What in the name of God happened here?
* * *
“We have to go after him,” Baumann said.
“He’s lost so much blood…” Shore said. “There’s no way…”
“Would you rather we just leave him out there? Is that what you would expect us to do for you?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I-”
“Give it a rest,” Coburn interrupted. “There’s nothing to debate. We’re going after him. And we’re bringing him back alive.”
Coburn ducked back into the main room, grabbed his rifle, and shoved between Baumann and Shore on his way to the window. He glanced down at the earthen floor. There were distinct grooves carved into the dirt where the blood had turned it to mud. It looked almost like someone had clawed at the ground to prevent being dragged toward the open window. There were other scuff marks, but no clear, recognizable prints or animal claw indentations. It had to have been a bear, though. No other animal worked in this scenario. It must have smelled Vigil’s fear or somehow sensed that he was injured, and come straight through the boarded window.
As Coburn expected, he found distinct claw marks in the wood of the frame amid the reddish-brown smears of Vigil’s hand and fingerprints. The wood was lighter at the deepest point of the scratches, at least the freshest ones. Some definitely appeared much older, the wood darker, which was surely just a trick of the dancing firelight or maybe the timber was so old it was close to being petrified.
He hopped up on the sill and glanced back over his shoulder. The others were heading in his direction with their rifles at port arms. He imagined he wore the same conflicting expressions of fear and determination on his face. It was one thing stalking elk through the forest with a warm belly full of whiskey, but going after a bear large enough and strong enough to go through the side of a house to attack a wounded man…one that had now tasted human flesh and blood…
That was another thing entirely.
Coburn raised his Remington and dropped down into a waist-deep drift. Even after a few minutes by the fire, the shock of the cold was paralyzing. He bared his teeth and struggled away from the window into snow that was barely six inches deep. The crimson amoebae of Vigil’s blood had lightened in color as the accumulation continued to amass on top of it. The edges of the drag marks were now barely discernible as the wind did its best to erase all signs of passage. Even the prints had been reduced to vague ovular impressions that weren’t even clear enough to confirm quadripedal locomotion, let alone betray the species of animal. It wouldn’t be long before there would be nothing left to follow.
They had to hurry.
Coburn charged toward the edge of the forest. The branches of the evergreens and aspens would trap most of the snow overhead, which meant that he would be able to move faster under the canopy. Unfortunately, it also meant that the tracks would be nearly impossible to follow on the moldering detritus.
He was nearly to the tree line and searching for the path of least resistance when a gust of wind made the shadows shift.
Coburn stopped so quickly that his feet slid out from beneath him. He scrabbled back to his feet, rifle at his shoulder, never once taking his eyes off of the forest through the swirling snow.
“Hurry up!” Baumann shouted as he charged past Coburn on his left. He barely had time to reach out and grab Todd by the back of the jacket. “What the hell are you-?”
Baumann’s rifle was seated against his shoulder in a heartbeat. It shook in his grasp. His eyes were impossibly wide. He took an involuntary step backward.
“Oh, God,” Shore said from behind them.
Coburn didn’t dare look away.
“Help me get him down from there,” Coburn said.
“A bear wouldn’t do something like that,” Shore said.
“Just help me get him down!”
Coburn walked cautiously, one step at a time, sweeping his rifle across the tree line a mere twenty feet away. The Remington was a powerful rifle that could drop a bull at three hundred yards like it was a point-blank shot, but at such close range, the scope was not only useless, it was in the way. The load didn’t scatter like buckshot from a shotgun; there was one bullet that was less than half an inch in diameter. And if he missed it would take him nearly two whole seconds to draw back the bolt, eject the spent casing, chamber another, slam the bolt home again, and pull the trigger. Based on the evidence around him, Coburn was certain that he wouldn’t have that kind of time. He’d once read that a grizzly bear could run at speeds of up to thirty miles an hour. At that rate, it would be upon him in half a second.
He halved the distance and stopped ten feet from the wall of pine trees. The wind was blowing so hard that it was snowing sideways. The flakes flew past so quickly that even standing still felt like he was moving to his right, but he could clearly see Vigil’s silhouette against the dark shadows lurking under the canopy. He’d been somehow suspended upside down from the skeletal branches of an aspen, his arms dangling toward the ground. He bounced gently up and down from the bough as he swayed in the wind. It was obvious he’d been stripped to the bare skin…and then gutted.
“No bear could do that,” Shore repeated.
“Yeah…” Coburn said. The telltale scent of evisceration, of warm blood and lacerated bowels, found him on the screaming wind. “I think you might be right…”
Movement in the shadows to his left.
“Back to the cabin,” Coburn said. More movement drew his attention to the right. “Get back to the cabin!”
He turned and ran as fast as he could, lifting his feet high to clear the accumulation. Shore was an indistinct blur ahead of him against the smoky light of the window. He heard Baumann shouting from somewhere behind him. Shore plowed into the drift against the house first and kicked at the planks until he managed to haul himself over the sill. Coburn spun and covered the edge of the forest while Baumann leapt up and scrambled through the window.
There was no sign of pursuit.
“Come on, Will!”
“Hurry up!”
Coburn turned, climbed through the open window, and fell down to the muddy ground beside the fire.
* * *
“I’m telling you, bears don’t do that kind of thing!” Shore’s voice carried from the main room. “They can’t do that kind of thing!”
“What else could have done it then?” Baumann said. He was sitting in the slanted doorway between rooms, where he could see both the front door and the side window. “I can’t think of anything that could have done that.”
“That’s exactly my point!”
“Men,” Coburn said without taking his eyes from the window, where he focused on the stretch of white that separated him from the forest, despite the snow blowing directly into his face. “Only men are capable of doing something like that.”
The silence was interrupted only by the wail of the wind. When it paused to draw a breath, he could see Vigil’s outline, still dangling from the trees. Every few minutes, he was convinced he caught movement in the shadows, in a slightly different location each time. Someone or something was still out there. Watching them.
Waiting.
A shiver rippled up his spine.
“What are we going to do?” Shore said, barely loud enough to be heard.
Coburn didn’t have the slightest clue. They had no idea who or what was out there, or how many of them there were. Until they did and had a solid plan of action, running blindly into the forest and the storm was suicide.
They had already barricaded the front door as well as they could. It had been unnerving how easily the pile of debris just inside the front door had slid into place against it. The only other window, on the front of the house, was still boarded and reinforced with broken lengths of ceiling joists. Where the wooden walls appeared most vulnerable, there were already stacks of stones and logs. None of them vocalized what they were all thinking.