Will chuckled. “You’re one porky sumbitch, now aren’t ya?”
When it was full dark, it wasn’t really full dark. The stars glinted like millions upon millions of perfectly cut diamonds clustered on pure black velvet, and the moon was close to full and hung in the sky and was not unlike a gigantic eye seeking out what was happening on earth.
“Too much light,” Ray observed, “but what the hell. Wampus will only look more scary with more light on him. Let’s use some scorch from the fire to cut down the glare of our faces.”
“Good idea,” Will said. “Night like this one, the outriders might top the rim on their rounds. We’d best tie our horses back farther than we have been, an’ keep a real sharp eye out. ’Course, we got Wampus . . .”
“Wampus came over to me this afternoon for a scratch. First time he done that,” Ray said.
“Still think he’ll turn?”
“Yeah, Will, I do. It’s in their blood. It ain’t Wampus’s fault—it’s jus’ in his blood.”
“Bullshit.”
Ray sighed. “You ready to ride?”
The strange quality of the light cast the entire prairie in a silvery hue that transformed things into what they weren’t: boulders became lurking bears, the soil itself became shimmering water, large clumps of scrub became hunched riflemen, drawing a bead.
“Lookit that,” Will said, pointing off to one side. Wampus had given a half-hearted chase to a jackrabbit that had saved himself by diving down one of the countless rabbit-warren tunnels of the area. Wampus stood looking back at the men and his entire body seemed iridescent—a softly silver color that made the wolf dog an unearthly creature. But it was his eyes that’d caught Will’s attention. They were viridescent ovals that glowed from within, making them a pale emerald shade.
“Damn,” Ray said. “If any of those guards get away after seeing Wampus, they’re goin’ to be carryin’ a load in their drawers as they skedaddle.”
They left their horses and continued on foot.
It was a good night for outrider hunting. One Dog had been smart enough to post four riders above the rim surrounding Olympus. There would have been five, but Dog shot the fifth in the back as he rode out of town lifting a bottle to his mouth. One Dog had ordered no booze, and he meant what he said.
Will and Ray heard the steady clopping of a horse at a fast walk before they saw the rider. They dropped behind a cluster of scrub. Wampus, next to Will, was trembling in anticipation, his lips curled back over shining white eyeteeth but not growling, not making a sound. The guard rode past the men and dog, and Will gave him several yards before he whispered to Wampus, “Go.”
Wampus snaked his way across the prairie floor like a moving light, seeking cover a few times to watch his prey, and then continuing on after him. He went into a jog eight or so yards behind the rider’s horse; the jog rapidly evolved into a flat-out gallop. He launched himself onto the horse’s rump and tore into the back of the rider’s neck, carrying the both of them to the ground. Wampus quickly shifted his grip to the jugular. In moments the man was dead, his horse galloping frantically away, stirrups flapping, reins dragging. Will approached the rider, told Wampus he’d done good, and ripped the man’s shirt open. He was getting good at leaving his HW—it took him only a couple of seconds. The corpse’s .38 seemed to be in good shape; Will stuck it in his belt. The rifle was a piece of a junk; that Will left. The rider had nothing else worth taking.
Will was walking back to Ray when Ray motioned “down.” Will dropped and lay perfectly still. Another outrider was approaching from the opposite direction. One Dog’s idea had obviously been to have the riders intersect with one another, so that if there was trouble it would be immediately known.
When the rider passed, Will sent Wampus to Ray with the order to stay.
He tugged his knife from the sheath in his boot and jogged after the guard, hanging twenty feet back, careful of his footing. He didn’t realize Ray was a few strides behind him until he stopped. Ray tapped him on the shoulder. Will pivoted, knife at chest level—and then grinned. “Sneaky sumbitch,” he whispered.
“If you’d been payin’ attention, you’d a heard me,” Ray whispered back. “Was I a renegade, we’d be eatin’ your liver tonight.” He held out his hand. “Gimme the knife.”
Ray balanced the knife in his palm, looking for the midpoint of its weight. He found it easily; it was a good knife. He tested the keenness of the blade with his thumb and smiled.
His mouth formed the word good. He leaned close to Will and whispered into his ear. “You stay here. I’m ‘a show you how this kinda killin’ should be did.”
The rider, of course, had kept on moving. Ray had to trot for several minutes to catch up to him. When he was twenty-five feet behind the guard, Ray took the tip of the knife flat between his right thumb and forefinger. He raised his arm and stretched it well behind him. When he threw his motion was smooth, fluid, and very rapid. The knife, looking like a silver bird as it flipped over several times, buried itself to the hilt in the back of the ourider’s skull, making a sound much like that produced when a pumpkin is struck with a stout stick. The man toppled from his horse soundlessly, slowly, almost gracefully. His body twitched twice and then he was still.
Ray scurried up, hauled the knife from the man’s head, turned him over, and tore open his shirt. He scribed the HW and then, after looking at his work for a long moment, carved a smaller but still readily discernable R under the larger marking. He jogged back to Will and Wampus, wiping blood, bits of bone, and gray matter from the blade onto his pants.
“Where’d you learn to throw like that?” Will asked.
“My pa.” Ray said he was about half Cree. “They like their knives. They hunt with ’em an’ so forth—an’ not jus’ rabbits, neither. Three or four good men could bring down a deer faster’n a arrow would. See, a arrow is liable to miss a vital spot. These Cree knife men don’t miss.”
“You think you could maybe teach me?”
“If we live long enough, sure I can.”
“Fair ’nuff. Look, we done some good work. Wanna call it a night?”
“Hell, no! Let’s go over to the other side of the rim an’ see if we can’t make sure one a them guards sees Wampus. In this kinda light, he even scares me.”
They walked, saying little, setting a good pace, Wampus slightly ahead, tasting the air for scents. The wolf dog stopped suddenly and at the same moment bits of stone and dirt spit into the air around the men. It was mostly pistol fire, but there were rifle reports as well. A couple of slugs snarled over their heads.
“We got no goddamn cover!” Ray cursed. “Sonsabitches . . .”
There was a slight dune of a rise a hundred yards away. It wasn’t much, but it was better than no cover at all. “We’d best haul ass,” Will shouted. “C’mon, Wampus!”
Wampus was ready to do battle, already advancing toward the gunfire, but he responded to Will’s call.
“Maybe you shoulda let him go—scare them snakes off,” Ray gasped, running hard.
“Not if One Dog is there, an’ I suspect he is. His crew wouldn’t have the balls to fire on us and the wampus if Dog wasn’t pushing them real hard. Come on, Ray—run!”
They threw themselves over the dune, panting, their legs feeling like rubber and their lungs screaming for air. Their cover was barely enough to stop slugs and keep the men—at least to some degree—hidden.
“We gotta git to the horses or we’ll git circled—and then we’re screwed,” Ray said when he had enough breath to speak.
“Maybe not—r’member, we got the wampus and there’s a ton of fear that goes back lots of years on the parts of them loonies—particularly the Indians,” Will said. He reached next to him and rubbed Wampus’s back. “This boy could be our bes’ weapon.”