“The adjuster’s coming sometime today,” Ted explained. “Maybe he’ll know what the heck killed them. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Livestock producers were entitled to compensation by the government if they lost animals due to predation. The adjuster would likely confirm that the deaths were predator related. Having repaired the claw marks on the survivor, I had little doubt of it, but the attacker’s identity was another matter.
As I squinted toward the far end of the field, Keen suddenly stopped dead, her nose into the wind. And then she did something I’d never seen her do before—her entire frame wilted, tail tucked. She turned and ran to me, to huddle against my leg.
Keen is a country dog, and we walk a lot through bush and across fields. We’d run into foxes and coyotes, and occasionally, bears. She’d never reacted like this. The fine hairs on my neck stood on end. When I reached down to her, she was shaking.
Ted observed her behaviour and tweaked an eyebrow. His expression, if anything, became even darker.
“Easy, girl,” I said. She stayed close to my leg as I followed Ted to what lay beyond. Movement along the fence line drew my attention to the crows. They perched on the posts and in the bare branches of the trees overhead, only just blushing green with swelling buds. I stopped counting at thirty-two. Sitting, silent. The bodies must have drawn them to the spot, but why weren’t they all over the carcasses?
“They’ve been there since this morning. But they won’t come any closer,” Ted said, watching the birds. He held the gun across his body, tightly enough that his knuckles were white.
I gave an involuntary shiver, and it was then I smelled the bodies—the stench of shredded bowels and blood. A moment later, I stood over them. Or rather, they lay around me. The bulls had been torn apart.
Keen made an odd, low whine and pushed against my leg as my heart accelerated. Everywhere I looked there were pieces of flesh. It was like a tornado had erupted inside the animals. I’d seen livestock predation before, but not anything like this.
Unnerved as I was, the scientist in me took over. My eyes scanned the ground. “Any clear tracks?”
“Everything’s been churned up pretty good,” Ted noted. “I looked this morning, couldn’t find squat.”
I pulled latex gloves out of my pocket and put them on.
“What are you doing?” Ted asked. His voice shook.
I advanced on the bodies. The ribcages of both had been ripped open, the bones broken, pointing to the sky. The organs lay spread across the ground, including great loops of torn intestine covered in mud.
“I want to see if anything’s missing.” Keen wouldn’t stay when I asked her to; she followed me—her belly hugging the terrain as I crouched beside the massive bodies. I slid my hands inside, my fingers searching for and identifying the various bits by feel as much as sight.
“How can you tell?” The note in Ted’s voice made me glance over to him. His face was white, his eyes wide as he scanned the carnage.
“It was after something,” I said. “The heart’s gone on this guy. Liver too.” I examined the head and peered closer. The side of the skull had been smashed in, and when I pushed aside the blood-soaked fur, I confirmed my suspicion. “Brain’s missing.” I moved to the second bull, and noticed it lacked something distinctive.
“Where’s the head?”
When he didn’t answer right away, I looked over again, in time to see a shudder pass through him.
“I’ll show you when you’re done.”
I frowned. The bull’s head was massive, not something easily hauled off. But after a moment I confirmed that the other body was also missing its heart and liver. As near as I could tell by the pieces around me, everything else was present, just not intact. The claw marks were everywhere on the big bodies, much deeper than those inflicted on the younger bull. I examined the neck on the second animal. By the level of tearing, it almost looked as though the head had been wrenched off, rather than cut.
What could wrench the head off a bison? And then carry it away?
“Do you think it could have been a cougar?” Ted asked. He sounded almost hopeful.
“Why didn’t the second bull get away?” I asked, straightening to look around at the scene.
“What?”
“Something leaps out and attacks one bull. The second one stands around waiting to be killed?” Nothing about this made any sense.
“Maybe there were two cougars. A mother and grown cub, or something.”
I peeled off the gloves, turned the bloody surfaces inside out and tucked them back into my pocket. Keen trembled as she pressed against my leg. Cougars weren’t unheard of in this region, but attacks on livestock were rare. And they usually tackled smaller animals, something roughly deer sized.
“Where’s the head?” I asked.
His mouth straightened and he set off through a small patch of old trees, the underbrush long since eaten away. He headed for the closest fence line, so my dog and I trailed after him.
I didn’t see it at first. Keen was distracting me, moving in front of my legs as though trying to stop me from walking. I shoved her out of the way for the eighth time, glanced up, and saw Ted had stopped.
I looked beyond him to the fence. About ten feet on the other side of the boundary was a pile of boulders. And sitting on the highest boulder like some macabre sculpture was the head.
It was missing the lower jawbone, but it sat squarely on the boulder, as though placed there. It’s eyes, fogged by death, stared straight at us.
Christ. Keen whined again, and I couldn’t tell which of us was shaking the hardest. My heart hammered, and I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Get a grip, Liam. There has to be an explanation for all this. I scanned the fence—male bison weren’t the easiest animals to contain. It took six
