The problem with the place was the silence. 
	
Back in Georgia, there’d be nothing but noise. One couldn’t walk two feet without some lovelorn cardinal or mockingbird letting out a song. 
	
But out in these rolling Montana hills, there wasn’t a single sound. No birds, no bugs, nothing. Not even the wind made noise when it blew, nor the waving long grass that dotted the meadow and the hillsides around it. 
	
Jake shifted his weight, letting the rifle butt push firmly against his shoulder. It was a reliable thirty-aught-six Springfield, a one-shot wonder that’d stumble a grizzly. The kickback wasn't too bad, but he still felt sore from last week’s job.
	
He’d shot a lot of things in his life. The first one was his father. The fellow had smacked him around, so Jake gave the old man a twenty-two caliber comeback. Didn’t kill him, but a part of Jake wished he had. Then he could tell any uppity drunk in a back alley Bozeman dive that he’d killed a man. He could say it without any hesitation, any giveaway that it was a lie. He’d be a badass, [i]the[/i] Great White Hunter in a country filled with too many of them already. 
	
But he hadn’t killed a man, so here he was, in the bed of a rickety lemon with a rifle in his hands and a vermin to kill. 
	
Jake scanned the clearing and the hills. Only two deer and a jackrabbit filled the land. The deer looked his direction once, then went back to grazing. The jackrabbit darted every which way, looking for something for several minutes before bounding up the leftmost hill. 
	
Jake rubbed his eyes. He hoped it would come soon.  	 

[hr]

Just before five A.M., Jake saw it. 
	
Over the ridge to his right, a thin figure snuck its way to the clearing. Even in the green fuzz of his night scope, Jake could see the ragged tail and dark spots on an otherwise clear white coat. 
	
Jake tightened his grip on the Springfield. 
	
The vermin made its way down the hill and through the clearing, letting out small pants throughout its journey. 
	
Still. It needed to stand still. 
	
For a minute, it kept its pace steady across the clearing. The padded feet made little [i]pat-pat-pat[/i]s across the firm soil.
	
The sights lined up perfectly. 
	
The vermin stopped. 
	
The finger on the trigger tensed. 
	
The vermin looked at Jake. 
	
Jake looked back, his eye squinting through the night scope. 
	
Then the vermin howled. Not a howl like how they usually did, that cutesy [i]awoooo[/i] that gets all the other ones going and amuses the tourists watching from afar. No, it was long, painful howl. [i]Errrrgh[/i], halfway between a growl and a yelp of pain.   
	
For a split-second, Jake didn’t want to kill the vermin. 

No. Not the vermin. The [i]wolf[/i]. 

The wolf that killed ranchers’ cattle, fought its own kin and snapped at everything else along the way. 

The wolf that glided through the mountains and plains, snow falling off its back, bothering nobody who was smart enough to stay away from its domain. 

The wolf. This terrible, beautiful thing. 

In that moment, Jake felt a love he’d never had toward anyone.   
	
But it was only for a moment. 
	
Just as the howling peaked, a bullet ripped through the wolf’s side.
	
A sigh escaped Jake’s lips. He hopped out of the truck bed and walked toward the corpse. Seven hundred yards was a long ways, and he wanted to be gone before daybreak.