A Congregation of Jackals

by S. Craig Zahler

Even though he was not a tall man, within this private sanctuary he was a giant, and the animals of his ranch and his house and his wife and his children were but thoughts. The rancher loved all of these things deeply and thoroughly, but he had lived a very different life for many years and still required time to be a solitary titan, time during which the only world that existed was a simple, wordless place.