to…to dig his insides out…Then it…came for me…hit me once and knocked me clear across the open space between two trees.”
Frank leaned closer. “How did you manage to get away?”
“Just luck. The thing started tearin’ at me…like it had done to Rance…and then one of the horses stampeded right into it. Knocked it off of me. I got up and ran.” Scott lifted horror-haunted eyes and gazed at Frank from them. “It could’ve come after me, could’ve caught me. I don’t know why it didn’t. Maybe the horse hurt it. Maybe it was just tired of…playin’ with us.”
One of the hunters said, “You hear that, boys? The thing’s hurt! We can track it down for sure now.”
Frank looked around at the men and told them, “You don’t know that. Like this hombre said, maybe it had some other reason for leaving.” He returned his attention to Scott. “You must have gotten a good look at it. Could it have been a bear? Maybe a grizzly that wandered over here from somewhere in the Rockies?”
Scott shook his head. That made the flap of skin that hung down from the gash on his forehead move. “It wasn’t a bear,” he said. “It was hairy all over like a bear, but…it wasn’t a bear.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“It didn’t have a snout like a bear. And it went on two legs.”
“Bears can get around on two legs,” Frank pointed out.
“Not like this.”
“Some other sort of animal then?”
Stubbornly, Scott shook his head again. “No, it was more like…a man’s face, but…bigger…hairier. It was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Sounds like one of those Sasquatch critters they’ve got up north,” one of the men said. All three of them had dismounted and stood around Frank and Scott now.
“Yeah,” another man said. “I’ve heard ’em called Bigfoot, too. They’re supposed to be nine feet tall and hairy, just like this hombre said.”
Frank wasn’t going to believe in such a thing, not unless and until he saw it with his own eyes. Even then, he’d be doubtful.
He came to his feet and said, “This fella needs medical attention. I want the three of you to take him to Eureka.”
“Hell, no! There’s ten grand on the hoof not far from here. We’re gonna go find it.”
The other two spoke up, voicing their agreement.
Scott clutched at the leg of one of them. “You can’t!” he wailed. “It’ll kill you, too, just like it did Billy and Rance!”
The man pulled his leg loose and said, “We can handle some damned old Bigfoot.”
“You don’t know…It’s worse than that…I can’t even t-tell you how bad it really is.” Scott closed his eyes and shuddered. “Like it’s not even from this world.”
“You saw what it did to those two men,” Frank said. “Well, just a little while ago it killed six more the same way, only worse. Those hombres it tore apart. Flat out tore them apart.”
One of the men rubbed at his angular jaw. “Maybe it would be better to come back later,” he suggested. “Maybe get some more men first.”
“That’ll mean splittin’ the bounty more ways.”
“I’d rather have a little less to spend and still be alive to spend it.”
“Well, I’m not goin’.”
“Yes, you are,” Frank said.
“Who the hell are you to be tellin’ me what to do?” The man who had been arguing moved his hand toward the butt of his gun. “Folks say I’m pretty fast on the draw, and if you ain’t careful, I might just show you.”
“That wouldn’t be a very good idea. My name’s Frank Morgan.”
The man’s nostrils flared as he drew in a deep, startled breath. His face paled under its tan. “Morgan,” he repeated. “The gunfighter?”
“One and the same,” Frank said.
“You’d best back off, Tom,” one of the man’s friends advised him. “Bein’ fast for around here don’t mean nothin’ against a man like Frank Morgan.”
“Yeah. All right.” Tom nodded. “We’ll do like you say, Morgan. We’ll take this fella in and find a sawbones to patch him up. And I, uh, didn’t mean any offense…”
“None taken,” Frank assured him.
“What are you gonna do, if you don’t mind my askin’?”
“Are you goin’ after the monster?” one of the other men asked. “That’d be somethin’, The Drifter takin’ on the Terror.”
“I thought I’d pay a visit to that fella Chamberlain,” Frank said. “I don’t believe it’s a good idea to be throwing out a bounty like that. It can lead to more trouble than it’s worth.”
“It won’t do you any good. From what I hear, Chamberlain’s the big skookum he-wolf in these parts. He’s used to doin’ as he pleases.”
“Maybe I can talk some sense into his head.” Frank looked around. “If I can figure out which way’s north. It’s hard to tell in this blasted forest where you can’t hardly see the sky.”
He had a keen sense of direction, though, so it only took him a few minutes to orient himself once he picked up his horses and Dog. As he rode off, he could hear the other riders moving through the trees toward the settlement of Eureka, to the east. Scott was riding double with one of them.
Frank kept his eyes and ears open. From the way Scott had talked, whatever had attacked them had struck with no warning, moving so fast that they couldn’t even hit it with their shots. Frank didn’t know if he would fare any better should the thing jump him, but he didn’t intend to go down without a fight, even if he was facing some nine-foot-tall hairy critter with giant claws.
Nothing bothered him, though, and after a while he came to a fairly wide, hard-packed dirt road that led more directly northward. Frank had a hunch it led to Rutherford Chamberlain’s house. He wondered how much it had cost to hack a good road like this out of the thickly timbered wilderness. It must have been a pretty penny.
But he supposed Chamberlain could afford it. A few minutes later, the road reached a huge clearing. The trees had been stripped from a small hill to form the estate, and at the top of the gentle slope stood a mansion the likes of which Frank hadn’t ever seen anywhere except San Francisco, Denver, and Boston. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t sure he had ever seen anything like it in those places.
He recognized the sort of men who came galloping around the house and charging toward him, though. They bristled with guns, and they were looking for trouble.
Chapter 4
