Why Wildlife Control Won't Enter the San Rafael Swell

What happens when you're sent to hunt the unhuntable? Something that toys with you the entire time, and could quickly end your life at any moment it pleases. According to this story, sent to me by Stay Out of the Woods, titled, My Most Disturbing Experience in Predator Control, you will hear one of the most chilling and close-up accounts of a creature that should not exist that I might have ever heard. Allegedly, almost three years ago in Utah, a retired wildlife control officer is hired to hunt a creature tormenting ranchers and slaughtering their cattle. But he instead stumbles upon something that should not exist. And it's still out there. At the tail end of 2023, Harlan Durfee called me about something killing his cattle. I hadn't spoken to Harlan in 15 years. His father and mine had worked cattle together, back when that part of Utah still had cattle worth working, and Harlan had taken over the family operation outside Farron after the old man died. By all accounts, he'd kept it running through drought and recession and everything else that kills a ranch. He was not a man who asked for help. Three in two weeks, he said. I need someone who knows what they're looking at. Well, call Fish and Game. I'm calling you. Harlan, I haven't worked a case in over a year. I'm retired. I'm sixty miles away and I've got no authority to... Fish and Game means paperwork. Permits means some twenty-five-year-old with a degree telling me I can't run cattle on my own lease because there's a protected species in the area. He paused, and I could hear him breathing on the other end of the line. I could tell just from the sound of him he'd been working since dawn. I need this handled quiet, and I need someone who won't call me crazy when I show them what I found. Knowing what I know now, I probably should have said no. Whatever was killing his cattle was the state's problem now anyway, not mine. But Harlan Durfee was not a man who spooked easily. I had known his type my whole career with wildlife services. Ranchers who had seen everything the land could offer, and dealt with it the same their fathers and grandfathers had. If Harlan was calling me instead of the state, something had rattled him badly enough to swallow his pride. All right, all right Harlan, I'll be there tomorrow, I told him. Don't touch anything else until I get a good look. I left Grand Junction at five in the morning and I pulled into Harlan's driveway a little after eight. The sun was up but the air still had that high desert bite to it. A cold that settles into your very bones and doesn't let go till noon. His place sat at the end of a dirt road that ran east from town toward the San Rafael Swell. It was a white clapboard house with a green roof. He had a barn and corrals behind it, open pasture stretching out toward the hills. Beyond the pasture, maybe two miles distant, the land rose into a maze of red rock and scrub juniper. The edge of the swell. BLM land that went on for seventy miles in every direction. Most of it never surveyed, never mapped, never touched by anything but wind and weather, and whatever lived out there that didn't want to be found. Harlan was waiting on his porch. He looked older than I remembered, but then I probably did too. He had a leathered look to him, from decades of sun and wind, deep creases around his eyes and mouth. Wade, he shook my hand, his grip as strong as ever. Appreciate you coming. Show me what you've got. We took a mud-caked ATV out across the pasture, following a track worn into the grass by years of use. The cattle were clustered near the eastern fence, maybe two hundred head, and they watched us pass with that dull bovine stare that never tells you anything useful. First one was three weeks ago, Harlan said over the engine noise. Found her in the lower pasture near the creek. I figured coyotes at first. They'll take a calf if they're hungry enough, and we'd had a dry summer. But then I got a closer look. And? You'll see. We drove for another ten minutes, past the main herd, through a gate, and into rougher country, where the grass thinned out and gave way to sage and rabbit brush. Ahead I could see a stand of cottonwoods, and beyond that, the first red shoulders of the swell rising against the morning sky. Harlan stopped the ATV near the cottonwoods and cut the engine. The silence that followed was immediate and total. Apparently the birds and even the insects were absent or did not like it here. I heard only the wind moving through the brush and nothing else. This way. He led me down into the drainage, following a path between the trees. The smell hit me before I saw anything. That copper and rot smell of meat left out. I'd encountered it hundreds of times over my career, and it never got easier to stomach. The cow was lying in a clearing near the creek bed. Or what was left of her, that is. I stopped at the edge of the clearing and made myself study the scene the way I'd been trained to, methodically, section by section. In 31 years with wildlife services, I'd seen every kind of predator kill the American West has to offer. I'd seen wolves take down elk and leave the carcass scattered across a quarter mile of forest. I'd seen mountain lions cache their kills in trees, coming back night after night to feed. I'd seen bears tear open campsites and coolers and anything else that smelled of food. Every predator has a signature, a way of killing and a way of eating, and you learn to read them if you want to stay in this line of work. This didn't match anything in my experience. This cow had been opened from throat to pelvis, and one long incision that curved slightly along the line of the ribcage. The cut was clean, not torn or ragged, but precise enough to suggest a blade rather than teeth or claws. The edges of the hide had been separated, and laid flat against the ground on either side of the body, almost as if whoever did this wanted clear access to what was inside. The organs were gone. They weren't scattered about the clearing or dragged off and cached somewhere nearby. They were gone entirely, removed from the body cavity, with what appeared to be deliberate selection. I could see the empty space where the liver should have been, where the heart should have been. The intestines had been pulled out and coiled beside the carcass in a neat pile, untouched, as if whatever did this knew exactly what it wanted, and had no interest in the rest. I crouched down to examine the ribcage. The bones were intact. No gnaw marks or cracking. There was no sign that anything had needed to be broken through to get to the organs. Whatever had taken them had simply reached in and removed them. You said three kills, I said. Do they all look like this? The first two are older. Scavengers got to them before I could get anyone out here. But yeah, same basic situation. Opened up clean, organs taken, the rest left behind like garbage. I stood and walked a slow circle around the carcass, studying the ground. The dirt here was soft from recent rain, good for holding tracks. I found boot prints that were probably Harlan's, and hoof prints from cattle. I found the small, delicate tracks of a fox or possibly a coyote, something that had investigated but had not fed. But I did find something else. A particular track was pressed into the mud about six feet from the carcass. I almost walked past it, because my brain kept trying to interpret it as something familiar. A bird track, maybe. Something from an emu or an ostrich. Except there weren't any emus in Utah, and the shape was wrong for either of those anyway. There were three toes pointing forward. Long toes, maybe eight or nine inches from base to tip, spread wide for balance. The impressions were deep in the mud, suggesting considerable weight behind them. And behind the middle toe, set back about two inches, and pressed even deeper than the rest, was a curved gouge that didn't fit with any bird I'd ever tracked. A fourth toe, possibly, or some kind of spur, held off the ground at an angle and dragging slightly with each step. I crouched there, staring at that track for a while, running through every possibility I could think of and rejecting each one in turn. You see what I'm seeing? Harlan said. He'd come up beside me and was looking down at the same print, his face grim. I've been ranching this land for forty years. I've seen every animal track there is to see out here. That's not anything I recognize. There's got to be an explanation. I tried to sound confident. There's more. Follow me. We walked along the creek bed, heading upstream toward the swell. The cottonwoods thinned out and the terrain got rougher. Sandstone ledges and dry washes cutting through the red earth. Everything angled and broken and old. Harlan moved carefully, watching where he stepped, and I did the same. The tracks continued upstream. They were spaced about four feet apart, following a nearly straight line up the drainage. Bipedal, clearly. Whatever made them was walking on two legs rather than four. The stride was long and steady with no sign of galloping or running or any change of pace. Whatever this thing was, it had walked out of this canyon after feeding, unhurried, confident. It had no reason to fear anything it might encounter, not even humans. We followed the tracks for maybe a quarter mile before Harlan stopped at the mouth of a slot canyon. I quit here, he said, didn't want to go any further without backup. The slot was narrow, maybe ten feet across at the opening, with red sandstone walls rising fifteen or twenty feet on either side. The floor was choked with boulders and debris from old flash floods and shadows pulled between the rocks, even in the mid-morning light. The tracks led directly into it and disappeared around a bend. Have you told anyone about this? I asked. Anyone besides me? Just Maggie Seavey. She's got the spread north of mine. Runs about 300 head up against the swell. Lost more cattle than I have. She's the one who first noticed the tracks and brought them to my attention. Anyone else? Harlan shook his head. Like I said, I wanted it handled quiet. Last thing I need is some reporter getting wind of this and turning my ranch into a tourist attraction. I stood there looking at the slot canyon, at the shadows between the walls, at the tracks vanishing into the dark. The sensible thing to do was to walk away, call fish and game, and hand this off to someone with official standing. Let the bureaucracy sort it out. Whatever was living out there in the swell was their problem, not mine. But I'd spent 31 years tracking predators through terrain worse than this. I had dealt with animals that didn't match any field guide, crossbreeds and anomalies, things that should not have existed but did anyway. Whatever made these tracks was just another animal. Strange, yes. Unfamiliar, yeah. But still, an animal. Animals can be tracked. Animals can be understood. Animals follow rules, even when those rules don't match anything you learned in training. Hey there. Darkness Prevails here, founder of EerieCast, my little network of scary shows. I appreciate you listening to our scary content. But did you know you can support us, get ad-free feeds of your favorite shows, get a 20% discount code to the EerieCast store, and unlock access to members-only audiobooks all at the same time? Just go to EerieCast.com slash plus and become a member today. It's cheap and really helps us out. That's EerieCast.com slash plus. Thank you. I want to talk to Maggie Seafi, I said, and I want to see her kills, if there's anything left to examine, that is. I figured he would. She's expecting us this afternoon. We drove back to Harlan's place and took his truck north along the county road. The land out here was empty, and it's hard to describe to someone who's never seen the interior. of Utah. Imagine no houses, no fences, no power lines. Erase all evidence of human presence in your head beyond maybe some cracked asphalt Just sage red rock and sky Mile after mile the swell rising to the east in a wall of eroded sandstone that looked like something from a different planet Maggie Seavey was waiting in her driveway when we pulled up She was younger than Harlan, maybe mid-forties, with dark hair pulled back from a face that had seen its share of weather and hard seasons. There was something about her expression that I noticed right away. I could have called it guarded exhaustion, like she hadn't slept well in weeks. So you're Wade, she said, when I got out of the truck. Yes, ma'am. Harlan says you know what you're doing when it comes to predators. Well, I've been tracking the most of my adult life. I don't know everything, of course, but I know enough to recognize when I'm looking at something new. She studied me for a moment, taking my measure in silence, and I had the sense of being evaluated by someone who didn't give out her trust cheaply. Whatever conclusion she reached about me, she kept it to herself. I'll show you what I've got, she said, but I want something in return. Name it. When you figure out what that thing is, you tell me straight. No sugarcoating it, no protecting me from information you think I can't handle. No treating me like some hysterical woman who needs to be managed. Her eyes held mine steadily. I've lost eight head in three weeks. I've found tracks on my property that don't match anything in any book I own. I've heard sounds at night coming from those canyons. Sounds I can't explain and don't ever want to hear again. Whatever's out there, it's hunting on my land, and I have a right to know what I'm dealing with. Fair enough, Miss Seavey, I said. I'll tell you what I find. She nodded once, apparently satisfied, then turned and led us around the side of her house, toward the back pasture, where her cattle were grazing. Her kills were older than Harlan's, decomposed enough that scavengers and weather had obscured most of the useful details. But the tracks were there, in the mud, near each carcass. The same three-toed pattern and curved gouge behind the middle toe, the four-foot stride and unhurried gait. I photographed everything, measuring the depth and spacing of the prints, sketching the pattern in a notebook I'd brought with me. The data confirmed what I already suspected, but did not want to admit. The tracks came from the swell. They went back to the swell. Whatever was making them had established a territory out there in the maze of canyons and mesas and empty redstone, and it was coming down onto the ranches to feed. I'm gonna need a few days, I said, when we were back at Harlan's place, the sun dropping toward the western hills and the shadows lengthening across the pasture. I'm gonna want to follow those tracks back to wherever they came from, see if I can locate where this thing is dinning. I'll need camping gear, food, and water for at least three days, and someone who knows the terrain well enough to keep me from getting lost in the canyons. Harlan and Maggie exchanged a look that carried a whole conversation I wasn't part of. I'll go with you, Maggie said. Ma'am, I appreciate the offer, but it's not an offer and it's not up for debate. She cut me off with a sharpness that made it clear she'd been anticipating my objection. Those tracks cross my land. This thing killed my animals on my property, and I'm losing my money every day it stays out there. I've been riding these canyons since I was 12. I know the water sources, the game trails. I know where the flash floods come through in monsoon season. You need a guide, I need answers. We can help each other. There was no use debating it. Taking a civilian into rough country to track an unknown predator was not good or standard protocol. But I could see in her face that I wasn't going to change her mind. She made her decision, and she wasn't going to be talked out of it. Alright then, we'll leave at first light. Bring a rifle, and make sure it's something with stopping power. I don't know what we're dealing with yet, but whatever it is, it's big enough to take down a full-grown cow without any sign of a struggle or fear. I'll be ready. That night I sat in Harlan's kitchen drinking coffee, while he spread a topographic map of the swell across the table. The maze of contour lines showed a landscape folded and broken into a thousand box canyons and dry washes, most of them unnamed, many of them unmapped below the level of detail the USGS bothered with. The slot canyon where we'd lost the tracks was marked with a small pencil X. Nobody goes back in there much, Harlan said, tracing a line along one of the deeper canyon systems with his finger. Used to be some uranium mining in the fifties, back before they knew what the stuff did to you. You can still find the old test shafts if you know where to look, but that terrain's too rough for cattle, too dry for much of anything else. It's empty country. I looked at the map, at all that blank space between the topographic lines, and I thought about the tracks, forefoot stride, the calmness, the precise and surgical way the cattle had been opened up, organs removed. Whatever was living out there had the whole swell to itself. Seventy miles, no roads or trails, no human presence to speak of. It could have stayed hidden forever if it wanted to, but it was coming down onto the ranches, killing cattle within sight of people's homes, leaving tracks that anyone with eyes could follow. This thing had become so unafraid, so comfortable, it was no longer hiding. And that bothered me more than anything else I'd seen that day. We left Harlan's place just after sunrise. The sky banded with orange and pink above the eastern ridgeline. Maggie drove her own truck and I rode with her, my pack and rifle in the bed alongside her gear. Harlan stood on his porch watching us go, and I could tell from the set of his shoulders that he wanted to come along, but knew better than to ask. Someone had to stay behind and keep an eye on the cattle, and he was too old for the terrain we were heading into anyway. The road turned to dirt after the first few miles, then to something that barely qualified as a track at all. Maggie navigated it without hesitation, steering around washouts and rocks with the casual confidence of someone who'd driven this route a hundred times. The swell rose up ahead of us, banded in shades of rust and bone, the layers of sandstone stacked on top of each other like pages in a book that recorded 200 million years of geological history. We parked where the track dead-ended against a wall of rock and continued there on foot. Maggie led the way, following a route that wound between house-sized boulders and up a series of natural ledges into the canyon system above. I stayed close behind her, watching where she put her feet, trying to memorize landmarks in case I needed to find my way back home. The tracks picked up about a mile in, pressed into a patch of dried mud at the bottom of a narrow wash. Same pattern as before, three forward-facing toes and the curved gouge in the forefoot stride. They headed deeper into the canyon, following the wash upstream toward a junction where two larger drainages came together. This is further than I've gone before, Maggie said, pausing at the junction to drink from her canteen. The tracks on my property were closer to the ranch. I didn't realize they went back this far. It's establishing a territory. I crouched to examine a particularly clear point, noting the depth and the angle of the toes. Coming down to hunt, then retreating back here where no one's going to follow. Smart behavior for a large predator. What kind of predator moves on two legs? I didn't have an answer for that, so I didn't say. We kept on moving. The canyon system was a labyrinth. Every few hundred yards, another side drainage would branch off from the main wash, each one twisting away into shadow between high sandstone walls. The tracks stayed consistent, following what appeared to be a regular route through the maze. I started noticing other signs of passage as we went, like scrapes on the rock where something had brushed against it, or disturbed patches of sand where something heavy had rested, and some strange-looking feathers. They were brown and gray, about eight inches long, with a structure that reminded me of ostrich plumes. I could not identify the bird they belonged to. Around midday, we found the first cache. The alcove was set into the canyon wall about fifteen feet up, accessible by a natural ramp of fallen rock. I smelled it before I saw the entrance, that rotten meat smell I mentioned earlier. But this was concentrated and heavy in the still air. Maggie stopped at the base of the ramp. Her face looked tight. I'll go up, I said. You don't need to see this. Oh yes, I do. she climbed the ramp ahead of me, and I heard her breath catch when she reached the top. By the time I got there and looked into the alcove, she had backed away to the far edge of the ledge and was standing there with her hand pressed over her mouth. The alcove was maybe thirty feet deep and ten feet high, carved into sandstone by centuries of wind and water. The ceiling was stained dark with old moisture, and the floor was covered in a layer of sand that had blown in over the years. Filling that space, arranged with a precision that made my stomach turn, were the remains of cattle. Pieces of cattle, to be more accurate. Hind quarters, rib cages, skulls, dozens of them, wedged into cracks in the rock and piled on natural shelves along the walls. Some were fresh enough that flies still crawled on the exposed meat. Others had mummified in the dry desert air. The flesh turned to leather, the bones bleached pale by time. The oldest ones looked like they had been there for years. I made myself step inside and examine the arrangement. The fresher pieces were stored higher up, jammed into crevices near the ceiling, where they'd be harder for scavengers to catch. The older remains had been pushed toward the back and sides, making room for new additions. Everything faced outward, eye sockets pointing toward the entrance, and I realized, with a crawling sensation along my spine, that the skulls had been deliberately positioned that way. Arranged. Displayed. This was not a food cache. It was something else. Something that implied a level of intention. I did not want to think about. How many? Maggie's voice came from behind me, barely above a whisper. I counted skulls. Gave up after thirty. A lot. From multiple ranches, probably. Some of these have been here for years. Nobody reported this many missing. Not that I ever heard about. Range cattle go missing all the time. Drought, disease, getting stuck in a wash during a flash flood. You don't always find the bodies. I backed out of the alcove, suddenly desperate to be back in open air. This thing has been hunting here for a while. Building up a supply. Maggie was staring at the entrance, her face pale beneath her tan. Why would it store them like that? Wolves don't do that. Mountain lions don't do that. I don't know. You just keep saying that. Because it's true, Maggie. I started down the ramp, moving faster than I should have on that loose rock. Let's keep moving. I want to find where it's bedding down. We pressed on through the afternoon, following the tracks deeper into the canyon system. The terrain got rougher as we went, more climbing and more scrambling over boulder fields, and more sections where we had to lower our packs on rope, then climb down after them. Maggie kept up without complaint, though I could see the discovery of that cash had shaken her in a way that the dead cattle on her ranch had not. There's a difference, I suppose, between finding an animal that's been killed and finding evidence of something that plans ahead, that stockpiles, and arranges skulls its prey in neat rows facing the entrance like a hunter mounting trophies to a wall. By late afternoon, the canyon we were following opened up into a wider valley, maybe a quarter mile across, with a dry creek bed running down the center and stands of cottonwood growing along the banks. The tracks led across the valley floor and disappeared into another slot canyon on the far side. We should camp here, Maggie said, surveying the valley with a practiced eye. There's water if we dig for it, and we'll have better sightlines than anywhere else we've been. I don't want to be boxed in when it gets dark. I agreed. We set up our tents near the creek bed about fifty yards from the canyon wall with clear views in every direction Maggie dug a sea pole while I gathered dead cottonwood branches for a fire By the time the sun dropped behind the western rim of the valley, we had water filtering through a bandana and a small fire crackling between us. We ate dinner in near silence, both of us watching the shadows lengthen across the valley floor. The entrance to the far canyon was a dark slash in the red rock, and I found my eyes returning to it every few minutes, expecting to see movement, dreading what that movement might look like. My husband would have loved this, Maggie said, breaking the silence. The mystery of it, I mean. He was always reading about cryptids and unexplained sightings, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster and all that. Used to drive me crazy, to be honest. The books he'd bring home. Used to? Heart attack three years ago. Went out to check the fence. Dropped dead before he hit the ground. She poked at the fire with a stick, sending up a spiral of sparks. The doctor said it was quick, but he probably didn't feel anything. I don't know if that's supposed to make a person feel better. didn't know you were married or used to be till just now i'm sorry to hear that maggie don't be it's not your fault and i've had time to make my peace with it she looked up at me from across the fire her face half in shadow i just keep thinking about what he'd say if he could see those tracks if he could have seen what we found in that alcove he spent his whole life wanting proof that there was something out there that science couldn't explain. And here I am, looking at it, and all I want is for it to be a wolf or a bear or something with a name I can put in a report. I understood what she meant. There's comfort in the known, even when the known is dangerous. A wolf you can track and trap and kill. A mountain lion you can tree with dogs. But this thing, whatever it was, didn't fit into any category I had a protocol for. It was new, and new is terrifying in ways that familiar danger can never be. We let the fire burn down to coals and turned in early. I lay in my tent with my rifle beside me, listening to the sounds of the desert settling into night. Wind moved through the cottonwoods, and somewhere out in the flats a coyote called to its pack. At some point I must have fallen asleep. I don't remember when, because the next thing I knew I was awake, and the world outside my tent had fallen silent in the most unnatural way. Even the wind had stopped, and the coyotes were now absent. Hell, I didn't even hear rocks settling. The silence was so full that I could hear my own heartbeat thudding against my ribs. And then, I heard breathing. It came from right outside my tent, maybe two feet from where I lay. Heavy breathing, with a faint clicking undertone that I couldn't identify. Something large, something alive, was standing directly over me. My every instinct screamed at me to grab my rifle, to move, to do something. Instead, I lay absolutely still. My eyes cracked open just enough to see through my lashes, my body rigid under the thin fabric of my sleeping bag. Some deep, primal part of my brain was telling me that movement now meant death, and that my only chance was to play dead, hoping this thing would lose interest. The breathing continued. I heard something shift on the ground outside, the soft scrape of weight settling into sand, and through the mesh panel at the foot of my tent. I saw it. Not all of it, but just the foot. It was less than a foot away from the mesh, close enough that I could see every detail in the faint moonlight filtering through the fabric. Three toes, each as long as my forearm, and tipped with a curved claw. The skin was scaled, pale gray and brown in a mottled pattern, with a texture that reminded me of the belly of a snake. And behind the middle toe, raised off the ground at an angle, was the fourth claw, the one that left the curved gouge in the tracks I'd been following. It was enormous. Ten inches long at least, curved like a sickle, the edge gleaming faintly where moonlight caught it. It was held off the ground deliberately, retracted until needed, and I understood in that moment that this was a weapon, a killing tool. One swing of that claw would open a man from throat to pelvis, the same way those cattle had been opened up, and there would not be anything he could do to stop it. The foot shifted. I watched the claws flex against the sand, the tendons moving beneath the scaled skin, and I had to bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound. The breathing above me changed pitch, became something almost contemplative, and I felt so sure then that it knew I was awake, that it was standing over me, looking down at me, deciding whether I was worth killing. The moment stretched on. Seconds that felt like hours. My lungs burned because I'd forgotten to breathe. My entire body was locked in a paralysis I couldn't have broken if I'd tried. Then the foot moved. One step, then another. The stride bringing it over to Maggie's tent. I heard it stop there, and I heard the breathing continue. That same clicking sound coming from it, as it examined her the way it had examined me. I wanted to shout a warning. I wanted to grab my rifle and do something, but my body refused to obey. I lay there in the dark, completely helpless, listening to that thing standing over Maggie Seavey while she slept. After what felt like forever, the breathing moved away. I heard footsteps, that four-foot stride I'd been tracking for days, heading toward the far end of the valley. The sound faded into the distance, and gradually, minute by minute, the normal sounds of the desert were brave enough to return. The wind in the cottonwoods, the coyotes calling somewhere far away, the creaks of the cooling rocks. I didn't move, not until dawn. I lay there with my eyes open, watching the mesh panel at the foot of my tent, waiting for that foot to reappear. When the sun finally came up, I crawled out of my tent on shaking legs and looked at the ground where I'd seen it standing. The tracks were there. Three toes forward, curved gouge behind. They circled my tent twice, then moved on to Maggie's tent, circling hers three times. After that, they headed toward the far canyon and disappeared into shadow. Maggie emerged from her tent a few minutes later, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She saw me standing there looking at the tracks, and her face went still. It was here, she said. Last night, it was here. Right here. Yeah. I heard it. I thought I was dreaming, but I heard something outside. Breathing. She wrapped her arms around herself despite the warmth of the morning sun. Why didn't it kill us? I thought about that foot inches from my face, and the killing claw raised and ready. The deliberate way it had circled our tents examining us. I don't know, I said. Maybe it wasn't hungry. Maybe it was just curious. Or maybe... I stopped, not wanting to finish the thought. Maybe what? Maybe it's smart enough to know that killing us would bring more attention to it. Searchers, helicopters. It's been living out here undetected for years, Picking off range cattle that no one's going to miss. Two dead hikers would change things. Would bring attention it doesn't want. Maggie stared at me. You're saying it made a decision. That it chose not to kill us. I'm saying, Maggie, I don't know what I'm dealing with anymore. We broke camp in silence. I wanted to go home, to pack up and hike out. I could live the rest of my days just fine, pretending I'd never seen those tracks or that alcove of bones. But the tracks leading toward the far canyon were fresh, and I knew that if I left now, I'd spend the rest of my life wondering what was back there, what I'd almost seen in the dark. Maggie did not object when I told her I was going to keep following the tracks. She simply put on her pack and fell in behind me, and together we headed toward the slot canyon on the far side of the valley. We'd been hiking for maybe an hour, when she stopped to refill her canteen at a seep spring trickling out on the rock. I went ahead to scout the next section of the route, and when I came back twenty minutes later, Maggie was standing at the edge of the spring, with her back to me, perfectly still. Maggie? She didn't answer. Didn't turn around. Just stood there with her shoulders hunched and her hands hanging at her sides. Something was wrong. I walked around to face her and saw that she'd been crying. Her cheeks were wet and her eyes red-rimmed. Her expression was blank and distant. Like a part of her had gone somewhere far away and had not yet come back. Maggie, what happened? Eventually, she shook her head, but she would not meet my eyes. Maggie talked to me. What happened while I was gone? Nothing. Her voice was flat, drained of all emotion. I'm fine. Let's keep moving. She pushed past me and started up the trail. I watched her go, noticing for the first time the way she was holding herself. Stiffly and carefully, as if something hurt that she didn't want me to know about. And on the back of her shirt, just visible beneath the straps of her pack, I saw three dark lines soaking through the fabric. I didn't ask again. Whatever had happened at that spring, she wasn't ready to tell me. And I wasn't sure I wanted to know. We hiked the rest of the morning in silence, following the tracks deeper into the swell. I tried not to think about the thing that had stood over me in the dark. The breathing. The deciding. And I tried to not think about what happened to Maggie while I scouted ahead. But I think it came back. It did something to her. And it let her live. The slot canyon on the far side of the valley was narrower than any we'd passed through yet. The walls rose forty feet on either side, close enough in places that I could touch both of them at once, and the floor was choked with debris from flash floods that had roared through here over the centuries. We moved single file, Maggie in front, picking our way over boulders and around pools of stagnant water. that smelled of algae and decay. The tracks continued through the slot, pressed into patches of sand between the rocks. They were fresher here than anywhere else we'd seen them. Hours old, maybe less. Whatever we were following had come this way recently, and of course it had not been in a hurry. After maybe half a mile, the slot began to widen. The walls pulled back, the ceiling of sky above us grew broader, and I could see light ahead, where the canyon opened into something larger. Maggie slowed her pace, and I moved up beside her as we approached the exit. The slot opened into an amphitheater. That's the only word for it. A natural bowl carved into the red rock, about 200 feet across, with walls that curved up and around like the inside of a skull. The floor was covered in fine sand, pale and smooth, unmarked except for a single set of tracks that crossed from the slot where we stood to a dark opening on the far side. Afternoon sunlight poured down from above filling the space with a warm golden glow that made the red sandstone seem to pulse with inner fire It was beautiful. It was also, I realized immediately, a perfect killing ground. One way in, one way out. With walls too steep to climb, and nowhere to hide if something decided it didn't want you to leave. We should go back. Maggie said, basically in a whisper. I agreed with her. Every instinct I had was telling me that we should turn around, retreat through the slot canyon, and get back to open ground where we'd have room to run. But the tracks crossed the amphitheater floor and disappeared into that dark opening on the far side, and I knew that if I left now, I would never have another chance to see what made them. The ranchers would go back to losing cattle, The state would send someone eventually. Someone who didn't know the terrain, who might blunder around for a few days, then file a report that blamed the losses on mountain lions or feral dogs. And this thing, it would keep hunting, keep killing, keep living out here in the canyons where nobody would ever find it. Wait here, I said. I'm going to take a closer look at that opening. Wait. If anything happens, you run. Go back through that slot, and you don't stop until you reach the trucks. You tell Harlan what we found, and you make sure someone comes back here with enough firepower to deal with whatever's living in these canyons. She nodded once after several seconds, then stepped back into the shadow of the slot entrance, her rifle held across her chest. I walked out into the amphitheater. The sand was soft under my boots, muffling my footsteps. I kept my rifle up, tracking the barrel across the walls, watching for movement in the shadows. The dark opening on the far side grew larger as I approached, resolving into another slot canyon that twisted away into blackness. The tracks led directly into it. I was maybe twenty feet from the entrance when I heard a sound. It came from behind me, a soft scrape of sand, the whisper of something moving, and then a low rumbling trill that I felt in my chest more than I heard in my ears. The same sound I'd heard outside my tent the night before, that clicking contemplative noise that had made my blood freeze. I turned around. It was standing at the mouth of the slot we'd come through. blocking the only exit. It was standing between me and Maggie, though I couldn't see her anymore in the shadows behind it. My brain tried to reject what my eyes were showing me, tried to turn it into something familiar, but there was nothing in my 31 years of experience that matched the creature standing 40 feet away from me and that bowl of redstone. It was tall, nine feet at least, maybe closer to ten, standing upright on two powerful legs with backward bending knees. The body was lean and muscular, covered in a coat of feathers that ranged from dark brown along the back to a mottled gray and white on the chest and belly. The feathers lay flat and smooth, giving it a sleek appearance, almost elegant, except for the ridge of longer plumes that ran down the back of the neck and spine like a mane. The arms were short compared to the legs, but they weren't vestigial. They ended in three-fingered hands tipped with curved claws, and as I watched, those hands flexed and opened, the fingers spreading wide in a gesture that looked almost like a greeting. The tail extended behind it, thick and rigid, held off the ground for balance. And the head, it was shaped like a bird's, narrow and elongated, with a long snout that ended in a hooked beak. But the eyes that looked out from either side of that skull were not bird's eyes. They were golden, with horizontal pupils more like a goat's, and they held intelligence in them, and that made my stomach clench. This was no animal looking at me. This was something that thought, that reasoned, and that was studying me with the same careful attention I'd given the tracks and its kills and the cache of bones in that alcove. It knew what I was. It understood what I was doing here, and it was waiting to see what I would do next. I raised my rifle. The creature did not react. It just stood there, watching me, the massive head tilting slightly to one side, in an expression that might have been curiosity, or perhaps amusement. Maggie! I called out, keeping my voice as steady as I could manage. Maggie! Can you hear me? No answer. The creature's bulk filled the slot entrance. I could hardly see past it, into the shadows where she'd been standing. I had no idea if she was even alive. The creature made that trilling sound again, low and resonant. Then, it took a step forward. I watched the killing claws flex as it moved. They were even larger than they'd looked through the mesh of my tent. Curved and sickle-like, made of bone, held off the ground with each step, settling back as the foot came down. The movement was so fluid and natural. The gait of something that had been walking on two legs for millions of years before anything resembling a human existed. It took another step, and another, closing the distance between us with that unhurried stride I'd been tracking for three days. I could have fired. I should have fired. My finger was on the trigger, the sights lined up on the center of that feathered chest. But something held me back, a realization that was more subconscious than conscious. What I knew was that it was not attacking, it was approaching. And these bullets, I had no idea if they would work, or if they would just piss it off. The creature stopped about ten feet away from me, close enough that I could see the texture of those feathers, and the way the light caught the iridescence in the darker plumes along its back. And it was close enough now that I could smell it. and it smelled exactly like its kill sights, of metallic blood and rot. It lowered its head until those golden eyes were level with mine. The beak was close enough to touch, so close I could see the serrated edge along the inner surface, designed for gripping and tearing. A drop of something wet glistened at the corner of its mouth. We looked at each other. Then it made a sound. It wasn't the trill this time, something different. A series of clicks and whistles, rising and falling in a pattern that almost sounded like language. It was like it was trying to tell me something, and I could tell it was expecting me to understand. But I didn't understand. I stood there with my rifle raised and my heart racing. I was trying to fit this impossible creature into some normal framework of my world, but I couldn't. Then the clicking stopped, and the creature tilted its head again, and I could have sworn I saw something like disappointment in those golden eyes. It then straightened up, turned away from me, and walked toward the dark opening on the far side of the amphitheater. It paused at the entrance, looking back at me over its shoulder. It made one more sound, a single low note that shook in the very stone walls around us. Then it was gone, disappearing into the dark, and I was alone in the amphitheater with the afternoon sun beating down on my shoulders, My legs trembling so bad, my bladder nearly emptied itself. Maggie was waiting in the slot when I made my way back to the entrance. She was quiet, eyes wide, and I could tell from her expression that she had encountered it too. She probably saw it walk past her in the narrow canyon, close enough to touch as well, only for it to keep going without so much as a glance in her direction. We looked at each other and didn't speak. We turned and walked back through the slot canyon, across the valley, through the labyrinth of drainages and washes, until we made it back to the truck. By then, the sun was setting behind the western rim of the swell. Maggie drove me to Harlan's. When we got there, I exited without a word, and she didn't speak at all. I took a couple steps back and watched as she drove away. Harlan was waiting on the porch when I pulled up, same place he'd been when I first arrived a few days earlier. He took one look at my face and didn't ask any questions, but he did hand me a glass of whiskey and sat down in the chair beside me. waiting for me to talk. After one long exhale, I told him what we'd found. The cash, tracks, the creature in the amphitheater. I told him everything except what had happened to Maggie at the spring, because that wasn't my story to tell, and I didn't even know everything about it. When I was done, Harlan sat there with quite the look on his face. Then he stared out into the darkening fields and said, what do we do now? I don't know, Harlan. I took a big drink of the whiskey. It burned going down, but felt good. We could report it, call fish and game, tell them what we saw. I know they won't believe us, but they'll send someone out here, and that someone will find tracks that they can't explain, and kills that they can't attribute to any known predator. Unfortunately, they'll probably ride it up to unusual mountain lion activity and close the case. And the thing stays out there. Yes, the thing stays out there. I looked at him. It's been here for years, Harlan. Maybe longer. That cache had bones in it that looked decades old. Whatever this is, it's not new. It's just been careful. taking some cattle here and there, staying in the canyons where nobody goes. Until now. Until now. We sat together on that porch until the stars came out, drinking whiskey and watching the swell turn black against the sky. I left Harlan's place the next morning. I drove back to Grand Junction, and I told myself I was done with it. I'd done what I could, and the rest was someone else's problem. I got back to my quiet retirement, my empty house, my life that suddenly felt very small and very fragile. But the event would not leave my mind, because there was one thing that I kept to myself. The bedding site we'd passed on the second day, before we found the cache. There was a shallow depression in the sand where something large had rested, surrounded by scattered debris that I'd stepped over without really looking at it. But later on, it clicked. These were pale white fragments, about a quarter inch thick. They'd been scattered in rough circles around the depression. Three circles, now that I thought about it. Three separate clusters of broken eggs. To be truthful, that story was really creepy for me. I've never seen or heard the whole raptors are extremely smart aspect, played up so much, despite movies and television telling us about it, but never truly showing the extent. And from the stories I've been sent, I've never felt such helplessness for the narrator and characters involved. Because against that creature and the canyons, they stayed alive merely from its good graces. Good night. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Unexplained Encounters. I've been your host, Darkness Prevails. You can find me on X at Dark Prevails, on YouTube as Darkness Prevails. And if you're in the mood for more scary narrations from me, check out my other shows, Tales from the Break Room, and Alone in the Woods. If you'd rather sit back and relax to just me chatting with friends, check out Night Watchers instead. All of these shows can be found, followed, and rated on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Thank you all so much for being here to get scared with me. Until next time, everyone. Stay safe out there and stay creepy. Because this world is a strange one.