"You bastards are gypping me."

"Nossir. A jenna-wine African rhinoceros is what the catalog says, and that's what you got."

For a closer look, Stoat knelt in the scrub. The rhino's cranial horn had been taken off cleanly with a saw, leaving an oval abrasion. There the plastic replacement had been attached with white gummy industrial adhesive. A foot or so up the snout was the animal's secondary horn, the caudal, real enough but unimpressive; squat and wart-like in profile.

"The whole idea," Stoat said irritably to Durgess3 "was a head mount for my den."

"And that's a helluva head, Mr. Stoat, you gotta admit."

"Except for one tiny detail."

Stoat tossed the fake horn at Durgess. Durgess let it drop to the ground, now sodden with rhino fluids. He said, "I got a taxidermy man does fiberglass on the side, he'll fix you up a new one. Nobody'll know the difference, sir. It'll look just like the real deal."

"Fiberglass."

"Yessir," Durgess said.

"Hello, why not chrome – ever thought of that? Rip the hood ornament off a Cadillac or maybe a 450-SL. Glue it to the tip of that sucker's nose."

Durgess gave Stoat a sullen look. Stoat took the Winchester from the guide and slung it over his shoulder. "Anything else I should know about this animal?"

"Nossir." There was no point telling Stoat that his trophy rhinoceros also had suffered from cataracts on both eyes, which accounted for its lack of alarm at the approach of heavily armed humans. In addition, the animal had spent its entire life as tame as a hamster, the featured attraction of an Arizona roadside zoo.

Stoat said, "Put the camera away. I don't want anybody to see the damn thing like this. You'll get with that fiberglass man right away?"