The gun trembled in her grip. She forced her hands to steady it. It was only a fox, a creature her father and his colleagues hunted for sport. It had far more to fear from her than she had from it.
"What you got there?"
Victoria spun in place, bringing the gun around. Cora ducked to one side, raising her free hand. "Mary mother of God, girl. I ain't no spook."
The air left Victoria's lungs in a rush, and her gun arm fell to her side. "Don't do that."
"Ain't got to be so damn jittery," Cora said. "What's got you so wound up, anyhow?"
Victoria looked back to where the fox had been, but the animal had vanished. "There was a fox over there. I thought it might attack me."
Cora howled a laugh at the night sky. "So you was planning on blowing his little fox brains all over the desert with my gun?" she asked. "Wouldn't have done you no good if you had. Ain't no meat on a fox that's fit for eating unless you got nothing else."
"I wasn't going to shoot it for food," Victoria said, rising to her feet. "I just didn't enjoy the thought of a wild animal tearing me to bits is all."
"Let me tell you something, Vicky."
"My name is-"
"If you got yourself ate up by a fox, you'd deserve it," Cora said. Stepping over to the fire, she hunkered down. It snapped in reply. "Ain't never seen nobody get ate by a fox while they was alive, you follow? You was scared for nothing."
"Yes, well, forgive me if my knowledge of the wilderness is somewhat incomplete," Victoria said. "I haven't exactly spent the best of my years traipsing around the back country."
"Ain't nobody perfect," Cora said. She pulled her rifle back out of its scabbard and laid it beside her bedroll. "Now, why don't you go have yourself a turn at keeping watch? I aim to get at least a wink or two before that old sun comes rolling on back up."
"What were you chasing?" Victoria asked.
The hunter looked up at her. "Thought I saw that blueeyed bastard skulking around out there, but I think my eyes was just playing tricks on me."
Victoria's gaze grew hard. "What? You're expecting me to keep watch by myself when he's out there somewhere?"
"Keeping watch is easy," Cora replied. "All you got to do is yell if he jumps you." Before Victoria could protest, Cora rolled away from her and promptly began snoring.
Victoria sighed and shook her head. Tossing another piece of wood onto the fire, she started searching for a tolerable place to hold her vigil. The desert landscape offered precious few choices, but she finally found one atop a flat stone not too far from the camp. Brushing it off as best she could, she sat down and set her gaze outward into the desert.
Soon, she began to wish her vantage point was closer to the fire. The night air greedily sucked warmth from her arms and legs, and the slightest breeze was enough to make her shiver despite her coat. She stomped her boots on the ground. She opened and closed her fists. She twisted her back around, first one way, then the other. Finally, she stood and stretched her arms. Nothing worked.
To pass the time, she imagined she was a fox herself, running through the endless desert, searching for field mice and other things to eat. Her thick grey coat would keep her warm as she bounded beneath the stars, smelling the sweet breath of the slumbering wilderness.
Above her head, the stars grew dim for a moment.
The ground passed beneath her in a blur. She could hear the rushing of the wind, but the air was not cold on her face. Pausing to look about herself, she saw the light from the fire in the distance, an orange pinprick of light among the sea of blue shadows. It seemed so far away.
A presence flickered through her mind. Somewhere out there, she could sense her fox, but something was wrong. It felt different, unclean, not the pure simple instinct and cunning she felt from the other animals around her. She turned toward the unclean feeling, and suddenly she was moving again, flying over the desert floor like a swallow skimming a lake's surface before a storm. The fire disappeared behind a hill as she moved, but she found she could see perfectly well without it. Light from the waning moon outlined the shape of every rock and