Chapter XVIII
The wind sang a broken song among the sentinel trees. Below the scattered outposts were massed the dark battalions of the pines like an enemy ready to march against me, and somewhere along the lower edge of that black line lay the man who held the rifle that had shot me, and the bullet with which he intended to kill me.
Vern Huddy had the taste of blood upon bis lips, and was a-thirst for more, and I lay with my body torn by his bullet, shuddering with every bream, my coat gone and night a-coming on, waiting for him to make his move.
Only thing good about it was that he didn’t know exactly where I was. His bullet got me most of an hour before as I dove for shelter, but I’d wormed and scrambled and crawled some little distance since then.
I gouged snow from the almost frozen remains that had backed up against a rock near me. I let a handful melt in my mouth and felt the delicious coolness of it going down my throat, through my body.
Moving stones from under me I piled them around, digging myself deeper against the cold and Huddy’s bullets. The weakening was upon me, and for two hours before the bullet hit I’d been driven and outflanked at every turn by a man who was a past master at his trade, and who knew now that I was somewhere along timberline with nowhere else to go. In his heart he was sure he was going to get me.
This was my last stop. Whatever happened must happen here. I told myself that and I believed it. I could not go back because it was a wide-open space and even in the night there would be enough light to see me against that gray-white expanse.
The hole made by the bullet I had plugged with moss, and now I was waiting for him to come in for the finish. If he came before I passed out I might get him, and if not he would surely get me.
It was growing dark. Down in the valleys below it was already dark and people were sitting down to their tables to eat warm suppers in pleasant surroundings. Meg Rossiter was down there preparing supper for her pa, or helping, and around the campfire my brother and the others would be wondering where I was.
Easing my long body to a better position, I waited. He did not know where I was and I did not know where he was, and each needed to know. Squirming deeper into the gravel, I shivered against the cold. It was growing late in the year and at this, nearly twelve thousand feet of altitude, it could become icy by night.
This was a different peak from the night before, unknown to both of us. They called it Parrott or Madden … the two were side by side and I was not sure which we were on. I didn’t know the country that well.
Digging a fragment of jerky from my pack, I began chewing on it. That pack of mine was almost flat, just a place to carry a few pieces of bread and meat to sort of tide a man over.
I’d lost a good bit of blood and the shock of the bullet had been great. It seemed to have struck the top of my hipbone, knocking me down and numbing my leg, but then it had glanced into the flesh and had gouged a deep hole.
Even if Huddy did not get me I’d be lucky to last the night. The blood drained from me and the icy cold would take care of that. Suddenly something moved, and leaving my rifle alone I drew my pistol … how could he have come so close!
There was a low whine … that damned wolf!
How could he have followed me up here? But why not? He seemed to be haunting me. Now I’ve known wild animals to do some strange things. I heard of a panther one time who followed a boy two miles through a dark forest only a few feet behind him, the boy talking to it all the while thinking it was his dog. Then he called out to the house and when they opened the door they all saw the panther … it ducked off into the brush.
I taken a small bit of the jerky from my pack and said quietly, “Here, boy!” And tossed it out there.
Eager jaws took it, and I could hear the chewing. I began talking to it in low whispers, and calling it to me. After a long while it did come, crawling over the bank on its belly as if it knew enough to keep down, and then waiting while I talked to it. Suddenly it crawled closer.
Seen up close, even in the almost dark, it looked like a wolf and yet not quite like one. In fact, it might have been half dog. My hand reached out to it. The wolf growled a little, but warningly rather than threateningly, then it sniffed of my fingers, seemed reassured and crept closer. I put a hand on it, then listened, but heard nothing. My hand brushed the thick ruff and started to scratch.
“My God!”
The expression was startled from me, for around the neck of the wolf was a collar, a collar so tight the poor animal was almost strangled!
“Why, you poor devil!” I reached for my knife and talking to it all the while, slipped the knife under the collar. The wolf began to gag and choke, but he seemed to know I was trying to help, and then that razor-sharp blade cut through the collar and it came loose.
The effort taken a good bit from me, but I lay there, whispering to that wolf that he’d be all right now. The poor thing had been follerin’ me around for all this time, figuring I could help it. Must be that some man had at one time had it for a pet, had put the collar on when it was small, and the wolf had gone back to the woods or maybe the man had died. Then the wolf had grown and grown until the collar was choking it. No wonder it was so hungry for the small fragments I threw out. It could swallow them.
I kept my hand on the ruff and kept talking to it, and oddly enough, the wolf showed no idea of leaving. He crept closer, and even licked my hand. And the first thing I knew I’d fallen to sleep.
It must have been the warmth of the big animal lying close thataway, and part of it was that my attention had been torn from the main issue and I forgot about staying awake. Anyway, I slept.
And then I heard a low, ugly growling alongside of me and suddenly I was awake. Just the glimpse of the stars showed it was past midnight.
“Quiet, boy!” I whispered, putting a hand on the wolf, and it quieted down, but its ears were pricked and it was looking right straight ahead.
Me, I eased my pistol out and rolled away from the wolf so if I drew fire it would not get hit. He was coming in. I heard a foot grate against gravel and then he was there, black against the sky.
The wolf suddenly sprang away and his gun came up and I said, “Don’t shoot. It was just a wolf.”
“A what?”
“A timber wolf,” I said. “He’s a friend of mine.”
“You’re crazy,” he said. “Out of your head.”
“You going to kill me now?” I asked, conversationally.
“And enjoy it,” he said, “and then I’m going down to see Meg. Nobody will ever find you up here. I’ll just leave you for that wolf or whatever it is.”
My pistol was in my hand but he hadn’t seen it. He was standing about a dozen feet away and he had a rifle and he was holding it in one hand pointing it at me. It began to look like a Mexican stand-off, with both of us dying up here.
“Ever see a wolf come to a man before, Huddle?” I said. “If you’ll stop and think, that there’s impossible. Up in the mountains of Tennessee we know all about wolves and such, like ha’nts and werewolves.”
He was suddenly still, like he almost stopped breathing. “That’s fool talk,” he said. “I’m going to kill you, Sackett.”
“If you do,” I said, “you’ll never get off the mountain. That there’s what the Indians call a medicine wolf. He’ll get you sure. Tear you to bits … unless you got a silver bullet.”
“You’re lying!”
There was a low growl from the bushes to his right, and as he spun slightly toward the sound I lifted my gun and shot him.