Cato bared his teeth and fired again and a second wolf howled briefly before falling lifeless. The Manstopper crashed again and again and each time he brought down a racing, slavering beast.
“Left!” croaked Locke.
Cato swung the gun that way and saw two wolves coming in, belly down, from the left. He flicked the toggle swiftly to the shot barrel and dropped hammer. The thunder of the shot barrel shook loose snow from the low branches of the skeletal tree and the wolves yelped and howled. One dropped with blood spattering the snow around him. The other ran off, limping, dragging its red-smeared hindquarters. The scent of hot blood seemed to drive the rest of the pack into a frenzy. They veered away and lunged at the dead animals, howling, snarling, fighting as they tore them apart.
Cato took the opportunity to reload with numbed fingers pushing the freezing cartridges home. He shoved in his last shot shell: he had been unable to find the one he had dropped in the dark last night. Out of the snarling, leaping, snatching welter of snapping fangs, the first wolf broke away, jowls dripping blood, and continued its lope across the snow towards the two men. It hadn’t taken a dozen steps before others broke off and came in on their interrupted attack. Cato raised the Manstopper, aimed carefully and fired. He winged one animal but the others ignored it now and came on. The Manstopper cracked seemingly endlessly, moving to the left, the right, dead ahead, up a little, a big swing left, a wide sweep clear across the face of the slope to catch a leaping, snarling lobo in midair, the bullet sending the jerking body flying away several feet. The face of the slope was littered with carcasses and Cato reluctantly used his final shot shell on two persistent animals that tried to get behind them.
The thunderous roar slapped and echoed across the face of the slope as it ripped the wolves apart in twin explosions of blood and fur, and the remaining four animals howled and yapped threateningly but backed off amidst the sprawled bodies of their comrades in the blood-stained snow.
Wearily, freezing, Cato fumbled out some more cartridges and thumbed them into the cylinder. He sucked his fingertips to get the blood circulating again and ran them over the loops on the cartridge belt. His face was grim as he glanced at the huddled, anxious senator.
“How many left?” Locke asked.
Cato stared at him a moment, then figured there was no use lying. “After this cylinder full, seven,” he said flatly.
Jonas Locke pursed purple, snow-dusted lips and looked slowly back up the slope to where the wolves were howling mournfully amongst their dead companions. It sounded like they were calling up more of the pack.
Seven – Wolf’s Lair
Wolf Duane sat his saddle very still, head on one side, listening, his fur jacket collar pulled up around his ears. As the horse of one of his men stomped, he rounded savagely and ripped out a curse. The bunch of men listened again but there was nothing.
“That was gunfire, all right,” Duane announced. “Back down at the timberline, I reckon. What you figure, Hog? You’re a mountain man.”
The big man with the wounded foot nodded slowly.
“Sounded to me like it come from over on the west face.”
Duane arched his eyebrows. “They’ve made better time than we figured.”
“You want we should bring them hounds up again, Wolf?” Hog asked.
Duane shook his head. “They can’t smell anythin’ in this cold up this high. Send ’em back with Murdoch. Wonder what in hell Cato was shootin’ at? Sounded like a small war.”
“Wolves?”
“Yeah, mebbe. They’ve sure been howlin’ durin’ the night. I just hope they ain’t tore him and the senator apart too much. I want the pleasure of finishin’ ’em off, myself!”
He wheeled his mount, jamming in the spurs and started across the face of the mountain, Hog and the others following. The man named Murdoch, in charge of the hounds, stayed to put out the campfire and then gather his pack and head slowly back down the mountainside towards the distant Diamond-D.
Duane’s face was grim and anxious as he rode through the snow, angling downwards, towards the timberline. There was no point in staying in the high country now: those gunshots had come from lower down the slope, the west face, most likely, as Hog had said. With any luck, they would come across Cato and the senator still alive there and he would even be prepared to go in against a wolf pack to wrest the men from their snapping jaws.
As long as he had the pleasure of watching them die slowly and painfully, he would take any risk.
~*~
Except for a man feeding a pack of yapping, excited hounds in a pen, the Diamond-D seemed deserted to Yancey and the Indian girl as they watched from a screen of brush above the ranch yard. There was a thin curl of blue smoke rising from the cook shack chimney, so possibly the cook was still there.
But the corrals were almost empty and the door of the bunkhouse was open and they could see no one inside moving about. The man who was feeding the hounds had a fur jacket hung loosely about his shoulders and it dripped with melting snow. His boots were caked with mud and the horse he had tethered to the corral post was also spattered with mud and wet patches clear to the belly. They were all signs that the man had very recently come down off the peaks and the snow up there.
Yancey figured the hounds had been used to track Cato and the senator. He glanced up at the peaks. There was only a very fine mist of snow blowing off the top now, so the wind must have dropped considerably up there. It was many degrees warmer down here but any man trapped on those glaring white slopes up there would freeze unless he had adequate clothing, food and warmth. His mouth tightened as he thought of Cato up there.
The girl was silent, saying nothing, though her eyes moved restlessly over the Diamond-D yard, observing, reasoning, all the time.
“Guess most of ’em are out searching for my pard,” Yancey said quietly.
She said nothing but pointed as there was a brief, brilliant flash from the dog run that connected the cook shack with the bunkhouse. Yancey swore to himself as he spotted a man in a stained flour sack apron, obviously the cook, standing outside the door with an old army telescope to his eye. It was pointed in their direction and the sun flashed from the objective lens again.
“He’s spotted us!” Yancey snapped, then made his decision. “Stay here. I’ll handle those two!”
He spurred the sorrel forward instantly, whipping out his rifle from the scabbard, running the horse in across the slope and down to the yard even as he heard the cook yell a warning. The man at the hound pack whirled, dropping the plate of scraps, palming up his Colt.
Yancey threw the rifle to his shoulder and fired, his lead tearing a handful of splinters from the plank of the pen beside the man. It was Murdoch, fresh down from the Sierras, and he threw himself headlong, triggered wildly, and rolled under the bottom plank of the pen, getting in amongst his hounds. They yapped and slobbered over him as he cussed them, shoved them aside and got to his knees. He rested his gun barrel across the top of the pen and fired three swift shots at the racing Yancey.
The Enforcer lay low over the sorrel’s neck, bringing the rifle across the saddle and shooting from his stretched-out position. He levered fast as he pounded by the dog pen and the lead punched large, ragged holes in the planks. Murdoch hit the grit, staying down as Yancey tore past. The cook had run inside and now came back with a cumbersome old shotgun. He got it to his shoulder and Yancey wrenched the sorrel aside as the gun boomed. The recoil sent the cook staggering and Yancey leaned down and fired his rifle one-handed under the horse’s neck. The cook was just straightening as the lead hit him and sent him stumbling back against the wall beside the cook shack door. He tried to straighten and bring up the shotgun but Yancey fired again and he spun out into the dog run, sprawling onto his face. Yancey wheeled away, lead singing around his ears as Murdoch blasted at him from the pen.
The Enforcer levered in a fresh shell, threw his right leg over the saddle and quit leather as the horse pounded on across the yard. He hit
hard and rolled in behind the corner of the barn. Murdoch’s lead chewed splinters from the edge. Panting, Yancey ran back down the side of the barn, found where several boards were hanging loose and wrenched them aside. He ducked inside the big building and ran back to the double doors, keeping a stack of baled hay between him and the dog’s pen. Murdoch was shooting at the barn corner but caught a glimpse of Yancey inside just as the Enforcer raised the rifle. Startled, he threw himself backwards, firing wildly.
Yancey’s lead punched clear through the planks of the pen and Murdoch cried out as the flattened slug tore into his side. He staggered upright, holding the blood-pumping hole with one hand, lifting his Colt with the other. He staggered against the side of the pen, the hounds leaping and yapping around him. He fired again and again, not really knowing what he was doing, simply going down fighting. Yancey put a bullet through his head and the man catapulted clear across the pen, smashed into the top plank and actually jarred it loose before sliding down onto his face.
Yancey stayed where he was for a few moments, eyes watching the still body of the cook and then moving on to the house. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around. Slowly, he got to his feet and walked out into the yard, rifle at the ready.
There was a gunshot, the shattering of glass, and Yancey dropped, spinning towards the house. He was just in time to see a man’s huddled body flopping across the windowsill beside the house’s main door. A gun slid from his hands. Puzzled, Yancey spun towards the rear and saw the Indian girl sitting her horse, deadpan, as she lowered a smoking rifle from her shoulder. He gusted out a sigh of relief, as he got to his feet and gave her a brief wave of thanks.
The man in the dog pen was dead and so was the one in the house that the Indian girl had shot. But the cook was still alive, though badly hurt. Yancey knelt beside him, propping the man up against the wall as Cindy rode up and sat her mount silently, watching as Yancey shook the cook gently.
“Hey, amigo ... snap out of it!”
The man’s head rolled loosely on his shoulders and he moaned. Yancey gave him another brief, hard shake.
“Come on, feller! I want some information out of you!” The cook opened one eye, squinting, coughing. He looked up at Yancey and beyond him to the impassive Indian girl.
“You—you’re Bannerman?” he croaked.
“I’m Bannerman. And in no mood for the runaround. Where’s Duane and the others?”
The man lifted a hand weakly and gestured vaguely towards the Sierras.
“Up there?” Yancey asked. “Where?”
He shook his head slowly. “I’m—I’m only the cook.”
“You knew enough to tag me comin’ in and take a potshot at me,” Yancey told him flatly. He shook the man and the cook groaned. “Where in the Sierras?”
Again he shook his head. “Dunno. Honest. Just up there ... Duane mentioned the lumber camp ... thought Cato might make for there ...”
Yancey looked quizzically at the Indian girl. She frowned as she thought about it, nodded slowly.
“If he was lucky he could make it to the river and get to the camp. They would protect him from Duane. But it would take a lot of getting there, I think.”
“Johnny could manage it if it could be done at all,” Yancey said, though he wondered in what shape Cato was and the senator, too. He turned back to the cook. “What happened here with Cato and the senator?”
“Get me a sawbones, mister! I’m dyin’ ...”
“You’ll live with a mite of doctorin’,” Yancey said casually. “I’ll patch you up before I pull out. But only if you tell me what I want to know.”
The cook stared into Yancey’s eyes and slowly nodded, deciding he had to trust the big man.
Briefly, between coughs and spasms of pain that convulsed him and twisted his face into a grimace, the cook told Yancey about Duane’s hatred for Jonas Locke and how Cato had been brought in by Hog and Slip, then escaped.
“Duane won’t give up,” he concluded, panting. “He won’t ... Nothin’ll stop him.”
“I’ll stop him,” Yancey said grimly. “All right, old-timer. I’ll get some water and rags and patch you up.”
As he stood he heard a snort of derision from the Indian girl and looked swiftly at her. She curled a lip at him. “You waste time!”
“I gave him my word,” Yancey replied simply and she frowned slightly as he turned and went into the cook shack in search of the things he needed. The cook lay there, breathing raggedly.
“Who killed Hammond, the hotel clerk?” Cindy snapped at him.
The man rolled pain-filled eyes towards her. He gestured towards the hounds’ pen. “Murdoch. Duane told him to.”
Cindy snapped her gaze towards the pen where the dead man’s legs protruded from between the bullet-pocked planks. She dismounted and walked across there.
When Yancey came out of the cook shack with a pan of hot water and some rags he looked around for the Indian girl.
“She’s in—the hounds’ pen,” gasped the cook and Yancey swung his gaze towards the sounds of the excited dogs.
He stiffened as Cindy suddenly straightened and looked across at him. She held up her hands. In one was the short-bladed knife she had tried to stab him with. In the other, something dark and limp hung. He squinted against the sunlight.
“Great snakes!” gasped the gray-faced cook. “She’s scalped him!”
~*~
Cato and the senator were making better time now that they were back amongst the timber. The snow wasn’t so deep and, in some parts, they were actually moving across solid ground. The remnants of the wolf pack were somewhere behind but keeping their distance now. After the slaughter on the slope they seemed to have lost some of their determination but Cato wasn’t hoping too much. When they least expected it, when their guard was down, the wolves would make their attack.
The senator, now that he could place his feet on firmer ground, was covering the distance much faster, though he reeled with fatigue and groans escaped his gray lips. Cato had looked briefly and winced when he saw how the man’s shirt was stuck to his back with caked blood. He must be going through agony but he didn’t complain, nor did he make any fuss about the lack of food and water. By now their bellies were past the aching stage and there simply seemed to be an empty void there, a kind of numbness that would spread through them slowly unless they got some food soon. But there was no time to stop to find food. The sooner they got down off the mountain the better.
Cato still wasn’t sure that all that gunfire hadn’t alerted Duane to their position. Just because the man hadn’t shown up yet didn’t mean that he hadn’t heard the shooting and wasn’t even now riding across the snow of the slope, in hot pursuit.
In point of fact, Duane and his men were putting their mounts warily down the steep open slide, the snow up to the animals’ chests, riding towards the blood-spattered bodies just above the timberline. They gathered around the dead wolves and Duane nodded slowly.
“He must’ve used up a heap of his ammunition on these. See? Couple there blowed apart. That would’ve been with that shot barrel of his. He must be low on ammo and they ain’t had time to stop for food and snow don’t do a hell of a lot to quench a man’s thirst. There’s their tracks. Seem to be headed down towards the river ravine.” He laughed briefly, teeth bared. “We’ve got ’em if they are! There ain’t no way down except over the edge and straight down. And could be we might just give ’em a hand to do that!”
He lifted his reins and set his mount down into the sparse timber. Hog and the others spread out and followed.
~*~
Cato’s tracks were easy to follow, for he hadn’t taken time to cover them. He had figured the shooting must have been heard and all he had wanted to do was get as much distance as possible between them and Duane’s bunch. If they located the dead wolves, and he had no doubt that they would, then they would know where he was headed, so there was little point in wasting time covering his trail.
Duane rode sli
ghtly ahead of his men, eager to sight the fugitives and draw bead on them. He wouldn’t mind bringing Cato down in his tracks, but he would like to get the senator alive and make the man who had killed his brothers and sent him to prison all those years ago, suffer plenty before finally finishing him off.
“There they are!” he yelled suddenly, hauling rein and pointing down through the thin timber.
About a mile ahead, and maybe four hundred yards lower down the slope, they could see the two staggering men as they made their way across a wide stretch of snow they had unexpectedly come upon. It was one of those drifts in a hollow in the slope that was blanketed with a couple of feet of snow, even though well down into the timber. It was on an exposed face of the mountain there, subjected to freezing winds, and the temperature was low enough for most of the year, except for mid-summer, to keep some snow in the drift. After the wind blowing down from the peaks last night, it was waist deep and not yet packed solid enough for men to flounder through without sinking down.
As soon as Cato had spotted it he hadn’t liked it and he had spent several minutes making up his mind what to do about it. Should he try to drag himself and the senator through it or continue on down the steepening slope through the trees and try to get around it? But one look at the slope and he knew he had no choice. It dropped far too steeply for him to hope to keep his feet with the wounded man clinging to him. Alone, and fit, he might make it across, using hands and knees and boot toes. But not this way. No, he had to go out into the drift and drag Locke with him. He didn’t like the way they would be exposed out there, two dark shapes against the brilliant glaring whiteness of the expanse of snow.
And, beyond the drift, he could see timber and brush studding more snow, clear to the edge of a drop-off. He couldn’t see what was beyond the drop, or how steep it was, but, in the distance, he spotted the flash of a river as it wound through dark green patches of tall timber far below. They must be headed in the right direction for the Lavaca and once they could get down to it, they ought to be able to find something to float on that would carry them downstream to the lumber mill.
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