Fargo came to the water, and stopped.
From out of the night came another titter. And something else. “Mad, mad, mad, mad, mad!”
“Hell.” Fargo turned and raced toward the tents. Smoke was rising from the nearest fire so it hadn’t been out long. He stopped and hunkered to poke at the charred logs and get the fire going again but someone had poured water on it. Three guesses who.
Fargo moved to the next fire. It, too, had been doused with water. And sprawled beside it on his stomach was the man on guard. Bending, Fargo saw that the back of the man’s head had been caved in by a heavy blow. He rolled the body over and Onfroi’s empty eyes stared up at him.
The Mad Indian’s handiwork.
Fargo imagined how it had been. Onfroi, perhaps dozing by the fire, the insane old warrior creeping up the shore and striking him from behind with the hatchet or a rock and then dousing the fires and fleeing. But why put out the fires? Fargo wondered. Why not use the fire as a weapon and set the tents ablaze? Maybe kill a few more hated whites?
Suddenly a low, rumbling grunt issued from the trees beyond the tents.
Ice filled Fargo’s veins. Now he knew why the Mad Indian had doused the fires. He turned to shout a warning but he had figured it out too late.
Out of the night it hurtled, a living engine of destruction. As big as the biggest grizzly, as powerful as a bull buffalo, it emitted a strident squeal of fury and tore into a tent. Canvas ripped and tent poles snapped, and then men were screaming and cursing and the thing came ripping out the other side with part of the tent clinging to its bulk and a limp human form flapping up and down in front of it. The creature tossed the body aside, wheeled with lightning swiftness, and charged a second tent.
Fargo jerked the Henry to his shoulder and snapped off a shot. If he scored the slug had no effect. In the blink of an eye the second tent was reduced to ruin and there were more screams and curses added to the din.
The monster was wreaking havoc.
Fargo ran toward it, thinking that if he got closer he could try for a head shot. The tent exploded and out it came, bearing down on him. He fixed a hasty bead but before he could fire he was slammed aside as if he were a twig. A pale, curved . . . something . . . flashed before his face, missing by a whisker. He hit hard on his back, the breath knocked out of him.
Bedlam reigned.
Men were swearing, shouting, voicing their death wails. Guns boomed. Women shrieked. Above it all rose the squeals and screeches of the beast as it ran amok, destroying and slaying in a wanton rage. The thing was unstoppable. Fargo saw a man run up and fire a revolver, the muzzle inches from the creature’s head, but it had no more effect than his own shot.
The creature’s head swept up and the man sailed end over end, catapulted through the air as effortlessly as Fargo might toss a pebble. The man thudded to the ground only an arm’s-length away and wet drops spattered Fargo’s face and neck. He half rose, his gorge rising too at the sight of the Cajun’s ruptured belly and chest. The creature had ripped the man open from navel to neck, tearing through clothes and flesh and bone, and the man’s organs were spilling out.
Fargo groped for the Henry and found it.
More men were down. There were scattered bodies everywhere.
And then the voice of the woman Fargo had made love to just hours ago wailed in desperate terror, “Help me! Someone please help me!”
Fargo rose and raced to Pensee’s rescue.
10
Her cry came from a tent that was still standing.
Fargo ran toward it. Without warning the side burst outward and the beast, squealing ferociously, was on him. Fargo dived to one side. He glimpsed it as it went by, glimpsed the gleam of a curved tusk and a hide covered with bristly hair. Its hooves drummed past his ear.
Another second, and something struck Fargo across the shoulders, something heavy. Dazed by the blow, for a few harrowing seconds he thought the creature had turned on him.
Then someone groaned.
Fargo rolled and pushed. The person on top of him slid off, and he rose to his knees. He still had the Henry and he jammed it to his shoulder.
The creature was streaking toward a lean-to. In it huddled two men too terrified to do more than scream as the beast smashed into their flimsy sanctuary and reduced it, and them, to crushed ruins.
Fargo fired. He was sure he hit it but the thing didn’t break stride or stop. It crashed off into the night, the brush and the trees no hindrance at all.
Figuring it was circling to come at them again, Fargo waited. He was going to empty the Henry into it, if that was what it took to bring it down. But the crashing faded and the creature didn’t reappear. He became conscious of moans and sobs from all around him, and he glanced down at the person who had been thrown on top of him.
“Oh, hell.”
Pensee had been ripped open just like Onfroi. Only in her case, a tusk had penetrated just above the junction of her legs and ripped in a zigzag pattern clear up to the base of her throat. Thankfully, her eyes were closed. One breast, untouched, was exposed. Her dress was shredded; he pulled part of it up to cover her.
Only then did Fargo think of the Heuses. Whirling, he ran to where the biggest tent lay in shattered tatters. “Halette! Namo! Clovis!”
“Under here!”
Fargo kicked a broken pole aside and hauled at the flattened canvas. Underneath, covering his son and daughter with his body, was Namo.
“Is it safe?”
“The thing is gone.” Fargo pulled the canvas out of the way and offered his hand to help them stand. “Any of you hurt?”
“Non, thank God.” Namo brushed dirt from Halette. “I woke up and got them down on the ground barely in time.”
“Where’s Remy?” Fargo asked, looking all around.
“He was in a cot on the other side.”
Fargo moved another piece of canvas. He found the broken cot, and a prone, still Remy. Quickly kneeling, Fargo rolled him over. He expected to find Remy had been gored like the others but the only wound was a gash on the temple. A tusk or a hoof had struck him a glancing blow. Slipping his hand under Remy’s shoulder, he dragged him clear of the debris and held him propped against his leg.
The Breed ran up, pale and limping. “Is he dead? Tell me that bête hasn’t killed him too?”
“Fetch some water.”
“Oui. Right away.”
Halette came up and stood at Fargo’s elbow. “Is Uncle Remy dead? Has the monster killed him like it did my mère?”
“Your uncle will live,” Fargo assured her. “And it’s no monster.” He knew what it was now. One of the most vicious, and crafty, of all the animals there were anywhere.
Namo had come up. “If you know what that fiend is, don’t keep it to yourself.”
Remy groaned, then blinked, and looked about him in confusion. “What? Where?”
“Stay still,” Fargo advised. “You were hit on the head and you’re bleeding pretty bad. You need a bandage.”
But Remy didn’t lie still. He twisted, stared in horror at the carnage, then sat bolt upright. He put a hand to the gash, stared at the wet blood on his fingertips, and rose. “It can’t be. That brute did all this!”
It was then the Breed returned bearing a tin cup filled with water. He held it out to Remy but Remy angrily swatted it aside. “How many?” he demanded, and grabbed the Breed by the front of his shirt. “How many, damn you?”
“I haven’t checked.”
Remy shoved him. “Do it! Now!” He took a step but his legs wobbled and he started to pitch forward. Namo caught him and held him, and Halette clasped his hand.