Coues

Milk Ranch point road, Arizona

A pair of headlights rise over the hill and cut through the falling snow. It’s the first car I’ve seen since I left mine ass-up in a ditch two miles back. My boots are soaked. My face and hands are raw. I wave my arms above my head and make a noise halfway between a bark and a sob.

The pickup stops about twenty yards up the road. A blue tarp covers the bed and a loose corner behind the driver’s door billows in the wind. I trudge through the fresh powder and pray the driver doesn’t change their mind and speed off. I keep my hands above my head to show my empty palms—I am not a threat.

As I reach the passenger-side door, the window cracks open. Hot air and the smell of tobacco warm my forehead.

Through the gap in the window, from under a ripped ball cap, the cherry glow of a cigarette brightens a pair of cold, curious eyes.

“The hell you doing out here?” the driver grumbles. His voice is gruff and impatient.

“Coues deer. Squall came in hard.” My words come out shaky and drift away in the fog of my breath. I wrap my fingers around the doorhandle, but I don’t pull. If he drives off, he’ll have to drag me down the mountain before I let go.

“Thought the season was over.”

“Today’s the last day.”

“No guide?”

“Don’t need one.”

“Yeah, looks like it.”

I smile and dry skin tears at the corners of my mouth. Snow continues to pile on my shoulders and hat. I shift my feet and a clump of snow slips down my collar. I hold my shout of surprise in my throat.

“Listen, my car slid into a ditch a few miles back. I just need a ride down the mountain. I can pay you.”

He keeps his eyes locked on me. A gust of wind throws fresh wet snow into my mouth. I choke.

“If you don’t help me out, I’m going to die out here.” My words come out shrill and panicked.

The driver tuts like an annoyed teacher, reaches over, and unlocks the door.

“Don’t be dramatic,” he says.

I scramble in and inhale the warm air like medicine.

“Bang your fucking boots,” the driver says.

I open the door and kick the snow off and he starts off before I can shut the door again.

“There’s a diner in Payson, you can call a tow truck from there,” he says, hunching over wheel and squinting through the frantic windshield wipers.

“Fine by me,” I say, warming my trembling hands in the air vents. “I’m Nick.”

“Bill,” he says after a few seconds, like he had to think about it.

“You’re saving my life, man. I don’t even know where I was walking.”

“Sure,” he says. “You were heading towards Payson, but I’ve got to take care of something up this way first. Shouldn’t take more than fifteen—twenty minutes.”

He stops talking and I let him focus on the road.

We make slow progress up the mountain. The snow on the road gets deeper as we climb. Three or four times, the tires lose their grip on the road and the car slips backwards a few feet along with my stomach. Bill swears, swerves, and jerks us back on track. As soon as he finishes one cigarette, he lights another. The trail of my footsteps along the side of the road steadily disappears under fresh snow. Two miles or so up the road, we come to my rental hatchback, nose down in a ditch.

“Coues,” Bill says to himself.

He keeps his eyes on the road as he fumbles for the last cigarette in his pack. He finds it and slips it into his mouth where it hangs, unlit. He moves it from one corner of his mouth to the other.

“That’s right,” I say.

“How’d you get stuck?” He asks.

“Heard there was a razor ridge around here with a good view. Sounded like a good spot to glass from.”

“You spot any?” He gives me a look, like he already knows the answer.

“Snow came in as soon as I got settled.”

“Yeah, when it comes, it comes hard. You’re lucky I found you. They won’t plow until the morning, if they plow at all. They might just let it melt.”

“I thought I’d have a shot this year.”

“How long have you been trying?”

“Three years.”

He smacks the wheel and lets out a low, guttural sound like he’s choking—his laugh.

“You ever seen one?” Bill asks.

“Nope.”

“They’re smart. I’ve been here for forty years. I see one or two every year when they wander onto the ranch, but I’m not looking.”

“That so?”

“I don’t think people should go looking either.” Bill reaches for another cigarette. His pack is empty. He remembers the one in his mouth, takes it out, and places it on the dashboard.

“You don’t like hunting?” I ask.

“I don’t like things being out of place.” A gust of wind rocks the car. The corner of the blue tarp whips behind us. Bill’s eyes dart to the rearview mirror. “Shit’s always coming loose. Every year they report on some jackass from California or Kansas City getting lost, or hurt, or shot because he’s someplace he shouldn’t be. Fucked with something he shouldn’t have.”

“I said thank you.”

He gives me his low, guttural laugh. “Not you. You’re alright. A little in over your head, but alright.”

We come to a straightaway and I’m thankful to be on even ground. The ride has made me queasy.

“Almost there,” he says.

“Almost where?” I ask.

Dark woods press in on either side of the road. The wind dies down. Purple clouds roll through the strip of sky overhead.

“Here.” Bill pumps the breaks. The car skids, then comes to a stop in the middle of the road. He pats the dash as he would an old dog, then pulls a pair of work gloves out of the center console. “Sorry I don’t have a pair for you.”

“What for?” I ask. The world tilts, as if the car is slipping backwards again.

He cranes his neck around to look at the blue tarp and rubs his chin.

“You seem like an alright guy, and to tell the truth, I figure you owe me one. I’ll be straight with you. I need your help with something. It’s illegal, and you can never tell anyone about it—not your buddies, not your girlfriend, not your mother. Won’t take more than fifteen minutes,” he says, as though the time is my greatest concern. He cracks open his door and steps out. He’s massive: six foot five, easily two-hundred and fifty pounds, and bow-legged. The wind howls in from the dark behind him and cuts through my damp clothes, steadying the world. He stands firm, keys in hand, waiting for my answer.

I tell myself the sooner I follow him, the sooner I can get back to this warm space, and the sooner this night can be over.

Around the back of the pickup, he tells me to untie one end of the tarp as he does the other. The moment I loosen my knot, the wind rips the tarp back.

Against the tailgate, two young cougars lay curled around each other as though huddling for warmth. Streaks of dry brown blood color the soft fur around their open mouths. Frost clings to their matted coats. They’re a little older than cubs, judging by their size. Bill stands next to me with his hands on his hips.

“Trapped them at the ranch about a month ago. Had to wait for a night like this to get them out of the freezer. No game warden or troopers to worry about tonight. Fifteen-hundred fine on each of these.” He picks up one of the cougars by the scruff. Its head swings forward, then back. Its neck has been broken. “Their mother got away. Shame. She’s the one causing the real trouble. Killed a calf last Fall. Well go on. Grab the other.”

It’s heavier than it looks—between thirty and forty pounds—and awkward to handle. I take it in both arms to keep its claws from scratching holes in my pants. Its oversized paws swing gently. Its head slumps backwards, slack jawed. Bill drags his like a child would a stuffed animal, letting its tail cut a path through the snow and pine needles.

The farther we walk into the woods, the stronger the wind blows against us. The snow comes in sideways with the wind. I keep my head down and follow the dim glow of Bill’s flashlight. The snow muffles our footsteps. Every few minutes, I look up to make sure he’s still there. I’ve never seen such a big man move so quietly.

He stops suddenly and grabs onto a nearby branch to steady himself. I catch up to him and see the trees sink with the earth until their tops disappear beneath the snow and darkness. A canyon opens at our feet.

“Comes up on you fast,” Bill says, sweeping his flashlight over the emptiness. “Here we are.”

On a clear day, it’s probably a beautiful view: red cliffs, scraggly pine trees, and clear skies stretching to the end of creation.

Tonight, clouds hang low over the canyon. Snow comes fast and hard out of the dark. Straight down is a pitch-black void. We stand on the edge of the world.

“Welp,” Bill says. In a fluid motion, he grabs his cougar by the neck and above the tail, then heaves the body into the blackness.

I blink and it’s gone. I listen for the body to hit the earth but hear nothing over the wind.

“Toss it as far as you can,” he says, taking a few steps back. His voice sounds far away. “The

deeper they fall the better. The game warden has my number and he’s a mean fuck.”

I grab my cougar by the neck and above the tail. The skin is loose. The muscles beneath haven’t had time to fully develop. My toss is shorter than Bill’s. The animal’s limbs open, as though pouncing, or playing, before the dark swallows it whole.

Bill claps me on the back. “That’s an empty freezer my wife will stop complain about.”

We retrace our steps through the woods. The wind presses at our backs, spurring us forward. I keep my head up. A little more relaxed, Bill slows down to keep pace with me.

“I don’t like to get them that young,” he says. “Some people say it’s practical, but I don’t know. I was after the mother. She killed a calf last fall, like I said.” He motions over his shoulder. “Still, those two were somewhere they shouldn’t have been. Maybe they wouldn’t come into the valleys if we stayed out of the hills.”

The dull beam of Bill’s flashlight makes long hazy shadows out of the trees.

“You’ve seen her since?” I ask.

“No, and I don’t know if I will, but there are plenty more like her. They call to each other in the hills all night. It’s an awful sound, like a man screaming out in pain.”

Bill’s voice is the loudest thing in the woods. I try to listen between his words—in the half-seconds he takes a breath—for anything that might be with us in the dark. I scan the trees and their long shadows. The wind howls. Something screeches in the distance. Then, a little closer.

“You know how Coues first came here?” Bill asks.

“Never wondered,” I say.

“I bet,” he coughs. “Year ago—thousands, hundreds of thousands. I don’t know how long exactly. Before the desert, the Coues were something else, somewhere else. They were more like the whitetail, I bet. They spread out across the plains, looking for food, doing what deer do. Then, the land dries up under them. They start climbing up into the mountains, where there’s still plenty to eat. Eventually, the desert gets too big to cross and the Coues get stranded on the slopes. Over a thousand years, or hundreds of thousands, they change. Their legs get shorter and more muscular. Their coats dull to camouflage with the rocks and dust. The weak died. The strong listened to what the world was telling them, adapted and survived.”

A new kind of cold creeps under my skin. I don’t feel the wind chafe my ears or the snow in my boots. This cold comes from the void at my back—yawning and endless—where the two cougars still flail in freefall, their bodies trapped between whole and broken states of being.

A branch snaps behind me. I whip around, but nothing is there. Bill laughs.

“Skittish,” he says.

By the time we get back to the pickup, the wind eases and the snow falls in a straight line down to earth. On the other side of the road, the wall of trees as dark as the void stand out against the purple night sky.

The car door clicks open, and I scramble inside.

“Thanks,” Bill says, grabbing the limp cigarette he left on the dash.

After lighting up and taking a long drag, the car fills with smoke and I start to relax. Bill starts the car.

The headlights flood the road, and my heart skips a beat. Bill lets out a gasping croak.

Forty yards out, stunned still by the pickup’s glaring high beams, is a beautiful Coues buck. He stands tall and regal like the King of the Highlands. His grey coat stands out against the strip of snow-covered road. His chaotic crown of antlers curve inwards like gnarled crescent moons, or wisps of flame. There are too many points to count. Time stretches out. Seconds feel like minutes. Nothing moves.

Nothing breathes.

When the buck brakes the trance, he does so in slow motion, rising slightly on his hind legs, as if he is going to stand, then kicking hard against the snow and asphalt. I blink and all that remains is a cloud of snow, a flash of white on the other side of the road, and a fuzzy after-image where the buck had stood.

“God damn,” Bill says between deep coughs, then smacks my chest. “Cross that off your bucket-list.”

As we start off towards Payson, the buck’s after-image leads us down the mountain, forty yards ahead, facing backwards, as if waiting for us to catch up.