Tiny bugs hit the windshield as the sun finally starts to set. We’ve been driving for days. I look at Dylan in the passenger seat, he’s got blue black circles under his eyes. He stares at the horizon, as if trying to will something into existence. “Do you reckon we’ll get there in time?” I nod as we turn onto a dirt road.
The pine trees surround us, their shadows daggers on the ground. I look outside and see a wolf weave through the trees, a blur of gray. “Do you recognize this?” I ask him. He shakes his head. Nothing surprises us now. The whole trip has been a twisted dream. Three days ago we drove on a northbound highway I thought I knew, across an open desert of pale rocks, through a state forest and into what I was sure was The Rocky Mountains. Then yesterday Dylan swore that we had just passed the abandoned Bathgate Silver Mine. That night we had stopped to camp on what he thought was the Isle of Arran, but the midges didn’t bite, they just watched us until we left. Any place we think is familiar shifts and changes in a matter of hours.
As we near a strange looking iron gate, a shadowy figure appears. He walks up to tap on our window and we roll it down. He stares at us for a second, then pulls a candy bar out of his pocket, opens it and tears a hunk off with his teeth. With confusion, I look at Dylan and say, “We’re looking for…”
The man says with a rasp, “You’re looking for Moon Tooth Ranch, you’re looking for me.” He’s dressed all in varying layers of worn leather, despite the warm, dusk air. I try to look at his eyes but it’s hard to see his face under the beat up baseball cap. He slaps the hood of our car, “I’m going to lead you there.” We follow slowly for what feels like forever through a silvery yellow meadow. Is this wheat I wonder?
He shuffles along until we get to a copse of trees and then he stops and holds up his palm to us. We park and get out. Dylan grabs our shovels from the back of the car and I figure if this guy gets too weird we at least have something to defend ourselves with.
“Did you see any hares?” The man asks us.
“No? Why?” I say. Silence follows and he narrows his eyes as if he doesn’t believe me.
“I'm Dylan, this is Alaska.” Dylan says as he hands me a shovel, his voice with an edge.
“Moon-Tooth,” the man offers us each his hand. When I shake it I feel as if I’ve touched an electric fence. I pull back.
“We heard you had a lead for us, we’ve been looking for…”
Moon-Tooth scratches his neck, and then gestures to a small circle of green tall grass, inexplicably coated in dewdrops. “Yup. I buried it here. But I need it gone. Someone, something has been stealing milk from my special cows since I acquired it…” His voice and his eyes trail off in an eerie way.
We get to work digging. I hear a low noise and look around, startled. A small gray dairy cow stands at Dylan’s elbow. Its hair is almost silvery in color like the grass it blends into. I move toward her but then I hear a shout from Moon-Tooth, “HEY SYLVIE, CUT IT OUT.”
Dylan and I shoot each other a silent, “wtf” look. I reach over to pat the small creature and gasp in shock. Instead of the cowhide, I feel a hard, chitinous surface as if she’s covered in scales. It’s so uncanny that I barely realize that my finger is bleeding when I pull my hand away.
Moon-Tooth walks over and shoos her away with a holler and an arm wave.“You see, only certain kinds of people would steal milk from a cow like Sylvie…” He grins as he stares at my bloody finger.
My heart is beating out of my chest. Dylan raises his eyebrow at me as if to say “What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?”
Dylan shakes his head with a grimace and picks up the shovel. We dig and dig and dig until it’s dark. Moon-Tooth lies down in the grass a few feet away and whistles some creepy tune. We dig until our arms ache. At last I hear the thump as Dylan's shovel hits something…
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