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  He found something on one of the posts and squatted down until he was eye level with it.

  “Most forest services say fire can be good for the land because it rejuvenates the forest,” he continued without looking at her, “but here, anything destroyed would need to be replanted. That’s why the forest even has its own nursery.”

  For a man of few words he now seemed to be expending them, but maybe he thought it was important. Maggie didn’t mind. He had a gentle, soothing manner and a rich, deep voice that could narrate War and Peace and keep you hanging on his every word.

  At first introductions, he had insisted she call him Donny and she almost laughed. In her mind the name implied a boy. His bulk and weathered face implied just the opposite. His smile did have a boyish quality accompanied by dimples, but the crinkles at his eyes and the gray-peppered hair telegraphed a more seasoned investigator. But then all he had to do was take off his hat—like he did now so the tip of his Stetson didn’t touch the wire—and the cowlick sticking straight up at the beginning of a perfectly combed parting brought back the boyish image.

  “Ranchers hate fire.” Donny paused to take a closer look at the wood post immediately in front of him. He tilted his head and craned his neck, careful not to touch the fence or the post. “The ranchers shake their heads at rejuvenation. The way they look at it, why destroy and waste all that valuable feedstock.”

  Finally he straightened up, put his hat back on, and announced, “We’re okay. It’s not hot.” But then he tapped the wire with his fingertips like you check a burner to make sure it’s been turned off.

  Satisfied, his huge hands grasped between the barbs, one on each strand of the middle two, separating a space for her.

  “Go ahead,” she told him.

  She had to wait for him to shift from a gentleman to a fellow law enforcement officer. It took a few minutes for his blank stare of protest to disappear. Then he finally nodded and readjusted his grip to the top two strands instead of the middle two so he could accommodate his longer legs.

  Maggie watched closely how he zigzagged his bulk between the wires without catching a single barb. Then she mimicked his moves and followed through, holding her breath and wincing when she felt a razor-sharp barb snag her hair.

  On the other side of the fence they continued walking through the knee-high prairie grass. The sun had started to slip below the horizon, turning the sky a gorgeous purple-pink that seeped into the twilight’s deep blue. Out here in the open field, Maggie wanted to stop and watch the kaleidoscope effect.

  She caught herself tucking away details to share later with Benjamin Platt, only she’d relate them in cinematic terms. “Think of John Wayne in Red River,” she would tell him when she described the landscape. It was a game they played with each other. Both of them were classic-movie buffs. In less than a year what started as a doctor-patient relationship had turned into a friendship. Except recently Maggie found herself thinking about Ben as more than a friend.

  She stumbled over the uneven ground and realized the grass was getting thicker and taller. She struggled to keep up with Donny.

  He was a giant of a man, wide neck and barrel chest. Maggie thought he looked like he was wearing a Kevlar vest under his button-down shirt, only there was no vest, just solid, lean muscle. He had to be at least six feet five inches tall, maybe more because he seemed to bend forward slightly at the waist, shoulders slumped as if walking against a wind, or perhaps he was uncomfortable with his height.

  Maggie found herself taking two steps to his one, sweating despite the sudden chill. The sinking sun was quickly stealing all the warmth of the day and she wished she hadn’t left her jacket back in Donny’s pickup. The impending nightfall seemed only to increase Donny’s long gait.

  At least she had worn comfortable flat shoes. She’d been to Nebraska before so she thought she had come prepared, but her other visits had been to the far eastern side near Omaha, the state’s only metropolitan city, which sprawled over a river valley. Here, within a hundred miles of the Colorado border, the terrain was nothing like she expected. On the drive from Scottsbluff there had been few trees and even fewer towns. Those villages they did drive through took barely a few minutes and a slight decrease of acceleration to enter and exit.

  Earlier Donny had told her that cattle outnumbered people and at first she thought he was joking.

  “You’ve never been to these parts before,” he had said rather than asked. His tone had been polite, not defensive when he noticed her skepticism.

  “I’ve been to Omaha several times,” she had answered, knowing immediately from his smile that it was a bit like saying she had been to the Smithsonian when asked if she had seen Little Bighorn.

  “Nebraska takes nine hours to cross from border to border,” he told her. “It has 1.7 million people. About a million of them live in a fifty-mile radius of Omaha.”

  Again, Donny’s voice reminded Maggie of a cowboy poet’s and she didn’t mind the geography lesson.

  “Let me put it in a perspective you can relate to, no disrespect intended.” And he had paused, glancing at her to give her a chance to protest. “Cherry County, a bit to the northwest of us, is the largest county in Nebraska. It’s about the size of Connecticut. There are less than six thousand people in nearly six thousand square miles. That’s about one person per square mile.”

  “And cattle?” she had asked with a smile, allowing him his original point.

  “Almost ten per square mile.”

  She had found herself mesmerized by the rolling sandhills and suddenly wondering what to expect if she needed to go to the bathroom. What was worse, Donny’s geography lesson only validated Maggie’s theory, that this assignment—like several before it—was yet another one of her boss’s punishments.

  A couple of months ago Assistant Director Raymond Kunze had sent her down to the Florida Panhandle, smack-dab in the path of a category-5 hurricane. In less than a year since he officially took the position, Kunze had made it a habit of sending her on wild-goose chases. Okay, so perhaps he was easing up on her, replacing danger with mind-numbing madness.

  This time he had sent her to Denver to teach at a weekend law enforcement conference. The road trip to the Sandhills of Nebraska was supposed to be a minor detour. Maggie specialized in criminal behavior and profiling. She had advanced degrees in behavioral psychology and forensic science. Yet it had been so long since Kunze allowed her to work a real crime scene she wondered if she would remember basic procedure. Even this scene didn’t really count as a crime, except perhaps for the cows.

  Now as they continued walking, Maggie tried to focus on something besides the chill and the impending dark. She thought, again, about the fact that there was no blood.

  “What about rain?”

  Almost instinctively she glanced over her shoulder. Backlit by the purple horizon, the bulging gray clouds looked more ominous. They threatened to block out any remaining light. At the mention of rain, Donny picked up his pace. Anything more and Maggie would need to jog to keep up.

  “It hasn’t rained since last weekend,” he told her. “That’s why I thought it was important for you to take a look before those thunderheads roll in.”

  They had left Donny’s pickup on a dirt trail off the main highway, next to a deserted dusty black pickup. Donny had mentioned he asked the rancher to meet them but there was no sign of him or of any other living being. Not even, she couldn’t help but notice, any cattle.

  The rise and fall of sand dunes blocked any sign of the road. Maggie climbed behind him, the incline steep enough she caught herself using fingertips to keep her balance. Donny came to an abrupt stop, waiting at the top. Even before she came up beside him she noticed the smell.

  He pointed down below at a sandy dugout area about the size of a backyard swimming pool. Earlier he had referred to something similar as a blowout, explaining that these areas were where wind and rain had washed away grass. They’d continue to erode, getting bigger and bigger
if ranchers didn’t control them.

  The stench of death wafted up. Lying in the middle of the sand was the mutilated cow, four stiff legs poking up toward the sky. The animal, however, didn’t resemble anything Maggie had ever seen.

  THREE

  At first glance, Maggie thought the scene looked like an archaeological dig revealing some prehistoric creature.

  The cow’s face had been sliced away leaving a permanent macabre grin, jawbone and teeth minus flesh. The left ear was missing while the right remained intact. The eyeballs had been plucked clean, down to the bone, wide sockets staring up at the sky. Though the carcass lay half on its side, half on its back, stiff legs straight out, its neck was twisted, leaving the head pointing nose-up. Maggie couldn’t help thinking the animal had been trying one last time to get a look at who had done this to her.

  Maggie guessed at the gender. Anything that would identify the cow as male or female had been cut away and was gone. And again, there was no blood. Not a speck or a splatter. What had been done was precise, calculated, and brutal. Still, she needed to ask.

  “Forgive the obvious question,” she said carefully, treating this like any other crime scene, “but why are you absolutely certain predators did not do this?”

  “Because bobcats and coyotes don’t use scalpels,” a new voice said from behind her. “Not the last time I checked.”

  This was obviously the rancher they were meeting. The man came down the hill letting his cowboy boots slide in the sand, picking up his feet over tufts of grass then sliding down some more. Even in the fading light, he maneuvered the terrain without needing to look. He wore jeans, a baseball cap, and a lightweight jacket—the latter something Maggie was starting to covet.

  “This is Nolan Comstock,” Donny said. “He’s been grazing his cattle on this parcel—how long has it been, Nolan?”

  “Near forty years for me. And I’ve never lost a cow that looks like this one. So I hope you aren’t gonna waste my time and yours just to tell me a fucking coyote did this.”

  “Nolan!” Donny’s usually calm, smooth voice now snapped. Maggie saw his neck go red; then, correcting himself, he changed his tone and said, “This is Maggie O’Dell from the FBI.”

  Nolan raised a bushy eyebrow and tipped back his cap. “Didn’t mean any disrespect, ma’am.”

  “I’d prefer you didn’t use that term.”

  “What? The FBI doesn’t swear these days?”

  “No. I mean ‘ma’am.’”

  She saw the men exchange a look but they’d missed her attempt at humor. She ignored them and squatted in front of the carcass, making sure she was upwind. She hadn’t come all this way to get into a pissing contest between an old rancher who couldn’t care less about a woman FBI agent and a law officer who insisted he notice.

  “Walk me through the details,” she said without looking back at either man. They were losing light and patience would soon follow.

  “It’s like all the others.” It was Donny who answered. “Eyes, tongue, genitals, left ear, sides of the face—”

  “Left ear,” she interrupted. “Is that significant?”

  “ID tags usually go in the left,” Nolan said.

  When Maggie didn’t respond, Donny continued. “All are precision cuts. No blood from the incisions. It’s like they’re completely drained. But there’s no footprints. No tire tracks.”

  “And no animal tracks,” Nolan added. “Not even hers. Her calf’s been bleating. No way she wandered off without it. The rest of the herd’s about half a mile west of here. I’m guessing she’d been down here two days, and yet, take a look. Vultures haven’t even touched her.”

  And no flies or maggots, Maggie noticed but didn’t mention. Without blood it would take longer for the carcass to attract the regular vermin that usually invaded.

  Maggie stood, walked to the other side of the animal, and squatted down again. Several minutes passed as she let her eyes scan and examine. She noted the complete silence, the almost reverent quiet of her hosts. She glanced up at both men who remained side by side watching from a good fifteen feet back like spectators, waiting expectantly.

  “So is this where I’m supposed to hear the theme music from the X-Files?” she asked.

  Neither man blinked or smiled.

  Seconds passed before Nolan turned to Donny and said, “X-Files? What the hell is that?”

  “It was a TV show.”

  “TV show?”

  “It was a joke,” Donny explained, recognizing it as such but he still didn’t smile.

  “A bad joke,” she added as way of an apology.

  “You think this is a joke?”

  It was too late. She’d struck a nerve. Nolan bared yellow, coffee-stained teeth in a sarcastic smile accompanied by narrowed dark eyes.

  “This is no prank,” he told her. “And this isn’t the only one. By my count, this is number seven in three weeks. And just here on forest property. That doesn’t include what we’re hearing about over the border in Colorado. And it doesn’t count those that haven’t been reported. I know at least one rancher who found a Black Angus steer last month but he won’t report it on account of insurance won’t pay on cattle mutilations.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” Maggie said. “I just meant that it is very strange.”

  “That other guy, Stotter”—and this time Nolan was addressing Donny—“he seemed to believe it was UFOs, too. There’s no way to catch these people. Hell, I don’t even know if it is people according to you experts. All I’m saying is that I’m gettin’ tired of lame explanations and excuses.”

  “So what do you think it is?” Maggie asked as she stood to face him.

  The old rancher looked surprised that she’d want his opinion.

  “Me personally?”

  She nodded and waited.

  Nolan glanced up at Donny, almost as if what he was about to say might offend the state patrolman.

  “I think it’s our tax dollars at work.”

  “You think it’s the government,” Donny said. “Because of the lights and the helicopters.”

  “Helicopters?” Maggie asked.

  “Folks out here are used to seeing strange lights in the night sky. Some claim they’ve seen helicopters,” Donny explained. “There are a couple of ranchers in Cherry County who use helicopters to check their herds.”

  “These are no ranchers’ helicopters.” Nolan shook his head. “Those make noise. I’m talking black ops helicopters.”

  “And others have claimed they’ve seen alien spacecraft,” Donny added with a tone that was meant to nullify both claims.

  “Followed by fighter jets,” Nolan said, not paying attention to Donny who now rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his massive chest.

  “That was only one time,” Donny came back with. “We’re smack-dab between NORAD and STRATCOM,” he told Maggie. Then to Nolan he said, “There wasn’t any verification from either military base on fighter jets in this area.”

  “Of course not.”

  Maggie stood back and watched them. There was obviously a lot of information left out of her x-file. Nolan pinned her down with his eyes.

  “So maybe you can tell us,” he said. “Is there some classified government project?”

  She looked back at the butchered animal, noticing how the open wounds still looked raw in the fading light. Then she met the rancher’s eyes.

  “What makes you think the government would tell me?”

  That’s when the two-way radio clipped to Donny’s belt started squawking.

  Even in the Nebraska Sandhills, Maggie recognized the codes. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

  FOUR

  TEN MILES ON THE OTHER SIDE

  OF THE NATIONAL FOREST

  Wesley Stotter struggled with the tailgate of his 1996 Buick Roadmaster. The wireless microphone stabbed at his Adam’s apple but remained attached to the collar of his flannel shirt. He was fully aware that he was live streaming yet he was caught spee
chless, his eyes glued to the sky.

  Lights exploded in the distance. Blue and white moving up then down, right to left like no aircraft Stotter had ever seen. But he had seen similar lights before.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said out loud, suddenly not caring if the FCC slapped him with another fine. They had been trying to run him off the air for more than a decade but Stotter was used to people trying to shut him up. As a result, UFO Network—his grassroots organization dedicated to proving the existence of extraterrestrial beings and the government’s attempt to cover it up—only grew stronger. He had built a loyal following of thousands. Tonight his radio and webcam audiences were in for a real treat.

  “You will not believe this, my friends,” he said, adjusting the wireless mic as he pulled at the car’s tailgate. It finally dropped open with a crack, metal scraping on metal. Without looking, he found a duffel bag and his fingers frantically searched inside the bag until he found the camera.

  “More lights in the night skies,” Stotter began his narration while trying to calm his shaky fingers. Sometime in the last several years arthritis had started to set in, making everything a challenge. He wiped his sweat-slick palms, one at a time, on his khakis and continued to fumble with the buttons on the camera.

  “Friends, I’m in the Nebraska Sandhills tonight, just outside of Halsey and about ten miles east of the national forest. Holy crap! There they go again.”

  The lights made a sharp pivot and headed straight toward Stotter. There were three, like bright stars in tight formation, moving independently but together as a unit.

  He swung the camera up, relieved to see the viewfinder open and the night-vision function on. The Record button was a bright red. It took every bit of concentration for Stotter to steady his hands.

  “Those of you listening who are Stottercam subscribers, you should be getting a shaky view of this incredible sight. For the rest of you let me attempt to describe it. The lights are going to come directly over me. Friends, it looks like Venus and two companions—that’s the size and brightness—only they’re moving together through the sky, slowly now. But just a few seconds ago they were shooting up and down, independent of each other. Almost like polar opposites.”