“We don’t know that—” Erickson began.
“The hell we don’t. You saw that thing carry him off. It’s gonna eat him, that’s what it’s gonna do. You know how loco an animal is once it gets a taste for human flesh.”
“Shut up!” Erickson snapped. “I don’t want to hear that kind of talk.”
“Why else would it carry him off instead of just killin’ him? We know Sutherland was alive the last time we saw him. He was still hollerin’. Damn beast’ll probably keep him alive and just eat him a little bit at a time.”
“Jenkins, I told you…shut…the hell…up.”
Erickson spoke through clenched teeth as the men passed on out of sight. Frank didn’t relax because they were gone, however. He knew there were probably several other men in the group, and they’d be moving around in the area, searching for the missing man, too.
He could have eased their minds a little, Frank thought. He hadn’t seen any sign that the Terror ever consumed its victims. The bone he had found at the primitive cabin seemed to indicate that the creature didn’t indulge in such grim appetites.
But he didn’t care about easing their minds. The varmints wanted to kill him, so let them worry.
A moment later, he heard the other men off to his left, but they didn’t come as close to him as Erickson and Jenkins had. They moved on into the forest, searching for the long-gone Sutherland. Even though Frank didn’t believe that the Terror was going to eat its prisoner, he wouldn’t bet a hat—or anything else—that Sutherland would survive being captured by the creature.
Frank waited until all the men were gone, then whistled softly. It took him a couple of tries before noises in the brush told him that Stormy and Goldy were responding. The horses pushed through the undergrowth and emerged near the tree where Frank waited. He still leaned against the trunk because it hurt when he tried to straighten up.
Stormy came over to him, nuzzled his shoulder. “Good fella,” Frank murmured. He slid the Winchester back in its sheath, then grasped the saddle horn with both hands. He got his left foot in the stirrup and pulled himself up into the saddle. Pain shot through him again, but he told himself to ignore it. More than likely, those ribs were just bruised. He just needed to take it easy for a while.
Unfortunately, there was no time for that. Not with the Terror still on the loose and the time that Rutherford Chamberlain had given him running out.
Frank didn’t bother with Goldy’s reins. He knew the horse would follow Stormy.
“Get the scent, Dog,” he told the big cur. “The critter ran right through here. You can pick up his trail.”
Dog cast back and forth, nose to the ground, for a couple of minutes, then stood stiff-legged and growled, signifying that he had found the scent of something that bothered him. He had reacted the same way to the Terror’s scent earlier, so Frank said, “Good boy. Trail, Dog!”
Dog took off through the brush. Frank followed. Sometimes he had to detour the horses around some obstacle that Dog could slip under or over, and when that happened, Dog always waited until Frank, Stormy, and Goldy caught up. The four of them made a fine team. It had been that way for a long time, and things would stay like that for a long time to come, God willing, Frank thought.
The chore facing them this afternoon had gotten harder. Not only did he have to worry about finding the Terror and dealing with it, but now he knew for sure that Erickson and the others were out here in the woods, too, hunting for
What about the men he suspected were working for Bosworth, the ones who had attacked the logging camp that morning? It was unlikely they would return to the forest this soon, Frank reasoned, so at least he didn’t have to concern himself with
A fine mist continued to fall. The trees shielded Frank from most of it, but he felt its wet touch on his face from time to time. Actually, it was sort of refreshing, so he didn’t care about the rain. It wasn’t coming down hard enough to wash away the scent that Dog was following.
Every so often, he heard shouting in the distance. Erickson and his companions were still looking for the missing Sutherland. But the trail Dog was following veered more toward the ocean, taking him and Frank away from the area where Erickson and the others were. The Terror had changed direction as it charged through the woods. Erickson and his friends didn’t know that because they didn’t have Dog’s sensitive nose to tell them.
Frank called soft encouragement to the big cur, who began to pick up speed as if the scent were getting stronger. But then Dog slowed suddenly and came to a stop with his hackles raised. Frank reined Stormy to a halt, drew the Winchester, and looked around.
He didn’t see anything moving. Dog was gazing intently at a spot a few yards ahead, at the thick base of a tree. Frank looked at the same place, but didn’t see a thing other than a few dark spots on the ground. Dog started to growl.
“Hush, Dog,” Frank said quietly. “Hush.”
Dog obeyed, and thick silence closed in around them. Frank listened. He didn’t hear anything except a faint
But there was another dark spot at the base of the tree now, Frank noticed as a little shock ran through him.
He tilted his head back and looked up, his gaze following the trunk of the redwood until it reached the spot where branches began protruding from the tree.
Crammed into the angle between one of those lower branches and the trunk itself was the body of a man. It dangled there precariously, and as Frank watched, another huge drop of blood fell like crimson rain and splattered at the base of the tree.
He reckoned he’d found the missing Sutherland.
How in the world had the Terror gotten the body up there? At the tree’s base, the trunk was much too big for a man to wrap his arms and legs around it and shinny up, although it narrowed considerably by the area where the branches began growing. The trunk wasn’t smooth; the bark that covered it was rough and seamed with fissures.
