

The creature heard him and rolled its gaze in his direction. Its eyes fixed on Dalton and for the first time since firing his shot, Dalton saw it move. It was an awkward, labored gesture as the thing struggled to raise an arm, its hand wafting limply due to its injuries. The movement startled Dalton and he stepped quickly back, half-raising his rifle before recognizing the animal was still no threat.

It issued a sound that was neither a moan nor a growl.

“Aaaayyyeeebooooodyeee.” The sound wasn’t loud but deep and resonate, wet with phlegm and guttural with effort. A baritone that made the air vibrate.

Stunned, Dalton felt the world reeling around him. His numb hands could no longer grasp and he dropped his weapon to the ground.

Words. It was forming words. It was speaking to him.

The creature moved its hand again and once more uttered--

“Aaayyyy boooodyeeee.”

It hit Dalton like a thunderbolt.

Hey Buddy! The thing was saying ‘hey buddy’ and offering its goddamned hand. Dalton’s eye went wide and his mouth dropped open in shock. It had probably been watching Jupiter from the woods for years.

The creature saw that Dalton had recognized its meaning and its thick lips peeled back to reveal large canine teeth that could rip an animal to shreds. It wasn’t a threating gesture. The creature was smiling.

“Haaaayyyy Buuuudddyyy,” it said, then issued a long, deep sigh as its last breath left its lungs and its chest stopped moving.

Dalton’s mind was a calamity of confusion and colliding thoughts as he tried to process what had just happened. The creature—he couldn’t call it an ‘animal’ anymore—that he hadn’t believed existed a few hours ago was now dead before him, slain by his hand. But it had spoken.

The damn thing had spoken.

Dalton no longer considered the money or the fame that might come from bringing in such a kill. He didn’t even think about the bounty that Jupiter Moody had promised.

All he could wonder was whether he had just committed murder.

He knelt and examined the carcass that lay before him. It was as real and visceral as any kill he’d ever made. Hands shaking, he pulled off a glove and reached down to touch the body, thinking, almost hoping, that it was an illusion that might crumble beneath his touch.

But the body was real. Dalton rolled a few strands of the long, coarse hair between his fingers then, emboldened by the quietness of the form, reached out to place his hand on the creature’s chest above its heart.

The flesh was still warm but there was only silence beneath Dalton’s palm. The creature was most definitely dead.

But Dalton was not alone.

He sensed, more than heard the presence of several figures around him and when he looked up, a half-dozen more of the creatures had slipped almost silently from the trees to form a circle around him.

Dalton lunged urgently to his feet and tried to bring his 30-aught to bear on the nearest figure. It was enormous, at least 12 feet tall and much larger than the figure he’d shot. The creature’s arm flashed out faster than Dalton would have dreamed possible and caught his rifle by the barrel and gently, yet determinedly, lifted the weapon from his hands. It wasn’t an aggressive move but one of forced patience.

Surrounded by the towering figures and deprived of his weapon, a jolt of panic consumed Dalton as he looked around for a pathway to escape. Even as he assessed, he realized from his experience with the creature he’d shot that he had no chance to outrun even the slightest of these beings through the heavy underbrush. His gaze made the circuit of the faces around him before again finding the huge figure in front of him.

The creature’s eyes found his and it stared as if studying his soul within. The gaze was impassive, almost weary. The creature blinked a few times as a sadness entered its eyes and then it looked past Dalton at something behind him.

The large figure spoke. It was a single word in no language Dalton had ever heard. The tone was low, almost more a vibration than a sound. It was definitely a spoken word though, not a grunt or growl but articulated. It was such a natural exchange that Dalton turned to see who the creature had addressed.

Behind him across the circle around the dead body of the creature he’d slain, two smaller figures stood side by side. There was a rustle of leaves and branches on the forest floor and a crunch of snow as the two figures parted and a small—a much smaller—figure emerged from between them. This being was maybe five feet tall. Its eyes were glassy and wet with tears as it stared at the dead body on the ground. Small mewling sounds, like choked sobs, emerged from its throat.

A child, Dalton recognized. He was looking at a young one, one who was grieving for the loss of a companion or family member.

A wash of grief and regret came over him as he shared in the pain that almost radiated from the small creature. A parent or brother or sister, whatever the relationship to the small being, it was a life that Dalton had taken.

He opened his mouth, struggling to keep his voice from cracking.

“I . . . I’m . . . sorry,” he stammered. It was all he could think to say.

The small creature glanced up at him, took one last look at the figure on the ground and then slipped away between the figures around it like mist dissolving in the morning sun. It was uncanny how the creatures could move away and seem to almost vanish before your eyes into the trees. The two figures shepherding the small one, slipped back also, disappearing into the brush.

The large creature spoke again and silent as owls, the three remaining creatures stepped forward. One on each arm and the third taking the legs, they lifted the dead body from the ground. They too managed to vanish into the trees, silent as wraiths.

Dalton was alone with the largest of the figures. Perhaps twice his height and easily six times his bulk, the being towered over him. He had no doubt the creature could rend him limb from limb if it so chose. Whatever reckoning it intended, Dalton was at its mercy.

The creature reached out a massive arm and simply handed him back his rifle.

Then it, too, vanished among the trees.

**********

Night was closing when Dalton returned to the ranch. Jupiter Moody, who had been pacing like an expectant father in the front room of his house caught sight of him through a window, coming across the field. He charged out to meet him.

“Did you get it? Did you get it?” Jupiter asked.

Dalton threw him a hard look but otherwise, didn’t react.

Jupiter ran in half circles around him, waving his hands. “Well, did you get it or not? You saw it, didn’t you? You had to have seen it. You were gone all day.”

Dalton, feeling sick to his stomach, marched past him, heading directly for his Ram pickup.

“Waste of time,” he snapped. “I didn’t see shit.” His tone made him sound like he wanted to punch Moody in the face. He yanked open the driver’s door on the Ram and boosted himself up behind the wheel. He started to pull shut the door and Jupiter reached out a hand to block it.

“Oh, come on,” Jupiter whined. “You had to have seen it. I’ve seen it a doz—”

“I didn’t see SHIT,” Dalton spat. “And neither did you.”

Confounded by his attitude, Jupiter blinked a couple times then stared at him. “What are you talking about? Of course, I’ve see—”

“You haven’t seen ANYTHING!” Dalton shot him a look like it would be in Jupiter’s best interests not to follow up.

“Okay, okay,” Jupiter said, putting up his hands in surrender.

Dalton started the Dodge and the engine rumbled a bass growl. He stared a moment out across the field in the direction of the forest beyond, his expression contemplative. He sighed and then as he popped the gear-shift into reverse and twisted to look over his shoulder to start down the drive, Jupiter noticed his rifle was missing.

“Hey Buddy,” he called. What happened to your gun?”

Hearing those words, Dalton tromped on the brake and flinched like he’d been slapped in the face. For a split second, Jupiter thought he might come down out of the truck after him.

Instead, Dalton hesitated, his gaze fixed on something only he was seeing.

“I . . . lost it somewhere,” he whispered.

Incredulous, Jupiter said, “Lost it? How the hell did you—”

Dalton Brindle’s mouth went tight in a hard line, eyebrows arched, his chin wrinkled with emotion. “I LOST it,” he repeated, his voice hard, as if daring Jupiter to question him further.

“Okay. Okay,” Jupiter said, again.

Dalton turned to continue backing down the drive and, sensing their business, whatever it had been, was concluded, Jupiter headed back toward his ranch house.

The Ram’s brake lights flickered as Dalton paused the truck’s motion.

“Jupiter,” he called.

“Yeah?”

Dalton looked at him. “Don’t go looking for it.”

Jupiter’s eyebrows went up. “Your rifle?”

Dalton shrugged. Close enough. “Don’t go looking. There’s nothing out there for you to find.”

He hit the gas and pulled the truck down the drive and onto the highway, the empty rifle rack in the window rattling behind his head.