“That’s right,” Frank said. “I don’t think the bounty’s a good idea, but I still don’t want the job.”
“I wish you’d take it,” she said. “You look like the sort of man who…who can handle a difficult job.”
“You want me to find the Terror and kill it?”
Nancy Chamberlain shook her head. She took a deep breath and said, “No, Mr. Morgan, I want you to find the Terror…and bring him home.”
“Him?” Frank repeated with a surprised frown.
“That’s right. You see, Mr. Morgan, the Terror is my brother.”
Chapter 6
Frank couldn’t help but stare at her. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from her, but the news that the Terror was not only human, but her brother as well, sure wasn’t it.
That would help explain, though, why she had seemed to be more worried about the Terror than about the men who had died that afternoon.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to explain that, ma’am,” Frank said slowly.
Nancy’s fingers knotted together even tighter. “What people have started calling the Terror…he’s my brother, Benjamin. He’s not a monster, not at all.”
“Miss Chamberlain, less than two hours ago I talked to a man who had just seen the Terror. He said the thing was nine feet tall, covered with hair, and had claws so big and sharp that it could, well, tear men apart with them.”
Nancy grimaced and shook her head. “You know how people exaggerate when they’re scared. Ben is big…well over six feet, in fact…and I suppose since he’s been living in the woods, his hair and beard have gotten a little long and shaggy. As for the claws, I just don’t believe it.”
“I saw what they did with my own eyes,” Frank said as gently as he could. “It was bad, ma’am, mighty bad.”
“I don’t care!” Nancy burst out. “Ben couldn’t hurt anyone! He’s too gentle! And if he did, it…it’s not his fault…. There’s something wrong in his head…”
She raised her hands, covered her face with them, and began to sob.
Despite his age and experience and almost supernatural skill with a gun, Frank was like most men in one respect: He didn’t have any idea what to do when confronted by a crying woman. He shifted his feet awkwardly, thought about patting Nancy on the shoulder and saying, “There, there,” then decided that would probably be the wrong thing to do. So he just waited quietly instead.
After a couple of minutes, Nancy’s sobs died away to sniffles. She lowered her hands from her red-eyed face and looked at Frank. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you, ma’am,” he said. “But like I told you, I saw those men who’d been killed. It’s hard to believe that whatever did it could even be human.”
“He is, I tell you, and…and no matter how much I don’t want to admit it, I know he probably did kill those men. But it’s not his fault. He’s not right…in his thinking.”
“You mean he’s a lunatic?”
She grimaced again. “That’s such an ugly word. It makes you think of people locked away in some horrible, squalid place where all they do is rave all day…Ben’s not like that. He never was. He was always sweet and gentle and kind. He was almost like a little child.” Nancy shook her head. “Please don’t misunderstand, Mr. Morgan. Ben’s not one of those people who can’t learn. He doesn’t have the mind of a child in the body of a grown man or anything like that. He’s actually very bright. But he…he lives in a world of his own, I suppose you could say. It got worse after Mother passed away. Ben didn’t want to be around other people, even me, and we had always been close. He just wanted to be alone. That…that’s why he ran away.”
This sounded to Frank almost like a story from a fairy-tale book. But he couldn’t think of any reason why Nancy Chamberlain would lie to him about it. She was telling the truth, he sensed, or at least she thought she was.
“So your brother left home and went off to live in the woods,” he said.
“Yes. Like Thoreau. Although I don’t suppose you know who that is.”
Frank didn’t take offense. He didn’t think she was actually trying to insult him. It was just a little casual condescension.
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but I don’t reckon anything like what’s been going on in these woods ever happened around Walden Pond.”
“Oh! I’m sorry—”
Frank stopped her with a motion of his hand. He had indulged his curiosity this far, he thought. He might as well go the rest of the way.
“Tell me more about your brother,” he urged.
“Well, like I said, Ben lives in a world of his own. But it was always a peaceful place. He never hurt anyone, never got in any sort of trouble. I never even heard him raise his voice in anger, except…”
“Except what?” Frank said.
“When he and Father argued.” Nancy sighed. “They were just too different to ever get along very well. Father thought that someday Ben would take over the business.”
Frank nodded. “A lot of fathers expect that out of their sons.”
It was a good thing he hadn’t expected his son to follow in his footsteps, he thought. He hadn’t even been aware that he had a son with Vivian until Conrad Browning was a grown man. Conrad had inherited the other half of the Browning business empire, and he had done a good job of running it. But he was an Easterner, the farthest thing from a drifting gunfighter like his pa.
Although, Frank reminded himself, Conrad and his wife, Rebel, now lived in Virginia City, Nevada, and on the few occasions when Conrad had found himself drawn into dangerous situations with Frank, he had given a pretty good account of himself. He could handle a gun when he had to, and throw a decent punch.
“Ben had no interest whatever in the timber business, or any other business,” Nancy went on. “He never did. Father tried to force him to work in the company office in Eureka. It didn’t go well. They argued again and again. Ben just wasn’t the sort of son that Father could be proud of.”
Frank was no expert on such things, but he knew it was a mistake to try to force a youngster’s feet onto a path he didn’t want to follow. He was proud of Conrad, no matter how different the two of them were. It had taken Conrad a while to do some growing up and see that, but Frank was glad they had finally come to an understanding.
“Finally, after Mother passed on, Ben said that he wasn’t going in to the office anymore. Father insisted that he was. They wound up shouting at each other, and…and Father told him to get out. He said he wouldn’t have a son who was so shiftless and lacking in ambition. He…he said that Ben was no longer his son.”
Frank shook his head. “That had to hurt.”
“Yes, of course it did. I tried to tell Ben that Father didn’t mean it, but we both knew that he did. I told Ben he didn’t have to leave, but he insisted. He said he didn’t want to have anything to do with the world of men anymore. He was going to go off into the woods and live by himself, surrounded by nature.”
“Like Thoreau,” Frank said.
Nancy smiled. “Yes. Like Thoreau.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Two years.”
“But the Terror’s only been causing trouble for a few months,” Frank pointed out. “How do you know what’s been happening has anything to do with your brother?” He didn’t want to mention another possibility that had occurred to him, but he felt like he had to. “Ben might not even be alive anymore.”
“He’s alive!” she said. Then she looked down at the expensive rug on the floor of the sitting room. “At least, he was just before all this started.”