“There are some people who are not people,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “They put on wolf-skins and walk like animals. Do you know about things like this?”
“I do.”
“You cannot fight them the way you would fight a man,” he continued. “We should go back.”
“We’ll wait here for Brand,” I replied.
The others showed up half an hour later, fourteen strong, mostly hands from Brand’s ranch. They called him “Old Man” Brand even though he wasn’t yet fifty and he sat as straight in his saddle as anyone. He trotted his big roan gelding to us and glared at me.
“What’s going on, Mather?” he demanded. “Why are you two sitting here? That’s as easy a trail to follow as I’ve ever seen.”
Tomás looked away. He could tell me we needed to turn back, but not Brand. That wasn’t a job I looked forward to either, but I didn’t see a choice.
“Let’s ride together, Mr. Brand,” I said. “We’ll go on ahead.”
He looked at me a moment as if he was trying to figure out something, then nodded.
“Sure,” he said.
I mounted and the two of us trotted our horses into the trees.
“There’s something you want to tell me?” he asked.
“I think there’s something you should tell me first. What kind of wolves are we after?”
“What did Tomás say to you?”
“He said these ain’t normal wolves,” I replied. “That’s no surprise to me. Normal wolves don’t go attacking people and they sure as hell don’t break into a schoolhouse and kill nine children and a teacher.”
The rancher returned my hard stare with black eyes set in a face weathered by twenty years of ranch work in the New Mexico wilderness. There was a touch of guilt in his expression, but nothing of apology.
“If you’re thinking of frightening my men with ghost stories—”
“There’s a child running with them,” I said, cutting him off. “We found the tracks.”
Brand’s mouth opened and closed several times and the anger drained from his eyes. Suddenly he looked twenty years older and confused.
“A boy’s tracks?” he asked.
“Probably,” I said. “Feet were big for a girl, small for a grown man.”
“Adam…” he said.
“Your son? You said he was killed with the other children.”
“I couldn’t be sure. We found the bodies but only eight, and Miz Parsons. I couldn’t tell if he was one of them or not. They were torn up so bad.” He took a deep, shuddering breath and seemed to draw strength from the bitter-cold air. When he spoke again his voice was still haunted, but stronger.
“Why in God’s name would they take him, Mather? You’re supposed to know about these things. Tell me why!”
“You think I know?”
“You’ve hunted these things before,” he said. “Your family’s done this going back two hundred years to Cotton Mather when he hunted witches in Salem. That’s the truth, ain’t it?”
It was, but it wasn’t a truth I told to many people. I didn’t care for my legacy and the things it demanded from me; I sure as hell didn’t want it advertised.
“Who told you that?” I asked.
“The wolfers.”
“Who?”
“I hired three wolf-trappers,” Brand said, “an old man and his sons. They told me about these wolves and said I should send for you. They said you’d know how to fight these things.”
“Who is this old man?”
“Ask him yourself,” Brand said. “If my son’s alive I’m not wasting my time answering fool questions.” He spurred his horse and left me behind with too many questions.
Heavy clouds began to move in as we rode. By the time I called a halt, a few fat snowflakes had started to fall. Brand had been in the lead with Tomás but wheeled back when the men began to dismount.
“What in Hades are you men doing?” he shouted, his deep voice thundering with anger.
“Making camp,” I replied. I had dismounted and was tethering my horse to some manzanita bushes.
“Look at this snow! We’ll lose the trail.”
“Mr. Brand,” I said, keeping my voice quiet and reasonable. “We do not want to face those wolves at night. They’ll cut us to pieces.”
“I say we stay after them,” Brand said.
I stared up at him, making no move toward my horse. Around me the horses of the hunting party shifted as their riders watched the two of us. Finally one of the men broke the silence.
“What’s he talking about, Mr. Brand?”
“Damned if I know,” the rancher said. “Damned if I care, either. Those wolves killed our children and I want their pelts by morning.” He raised his voice. “I’ll pay a hundred dollars to any man who pushes on with me and another hundred for each wolf you kill.”
A murmur went through the riders, surprise mingled with a touch of fear.
“Tell them,” I said. “If you’re going to push them into going, tell them what they’re hunting.”
Brand’s only reply was to spit a stream of tobacco juice. The liquid cut a jagged, dirty line in the snow.
“Werewolves,” I said, never taking my eyes from his.
“What’s he saying, Mr. Brand?” one of the ranch hands asked.
“They’re as smart as a man and stronger than any normal wolf,” I continued. “Your guns may not be able to stop them.”
“There ain’t nothing in this world a bullet can’t kill,” Brand growled.
“A silver bullet, maybe,” I said. “Wolfsbane-poison, maybe. If you’d told me about this before, maybe I could have gotten your men prepared. As it is, they’ll slaughter you. No maybe about it.”
The riders remained silent, not sure what to do with this new information. There were sixteen of us, mostly Brand’s cowhands along with a couple of farmers and a few townies. I could see disbelief on some faces and Old-World fear on others as they remembered the stories they had heard form their own parents.
“Do you want to turn back?” Brand asked. “Are you men afraid of some superstition? If you are, then ride back to the ranch and collect your pay. I’ll have no cowards working for me.”
He was strong—he’d had to be to build a ranch like his in the high desert country—and his words hit the men like the sting of a whip.
“Mr. Brand,” Tomás said. “I can’t go on.”
Brand turned to face him, a look of astonishment and hurt on his face.
“I wouldn’t have followed any other man this far,” the tracker said. “But I will not go farther.”
“All right then,” Brand said, his voice colder than the mountain air. “I should have listened when everyone told me I was a fool to hire a half-breed.” He wheeled his horse and began to following the tracks again. Several of his men followed him. A moment later another pair followed. Soon only six men remained with me in the small clearing.
“Tomás, are you staying in camp tonight?” I asked.
He shook his head and I could see the pain that speaking back to Brand had caused him.
“My mother’s people say that white ash wood can hurt the yee-naa-gloo-shee,” he said.
“Sometimes they burn it and roll their bullets in the ashes.”
“Thanks,” I said.
He shook his head. “Mr. Brand will die tonight,” he said. “All of you will die soon unless you turn back.”
I didn’t reply, and after a minute he rode off into the dusk.
We made a fire and cooked dinner. A couple of the men found a mountain ash and we tried the trick Tomás had told me. Despite the darkness and the cold the men were too keyed up to sleep so we sat around the fire and played cards in the falling snow.
Only two of Brand’s men had stayed with me, a seasoned cowhand named Lute and a skinny kid called “Turkey.” The others were two brothers named Flynn who had a homestead at the edge of Brand’s ranch, another farmer called Stanislaus, and a barber named Duggan who’d ridden with me from
the nearby town of Las Vegas.
“Werewolves,” Danny Flynn said. “I feel like a damned fool for even half-believing that.”
“It’s real,” Stanislaus replied, drawing three cards. “I hear all about them in the old country.”
“D’you really need a silver bullet to kill them?”
“I hear they’re hard to kill,” Stanislaus said, “but maybe regular bullets do it.”
“I come from Virginny,” Turkey said. “Folks there say that a silver bullet can kill a witch, a giant or someone living a charmed life. I never heard about no werewolf.”
“What do you think, Mather?” Lute asked.
“Maybe,” I said. I folded my hand, which hadn’t turned into anything better than a pair of treys.
“I’d sure feel some better if I had a couple of silver bullets to try, anyhow,” Turkey said.
“You’ve got silver,” I said, nodding to Turkey’s hat. It was old and battered, but he’d spruced it up with a hatband made of silver conchos.
He took it off and studied it for a minute, then grinned bashfully.
“You saying I should melt these down to make bullets?”
“No, but you could break them up very small, then pull the buckshot out of a couple of shotgun shells and replace it with the silver.”
“I s’pose,” Turkey said, putting the hat back on. “Damn expensive ammunition though. That band cost me fifteen dollars.”
A rifle sounded in the distance and our heads all jerked in its direction. We knew it was Brand’s party. A moment later we heard a storm of rifles, punctuated by the occasional pistol shot, or the boom of a shotgun. It lasted for a few minutes, then faded away.
“You think they killed them?” Turkey asked.
“I sure as hell hope so,” Lute said.
A moment later the sound of wolf-song cut through the air. A dozen voices lifted in a triumphant chorus of howling that turned my insides to ice.
“Sweet Jesus,” Turkey whispered. Stanislaus crossed himself and all of us stared, as if we could somehow pierce the darkness and distance and confirm what we knew to be true.
No one slept easily the rest of the night. We took turns keeping sentry, and Turkey spent several hours hammering his pretty silver hatband into jagged shards.
The next morning Lute and the Flynn brothers lit out for home. I couldn’t blame them; in fact, I was about half-decided to head after them. Brand had been a fool, bringing me on this hunt so unprepared, and I’d shed no tears for him if he was lying dead under a snow-bank.
Still, Turkey wanted to see if any of his friends had survived, and Stanislaus still burned with the need to see his six-year-old daughter avenged. I didn’t want to leave them alone.
We found the bodies as the sun was nearing its zenith in a sky so blue and cloudless that it almost hurt to look at it. We nearly rode past for the snow had fallen thickly there, hiding the frozen blood and mangled bodies and covering the carnage with the illusion of purity and peace. It was the ravens showed us where to look; a pair of big, mean-looking scavengers who circled the charnel-ground, waiting to feast on the men who had died.
Three men had arrived ahead of us; big men in buckskins and furs carrying old-fashioned rifles. The younger two were blond and the older, their father I guessed, had hair and full beard nearly as white as the snow.
Brand was the only survivor; the wolfers had dug him out of the snow, wrapped him in furs and set him up against a rock.
“Mather,” he whispered as I approached.
“What is it?”
“My son… Adam’s alive. I…saw him with them, naked, like an animal.”
I nodded, not really understanding but wanting him to continue.
“Bring him back,” he said, clutching my arm with surprising strength. “Bring him home. I promised his Ma…promised Cecelia…”
“How?” I asked. “From what I can see you and all your men didn’t kill a single wolf. How do you expect us to do better?”
“You have to…” he said, gasping and his grip tightened. “Have to…it’ll kill her to lose both—” His grip loosened and the light in his eyes turned dull.
I brushed off his hand and stood, silently cursing the man for making me want to help him. I turned to the trappers. The hard life of the wilderness had taken its toll on them. The old man had lost an eye, though the way he wore his wide-brimmed hat tended to hide this. The bigger of his sons was missing a hand, though the leaner one seemed to have all his parts.
“He’s dead,” I said.
“A brave man,” the old trapper replied.
“Maybe, but he was a fool in the end.”
The old man grinned and fixed his gaze on me. His one eye was a shade of blue that was even colder, more pitiless, and more beautiful than the New Mexico sky. The thought jumped into my head that this was someone who had seen so much that he was no longer human. Without thinking, I took a step back from him.
“What about you, Dave Mather?” he asked. “Are you foolish enough, or brave enough, to finish what he started?”
“What do you care?” I said, feeling a surge of fear that quickly turned to anger. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“Name’s Orrin,” he said. “My sons are Tyree and X.”
“You told Brand some things about me,” I said.
“And you want to know how I knew, is that it?” He grinned in a way that made me take another step back. That was two more steps than I’d ever backed down from another man. I swore to myself that it would be the last time with him.
“I want to know,” I said.
“The same way I know that your father was a sea captain who carried your family’s fight to distant ports until he was killed there. All knowledge can be had, if you’re willing to pay the price.”
“Maybe you should tell me who you are, Mister,” I said, resting my palm against the handle of the .41 Colt I carried in my belt.
“I’ll tell you a story,” he said. “A long time ago, before the time of Cotton Mather and even before the time of the White Christ there was a wolf. He was strong, so that iron couldn’t kill him, nor silver, nor wolfsbane, nor anything we knew. But while we could not kill him, we found a way to bind him. It cost Tyree his hand, but we locked him away.”
The old man’s voice had a power in it that made the world seem to grow colder and darker as he spoke. I could almost believe that he was as old as his mad story implied. Stanislaus and Turkey had drifted close and seemed to be as caught up as I was.
“What’s he saying, Mr. Mather?” Stanislaus asked. I shook my head as the old man continued.
“The wolf couldn’t go forth, but he could send others. He taught them the secret of putting on wolf-skins and preying on men. We hunt them, my sons and I, and we will until Judgment Day.
“You three are wiser than those who followed Brand and braver than those who turned back. Will you finish the hunt with us?”
Turkey looked at me, but Stanislaus shook his head.
“Mister,” he said, “I can’t say if that’s devil-talk or just mad talk. Either way, I don’t want no part of it. I’m going home to bury my little girl and, Good Lord willing, that’s an end to it for me.”
“I mean to go on,” Turkey said. “Just as soon as we see to these bodies.”
“It’s okay, Turkey,” I said. “I’ll go ahead. You and Stanislaus take care of the bodies then head back. Pick up Lute and Tomás if you can.”
“But Mr. Brand… he fired them.”
“His widow’s going to need all the good hands she can get to keep the ranch going.”
“You sure?” Turkey asked.
I nodded, and he looked both relieved and disappointed.
As a matter of fact, I wasn’t sure, and felt about as scared as Turkey looked. I didn’t trust the wolfers much more than I did the creatures we were hunting. I guess a part of me didn’t like walking away from a mystery like this, and part of me didn’t like leaving Brand’s wife a widow and childless without m
aking an effort.
There were too many bodies to try and carry back to town and the ground was frozen solid. We ended building a pyre and setting it ablaze. Orrin said that was the best thing with men who had been killed by wolves anyway, for sometimes they came back if the body wasn’t destroyed.
Turkey gave me his silver-loaded shotgun before we parted ways.
We rode the rest of the day in silence, following a trail that only X seemed able to see. Orrin and Tyree talked in some language I didn’t understand, and laughed from time to time. I kept my distance from them, feeling more of a kinship with X, who never spoke but kept to his job with a single mind.
We stopped at a small clearing at midday and Tyree dismounted and started to build a small cooking fire. The sun was out, though there were huge clouds overhead, like snow-white mountains slowly making their way across the sky.
“We should press on,” I said.
“There is no need,” Orrin said, gracing me with his disturbing smile. “We will see them before sundown.”
“How in God’s name could you know that?” I asked, scanning the trackless mountain expanse.
“X knows. He is a good tracker.”
“Why do you call him X?”
“The Apache call him Eskaminzim,” the old man said. “That’s too much of a mouthful for Tyree so we shortened it to X.”
I nodded. “What’s it mean?”
“It means ‘big mouth.’”
“I haven’t heard him speak yet.”
“The Apache have a sense of humor.”
We dismounted and moved to the fire, which was starting to blaze.
“Why doesn’t he talk?” I asked.
“Why don’t you ever stop?”
We had beans and coffee, which helped lift the chill from my bones. I chased the meal down with a swallow of whiskey then offered my flask to the others. Tyree took a swallow and grunted appreciatively. Orrin grinned after his taste.
“Not bad, but we have something better.”
He nodded to X, who took a small jug from his saddlebags which he uncorked and passed to me. The aroma wasn’t like anything I knew; it was as warm as an early summer’s day and tinged with a delicate sweetness.
“What is it?” I asked.
Both Barrels of Monster Hunter Legends (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 1) Page 5