coat concealed the shape of his body, but Frank reckoned he weighed at least two hundred pounds, probably more like two-thirty or two-forty. With that size and those razor-sharp talons, Ben Chamberlain was one of the deadliest two-legged weapons Frank had ever encountered. He had seen with his own eyes that Ben was incredibly fast and strong, too.
Frank knew that if he hadn’t been able to get through to Ben and awaken the man slumbering inside the monster, he never would have been able to take him alive. With a still-maddened Ben, killing would have been the only option. And it might come to that yet, of course, if Ben lost control of himself again. Frank knew he would have to be mighty careful in the way he handled the young man.
He put a foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. Ben stepped back hurriedly, an upset look on his face.
“It’s all right,” Frank said. Clearly, Ben didn’t like men on horseback. That might mean something. Quickly, Frank went on. “This is a good horse. He won’t hurt you.” Dealing with Ben was a little like dealing with a young child, he realized. “His name is Goldy.”
“Gol…dy,” Ben repeated.
Frank nodded. “That’s right. And the other horse is Stormy.”
“Stor…my.”
“You’re getting it.” Even that tiny bit of praise brought a sudden smile to Ben’s face under the bushy beard. Frank pointed to the big cur and said, “Dog.”
“Dog!” Ben could handle that one without any trouble, and he was excited about it.
Frank pointed to himself. “And I’m Frank.” He supposed that Ben had never heard his name until now.
“Fraaaank.”
“Yeah, close enough,” Frank said with a grin. “Come on, walk with me now.”
They started through the forest. Ben shuffled along, his long legs easily allowing him to keep up with the horses. As Frank rode, he tried to spot some landmarks and figure out exactly where they were. He wanted to avoid Ben’s old cabin, since that place might hold such bad memories for Ben that he could lose the fragile grip he had on his humanity if he saw it again.
However, in a vast expanse of timber like this, finding any landmarks was difficult. Even steering by the sun wasn’t easy once you were under the trees, because it wasn’t very visible. The branches diffused the sunlight, so that it might have come from any direction, and gave it a greenish tint.
Frank was pretty sure they were headed north, though. If they kept going in that direction, sooner or later they would reach the coastline, and he could follow that all the way to Humboldt Bay and Eureka if he had to. That wasn’t what he wanted to do, though. He wasn’t sure if he could persuade Ben to enter the town, and if he did, the sight of him would be liable to set off a riot. If Frank could get Ben to the Chamberlain mansion, he was counting on Nancy’s presence to keep him calm enough to deal with.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it, Ben?” Frank said. He wanted to keep talking to Ben, keep making contact with the man inside the monster.
Ben didn’t say anything, but he looked around at the trees for a moment, and Frank would have sworn he saw the giant nod and smile a shy little smile.
Definitely like a child, Frank thought.
They moved on, Frank talking about nothing in particular, and after a while they came to a rough road, one of the logging roads that Rutherford Chamberlain’s men had cut through this wilderness. Ben stopped short and acted like he didn’t want to venture out onto the road. Frank had to coax him onto it with promises that it would be all right, that nothing would hurt him. Finally, Ben began to trudge along beside Goldy.
They hadn’t gone very far, though, when Frank heard axes ringing against trees somewhere not far off. Ben heard it, too, and reacted violently. He drew back, shaking his head from side to side, and rumbled, “Baaaad! Baaaad!”
Frank reined in and quickly dismounted. He stepped toward Ben, holding out a hand in a calming gesture. “Take it easy, Ben,” he urged. “They won’t hurt you. If you leave those men alone, they won’t bother you. I won’t let them. I swear it.”
“Baaaad!” Ben rasped again. Frank could tell that he was about to bolt, and he knew that if Ben started running through the woods, he would be so caught up in his frenzy that he would attack anyone who crossed his path.
But as Ben took several stumbling steps backward, he suddenly swayed as if he couldn’t keep his balance. He tried to turn, but as he did so, he fell to one knee. A deep groan came from him. He tried to struggle up, but couldn’t do it, and Frank didn’t dare get too close because he might startle Ben and set him off on a rampage. Frank remembered how Ben had collapsed in the cave the night before. He never had found out why that happened.
Ben tilted his head back, groaned again, and then toppled over. He crashed to the ground on his side and didn’t move. Frank circled him warily. Dog came up and sniffed at him, equally wary.
“Looks like he’s passed out, Dog,” Frank said. Ben’s eyes were closed. For a second, Frank couldn’t even tell if he was still breathing. The bulky coat make it difficult to determine if his chest was rising and falling. As Frank leaned closer, though, he heard the raspy wheeze of air moving through Ben’s throat.
What the hell had happened to him? Frank risked reaching for the coat. It was held together with crude fasteners made of gut and bone, probably from the small animals that provided Ben with his food. Frank worked at them until he was able to spread the coat open.
His breath hissed between his teeth at what he saw. Under the coat, Ben wore a shirt that might have been a red-checked flannel at one time. It was so dirty that the original color was hard to determine.
But it wasn’t just dirt that stained the fabric. In several places, large black blotches stood out. Frank knew those were dried bloodstains, and as he touched them, he could tell that they weren’t too old. Ben had been wounded recently, and more than once. He might have matching wounds on his back where the bullets had gone through, but Frank would have been willing to bet that the giant was carrying around some lead inside him, too.
No wonder Ben wasn’t moving as fast now. He was badly injured. He must have been hit during that battle with
