Colorado

Covering over the small body with a loose tarpaulin, Jesse Tullett slammed the tailgate shut on the old ranch utility. How was he ever going to explain this? And more to the point, who the hell would believe it?

During the night, there had been a light snowfall, just enough to dust everything with a powdered coating of what looked like icing sugar on Ma's pound cake. The sky was dark and desultory, a warning of more snow to come.

Tullett's ranch was a sizeable property in Bakers Flats, Colorado, and had been in the family for 140 years give or take. Jesse Tullett was feeling the pinch of old age and the frustration of past events that had been happening on and around his property of late.

The four men who had just joined him were all friends, neighbours, and patriots. Well, did he have a story to tell them!

First, though, he had to come up with a plan; and he didn't want anyone talking him out of it. This was something he had to be in control of. When the shit hit the fan on this one, Jesse knew the repercussions would be a global hysteria at best. Hardly something you rushed into.

Yes, sir, this one needed some figuring out.

Jesse glared down at the reason he had summoned his friends out of their beds so early on a bitter cold day. Before them lay the dead body of his prized Polled Hereford stud bull. Dead was being kind, and there had been nothing kind in any of the cattle mutilations that had plagued each and every one of the ranchers since as far back as the late '60s. In fact, it was a repetitious game of "whodunit," and except for supposition and generalised theories; they had no proof as to what the hell was happening in their own backyards.

All the mutilations had been carried out with surgeon like precision. The cuts were precise, the carcass was devoid of blood, and the wounds cauterised. All bones were left intact. The mutilations always appeared on the right side of the animal, with the ear, eye, and tongue missing and the bottom jaw defleshed. The sexual reproductive organs, udder and the like were cored out and likewise missing.

"This makes ninety-two in total." Jesse grimaced. "Always the same MO—no tracks; no smell of decay; clean, concise cuts; not a drop of blood on the ground or surrounding the injuries."

Freddie Larzabal hunched down and scrutinised the wounds. "No damn insects and no signs of predator activity."

Bert Cummins settled the hat back on his head and shifted uneasily inside his lamb's wool jacket that had seen almost as many winters as he had himself. "I heard a farmer in Argentina recently lost fifty-one cows in the same paddock. At the same damn time. I checked out the pictures, and there didn't appear to be any signs of panic. It was like they all got zapped with an electrical charge and died where they stood." Bert shook his head. "One cow gets spooked, they all run. But this was like something got the drop on them. What the hell is that all about? Fucking mass hypnotism?"

Jim Moor, Jesse's lifelong best friend, calmly looked out at the tall abaya's beyond the ridge. He was equally as fed up but resolved that, like it or not, there was precious little they could do about it. "We have been putting up with this shit for the past fifty years, and we're no closer now than we were then. There's no one near ready to accept what we know as fact. And if we go spouting off our mouths, we got to answer to FEMA.

"Geez, Jim, listen to what you're saying," Sam Haskell snapped. "This is not a school playground and we're hardly dealing with the class bullies. They are picking our backyards to vent out their bullshit agendas, and we are doing fuck all to stop them."

Jesse inhaled cold air. "Sam's got a point. It's not only our cattle; they're branching out. Remember those bodies they found out at White Sands and Dulce? Human bodies, with identical incisions and surgical markings."

"How many times do we have to go over this same old shit, Jesse?" Freddie Larzabal grunted. "It's happened so often we just give each other a phone call and have us a bitch session. Seems we got past caring and just accepted the inevitable."

Is that what it had come down to? Not giving a shit anymore? Being taken for granted and letting them SOBs experiment on their livelihood?

How could Jesse tell them that he had found something that shed a light on the mutilations and then changed his mind at the last moment, leaving them temporarily out of the loop? Was he being selfish? Didn't they have a right to know what he had found?

Over the years, they had all suffered the same trials and traumas, and they had somehow formed a brotherhood together because of it. And now here they were, wondering why he had called them out on a bitch of a morning to go over the same old ground. Maybe he should reconsider his agenda and do some sharing.

Jesse explained softly. "Over the years, we've seen documentaries by well-meaning people who came out and recorded this psycho X-Files crap; UFO magazines have been writing about cattle mutilations and disappearances since 1972. Hell there was even that senator from New Mexico who insisted the FBI come out here and take a look—and what was it they said before they even started the investigation?"

"It was nothing more than predator activity and they would prove it!" Sam added.

"And how long did they stuff us around? When they finally did release their findings, we all knew full well what it would say. Predator activity! No surprise there. Either they don't believe what they're seeing or else they could care less. It doesn't affect them, so they turn a blind eye.

"Maybe it's time they had their eyes opened." Jesse Tullett gazed blearily down at the bloated carcass. "Me and Tobias go back a long way. Hurts like hell that I lost a top stud bull—not counting a further ninety-one head of cows, many with calf." He looked away, grieving and angered. "Ninety-two head in total. Well that's ninety two head too many. This time, we're going to fight them bastards on their own turf; no more feeling around in the dark. Those Federal mongrels are going to be held accountable."

"As I recall," Bert reminded him, "those were the same words you spouted off last time we found a mute, Jesse—and the countless times before that. When our tempers die down we're left with the reality that what we're up against is FEMA. And they keep a low profile, so all of this blows away in due time."

"Until the next time," Sam offered feebly.

Jesse had a secret. Maybe now was a good time to share it.

* * *

Kira Ireson threw her expensive camera bag onto the back seat of their millionth rental and leaned against the car, arms folded, bored and ready to defect. Her life sucked.

She had spent the last six months relegated to places where duelling banjos was a way of life and cryptozoology summed up the family pet. Why the hell had she allowed herself to be talked into taking a photographer's job that kept her on the road for six months at a time, with only a week's break in between.

Two years of throwing herself into her work to forget a broken relationship with an egocentric talk show host who thought the sun revolved around him and, regrettably, not her. She surmised that, in the greater scheme of togetherness, there had to be at least two participants to form a relationship, and sadly, there didn't seem to be enough room for her. So she'd left.

Kira looked around and had never felt so desolate. Did I throw...