Something Died, Something Killed

 Three or four nights ago Collin came in from outside feeding the night people and said "Something died." I said "I know what you heard. A scream, a gurgle, a short scream, and silence." He said "That's what I heard." I said "In the rocks, bottom of the hill, across the driveway." He said "Bottom of the drive way." I've heard it before. It's a horrible sound.

Sometimes in the summer, coming back from next door, late at night, checking somebody in or doing laundry I'd see eyes up in the rocks as the suspension of whatever I was driving would bounce the lights up there. Sometimes green, the bobcat, sometimes red, the coyote, but mostly white. The foxes watching the lodge and waiting for me to come out and throw hot dogs. Jax and I went out looking to see who killed who from where the eyes are. It's rock and hard to find tracks. However the two places the fox sit and watch the lodge doesn't have nearly the amount of fox scat that it use to. Probably because it's less populated. Probably because of the red and green eyes.

Then we moved further down the hill where Collin heard the scream. There were some raccoon tracks, a lot of big horn sheep tracks, and a few dog tracks and human tracks from disc golfers. That's all we found. For me, it's hard to tell the difference between deer and big horn tracks but not so on the scat. If it has a little Hershey's kiss nipple on the end of it, it's big horn and more squared off is mule deer, if the shrubbery leaves are gone at the three or so foot level it's big horn and at the four foot and up level it's mule deer, if the scat is stuck together it's pregnant, and if it's scattered within a foot or two and wet it's female and if scattered and dry but a wet spot three to five feet in front of it, it's male.