Slocum 420 (11 page)

A faster set of steps closed in from behind and to one side. Slocum knew that was Merle coming around to try and close in on their mutual prey. Being the youngest of the three hunters, he was also the quickest and he soon rushed past Slocum.

When he heard the heavier steps in front of them come to a stop, Slocum dug his feet into the dirt and shouted, “Hold up!”

Merle kept going at full speed while Slocum drew his pistol and moved with a bit more caution.

“Gotchya, you son of a—” Merle's words were cut short by a loud snarl and the distinctive snap of branches.

Swearing under his breath, Slocum quickened his pace and kept his eyes open for any sign of a threat. The first thing to catch his attention was a stench that grew so strong he almost gagged on it. When he saw some motion in the corner of his eye, Slocum pivoted toward it while bringing up his gun. He saw something large and shaggy a split second before getting walloped in the chest. The impact hit him solidly, forcing the air from his lungs and causing his finger to tighten around his trigger. The Remington sent its round into the dirt as Slocum dropped.

Since he'd been knocked straight back, Slocum was unable to see much of anything at first. Part of that was because his hat had been dislodged to slide halfway over his eyes. He was pushing his hat back into place when he heard footsteps coming straight at him. Slocum's gun hand came up to take aim at his attacker before he was hit again. Fortunately, his vision was clear enough for him to see Merle standing directly in front of him.

“Whoa, now,” Merle said. “Lower that pistol.”

“Where is that thing?” Slocum asked.

“It's still nearby, so let's not waste any time before we go after it. That thing slips away and into these woods and we'll lose one hell of an opportunity.”

As Merle was talking, he was also helping Slocum to his feet. As soon as he had his legs beneath him, Slocum said, “Did you see where it went after it got me?”

“Thataway,” Merle replied while nodding ahead and to the right.

Sure enough, Slocum could hear rustling coming from that direction. Without saying a word, he motioned for Merle to circle around in one direction while he circled in the other. The younger man nodded and both of them set out to close in on the thing that had ambushed them.

The rustling wasn't the same as it had been before. Instead of the persistent rhythm, it was more uneven. More than that, whatever was making the sound wasn't as heavy as what he'd heard before. Wary of walking into another bushwhacking, Slocum kept his body low and his feet on steady ground. He stopped to listen for other noises that weren't caused by the wind or movement of the nearby stream.

The rustling was becoming fainter, which meant Slocum had a choice to make. He could either continue plodding along carefully or he could rush ahead just in case whatever was making those sounds was getting away. Merle had proven to be of some use already, so Slocum put a bit of faith in him and quickened his pace. If he was attacked again or even if he fell, there was someone nearby to back him up. Even so, he couldn't help feeling nervous about blindly stomping forward.

Before long, he became certain that the lighter rustling he was hearing was coming from a spot not too far away and wasn't running away from him.

Soon he saw movement in the bushes. It wasn't much, but some of the lower branches were shaking in time to the sounds he heard. After another couple of steps, he could see the shadow of something moving awkwardly behind those bushes. Rather than trying to see through the tangle of leaves, he hurried around the bushes while looking along the top of his gun barrel.

The foul scent that had assaulted his nose earlier still hung in the air, but only faintly.

Merle exploded through another batch of bushes with his own gun drawn. When he saw Slocum, he immediately looked down at the ground between both of them. A fawn lay there, slashed open across the belly and chest, kicking its legs against the bushes as the last bit of life drained out of it.

“What the hell?” Merle grunted.

“You find anything else?” Slocum asked.

“No. I just heard this, same as you.”

Holstering his gun, Slocum crouched down to get a better look at the fawn. “Why don't you see if you can find that thing? I want to have a look at this.”

Merle obviously had something to say, but held on to it so he could rush into the woods to pick up the trail of what had brought them out there in the first place.

Although Slocum would have liked for Merle to get close enough to put that animal down or at least wound it, he didn't get his hopes up.

After all the commotion, all the yelling and running, Slocum arrived back at the small clearing dragging the dead fawn behind him. Darryl sat on the half-buried log, sipping from his mason jar without a care in the world.

“Enjoying the day?” Slocum asked.

Darryl craned his neck to look up and around at the sky that was showing through the leafy canopy above him. “Now that you mention it, today sure is a nice one.”

Slocum dragged the fawn the rest of the way into the clearing and sat down.

“You need any help with that?” Darryl asked. Making a show of looking over to where the carcass lay, he added, “Oh, I guess you handled it just fine on your own.”

“You're a real piece of work,” Slocum grunted.

“A real piece of somethin',” Merle added as he entered the clearing through the bushes.

Darryl looked over and raised his mason jar in a salute. “You went chargin' out there and came back empty-handed? I'm ashamed of you, little brother!”

“At least I did something other than sit on my ass drinking that slop water,” Merle replied.

“For once, I agree with him,” Slocum said while nodding toward Merle. “You find anything out there?”

Merle dropped himself down onto the ground to sit with his legs folded over each other. He then leaned forward and reached into the trunk that had been uncovered when they'd first reached the clearing. “Nah, but I aim to walk back out there and pick up the trail from where it started. Where did you see that thing the first time?”

“I was watering the horses when . . . shit!” Slocum said. “The horses. Someone's got to go back and collect them. Come to think of it, they probably didn't wander off too far from where they were drinking.”

“Good,” Darryl said after a loud belch. “Then you won't have any trouble finding 'em.”

“You're the one that sat back and let us do all the work,” Slocum said. “I say you're the one to gather the horses.”

“And for once,” Merle chimed in, “I agree with him.”

Darryl shook his head and screwed the lid back onto the mason jar. “Couple of twitchy sons of bitches, leavin' good horses unattended and expectin' me to clean up the mess.”

Watching as Darryl carefully placed the jar back into the trunk, Slocum asked, “What is that stuff anyway?”

“This?” Darryl asked while holding up the jar.

“Yeah. Looks like rusted river water and smells almost as bad.”

“This,” he said while opening the jar once again, “is a family recipe for taking the edge off a hard night spent drinkin'.” He took another swig, wiped his hand across his dripping mouth, and let out a loud, satisfied breath.

“What's in it?”

“You sure you wanna know?”

“Actually . . . no. I'm not. Whatever the recipe is, just keep it in the family. And keep it away from me.”

“You'd be changin' your tune if you ever needed it.”

“What other remedies do you have in that trunk?” Slocum asked. “Any medicine or such?”

“Nah. Just this. I come out here hurtin' from being drunk more often than I'm hurtin' from anything else. Judging by the looks of you two, though, we should probably start keeping a whole mess of bandages in here.”

“Don't worry about us,” Merle snapped.

The front of Merle's shirt was torn in two places. Only one of the rips showed a bloody scratch while the others barely exposed Merle's undershirt. “You all right?” Slocum asked.

“This ain't nothin' but a nick,” Merle replied while slapping his chest. “I cut myself shaving worse than that. How about you?”

Until now, Slocum had been content to leave his chest be. It was aching somewhat when he drew too deep of a breath, but nothing seemed to be broken. He pressed a hand against the spot where he'd been hit when knocked down to verify that his first guess was mostly accurate. “I'll be fine.”

“You probably should come along with us to get the horses. I don't know exactly where that thing was when you saw it.”

“I didn't see much, really. I took the horses straight to the stream, crossed it to the wide spot on the shore, and saw something moving across and about a yard or two to the right.”

“That the best you can tell me?”

After thinking it over, Slocum said, “Yeah. That's about it.”

Merle nodded to himself. “I suppose that's enough. These bushes are pretty thick out here, though. I'm not expectin' to find much in the way of tracks.”

“Just do what you can. I want to have a look at this carcass.”

“You think there's something to see?” Merle asked.

“I'll find out shortly.”

“I'll send Darryl back straightaway with the horses. After that, unless I find some tracks, I say we keep going to Fall Pass. I know another trail we can take that cuts through a part of these woods that's closer to the direction where that thing took off runnin'. That thing will most likely head back to its regular hunting grounds.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Merle headed back into the woods as his brother shouted for him in the distance. “Keep yer damn shirt on,” he replied. “I'm comin'.”

Now that the log was vacated, Slocum took a seat on it and rested his elbows upon his knees. He only needed a few moments to catch his breath, but hadn't wanted to take them while he was under the brothers' scrutiny. He tested the waters by pulling in as large a breath as he could while straightening his back. His chest ached as it had before, but still no shooting pains or anything else that might make him think his injuries were anything but superficial.

Then he shifted his attention to the fawn that had been killed not too far from the clearing. At first glance, the main thing to catch his eye was the slashes across its body that had caused it to bleed out. Slocum pulled a hunting knife from its scabbard on his belt so he could move the flaps of skin and get a better look at the edges that had been cut. They were sliced clean and deep. So deep, in fact, that the fawn's body bent at an awkward angle due to several major sections of bone that had been sliced clean through. The wounds looked more severe than the ones on Edgar or Dave, but that was only because there was so much less meat on a fawn than a man. Studying the wounds carefully, Slocum figured whatever had inflicted them would have ripped up a man about as badly as those two that had been found and brought back to the mill.

Next, Slocum took a closer look at something that had caught his attention while dragging the fawn back to the clearing. There was something peculiar about the way its legs dangled from its torso. They wobbled and bent at spots other than the joints, and when he felt them each one by one, Slocum could tell three out of four of them were broken. More than that, the bones had been snapped all the way through below the knee.

Slocum pushed back some of the fur on the fawn's legs to get a closer look. He wasn't at all surprised to find spots at the point of each break where blood had been drawn and flesh had been stripped away. The only reason he hadn't seen it before was because of all the dirt that had stuck to the blood to make the wound partially blend in with the color of the fawn's coat.

“Whatever it is, it's gone,” Merle said as he reentered the clearing.

His brother was behind him and he led all three horses into the clearing by the reins. “Ain't no sign of it. I can verify that much.”

“Yeah,” Slocum said skeptically. “You two were sure gone long enough to be real thorough about your search.”

“I can tell you're bein' a wiseass,” Darryl said.

Slocum stood up and said, “Wasn't really trying to hide it. Why don't you take a look at that?”

When Slocum nudged the fawn with his toe, Merle was the one to step forward and examine it. After less than two seconds, he looked up and said, “Looks like a dead deer. Small one.”

“Ha!” Darryl bellowed. “Sounds like another wiseass!”

“Take a closer look,” Slocum said. “Specifically, the legs.”

Merle was shaking his head, but stooped down to get a closer look as requested. He lifted one hoof off the ground, shook it, and then squinted at it a bit closer. “It's busted in two.” Peeling back the fur as Slocum had done, he added, “Looks like it was caught in something.”

“That's what I was thinking.”

“Let me have a look-see,” Darryl grunted. He walked over to the fawn to look down and over his brother's shoulder. Straightening up again, he said, “Bear trap.”

“Yeah,” Merle said. “Or something along those lines. Bear trap might have taken its leg clean off, but it's close.”

“I didn't see any traps. Did you?” Slocum asked.

“No, but that don't mean they ain't there. No trap worth a damn can be seen plain as day.”

“True. Now take a look at the wounds along its body.”

Once again, Darryl leaned over without stooping to get much closer to the fawn. “Looks torn to hell to me,” he sneered.

“Shut up if you're gonna be so damn ignorant,” Merle said. “I see what he's gettin' at.”

“Then why don't you tell me?”

Merle looked over at Slocum. “These slices are too clean to have been done by an animal.”

“Exactly,” Slocum said. “Did you get a look at what was done to those two that were found at Fall Pass and brought back to the mill?”

“No.”

“Well, it was pretty close to what you see right here. Only difference was that there were more cuts on a larger body. The edges were the same. Very clean. The wounds were real deep as well.”

“Was it laid out the same as these?” Merle asked while holding three fingers out as if he was drawing the slashes across the fawn's body.

“Yep,” Slocum replied. “Three cuts on each swipe.”

“I got one question,” Darryl said. “Which one of you two is gonna cook up that venison for tonight's supper?”

Merle stood up, turned around, and glared at his brother. “If you'd use what's in your head for one damn minute, you'd see what this all means.”

“I know what it means,” Darryl snapped. “That fawn stumbled into a trap before that beast found it. And when the beast did find it, he finished it off with three claws on each paw.”

“It weren't no claws that did this,” Darryl said. “Them cuts were done by blades. Take a look for yourself if you don't believe me.”

Darryl grunted as he squatted down to take a closer look. After poking and prodding the carcass, he muttered, “I'll be damned. It does look like the work of a knife. Whoever was swingin' it sure put some muscle behind it, too. Of course,” he added while standing up and wiping his hands upon his trousers, “it don't rule out the Beast of Fall Pass. That thing ain't exactly some common animal.”

“What we found out in them woods wasn't no animal,” Merle said with certainty. “It acted more like something that was huntin' us instead of the other way around.”

“And it sounded like it was wounded,” Slocum added. “It wheezed when it was running. A wounded animal gets angry and fierce when it's hurt or sick. Something that ripped apart those men wouldn't have just run away when it found two more of us. That doesn't make sense for any animal.”

“Not to mention that there ain't no predator alive that would abandon a perfectly good kill like this right here,” Darryl said while looking down at the fawn.

“So I suppose that means we're not dealing with an animal,” Slocum said.

“Man or beast,” Darryl snarled, “we're still hunting it down and dragging it back to town. Everything we know about the damn thing tells us it makes its home near Fall Pass. Let's get out there and commence the hunt.”