Evan

Dogs versus coyotes.

Coyotes versus scavenging after a sickness.

I knew how quickly people's brains will draw a straight line from, I don't understand this, to something evil is doing it.

Utah is good at that.

It's big, it's old, and it's quiet enough that your thoughts get loud.

You can be on a county road for an hour and see nothing but greasewood and fence line and distant mesas that look like they're painted onto the horizon.

You can stand on a rim and look down into a canyon system that has sheltered people for a thousand years, and you'll still feel like you're the first person to ever be there.

That feeling is a lie.

The land has memory.

It holds on to what happens and it doesn't give it back in a way you can understand.

My assignment came through in early October, a time of year when the high desert starts to cool at night, but the days still bite if you're out in the sun.

A cattle outfit, small to medium family run.

had a pattern of losses over two months that didn't match anything normal.

Not a single big depredation event.

No obvious disease.

Not a lightning strike.

Not rustlers.

Just one animal here.

The insurance company wanted a clean answer.

Predator meant one set of outcomes.