Ginny waited in cat pose. Coyotes, a gang of them, yipped on the far ridge. The cob was safe in the weeds by the lake at the top of the Switchbacks, half a day’s ride to the cabin, no more, but hitting the tent was a better idea. The tent could have saved the day if only the Damsel could’ve provided matches. She’d skip the cabin, ride north.

(Spare a few? Much obliged. Surely. Glad to help a neighbor.)

An owl.

She’d stolen mints. Set one on her tongue as the riders tied their horses at the creek.

Wrought for the little masters, big-bellied they

be, and rich;

I’ve done their desire for a daily hire, and I die

like a dog in a ditch—

A breeze carried the lines far, and the next.

I have used the strength Thou hast given, Thou

knowest I did not shirk—

Threescore years of labor—Thine be the long

day’s work—

A ridge is just a string for the wind to sing on and the crackers had been perfect squares, wheaty, salty, the sausage sliced in paper wrapper, just sitting under his front fly, waiting for bugs or thieves. Ginny crawled for an hour—hours maybe—under the tie-outs to reach them. A lizard. A Snake. She was rising through the phylum to Horse. The man had stopped singing by the time she reached her target. He’d come out into the dark to piss. “Who’s there?” And he pissed far off from the tent to let her break away with the items she’d gathered, also a pair of rough rubber gloves scooped up last. There was a rip in one palm. She would forget them on the ridge later, along with his small leather journal with a snap and his pencil.

And now, Big Master, I’m broken and bent and

twisted and scarred,

But I’ve held my job, and Thou knowest, and

Thou will not judge me hard—

Even from this distance, at night, and while injured in the head, a sniper like her could see the horses. The shape of them. The stout sorrel. The shapely bay. Dan the Coward had not come. The chestnut was spared.

When they came on foot across the meadow with their rifles, the sniper did not call down to the tent. Their boots were slow and careful, but occasionally kicked stones in error and the sound skittered up into the umbrella’s spokes, clear as a bell to the sniper, the spy.

Still, the Damsel in the tent was not alerted. Darwin wrote books on the phenomenon. Animals die on highway centerlines. Who mourns them? Why cross the road at all? Fools snore through air-raid sirens, squadrons buzzing. Books and books on the subject. Such things are not tragedies. It was his fault too. This sleeper.