Baxter senses it first.

Ol’ bloodhound.

I don’t know if he smells something or hears something or what.

Call it canine intuition.

We’re out walking Dob’s Creek at three a.m. No moon. Stars forever. Beautiful night.

I’m strolling through sagebrush, kicking rocks, when suddenly Baxter seizes up.

“What is it, boy?”

Teeth bared. Hackles raised. Something ain’t right.

“You smell coyote?”

We’ve had a pack of prairie wolves roaming around lately. Mean mothers. Best to steer clear.

“Let’s turn back.”

I point toward home and whistle Bax to follow. Haven’t gone five feet when he woofs at me. That burly bloodhound bark. All balls and business.

“All right then.”

His lead now. Baxter shuffles across the creek bed and up the other side. I make to follow then I hear it. A noise on the wind. Weak and whiny, like a lightbulb buzz.

“What the hell?”

I ford the shallow creek after my dog. He’s stock still for a minute then takes off on a line.

“Go get em, Bax.”

Our land is like a fishbowl. A big one. Hills to the east. Mountains to the west. Valley in the middle. God’s country.

Home’s a quarter mile back on Dob’s Creek. Ain’t much of a creek, really. “I could piss across that,” my Daddy might say. I tried once but came up short.

“Whatcha think, boy?”

The noise is getting louder but we still can’t place it. Baxter’s huffing scent, spinning this way and that. He gives me a shrug. I light up a smoke.

See we’ve got a routine, ol’ Baxter and I. Round about three I get up and we walk. Sometimes down the creek. Sometimes through the hemlocks. By deed we live on fifty acres, but really the whole damn valley’s ours.

Ashley calls it “nocturnal recon.” She’s an ol’ grunt. She sleeps sound while Baxter and I hit the trails. Report back. Gives me time to think and drink in the land. Just me and my dog and that big Wyoming sky.

Tonight started out like any other. Hiking east along Dob’s, Baxter sniffing the same rocks he always does. Now we’re freewheeling. Walkin’ down this buzz.

“The heck is that?”

I ask the night but get no answer. Bax turns toward the house and I’m about to holler when he stops.

We look up.

There!

A hazy blob against the stars.

Some kind of aircraft. Sailing over like a ghost.

I stand there like a dummy, but Baxter sounds off.

“Baxter!” I yell. But just like that it’s past us. Flying on south toward Denver or the Springs. Must be military. We’ve been buzzed before, but never like that.

I watch it drift a bit then lose sight. Just a shadow in the dark. Looking back toward the house I see a light on in the window. Ashley is up. I can picture her in bedclothes, thinking through her drills. Is this an airborne raid? Perimeter assault?

Naw, just an ol’ hound dog barking at the sky. She’ll have questions though.

I whistle for Baxter and we start toward home. Fifty yards out he pops a squat. In all the excitement, he forgot to shit. I finish my smoke while the dog does his thing. It’s about three-thirty and I’m ready to crawl back in with Ash. Maybe she feels frisky. Hell, we’re both up.

I’m zoning out, thinking about her tits in my hand, when I hear it again. That buzz. Baxter pinches off and he’s at my side. We both look south and dammed if it ain’t coming back around. That same black shadow. Humming like an old TV.

“Son of a…”

The bird’s lower this time. Few hundred feet, tops. It dips below the skyline and I lose it in the hills.

“Clay!” Ashley calls from the porch. “What’s going on?” Baxter answers for me and I keep my eyes on the valley. There’s a broad stretch of flatland south of the creek. It’s all gophers and shortgrass for a couple of miles.

“What’s that sound?” Next to me now. She’s quick in them bedclothes.

“Some kind of aircraft. Almost looks like it’s trying to land.”

We stare across the murk in the moonless night. The buzz drops an octave and then we hear a thump.

“Was that…” Ashley starts but she knows. Smarter woman you won’t find.

After the thump comes a low rumble, maybe half a mile out. I squint and strain and then I spot it.

“There!”

Baxter barks and Ashley puts a hand on my shoulder. She sights down my arm and gasps.

It’s a plane all right. Black as midnight, but sure as shit. It rolls to a stop in a sea of buffalo grass.

The night goes quiet.

Ashley hands me a gun.