A Hard Place

By David Dowd

A Hard Place The chronicle of Billy Wilder, a young man raised in Wyoming about to face both himself and a legends wrath.

It is the turn of the century, wintertime, Bighorn mountain territories. An egotistical local rancher hires a volatile and racist tracker. Their purpose: to hunt a mirage-like animal high into the harsh precipices of the northern mountains. Inquesting the guidance of an enigmatic Indian Tribal elder named Old Bone, Billy engages in the hunt with the promise of youthful adventure.

An unexpected accident suddenly places him squarely within the methodical furies of the hired tracker. A sadistic vendetta is suddenly set into motion. Billy is then forced into a ruthless cycle of retaliatory vengeance , a cycle that perpetuates an intense and harrowing journey high into the brutal expanses of the white zone, climaxed on the windchiseled crests of the Bighorn range.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499027129

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Copyright © 2014 by david dowd.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4990-2713-6

                eBook           978-1-4990-2712-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 06/11/2014

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For Axel

IF YOU TRAVEL FAR enough, you will eventually meet yourself. Old Bone used to say. And who is to say that a journey is no less a journey if it is traveled in a decade, a week, or in a singular moment. In fact, one could conceivably argue that it is the journey itself that matters the most. The goal is anticlimactic. Now that I think of it, Old Bone said that too.

The old cat was nicknamed when I was only fourteen years of age. It was almost a respectful thing that the local ranchers had even bothered to do it at all. Although original credit for the name, ‘Slim tail’, belonged to the small town’s resident yarn spinner, Old Bone. Old Bone was, as he himself liked to put it, A young spirit in a jaded temple. However, the man’s quiet intellectual intensity, coupled with his love for spinning a good tale made him a solid popularity among the town’s youth, though not as much amongst certain members of the adult population.

The mountain cat had already eluded scores of dogs and rifles with remarkable ease and fluidity. Not unlike some shadowy, silhouetted apparition, the panther abruptly became a living local enigma, and according to Old Bone, Held much power.

Stealing into darkened farm backyards in the blackened still of night to procure an occasional rooster or the less than occasional steer, the animal seemingly remained in the area only to add to its own legend and mystique. There was no other reason that one could ascertain, as game would have been plentiful for this predator wherever it chose to roam. Local ranchers did not see a legend. Instead, they viewed the big cat as a competitor for wild game and a danger to their livestock, moreover, the ferocity of those desolate Wyoming winters did little to dispel their line of thought.

Having been raised in the northern Wyoming woodlands, I thought myself well versed in the localized rituals of hunting and trapping. It was a heritage of sorts, a birthright one learned quickly and at an early age. During that era, the taking of an animal for food or clothing was as natural as it was to bathe oneself. It was not that we did not respect the elk and deer we harvested, in fact, among homesteaders, it was more the opposite. The animals we pursued for food and clothing were a coveted thing, for their meat and warm hides meant survival in those lean and rugged days.

Initially, I was born on the rugged goldfields of California during the height of the great gold rush. I was merely six years of age, when our family made the disappointing and penniless move back east. Luckily, misfortune is so often disguised in opportunity, and the opportunities Wyoming offered were many, as were her hardships. Consequently, in the end, I could neither known, nor imagined any other home more encompassing and indulgent.

Lord of stealthy murder, facing his doom with a heart both craven and cruel. So wrote Teddy Roosevelt that year and so was the prevalent attitude regarding mountain lions among the locals. The strange thing was that I could not recall one of the big cats ever being seen by anyone during any of my younger years.

The panther had been quickly and inexorably following the genocidal path of the plain’s bison, which had been all but extinguished with the western expansions. To a majority of people, however, this was of little concern. We lived in an era of immediate necessaries, enjoyments and shortsighted views. To conserve wildlife was still an alien ideology, its concept many years distant.

When it comes down to it however, I still think it was that fierce winter of 1898 that changed me and that small Wyoming town for a long while to come.

It was both the height and the lowest point of winter, in February, when I walked into Butler’s General Store. I shed my old, patched wool drover’s jacket and threw it onto the rail-iron coat rack as the heat from the store’s lone wood stove struck me full in the face. The smallish main room reeked heavily of damp work clothes and stale smoke. The mercury hovered precariously at a mere ten degrees outside and the wind blew fiercely, rattling the loose panes of the old weathered building. We were in the midst of a brutal winter cycle. Bitter glacier cold had been compounded with heavy snows which had kept even some low elevations of the high country impassable.

The heavy clamor and crowded corners of Butler’s did not deter me from pouring my own coffee which had been heated by the store’s lone black pot-bellied stove, and selecting a chair next to Old Bone. He was seated, as usual, toward the spice racks in the rear. I sat with the chair turned around backwards, the maple high back supporting my chin and my cold hands clutching the steaming tin mug. This position, I felt, made me appear older and rougher.

After many years, it was virtually a ritual in our small town. Morning coffee at Butlers was akin to an event not to be missed. To be deprived of just one morning’s worth of small talk and gossip meant feeling slightly out of the synch with the rest of the town. With a belt of the dubious sludge-thick brew, ranchers and hired hands alike would congregate and begin their workday here. Swapping tales and telling lies were as much a part of Butlers as were the banks of acrid cigar smoke that hung perpetually suspended near the low slung ceiling. It was here, among men with a demeanor as rough as axe-handles that talk of a hunt first began to circulate.

Small, unmistakable rushes of youthful pride coursed through me as I drank the strong gritty coffee and exchanged small talk among the town’s notables. It was the first year that it seemed that some of the local men had begun responding to me as a young man and not a boy. One of those ‘notables’, Gacy Burke, could be heard plainly over the fervor.

And what’s to keep that foul cat from taking even more cattle? Hell, you know as well as I do that there ain’t a rifle or hound that’s even come close to him. With that, Gacy promptly belched. In that same moment, a more forcible wind than most seemed to shake that small wooden building to its creaking wide gapped floorboards, and I suddenly saw the shadow of what looked like a large rat suddenly scurry beneath them through one of the cracks.

Gacy was a short man with a disheveled, gruff appearance and an attitude to match. He was, in all probability, the most profane and arrogant man I had ever met or heard of. Nonetheless, his uncanny tracking and shooting ability coupled with an unrelenting love for brawling made him a cult figure among some of the younger hired hands. As Old Bone once noted, the hands that did take a liking to him were most often the same individuals who withheld common sense from a fair portion of their daily activities.

Old Bone sighed and looked toward the smoke filled ceiling. He disdained Gacy Burke. To him, Burke signified everything that had gone awry with the Wyoming of his youth and the human race in general. Stuffed with buffalo cakes, is what he would commonly say of Burke, though always carefully out of earshot. Most sensible men feared Gacy Burke, for his temper and moods were as legendary as they were dark and unpredictable.

For once, I’m forced to be taking an agreement with you. It was Gerald McReavy, a prominent rancher whose spread was said to stretch from our small town all the way to the banks of the Powder River which settled in the shadow of the Bighorn mountains. McReavy was a polished man. From his immaculate dun-grey rancher’s hat to the whisper clean oilskin drovers coat and spit shined boots, his aura spoke of a self-perceived perfection. Old Bone distrusted him as well, in fact, there were not many town ‘notables’ he did take a liking to.

It seems that cat has seen fit to relieve me of three head of cattle in as many weeks. Can’t be poisoned nor trapped, and he’s costing me money during a winter when money can’t be counted on. McReavy commented. I most certainly will admit this places us in a rather strange situation and against all reason, He paused for effect then continued. I reckon that maybe it’s time to be pooling our resources, Mr. Burke.

"Mr. Burke? My, aren’t we mighty agreeable this morning, McReavy. Reckon I don’t recall you being as agreeable when I was a courting your daughter last fall, Burke paused for effect, how is she doing anyways?"

Susan. McReavy’s voice remained steady and even. Susan is doing just fine, whatever business it is of yours. Burke suddenly engulfed a huge mouthful of blackened homemade toast which sent a torrent of stale and unsightly crumbs spilling about onto his uneven beard.

Fact of the matter was, he continued undaunted, You didn’t want me anywhere near your spread for a long while, said you’d even shoot me if you caught me on the property. Burke’s mustache was smeared purple with home-made grape jelly as he took another gulp of Butler’s famous brew. McReavy feigned surprise, his raised right eyebrow barely visible under his broad hat.

Well, from your perspective, I guess that could be considered mighty un-neighborly. He rubbed his whiskers with his stubby fingers in mock thoughtfulness. But hell, I don’t reckon’ I know a man alive that would want you even looking at his offspring, much less courting any of them. Fact of the matter was, I sighted you as every father’s worst nightmare come alive. Every father’s and every mother’s. Gacy finished laughing with a full mouth sending small bits of

Reviews for A Hard Place

[scoshie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

#19-- thats right #19 and still marching onwards towards hilarity "One year after the events of Geis of the Gargoyle, Demoness Metria, whilst making her husband Veleno deliriously happy, finds that the stork will not acknowledge her summons. Seeking to summon the stork, Metria (and her worser half, D. Mentia) are sent on a quest by the Good Magician Humphrey. Metria is then given a task by the Simurgh: Deliver a bag's worth of summons to their respective citizens of Xanth in order to hold a trial for Roxanne Roc. All that remains is to find out why Roxanne Roc is being held trial as Metria meets with many old Xanth characters, Grundy Golem, Sorceress Iris, Magician Trent, Gray Murphy, Jordan the Barbarian, Desiree Dryad, and many more!"