Wolf Shadow (Wind River Book 3)

by James Reasoner

  Lon patted his mount's neck. "It's only a snowflake," he said aloud. But it was just about the biggest snowflake he had ever seen in his life, and in a matter of seconds that first flake had been joined by several more. Giving in to an impulse, Lon leaned forward in the saddle and stuck out his tongue. One of the flakes settled on it.

  He shivered. The snowflake was like a sliver of pure cold going through him. He wouldn't do that again, he thought. Before starting out that morning, he had tied a bandanna around his head and under his chin so that it covered his ears, and now he pulled the knot a little tighter. The bunkhouse, with its big stoves and the easy laughter of his friends, would look mighty nice right about now.

  There were cattle to tend to, he reminded himself. Mr. Sawyer and Frenchy were counting on him.

  The snow came down thicker and thicker as Lon plodded along on the pony. The wind blew harder, catching the flakes and whipping them crazily around him. That made it even harder to see where he was going. Somehow, the snow seemed to change the very quality of the air around him so that sounds were muffled. He could still hear the whine of the wind and the clopping of his horse's hooves, but the sounds seemed to come from far away.

  The storm had gotten here sooner than anybody had thought it would, Lon realized. He should have turned back several hours earlier in order to escape the worst of it.

  Too late now, he thought, as he tried to ignore a tiny thread of panic weaving through his brain. All he could do was keep going and hope it wouldn't get too bad before he ran into the rest of the boys and got back to the ranch headquarters.

  He expected to catch up soon to some of the stock he had started moving in this direction. The snowfall was so thick, however, that he couldn't see more than twenty or thirty yards in any direction. It seemed like that distance was shrinking, too, as more and more of the wet, heavy flakes fell.

  Lon pulled the brim of his hat lower over his eyes, trying to keep the white stuff from sticking to his eyelashes. He was wearing a second bandanna around his neck, and he tugged it up over his mouth and nose. Clouds of steam from his breath plumed in front of him anyway. The temperature was dropping even lower, he thought.

  He figured he was still at least an hour's ride from home, and although the thought of abandoning his responsibilities galled him, he knew it was time to stop worrying about the cattle he had hazed out of this side valley. His main concern now was staying alive. It had been snowing for only a quarter of an hour, and already the ground had a coating of white on it. At the rate it was falling, and with the wind blowing like it was, the snow would soon begin to form drifts, and if he stumbled into one that was deep enough, Lon knew, his horse might not be able to get out.

  In the next moment, that became something he didn't have to worry about. Something small and brown suddenly bolted right in front of the pony, almost under its feet, and the already nervous animal came straight up off the ground in a frenzy of terrified bucking.

  Lon let out a shout and grabbed at the saddle-horn. He had been taken as much by surprise as the horse. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the big rabbit that had caused the reaction bounding off through the white curtain of snow. At the same instant, Lon's fingers brushed the saddlehorn and slipped off, unable to grasp it in time as the crazed horse kept sunfishing. The pony swapped ends in midair, and suddenly Lon was sitting on sky. He came down hard.

  He slammed into the ground, knocking the breath from his lungs. The coating of snow on the ground wasn't thick enough yet to absorb any of the impact of the young cowboys landing. Lon rolled over a couple of times and came to a stop lying face down on the white carpet.

  At least he had been able to kick his feet free of the stirrups, he told himself groggily. It had been an instinctive move when he felt the horse lunging out from under him. If one of his feet had been caught, he would be bouncing over rocks and hard ground right now, because the cow pony had dashed off somewhere.

  Lon pushed himself onto hands and knees and gulped down some of the cold air to replace what had been knocked out of him. He shook his head. His hat had come off, and snowflakes hit his face as he looked up, each one like the caress of an ice-cold finger. He didn't see the horse anywhere.

  A fresh tingle of panic hit him. On foot, he wouldn't stand a chance out here in this storm. He yelled, "Hey! Here, boy! Come back here!"

  Maybe the pony would hear him over the wind and come back toward the human voice. It had to, or he was doomed. He kept shouting, and a few moments later, sure enough, a large dark shape bulked out of the swirling snow and came tentatively toward him. Lon's heart pounded heavily. The horse had come back. He lurched to his feet as the animal came closer.

  But when his weight hit his left leg, pain shot through his knee, a jolt of agony that sent him pitching forward and brought a scream from his mouth. The horse whirled around, its already spooked brain no doubt thinking that this screaming man was attacking it. As Lon lay on the ground and whimpered, the horse ran off again.

  Everything had happened so fast. He didn't remember hurting his knee when he landed, but obviously he had. There was no way he could catch the pony, hobbled like he was. He looked around, searching for something he could use to support himself. There was nothing within sight but the wind-whipped snow forming an ever-thickening blanket on the ground.

  There were trees on the hills bordering the little valley. Lon knew that for a fact. If he could reach those trees, he could break off a branch and use it as a makeshift crutch. That would allow him to limp along.

  But what was the point in that? he asked himself. He was going to freeze to death anyway. Might as well do it right here where he lay, rather than get up and prolong his suffering. In fact, he could already feel warmth stealing over him, the false warmth that was the first step in having his life stolen away by the cold.

  Get up, boy.

  Lon blinked his eyes and looked up, wondering where the voice had come from. It had sounded sort of like Kermit Sawyer, although it was hard to tell with the wind howling that way. If Mr. Sawyer was here, he might not die after all, Lon thought.

  "Mr. Sawyer?" he called. "Where are you?"

  Get up on your feet and walk.

  "I . . . I can't," Lon whispered. "My leg's hurt."

  Then crawl!

  Maybe . . . maybe he could move on hands and knees. Well, one knee, anyway. He could drag the other leg behind him, he supposed. But which direction should he go? He couldn't see anything anymore, just that damned snow. What if he went right down the center of the valley, instead of toward the hills on either side?

  Even in that case, he wouldn't be any worse off than he was right now, Lon realized. And when death claimed him, at least he would know that he had tried to save himself.

  You 're goin' to do more than try, boy.

  Lon didn't even look for the source of the words this time. He knew he wouldn't find it. He just heaved himself up on his hands again and started pulling himself forward. With his left leg dragging uselessly behind him, he crawled in the direction he happened to be facing. Like he had realized earlier, it was as good a direction as any.

  The next half-hour was a blurry white nightmare for Lon. He knew that he had to keep moving or freeze, so somehow he found the strength and the will to force his muscles to work. He pulled himself along with his arms and one leg as snow collected on his head, melted slightly, then refroze into icicles on his hair. He wished he had his hat.

  Then something else hit his head, something a lot harder and more substantial than a snowflake. He collapsed, stunned for a moment by the blow, then reached out with a hand and felt through his glove the rough bark of a tree. He looked up and saw it looming over him. He had crawled right into the trunk, banging his head on it.

  He had never been so glad to bump into anything in his life. Lon huddled over the tiny fire, drawing what warmth he could from its feeble flames. After pulling himself upright by holding on to the tree trunk, he had managed to peel off enough bark to make a sma
ll blaze at the base of the tree. He had to brush away some snow to clear a place for the fire, then it was a matter of using his body to shield the flames from the wind as he got it going. He used some dry pine needles for kindling and fumbled out one of the matches he kept in a little oil-cloth packet under his coat to light the fire. He fed the pieces of bark into the flames slowly, wanting to keep the blaze going as long as possible.

  In weather like this, any warmth was more than welcome. Lon was grateful for the fire, but he knew it wasn't going to last much longer. Nor was it going to help him get out of this dangerous predicament. He was still far from home, in the middle of a blizzard, with a bum leg.

  The pain in his knee had subsided to a dull ache. He saw an already broken branch lying on the ground a few feet away, and when the fire finally flickered out, he straightened and hopped over to the branch. Leaning over carefully so that he didn't fall down, he was able to grasp the branch and lift it. When he leaned on it, he found that it would work as a crutch, although he wished it was a little longer.

  Frenchy knew which of the side valleys had been assigned to him, Lon reminded himself. Frenchy would come looking for him when he didn't rendezvous with the other Diamond S riders. There could be a search party on the way up the valley right now.

  That thought made Lon reach under his coat and grope around for the butt of the revolver he wore holstered on his hip. He found the gun and pulled it from under his coat. His gloved finger wouldn't go through the trigger guard, so he held the gun in his left hand while he used his teeth to tug the glove off his right. Then, the glove dangling from his mouth, he took the gun in his right hand, pointed it toward the sky, and fired three times slowly and deliberately, taking a few seconds between each shot to cock the Colt's hammer.

  Three shots like that meant trouble. Every cowhand knew that much. If searchers were within hearing distance—and Lon didn't know how far that would be with the wind blowing so hard—the shots would point them in the right direction.

  But he would be rescued even sooner if he went to meet them, he reasoned, so he pulled his glove on again, holstered the pistol, and started walking toward the east. His progress was maddeningly slow because of the pain in his left knee and the resulting limp.

  He wasn't sure what time it was, but the sky was growing steadily darker overhead. A shudder ran through him as he thought about being caught out in this storm after nightfall. Not that it would be much worse, he mused. He didn't see how things could even get worse than they were now.

  He trudged along, keeping the tree-covered hillside to his left so that he wouldn't get lost. If he got turned around and started walking in circles, there would be no chance for his survival, and even a slim chance was better than none.

  Pain lanced through his knee every time his weight came down on his left leg, and with only a broken branch for a crude crutch, it was impossible to avoid using the leg part of the time. Lon didn't mind the pain too much, though. It kept him alert, even made him angry at the circumstances that had conspired to put him in this danger. The anger kept him moving.

  Damned if he was going to let this Wyoming winter kill him.

  Darkness closed in around him until he could no longer even see the wind-blown snow. He had to slow down even more and use the feel of the ground to navigate. He tried to keep the slope of the hillside to his left, but he worried that he was wandering away from it.

  The only alternative, however, was to stop completely, and he didn't want to do that. He decided to push on for a while longer, then stop and try to build another fire.

  It had been a long time since his meager lunch, but he wasn't aware that he was hungry. He was much too cold for that, too cold to feel much of anything. He thought about the hot Texas sun and the wav it blazed down out of a hammered-silver sky in the middle of summer, and he wished for a little of that heat right now. Texas was hundreds of miles away, though, and it looked like he would never see the Lone Star State again.

  His mama was going to be mighty upset with Mr. Sawyer.

  That thought was going through his head when he realized the wind had stopped blowing. Lon paused in his slow, limping progress and looked up. A few snowflakes brushed against his face, but the snow was undoubtedly slowing down, dying away. Within a couple of minutes, it had stopped completely.

  The storm had passed.

  Lon drew a deep breath of the frosty air and blew it out in a long sigh. This wasn't much of an improvement, he thought, but at this point he was grateful for anything. If the clouds moved out, as it appeared they might, he would be able to see better in the light from the moon and stars. There would be much less chance, too, of a search party passing him by.

  He started walking again, and in a few minutes the landscape around him seemed to lighten slightly. He glanced up, saw breaks in the clouds and the pinpoint twinkling of stars. The wind that had brought the storm in with such breathtaking ferocity was carrying it out the same way.

  More time passed, and he was suddenly able to see the moon rising in the east. Its silvery illumination washed down over the ground and the snow reflected it back, making it even brighter. Lon could see now that he hadn't strayed as far away from the hillside as he had feared. It rose only a short distance to his left.

  If nothing else, being able to see where he was going lifted Lon's spirits considerably. After everything that had happened to him, he took pride in the fact that he hadn't given up—even though the situation still looked pretty bleak. He could have given up and died a lot earlier, but something inside him had not allowed that.

  He saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and quickly turned his head toward the hillside, where he had spotted whatever it was. He hoped it was his horse. If he could catch the pony, he could make it back home. He was sure of that.

  There was nothing to be seen on the hill, however, except clumps of trees and outcrop-pings of rock. It might have been another rabbit he'd seen, Lon thought.

  He considered trying to build a bigger fire so that anyone who was searching for him could see it, then discarded the idea when he decided he wouldn't be able to find enough dry wood. The snow had covered everything, and there were a good eight inches on the ground, maybe more. There were drifts that were definitely deeper. Instead of struggling with a fire, Lon lifted his hands to his mouth, cupped his palms, and shouted, "Hello! Anybody out there? Frenchy? Mr. Sawyer?"

  Nothing came back to his ears except echoes, and they sounded lonelier and lonelier as they faded away.

  Lon gave a mental shrug and started moving again.

  He hadn't gone twenty feet when he saw something, another flicker of motion from the hillside. This time he was a little quicker, and he spotted a shape darting behind a clump of dead brush. It wasn't his horse, not by a long shot, and it was too large to be a rabbit.

  A chill went through Lon. From the way the thing had been moving, so fast and low to the ground, he had an idea what it might have been. The idea filled him with fear.

  There was another one! Again a low, hurtling shape leaped from behind a tree and dashed back behind cover. Lon's jaw tightened as he saw a third one, then a fourth. Then a soul-shivering howl erupted into the night, followed by a chorus of yips and barks.

  Wolves.

  Lon swallowed hard. He had heard Billy Casebolt, one of the old-timers who now lived in Wind River, talking about how the winter storms always drove the wolves down out of the high country. Normally they wouldn't attack a man, but when the weather was bad . . .

  That howl had a note of desperation in it, Lon thought. He knew how the wolf felt. He was a mite desperate himself.

  Maybe if he kept moving they would leave him alone. It was worth a chance. He hobbled forward again, wincing as his bad knee throbbed. There wasn't time to be as careful now. He wanted to put some distance between himself and that pack of wolves.

  Unfortunately, the predators continued to flank him, flitting through the woods on the hillside like deadly shadows. Lon re
alized from the way they were keeping pace with him that they were playing some sort of cruel game. They could race across the snow much faster than he could move, and they had to be holding themselves back just so the strain on his nerves would grow stronger and stronger. Maybe he was giving them credit for too much intelligence, but that was the way he felt.

  His heart was pounding heavily in his chest, and it wasn't completely from the exertion of the past few hours.

  There was something about being stalked by wolves that struck a chord of fear deep within him, and he supposed the feeling was something that went back a long way. He could imagine the old-timers— the real old-timers who had first come to this land—sitting around a campfire at night and listening to the howls from the darkness and feeling the same sort of shiver go through them. Whenever that happened, they probably leaned forward and tossed some more wood on the fire, taking comfort in the light and heat of the leaping flames that held the wildness of the night at bay.

  Lon wished he had a nice, big campfire right about now.

  But what he did have was a six-shooter, he recalled, and that went a long way toward holding off the wild things, too. He stopped, balancing himself on his good leg, and took off first one glove and then the other. His hands were already stiff with the cold, but he couldn't handle the chore of reloading in those heavy gloves. He had fired off three rounds earlier, and he replaced them as quickly as he could with fresh cartridges from the pocket of his wool shirt.

  He wished he had his Winchester, but it was still in the saddleboot on the pony that had run off. Luckily, he had brought along a good supply of .44s.

  Like most range riders, at least the ones with any sense, he kept the hammer of the Colt resting on an empty chamber. He filled that one, too, then snapped the loading gate shut. He looked at the trees as he holstered the gun. The wolves were still there, he sensed, even though none of them were moving at the moment.

  He drew in a deep breath, took hold of the broken branch again, and started forward once more.