One

A full moon—a rustler’s moon—peeks from low-hanging clouds and casts eerie shadows across the grassy pasture. The Midnight Sheepherder, as the Wyoming Wool Growers Association refers to the rustler that’s plagued ranchers hereabouts for a year, douses the pickup lights while still on the county road. Easing up to the fence, the thief climbs out, drops the barbed wire gate, and lays it aside. The sheepherder has had close calls with the Association’s range detective before, and the last thing needed tonight would be having to stop and open the gate before fleeing. If caught.

The dog in the seat trembles with anticipation as the rustler eases the truck and trailer into the pasture, the moon the only illumination necessary. How many times has moonlight aided in the thieving? And how many times has the rustler gotten away undetected? The original plan last year had been to steal a trailer full of sheep: twenty-five to thirty head a night for a couple nights. Use the money for necessities and quit while ahead. But it was all too easy, with the odds against the lone stock detective the Association put their faith in. The detective, after all, was renowned for solving homicides. Not catching rustlers.

The sheepherder idles toward a deep depression in the pasture, where sheep mill about like frightened children, and climbs out. The dog jumps down from the seat and sits while the trailer ramp is dropped. The hollow cries of bleating sheep sound like the cries of babies, echoing off the walls of the natural depression of land. A wave of the hand, a silent signal to the willing accomplice, and the dog happily bounds after a group of sheep at the near end of the pasture. The dog doesn’t know she’s an accessory—she’s just doing what she knows and loves: rounding sheep up to be sold out of state.

The dog herds four sheep up the ramp into the trailer when … the sound of a pickup approaches in the field above the rustler. Light floods the hillside. Instinctively, the sheepherder crouches even though the approaching vehicle is well above the depression in the pasture, the truck and trailer hidden. Another wave of the hand and the dog returns to sit beside the ramp. Her muscles twitch with the thought of herding more sheep, and she pants with anticipation. But for now, she sits, her tongue lolling out her mouth like she’s testing the hot, dry night air. Dog and thief have weathered near misses before. Last month at a ranch on the Snowy Range, the Association’s stock detective nearly caught them. But hunkering down, letting the danger pass, had saved them. And would do so tonight.

The rancher—for it has to be the landowner prowling around this time of night—stops the truck. A door slams. Muffled voices rise and fall with the stiff breeze.

As the rustler reaches inside the trailer for a granola bar, a scream pierces the night. Dog and thief scramble up the hillside and peek over the bank. A man in baggy jeans and shirt too big for him drags a woman screaming by her hair out of a truck. She kicks and claws at the man, but to no avail. He slams her against the hood, and headlights momentarily illuminate them. The woman tries biting his hand, but he backhands her across the face. She slumps and he hauls her erect, shaking her awake, prolonging her anguish.

The rustler keeps quiet. A family fight is no business of—

The man rips off the woman’s blouse. He clamps a hand over her mouth, but she bites hard. He punches her in the gut, and she lets go. With one hand on her throat, the man grabs something from his back pocket—a leather thong perhaps—and swiftly wraps it around the woman’s neck. Her screams cease. Her eyes bulge out. Her feet kick the air as the man hoists her off the ground with the strangling, when …

The dog barks.

Just a faint nip, but the sound carries well on this hot night. And it carries to the couple fighting in front of the pickup.

The man looks up, his eyes reflecting his headlights, a grimace of hate on his face visible even at this distance. He spots the dog, and the rustler beside her.

The man drops the woman and runs toward the bank.

Toward rustler and dog.

The rustler stumbles to the truck. Trips over a rock. Tumbles down to the bottom of the hill. Recovers and whistles to the dog. She leaps onto the seat of the truck as the thief stomps on the foot feed. Dirt and rocks from the spinning truck tires ping the side of the trailer in a race to get as far and as fast away from the pasture as possible. Sheep tumble down the ramp dragging on the ground.

The Midnight Sheepherder makes it to the pasture gate, caroms off the gateposts. The ramp slides, a gravel storm kicked up by the tires. The rustler will put the ramp up later. For now, the only thing that matters is escape.

And survival.