Dead Doggies
The sun had yet an hour before setting when Griff crossed the southern boundary of the ranch coming home in the Aeronca Chief. A column of smoke rose to the northeast. He banked in its direction.
Below him, buzzards swirled around the column. Griff spiraled down, taking care to avoid them and the smoke. On the ground, Ben tended to a large bonfire built from old pallets, scrap lumber, and logs loaded haphazardly in the back of his Silverado pickup truck. Johnny Eagle dragged a cow carcass to the fire with a Bobcat UTV. Shep disconnected the chain, then Johnny Eagle pirouetted and placed the carcass on the fire with a pallet fork. A uniformed officer leaned against an Albany County Sheriff’s Department SUV and watched.
The men all looked up at the plane. Griff circled lower until he was less than a hundred feet off the ground.
Hatless, the deputy shaded his eyes with his hand.
Shep waved.
Griff rocked his wings.
Ben’s right arm swept up with an open hand from his side in an exaggerated gesture. He spread his arms out wide, then brought his hands together, touching his index fingers in front of his face. He dropped his hands to his side, then put his index fingers together at an angle in front of him.
Griff understood the Plains Indian sign language: “Go. Meet. Teepee.”
Since there was no level ground in the area to land on, Griff leveled his wings, rocked them in response to Ben, and climbed away. Ten minutes later he landed. He hangared the Chief, then waited for Ben on the back deck, sipping a Bass Ale with Rodya at his feet.
A second ale bottle had long been empty and darkness blanketed the mountains when Rodya lifted his head and turned his ears to the driveway.
Griff reached behind and gripped the SIG Sauer pistol tucked in the waistband of his jeans. A moment later he heard footsteps approaching, then boots on the wooden steps of the deck.
Rodya leapt up and trotted over to greet Ben with his tail wagging.
“You look tired,” Griff said, noticing the soot smeared on Ben’s face in the light through the kitchen window. “Sit down. I’ll get you a beer.”
“Thanks. I need it.” Ben fell into the chair beside Griff.
Griff got up and squeezed Ben’s shoulder as he passed by on his way through the sliding glass door. He returned with a can of Olympia—Ben’s favorite—and another Bass for himself.
Ben just nodded as he grabbed the beer and lifted it for a three gulp pull.
Griff sat back down and sipped his ale.
“We got trouble?” Ben asked.
“We might. What’s going on?”
“Three dead cows. I called Deputy Walt ‘cause they were all shot with a thirty-aught-six or three-oh-eight—at least.”
“Three?”
“This was no hunting accident.” Ben shook his head.
“What did Walt say?”
“He said, ‘This was no hunting accident.’ Also, there ain’t been any other such reports in the county.”
“Sounds like we got trouble, then.”
“The woman? Helena?”
Griff shook his head. “I think it might be her problem, too.”
“Too bad. Nice lady. ‘Course every one of them is trouble of some sort.”
“Even Swan?”
“Yup. Even Swan.” Ben sighed. “But I love her just the same.”
They sat and drank in silence.
“You and the boys haven’t noticed any strangers passing through or hanging out, have you?” Griff asked.
Ben shook his head. “Anyway, now that we’ve got the mess cleaned up from the scavengers and such, I’ll go back tomorrow and look to find where those shots came from.”
“You want company?”
Ben nodded. “I think I would, indeed.”
***~~~***
The next morning, Ben leaned against the corral outside the barn looking east at the sunrise with his gray mare, Shadow, tied off beside him as Griff led Winston out of the barn.
Griff noticed the .44 caliber Smith and Wesson Model 29 holstered at Ben’s side and his Henry .308 Winchester in the scabbard on Shadow. Winston carried his MK11 sniper rifle. His saddle bags held a half-dozen loaded Magpul PMAG 20s. Griff’s SIG Sauer P226 was holstered on his belt along with two extra magazines.
With a quick nod, Ben climbed up into the saddle.
Griff mounted Winston and they headed northeast.
Their shadows were still long in the dawn when they got to the site of the bonfire. Magpies hopped around the cold, black scar in the plains, picking at the bones and tufts of hide that had not burned up completely.
“All three were within fifty yards of this spot,” Ben said, getting down off Shadow. He walked off to the north, following the tire tracks and drag marks made by Johnny Eagle in the Bobcat. “This way.”
Griff dismounted and followed, leading Winston.
“Here.” Ben gestured to show how one of the slain cows laid. “This one was a head shot. Put down instantly.”
“All of them?”
“Just this one. The other two were center mass. Likely did not have the angle. The last one took two shots. Trailed blood off that way.”
“Spooked by then, probably.”
Ben nodded. He turned and squinted towards the rising terrain to the east.
Griff looked east as well. “Which one?”
Ben pointed and sighted down his arm. He aimed back and forth along the horizon. He settled on a rise at his two o-clock. “That one.”
They mounted up and rode towards the ridge line, circling around behind the hill Ben pointed out. They got down, tied off their horses to sagebrush, grabbed their rifles from the scabbards, then spread out to climb the backside of the hill looking for signs of the sniper.
“No easy shot,” Griff said looking down from the crest at the spot where the cattle had been slaughtered and burned. “At least five hundred yards.”
“I make it half a mile.” Ben began surveying the ground around where they stood.
Griff lifted his rifle and looked down range through the scope.
“There.” Ben pointed to the grass to their right. “Lodging.”
Griff looked over at the grass stalks bent over from the weight of a body lying in the prone firing position. “Four shots?”
“At least.”
“I’m thinking this guy didn’t waste any rounds.”
Griff and Ben carefully combed the area to the right of the sniper’s nest looking for shell casings.
“He probably got them all,” Ben muttered.
Griff circled around to put the sun in his face. He methodically scanned the grass until a spark caught his eye like a distant, silent muzzle flash. He reached into the stalks and pulled out a brass shell casing. He read the engraving around the firing pin. “Three-hundred-win mag.”
Ben stood upright and grunted. He scanned the horizon. “Sniper round. I guess Walt was right.”
Griff nodded as he twirled the shell casing in his fingers. “Yup. This was no hunting accident.”
***~~~***