The men fired at him and gave chase.
The ancient rage of his kind welled up in Derak. He flexed the powerful muscles under the thick coat of coarse fur and bounded after them.
The men were far too clumsy to elude him. Derak broke from the bushes with a roar and fell upon the one nearest to him, the one with the thin body and the head of tight black curls. He bore the man screaming to the forest floor and tore out his throat. The other threw down his useless gun and ran.
As his rage ebbed, Derak's hunger grew. He pushed his muzzle into the raw open flesh of the man's chest and fed.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Abe Craddock was a mess.
On his best days Abe Craddock did not look like anything a man would want to take home to dinner, but when Gavin Ramsay entered his office with young Milo Fernandez, Craddock was in worse shape than the sheriff had ever seen him.
He was sitting stiffly in one of the office chairs with both hands clamped around a Styrofoam cup of coffee. He tried with little success to hold the cup steady. Much of the coffee had spilled down the front of his denim jacket, adding to other stains that crusted the man's clothing.
Deputy Roy Nevins leaned against the far wall of the office, well away from Craddock, who smelled like a sewer. The fat deputy turned gratefully when the sheriff and Milo entered.
"Hi, Gavin," he said. "One of the lost sheep is found."
"So I see. Is he hurt?"
"Doesn't appear to be."
"Then what's the matter with him?"
"Damned if I know. He stumbled in here half an hour ago babbling about lions and tigers and bears, or some damn thing. I couldn't make heads or tails out of what he was saying, so I sent Milo down to the hospital to get you."
"Has Mrs. Craddock been notified?"
"Yep, I called right away. Betty Craddock says as far as she's concerned we can lock the so - " He glanced over at the shivering hunter. "Lock the guy up and throw away the key."
"Have we got anything to lock him up for?"
"Damned if I know. Defacing the local scenery, maybe."
"I'll talk to him," Gavin said. "You can go get some lunch if you want to."
"Thanks, but the smell of our friend here ruined my appetite. I wouldn't mind some fresh coffee, though." He nodded at the Styrofoam cup gripped by Craddock. "That was the last of the office pot."
"Go ahead," Gavin told him. "I'll give a yell if I need you."
"I'll be at the inn," Nevins said with obvious relief. He shrugged into a jacket and hurried out the door before the sheriff could change his mind.
"Is it all right if I stay?" Milo asked.
"Sure. I need a second officer here for interrogation anyway."
Abe Craddock swiveled his head toward Gavin. Fear glittered in his small, red-rimmed eyes. "Interrogation?" he croaked.
"That means I want to ask you some questions, Abe."
"I t-told the fat guy everything."
"Sometimes Roy doesn't get all the details straight," Gavin said in a soothing tone. "You don't mind telling me again, do you?"
"I-I guess not." Craddock carried the cup to his mouth and sipped noisily. A brown trickle ran down his unshaven chin. He wiped it away negligently with the back of a scabbed hand.
Gavin walked over and perched with one buttock on his desk. The sour smell of Abe Craddock was sharp in his nostrils.
"Okay, Abe, any time you're ready."
"It was a bear," Craddock said. His eyes darted nervously about the room. "We shot a bear."
"You said 'we'?"
"Yeah."
"Is that you and Curly Vane?"
A spasm shook Abe Craddock, spilling most of the coffee left in the cup. "Yeah. Me and Curly. We was out together. Hunting. It was a bear."
"You are telling me that you and Curly Vane saw a bear?"
"Shot it. Shot at it."
"Right up here in our own Tehachapi Mountains?"
"Yeah. Bear." The big man in the chair seemed to try to pull his head down into his shoulders.
Ramsay took a kitchen match from his shirt pocket and stuck the end of it between his teeth. He did that sometimes when he wanted to look rustic and relaxed. He also did it to keep himself from losing his temper and yelling at a citizen.
"Abe," he said very quietly, "there has not been a bear reported in La Reina County or anywhere within a hundred miles of here since the l930s." Ramsay had no idea if his figures were correct, but they were close enough to make the point of what he thought of Abe Craddock's bear sighting.
"It was a bear," Craddock insisted. "A big one."
"Where's Curly, Abe?"
The sudden question seemed to jolt the big man, as it was supposed to.
"It... it got him."
"The bear got Curly?" Ramsay fought down his rising impatience.
"Not the bear. Worse."
Craddock began to shake. He raised the Styrofoam cup and swallowed the dregs of the coffee, gagging as he did so. Ramsay moved over and took the cup from his hand. He shook the few remaining drops of coffee into the metal trashcan.
To Milo Fernandez he said, "Get me Roy's office bottle."
The young officer looked doubtful. "Gee, Sheriff, I don't - "
"It's in the center drawer of his desk. Behind the Mexican travel brochures."
Milo sat down and pulled open the desk drawer with obvious reluctance.
"Don't worry," Ramsay told him. "I know it's there and Roy knows I know. I don't give a damn if he has an occasional shooter. Right now I'm appropriating the bottle for official use."
Milo pulled out a bottle of Seagram's Seven Crown and handed it to Ramsay. The sheriff poured a generous slug into the coffee cup and gave it back to Abe Craddock.
"Here, Abe, this will do you more good than coffee. Steady you down."
Craddock seized the cup and drank greedily, swallowing the entire contents in two gulps. He held out the cup for more.
"That's enough for now, Abe. We don't want you to get too steady. Now do you want to tell me once more about you and Curly and this... bear?"
Craddock slumped in the chair. The shaking in his hands lessened as the whiskey took hold. He spoke in a hoarse monotone. "It looked like a bear. We thought it was a bear. No shit."
"And you shot at it."
"Curly did."
"He was the only one who fired?"
"Well, I guess I did, too."
"Did you hit it? The... bear?"
Craddock's head dropped. He frowned down at his hands as though they had betrayed him. In a voice barely audible he said, "We hit it."
"It wasn't a bear, was it, Abe?"
"No." The words were wrenched out of him. "It was a man." He looked up beseechingly at Ramsay. "It looked like a bear, though. Anybody would of thought so. All hairy the way he was, and he jumped up so fast. How was we to know?"
Ramsay drew a deep sigh and walked back over to sit on the edge of his desk again. It was Milo Fernandez who finally broke the silence.
"Is it the guy over in the hospital freezer?"
Ramsay nodded. "I picked up the pathologist's report this morning. Three thirty-oh-six slugs in the chest, face blown away by a shotgun blast. Nibbled on by small animals." From the corner of his eye he saw Abe Craddock flinch. "Name's Jones. Kind of a local character. Been living up in the woods since before I got here. Came to town once in a while to do odd jobs. Harmless. Kind of likable, matter of fact."
"We didn't know it was no man." Craddock's voice took on an unpleasant whine.
Ramsay turned back and gave him a hard look. "Tell me about Curly Vane."
Craddock began to tremble again. "Something got him."