NIGHTSHIFTER
Book One
L. E. HORN
Sherrington Publishing
Contents
Join the Author!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
The Nightshifter Series
Acknowledgments
About the Author
COPYRIGHT © 2020 L.E. HORN
All Art Copyright © 2020 L.E. Glowacki
2020 Sherrington Publishing
Canada ISBN: e-book 978-1-988431-11-6
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law. All characters and character likenesses are the property of L.E. Horn and cannot be reproduced without the written consent of the author.
Disclaimer: This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or places are used fictitiously. The persons, places, things, and otherwise animate or inanimate objects mentioned in this novel are figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to anything or anyone living or dead is unintentional.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Pending
To Susan, who put the wind beneath my dreams
and lifted them higher than I could ever imagine.
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1
Eyes rolling and foam flying from its mouth, the bison fought inside the heavy metal chute, making the walls shake and rattle. My heart pounded. In my experience these steel structures didn’t always live up to the hype.
Ted Andreychuk, who raised bison for fun and profit, looked almost as upset as the animal itself. “Sorry about this, Liam. Worked himself into a right state, he has . . .” Ted shook his head. “Usually he’s an easy-going guy. Has been since he was a calf. But he’s freaked right out. Whatever came at him scared him good.”
The young bull surged against the head gate, and only the fact that he wasn’t yet full grown, and that the chute was attached to a heavy metal corral system anchored to the ground, kept it in place. Still, I swear the entire unit jumped at least an inch. I’d already given him more than sufficient sedation, but sheer adrenaline had him fighting straight through it. Every attempt to calm the animal by covering its eyes had resulted in increased mayhem and two shredded tarps.
I decided to abandon all hope and get down to it. Quick reflexes were just going to have to save the day. I moved to the other end of the chute and peered at the cause of the bison’s distress.
“Whatever attacked him did a damned good job of it,” I said. Long, parallel slashes ran from the forward ledge of the pelvic bones on both sides towards the tail. The appendage itself had been severed—bitten off? Only about five inches of it remained.
Twenty minutes and another dose of sedation later, the animal finally calmed enough that I could enter the chute from the back end. He had a go at me despite the kickbar, but I dodged the heavy hooves with the ease of experience as I examined the tail. The bone had been snapped clear through but there was sufficient skin remaining for me to tie off the major blood vessel and suture it closed. He made another bid for freedom as I finished, backing into me, and then lunging forward to hit the head gate with his shoulders. The metal floor jumped beneath my feet. I hurried to clip the hair away from the wounds on the butt.
As soon as they were revealed, I stared. Five slashes along each side. They were about an inch deep, but that wasn’t what gave me pause.
“What the hell did that?” Ted said, peering through the bars. “It must have been huge. A bear?”
I extended my own fingers over the wound. They didn’t come close to spanning the foot or so covered by those claws. “They’ve got one heck of a spread to them,” I agreed as I started to flush them out. “You’ll have to keep him confined for a while, and we’ll need him on antibiotics.”
“I’m not putting him back out there,” Ted said, and something in his voice made me glance at him. “The other two—they were mature bulls. There’s not much left of them.”
I processed that as I got busy with stitching. A fully grown male bison stood six feet at the shoulder, weighed in at 2,000 lbs, and had a massive, horned head about three feet across. Not an animal to mess with. Even a bear would have difficulty taking one down. Which begged the question—what had managed to kill two of them?
Half an hour later we released the immature bull from the chute. He staggered away on shaky legs, but he’d live. I decided I wanted to see the two that didn’t.
“They’re out back,” Ted said when I inquired. “Not far. Still had them in the winter pen, the pasture’s not kicked in yet.”
I paused long enough to fetch my copilot from the SUV. A refugee from a local border collie rescue, Keen’s heritage was best described as dubious. She looked somewhat like a big Australian Shepherd, but her real contributors were anyone’s guess.
She bounced out of the truck and around Ted’s feet, happy to be stretching her legs. I wasn’t worried that she’d stray—she never went far from me. To my surprise, when Ted rejoined us, he held a gun.
“It happened last night?” I asked, eyeing the weapon and reconsidering whether to take Keen.
“Yeah. But well, you’ll understand when you see them.”
As Ted and I picked our way through the spring puddles to the back field, I kept a now nervous eye on my furry friend as she trotted in a circle around us, checking out the remnants of the round bales used for winter
