The Totem 1979 Read Free Page B

them. Up ahead, a rabbit was paralyzed by them. Bodine veered to miss it. Then he picked up speed again.
    The light was now distinctly flames, growing as he neared. He saw his boy stand up and walk in front of the fire, his body silhouetted by it. He saw the motorcycle parked beside the fire. The fire was very close before him as he pulled up and he stopped.
    He kept the lights on, then stepped down onto the ground. The old man was already out.
    The boy walked toward them.
    “Anything?” Bodine asked.
    The boy just shook his head.
    “No animals? No tearing at the carcass?”
    “It’s been pretty quiet.”
    “Well, that’s something anyhow. You stayed up here the way I told you? You didn’t go down, messing any tracks?”
    The boy just shook his head again.
    “Okay, then. Doc, it’s down there in the gully. Careful of the slope.”
    The old man walked across the glare of the headlights, standing at the edge of the gully. “I can’t see much without more light.”
    Bodine reached beneath the seat to get a high-powered flashlight. He held it, long and heavy, walking toward the old man as he flicked the switch. The light shot out across the range. He dipped it toward the gully, sweeping back and forth until he found the carcass.
    “There.”
    Its back was toward them, just the way it had been when Bodine had come upon it. As much as he could tell, it looked the same.
    The old man started down, and Bodine stopped him.
    “I don’t know. I think the way to do this is to walk up here a ways, then cut across and come down looking on the other side. I want to keep from messing any tracks.”
    The old man hesitated, looked at him, and nodded. They went where the gully was more narrow, climbing down, the old man needing help to get up on the other side. The ground was hard and rocky. The old man’s breath was forced as he got up and straightened.
    “You all right?”
    “It’s nothing. I’m not used to this.”
    “You sure?”
    “I said I’ll be all right.”
    “Okay then.”
    And they waited. Then the old man had his breath back, and they walked along the top until they stood across from where the headlights and the fire were. Bodine aimed the flashlight into the ditch. The old man didn’t speak.
    He didn’t speak for quite a while.
    “All right, now tell me what the hell it was that did that,” Bodine said.
    “I don’t know.” The old man cleared his throat. “Right now I couldn’t say.”
    It wasn’t that the sight was shocking. He’d seen worse too many times. But the thing just didn’t make much sense. Whatever had disemboweled this steer had done so from below and ravaged at the guts. But nothing seemed to have been eaten. The guts were mashed together, chewed and mangled, but the point was they were here. Whatever did this hadn’t eaten at the flesh, had only chewed at organs and then left them. He had never seen this-he had never heard about a thing like this before.
    The old man saw the flies that crawled upon the guts, smelled the stench that was coming from the gully, shook his head, and turned away. “I just don’t get it.”
    “You’re the expert,” Bodine said. “Take a guess.”
    “Well, process of elimination. What would prey upon a steer?”
    “I already thought of that. Bobcats. But they don’t come down here. Wolves, the same. Coyotes maybe. I even thought it was a cougar. They don’t single out the guts, though. Not when they’ve got flesh to eat.”
    “And one thing more. It doesn’t look like anything’s been eaten,” the old man said. “What about those tracks you mentioned? Were they any help?”
    “I never found them. If they were around, I didn’t want them messed before somebody good came out to have a look.”
    The old man turned, again toward the gully, and he pointed. “Well, I don’t know if I’d mess the tracks, but I should go down and have a look.”
    “You’re the expert.”
    So the old man slowly worked his way down into the gully, Bodine close