anymore.
The tree came down with a huge crash that caused the earth to shudder. Frank’s quick action had carried him well out of its way. He angled toward the trees, thinking that if he could get into that twilight world underneath the redwoods, he would be able to give the bushwhackers the slip.
That is, if any of them survived the battle with the Terror. The yelling and shooting were still going on.
Frank ran into the trees. Instantly, a huge, shaggy shape darted at him. Instinct made Frank swing the Winchester toward the creature, but his finger froze on the trigger before he could pull it. He had recognized Dog, who had obviously been waiting for him.
Dog reared up, put his front paws on Frank’s shoulders. Frank winced from the pain that caused in his wounded arm, but he didn’t make the big cur get down. Instead, he looped his arm around the thick, shaggy neck and gave Dog a quick hug, glad to see that his old friend was all right.
“Where are Stormy and Goldy?” he asked. “Take me to ’em, Dog.”
Dog got down and started through the trees, glancing back to make sure that Frank was following him. Dog seemed to know where he was going.
A minute later, they came to a small clearing where Stormy and Goldy waited. Frank grabbed Stormy’s reins and swung up into the saddle.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, but then, before they could even get started, he thought better of it and hauled back on the reins.
He had come out here to find the Terror, he reminded himself. His close call in escaping the ambush attempt didn’t really change anything. He still had to deal with the Terror, and the evidence seemed to say that the creature was close by right now. Even though Frank was wounded, it didn’t make sense not to try to take advantage of that fact.
He turned Stormy’s head toward the sounds of the battle going on nearby.
As he rode, he thumbed fresh cartridges into the rifle’s loading gate. When the weapon was fully loaded, he stowed it in the saddle sheath again. If he wound up in the middle of this ruckus, it might be close work, more suited to the Colt on his hip.
Frank weaved around the giant tree trunks. Mist still filtered down through the canopy of branches high overhead. The light was bad, full of shifting shadows.
Then the gunfire stopped. A man yelled, “It went that way!”
“Let it go!” another man bellowed. “Find Morgan! We’ve still got to kill him!”
Frank’s lips drew back from his teeth in a disappointed grimace. He recognized the voice that gave those orders.
It belonged to his old friend Jack Grimshaw.
Frank had hoped that his suspicions about Grimshaw were wrong. Obviously, though, they weren’t. Grimshaw worked for Emmett Bosworth. He was part of the group that had slaughtered those loggers at Chamberlain’s camp that morning. Given Jack’s age and experience, he was probably the ramrod of the bunch. And now Bosworth had given them a new job.
Kill Frank Morgan.
Those were the only conclusions that made any sense. Frank knew what he was facing now, and he knew as well that no matter how much damage the Terror might have done to Bosworth’s hired killers, they still probably outnumbered him by quite a bit, and he was in no shape to face them right now. His wounded left arm throbbed, and he could barely use it. His ribs ached. His clothes were soaked, and that had started a chill in his bones. Or maybe the wound in his arm had started a fever brewing inside him. That would account for the chill, too.
Regardless of the cause, he realized that he needed some rest, maybe a fire so that he could dry out, and something to eat, to keep his strength up. He couldn’t risk a shootout with a gang of professional killers right now.
So with a sigh, he turned Stormy and motioned for Dog and Goldy to follow him. He had to find a place where he could hole up for the night, a place where Grimshaw and the others wouldn’t find him. Then maybe in the morning, he could resume his search for the Terror. He hadn’t been thinking straight just now when he’d decided to go after it. Even if he’d found it, he would have been no match for the creature. Even on his best day, he might not be a match for the Terror.
Moving quietly, Frank rode deeper into the woods. He heard a few sounds of pursuit behind him, but gradually they faded away. It was next to impossible to track somebody in this wilderness unless you had a dog to help you. Frank’s confidence that he had given the slip to Grimshaw and the other gun-wolves began to grow.
Damn shame about Grimshaw, Frank mused. Jack had always been one to follow the lure of so-called easy money, though. Frank supposed it was inevitable that if they both lived long enough, sooner or later they would wind up on opposite sides in some fight.
That day had come, and Frank hated to think about what it meant.
More than likely, before this was over he was going to have to kill Jack Grimshaw.
No matter how long he lived, he would never forget the sight that had met his eyes a short time earlier, Grimshaw thought. The image was seared into his brain just as surely as a brand was burned into a cow’s hide.
The damn thing had been huge, towering over him—and Grimshaw wasn’t a small man. At first glance, it appeared that the creature had some sort of patchwork pelt of different colors and textures. Logic told Grimshaw that it was really a coat or a robe of some sort, stitched together from the hides of several different kinds of animals. The garment was so shaggy, the creature’s hair and beard so long, that it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began.
But in the midst of all that hair were two burning eyes filled with such hatred that it seemed to blast a path straight through Grimshaw to his soul, which withered for a second under the heat of that baleful gaze. He saw patches of pink scar tissue inside that beard, too, and then a mouth that opened to emit a growl and a wave of even fouler odors as the thing lunged at him.
