Trophy Hunt by C. J. Box

looklike a turkey buzzard with its thin neck and red head. In some cases, tongues and eyes had been removed, and oval patches were missing from shoulders. On the females, their bags had been removed. Half of the cows had missing rectums, showing large dark holes between their flanks.
    Joe felt a distinct chill as he walked from body to body. This was like the moose, times twelve. It also meant that whatever had been doing this had been in action for at least two weeks.
    “The blood’s drained right out of ’em,” Hawkins said, shaking his head. “This is crazy.”
    “Are you sure about that?” Joe asked, looking up at the rancher.
    “Look at ’em,” Hawkins cried, holding his hands palms-out. “You see any blood anywhere? How in the hell can you cut up a damned cow like that and not have any blood on the ground? Do you know how much blood there is in a cow?”
    “Nope, I don’t,” Joe said.
    “I don’t know either,” Hawkins said, flustered. “A shitload for sure.”
    McLanahan said, “No matter how much there is in a cow, there’s none of it on the ground. It’s like the blood got sucked right out of them.”
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake . . .” Barnum growled, turning his back to McLanahan. “Don’t start saying things like that. ”
    “So what did it?”
    “How in the hell should I know?”
    “Maybe some kind of predator?” McLanahan asked. “A bear or a mountain lion or something?”
    “There is a bear,” Joe said. “A big grizzly. I saw his tracks this morning. But I can’t believe a bear could do this.”
    “That’s all I need,” Barnum said, his voice rising, “a bunch of mutilated cattle and a goddamned grizzly bear on the loose.”
    “Not to mention space aliens sucking the blood out of domestic animals in the middle of ranch country,” McLanahan said dramatically. “It’s happened before, you know.”
    “Stop that!” Barnum spat. “I mean it.”
    Joe battled a smile and addressed Don Hawkins.
    “When did you find these cattle?”
    Hawkins was slow to answer, and when he did, it was with hesitation. McLanahan’s speculating had rattled him.
    “My guy Juan found ’em a-horseback this morning. He called me at the ranch house on his radio.”
    “Have you been missing these cattle?”
    Hawkins nodded. “We moved most of our herd up to Montana where they have some grass. The drought here forced us to move our cows this fall. We knew we had stragglers in the timber, and Juan’s been looking for them and herding them down.”
    “Did you see anything unusual? Hear anything?”
    Something washed across Hawkins’s face. Joe waited. He could tell that Hawkins seemed a little embarrassed about something.
    “This is stupid,” Hawkins said. “Juan told me a few days ago he was getting dizzy when he rode up here. He thought it was the elevation or something. I thought it was laziness. It’s easier to look for cows on flat ground than in the timber, so I figured he was angling for easier work.”
    Joe didn’t say that he thought he knew the feeling.
    “Dizzy?” McLanahan asked. “Like dizzy how?”
    “I don’t know,” Hawkins said, rolling his eyes. “He’s always complaining about something.”
    “Anything else?” Joe asked. “Maybe a couple of weeks ago?”
    Hawkins shook his head. “We were delivering cattle north to Montana. We weren’t even around.”
    “In all your years, have you ever seen cattle that looked like this?” Joe asked.
    “Nope,” Hawkins said, his eyes widening. “I once seen a badger make a den in the belly of a dead cow, but I never seen nothing like this.”
    Joe said, “Have you heard anything from your neighbors? Have they called about missing cattle?”
    Hawkins rubbed his stubbled chin, then gestured north with his hat rim. “That’s Bud Longbrake’s place, and I haven’t heard anything from Bud in a while. We both have a couple of cricks running through that weshare in common, and our cows get mixed up in the bottoms