The next morning that unseasonable chill was gone and in its place was the panhandles favorite son, wind. As he pulled the two good sized slices of salt cured venison out of his cast iron skillet with his knife he mentally calculated how many more meals he could stretch out of what was left of his meat stores. Somewhere close to six; he figured. After he finished his breakfast he'd head out into the canyon and do some more hunting.

He'd originally come to Texas to hunt the great scores of bison that used to roam the great open plains but now that they were gone he hunted smaller game. The meat he couldn’t eat he cured and sold to the local ranches and settlers. He tanned the hides and sold those too. It wasn’t as profitable as the buffalo had been but he made enough to live on.

He pulled his rifle up into his lap and checked the block. It wasn’t the same rifle he'd been using to hunt the bison but it was still a Sharps rifle. His old rifle had met its sad end under the hooves of a stampede two years ago, the barrel bent so out of shape that he hardly recognized it when he unearthed it from the churned earth. The Borchardt model that sat in his lap now was one of the last rifles that the Sharps Manufacturing Company had produced before it shuttered in 1881. It'd been worth every dollar. He lifted the heavy wood stock and took a sight on the opposite wall, making sure everything was still in alignment.

Satisfied he tossed his empty plate into a bucket of cold water, dampened the coals on the fire, and headed out to Mad Anns paddock with the rifle. She gave him an incredulous look and huffed in her horsy way. He leaned his rifle against a post and grabbed a handful of dried grass, twisting it up into a bundle then ducked under the paddock rail. He used the impromptu brush to give the mare a quick scrub down. She was warm and her dark coat shiny, although peppered with white here and there from age and old scars, as she leaned into his scrubbing.

“I am forgiven?” he wondered aloud

Mad Ann flicked an ear at him in recognition. She lipped at his sleeve and he took that as affirmation of her improved mood. She let him tack her up with no fuss.

They rode out and picked there way down the canyon bottom. It was nearly noon by the time he ran across any tracks that look promising. They were big but faint in the dry dirt where he first spotted them. A mule deer buck, maybe. He slid down off of Ann while pulling his rifle smoothly from its saddle sheath all in the same motion. He followed the faint tracks a few hundred feet until he found a clearer set to study. Ann followed quietly behind him.

The tracks, upon closer inspection, were to big to be mule deer. He pondered a moment before an image of the track-maker popped into his head: Elk. He had only ever seen one elk in the canyon in recent years since most of he elk had moved out of the area many years ago, even before the bison disappeared. He followed the tracks more intensely.

The elk ranged slowly, clearly the animal was in no hurry, from one edge of the canyon bottom to the other. It didn’t appear to be stopping to graze, which was odd, instead it just wandered its way through the brush. Occasionally it followed a narrow game trail but the size of the animal made it easy to tell when it left to pick its own way. Eventually the tracks became fresher, cleaner, as he gained on its meandering pace. He was still downwind of it by some curious blessing of the panhandle wind so when he thought he was closing in on his quarry he hobbled Mad Ann. He inched his way up a short rise as quietly as he could to get what he hoped would be a better view. Crouching in near the base of a small mesquit he scanned ahead. Slowly, slowly... studying every branch and shadow... THERE!

Just barely two-hundred yards away the tines of a large set of antlers swayed slowly as their bearer stepped easily through a grove of young juniper trees. He trained his rifle and waited for a clear shot. The bull was moving away from him but was still easily within range and he knew that if he dropped down into the brush he could just as easily loose sight of the elk as wind up under its sharp hooves. That was if he was lucky. If he wasn’t lucky he’d spook it by getting to close, sending it leaping off into the distance before he could get a shot off.

Just as the bull was coming into a break in the trees he felt the hair rise on the back of his neck as that cruel panhandle wind shifted direction. He felt as much as saw the antlers halt and then slowly turn toward his direction.

He cursed quietly under his breath and prepared for the bull to bolt but to his genuine surprise it started trotting toward him! Dumfounded; he let his rifle drop as he watched the big beast push its way back through the juniper. Just as it broke cover he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. As he turned, taking his eyes off the elk for the first time, he was hit with two-hundred pounds of tawny muscle.

He brought the stock of his rifle up just in time to ward off the thumb sized fangs of a large cougar. He rocked backward with a yell, the elk forgotten, as the cats claws made a swipe for his belly. It caught his leg instead as he shuffled backwards on his rear in an attempt to put distance between them. The big cat hissed as he yelped, swinging the butt of his rifle at its face, while its hooked claws tore into and sliced free of his pants and the thin skin of his shin. He rolled away from another swipe only to find the edge of the rise he'd been perching on dropped off to a dry creek bed about twenty-five feet below. He swiped desperately with the rifle again but the cat batted it away, latching one of its wide paws on the leather of his belt and hip. Time seemed to slow and narrow down on the gaping fangs of the big cat as it pulled him in closer.

He braced for a bite when the cat suddenly yowled out in protest, a flurry of sharp dark hooves striking down at it. For a moment he thought Mad Ann had come to his rescue but once he caught his breath and his tapering vision cleared he saw that the hooves were cloven not rounded and shod, the hooves of an elk. He jerked to the side, avoiding one of the arcing dark missiles, as the big body of the elk danced over him and dislodged the cat; sending it scurrying backward. He heard a rough intake of breath and a following deep bellow, the cougar caterwauled in return as it jumped for the elks back. It was then he notice the lanky, tanned, torso of a man where the great cervine creatures head should have been.

The powerful fingers of the elk-man dug into the cougars scruff; ripping it off of its back and tossing it with a yell. Landing lightly on its feet the cat turned and leapt again. He rolled to his feet, crouching, as the elk-man and the cougar danced dangerously with each other. They were a flurry of slashing claws, hooves, fangs, and antlers. The weight of his rifle reminded him of the bullet still resting in the chamber. Even if it didn’t hit the cat the noise would likely be enough to scare it off.

He stood and braced the stock against his armpit, he sighted the barrel over the crowning tines of the elk-mans antlers and gently squeezed the trigger. The loud cacophonous sound boomed out as the bullet flew clear of the combatants, the smell of black powder a sharp twang in the air. The great mass of the elk-man landed heavily as it dropped from a striking stance and then lurched to the side as he shied away in shock. The cat tried to back-peddle in mid air as the sound snapped it out of its frenzy. As the cat fell, off balance, its shoulder caught on a tine of the sharp antlers causing the elk-man to sink dramatically to one side with the sudden unexpected weight. Attempting to step out from under the yowling cat the elk-man backed into Oliver and all three of them went tumbling over the edge of the rise to the rocky wash below.