The wolf’s eyes search the tree line of my little hill, his ears are plastered to his forehead and all his teeth bared in anger and fear.
“There’s only one way you’re getting out of that notch alive.”
“And how is that?” Oddly, the wolf lips warble coherent, if heavily accented English.
“Show me how to bend, to change my shape and hunt like an animal.”
The wolf throws back its muzzle and something bubbles from its throat between a growl and a throaty laugh…
“You have to really want it,” its voice chokes with dark mirth.
“Show me how you do it. Then I might let you live.”
“You have to prepare yourself, first. I trust you laid the trap that wounded this girl. Finish the kill.”
I have killed enough men now that killing her to get what I was after didn’t cause me more than a moment’s hesitation. I pull my bowie knife and walked down the ravine, rifle still trained on the wolf.
“No. You have to do it with your bare hands,” its voice fills with bitter sarcasm. “Like an animal.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have to do it only with your teeth and your claws. Otherwise, it won’t affect the change in you.”
So I fall upon the hiker, I gnaw at her throat while she twitches and gasps and tear a hot chunk of her flesh out, spasming blood onto the hard snow pack. It isn’t easy, by any means. My lips and gums are cracked and bleeding almost as much as her throat. I tear at the gap with my nails and they tear to the quick as I wrenched the sinews of her neck apart.
Her look of stark terror clouds as she leaves her trembling body. Covered in hot copper I begin to feel a change. I also feel intense pain.
“Now her belly, slice it open and feed on her entrails.”
The belly is even harder than the throat. So much flesh and muscle to work through before I reach her fetid entrails, wriggling and spilling onto the cold pack ice.
I stink, I am half mad with the pain, and I gorge on the sweetest taste of human flesh. I definitely feel a change. Now I am the ultimate hunter.
I hear the merciless warbling laughter again. When I look up, it is into a man’s face of contempt.
“You monster,” he enunciates clearly into the air.
I am too stunned to speak and my tongue is swollen and cracked by salt.
“You would eat your own kind?!”
“You did first,” I croak accusingly.
“When I was very young, my grandfather taught me to walk and to talk like your people. Our packs were scattered and killed. Our hunting grounds were paved and landscaped. It was the only way for our people to survive and continue.”
“You thought you had found a man who had dreamed of becoming a wolf. What you have found instead is the nightmare of a wolf who must play at being a man to stay alive. I have nothing for you but disgust. You are a horror to me.”
“But you’re an abomination,” I sputter bitterly through blood caked lips.
The creature raises its all too human looking eyebrows mockingly.
With a desperate roar, I spring on the creature. I tear at it with fingers worn down to the bone in my frenzy. They bite into his fur. My teeth, long and jagged after the gums have worn away seek after his tender throat. His fangs, in turn, sink into my flesh, and his claws tear into my gut. Man in wolf, wolf in man. We spill our hot blood onto the frozen ground.
Black Horse Trading Company
Miles Boothe
A jolt and the sweet, metallic taste of blood in his mouth pulled William back into consciousness. Pain shot down his arm, across his ribs, and through his head, the split across his scalp a sharp ache as he shifted his weight.
The split across my scalp…
His eyelids only just fluttered before a thin voice whispered next to him, “If you’re awake, don’t speak…”
His left wrist burned and his thoughts were scattered as he continued to drag open his eyes. Another jolt and his wrist was on fire. He glared up in reflex, only to see it bloody and manacled to the crossbar of a heavy iron cage.
The explosion had thrown him back. He’d lost his gun. There were too many riders…
He lowered his gaze toward the whisper, and met eyes with a small girl half buried under a dirty Mexican blanket. The wagon bucked again, sending pain searing through his arm…
“Oh—Hell.”
The girl shushed him with a finger to her lips, panic flooding her eyes. William bit his tongue mid-curse, struggling to remember things back together, and tried to look a soothing expression toward the stricken child. None of it worked. He looked back at the bloody mess that was his wrist.
This wasn’t a Sheriff’s wagon.
The thought that his two friends had been with him crashed into his head, and he quickly looked around the cage for J.W. or Fong. But neither was present, just the girl.
Leaning back against the bars, William closed his eyes and tried to calm himself enough to concentrate.
They had set the traps for the beast. J.W. was on watch, and Fong was prowling around somewhere. The sound of hooves had stirred William, his first thought being that some fool had stumbled into the killing ground…
Now the sound of hooves and monotonous rolling of wheels were stirring him awake again, and as his head began to clear, he took stock of his predicament. That he was chained to the inside of a cage was concerning. That it was draped over by canvas to hide what was inside, and that he shared the cage with this waif of a girl was a very bad sign. The girl stared at him, giving him time. His next thought was of his gun, and he looked down.
The gun was in his belt.
William flinched hard, grabbed the butt of his pistol, and pulled.
The girl never moved, just sat resigned, and whispered, “They do that on purpose.”
His thumb rested with tension on the hammer, his eyes locking on the girl’s as he registered the wide bladed knife she held up for him to see.
“They like to leave you with something so that you can kill yourself if you want to. At night they bet money over whether you will or not.”
That she said it as flat as she did was as disturbing as the fact of it…he looked down to see one bullet only in the chamber. He eased his thumb back, trying to get control of his pulse, and asked in a rough whisper, “Where are we?”
The girl’s shoulders shrugged under the blanket, and she whispered back, “I don’t know.”
He closed his eyes again because they ached. He’d been captured and taken prisoner; that much was obvious. He couldn’t remember much after Fong set off the explosions, but as the split on his scalp began to ache in earnest, he remembered the toothy grin of the man who had given it to him.
William squinted now to look around. His throat was raw and dry, which must have been obvious because the girl pointed to a corked bottle next to him, which he picked up, and pulled the cork in his teeth. Water. He brought it to his lips in a rush.
“They said you would be thirsty. But, now they’ll know you’re awake.”
He stopped gulping long enough to stare at her. He knew that this tiny girl had just told him that he had given up any element of surprise, but he didn’t care, and went back to gulping. He finished half of the bottle before he stopped to breathe and asked the girl another question.
“Are you supposed to be the jail keeper?”
She shook her head no, and pulled the blanket back to reveal a similar manacle around her ankle. It was less bloody than his arm, but more bruised for having been there longer, and her bare feet were dirty. He must have wrinkled his face because she quickly pulled the blanket back over her. He felt a stab of pity, and searched for words that might comfort her. “That’s got to hurt. I find it hard to believe that they’re scared enough of you to lock you up like that. You must be pretty dangerous.” He tried to crack a smile, and pulled the split on his head instead. He winced, making it worse.
Her face remained blank. “They lock me up to keep me f
rom running.”
His brows drew together, “Why do they do that?”
“So that they can use me.”
William’s throat closed a little at that. Again, her matter-of-fact demeanor chilled him. He fumbled to try something else.
“My name is William.”
She nodded. “I know. You’re William Hesketh. You killed one of their men that turns into an animal.”
Ice crept through his veins, and his composure dropped a bit.
“How do you know about that?” His whisper had turned fast and edgy, “Who are these people? What else did they tell you?” He saw that he was scaring her, and paused to hold his hand up, still grasping the bottle of water. “I’m sorry… I’m just very confused right now.” He went quiet.
She nodded again, slowly this time. “It’s alright.” Her eyes were big, flashes of panic darted across them, but she held it in. “I’m Sara.”
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Sara. That’s a very pretty name.”
“Thank you.”
He kept his voice calm this time. “Do you know who the men outside are?”
“I don’t know any of them, I just recognize the one that brings the food and water. And the one who caught me, but I haven’t seen him since they locked me in here. And I know that the man who brought you here is named Evan.”
William’s blood began to rise at the mention of the other man.
They had followed the beast through the mountains for weeks as it left its sickle-clawed tracks pointing toward Evan’s town. William had taken a risk to warn his old deputy about it being close. His ‘friend’ thanked him by ambushing him and throwing him in this cage…
William fought to keep his anger down. “He brought me here this morning?”
She shook her head, catching William off guard. He asked again.
“He brought me here yesterday?”
She nodded. He must have taken more of a knock than he had figured.
He tipped the bottle back again, and realized that Sara was staring at it. He looked around her, but there were no bottles.
“Do you have any water?”
She shook her head.
Disgust shot through his veins like grit as the situation unfolded before him. He watched the half mad eyes of the girl as he pushed the cork back into the bottle with his teeth. He could only imagine the things she had suffered in this wagon, and she hadn’t even bothered to ask him for any water. He put the bottle down on its side to roll to her.
“Don’t!” Her whisper was strident as she held a hand out. “They’ll hear the noise. I’m already in trouble for not calling them when you woke up, but if I pretend like I was sleeping, they won’t hurt me too bad.”
She pulled the blanket from around her and tossed an end toward him, motioning him to place the bottle on it. He did, and she pulled it back to her, slowly, silently, until she could reach out and grab it. She pulled the cork out with her own teeth, closed her eyes and drank deeply.
The blanket lay around her now, and William could see that she hadn’t been fed either, all skin and bones under the rag of a dress she wore. Far too thin…
Sara realized too late that she hadn’t replaced the blanket, and pulled it back over part of herself, but she didn’t stop drinking.
Pity and revulsion filled him, but did not have time to fully register before a corner of the canvas was thrown back to reveal a man riding beside them.
“There’s my girl, and doing exactly what I warned her not to do.” Evan shook his head. “You don’t learn easy, do you?” He sighed. “Well, I reckon I know how we can fix that…” He looked down at William. “Hello, Bill.”
Rage flooded through him, but William forced himself into composure.
“Evan. I don’t suppose you want to explain to me what in the hell is going on.”
Evan Chapes barked a laugh, “Well, of course I will, Bill. That’s the least I can do for an old friend. Hell, you’re more than that, you were the first Sheriff to ever deputize me.” He gave a nasty smile. “I guess I owe my career to you.” Evan’s horse walked beside of the wagon, making Evan taller than William, who still lay propped against the bars. Evan reached up to pull the canvas back a little more, the daylight bright enough to make William and Sara look down.
“But you ain’t Sheriff any more, are you Bill? No sir, you’ve taken up a different kind of work now.” There was a maniacal tension in Evan’s voice, a trace of desperation mixed with excitement.
“Problem is, you attracted the wrong kind of attention from the wrong kind of people, and you’ve killed some men that those people considered valuable. Very valuable.” William clenched his jaw. “I only ever killed beasts.”
Evan snorted, “You always did have a real simple view of the world, Bill. It’s too bad, really—you never did see the big picture.”
It was William’s turn to laugh now, “Still a fool. You were hardly worth a damn as a deputy back then, and judging from your shiny new boots and tailored coat, I can see you haven’t changed. Bet you still practice your quick draw more than you shoot…” He chuckled at the last.
Evan cut him off. “I’m turning you in for a bounty, and you know who’s offered it? The Black Horse Trading Company.” His eyes were crazy as he said it, and at the mention of the name, William’s eyes narrowed.
“You got mixed up with them? How stupid can you be?”
“Shut up, Bill. All that matters to me now is that I collect the money that they put on your head. And that, my friend, is going to buy me a lot more than new boots and a coat.”
A shout from ahead caught Evan’s attention, and he stood in his saddle to look before he turned back to the cage. “You’re in luck! It looks like one of them is here. You just wait, Bill, you’re going to get a real kick out of meeting this fella. Young Sara here can tell you all about him, they’ve already met.” He gave her an evil wink. “Don’t run off, now.” He laughed and jerked the canvas back over the cage.
The light had faded back into dimness, but that did nothing to lessen the expression of terror on Sara’s face.
“I want him dead.”
Evan didn’t move, but he kept his hand close to the butt of his pistol as he answered, “Unless you’re ready to pay me what’s been promised, I need him alive for three more days. Until the others get here.”
Muddy brown colored eyes filled with rage turned to stare at Evan. “By the time the others get here, Hesketh’s head will be hanging from the front wagon.”
It was a bad spot to be in with Lassiter, Evan knew, and his thoughts were spinning to control what was quickly brewing up to be a fight.
“Look, Hesketh ain’t going to cause nobody any trouble while he’s locked up. Hell, he might be too roughed-up to do anything even if he wasn’t chained. He’s not a problem for you.”
The man stared back at Evan with those eyes. He didn’t wear a hat, a jacket, or even a gun. Long, blond hair caught the wind as his voice lowered.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Deputy. No idea at all…” Lassiter sneered as his eyes bore into Evan’s own. “Fellas like you don’t cut it out here.” He walked slowly toward Evan until he was very close. “You should have stayed in your town and never come out here.”
It took everything Evan had not to pull his gun, but he fought down the urge. With Lassiter this close, he could only try to stand his ground and match his stare. Lassiter gave an evil grin, laughed in Evan’s face and turned to the four other men that had gathered to watch.
“Unload the big male and leave it in its cage. Then you ride on so that you make it to the outpost before dark. Keep the animals in the barn and stay inside the house. No matter what.” He looked toward the lead handler. The man nodded that he understood and they set out to do as they were told. Lassiter turned and began to walk away.
Evan relaxed a little, even as he realized that his authority had just been cut out from under him. He didn’t like his prospects if he let that s
tand and swung up into his saddle.
The four men, all hired hands to transport the wagon train, had already moved to a wagon holding two cages. The canvas was pulled from one cage, revealing a massive wolf that dropped into a crouch and bared its teeth. Iron bars were already being slipped under the bottom of the cage to lift it off.
“Hold up now…” Evan’s voice lacked the command that Lassiter’s had held, and only one of the handlers even turned to look at him. Just as quickly, another handler grabbed his shoulder and turned him to face the cage again. Evan was confused…
“Hey, Deputy.”
Evan turned to find Lassiter grinning at him from a short distance away. The man spoke in a low and menacing tone. “Do you want to know why the men won’t even bother to look at you?”
Evan said nothing.
“Well, I’ll tell you, it’s because they know you’re already dead.”
With that, the blond man ran straight for Evan, sprinting, until he was close enough to leap. The surprise of it slowed Evan’s response and he didn’t pull the gun clear of its holster before Lassiter tackled him out of his saddle and they landed in a heap in the dirt. Evan’s gun went off on impact, and Lassiter yelled, pulling his arm back to reveal blood flowing from a groove driven across his forearm. He just bared his teeth more, and tore into Evan with a ferocity that was barely human.
Evan struggled to fight back, but was no match for the other man. His gun was knocked out of his hand, and he rolled to find his knife, only to discover it gone as well. Lassiter was delivering him a terrible beating, but it had all happened so fast that he hadn’t truly started to panic yet. That changed as he felt the other man’s hands close around his throat, fingers digging into the flesh and tearing through it. Evan tried to scream then, but couldn’t, and then his wild thrashing began in earnest.
Lassiter held him down, his eyes lit with a killing lust and in the end, as the darkness closed, Evan’s fear peaked as he convulsed several times from lack of oxygen. Lassiter’s fingers tore through flesh and blood sprayed from his neck as Evan lost consciousness. He shuddered once more and lay still.
Both Barrels of Monster Hunter Legends (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 1) Page 12