“They act like they smell somethin’ they don’t like.” Hooley sniffed the air. “Can’t say as I smell anything, though.”
“A horse’s nose is more sensitive than yours.” Nichols dropped his hand to the butt of his gun. “I don’t like this, Hooley.”
“Don’t go scarin’ yourself. You know how horses can get all spooky for no good reason. One of ’em starts to act up, and then the other one has to do the same thing. There’s nothin’ to worry about.”
“You don’t know that,” Nichols insisted. “There’s so many damn trees, you can’t see fifty yards. You don’t know what’s out there.”
“Neither do you.”
Nichols tugged on the reins. “Come on, damn it,” he snapped at his horse. “You want the Terror to get you?”
“We don’t know there’s any such thing as a Terror,” Hooley pointed out.
“Oh, yeah? Well,
“Probably a bear, or maybe a mountain lion.”
“I don’t think they have mountain lions around here, or bears big enough to—”
Nichols’s horse suddenly reared up on its hind legs, jerking the reins out of his hands. The horse whinnied in fear as it pawed at the air with its forehooves.
From the corner of his eye, Hooley caught sight of something moving in the trees to his left…something big, and fast. He exclaimed, “Son of a bitch!” and jerked his horse around. His gun seemed to leap into his hand. He might be sick, but his illness hadn’t affected his speed with a Colt. His head snapped from side to side as he looked for the thing, whatever it was. He wanted something to shoot at. Hooley had never run into anything he couldn’t kill, except for the thing that was eating him up from the inside out.
Nichols was yelling curses at his horse as he tried to grab the reins and bring the animal back under control. Despite being lame, fear gave the horse some unexpected agility. It twisted away from Nichols and bolted, running around one of the giant redwoods that was close to twenty feet in diameter.
The horse didn’t come out from the other side. Instead, it screamed in pain.
“It got my horse!” Nichols babbled. “Son of a bitch, son of a bitch! My rifle’s still on my saddle!” He turned and lunged toward Hooley. “Pull me up behind you! Let’s get the hell out of here!”
Hooley was having trouble keeping his own mount under some semblance of control. The horse danced back and forth skittishly as the screams continued to come from behind the big tree. Nichols clawed at Hooley’s leg and tried to climb up behind him.
“Get off!” Hooley cried. He slashed at Nichols with the six-gun, raking the barrel across the other man’s face. Nichols fell back with a cry of pain as blood flew from the gash on his forehead opened up by the gunsight.
“Hooley!” he yelled. “Hooley, you gotta help me!”
“I’m not ridin’ double,” Hooley said. “That damn thing’s too fast.” He hauled his horse’s head around and jammed his boot heels into the animal’s flanks. The horse broke into a frantic run.
“Hooley!” Nichols shrieked behind him. “Hooley, don’t leave me out here! Don’t let it—”
The desperate plea was cut off abruptly by a gurgling cry. Hooley leaned forward in the saddle and didn’t look back as he sent his horse racing around and between the giant tree trunks. He didn’t want to see what was happening back there. All he wanted was to get out of here before whatever that thing was caught him, too.
Funny, he thought as his heart pounded heavily in his chest, maybe the time he had left to him, however long it might be, was still precious to him after all.
Frank heard yelling in the distance. In this thick forest, it was hard to judge how far away such sounds were. Couldn’t be too far, though, he told himself, because the thick vegetation tended to muffle noises and keep them from carrying as well.
“Stay with me, Dog!” he called as the big cur tried to bound ahead out of sight. Frank didn’t know what they were heading toward, but it couldn’t be anything good.
There were no shots. Frank didn’t know what that meant. He had a feeling it wasn’t a good sign. It was like the man who had gotten into trouble hadn’t even had time to pull his gun, only to scream in fear and pain.
Dog had been tracking the bushwhackers who had attacked that logging camp, and Frank had been following. He estimated their numbers at more than a dozen, so he didn’t plan on jumping them. He had more in mind following them, finding out who they were and, more importantly, who they worked for. He thought he had a pretty good idea, but he needed confirmation of that.
The sounds had died away quickly. Without them to guide him, Frank wasn’t sure if he was headed in the right direction or not. But then Dog dashed ahead, as if he had caught a familiar scent again, and Frank pushed Goldy hard to keep up.
A minute later, Dog stopped short, planting his feet and stiffening his legs as he growled. Frank reined to a halt behind him and pulled the Winchester from its sheath. Up ahead, lying next to the base of a tree, was a horse. The animal lay still. Blood still welled from a gaping wound in its neck.
“Back, Dog,” Frank said quietly. The big cur obeyed, backing up until he was next to Frank and Goldy. Frank sent the horse forward at a slow walk.
He circled to the left, around the tree and the body of the horse. The horse wore a saddle, so Frank had a feeling that its former rider was around here somewhere. A moment later, he saw he was right. A man lay on the ground on the far side of the tree, face down. He was as motionless as the horse. The back of his shirt was shredded and soaked with blood.
The man had lost so much blood, it had formed a pool around him on the ground. Frank knew he couldn’t still be alive. So for the next couple of minutes, instead of dismounting, Frank sat there, looking and listening intently, taking in everything that was going on in the woods around him.
