The Pacific winds were no calmer or warmer than his last visit, still blowing dust clouds over the plains of Baja and the miles of barren scrub brush until eventually reaching out and over the Gulf of California.

The scene was barren and desolate, with nothing to hear but the sound of the howling wind blowing through the remains of the old, dilapidated house.

The damage and debris looked precisely as it had every time he’d come.

“This is it?”

Solemnly, Rickards nodded, then raised his head to gaze out at the nearby bluffs.  It took him several minutes to finally start talking.

“I was young,” he said. “Just out of the Army.  I was celebrating with some buddies.”

He then turned and began walking toward the bluffs, a mile out before the land disappeared and dropped down toward the gulf’s glistening water.

Each of his steps crunched over dried weeds.   “We rented a sailboat in La Paz and sailed it up here.”

“How long did that take?”

“I don’t remember.  Maybe a couple days.  We were drunk most of the trip.”

“So what happened here?”

He continued forward, with Angela walking alongside. “One night we dropped anchor somewhere around here.  In a drunken stupor, we decided to go for a midnight hike.”

She continued listening.

“When we reached the top, we sat around, still drinking.  We were young and arrogant.  Boisterous.  Constantly trying to best one another.”

Rickards slowed to a stop on the bluff, as if deciding it was far enough.

“One of us spotted a cow grazing up here in the middle of the night all by itself.  And somehow, we got the stupid idea to catch it and eat it.”

“The cow?”

He nodded.  “We were drunk—and stupid.  Before, a stupid idea turned into a stupid dare that we could slaughter the cow and take it back to the boat.”

Rickards frowned and looked around.  “None of us were thinking clearly.  We weren’t thinking at all.  Just drunk and full of testosterone.  And one of us had a knife.  So, we decided to do it.”

“And you did?”

He flashed Angela a painful glance.  The next part was the worst.

“I remember when we slit its throat and the image of it falling to the ground.  We stumbled around trying to cut it up, but it wasn’t as easy as we thought.”

“Meaning what?”

“For one, we didn’t know what the hell we were doing.  Eventually, the alcohol began to wear off and we realized…”

Wrapped tightly in her jacket, Angela continued listening.

“It began to dawn on us what we’d done,” said Rickards.  “Killing a cow over nothing but a drunken pissing match.”

“Did you take any of it?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head.  “We didn’t have anything other than the knife, not even anything to carry it with.  But that wasn’t the real problem.”

“What was the problem?”