The back door wasn't locked and I went inside. I found all four of them dead. Ben and Patty were in their bedroom and the kids were in their beds. I l...ft quickly.I guess that finding them dead brought home to me in a very real way that no one had survived. I walked further down the road and eventually made the full circle. I had walked a mile. I had measured it few years ago. Julie and I had run and walked laps for exercise. I went into my house and tried to figure out what I wanted to do.I've. One of the worst sins of the open western rangeland was to pollute the fresh water system or to kill wildlife or domestic animals just for the sake of killing and not for food or to protect innocent victims. The excesses of the "buffalo hunting" era was long gone but folks remembered that purge of free and available meat that threatened the existence of the native American tribes that lived their entire lives around the cycle of life of the free-roaming buffalo herds that swept across the. But that ended when Rex's wife Polly got it into her head that they should retire to Miami. Damn shame, that. I lost a good friend and wound up with a headache: A young spitfire name a Laurie Kettinger, Rex's replacement. Pretty young thing with wild curly hair who filled out her uniform right nicely, but she was a damned zealot about the fish and game laws. That little lady filled out more citations her first year than Rex did in 30. Every sorry sonuvabitch comin' outta the canyon had a sob. "I haven't, not yet anyway." I admitted."Well why don't we run through it when we get home," he grinned, "I'll play the male roles and you can be all the women." I suppose we could seeing as you've no school tomorrow and I've nothing better to do with your father away." I agreed, "Okay, but only as long as you don't muck about the way you did while we were practising Romeo and Juliet." All right," my son grinned as we turned into our street, "no mucking about, I'll pretend we're performing the.