Beneath a Winter Moon (22 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Tucker, just stay out of the way and leave at first light. Don’t disappoint me.”

“Yes, sir,” Alan replied.

“One more thing,” the constable said as he reached the tent-flap. “If the Svensons fly in, they are not to leave. They will stay right here until I am able to question them.”

Seffert nodded.

The team of men and dogs entered the dark forest around 3a.m. Brad kept the dogs away from the bloody scenes at the cabin and barn, letting them pick up the horse’s trail near the burn pile. Brad commented on the attempt to burn the corpse, agreeing that there would have been no way to burn a corpse in a simple pile of fence wood. Not in this weather and not in the open. The constable agreed and speculated that the man might have wanted to simply cover up the cause of death.

Dogs often need something belonging to the target in order to begin their hunt. Virtually all dogs can track to some degree, as part of their natural ability and it was this natural ability, combined with that of a shrewd handler that focused the dogs on the smell of the horse and rider that had been there so many hours earlier. They took to the scent, quickly, yelping and barking. The three magnificent animals were a mixture of Chesapeake Bay Retrievers and Siberian Huskies. Many professional trackers had scoffed at their heritage but Brad had great success with the dogs. They were natural trackers with an added ability to survive and even thrive in the extreme cold climate of the north. Sally was the Alpha of the team, followed by Mickey, another female, and Bruce. Bruce was Mickey’s sibling and a cousin of Sally. The three had worked together since they were puppies, Sally being about nine months older than the pair. Bruce and Mickey were equals and knew their place in the team. Neither had any problem with which one might be directly behind their Alpha dog, so long as the three were all together.

Sally had a lot of gold in her thick outer coat. Her sire had been a tan and white Siberian Husky, the breed often called a ‘Red” due to the reddish hue of the coat. The colors had blended into a beautiful combination and she was admired by everyone who saw her. Mickey and Bruce were also tan and white but more white than either the tan of their
Chesapeake
sire or the almost pure white of their dam. The three dogs ignored the darkness of the forest, were oblivious to the cold, and were now on the scent. They preferred to run free, but were used to the long leash and regardless of how eager they were they would not pull hard against their handler.

Each of the animals wore a special collar that would emit a radio signal for tracking. When Brad felt like it was best, he would release the dogs and use a handheld device to locate them. The collars would send out the signals on intervals and would change to a constant stream when the dogs barked to signal they had found their target. The transmitters were best used for locating the dogs, as the settings for the
target-found
transmission could just as easily be caused by the dogs meeting up with a predator and having to growl and bark to defend their ground. Either way, the collars were priceless when it came to locating his dogs once they were set free to track. He would not use the dogs without them.

The men wore spotlights on their heads, though Brad would not turn his on, and cautioned the constable about blinding his dogs. O’Reilly and Seffert switched theirs off and let their eyes readjust to the moonlit forest. O’Reilly decided that he could see well enough but worried a little about falling into one of the area’s infamous caverns. This particular section of mountainous terrain had many natural caverns and it was well known that the best way of finding one of them was to
keep walking until you fall in
.

Brad questioned why they were pursuing this person into the night, and not waiting till morning. The constable dryly explained that most people do sleep and that he hoped to locate the mysterious rider while he was either bedded down, or at least before he began moving again in the morning.

They talked about the scene at the cabin and O’Reilly reminded Brad that the animal that killed Kyle, assuming the evidence was correct and that the body was that of the young man’s, was a bear, perhaps two of them, and that there was even a wolf thrown into the equation. “Corpses don’t bleed, Brad,” the constable had said. “Not the way that blood was splattered all over the porch and doorway of that cabin. So, I believe Kyle was killed and partially consumed by a bear or bears, and the man we’re after did the burning of the body. Maybe he’s a tree-hugger who happened upon the scene and didn’t want Wildlife Management hunting the poor bear down…so he tried to burn away the evidence. Or, maybe he was afraid he’d be blamed for some reason.”

Brad asked how a stranger could be to blame for a wild bear attacking a man at his cabin, and the constable was glad for the question. He had waited for a chance to voice this theory. “Think about it. If this man was hunting bear up here
without a permit
…and doing so at night which is illegal in and of itself, and this man accidentally chased the bear, maybe even a wounded and enraged bear, down to that cabin, well—that man might rightly suspect that boy’s death could be blamed on him. So, he tries to get rid of some of the evidence, then heads back to his camp….or his
cabin
.”

That made some sense to Brad, but he was skeptical. It was the wolf tracks that didn’t fit. Those enormous, obviously deformed wolf tracks in the barn. He’d never seen anything like it in all of his life, a life lived right here in these mountains. A bear killed Kyle and then, right in the middle of the action, a huge mutant wolf comes in and feeds on the already-dead horse carcasses? He found that very hard to believe.

The conversation was beginning to unnerve Elmert, who was no longer excited about this case and wondered why his two companions acted as if they had no reason at all to fear for themselves. After all, whatever did the killing, whether it was a Grizzly or some wolf or even both, was still
out there
. And now so were they. He kept his thoughts to himself, though as he had not been in the good graces of his superior officer and saw this expedition as a means of proving himself. He swore that he would think before speaking and would not say or do anything that would bring scorn.

Brad focused on his animals as they tracked. They occasionally had to stop and redouble their efforts. A lot of snow had fallen since their target had been on this trail and it made things difficult. Before they had been on the trail an hour’s time, Brad commanded his dogs to halt. The constable wanted to know why, but Brad had hushed him. The night was absolutely silent…except for the distant rifle shots that eluded their human ears, and later the flares that they failed to see.

Another hour passed. The moon was lowering on the horizon and they could no longer see more than perhaps five yards in any direction, though they could make out the edges of the mountainous terrain on the horizon.

* * * * *

The Beast had been moving in the direction of the Other when he caught a new scent on the chilled night air. He had lived for so long, though he had no real conception of time, that both his instincts and the thoughts of his human counterpart often came together to give him more focus…more meaning…more understanding. Images of dogs and humans flashed before his mind’s eye as he held his snout high in the air in his search for the Other. These humans he smelled were hunting. He understood and felt a strange anxiety, almost a panic—a need to protect himself, though he did not understand from what. He realized that these new humans were not a physical threat, no humans ever really were, but a conflicting feeling of fear shot through him. They were too close and their smell was different. Unlike the Other, who was much younger and unskilled, the Beast was able to form more coherent thoughts and had a better sense of what he was to do in order to protect himself. The Other believed himself to be invincible, but the Beast knew that
their
kind had weaknesses.

He would have to kill these humans and he understood that. What he did not understand was the pang of sorrow and the lack of joy or excitement. A conflict that ran through him and he was puzzled now. It was the Other causing the conflict, he knew. He understood that what was happening to him, whatever change was occurring, it was the fault of the Other. He was tired of resisting the urge to kill the Other. His first instincts were to destroy any predator within his territory, but whatever conscious portion of his human side that remained when he was the Beast had somehow stifled that need to destroy the Other. He despised the human…the human that he was whenever the Beast slept. He didn’t
understand
that he was also human. He didn’t quite understand that he
changed into the Beast
from a weak human form, but with time the human side meshed with the mind of the Beast, confusing him as their thoughts, feelings, and sometimes even memories intertwined. He suddenly became furious that
it
was interfering. Anger welled up in him and he focused that anger on the humans he now detected…and on the Other. The Other was the reason that he had need to fear for his own territory. He pushed hard in his mind, forcing everything else to the back of his dim and hazy thoughts…everything else was pushed away except the feel and smell and sounds of the Other. He would have to destroy these humans and then he would hunt for the Other. Not to push him away from the Beast’s territory, but to
kill
. Again, he felt an unfamiliar sorrow, but as he stared at the bright orb hanging low in the night sky, the sorrow left him. Doubt left him. There was no more conflict.

* * * * *

Daniel was dreaming about
Idaho
, a beautiful lake with water so blue it was other-worldly, yet clear enough to see all the way to the bottom. In his dream he was a boy again, swimming with friends on a warm, summer day. In the water, on the sandy lake bed six feet below, something caught his eye. It was a rock. The rock was white, and about the size of his hand, oval in shape, perhaps limestone. He dove for it, bringing it up to the surface. Without a word to his friends, he swam for shore until he was in water shallow enough for him to stand up. He turned the rock over in his hand; looking for what had caught his eye…something had been carved into the stone.

The deep etchings were almost filled with sand so he placed the rock under the surface and rubbed the lines clean, rubbing them with his fingers. Perhaps one of his own people had carved this rock. Perhaps it was ancient. He brought it up again to look closer at the image. He stared, fascinated. The carving was not crude, just the opposite, it was magnificent, appearing as though it had been etched with modern tools…or maybe even by a machine. A breeze, cool to his wet shoulders caused him to shiver. The carving was the head of a wolf, angled to the side, and its teeth were bared as if ready to attack. He called his friends over, and they were jealous of the find. One of the boys, a cousin named Strong, named because he had fought against coming into this world from his mother’s womb, said it was a cursed stone and that he should throw it away…but Daniel knew that his sly cousin just wanted it for himself.

The dream shifted now. He was back at his home with his grandfather. Daniel’s father had died in the
Viet Nam
war, leaving him in the care of his mother and his grandfather. Daniel came to the kitchen table and set the rock down. He had it wrapped in a small towel, and asked the old and wrinkled man to close his eyes until he was ready to show him what he had found. Grandfather
Haleky Coahoma grumbled, but did as he asked, and Daniel slowly unwrapped the stone and had his grandfather to open his eyes to see what he’d brought back from the lake.

The stunned look on his grandfather’s face made Daniel happy at first, having so clearly surprised him…but then Daniel frowned, as the look on the old man’s face suddenly twisted into obvious fear and perhaps even loathing.

“Turn it over,” his grandfather cried. “Do it, boy!”

Daniel, shocked and scared, turned it over and then stared at his grandfather, speechless.

“Put it back in the towel, Daniel,” grandfather Coahoma said through clenched teeth. He took a deep breath and then smiled. “It’s okay, boy, but you must take it back where you found it, telling no one, and you must do it before the next night of the moon.”