If you’re new here, welcome to Sleep Tight, the section of Kindling where I share original short stories. This is a work in progress. It follows Clive, a struggling rancher who’s cattle suddenly start dying. Their bodies are left expertly mutilated, missing blood and vital organs, a real reported phenomena that creeps into newspapers every few years. I hope you enjoy! As always feel free to comment, and happy reading.
Part 1 | Part 2
“What do you make of it?”
The boy was behind the farmer who stood over the cow. Its eyes were black holes, eaten right out of the sockets. Clive looked up into the horizon. The land stretched on for miles, golden grass and dust clouds, hundreds of acres spread in all directions. This was the third one in a week, and the closest to his house by far.
“I don’t make nothin’ of it. Coyotes I suspect.”
“Coyotes?” The boy’s voice was high, and Clive looked at him in the eyes for the first time since he had gotten the call to come quick, see something, something bad had happened to one of the cows. Clive’s stomach turned and he stepped toward him.
“You want to do a man’s work, hmm? This is it. Now pull your balls down from wherever they shrunk up and head out to the fence to make sure we don’t have anymore bitches grazing near the highway again.”
He turned and left the boy standing, wide-eyed and hurt, and climbed back onto his ATV.
“This ain’t a coyote,” the boy shot back, then turned and headed in the direction of the downed fence that needed fixing.
Clive watched him for a while, seated on the ATV like he was getting ready to go. As soon as the boy was out of sight, he climbed down and took a closer look at his cow. Her eyes weren’t the only thing gone. Her mouth was open, but the tongue had been eaten down to a nub. He grabbed a stick and lifted the tail. A perfect sphere, about the circumference of a big marble, had been bored through where her anus should be.
He grabbed his phone, turned on the flashlight and shined a light in it. No maggot squirmed in the dead meat. There was nothing there to indicate that the flies had gotten to her. Quite the opposite. There wasn’t an insect in sight. He made his way back slowly, chewing his lip until it started to bleed.
When the boy found him two hours later, he was in the kitchen. His eyes were heavy, made heavier by the stacks of envelopes, half of them ripped open, their insides scattered across the dark wooden table. The others were stacked in organized piles. The boy waited, one hand folded in the other hung loose just in front of his crotch.
Clive took his time finishing a letter in his hands, sipping his coffee every few minutes. When he spoke he didn’t look up, simply told the boy to get on with it.
“I mended the fence sir.”
Clive grunted. The boy took a small step forward and cleared his throat.
“I need to give you my two weeks.”
Clive set his cup down, but his face was stone, his eyes still on the letter.
“Why’s that?”
“I’ve decided to join the Army sir.”
“Since when?” He was reaching into his shirt pocket now, where he kept his Marlboros. The boy thought he saw his fingers trembling, but they disappeared behind the thick fabric. When they reappeared, steady as an old pine, he knew he must have been mistaken.
“This morning,” he said, and looked down at his feet in shame.
“Because of the coyote.”
“It ain’t a coyote.”
The farmer hit the pack against the base of his thumb, then pinched a piece of hanging plastic between his hands and ripped. The plastic loosened, slipped off in a clear sleeve, and he opened the carton. He waited, looking at each cigarette like they were women in a bar. In a moment he found what he was looking for, pulled it, and popped it into his mouth in one motion. The lighter lay on the table, and he flicked it easily and breathed in until the end glowed.
Then he looked at the boy, breathing out a veil of smoke to view him through. The boy shuffled against his will, sweat breaking at the fine baby hairs along his head and behind his ears. The farmer took another drag.
“You know how long I’ve lived here?”
“No sir.” His voice came out shaky, and he cleared his throat again.
“Whole life.”
He tipped the cigarette and examined it, watched as the white smoke rose into the air.
“You think I don’t know this land?”
The boy didn’t answer. Hot shame washed over him.
“You think I don’t know my own cattle?”
“I—I just thought—”
“I’m gonna tell you something. I know this place, every last damned part. I’ve seen dozens of cattle dead in the last few months, and when I tell you it’s a coyote that got to the damn cow, it’s a coyote.”
The boy stared at him, unwilling to say anything, but disbelieving all the same. The farmer held his eyes, then chuckled.
“Tell you what. I’ll go out with the herd tonight. Stay with ‘em. See if I can find out what’s gettin’ ‘em. Hmm? How’s that sound?”
“Good sir,” the boy said, and there was real relief in his voice.
The farmer smiled, a little warmth washing over him.
“Good. I’ll let you know what it is tomorrow. You tell that recruiter to put your papers on hold.”
“Oh, I—sure sir,” he said, and the farmer knew what he had suspected all along. There was no recruiter. The boy had almost quit from fright, but a man couldn’t say that to another man, now could he?
“Alright then. Good job today.”
The boy nodded and walked out, his footsteps no longer the tired shuffle of his entry.
Clive watched him go, the smile on his face fading, until the boy closed the door, and his face returned to the letter. It was from the bank. A notice. The mortgage was two months past due. He didn’t want to admit it, couldn’t face it, but he needed the boy through the end of the season. There was no time to train someone else, and he wasn’t sure he could get someone as cheap. But with the cows dying, he knew he would never make up for the hole he was in. Not unless he could stop the coyote that was killing them.
He tried that same lie on himself, but the thought fell hollow in his gut until his stomach grew knots around it. He stubbed out his cigarette, folded the papers back into their envelopes, gathering them into their respective piles, and headed to his gun safe.
By the time he was ready, the sun was low on the hills. The cows would be gathered near the trees, where the little spring fed pond was. They laid there most summer nights, absorbing the cool air that wafted off the water in blue moonlight. He laid his hunting rifle in the bed of his truck, then swung his pack and sleeping bag behind it.
The night would be a long one, and he didn’t anticipate much sleep. He was getting too old for this, but without a child to take it over, he didn’t have a choice. Sunset out on the plains of southwestern Colorado was a brutally lonely time. Without the day’s work ahead of him, his life took on a hollow feeling of unreality.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the little silver flask, his brother’s gift to him on his wedding day. In those days he had been a whiskey drinker, but now he stuck to clear liquor. He didn’t like the taste, and that made for easier mornings after. It burned white hot in his throat as he swallowed it down, but the ache in his heart was barely dulled. These days it took more than a few swigs to do that job. The sky was deep indigo, then baby blue over the mountains far in the distance where the sun had dipped out of sight. He jumped in the truck and headed west.
Nearly twenty minutes had passed when he reached his herd. Big black Angus cows, weighing in at over a ton. They were large enough to be dangerous, but that reality seemed lost on them. They spent their days wandering the grasslands, chewing, swatting flies with their tails, then finally settling down at night together for protection.
He turned the engine off when he reached them, watching their shadows in the dark as his eyes adjusted. When he opened the door they didn’t stir. He opened up a folding chair, grabbed his thermos of coffee, and sat facing the black brush beyond.
Coyotes hadn’t always been a problem, but as cities got bigger, the native wildlife always got pushed out, pressured. They turned to domestic game, took risks they normally wouldn’t. Clive felt the changes too. When he went into town, he saw construction on what were once empty ranch lots, nothing but wild grass for miles. Now McMansions were turning up all over the place. He suspected that within his lifetime, every speck of ranch land would belong to some tech millionaire or actor type who fancied the idea of life out here, but only between movies and board meetings.
He unscrewed the lid to his thermos, and poured the dark liquid into the silver cap. The metal grew warm in his hand, and he cupped it close to himself for a minute, let it soak into the cracks. The skin there was dry, leather hard from a lifetime of work. He stared down at his fingers, the knuckles thick with the beginnings of arthritis. He knew that this type of life had an expiration date. He just wasn’t sure how soon it would come.
A rustling noise startled him from his thoughts, pulled his eyes to the darkness behind the pond. He shifted uneasily, and set the cup of coffee down on the ground next to his chair. The gun was still in the back of his truck. He cursed under his breath and watched. Nothing moved.
He waited a few minutes, heart in his ears, before finally standing up to get the gun. He moved slowly, stiff grass crunching and scratching against his boots and pant legs. There was no way a coyote wouldn’t scare at the sound of him. Still, he tried to walk with soft feet, easing the tailgate down, holding his breath. It screeched like it always did two inches before it dropped.
Clive closed his eyes and listened. There was some movement in the grass out of sight, something big. A restless cow shifting in her grassy bed. He grabbed the gun, cold seeping into his hands, and turned off the safety. There was no noise except the late summer crickets. He moved carefully, then made his way back to the chair.
He raised the cup of coffee to his lips, the liquid gone cool. The flavor was sharp, and he put it back down again. A high pitched cry somewhere far on the plains floated across endless sky. It was followed by whooping sounds, first a few, then dozens. A pack of coyotes fresh on a kill. One of the cows mooed.
“Calm down girl. They ain’t close.”
She mooed again, and another sat up. He could see her shadow, a black outline against the brush, head perked at attention, staring at something. He gripped the gun in his hands again. A shadow, just beyond where the last cow lay, crawled out from behind a low bush. He lifted the rifle to his shoulder and peered through the night vision scope to see what it was.
A wolf. He looked up, stared with his naked eye, unbelieving, then looked back again. The sons of bitches had really done it this time. Colorado law had changed the year before, and the voters had decided to reintroduce wolves. Last he heard it wasn’t supposed to be until the end of the year. The feds had probably gotten involved, sticking their noses where they didn’t belong. And now this. One of them had managed to wander all the way down here.
He looked through the scope again but it was gone. He stood to his feet, gazing wildly at what was now empty space. The wolf had disappeared, and the cow nearest it was gone too. He shouldered the gun and made his way to the pond, toward the outline of brush where the last of the cows lay. The herd was strangely quiet as he walked, some of them staring with wide unblinking eyes, others fast asleep despite the noise of his footsteps.
When he reached the spot, he realized his mistake. She was there, laying down now, set just low enough behind a small mound that he hadn’t been able to see her with her head on the ground. He leaned in close, the breath catching in his throat. Her eyes were gone, like they had been cut out with a knife.
He pulled his phone out and shined the flashlight on her face. There was no blood. He moved the light down the length of her, and stopped at her stomach. There was a line cut in her belly, the skin pulled back and stuck like there was a pin in it. Her insides were hollow, the organs removed, her guts picked clean.
He stood, his stomach knotted, his breathing heavy. The ground around her was spotless, not a speck of blood on the grass. He stepped toward the brush, looking for signs of the wolf. A track, or a piece of innards, caught on the sticky brush as he pulled his prey back to the little bit of cover these plains offered. There was nothing.
Clive looked, shining his light in the pockets of blacker darkness beyond, and noticed for the first time that the crickets had stopped. The hair on his arms stood on end, and a cold sweat broke at his hairline, a cool drop seeping down his neck and into his T-shirt. He pulled the gun up, ready, and looked through the scope again.
Nothing. There was nothing there. His legs felt shaky with adrenaline. It was time to get back to the truck. He walked back, turning every few seconds to make sure he wasn’t being followed. The further he got from his dead cow, the better he felt. Rational thoughts crept back in. He dumped the cold coffee out on the ground and poured himself another from the thermos.
In the morning he would call the Department of Wildlife to file a formal complaint. He would need pictures, documentation, proof. They would argue with him to avoid paying for the dead cattle, but if they pushed too hard, he would go public. Maybe it wouldn’t pay out now, but it might give him some footing with the bank. If he could show payments were coming for the dead ones, they might ease up a bit.
Whatever he did, he couldn’t kill it. Those were the rules, and the fines for shooting endangered species were hefty. His stomach sank at the realization. That old girl would be back looking for food, and even if he had a good enough shot, he couldn’t take it. It was against the law. He looked around at his wild land, this last stand against the modern world. He sipped the coffee, and it was so hot it burned his throat when he swallowed. He would be out here tomorrow night, and the next, and the next. Whatever it took to save his cows.
I love it!! Definitely some Skinwalker Ranch vibes, which is sooo creepy. I can’t wait to see what’s next!
That was great Shaina 👍🏼
A creepy tale of spooky going’s on, that even a hard bitten old cowboy can’t explain.
Really enjoyed the line, “He waited, looking at each cigarette like they were women in a bar” which was like something from Raymond Chandler
Looking forward to the next instalment