by Mark Allen
“They’re still warm, ain’t they?”
“You’re a sick, sick man, Belly.”
Goatsack stepped away from the post-execution chatter and radioed the warden on her private, secure channel.
A moment later, her digitized voice came through his earpiece. “Go for Ghastin.”
“It’s done,” he said.
A pause, then, “I’ll let him know.”
“Ten-four. Goatsack out.”
He switched back to his regular radio channel and watched his team as they cracked jokes and pretty much acted the opposite of how normal people would react after gunning down two innocent women.
Goatsack knew there wasn’t something wrong with just Big Belly, there was something wrong with all of them.
He just didn’t give a damn.
Chapter Seven
Dribble Creek Camp
Sated by the intense lovemaking and emotional salvation Luna had provided, Kane slept in longer than usual. By the time he rousted himself out of bed, careful not to wake his pretty companion, the sun was well on its way to peeking over the mountains. Looking out the window, he saw the morning light accentuating the bright foliage and high clouds scattered across the azure canvas of the sky.
Movement caught his eye. A red squirrel scampered in one of the pine trees that surrounded the cabin, hauling some kind of nut in its mouth. The bushy-tailed varmint startled a blue jay, which flapped itself into flight with a piercing screech, losing a few feathers in the process. They floated toward the ground, drifting on the morning breeze.
Kane felt the pull toward nature, the need to be outside, breathing fresh air, seeking the peace and solitude that can only be found in the wilds. He yearned to feel the wind on his face, to look up and see nothing but infinity. He wanted to walk where the wolf walked and be alone with his thoughts.
He regretted nothing with Luna. Last night’s confession as the coyotes howled, as well as the physical aftermath, had been something he had not even known he needed. But right now, he craved aloneness.
He dressed quietly, then filled his backpack with a water bottle, beef jerky, apples, and granola bars. Then it was time to select his weapons.
He saw no need for two different handguns, so he decided to leave the Sig M17 behind. The Desert Eagle would be enough. He planned on heading deep into the woods, so he doubted he would run into Sheriff Dunkirk, his sons, or any of the cartel’s kill squads. But if he did, the semi-auto .44 Magnum hand cannon would provide plenty of man-stopping power. If it was good enough for grizzlies, it was good enough for scumbags.
He considered the shotgun. The Beretta was a badass beast, all right, but did he really need to lug around its extra weight? If he was expecting trouble, then yeah, sure, sling that bad boy and be ready to blast. But this was an introspective walk in the woods, not a tactical strike where his survival hinged on having the most firepower. Again, for what he might encounter—namely, wild animals—the Desert Eagle sufficed. The shotgun would be overkill for this outing.
He strapped the handgun to his right hip using a custom-designed leather holster to support the semi-auto’s metallic bulk. An extra-wide heavy-duty leather belt prevented the handgun from dragging his pants down. He counterbalanced the weight on the left side with two spare magazines, fully loaded, and his Ka-Bar knife.
He donned a light jacket and shrugged into the backpack as Luna stirred. She rolled onto her back and stretched like a cat, which caused the covers to slip down and leave her chest exposed. The sight made Kane want to ditch his gear and crawl back into bed with her.
She caught his eye and smiled. “Going somewhere, cowboy?”
“A walk.”
“Want some company?”
“Actually, I think I need to do this alone.”
She nodded, and her eyes let him know that she understood. “If you want, I can leave while you’re gone,” she said. “No awkward goodbyes that way.” The question was there but unspoken. Do you want me to leave?
He quickly put her mind at ease. “I’m not ready to say goodbye.”
She smiled happily. “Then I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”
Kane cinched the backpack tight on his shoulders, gave her a kiss, and then closed the door behind him as he left the cabin.
Outside, the coolness invigorated him and blew off the last dregs of sleep better than mainlining caffeine. He followed the footpath that meandered away from the cabin in a westerly direction, threading between two giant, moss-covered boulders before skirting a depression full of fallen trees tangled together like nature’s version of pick-up sticks.
The well-defined path was easy to follow, but when it curved south to drop down into a cedar-filled hollow, Kane turned northwest and struck out through unmarked woods, climbing a steep, rock-strewn slope that plateaued on a pine-covered ridge. The ridge ran north-south, and he opted to head north. South would take him to lower ground and, eventually, bring him out to the trailhead by Ernie Foxx’s house.
He was looking to get farther away from people, not closer, so north was the way to go. Earlier this week, he had studied maps of the area and discovered that there was at least twenty miles of wild forest to the north and east. For a man looking to get lost—figuratively or literally—those were the directions to head.
It was not easy going. Off the beaten path, the ground was rough, with rocks and fallen logs often hidden beneath decades of undergrowth, ready to trip him and turn an ankle. At times, the trees were so thick that the canopy blocked out the sun, and the intertwined branches clutched at him like skeletal fingers, seeking to impede his forward momentum and drag him into claustrophobic closeness.
He bulled forward, unfazed. He had slogged through jungle vegetation so dense that it made this look like wet tissue paper, had dragged his boots through waist-high mud while snakes slithered around him and leeches latched onto his flesh. Sure, the Adirondacks featured some formidable terrain, but nothing compared to the green hells of Southeast Asia or South America. Damn, just thinking about Colombia set his teeth on edge. He hated that place.
By noon, he estimated he had pushed at least three miles into the backwoods. He found a sundrenched ledge and perched himself on one of the flat-topped rocks to rest and eat. The cool water felt damn good going down. He savored an apple and followed it up with some jerky.
As he chewed on the dehydrated beef, he allowed the beauty of the mountains to wash over him. The fall foliage could only be called spectacular, brilliant reds, oranges, purples, and yellows setting the forest on fire. The air back home in Texas smelled good, but it couldn’t hold a candle to the fresh mountain breezes wafting over the rock ledge.
Growing up, Kane had hunted with an uncle—Uncle Rocky—who had a favorite saying: “The woods are my church, the deer stand is my pew, birdsong is my choir, and God is everywhere.” For his uncle, being out in nature had been a truly religious experience; he had no need for stained glass windows or whitewashed steeples. “You want to feel the Creator’s presence,” Rocky used to say, “then your butt needs to spend some time in creation. Anything else is just plain ol’ horseshit.”
Kane smiled at the memory. A lot of the prim-and-proper churchgoers hadn’t cared much for Uncle Rocky’s brand of rough-and-tumble faith, but Kane had never doubted the man walked closer to God than most.
Sitting here on the rocks, surrounded by trees painted with colors so brilliant they could only come from nature, with the sun and breeze hitting his face, Kane could almost feel what Uncle Rocky had been talking about. Kane was not religious—a life of killing, of seeing the evils men do, had hardened his soul, but he did believe there was something out there. Something bigger than mortal men and their foolish, often wicked plans.
Here on this mountain, Kane felt closer to that “something” than any other time in his life. Not in a “the heavens opened and the angels shouted ‘Hallelujah!’” sense, but far more subtle. A slight shift in his internal darkness, a sliver of light piercing
the shadows, a half-step retreat from the demons inside.
Kane leaned back and stared up at the cloud-speckled sky as a sunlit hawk circled high on the thermals. A bird of prey, a hunter. Kane felt another shift deep down where guts and balls met brass and bone and recognized the moment for what it was.
Not a revelation, but a resurrection.
On top of this mountain, under the piercing eyes of the hawk and God or fate or destiny or whatever you chose to call it, Kane felt the warrior within him reborn. Looking back, he knew the rebirth had started with Luna, with his confession, his baring of his internal wounds, and her subsequent surrender of herself so he could begin to heal. The cauterization of his inner torment that had begun last night in the dark was now complete, in the cold light of day.
The hawk abruptly tucked its wings and dived, voicing a primal scream as it streaked toward the ground like a feathered missile. While he knew it had to be a trick of the wind, Kane could have sworn he heard a message in the raptor’s wild cry.
You are a warrior, and warriors do not walk away from the fight.
Trick or not, the words hit home.
He was born to walk through hell. Destined to face the flames and make sure wickedness did not win the day.
That was who he was. That was who he would always be.
The hawk’s scream was replaced by a wolf’s howl.
But not the eerie, haunting, mournful tenor of a typical wolf’s song. No, this howl was full of pain and hurt. There was still savagery in the sound, but it was tempered with fear. It dropped off sharply at the end, devolving into a sudden, snapping snarl.
Kane climbed to his feet. The howl had originated in the valley at the base of the ledge, close enough to prickle the hair on the back of his neck. He shrugged into his backpack as the wolf let out another howl that climaxed in another angry, hurting snarl. Listening intently, Kane swore he heard the faint sound of clinking metal.
He picked his way down the ledge, dropping from rock to rock, careful not to twist his ankle or put his full weight on any loose boulders. Be stupid to survive cutthroat wars with the cartels, only to die in a backcountry avalanche of his own making. Carefully but steadily, he descended to the valley floor.
Beneath the forest canopy again, away from the direct rays of the sun, the air was cool and still. The breeze of the higher ground did not reach down here. The pungent scents of moist earth, rotting wood, and crisp foliage filled his olfactory senses.
But he wasn’t focused on smells. He was focused on sounds.
One sound in particular.
He stood still, head cocked, listening, waiting for it.
Seconds later, the wolf obliged.
The predator’s anguished cry echoed through the woods. Even infused with pain, the howl was sonically powerful, reverberating through the trees to fill the forest with one of the most haunting, soul-stirring sounds in nature’s musical repertoire. The wolf’s primal song pulled at Kane like a magnet.
He found a game trail that snaked through the trees and followed it, hunching to keep from getting ensnared in the tangled branches interlocked above the narrow path. He saw deer tracks, raccoon tracks, rabbit tracks…and wolf tracks.
A moment later, he saw the wolf.
The trap had been set at the crossing where two game trails intersected. One ran parallel to the ledges that formed the valley’s southern perimeter, the other made its way up from a small brook about fifty meters away. The wolf had placed its right front paw in the trap, and the steel jaws had clamped shut, holding it fast.
As Kane approached, he saw blood streaming down the animal’s leg and caught a glimpse of white amidst the red-matted fur. In its struggle to escape, the wolf had pulled so hard that the teeth of the trap had dug all the way down to the bone.
Even injured, it was a majestic creature, with a thick, charcoal-gray coat and a white underbelly. Despite being trapped, the wolf radiated raw, primal power. It bared its fangs in a warning snarl as Kane moved closer, making soothing sounds that might have worked on a domesticated dog but were probably useless on a wolf. Still, he didn’t know what else to try, and he wanted to help the animal.
“Easy, boy,” he said softly. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
The wolf pasted its ears flat against its skull and snarled again, making it clear that if Kane came any closer, he did so at his own peril.
Kane didn’t blame the wolf for its hostility. That was just the way of the world, man versus beast. He crouched just out of range of the wolf’s teeth, slipped off his backpack, and took out some jerky.
The wolf ignored him, thrashing around like a beached fish as it struggled to free itself from the trap. The chain rattled like crazy, but the animal only managed to shred even more skin from its leg. The wolf slumped over on its side, ribs heaving, exhausted.
Kane neither retreated nor advanced. He just stayed crouched and watched the tortured animal rest. The wolf’s eyelids slowly drooped closed, like blinds being lowered on a window. The foam-flecked jaws hung open, tongue lolling out to anoint the ground with hot drool, sharp teeth exposed in black-and-pink gums.
Kane wasn’t sure how long they remained like that, but eventually, the wolf’s chest stopped heaving, and it seemed calmer despite the trap still attached to its bleeding leg. The animal’s eyes gradually opened and when it regained full cognizance, it locked gazes with the human who still crouched by its side.
Kane felt something pass between them, a shifting of the dynamic, a lowering of the primal shields that made wolf and man enemies. Maybe the creature realized that Kane could have killed it while it rested but had kept watch instead. The wolf’s dark eyes remained bestial, but they brimmed with abnormal intelligence, as if trying to convey to Kane that the animal understood he was friend, not foe. Or perhaps it was the kinship between two warriors, which needs no vocabulary, no articulation.
Whatever it was—and Kane made no attempt to define it, content to let the mystery of the moment simply exist—he knew that the wolf would not harm him now.
He offered a piece of jerky to the wolf and the beast accepted it gratefully, swallowing it whole. Next, Kane scooped a small hollow in the earth near the animal’s muzzle and filled it with water from his bottle, which the wolf quickly lapped up.
“All right, boy. Let’s see about getting you out of this thing.”
Kane gently ran his hands through the thick fur around the wolf’s neck, then glided down over the firm shoulder muscles, letting the animal acclimate to his touch. The wolf turned its head and let out a low whine, but that was it.
Kane’s hands moved down the leg, careful not to touch the wound, until they reached the cold metal of the trap. He wasted no time in prying open the jaws, and the wolf pulled its leg free. It scrambled to its feet but made no effort to pull away from Kane. It just stood there and watched him, the hurt limb just barely touching the ground, unable to bear any weight.
Kane knew the next part would really test just how much the wolf trusted him. The wound needed to be bandaged, and there was no way to do that without causing the animal pain. Would the wolf recognize the healing in the hurt? Or would it sink its fangs into Kane’s neck?
Only one way to find out.
He reached into his backpack and took out a handkerchief that he had packed in case he needed a tourniquet. “Easy, fella,” he said as he reached for the wolf’s leg again. As he wrapped the kerchief around the torn flesh, the wolf flinched, but other than that, it held still.
Kane tied off the makeshift bandage, making sure the wound was fully covered, then reached up and ruffled the fur on top of the wolf’s head. “Good boy,” he said. He rose to his feet, muscles aching from holding a crouched position for so long.
The wolf’s ears abruptly snapped forward, alerting Kane that someone or something was behind him. A second later, a deep voice growled, “You mind telling me what the hell you’re doing with my dog?”
Dog?
Keeping his movements slow and unt
hreatening, Kane turned around and saw a tall, thin, scarecrow of a man dressed in fringed buckskins and wearing a raccoon hat, complete with a striped tail that hung down between the man’s shoulder blades. Save for his gaunt build, the guy looked like he had stepped off the cover of some mountain man novel.
Of course, the mountain men of yesteryear didn’t have AR-15 rifles like the one currently aimed at Kane’s midsection. Even in the shadows of the woods, it was clear that the muzzle didn’t waver much. Clearly, this mountain man—and Kane had a good idea who he was looking at—had no problem threatening someone with lethal force.
Kane kept his hands out to his sides. Even if he had wanted to engage in a gunfight with the stranger, the Desert Eagle was holstered beneath his jacket. No way in hell would he be able to draw and shoot before the AR-15 plugged him with a half-dozen holes.
“Asked you a question,” the man said. “What are you doing to my dog? Won’t ask you a third time.”
No, you’ll just shoot me in the head and slap me on a plate, Kane thought. Aloud he replied, “You’re Mike, right?”
“So you’ve been to town and heard the stories about ol’ Mad Mike,” the man grunted. “Good for you. They tell you I’m a cannibal?”
“Yeah, they mentioned it.”
“Good. So unless you start answering questions instead of asking them, you know what I’m gonna put in my soup tonight.”
Kane glanced down at the wolf, which was still bearing all its weight on just three legs, then back up at Mike. “Came across your wolf caught in a trap and—”
“Dog.”
Kane paused. “What?”
“That’s my dog, not a wolf.”
Kane looked down again, then back up. “Okay. Your dog got a name?”
“Sure does. I call him Wolf.”
Kane stared at him. “You’re fucking with me, right?”
Mike broke out in a grin. “Yeah, actually, I am.” He slung the AR-15 over his shoulder and started walking toward Kane. “Been watching you the whole time. Heard Beta howling, so I came looking. You got here first. I almost killed you, truth be told, but then I saw what you were doing. Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes. Beta doesn’t let anyone touch him but me, but looks like he took to you just fine.”
