Midnight Prey

by Caroline Burnes

  Hank watched her carefully. The sunlight seemed to be pulled deep into her hair and sent back in bright sparks among the dark strands. She held herself straight, her shoulders back. She was still proud. To his surprise, he found that his anger toward her was greatly diminished. She had admitted her weakness to him. Both Shadoe and her father had been too proud.

  “Well,” she said as she turned back to him, her cheeks red. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. It doesn’t do much good now, but you had a right to know what happened.” She had to find a way out of the past, and that was to look to the future-just a few steps down the road would do it. The immediate road led back to the Double S. “We have to head back to the ranch. We’ve wasted too much time here already. As it is, we’ll have to take the last few miles in the dark, but once we get to the range, I think Chester and Ray can make it blindfolded.” As she spoke she could hear her voice grow stronger, more assured.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He spoke so calmly that Shadoe thought she might have misunderstood. He’d sounded reasonable, not hardheaded and ornery. “Hank, your boss is organizing a search party to look for you.”

  “Code is an idiot.”

  “That may be, but he’s out to get you. He’s acting like you’re some kind of criminal. You’ve got to go back up there and straighten this out.” Surely Hank was smart enough to see he was playing into Harry Code’s hands.

  “Sure.” Hank pushed the chair aside with angry force. “Just go explain to Harry. He’s such a good listener. And he’s particularly sympathetic to me.”

  “If those agents waste their time hunting you, who’s going to find the wolf?” Shadoe knew this was her best ploy. Hank would do whatever he had to if it meant safeguarding the wolf.

  He knew Shadoe was manipulating him, but it didn’t detract from the truthfulness of her statement. If Code put the entire team out searching for him, no one would even attempt to find Thor. Nor would they properly guard the rest of the wolves. With Harry Code in charge, there was no telling what would happen to the animals.

  “Okay.” He went to get his pack. “But I want a promise from you first.” He lifted the pack and stopped in front of her.

  “What?”

  “Promise me that you’ll keep the ranchers out of the wilderness until we can find the wolf.”

  Shadoe’s gaze dropped from his. “I can’t promise that.”

  He sensed immediately that she was hiding something from him. “What is it?”

  “When I went up to talk with your boss, I saw the wolf.” A chill brushed across her skin at the memory. For an instant, it was as if she saw the animal again. His presence was so intense, so unforgettable. “And I saw two hunters. They took a shot at him and almost got me.”

  “Did you know them?” Hank’s voice was urgent.

  She shook her head. “I honestly didn’t get a look at them. I swear to you, the members of the coalition haven’t made any plans to harm the wolves. None at all. But that’s the small group I know. Some of the members are strangers. I don’t know them well enough to say they wouldn’t take it on themselves to hunt the wolf down. Some of the ranchers, particularly the small ones, are upset by all of this.”

  Hank shouldered the pack. “Let’s get home.” He had no intention of turning himself over to Harry Code and possible transfer to Washington D.C., but Shadoe didn’t have to know about his plans. As usual, he found that he was better off working alone.

  The sun had taken on the more golden tones of late afternoon, and Shadoe led the way to the horses. The silence between them was not awkward, but it was noticeable. The cabin had been charged with emotion. Now, in the open air, she simply couldn’t think of a thing to say. Except to ask Hank about Kathy Lemon, and now wasn’t the time for that.

  “The horses are just over there. I tied them to a shrub in the shade.” She pointed behind several big boulders.

  She was in the lead and when she climbed over the rocks, she stopped. The area around her was empty. Her first thought was that she’d brought Hank to the wrong place, but he immediately walked over and examined the hoofprints.

  “Looks like they got pretty excited before they took off.”

  Shadoe walked over and bent down. The hard ground was battered and scarred where the horses had twisted and turned, shifting and moving. She went to the tree where she’d tied them. Strangely enough, the bark was undisturbed. “They must have pulled free.”

  Hank didn’t say anything.

  “They’re probably halfway home by now.” Shadoe turned and looked south, as if she might be able to pick up their trail.

  Hank examined the tree where they’d been tied, then moved out to search the ground. He walked in a circular pattern, occasionally stopping to examine something.

  After finding a shady spot, Shadoe sat down on a rock. The prospects for the night worried her. First of all, the horses at the Double S needed attention. And more acutely, she and Hank were trapped together. She checked the position of the sun. It was way too late to start hiking back to the ranch. The only alternative was staying the night in the cabin-with Hank. She felt a surge of dread. This was something she hadn’t bargained for. Not at all.

  She looked up to find his jaw set and his gaze on the ground. He was an intense man. He’d been an intense boy, never giving up on anything that he really wanted. Except her. And she’d left him no choice. Her own thoughts made her anxious.

  “Chester and Ray are well trained. I can’t imagine them taking off like that. Just pulling free.” She spoke to chase away her own thoughts.

  Hank’s expression was grim. He stood up and came to sit beside her on the rock. “I’m not so certain they pulled free.”

  “Hank?” Shadoe saw more than his usual tenseness.

  “I can’t say for certain because the ground is so hard there isn’t a good track, but it appears to me someone untied them and led them off.”

  “Who?” The word was almost a yell.

  “There’s no way to tell.” Hank shrugged. “The ground is just too hard, but it looks as if they took off side by side. Their hooves have chipped the rocks in places. It was a walk, steady and in tandem. That just doesn’t sound like two horses that got so spooked they tore free and headed home.”

  Shadoe closed her eyes. “No, it doesn’t.” She pushed her hair back from her face, a gesture she used when she was upset. She didn’t have to tell Hank that the chances of getting Chester and Ray back alive were slim to none. “Rustlers, maybe?” They were awfully isolated to be hit by horse thieves, but it was possible. Cattle and horse rustlers hit a herd, stealing five or six head here and there until they had enough for butcher. It was a business where buyer and seller didn’t ask a lot of questions about brands or origins of stock.

  Hank heard her sorrow in her voice. “I don’t think it was a rustler. Not up here.”

  She looked up, startled. “Then who?”

  “I think it was the same man who turned Scrapiron out, and the same person I was following when I was down at the Double S. The same man who stole my knife and left it in your barn to incriminate me.” He got up and walked to the ground where the horses had been. He looked at the area for a moment, then came back to Shadoe.

  She sensed something in his stance, in the way he stared at her. “What is it?”

  “I have to ask myself if maybe this mystery man isn’t working with you.”

  Shadoe stood up slowly. She was afraid with all of her blood pounding in her ears that if she moved too fast she would faint. “What exactly are you saying?”

  Hank glared at her. “I’m saying that maybe I’ve been set up. From the very beginning.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Hank struck the match and put fire to paper. In a moment the small sticks of kindling were burning cheerfully. The sound of the crackling fire only heightened the silence between him and Shadoe.

  From the pantry she had found canned chicken, mushrooms, rice and assorted spices. A casserole was ba
king in the gas oven, filling the small cabin with savory smells and a sense of homeyness that made her twitch with an anxious emotion she couldn’t pin down. On one hand, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for her to be in the cabin with Hank, the fire leaping, bright yellow flames in the hearth, and supper bubbling in the oven. They had shared so many nights like this one, with and without her father.

  But twenty years had passed. She had only to look at Hank, one boot hooked on the hearth, his gaze captured by the flames. He was a man, not a boy. He was also not any happier about being stranded on the mountain than she was.

  As she mixed the ingredients for biscuits, she found a nugget of possibility in the idea that the man who had turned the wolf free might have been the one who stole Chester and Ray. If that was the case, she might be able to find her horses, unharmed. She started to break the silence by telling her thought to Hank, but she stopped.

  The very idea that he thought she had somehow entrapped him was beyond belief. How could he think such a thing? Her anger returned on a wave of hot fury, and she mixed the biscuits with herculean force.

  The sound of angry cooking came clearly to Hank, but he didn’t look up. He had a lot on his mind, and looking at Shadoe, dark hair hanging about her shoulders, wasn’t conducive to clear thinking. He had not asked her to cook, just as she had not asked him to build a fire. They had fallen naturally into the pattern of the old days.

  Hank had the sudden, disturbing feeling that if he looked up, he would see the sixteen-year-old girl he’d loved with all his heart. Maybe, just maybe if he went to her and held her tight, he could prevent everything that had happened. Hank had known broken bones, animal bites, bitter cold, baking heat, but nothing compared to the jolt of pure pain in his chest that came with that thought. He almost moaned aloud but caught himself.

  He was a fool, opening old scars and letting them bleed again. He was worse than a fool for tormenting himself with possibilities that existed only in his mind.

  If he turned and looked at Shadoe Deerman, he would see a thirty-six-year-old woman who was furious with him. Because she couldn’t hit him, she was beating a bowl of biscuits to death in the kitchen.

  He heard the oven door open. There was the scrape of the casserole coming out and the biscuits going in. Suddenly, the idea of sitting across the table from Shadoe and sharing a meal with her was more than he could take. He turned, catching her as she bent over the oven. He had to face the truth that as a grown woman, she was even more beautiful than she’d been as a girl. Gone were the sharp angles, the hesitation of youth. She was rounded, strong and very confident. She closed the oven door and stood up, turning to face him. Her face carried the flush of heat from the oven.

  “I’m going to scout around,” he said.

  Shadoe opened her mouth to tell him that the food would be ready in fifteen minutes, but she never said the words. She had no appetite. Her mind and body and emotions were in such turmoil that the idea of eating saddened her. The thought of calling Hank to supper, as if they were on a date.or sharing the evening voluntarily…was too hard. She said nothing as she watched him go out the door.

  The Montana night had grown cold. Even though the Double S was only fifteen miles away, the elevation of the cabin made it much colder here after the sun had set. Shadoe put plates, flatware and napkins on the table, adding the hot chicken and biscuits. For herself, she poured a cup of fresh coffee and took it to the fire. Common sense told her to eat, to get it over before Hank returned and avoid the awkward event of supper. Her stomach simply rebelled at the idea.

  Pulling an old rocker up to the fire, she sipped the coffee, stared into the flames and tried not to think about the past, the present or the future. She fastened her attention on old movies she’d seen and tried to recall titles, actors and plots. Anything except her immediate surroundings.

  After half an hour, Shadoe got up and went to the window. Hank’s continued absence worried her a little. She knew he was probably as uncomfortable as she was and that he was staying outside deliberately. Still, what if something had happened to him? He didn’t have a gun, only a knife. That much she’d observed. They were far enough into the mountains that he could have run across a bear, even a mountain lion. Or that big silver wolf.

  A knife was no weapon against such animals.

  What if he was lying outside, wounded and bleeding?

  She put down her cup, got her jacket and went out into the night.

  The black sky was pure velvet, and a three-quarter moon gave good illumination. She’d gone only half a dozen steps from the porch when she saw Hank. He was sitting on a boulder staring into the night sky. His back was slumped, and he seemed to be in deep concentration.

  Moving silently, Shadoe went back inside the cabin. It was clear he preferred the cold of the night to her company. There was no need to force herself on him. The best thing to do was go to sleep and be ready for a long walk home at first light. There was so much to do at the ranch. Scrapiron had an automatic waterer and plenty of hay, so he wouldn’t suffer from the lack of a couple of meals. The other horses had been left in pasture where they could graze and drink from the clear mountain streams that cut through the spring grass. Nothing would seriously suffer from her one-night absence, but she had to get back by dark the next day. And that meant a long, steady walk. Sleep was the ticket.

  Once inside the cabin, though, she was confronted with a new dilemma. Where to sleep? There was one bed. A double. And not even a sofa. She could take the bed and leave Hank the rocker. Chances were he wouldn’t even return inside so it would be foolish for her to sleep in a chair. Except.

  She went to the bed and removed the top quilt. In front of the fire she arranged the rocking chair with a small table so that she could sit and put her feet up. As her last act, she fed the fire, hoping Hank would decide to come inside before it went out completely. If the fire died, she’d awaken stiff and frozen. Well, too bad. She kicked off her boots, got in the chair and arranged the quilt as snugly as she could. Sleep wasn’t going to come easily, but it would come. She was bone weary.

  Outside the cabin, Hank continued to stare, motionless, into the night. He’d heard the cabin door open and sensed Shadoe’s approach. He’d almost felt her, like a touch, as she’d drawn nearer to him. Using rigid discipline, he’d also made himself not react to her presence. He’d seen something along the edge of the woods. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he’d sensed something. Something alive, and big, and watching the cabin.

  The possibilities of what that might be kept him motionless.

  There was no reason for anyone to spy on him or Shadoe. No legitimate reason. It was possible that some of the federal agents had tracked him to the cabin. It was also possible that the watcher had something to do with Shadoe. Only time would tell. So he’d held his slump-shouldered pose, acting as if he were deep in thought and unaware of his surroundings while he was as alert as he could be. Whatever it was, man or beast, it would have to make a move sometime. Hank had to know more about it before he could formulate a plan. By remaining still, he’d hoped to draw out the watcher—and to send Shadoe back to the safety of the cabin.

  The second possibility—that whatever was in the woods was a wild creature—would also be affected by his stance as a sentinel. A wild animal, under normal circumstances, would see him and depart. Few animals, even bears or wildcats, were naturally aggressive with man. Given the chance, they would depart without a confrontation. He was counting on that since he had only a knife for protection.

  The minutes stretched longer and longer as the still night seemed to freeze time. There was no movement, and Hank began to wonder if he’d imagined it. He was about to give up, to stand, stretch and face the difficulties of entering the cabin when he saw it again. Just the flicker of something. More of a sixth sense than something his eye could register. He froze.

  Just at the edge of the woods, what seemed to be molten moonlight shifted among the trees.
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br />   Hank held his breath. It wasn’t possible. Was it? He looked.

  Thor stepped out of the trees, moving fully onto exposed ground. He walked directly toward Hank, his gait sure and steady. He was not hurried, nor was he afraid.

  Hank thought for a moment he was dreaming. This was the waking dream of a warrior that Jimmy had filled his head with so many times as a boy. The wild creature came with a message to the dreamer, bringing a prophecy, or a gift.

  Hank wanted to shut his eyes, then reopen them-to check reality. But he simply could not take his gaze off the magnificent animal that walked gracefully toward him. Not even for a second. One part of Hank didn’t want the wolf to be a dream.

  “Thor?” he spoke softly into the night.

  Fifty feet away, the wolf stopped, his golden gaze catching and holding Hank’s. His teeth were bone white in the moonlight, his tongue pink and moist as he panted and stared at Hank. A low growl came from deep within his throat and he shifted his gaze to the cabin.

  SHADOE STEPPED OFF the wooden porch of the cabin and onto the ground in her bare feet. Behind her the light from the lamp spilled onto the rough boards of the porch. Slowly, very slowly, the door closed, blocking off the rectangle of light. She was alone in the darkness.

  The stars overhead were scattered like billions of tiny diamond chips. The night was incredibly warm, and she had a sudden desire to feel the gentle breeze on her bare skin. Very slowly she stepped out of her clothes. There was no one to see or disturb her. In a burst of joy, she began to dance in the light of the moon.

  Spinning and weaving in the magical moonlight, she danced to the tune she hummed softly under her breath. She was completely happy. Totally safe. She danced across the clearing in front of the cabin to the edge of the woods. The night was balmy, a perfect summer night, and she had not been so happy in years. Montana. She had come home.