The Last Gunfighter
Page 16
So who had taken those potshots at him when he stepped out of the cabin?
Frank had no answer for that, but it was one more mystery to solve once he had taken care of his more pressing problem.
“Stay alert, Dog,” he said unnecessarily to the big cur as they entered the towering trees. Dog’s senses always operated at peak efficiency.
Frank had recognized a landmark, a particular tree with a long blaze down its side from a lightning strike. The tree had survived, but it would be marked for all eternity by what had happened to it.
One more way trees and men were alike, Frank reflected as he rode past the redwood.
“Twenty grand,” Treadwell said. “A big share of that bounty would go a long way toward making things all right again.”
“Yeah, your balls wouldn’t ache as much if you had a pocket full of dinero, would they?” Erickson asked with a grin.
“Let’s leave my balls outta this. And Sutherland’s ass and Roylston’s nose, too. Let’s face it, all of us have plenty of reasons for wantin’ that bastard Morgan dead, even without the bounty.”
Dawson said, “But twenty grand always helps.”
None of the six men could argue with that.
They had ridden out of Eureka about half an hour after Frank Morgan left town. Roylston, Jenkins, and Sutherland had all worked for Rutherford Chamberlain before the danger from the Terror had spooked them into quitting, so they knew the woods quite well. Erickson intended to put that knowledge to good use.
In fact, he had gotten Jenkins, the smartest of the trio, to draw a map of the timberland southwest of the settlement. There was a low range of hills to the east, the Pacific to the west, and the Eel River running into the ocean about twenty miles south of Eureka. Within those boundaries were some of the biggest trees in the world, and those were also the stomping grounds of the Terror. The three loggers knew every place the monster had struck. Chances are Morgan would be scouting around those same locations. And Erickson and his companions would be scouting for Morgan.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” Erickson mused as they rode along. “Once we’ve taken care of Morgan, we’ll go ahead and start looking for the Terror. If we find it, we can kill it and hide the body somewhere. Then we’ll go back to town to wait until Old Man Chamberlain has given up on Morgan and posted that twenty-thousand-dollar bounty. Then we’ll go back to wherever we stashed the body, cut off the head, and take it back to collect.” He grinned at the others. “How’s that sound?”
“It sounds like you ain’t hurtin’ for confidence,” Treadwell said with a dour look. “Hell, it ain’t the middle of the afternoon yet. Plenty of time to hunt down and kill Morgan and the Terror.”
Erickson frowned. “I’m just sayin’, if it works out that way, that’s how we’ll do it.”
“Sounds good to me,” Dawson said. “I’d just as soon get this over with as quick as we can.” He looked at the trees that had started to close in around them. “I don’t much like it out here.”
Neither did Erickson, but he wasn’t going to let the others see that. He kept the confident look on his face as he rode forward.
The wind picked up a short time later. They really couldn’t feel it much where they were, but they could hear it sighing through the branches far overhead, and see the trees swaying a little, too, if they looked up. Dawson asked, “Is it gonna storm?”
“No, those weren’t storm clouds comin’ in from the ocean,” Roylston said. “It might drizzle a little, that’s all. You’d hardly feel it under here.”
“I wouldn’t want to get caught in these trees during a thunderstorm. Too much lightnin’.”
“Hell, you’d be safe.” Roylston waved a hand at the redwoods. “Everything around here is a whole heap taller’n a man. What you have to worry about with lightning is it starting a fire, and we’ve had enough rain lately so that’s not a real threat right now.”
Erickson took the map Jenkins had drawn out of his shirt pocket and unfolded it to study it. He motioned Jenkins up alongside him, conferred with the former logger for a moment, then said, “How about we all shut up for a while? We’re gettin’ to an area where the Terror’s been spotted several times. In fact, the damn thing killed a man not far from here. We don’t want it sneakin’ up on us while we’re busy runnin’ our mouths, do we?”
The men shook their heads as Erickson looked at them one by one. He had just gotten that response from Sutherland when something came flashing out from behind a tree and jerked the man right out of the saddle.
Chapter 19
Frank heard the gunshots from somewhere behind him and reined Stormy to a halt. He hipped around in the saddle to peer through the trees, but of course, he couldn’t see more than about fifty yards in any direction because of all the thick redwood trunks.
Frantic shouts accompanied the gunfire. Those sounds were all too familiar to Frank.
They were the sounds of the Terror going about its bloody business.
Dog had turned around, too, and pricked his ears forward. The hair on the back of his neck was ruffled up, and a low growl came from him.
“Yeah, Dog, that sounds like what we’re looking for,” Frank said. “Go get it!”
Dog took off like a shot. Frank rode after him, leading Goldy and trusting Stormy to find the fastest route through the woods. The shots and the yelling grew louder. It sounded like the men were coming toward Frank at the same time he was headed toward them.
Up ahead somewhere in the brush, Dog suddenly snapped and snarled and then yelped wildly. “Dog!” Frank bellowed. He jerked the Winchester from its saddle sheath and worked the rifle’s lever.
At that same instant, something came crashing through the undergrowth and burst out right in front of Frank. One second it wasn’t there, the next second it was. He didn’t have time to even try to bring Stormy to a halt. The big gray collided with whatever the thing was. Frank caught only a glimpse of it before Stormy went down and he was sent sailing through the air. In that brief second, though, he was aware of its massive size, its shaggy pelt, and its blinding speed as it ran upright with something slung over one shoulder.
Frank thought that something was a man.
Then he crashed into a tree trunk, bounced off, and went rolling across the ground. The impact stunned him, and although a part of his brain cried out for him to get up and find the Winchester he had just dropped, his muscles refused to respond. All he could do was lie there with the world spinning crazily around him.
He was at the mercy of the Terror.
There was no doubt in Frank’s mind that was what he had just seen. The huge, hairy beast was what had been killing men all through these woods for months. This encounter contained something new, though. The Terror had had a prisoner. Maybe that was keeping it occupied. Maybe that was why it hadn’t fallen on Frank already and ripped him limb from limb.
Frank suddenly felt coarse hair against his face. He jerked away from it, some deep, atavistic instinct finally forcing his muscles to work again.
Then relief washed through him as he saw Dog’s face only inches away from his own. The big cur peered intently at him with a mixture of curiosity and concern.
Frank’s muscles were starting to work again after the shock of slamming into the tree like that. He reached up, looped an arm over Dog’s sturdy back, and braced himself that way as he pulled himself into a sitting position. Dog licked his face happily. Frank recalled the animal’s yelp a few minutes earlier, and looked him over for any sign of an injury. He didn’t see any blood. Maybe Dog had just been scared. Such a thing was mighty rare, but not impossible.
Frank had felt some fear of his own during that instant when he’d gotten a close-up look at the Terror.
Unfortunately, everything had happened so fast that he still didn’t know if it was man or beast. The shaggy pelt said animal, but he had never seen an animal move that fast on two legs.
Whatever it was, it was gone now. He didn’t see it anywhere.
Sutherland—if that was the name of the man the Terror had been carrying—couldn’t hear him. Sutherland was either dead or a long way off by now, the way the Terror had been moving.
Another man called, “Erickson, did you see that thing? The way it snatched Sutherland off his horse…I…I never saw anything like that in my life.”
Erickson, Frank thought. The men coming toward him wanted him dead. Might be a good idea not to be just sitting here in the forest when they came along.
He glanced around for Stormy and Goldy, but didn’t see either of the horses. They would be somewhere close by, he knew, and would come if he whistled for them. It might be better to just let them stay wherever they were, though, at least for the moment.
He spotted his Winchester and his hat lying nearby and reached for them, wincing as pain shot through him when he leaned over. He might have cracked a rib or two, he thought. Getting hold of the rifle’s barrel, he drew the weapon toward him and then planted the butt against the ground. He used it as a makeshift crutch to lever himself to his feet, being careful not to let the barrel point at him as he did so.
When he was standing again, he hobbled toward the closest redwood. The sounds of horses and men were very close now. Erickson and his cronies would be coming in sight at any moment. Frank hurried as much as he could, motioning for Dog to follow him.
They went around the tree, which was about twelve feet wide at the base, and then Frank stopped and leaned back against the trunk. He stood there with the Winchester slanted across his chest, ready to fight if he had to. Dog sat at his feet, still and silent except for an occasional tiny whine that showed how much he wanted to tear into the hombres searching through the woods.
Frank would shoot it out with Erickson’s bunch if he had to, but shaken up and on foot as he was, it would be better if they didn’t find him right now. To increase the chances of that, he stayed absolutely still, barely even breathing, as the searchers moved closer and closer. The wind sighed through the treetops high overhead. Frank felt a few drops of drizzle on his face as the moisture filtered down through the thick canopy of branches.
Then a couple of riders passed by not more than twenty feet away from him. All they would have had to do to see him was turn their heads, but they never looked in his direction. He recognized the big, red-bearded Erickson and one of the other men whose name he hadn’t heard. The other man was saying, “Sutherland’s gone. We’re never gonna see him again, Erickson.”
“We don’t know that—” Erickson began.
“The hell we don’t. You saw that thing carry him off. It’s gonna eat him, that’s what it’s gonna do. You know how loco an animal is once it gets a taste for human flesh.”
“Shut up!” Erickson snapped. “I don’t want to hear that kind of talk.”
“Why else would it carry him off instead of just killin’ him? We know Sutherland was alive the last time we saw him. He was still hollerin’. Damn beast’ll probably keep him alive and just eat him a little bit at a time.”
“Jenkins, I told you…shut…the hell…up.”
Erickson spoke through clenched teeth as the men passed on out of sight. Frank didn’t relax because they were gone, however. He knew there were probably several other men in the group, and they’d be moving around in the area, searching for the missing man, too.
He could have eased their minds a little, Frank thought. He hadn’t seen any sign that the Terror ever consumed its victims. The bone he had found at the primitive cabin seemed to indicate that the creature didn’t indulge in such grim appetites.
But he didn’t care about easing their minds. The varmints wanted to kill him, so let them worry.
A moment later, he heard the other men off to his left, but they didn’t come as close to him as Erickson and Jenkins had. They moved on into the forest, searching for the long-gone Sutherland. Even though Frank didn’t believe that the Terror was going to eat its prisoner, he wouldn’t bet a hat—or anything else—that Sutherland would survive being captured by the creature.
Frank waited until all the men were gone, then whistled softly. It took him a couple of tries before noises in the brush told him that Stormy and Goldy were responding. The horses pushed through the undergrowth and emerged near the tree where Frank waited. He still leaned against the trunk because it hurt when he tried to straighten up.
Stormy came over to him, nuzzled his shoulder. “Good fella,” Frank murmured. He slid the Winchester back in its sheath, then grasped the saddle horn with both hands. He got his left foot in the stirrup and pulled himself up into the saddle. Pain shot through him again, but he told himself to ignore it. More than likely, those ribs were just bruised. He just needed to take it easy for a while.
Unfortunately, there was no time for that. Not with the Terror still on the loose and the time that Rutherford Chamberlain had given him running out.
Frank didn’t bother with Goldy’s reins. He knew the horse would follow Stormy.
“Get the scent, Dog,” he told the big cur. “The critter ran right through here. You can pick up his trail.”
Dog cast back and forth, nose to the ground, for a couple of minutes, then stood stiff-legged and growled, signifying that he had found the scent of something that bothered him. He had reacted the same way to the Terror’s scent earlier, so Frank said, “Good boy. Trail, Dog!”
Dog took off through the brush. Frank followed. Sometimes he had to detour the horses around some obstacle that Dog could slip under or over, and when that happened, Dog always waited until Frank, Stormy, and Goldy caught up. The four of them made a fine team. It had been that way for a long time, and things would stay like that for a long time to come, God willing, Frank thought.
The chore facing them this afternoon had gotten harder. Not only did he have to worry about finding the Terror and dealing with it, but now he knew for sure that Erickson and the others were out here in the woods, too, hunting for him.
What about the men he suspected were working for Bosworth, the ones who had attacked the logging camp that morning? It was unlikely they would return to the forest this soon, Frank reasoned, so at least he didn’t have to concern himself with them.
A fine mist continued to fall. The trees shielded Frank from most of it, but he felt its wet touch on his face from time to time. Actually, it was sort of refreshing, so he didn’t care about the rain. It wasn’t coming down hard enough to wash away the scent that Dog was following.
Every so often, he heard shouting in the distance. Erickson and his companions were still looking for the missing Sutherland. But the trail Dog was following veered more toward the ocean, taking him and Frank away from the area where Erickson and the others were. The Terror had changed direction as it charged through the woods. Erickson and his friends didn’t know that because they didn’t have Dog’s sensitive nose to tell them.
Frank called soft encouragement to the big cur, who began to pick up speed as if the scent were getting stronger. But then Dog slowed suddenly and came to a stop with his hackles raised. Frank reined Stormy to a halt, drew the Winchester, and looked around.
He didn’t see anything moving. Dog was gazing intently at a spot a few yards ahead, at the thick base of a tree. Frank looked at the same place, but didn’t see a thing other than a few dark spots on the ground. Dog started to growl.
“Hush, Dog,” Frank said quietly. “Hush.”
Dog obeyed, and thick silence closed in around them. Frank listened. He didn’t hear anything except a faint plop, the sound a big drop of rain made when it fell and landed. But there weren’t any big raindrops today, only the fine mist.
But there was another dark spot at the base of the tree now, Frank noticed as a little shock ran through him.
He tilted his head back and looked up, his gaze following the trunk of the red
wood until it reached the spot where branches began protruding from the tree.
Crammed into the angle between one of those lower branches and the trunk itself was the body of a man. It dangled there precariously, and as Frank watched, another huge drop of blood fell like crimson rain and splattered at the base of the tree.
He reckoned he’d found the missing Sutherland.
How in the world had the Terror gotten the body up there? At the tree’s base, the trunk was much too big for a man to wrap his arms and legs around it and shinny up, although it narrowed considerably by the area where the branches began growing. The trunk wasn’t smooth; the bark that covered it was rough and seamed with fissures. But it would take an incredible amount of strength to seek out handholds and footholds and scale the tree that way, at the same time carrying a man’s corpse.
One thing the Terror didn’t seem to lack for, Frank reminded himself, was strength. A creature that could rip a man’s arms off his body was capable of some prodigious feats.
Why climb up and hide the body in the tree, though? What purpose did that serve?
But again, this was the Terror, an irrational being if ever there was one. It didn’t do any good to questions its motives as you would those of a normal man. The creature seemed to operate on pure, destructive rage.
It hadn’t done a very good job of wedging the corpse into place either. As Frank watched, the body began to slip. There was nothing he could do to prevent it from falling, so he lifted the reins and backed Stormy away from the tree, getting well out of the way.
“Come on, Dog,” he said.
Goldy retreated as well. A few moments later, the body slipped free. It plummeted toward the earth, turning over once as it fell. It landed with a heavy thud at the base of the tree, in the same place where the blood drops had landed.