Lachlan Fief notched his rifle butt with a finger-blade to account for the kill. In the dimness of morning his shape was skewed by mist and whispering grass, hidden beneath a chaotic weave of thatched twigs and dead leaves tied to his raiment like ornaments. The hunter rose from the thicket and sloughed off his buffalo skin cloak; the filthy, rumpled hide slumped into the rough, as invisible to the eye as a badger hole, dank and sewn with sticks. The glint of gunmetal flashed only when the…