After a couple of hours, traveling back across the desert, Charlie offers, “By this time Billy was looking like hell, you look…you still have color.”

“Maybe Billy didn’t infect me after all,” Jack says.

“It’s a good possibility,” Charlie replies.

Very little is said between the two riders as they trail their way back to Candelaria. Charlie looks over at Jack, who has his head down, chin on his chest, sleeping, but still holding his red and swollen hand.

“Hey,” he says as he falls back to Jack’s position, “You still alive?”

Without warning, Jack’s head pops up and growling like a frenzied beast, he throws his body on top of Charlie, knocking him from his horse. The unsuspecting Charlie finds himself gripped between the monstrous jaws of Jack, who is biting down on Charlie’s right shoulder.

Still clutched in Jack’s teeth, Charlie draws his gun and fires a round directly into Jack’s face, ending his daemon life. Both horses have taken flight, but Charlie knows that catching up even one of them is useless.

Instead, he sits in the sand, under the shade of a Joshua Tree, thumbing the hammer of his pistola. No one will be around to hear the blast as he willingly puts a bullet in his brain.

Back at Mud Lake, the water effervesces as the stygian object dissolves into elsewhere nothingness. Later that night, under a gibbous and pale moon, the enigmatical desert-scape shall come to life with eidolon beings of a frog-like nature.

He was interrupted by a sudden guttural growl from an animal he didn’t recognize. He turned to look in the direction of the sound and was met by a horrific sight: Billy was sitting up, drooling and manically bellowing.

“What the…” is all Charlie can get out before Jack lets out a painful howl.

Billy has the outside of Jack’s left hand in his mouth and Jack is clubbing Billy with his free hand, while screaming, “He ain’t dead!”

Finally Billy lets go of Jack, who staggers away holding his hand. Meanwhile Charlie is stunned, staring at the once-dead Billy in absolute shock. As for Billy, his chin and lower jaw are dripping in blood, his skin has no color real coloration, and the look in his eye is so wild he could be Satan himself.

Billy shambles to his feet and rushed Charlie.

“Don’t let him bite you!” Jack yells.

Jack, nursing his teeth-torn hand, pulls his revolver and fires at Billy. The thunderous explosion from the barrel of his Single Action puts Billy on his back.

“Is he dead?” Charlie asks.

Jus’ then Billy starts to move again.

“Impossible!” Jack shouts, as Billy stands up.

Charlie waits for Billy to charge. This time, instead of running to avoid a nasty bite, he fires point blank in to the man’s head.

“That did it,” Jack says then realizing something, “Uh, I’m not saying we need to shoot anybody, but…”

“I already thought of that,” Charlie says, “Let us cross that bridge later, if we need too.”

A deep gash covered the flats in a straight line along with bits of dusky rubble. The sand, where the object had collided with the ground, had become a glass scoria, where bits of phlogiston from sage brush still smoldered in tiny flickering flames that naturally put themselves out.

But what was most interesting is what was in the lake itself. As the riders drew closer they could see an atramentous stone, obelisk in shape, and with hideous designs hewn along its four sides protruding from silt.

One of the riders, Jack leans over from his horse, looking into the water, “It goes all the way down.”

They all peer into the lake where he’s pointing. All they could make out was a silhouette.

“Let’s jump in,” offers Billy, “Where we can get a better look at it.”

“Wait,” exclaims Charlie, “No one is going in that water. Look at the fish, they’re bellied-up.”

Suddenly Billy sees a frog-like creature in the sand a few feet away, crawling around near the waterline, “Look at this, it’s alive.”

By now, and having dismounted, Billy picks it up, “It feels slippery.”

As Billy turns it over Charlie notices that not only is the misshapen creature a green-color, it also has a silver-tint. Then Billy yells out, the thing has bitten him between his thumb and pointer finger.

“Blood,” Billy blurts out, showing his wounded hand to the other two.

Minutes later Billy starts convulsing. And in less time, the seizing stops and Billy lets out a long, agonizing groan before he dies.

Charlie lets out a heavy sigh, “Don’t touch his body.”

“Ain’t we gonna take him back with us?” asks Jack.

“No,” Charlie replied, “Were going to leave him here and come…”

From the Nevada State Journal, February 6, 1894, “Last Thursday night the people of Candelaria were startled by a dazzling flash of light….The explosion was followed for three or four minutes by a terrible ripping and hissing noise and the afrighted people expected to see the very sky with its bright stars come down on their heads.”

The explosive boom brought the whole town outside and with it, talk of who saw it and what was its cause. At first the people though one of the mining companies powder bunkers had gone up, but that wasn’t the case.

As it disintegrated in earths upper atmosphere, it screamed a death knell of metallic thunder for three minutes, before skipping off the rocky crags of hillside to the south and east, disappeared beyond the horizon. Many said it might have come to rest in nearby Summit Springs others remained uncertain.

Three men volunteered to track it down and after a day and a half, riding and cutting sign, the trio rode up a small rise in the Nevada plain, where they could look down at Mud Lake. Not only was it the site of the impact, the water had become overly endowed with an unnaturally green-hued slime.

Seated outside by a giant umbrella tree for shade, the man watches bees and other assorted flying insects flit from leaf to upturned leaf, searching for the water of a night time dew. Each hover effortlessly from above, looking deep into leafy folds as other’s disappear inside their depth, only to reappear seconds later in search of more.

Near the man’s foot, movement; a Great Basin Skink with its bright blue tail, lizard movements, quick and cautious. It stops, one short dash and then another from rocky flower beds, reaffirming its place in the food chain, to the base of a wild Star Gazer, with spindly green leaves and splendid orange-yellow petals, perfect pitchers for the hidden moisture the tiny reptile desires.

Moving a quarter of a mile in little lizard length, he pauses before starting up the skinny stem of the flower, where glistening in the morning shine is that singular dew drop. Thirst refreshed, it darts to a nearby rust-colored rock, a hillock to one so diminutive in stature, to rest and bathe in the sky one’s glow.

To the corner of the man’s eye, floats a darting sight, a hummingbird on the wing. Its resplendent feathers resonate through the warming of the early hours, buzzing to and fro then gone; a magical trace only God can provide.

The man’s eyes return to the lizard and searches for one no longer there. Gone, warmed enough to seek out food before the dry earth becomes too unbearable to its diminutive touch.

Such is a morning time in the summer’s heat of oppressive breeze, dust and survival. The man must also retreat inside as a touch pellegrino awaits his drying taste buds.

The following day, and against the doctor’s wishes, Hutch checked himself out of the hospital to return home. He pulled into his driveway jus’ as Deputy Melton was preparing to pull away from the curb in front of Hutch’s home.

“Heard you left the hospital,” Melton greeted Hutch as both men exited their vehicles.

“Yeah, needed a decent cup of coffee and a little more bracing than a couple of Tylenol,” Hutch held up a brown paper bag in one hand and the sleeved-paper cup in the other, then strangely found himself smiling.

“Sorry about Lulu Belle,” Melton offered.

“Thanks,” Hutch said with a heavy sigh, “Twice she saved my life, but I doubt you came here only to offer your condolences.”

Hutch’s directness caught Melton off guard, “You’re right. I came here to tell you that the guy you killed, also killed Mr. Whitehouse or at least the rifle he used to shoot you is the killer’s weapon.”

“Anything else?” Hutch asked impatiently.

“Well, we still don’t know who the shooter is, no hits from CODIS as of yet, and the rifle is reported to have been stolen out of Idaho about a year and a half ago.”

“You’ll let me know if and when you find anything out, right?

“You bet, Mr. Fitzgerald.”

“Hutch…please, call me Hutch.”

“You got it. Hutch.”

“If there’s nothing else, you wanna come in have a couple of shots with me? No fun drinking alone. Besides, I’m drinking to my other, even deeper pain.”

Melton wrinkled his brows, not understanding the reference.

“Lulu Belle,” Hutch quickly answered his puzzlement.

The deputy looked at his watch, “Sure, what the hell!”

Happy to have company, Hutch slipped the key into the deadbolt, turned it, pushing the front door open. He didn’t expect the overwhelming silence.

Hutch didn’t have time for tears as in the distance he heard the fast pace of an oncoming runner. Hutch reacted by crawling like a wild animal into a nearby drainage ditch at the far end of the dirt piles.

He burrowed beneath the dried clusters of sage brush and freezing snow, the thorns and goat-heads driving themselves into his hands and knees. In spite of the pain, Hutch moved slowly to the opposite end of the berm and near where Lulu Belle lay.

By then the sound of the running feet had dribbled away to a near-noiseless creep. Then came the unmistakable double-click of a bullet entering the chamber of a rifle.

Hutch froze in place.

It was the sound of crunching bits of sage and minor gravel that gave the shooters’ position away. Taking a deep breath and knowing it could be his last, Hutch stood.

He was two feet lower than the man with the rifle. Hutch already had his arm, revolver in hand, outstretched before the man could respond.

In rapid succession, Hutch squeezed the trigger of the forty-four; each round striking its mark with a bone breaking thud. Then it was over.

Dropping his now empty gun, Hutch drew his knife intent on finishing the job had the six well placed rounds hadn’t done what they were designed for. As Hutch scrambled over the berm, it became immediately apparent that he need-not employ his blade since the body of the man lay unmoving and unbreathing.

Turning back, Hutch retrieved his weapon, reloading as he walked back to where Lulu Belle lay. By then the wound in his side from a bullet solely meant for him, but mostly absorbed by Lulu Belle’s huge bull mastiff body, was beginning to ache.

Despite this, Hutch sat next to Lulu Belle and grieved the death of his best friend.

A new year had come and Spring was beginning to show, melting winter away one warm digit after another. By this time, while George’s murder was not forgotten, Hutch’s life continued on and he felt the need to stretch his legs.

Still chilly, he pulled his long coat on, covering the pistol he had holstered to his hip and tied to his thigh. Behind that, he carried his favorite long knife.

“Better prepared, than not,” he told himself as he slipped a knit stocking on his head and with Lulu Belle standing next to him, locked his front door.

They took their time — or rather Lulu Belle took her time — smelling anything and peeing on everything. What might have been worth five minutes on any other day, became more than a quarter hour of stop and start.

Finally, they stepped off the asphalt and beyond the cement barrier that had the words, “No Trespassing,” stenciled across its front. The K-wall had been there for more than twenty-years and no one on foot, bicycle or dirt bike paid the warning any mind.

Lulu Belle ran ahead. She’d dislodged a large jack rabbit and gave it a wild chase.

Unable to catch it, she trotted back to Hutch, who decided to take the trail, which splintered in two directions, to the right. He reached down and patted the large dog on the head, who in turn gripped his hand gently in her mouth, an act she’d began and continued since her puppy hood.

Letting go of Hutch, she ran up and onto a berm of freshly dug dirt recently moved for an upcoming housing development. Lulu Belle bounced between the multiple piles as Hutch laughed and continued along the trail.

The cold of the morning air was suddenly split at the thunderous sound of a rifle shot. Lulu Belle howled in pain and tumbled wildly through the air, landing near where Hutch had been standing.

As for Hutch, he felt a burning sting slice through his left side between his hip and rib cage. The sharp blow sent him sprawling and tumbling to the ground a few feet from Lulu Belle.

Quickly, he crawled over to the dog. instantly concluded that she was gone. He placed his forehead to the side of hers and whispered, “I’m so sorry, girl. I’ll be back.”

“It’s a damn good thing you had your dog with you,” commented the Deputy Dan Melton

“I suppose so – and what a time to go wandering around the desert without a gun,” Hutch replied.

“Kind of glad you didn’t have one,” stated Melton.

“Yeah, why’s that?” Hutch asked.

“She had kittens and we would’ve never found them had you killed her,” the deputy answered. Then he offered, “Too bad she was put down before we learned she didn’t killed Mr. Whitehouse, but was only claiming him as her kill.”

“It is a shame – but then she already had the taste for man, so that made her a real danger to the community — especially since we have so many kids and elderly living around here,” Hutch returned.

There was a pause, then Hutch asked, “So, if the wild cat didn’t kill George, what did? Natural causes?”

“No,” answered Melton, “He was shot in the head at some distance. Detective’s believe it was done sniper-style.”

“Holy shit,” Hutch shuttered, “And we walked right into it.”

It was Lulu Belle that caught scent of the odor first. The bull mastiff paused and sniffed the air with vigorous huffs of breath, before turning around to look at Hutch.

At first the big dog didn’t want to continue, but Hutch, absentmindedly unable to recognize the dogs body language, urged Lulu Belle to move forward. Instead of pressing down the path, sniffing the ground and the surrounding brush, the dog had her head lifted high in the air and her usually wagging tail tucked between her hind legs.

“There it is,” Hutch smiled.

Lulu Belle whined softly as the continued to approach the site.

“Hallo the camp,” Hutch called out.

No answer. No movement.

“Hallo the camp,” he hollered again.

Continuing towards the spot where he could see the tent covered with a brown plastic tarp, Hutch caught the smell Lulu Belle had first noted back on the trail. He knew that odor, the odor of death.

Hutch cautiously approached the tent. From near it, he could see the legs of a person, face down on the ground.

As he stepped towards what he knew to be the body of George, Lulu Belle sprang in front of him, hackles up from the nape of her neck to the base of her tail. The big dog refused to allow Hutch by.

“What’s wrong with you?” he chided the dog.

As if to answer, a mountain lion screamed, causing Hutch to freeze. Meanwhile Lulu Belle remained planted between Hutch and the still hidden cat.

At first Hutch couldn’t see the cat crouched amid the sage. It was only when George’s lifeless remains shifted, that the cats play of concealment became obvious.

Hutch stepped forward and grabbed Lulu Belle by her collar, forcing her back. At first she did not want to go, but finally after a sharp whimper she followed Hutch’s command.

The pair quickly retreated to the paved roadway of their neighborhood and to home. It was there that Hutch called the sheriff’s office to report what he’d found.