I see her track, switch off the headlights, open the door and drag my backpack across the leather upholstery of the back seat. The powder is eight inches deep. She is alone, contouring West on the mountain.
She could be as little as ten yards away and I wouldn’t see her. I stop and listen. The breeze is coming from the West. The mountain is with me. I put my thumb on the hammer and step forward, wanting to smell her. I can have her out by this afternoon.
A strip of aspen bark lies curled in her track. A pair of grooves scars the tree she scraped with her front teeth.
Andromeda’s highest star is falling: the maiden was chained and sacrificed in order to save her father’s kingdom. I think of Sarah, of all the promises I've made to love.
When I look again, Andromeda’s star has set.
I step around a snow-covered branch. The webbing under the left shoulder strap creaks. I tighten it, looking at the electric lights of the school on the lake below. I skied across that lake seventeen years ago to attend the most important English class of my high school career, the one in which Dani Cimino asked if we could lose our virginity together. An aspen tree lies dead and buried in the white blanket at my feet. I worked for my father and arrived late at the restaurant the summer afternoon Dani unveiled her spectacular breasts in a meadow. He shredded the week's paycheck in retaliation for three quarters of an hour. The idyllic stream curling through that meadow is sacred to me.
The dimmer stars are ensconced by the waxing light. Formed in violet on the eastern horizon, the snowy crests of the Continental Divide are aglow. Apart from their hue, the violet peaks are indistinguishable from the pink pastels of the cirrus clouds clinging to the tropospheric crowns.
I follow her around the fallen aspen tree and realize that she is leading me to that meadow. The movement of the air is barely perceptible. I look through the sight to check the light. It is too dark to shoot.
There are evergreen leaves and a berry, nearly undetectable, on the upturned powder. I crouch beside the juniper bush. Either she kicked or bit it as she passed. I check the light through the sight, it is a little better, then unscrew the aperture and put it in my pocket. The moon is a waning crescent two hours from its transit.
The mountain steepens. Beside me is an Engleman spruce tree. She is not alone. I can feel them. There will be other tracks soon.
I tell her that I am committed to her.
I lift the repeater to my shoulder. There are a lot of them. I can feel it. With my finger near the trigger, I ascend. I stop and listen. The sun has converted to water all the snow that has fallen on this hill before last night. She will not hear me climbing after her. My left elbow is braced against my ribs; the forearm of the rifle is resting on my left palm and outstretched fingers. I am close, very close. I ascend another step. The brightest stars are dimming. I ascend once more and stop. I can hear nothing apart from the heartbeat driving my own breath. I ascend again. I stop and listen. Long before my prey was born into this forest, I hiked this same hill with Dani Cimino. We sat under an aspen tree and listened to the water tumble the stones in the creek. We spoke of the prisons that were our fathers, of our elusory dreams. Then Dani opened her dress and offered her breasts. Behind her the meadow flowered red.
I take another step up the steep hill. The wind shifts and is now coming from the North. I belong to the mountain. I step up again. The snow has been watering this grass for ages, and her ancestors, the elk, have been eating the grass since long before mine arrived to pillage the continent. She also belongs to the mountain.
The upper branches of an aspen tree, barren against the predawn sky, enter my vision. I ascend another step. With one eye focused through the brightening sight of the repeater, I sweep the horizon. The wind shifts back. I am grateful for this. I ascend once more and inhale the musky scent of urine. The meadow is like a shelf, and the hill drops precipitously behind me. I step up, near the top. Three blades of bentgrass protrude from a thin layer of ice in the elk bed. Urine is splattered around the perimeter of two thick piss holes. There is a pile of scat, its nickel-size pieces cupped together like little brown beanbags. I tell myself not to be distracted by the elk beds and sweep the familiar meadow with the rifle. I search for them in the aspen trees on the other side of the clearing. They are no longer here.
I remove my glove and finger a piece of scat. I am going to spill her blood into the grass.
I count eight other beds and many meandering tracks also heading West as I walk unhurriedly across the south-facing meadow.
At the frozen creek I stop to look for the aspen tree. It has fallen. One of its barkless branches sticks out of the snow, naked except for the translucent crystals of ice blown against the channels in the wood. It never occurred to me that there existed such breathtaking symmetry of line and color. I can still feel on my fingertips the contrast of milky skin and texture of dark areolae.