“We can’t run forever.” Lou was puffing and had a pain in her side. Her feet were lead weights.
“I’ll carry you if I have to,” Zach said, forgetting, for the moment, his ankle.
Lou saved her breath for running. She had never been so tired. She had to force her legs to move. She thought of Winona and Nate, and how sad they would be if anything happened to their son, and she regretted bringing Zach so far to do what they could have done in the security of their cabin.
Zach was concentrating on the firs to the right. He figured if the Thing charged them, that was the direction it would come from. But once more he had not reckoned on its uncanny speed. A cry from Lou warned him.
The Thing was in front of them. It stood between two firs, barring their way, an enormous mass of bear hide and menace, its huge hands opening and closing. Incredibly, the hilt of the hunting knife still stuck from its chest.
“Dear God,” Lou breathed.
Zach stepped in front of her. “I’ll keep it busy. When I say to, I want you to run and not look back.”
“I will not abandon you.”
Not taking his eyes off the man-beast, Zach said, “Don’t argue. It’s the only chance you have.” At that, it was a slim one.
“What about you? You can’t hold it off alone.” Lou moved up next to him. “I’m staying, and that’s that.”
Again Zach stepped in front of her. “Go, damn it.”
“Stop your cussing. Your father never swears and Shakespeare hardly ever, and you do it entirely too much.”
Zach was flabbergasted. He could not comprehend how she could nitpick about his swearing when their lives were at stake.
“As for leaving, I took you for better or for worse and it can’t get much worse than this.” Lou moved up next to him again.
This whole while, the Thing had stood there staring. Now it roared and attacked.
Zach ducked under its outflung arms and swung his club. He caught the Thing in the knee and its legs buckled. Whipping the club overhead, he was on the verge of bashing its head in when a powerful backhand caught him across the chest and he was hurled against a fir.
Lou leaped in. She swung the sawtooth rock at the Thing’s eyes, but it had learned its lesson and got an arm up to protect its face. She pivoted, thinking to dart in under its arm and slash it across the throat. A cuff to her temple thwarted her and left her stretched out on her back with her head pealing like a struck gong.
“Lou!” Zach sprang and swung at the Thing’s other knee. The crack was as loud as a pistol shot. The Thing staggered. Zach swung in a frenzy, hitting its arm, its chest, a shoulder, everywhere but where he wanted to hit it, which was on the head.
The Thing was slow to react. It was gazing at Lou. Zach had landed half a dozen blows before the Thing tore its eyes from her and looked at him. Zach swung yet again, but the Thing seized the club and sought to wrest it from his grasp.
Zach clung on. “Run, Lou!” he yelled. A huge hand slammed into his shoulder and he wound up on his face in the dirt. He rolled, not a moment too soon; a giant foot stomped down exactly where his head had been.
Lou was on her feet. She leaped at the Thing to buy Zach time to get to his. She slashed the sawtooth rock across the Thing’s arm but only cut the bear hide. A hand closed on her throat, and suddenly she was dangling in the air with the life slowly being choked out of her.
Zach voiced a Shoshone war whoop and swung the club with all his might. A huge hand swooped to his throat, and then he, too, was dangling in the air and fingers like metal spikes began to crush his neck. He could not breathe. He beat at the arm that held him, but it was like beating a log. Zach glanced at Lou and she glanced at him and their eyes locked. They said with their eyes what they could not say with their mouths: I love you.
Both heard a twang. Both saw the Thing arch its back, then swivel its great misshapen head. A roar shook the firs. The Thing let go of them, and turned.
Zach fell to his knees. As if in a dream state he saw an arrow embedded in the Thing’s broad back. Beyond, another arrow nocked to the string of his bow, stood a Ute warrior Zach recognized: Neota. Next to Neota was Zach’s father, a rifle to his shoulder.
As the Thing lurched into motion Neota loosed the shaft. He let another fly when it was halfway to them, one more as it reared to strike. For a few seconds the Thing was motionless. Then it slowly oozed to earth as choking sounds came from its throat and blood from its mouth and nostrils.
Neota knelt and placed his hand on the Thing’s shoulder. He said something in the Ute language and bowed his head.
Nate ran to Zach and Lou and helped them to sit up. “Are you all right?”
All both could do was nod.
“It’s over,” Nate told them. “You’re safe.”
Coughing and sputtering to clear his throat, Zach managed to say, “Thank you, Pa.”
Louisa rubbed her throat and sucked in a deep breath. “You can’t imagine what it was like. You saved us from a horrible monster.”
Nate gazed at the still form in the bear hide and at the living portrait in sorrow. “He saved you, not me.” Nate paused. They deserved to know the full story. Or did they? On second thought, maybe he should let them go on thinking it was a monster. They would sleep better at night.
A lot better than Neota.
WILDERNESS DOUBLE EDITIONS
#1: KING OF THE MOUNTAIN / LURE OF THE WILD
#2: SAVAGE RENDEZVOUS / BLOOD FURY
#3: TOMAHAWK REVENGE / BLACK POWDER JUSTICE
#4: VENGEANCE TRAIL / DEATH HUNT
#5: MOUNTAIN DEVIL / BLACKFOOT MASSACRE
#6: NORTHWEST PASSAGE / APACHE BLOOD
#7: MOUNTAIN MANHUNT / TENDERFOOT
#8: WINTERKILL / BLOOD TRUCE
#9: TRAPPER’S BLOOD / MOUNTAIN CAT
#10: IRON WARRIOR / WOLF PACK
#11: BLACK POWDER / TRAIL’S END
#12: THE LOST VALLEY / MOUNTAIN MADNESS
#13: FRONTIER MAYHEM / BLOOD FEUD
#14: GOLD RAGE / THE QUEST
#15: MOUNTAIN NIGHTMARE / SAVAGES
#16: BLOOD KIN / THE WESTWARD TIDE
#17: FANG AND CLAW / TRACKDOWN
#18: FRONTIER FURY / THE TEMPEST
#19: PERILS OF THE WIND / MOUNTAIN MAN
#20: FIREWATER / SCAR
#21: BY DUTY BOUND / FLAMES OF JUSTICE
#22: VENGEANCE / SHADOW REALMS
#23: IN CRUEL CLUTCHES / UNTAMED COUNTRY
#24: REAP THE WHIRLWIND / LORD GRIZZLY
#25: WOLVERINE / PEOPLE OF THE FOREST
#26: COMANCHE MOON / GLACIER TERROR
WILDERNESS GIANT EDITIONS
#1: HAWKEN FURY
#2: SEASON OF THE WARRIOR
#3: PRAIRIE BLOOD
#4: ORDEAL
#5: THE TRAIL WEST
ALSO WRITTEN BY DAVID L. ROBBINS
WHITE APACHE
#1: HANGMAN’S KNOT
#2: WARPATH
#3: WARRIOR BORN
#4: QUICK KILLER
#5: BLOOD BATH
#6: BLOOD TREACHERY
#7: BLOODY BOUNTY
#8: THE TRACKERS
#9: DESERT FURY
#10: HANGED!
DAVY CROCKETT
#1: HOMECOMING
#2: SIOUX SLAUGHTER
#3: BLOOD HUNT
#4: MISSISSIPPI MAYHEM
#5: BLOOD RAGE
#6: COMANCHE COUNTRY
#7: TEXICAN TERROR
#8: CANNIBAL COUNTRY
About the Author
David L. Robbins was born on Independence Day 1950. He has written more than three hundred books under his own name and many pen names, among them: David Thompson, Jake McMasters, Jon Sharpe, Don Pendleton, Franklin W. Dixon, Ralph Compton, Dean L. McElwain, J.D. Cameron and John Killdeer.
Robbins was raised in Pennsylvania. When he was seventeen he enlisted in the United States Air Force and eventually rose to the rank of sergeant. After his honorable discharge he
attended college and went into broadcasting, working as an announcer and engineer (and later as a program director) at various radio stations. Later still he entered law enforcement and then took to writing full-time.
At one time or another Robbins has lived in Pennsylvania, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Montana, Colorado and the Pacific Northwest. He spent a year and a half in Europe, traveling through France, Italy, Greece and Germany. He lived for more than a year in Turkey.
Today he is best known for two current long-running series - Wilderness, the generational saga of a Mountain Man and his Shoshone wife - and Endworld is a science fiction series under his own name started in 1986. Among his many other books, Piccadilly Publishing is pleased to be reissuing ebook editions of Wilderness, Davy Crockett and, of course, White Apache.
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