First Light (33 page)

6. Rub both sides of the meat with salt, fresh-ground black pepper, ground red pepper, and dried sage and rosemary.

7. In a very hot skillet coated with olive oil sear the meat on both sides. Do not overcook. It should be rare on the inside.

8. Serve with cranberry sauce or chutney, wild rice, fresh green vegetables (steamed asparagus would be my choice, but it's not in season in New England in November), a green salad, and an excellent red wine.

William G. Tapply is a retired high school history teacher who now teaches writing at Emerson College, Clark University, and for The Writers Digest School. The author of eighteen Brady Coyne novels as well as five volumes on outdoor living and fishing, he is a contributing editor to
Field and Stream
magazine. He lives in Pepperell, Massachusetts.

Philip R. Craig grew up on a small cattle ranch southeast of Durango, Colorado. He earned his M.F.A. at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and is a professor emeritus of literature at Wheelock College in Boston. He is the author of thirteen J. W. Jackson/Martha's Vineyard mysteries. He and his wife live on Martha's Vineyard.