“Surely not,” Evelyn said. Yet there was the evidence, right in front of her eyes: a lodge made of limbs and brush with a hide over the entrance. By Shoshone standards it was crude. A vague memory tugged at her, and she said, “I know who made that.”
“You do?”
“Sheepeaters.”
“Sorry?” Dega had heard mention of many new tribes since his family came to the mountains but never a tribe by that name.
“The Tukaduka. My pa says they’re related to the Shoshones, but they don’t live like the Shoshones do.” Evelyn gigged her horse closer. Suddenly a foul odor assailed her, and she almost gagged.
“Look!” Dega exclaimed.
Evelyn stopped in alarm. The body of a woman lay near the hide, which she now saw was ripped and torn as if by razor-sharp knives. Jerking her Hawken up, she probed the woods beyond. “We better have a look-see.”
Dega firmed his grip on his lance. He’d never expected to find death in so remote a place, yet if there was one thing he had learned about the wilderness, it was to expect the unexpected. “This bad, yes?”
“This is very bad,” Evelyn King said.
Chapter Eleven
The dark one stirred in his lair and sat up. He was uneasy and his shoulder was bothering him. Rising, he padded onto the ledge and gazed over his domain. He listened and sniffed the air. Birds warbled in the trees. Other than that, the valley he had claimed was quiet and peaceful.
He paced back and forth. It was early, and he didn’t yet feel the pangs of hunger that nightly impelled him to prowl in search of prey. A pair of ravens flapped overhead and he watched them fly off.
The dark one went into the niche in the rock cliff and lay on his belly with his chin on his forepaws. He closed his eyes and dozed. Images filled his head, and his legs twitched. He was running after a doe. He could see the white of her tail and her pumping legs, and he leaped and landed on her back. He bit her neck and slashed with his claws and she crashed down, thrashing and pumping her rich wet blood over him and the grass. He growled and lapped it, and then he was awake again and raised his head.
His uneasiness persisted. He went back out to the ledge. The sun was warm on his body. Lethargy crept over him, and he dozed again. When next he woke, the gray shadows of twilight were spreading and the hunger was on him.
Descending, the dark one tested the wind. Elk had passed by recently. Usually they were higher up, but they had come to graze on the succulent grass. His nose to the ground, he set out on their trail. There were two, a cow and her calf. He walked faster. Calf meat was juicy and sweet.
Their scent hung heavy around a thicket. They were still in there. His keen ears detected the rustling of their bodies. They had lain up in its depths for the day and would soon emerge to feed. They didn’t know he was there; he never let his presence be known.
Circling, the dark one came to a small pine and sank flat under it. The low branches hid him. With the eternal patience of his kind, he waited for his quarry to show.
The sun had been swallowed by the western peaks when the thicket crackled. The mother came out first, raised her head to sniff, and pricked her ears. She was cautious, as all good mothers were, but the dark one wasn’t upwind and she didn’t smell him. She snorted, the signal for her calf to emerge. A male born that spring, it wasn’t half her size.
The dark one focused on the calf. The mother would be harder to kill and he always went for the easiest. There was less chance of being hurt and he could not afford another injury. His limp was a constant reminder of how costly a mistake could be.
The pair started down, the mother in the lead. She was wary and stopped every few steps to look about. She sensed something was amiss, but she didn’t know what.
The dark one tensed his muscles. The calf was looking at her, cuing his action on hers. That was usually the way with the young. It made them vulnerable. It made them slow to react. He bared his fangs but made no sound. Not yet. Not until the kill.
The mother twisted her neck to look behind them. She stared right at the small pine and then looked away. She hadn’t seen him. His dark coat and the dark shadows were one.
The calf stamped as if impatient.
The dark one was ready. When the mother turned, he exploded from under the pine. Two bounds and he was on them. He leaped high and landed on the calf’s back, his weight almost smashing it to the ground. It bleated and tried to run, but its legs were wobbly. The dark one sank his teeth deep into its throat even as his claws churned and sliced. The mother bleated, too, and tried to butt him. He wrenched with his fangs, and a red geyser sprayed his face. The calf took several staggering steps and collapsed. The dark one clung on, tearing and raking. A pain in his side caused him to yowl in fury. The mother had butted him. She drew back and lowered her head to charge again. A black blur, he whirled to confront her. He snarled and spat, his tail lashing. She hesitated. She bleated again, and sniffed, and drew back. Her calf had stopped moving. Whirling, she plowed off into the gathering night.
The dark one let her go. He had what he wanted. He sank onto the calf, lapped at its ravaged throat, and purred. Here was life’s most delicious treat. He loved to lap blood. Meat was good but blood was best. When there was no more blood to be had, he tore off a great chunk of raw flesh and chewed. Around him the world darkened. Stars glimmered. In the woods an owl hooted. Far off a coyote wailed. Farther away, a wolf howled. The other meat-eaters were abroad.
The dark one gorged. When his belly was full, he rose and turned his back to the calf and scratched grass and dirt onto it. He would come back to eat several times.
Cool night air washed over his sinewy form as he loped up the mountain. He caught the scent of a black bear. He had come across it twice already, a big male in its prime. Were it a male of his own kind, he would challenge it for the valley. But bears were not competitors for the same meat; they seldom went after deer or elk. So long as this bear left him alone, he would leave it alone.
He was almost to the ledge when the wind shifted. A new scent caused him to stop in his tracks. He raised his head to pinpoint where the scent was coming from, but the wind shifted. A growl escaped him. It was the scent he hated. The scent he was reminded of every time he put weight on what was left of his forepaw.
Irritated, the dark one climbed to his lair. He stretched out on the ledge and closed his eyes, but sleep eluded him. He was strangely restless. He rose to go into the niche, and froze.
Down on the valley floor a light glimmered. He has seen lights like it before. He had seen the flames that made it and those who made the flames, the two-legged creatures he hated, the creatures responsible for crippling him.
The creatures he would slay.
Evelyn King breathed shallow as she stepped to the body. The stink was atrocious. Using the stock of her Hawken, she rolled the body over. A beetle scuttled from an eye socket, and she recoiled.
“Poor woman,” Dega said. Whites said that a lot when bad things happened to others. Which perplexed him. He understood the whites’ ideas of “poor” and “rich” but not how having a bad thing happen made someone “poor.”
Although she didn’t want to, Evelyn bent down. The body had been there awhile. Scavengers had been at it. Most of the flesh was gone. Only a few shreds of skin remained. Punctures high on the brow gave a clue to the manner of death. “An animal did this.”
Dega gazed about them. The grass had been trampled and worn, and in a patch of dirt was a large print. He squatted and pointed. “Cat,” he said. “Much big cat.” Catching himself, he amended, “Sorry. Very big cat.”
Evelyn came over. “A mountain lion.” It was rare for painters to attack people. Her father, in all his years in the Rockies, had only ever been attacked by mountain lions twice, so far as she knew. Bears, on the other hand,
