Overcast and damp this morning, with scattered drizzle.

Heeler sisters and I went out anyway, since it wasn't wet enough to deter grouse. Thought we hit the road early enough, but apparently not. Only two cocks left on the first ground we hit, with five others wandering off, ready to start the morning's feeding. Clearly, the high, almost full moon has cut into my lekking time.

And couldn't get to the second lek I had planned. Well, I could have, but it would have meant driving past the new "No Trespassing" sign. Placed on private ground on a road that has been open for everyone for, well, for at least a century or so.

A sign from one of our new ranchetters. Probably could have driven right past it, (Okay, I know I could have. No one to witness it except the horse in the tiny triangular corral, who was eager for company.) but I didn't.

Went right past the new "No Trespassing" signs on the gate leading to the first strutting ground, but I know the name on the sign. If he would complain about me being there, I would be horribly surprised.

Was surprised by the huge shipping container dumped out there in the sage by the first lek. Someone's first addition to their new desert property, no doubt. The lek's on public ground, but I may not be able to get to it soon, the way the country's being chopped up.

The times, they are a changin'.

Then the sisters and I stopped by the Rim on the way home. To check on a suspected duplicate in my dead elk database.

Have actually checked this one once before, but I couldn't force myself to delete the game warden's report of finding a dead 10-year old cow unless I was abso-positively certain he was actually re-reporting the first elk to die.

And although she was three years old, not 10, I am now positive there is not a second elk carcass on that spot, or anywhere within 100+ meters. So, he wrote down an elk I had already recorded, and the total known loss goes down by one.

The heeler sisters seemed oblivious to the trauma they endured the last time they were here.

As a final check, we hiked to the top of the nearest knoll and glassed, despite the light drizzle. No elk carcasses anywhere near #1. I could see #8 laying on the ridgeline that had exposed her to my view and led to her death, but the hills are all green now, not white. And I see the draw where #s 9, 10 and 11 lay. I could see the blonde carcass of the spike close to where the second elk had died, and four or five tan lumps on the low ridge to the north. The lump of #7 is almost, but not quite, hidden in the greasewood to the south.

And the bones and hide of Hope, down in the sage and greasewood to the west, south of the truck. Her right ivory is here on my mousepad, where it has been for several weeks, finally cleaned of the vestiges of her flesh last night. The matching tooth is somewhere in University Town, I believe.

On the ridges to the east, I can pick out more tan lumps that used to be wapiti. Almost certainly all already checked and in the database.

But maybe not that close one in the tall sage, just a half-mile east.

It's not raining that hard. The girls need the exercise, as do I.

East it is.

It's a spike, or rather, it was. And he died hard. Huge piles of pellets where he had originally fallen. The dirt and sage torn where he had tried to drag himself, for either food or water, or both. The furrows of dirt besides his legs, so like sideways snow angels, from his final death throws.

I set the GPS directly on his pale yellow hide, and record his exact location, to compare to those in the database. But I'm fairly certain no one has found him before.

This is one we failed. One we did not find and save from a horrible death. One who died as Mother Nature intended, that harsh mistress who seems to have no pity.

And so it was too, for the two-year old cow less than 25 meters north of him.

I cannot help but wonder how the end was for the two of them, able to hear each other as they could not move. To have each other's distant company, until one became silent. And then the other.

I had hoped to search far to the west, beyond our west fence, but the rain is steady by the time the heelers and I get back to the truck.

This clay country is not the place to be when it is wet.

Home we go.