“You don’t look like you’re believin’ any of it,” spoke up a man at the far end of the bar. He hiccupped, then turned his shot glass over so the barkeep could not refill it. Slocum was impressed. Most men kept drinking until they fell over. This one had a sense of when to call it quits. Or so he thought until the man made his offer.

  “I’d pay a hunnerd dollars to find out what’s makin’ them weird noises.”

  “Put your money where your mouth is, Mr. Glenn,” said the barkeep.

  “Here it is.” The man pulled a fat wallet from his inner coat pocket and counted out a hundred dollars in scrip. Slocum saw Hugh’s eyes go wide at so much money. Even though it was only paper money, it was still more than the miner had seen in the past several months.

  “What’ll it take to collect that?” Hugh licked his lips, then drained his beer.

  “Don’t,” Slocum cautioned. He had seen about every con game played, and this smelled of one.

  “What does a man have to do to collect that bounty?” Hugh pulled away when Slocum tried to calm him, to get him to think more before agreeing to something that wasn’t likely to pan out.

  “Give you ten dollars if you see whatever it is makin’ the noise,” Glenn said. “All of it if you bring it back alive.”

  “What if I shoot it and drag its carcass into town?”

  Glenn hiccupped, then slammed his hand down on the money.

  “All yours, but I get to stuff it and hang its head on the wall in my office.”

  “What do you do?” Slocum asked.

  “Mr. Glenn there, well, he’s the town banker. He’s worryin’ that the noises’ll drive off folks. Hasn’t so far, but if they keep up, Hoback Junction might end up a ghost town.”

  “Who keeps the money?” Slocum had no interest in such a wild goose chase. A wildcat could make mighty strange sounds. Echoing down a canyon, magnified by distance or altered by peculiarly shaped rock formations, even the most common of animal noises could sound downright unusual. If a new steam vent had worked its way to the surface, it might be blowing through rock like a man whistling for a horse. The steam might be venting through a very long rock chimney to change the sound. Slocum thought of a dozen ways odd sounds might be made, and none of them was worth a hundred dollars to discover.

  Hugh Malley thought different.

  “I’ll find out for you,” the miner said.

  “Who holds the money?” Slocum refused to let his friend get swindled, though he couldn’t see how it would happen. Neither Glenn nor anyone else in Hoback Junction could bilk Hugh out of money he didn’t have.

  “I’ll see to it, ’less you got somebody else in mind,” said the barkeep. “Them boys’ll vouch for me. Hell, they’ll vouch for Mr. Glenn. He’s a man of his word.” The bartender laughed. “Owns damn near most of the town. No reason for him to cheat you. And he’s not the only one who wants to know what’s makin’ them noises.”

  “I’d put up five to find out, too,” said one of the men at the rear of the saloon.

  “You don’t have that much. Shut yer tater trap,” said his partner.

  “I’ll do it!”

  Slocum motioned for another beer. He paid for Hugh’s second one, also, but his mind was racing. This was as good a time as any to part company with Hugh and Darlene. They were good people, but the trip across the flat-lands of Wyoming had drained all the milk of human kindness from Slocum.

  “We want to see what you drag back, mister,” the barkeep said. “Ever’one in town’ll want to see. You’ll be a hero!”

  “And I’ll be moving on,” Slocum said softly to Hugh. “You and Darlene can split the money. I think I’ll mosey north. Montana is a sight cooler in the summertime than other places. There ought to be enough spreads up there looking for a bronco buster or just a plain old wrangler.”

  “We can go on this here hunt together, John. The pair of us stand a better chance of runnin’ whatever it is to ground and capturin’ it. Split the money,” Hugh said, but Slocum saw how it was. Hugh Malley thought of this as his new start, his stake, his way of impressing the hell out of Darlene. From the way Hugh and Darlene acted, Slocum could see them getting hitched.

  “I’m not thinking of settling down here,” Slocum told him. “Let’s get a good night’s sleep, then go our separate ways in the morning.”

  “You’ve been a good partner, John.”

  Slocum and Hugh shook hands, but Slocum knew Hugh Malley was pleased that he was giving in to wanderlust.

  The next morning Hugh headed southeast into Hoback Canyon to hunt for his wendigo, and Slocum cut due north toward Yellowstone.

  2

  Riding across Wyoming had made Slocum yearn for mountains, really tall mountains like the Grand Tetons. The Front Range of the Rockies was nice, but Slocum preferred the look of these immense, towering peaks. They promised a freedom that no longer existed in Colorado, where settlers and miners were moving in to plow the land and dig endless gopher holes into the once pristine rock.

  He sucked in a deep breath and tasted pine and fir and fragrant plants growing in abundance all around him. This was his kind of land, and he had missed it while struggling across the Wyoming prairie with Hugh and Darlene in tow. They were good people, and he had fancied that Darlene had given him the eye more than once, but they weren’t the kind of folks who appreciated being on their own. Hugh liked the security of working for some mine owner who sapped all that was valuable from both the ground and the miner, and Darlene sought what she might never find on the frontier: happiness.

  Slocum wished he could share his feelings with them. Hugh might decide roaming around above the ground was a better way to live and Darlene could find satisfaction other than in what she bought at some store or what others thought of her.

  As he rode, Slocum began to get the uneasy feeling of being watched. The Wind River Reservation wasn’t too far off, and he had caught gossip about the Indians not taking kindly to their new land. A few hotheads always snuck away, but seldom did they go on the warpath and do much mischief these days.

  But those hotheads might make a bit of a name for themselves if they lifted a solitary traveler’s scalp. Slocum felt the back of his neck beginning to itch as he looked around for trouble.

  He thought he spotted it, too.

  Riding at an angle off the trail did nothing to erase the uneasy sensation that was mounting by the minute. Slocum knew better than to discount these feelings; he had gotten through the war by trusting his instincts, and it was obvious to him now that someone was riding on his back trail. That wasn’t too unusual but being unable to spot them certainly was. He was an expert when it came to tracking and hunting—both as hunter and hunted.

  He was being hunted now.

  Slocum drew rein and sat with his leg curled around the pommel for a spell, waiting for something to happen. The men following him would make a mistake, if they were road agents intent on robbing him. When nobody appeared Slocum knew he had Indians dogging his trail. An outlaw, especially a white man, would be too eager and would never bide his time to strike at the right moment.

  Reaching for his rifle, he froze. Movement in the bushes some distance away might have been a breeze he didn’t feel where he sat. Slocum left his Winchester in its scabbard and slid his leg back down so he could get his foot into the stirrup. The small movement might have been a fox or even a rabbit, but he didn’t think so.

  Slocum put his spurs to his horse’s flanks and trotted back toward Hoback Junction, but not far. He cut off the road again, circled and came to a spot where he could get a better view of the bushes that had swayed so suggestively.

  A Crow Indian poked his head out and looked around. Not seeing Slocum, he motioned and two more followed. They wore paint, but Slocum wasn’t sure what it meant. He wasn’t as familiar with the Crows as he was with other tribes. If he had seen a Cheyenne or an Arapaho with paint adorning his face, he would have known if they were celebrating, hunting or on the warpath.

  He doubted these three were hunters. Why act so sneaky? They certainly weren’t celebrating. That left the least palatable of the choices. Slocum waited for them to move on and try scalping a settler or another pilgrim along the trail.

  He cursed under his breath when he saw that they weren’t deceived by his circling around to spy on them. Two split from the third and went to the far side of the road, as if to lay an ambush. The third stood his ground, then slowly surveyed the countryside. Slocum stood stock-still, but his horse betrayed him with a nervous whinny.

  The brave let out a war whoop and shook his rifle high above his head. He unerringly sighted in on Slocum.

  Slocum swung about and galloped off toward the town he had left hours earlier. He knew he could never reach it but wanted to decoy the Indians from his real path. He had no intention of killing his horse with a pointless chase when the trio of Crow must have ponies that were rested and capable of overtaking him before he got halfway to Hoback Junction. He watched carefully, then cut off the road when he came to a rocky patch that afforded him the chance to walk his horse a dozen yards before reaching soft dirt again.

  He knew this wouldn’t throw the Crow off his trail if they were any kind of trackers, but it gave him another half hour to do what he could to more effectively disappear. Ducking low he made his way through scrub oak until he reached a stand of pine. The pine needles crushed beneath his feet and released a fragrance that caused him to inhale deeply. He was grateful for the calming effect but more grateful that the needles hid his horse’s hoofprints so well. He dodged through the forest until he came to a small creek and followed it higher into the mountains before he reached a point where he was tired and his horse started to stumble from exhaustion.

  Slocum figured he had either lost the Crow or left them far enough behind to take a short break. He let his horse gobble knee-high grass at the edge of a small clearing while he ate a cold meal and drank from a stream.

  There was no good reason for the Crow to pursue him this long. He had done nothing to them and wasn’t likely to ride to the nearest Army fort to tell of off-reservation braves. Slocum lounged back and watched the clouds slip through the intense blue sky. His mind drifted along with the billowing, puffy white clouds until he heard a twig snap.

  Like lightning, he swung around. His hand flashed to the ebony handle of the Colt Navy slung in its cross-draw holster. He had the six-shooter aimed, cocked and ready when a Crow brave slowly stood, his rifle pointed at Slocum.

  “This looks to be a Mexican standoff,” Slocum said. He wasn’t sure the brave understood. Then he saw a flash of triumph on the man’s face and knew he understood everything perfectly. Slocum was the one who didn’t know what was going on.

  Without even acknowledging the other two behind him, Slocum lowered the hammer on his six-gun and returned it to its holster. He raised his hands. Let them think he had eyes in the back of his head and saw the two Crow with their rifles trained on him. He saw a flash of what might have been admiration on the face of the Indian before him.

  “We’re not enemies,” Slocum said. “I mean you no harm. I was just passing through.”

  “Not enemies?” The Crow laughed harshly. “You put us on reservation and starve us!”

  “You can share what little I’ve got in my saddlebags,” Slocum said.

  “We can take it!” screeched the brave.

  Slocum remained calm. If they had intended him harm, the two behind him could have filled him with holes. It had been foolish to rest so long, but he had thought he’d done a better job hiding his trail than he evidently had. Either that or these three were just a tad short of being supernatural in their tracking skills.

  “Take that which is offered freely by a friend,” Slocum said. “It’s yours.”

  “You can’t stop us!”

  “I don’t want to. I want to share with my new friends.”

  This confounded the brave. He scowled, then stomped forward. His two companions moved around to flank him. Neither of their rifles left Slocum.

  “You are not like the others,” said the brave who was doing all the talking. The other two looked at him skeptically. “Why are you here?”

  “As I said, just passing through.”

  “You have heard it?”

  This stopped Slocum in his tracks. He didn’t know what the Crow meant.

  “I have heard many things.”

  “You will help kill it?”

  “What do you mean?” Slocum was at a loss to figure out what the brave meant. “I do not hunt your deer or elk.”

  The Crow made a dismissive gesture, then pushed down the rifles of the other two braves. They spoke rapidly for almost a minute before turning back to a puzzled John Slocum.

  “You listen good, then you help kill.”

  “All right,” Slocum said. “Would you share my food?” He saw the expression on the men’s faces. They had spent a good deal of the day on his trail and had not eaten. He went to his saddlebags and took out what food he had stashed for eating on the trail. Slocum decided he could hunt for a rabbit or two in the coming days. The food was better used cementing his friendship with the Indians.

  They ate, slowly at first and then voraciously when they saw he wasn’t going to stop them. Slocum’s entire larder was cleaned out by the time the sky started turning dark.

  “It comes now,” the one brave said. “It always comes now, when the sun sets.”

  “What does?” Slocum barely had the words out of his mouth when he heard a mournful sound. At first he thought it was the wind. Then he saw a slight movement in the tall lodge pole pines around him. Whatever it was, this was not a sound born of the wind.

  It grew in intensity and was like nothing he had ever heard before. Just when he started to get uneasy, a loud trumpeting sound echoed through the mountains and distance devoured the sound entirely.

  All he could do was look at the three frightened Crow warriors and wonder what he had just heard.

  3

  “Have you seen what makes that sound?” Slocum asked. The three braves shook their heads and looked more scared than ever.

  “Let’s find out,” he said, which caused their eyes to widen. He stared at them for a moment. Here were three young bucks who would go fearlessly into battle and die, if need be, but they wouldn’t track down whatever made such an odd sound. In a way he didn’t blame them, but his curiosity was running wild.

  “Great Spirit not want to be disturbed,” said the spokesman for the trio.

  “You are good friends,” Slocum said, eager to get after whatever had caused such a ruckus. He was beginning to think that the banker in Hoback Junction might not have been amiss to put up a hundred dollar reward for identifying whatever creature made such a noise.

  Slocum hoped it was a creature and not a man. There didn’t seem to be pain in the trumpeting cry as much as there was challenge.

  He rode slowly upslope, leaving the three Crow braves behind him in the gathering dark. As he worked his way through the shadowy forest he heard their horses heading in the opposite direction. Slocum wanted to find a bluff where he could look down and see as much territory as possible.

  Within twenty minutes he found a hundred-foot cliff looking over the trail he had ridden before the Crow had begun stalking him. Twilight plunged the trail into inky darkness but Slocum waited, more impatiently than usual, for the moon to poke up above the distant mountains. The lunar light cast a silvery glow over the world, but nowhere did he see anything moving that might have made the peculiar sound he and the Indians had heard.

  “Not somebody’s drunken nightmare,” he allowed. Slocum continued his vigil staring into pitch blackness until his eyelids began to droop and he finally found it impossible to remain alert. He pitched camp, grabbed a quick meal and then spread out his bedroll, thinking that new sounds would probably wake him.

  The next thing he knew, dawn was breaking. The night had been as peaceful as any he could remember. But the memory of the booming cry lingered. It was not the product of a drunken imagination, not when he and three Crow braves had heard it, all of them as sober as a preacher on Sunday morning.

  He picked his way down the side of the mountain and back onto the main trail, intending to hunt for tracks of something large enough to make such a noise. Slocum had not ridden a mile when his horse stepped on a pile of rocks, stumbled, let out a loud neigh and then tried to rear. He fought to keep his seat. By the time he had settled the horse’s jangled nerves, he saw that he wasn’t going to do any more riding; the horse was limping badly on a bruised right foreleg.

  Disgusted, he dismounted and led the game horse back toward Hoback Junction. It wasn’t the end he had envisioned for his hunt. It was close to dusk when he got back into town and stabled his horse, giving the stable boy an extra fifty cents to see that liniment was applied to the sore leg as long as it took for it to get better. Until his horse recovered, Slocum wasn’t going anywhere.

  “John!” He turned at the call and saw Darlene waving from across the street. “I hoped I’d see you again, John,” she said, giving him a quick hug that lasted a fraction of a second longer than was proper for them being in public and all.

  “Where’s Hugh?” he asked. “Out searching for the noise-maker?”

  “He found a hunting party and joined it as a scout. Mr. Glenn said there was no problem if he took another job, if he was the one who solved the mystery. That was certainly a relief since our funds were getting mighty low.”

  “So he gets paid while he’s looking for the critter making the noise?” This had worked out better for Hugh Malley than it had any right to. “I’m glad.”

  “I don’t know how long he’ll be gone. Scouting is such arduous work. Look at how much time you spent away from us on the trip from Central City, and that was across mostly flat prairie land.”

  Slocum didn’t bother to tell Darlene he had spent more time on the trail than necessary because he knew they had wanted privacy. He wondered now who it was that the woman was more interested in bedding. She was a handsome woman, not exactly pretty but someone to give a second glance at as a gent walked past. She stood about five-feet-four and had long brunette hair and cat-colored eyes that sparkled like they had gold flecks in them. It was her ready smile and dimples that might have been her best feature, though.