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have taken to wearing clothes, that something dead is human.” I jerked my head toward where that twisted, dried hand seemed to be clawing its way out of the snow bank.
    “Shit.” I might not have agreed with Randy’s word choice, but I sure couldn’t argue with the sentiment. This pretty much ended my hunt and told me where I’d be spending the rest of my afternoon.
    “Joe.” Kabe’s rapid breathing seemed to be slowing and I could see some pink coming back into his face. “Crap. I heard this snap and I looked down and there’s this hand coming up out of the snow at me. I fucking freaked.”
    Randy came up beside us and tapped Kabe’s shoulder with a metal flask. I glared at him some, but neither Kabe nor Randy shared my beliefs, so I didn’t say nothing about it when Kabe took the little bottle and knocked back a slug. Instead, I squeezed his arm and praised him some. “Well, you kept your wits about you and didn’t move none.”
    “I was too fucking scared.” Kabe shuddered. “What if I moved and like stepped on its head or something.”
    Now that Kabe was coming ‘round, my mind started thinking less like his boyfriend and more like a cop. We were somewhere off Highway 22 between Widtsoe and Antimony. But exactly where, that was up to debate. One of the reasons I went with a professional guide was that Randy made sure we had the okay to go on any private land he thought had a good shot of getting lucky. We’d gone through maybe a dozen gates during the morning…and my permit allowed for hunting on National Park Service territory.
    So, honestly, I wasn’t all sure whether we were in the Dixie National Forest or out of it. It’s not like it’s one big chunk of federal property. No, Dixie’s a patch here and a big swath over there and maybe a mile or so of a little nothing town carved out of the middle. Jurisdiction around these parts tends to sometimes be more a function of guesswork than maps, especially when you get on into the mountains.
    Pretty much where we were.
    I pulled out my little handheld GPS and took a reading. It didn’t settle my mind at all. “Okay, I need to get hold of Noreen in dispatch and have her get in touch with the rangers as well.” I started planning the next several hours out. The County Coroner, well last I heard he was off in Aruba, so I put a nix on that. I was off duty—wouldn’t have been hunting if I weren’t—but I was one of two deputies trained in crime-scene processing, so I guessed I’d be pulling some overtime on this.
    Not that I knew this was or was not a crime. What I knew right then was I had a hand sticking out of the snow and an arm under it, least if Kabe’d heard right. There might be a whole body down under a good two feet of snow or the body could be anywhere and some scavenger dragged that bit over this way. Whoever owned that arm could have died from foul-play, misadventure or had a heart attack while out hiking for all we knew.
    I did know I was going to need help.
    I huffed out in frustration, my breath hanging in frozen mist in front of my face. “We’ll need to backtrack out to someplace where we can get cell reception.”
    “I got a satellite phone.” Randy coughed and spat. “It’s a buck and change a minute, but I think this qualifies as an emergency.”
    “How’d you afford that shiny toy?” Kabe’s voice sounded a lot less off than it had earlier. Between the question and his tone, the shock seemed to be fading.
    “Ain’t no toy.” Randy turned and started back towards where we’d all come from. “I run hunting trips all up in the middle of nowhere all the time.” Since the body weren’t going to get up and go for a run I followed and Kabe kept in step with me. “Locals like Joe know how to handle themselves…” He grinned back at us as he talked “…but get some idiot up here who’s got a permit, a rifle and no sense. When they go ahead and shoot their own toe off, well that’s not the time you want to be