by Max Brand
“Hear the hate and the fear?” said the trapper, looking wildly at his companion. “Man, are you another one that can talk the wolf talk?”
“Stuff and nonsense,” said the other. He laughed as he spoke and stepped farther out on the shoulder of the hill. He had dismounted. He took off his hat and passed his hand over his hair, which flashed like silver in the moonshine. “This is a man’s country, Ranger,” he said. “This is the sort of place that a man could spend his life in.”
“I’d about made up my mind to live the rest of mine here,” said Ranger, “but the kid, he put a chill into me. He scared me pretty near to death.”
“You didn’t like the kid,” said the other. “He seems to have bothered you a good deal.”
“I liked him,” said the trapper honestly. “I wouldn’t be able to say that I didn’t like him. He has a sort of pull on you. You can’t help being interested. You might know how it is?”
“I don’t,” said the other shortly. “Nobody’s ever had a pull on me. You like the kid because he’s just a fool, or because he’s a dangerous fool? Which is it?”
“I dunno,” answered Ranger, thinking the matter over. “I guess it’s because I think that he’ll have a mighty short life, Menneval.”
“So you’re sorry for him, are you? And scared of him, too? Well, it won’t make much difference to the rest of the world, a couple of Crossons more or less. They’ve lived out here like wild beasts . . . and with wild beasts. Let ’em die like beasts, too, and be buried and forgotten.” A sort of scornful rage was in his voice.
“I wouldn’t say that . . . only they beat me. I don’t want to think of ’em any more. I don’t want to talk about ’em,” said Ranger. “Listen to that!” he added with an exclamation.
As he spoke, the sound of the pack burst out between two hills at the lower end of the valley and, with a river of sound, it filled the depression and sent waves of horror shuddering through the brain of the trapper.
A moment later, through the scattering boulders came three riders, pushing their horses with the most desperate haste. They rode as well as they could through the scattering rocks, and, as they fled, the rearmost man twitched around in the saddle and fired once, twice, and again.
Perhaps he hit his target. At any rate, the shooting brought him still farther to the rear of the other flying riders, and now he thrust the rifle back into its long case and gave all his attention to weaving the horse among the impedimenta that thronged the floor of the valley.
In the lead, two of these riders, side-by-side, pushed forward, either better mounted or lighter in the saddle than their lagging companion. As these two passed into a dense tangle of trees and of rocks and were lost to sight for a moment, Menneval touched the arm of the trapper without, however, turning his head toward him.
“Ranger,” he said.
“Aye?”
“Wasn’t that one on the left a girl? Didn’t I see the flutter of a divided skirt, or was it simply the chaps? Was that a girl or an undersize boy? Did you see the one I mean?”
“A girl,” said the trapper. “That was a girl, of course. That was a cousin or something of the thug, Chester Lyons. Her name is Nan.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“How many men were with Chet Lyons?” snapped Menneval.
“There was the girl, and four more men.”
“What sort? Soft saps, or real men?”
“The hardest you’ve ever seen,” replied the trapper.
At this moment, through a gap in the bush and the boulders, the same gap through which they had seen the riders first appear, they now saw a pack of five wolves break into the clearing, and behind them, fast on their heels, came a rider. They could not tell the color of the horse, only the silver flashing of the streaming mane and tail in the wind of the gallop.
“Dogs . . . and one man to chase Chet Lyons and four of his best?” said Menneval half to himself. “It isn’t likely. It isn’t possible. But there it is before our eyes.”
He took the spectacle more calmly than did Lefty Bill, although the latter had seen an almost similar picture once before.
“It isn’t possible,” said Ranger, “but there it is. He isn’t a man. He’s half wild cat, like I said before. And half wolf. And the rest of him, I dunno what it is.”
Striking a hard upslope, the rider was seen to throw himself to the ground. The horse, relieved of that weight, ran on easily, or trotted, while the lad bounded beside him, sprinting like the wind, only sometimes catching hold of a dangling stirrup leather to help him over a smoother spot where the horse ran with more ease. But he continued on foot at such a rate that the rearmost man of Lyons’s party was drawn back to the pursuer. Rapidly, almost as though his horse were carrying a double burden, he was pulled behind, and the pursuer came up, hand over hand.
“A fine thing,” said Menneval with an unexpected enthusiasm. “I never saw a better thing in my life. He’s saving his nag for the level going, and running like an Indian in between. Why, a fellow like that could run down a relay of race horses in twenty-four hours. He’s made of rubber and watch springs. Look at that!”
Coming to a rougher patch of small rocks and brush, the lad sprang here and there and, like a rabbit, came onto the easier footing beyond, where, without stopping the horse, he flung himself into the saddle and went on at a rapid gallop.
By this time, the two leaders—Lyons and the girl—had swept on into the shelter of the higher woods, and the trailer behind them was still in plain view. As the pursuer came nearer, this man turned and looked behind him.
“One left out of four,” said Menneval under his breath. “How’s it done? How can he do it?”
“You’ll see, pretty pronto,” suggested Ranger. He breathed hard and sighed. “It ain’t human,” he commented through his teeth.
He who was being hunted now checked his horse to a walk and turned. And the moonlight threw a long beam along the barrel of the rifle as it was leveled.
Then, clearly up the slope, came the voice of a man yelling for help.
“He’s too late . . . they’ll never come back to him. They don’t know how far he is behind,” said Menneval.
“They don’t care,” said the trapper. “They’ve seen the evil one, and they don’t want to feel his teeth.”
The shout was repeated. As if in answer to it, out from among the rocks sprang a volley of the wolves; their master had disappeared behind the same screen. They did not come in a single, headlong charge. They had first encircled the rider, and now they rushed him from all sides.
He was not witless with fear, though he had been shouting for help the moment before. He fired, and the watchers saw one of the wolves bound into the air, double up, and land in a shapeless heap even before the death yell rang in the ears of the two up the slope.
“Come on,” said Ranger. “Come on and help. They’ll murder him.”
“He’d be dead before we got there,” said Menneval sternly.
He laid a hand upon the shoulder of his companion. It was only a touch, but the effect of it ran like liquid ice through the blood of Ranger. It was true. They had not time to intervene. They might have opened fire on the brutes, by daylight, but in this treacherous moonshine their rifles were as likely to strike down the man at bay as to drop his enemies.
The next instant the wolves were in and at their work. The horse reared, then went down, hamstrung by deadly teeth from behind, and, as it went down, another timber wolf was at its throat, slashing.
“They’ll tear him to pieces before our eyes . . . they’ve torn the other three,” groaned Ranger, turning sick.
A keen, piercing whistle rang up the side of the valley. And into sight came young Oliver Crosson. It was too dim a light to enable Ranger to recognize the features of the boy, but there was something unmistakable in his carriage and in his step. He was on foot, the horse from which he had dismounted, again trotting dog-like at his back. In his hand was the gleam of the revolver, like a spark of fir
e.
The whistle, which must have come from his lips, scattered the wolves at the very moment when the horse fell, and the rider rolled on the ground, almost among their teeth. They bounded back as though from a grizzly bear, fallen, but doubly dangerous in his fall.
The youngster ran straight in on the fallen man.
“He’s going to pistol him where he lies,” said Menneval through his teeth.
“He won’t do that,” said Ranger. But he doubted, even as he spoke, for he saw young Crosson lean over the prostrate body. In another moment he was up and away again, springing into the saddle on the horse, and the four wolves cantered easily ahead. All the troop disappeared in another moment among the trees.
“He’s gone,” said Menneval. “He’s knocked that poor devil on the head in cold blood, and he’s gone. What has happened tonight? Is that the fourth man he’s murdered because a wolf was killed? An infernal stealing, throat-cutting timber wolf?”
“Not a wolf to him,” said Ranger, in instinctive defense, although he was shaking from head to foot. “Not a wolf, but more like a friend would be to you . . .” He checked himself. Had this man ever had a friend? Tradition and rumor said that he had not.
Menneval was already hurrying down the slope.
And he was right. For perhaps it still was not too late for them to render some aid to the fallen man.
Among the rocks they raced down into the hollow. When they came there, Ranger was greatly relieved. He had not known how much he was horrified until he had the relief of seeing the fallen stranger stagger to his feet. They were beside him instantly, and found him looking about in a dazed way at his dead horse. He was trembling violently; his eyes were forced so wide open and the pupil so dilated, he had the look of a madman.
“Take a jolt of this,” said Menneval, and gave him a metal flask. But the hand of the other was too unsteady. Menneval himself had to hold and tip the bottle, while Ranger studied the stranger. Of course, this was one of the men who had ridden with the outlaw, Lyons, but he was unrecognizable, now, his face was so distorted by the aftereffects of a great terror.
With the whiskey under his belt, he recovered rapidly. Menneval got him to sit on a stone, furnished him with another drink, even rolled a cigarette and lighted it for him. He seemed to Ranger to be ministering like a doctor to the needs of a patient in whom he had no great personal interest, but who might prove a useful man.
“What’s happened?” he asked finally.
The other rolled back his head and stared up at Menneval.
“What’s happened?” he repeated. “I’ve been through . . . Oh, I’ve been . . .” His voice had risen to a half-hysterical note.
“Take it easy,” said Menneval. “There’s plenty of time. There’s all the time in the world for you. Steady up, now, and make yourself at home. You’re with friends. Nothing can happen to you, now.”
“He didn’t want me,” said the other. “I says to myself that it’s for me that he’s hunting the whole pack of us. But it wasn’t me. You see that he tripped me up, and then went on. I thought that I was going to be wolf food for the . . .” His voice shuddered away to a silence.
“It’s Lyons that he’s after,” said Menneval. “There’s no doubt of that. It’s Lyons that he wants, and not you. Now, tell me, if you can, how five men and a woman ran away from a single hunter and a pack of wolves?”
The other passed a hand over his face. He shook his head violently—like a dog trying to clear water from its hair.
“We were up in the hills when we heard the wolf song beginning,” he said. “We knew something about young Crosson. We were ready for trouble all right. Lyons was laughing. He said that we’d pick up a few lobo scalps, and give the boy a spanking to teach him sense. But going through the dusk with the yell of the pack behind us was kind of hard on the nerves.
“Then, all at once, the baying stopped off short. We didn’t hear a thing . . . Lyons said they’d turned back . . . but some of the rest of us figured that trouble was sneaking up on us. We were going up a pretty narrow ravine and Pug Morris was riding last when I heard a screech out of him, and looked back and saw a shadow run at him on horseback out of the trees and knock Pug off his horse. The mustang went swift out of that and up the side of the ravine, and Pug went after it, yelling. I emptied a six-shooter at the shadow, but it was gone again into the brush.
“Well, we went on. Even Lyons had stopped joking. He got us together and told us to look sharp, but the next place where the trail narrowed and pinched out, that shadow and half a dozen wolves swarmed out and took Bunny Statham off the tail of our march. Lyons turned us around, and we charged. But the wolves and the shadow had gone out, and Statham was away off through the brush . . . hiding out, I guess, or dead with his throat tore open. I don’t know which.
“After that, we kind of lost our nerve. The moon was up. A sneaky kind of a light for us, but good enough for young Crosson and his pack. Lyons wanted to stay in one place and fight it out, but me and Wully, we held out for a quick run to get to the town of Shannon, where we’d have some humans around us and no werewolves. Lyons had to buckle in. I guess he was feeling kind of sick himself. So we hit across country. And that sneaking ghost and his dogs, he picked off Wully first, and then he got me here and . . .” He stopped with a groan and covered his eyes with his hands.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“You come with me to Shannon,” said Menneval.
But the other stared at him as though he were a madman. “Go to Shannon?” he said. “Why, that’s where Lyons has gone, and that’s where the kid will be hunting him. I’m not going north to Shannon. I’m going south to any place that comes along. Wherever Lyons goes, I’m gonna be the farthest possible away from him. If you go to Shannon, you’re a fool.”
“I’m going to Shannon,” said Menneval. “You want to come with me, Ranger?”
Lefty Bill looked yearningly at the rascal who had so frankly declared his fear. He would have liked to make the same decision. For there was no place in the world where he so little wished to be as in the town of Shannon, or wherever Lyons and young Crosson were to meet. But as he saw the steady, keen eye of Menneval, he knew that he would yield and that he’d go.
He said: “You know that there’s going to be a grand lot of trouble, Menneval . . . and you know that I’m not very much with a gun. I’m no hero, either. I don’t pretend to be.”
“Let me tell you something,” insisted Menneval. “I’m going to Shannon not to take part in the trouble that may come up there. I’m going to try to prevent that trouble from breaking, if I can. I’m going to try. And an honest man like you can do more than anybody else to prevent a fight. I see in your eye that you’re coming along with me, Lefty.”
And Lefty, with a sigh, was forced to nod his head.
They left the broken-spirited gangster behind them and started across country. Menneval would not ride. He forced Lefty to take the saddle, and Menneval himself walked on at a brisk pace. One would not have expected such endurance and such lightness in a man deep into middle age. Uphill and down, over rough and smooth, he led the way by the shortest cut to Shannon, and in the middle of the night they reached the town.
They came out from the verge of the great pine forest and looked down on the town. Most of the lights were out; there was only a red glimmer of lamplight, here and there, a mere stain on a window, seen through the brilliancy of the mountain moonlight that, almost like a sun, cast deep black shadows beside the rocks and printed on the open ground the silhouette of the huge trees.
It was a wild little valley in which Shannon stood, and the people who lived in it were as wild as their surroundings. Not only on the upper Shannon, but on half a dozen of the creeks that flowed into it, gold had been found. They were not great and rich strikes, but there was enough color to bring the enthusiastic prospectors out of the desert to the south, out of the mountains to the north, to try to find the mother lode. And there were always a number of claims working
, yielding usually a little less gold dust than the cost of working. However, gold is not only money, but an enchantment and an enchanter. And a good many of the bewitched were generally to be found in Shannon.
Shannon Creek itself went with a bound and a roar through the center of the town in the season of the melting snows. In full summer it was a mere pleasant trickle. In winter its headwaters were locked in white frost, and not a drop came down its channel. It was at a midway point now, and, instead of filling the valley with the ominous roar of the flood waters, its voice dwelt in the air like an echo from some undiscoverable source.
Ranger looked down on the little, shapeless, ragged town that lined both sides of the creek, and he could see the shadowy skeleton of the bridge that crossed it.
“Look here, Menneval,” he said. “I’d like to know what you’re really up to.”
“In coming here?” said Menneval.
“Aye.”
“I’m coming here to prevent trouble. I told you that before.”
“Menneval,” said the trapper, “I don’t call any man a liar, but you haven’t been famous for stopping fights before this. Mostly they kind of say that you’ve given them a boost along.”
“Do they?” The other smiled. “Well, whatever they say, I’ve told you the Gospel truth. I’ve come in here to keep young Crosson from running amuck, if I can.”
“They’re friends of yours, are they?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Menneval. “I’m under an obligation to old Peter Crosson, such an obligation as mighty few men ever have been under. And he’s under an obligation to me . . . such an obligation as mighty few men ever have been under. And that’s the reason why I say that I’m going to stop young Crosson from making trouble, if I can.”
