Sudden Fury

Chapter 7

Chamberlain offered him a drink to seal the bargain, but Frank refused as politely as possible. He wasn’t much of a drinker to start with, preferring a good cup of coffee instead, and he wanted to get started on this job as soon as possible.

“Send a man into Eureka to spread the word about lifting the bounty,” Frank suggested. “If you’ve put up reward posters, have him take them down.”

Chamberlain frowned, clearly not liking it that Frank was giving him orders. But he said, “Very well. I’ll take care of it this afternoon.”

Frank nodded and turned toward the door.

Behind him, Chamberlain said, “Bring me his head, Morgan. Bring me the damn creature’s head.”

Frank didn’t say anything, didn’t turn. He just stood there for a second, jaw clenched, before he went out and closed the library door behind him.

Chamberlain didn’t know what he was asking for. All he knew was that something was killing his men and threatening his business. At least, that was all he would admit, even to himself. No wonder he felt the way he did.

Dennis was waiting in the corridor. He followed Frank all the way to the front door of the bizarre redwood mansion this time. The two horses and Dog were right where Frank had left them. Dog probably hadn’t moved since he sat down. His tail thumped against the ground, though, when Frank stepped out of the house and started down the steps from the porch.

The gunman called Rockwell lounged nearby on a wrought-iron bench that didn’t look the least bit comfortable. A quirly dangled from his lips. He took it out, stood up, and sauntered over while Frank was untying his horses’ reins.

“You were in there quite a while,” he commented. “Strike a deal with the old man?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. I’m going to hunt down the Terror, and Chamberlain’s going to call off the bounty.”

Rockwell’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You got him to back down? I didn’t think that was possible.”

“I offered him an arrangement he liked better, that’s all.”

Rockwell took another drag on the smoke. “I can tell you who’s not going to like it. All those hombres who’ve started wandering around in the woods looking for monsters. They all think they’re going to be the one to kill the Terror and collect that ten grand.”

“Chamberlain’s going to send someone to town to spread the word.” Frank swung up in the saddle. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d pass it along, too, Rockwell.”

The gunman shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Sure. Some of the boys have been going out into the woods to do some hunting during their spare time. I’ll tell them not to bother anymore.”

Frank rested his hands on the saddle horn and looked down at Rockwell. “Something else I’m wondering about…why does Chamberlain need to hire so many bodyguards?”

“He’s a rich man. Rich men have enemies. Chamberlain does especially. You ever hear of Emmett Bosworth?”

Frank pondered the question and then shook his head. “Can’t say as I have.”

“He’s the boss’s biggest competitor. He’s got the second biggest logging operation in northern California…and he’d like to have the biggest. Bosworth’s managed to get some leases that Chamberlain wanted to get his hands on. Those two gents don’t cotton to each other.”

Frank wasn’t surprised. No matter what a man’s business, he always had competitors. And if he was ruthless enough to be successful, which Rutherford Chamberlain obviously was, those competitors often became sworn enemies. Frank had seen it in mining, ranching, and every other business there was.

Including the business of being a fast gun.

“So Chamberlain’s worried that this fella Bosworth might try to move in on him?”

“Yeah. There have already been some squabbles between logging crews over lease boundaries. That’s when Chamberlain brought in me and Cobb and the other boys. All that’s sort of faded out over the past six months—”

“Since the Terror showed up,” Frank said.

“Yeah. The loggers are all more worried about the monster than they are about Bosworth. But Chamberlain kept us on anyway, since he figures he’ll have more trouble with Bosworth sooner or later.”

Frank nodded. Chamberlain was probably right about that. Greed, ambition, call it whatever you wanted to, it was a powerful force that was seldom denied for long.

But Frank had a more pressing problem, finding and capturing the Terror, and once that was done and he’d kept his promise to Nancy Chamberlain, The Drifter would be riding on. He wasn’t going to get involved in any timber war.

Frank turned Stormy’s head and lifted a hand in farewell to Rockwell as he rode away. He wasn’t exactly sure where he was going, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to catch the Terror here on Chamberlain’s estate. If Nancy was right and the creature really was her brother, Ben would probably avoid his father’s house. And if Nancy was wrong, if the Terror was some sort of mindless, animalistic monster, instinct would keep it from coming too close to the haunts of man. The trouble had started when the logging crews began to make their way deeper into the woods.

Frank knew where the Terror had been earlier in the day. He had seen the grisly evidence with his own eyes, heard the screams of the men being torn apart. He turned Stormy toward the south and rode slowly back the way he had come. Picking up the trail of the creature would be a long shot, but Frank was willing to give it a try.

Considering everything he had seen earlier in the day, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d found more mutilated bodies, but the forest seemed to be quiet and peaceful again. He heard an odd sound in the distance, but after a few minutes he figured out that it was the chunk! chunk! of ax blades biting deep into tree trunks. A logging crew was at work somewhere within hearing distance, but in this dense redwood jungle, it was impossible to tell how far away or even exactly which direction the sounds came from.

After a while, Frank found the camp where he had first encountered the creature’s bloody handiwork. After loading up the bodies to take them to Eureka, Karl Wilcox and the other loggers hadn’t returned, so the place looked almost like it had when Frank left it. The campfire in its ring of stones had burned down and gone out, but not before boiling the coffee dry and scorching the bottom of the pot.

The frying pan was the big difference, though. The bacon and biscuits that had been in it earlier were gone. Somebody had come along and helped himself—or itself—to the food.

Frank dismounted and hunkered next to the ashes. He called Dog over and said, “Take a whiff, boy. See what you smell around here.”

Dog circled the dead fire with his nose to the ground, pausing halfway around the ring of stones to lift his head and gaze off to the west. Frank knew that the Pacific Ocean lay only a few miles in that direction, the endless waves washing in over jagged rocks that lay at the bottom of steep cliffs. Between here and the sea, though, lay thousands of acres of thickly timbered woodland where the Terror could be hiding.

Frank stood up and grasped Stormy’s reins again. “All right, big fella,” he told Dog. “Trail!”

Dog set off through the trees while Frank mounted up. He followed the big cur, leading Goldy. Dog didn’t range too far ahead, but even so, there were times when Frank couldn’t see him. He followed the crackling sounds of Dog’s passage through the undergrowth.

As the brush thickened, the going became even slower and more difficult. Frank would have thought that the lack of direct sunlight under the towering redwoods would have kept other vegetation from growing so well, but obviously, these hardy plants had adapted.

After half an hour or so, Frank and Dog and the horses emerged from the woods, coming out into an open, parklike area about fifty yards wide. Beyond it, a rocky ridge jutted up about a hundred feet. Part of it formed a sheer cliff. Redwoods lined the top of the cliff, growing right to the edge. At the base of it lay a tumbled mass of broken trunks and branches.

It took Frank a moment to figure out what had happened. Over the centuries, erosion had eaten away at the cliff face, so that some of the trees on top of it had lost their anchorage and fallen. Lightning strikes or windstorms might have toppled some of the other redwoods. The debris formed by those natural occurrences had scattered along the base of the cliff to form a maze of sorts, as if giant fingers had flung down a handful of matches and let them fall where they might. In places the trees had stacked like makeshift walls.

Dog turned and started northward, still following the scent that had brought them this far, and Frank was about to follow him when something about the jumbled tree trunks along the cliff caught his attention.

“Wait a minute, Dog,” he said. “I want to take a look over there.”

Dog looked in the direction he’d been going and whined, then turned and came back, as if he were humoring Frank. That brought a grin to The Drifter’s face. Dog was a stubborn old cuss, sort of like Frank himself. Maybe that was one reason they got along so well.

When Frank reached the edge of the tumbled-down tree trunks, he reined in and dismounted. Leaving Stormy’s reins dangling because he knew the rangy gray stallion wouldn’t wander off, he started into the tangle of logs on foot.

He hadn’t gone very far before he realized what had caught his attention over here. Somebody had stacked up broken branches, some of which were as big around as the trunk of a regular tree, as well as the upper sections of the redwoods, which were much narrower than the bases, and made walls out of them. Those walls formed a crude cabin built up against the cliff face. From a distance, it looked natural and blended in with the rest of the jumbled logs.

Densely intertwined branches formed the roof. Whoever had built this dwelling had left an open space for the door. An old blanket hung over it.

Frank slid his Colt from its holster. Nancy Chamberlain had mentioned that her brother Ben had built a cabin for himself when he left home and moved to the woods. Was this it?

And more importantly, was this the lair of the Terror?

Frank moved closer, the heavy revolver gripped tightly in his hand. When he was about ten feet from the blanket-covered doorway, he called, “Hello, the cabin! Anybody home?”

There was no response from inside. Frank said, “Ben! Ben Chamberlain!”

Still nothing.

Dog had come up behind him. The big cur pressed against Frank’s leg. Frank felt Dog’s muscles trembling, and knew it wasn’t from fear, but rather from the desire to explore inside that cave-like structure.

“All right, Dog,” Frank said quietly. “Check it out.”

Dog bounded forward and pushed past the blanket to disappear into the cabin. Frank stalked closer, ready to go in with his gun blazing if he heard any commotion.

Instead, a few moments later Dog reappeared. A few cobwebs clung to his wolflike face, as if he had pushed his nose into some dusty, empty hole.

“Nothing, huh?”

Frank pushed the blanket aside with his left hand, thrust the gun in front of him with his right. Although the afternoon was well advanced now and the sun would soon be dipping toward the horizon, enough light still spilled through the doorway for Frank to be able to see as he looked around the inside of the cabin.

There was only one room. Whoever had built the place had dug a fire pit in the ground in the center and left some openings above it in the thatched roof for the smoke to drift out. On one side of the room was a crude bed, little more than some blankets piled up on some branches. Had to be uncomfortable as hell, Frank thought as he looked at it.

On the other side of the room was the only real sign that a civilized person had ever lived here. An old wooden trunk with a curved lid sat there. Leather straps ran around it, but the leather was rotting now. It had brass corners and a brass latch, all of which were tarnished and dull. Frank went over to it and lifted the lid. He had no idea what he would find inside.

A frown creased his forehead as he saw that the trunk was empty except for a few books. The scent of mildew drifted up to his nose. The books had gotten wet at some point in the past, and they were moldering away now. He holstered his gun and knelt in front of the trunk, reached inside to pick up one of the leather-bound volumes.

The smell was even stronger as he opened the book. He saw words written on the flyleaf. Moisture had caused the ink to run, but the writing was still legible.

Property of Benjamin Andrew Chamberlain.

That pretty well answered his question about whether or not this was Ben’s cabin, thought Frank. Out of curiosity, he turned the pages to the title page. Five Weeks in a Balloon, by Jules Verne. Frank smiled. He had read this one, too, and he was willing to bet that this particular copy had come from the library in Rutherford Chamberlain’s mansion. Maybe that edition of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea had belonged to Ben, too.

Frank put the book back and stood up, carefully closing the trunk’s lid. Maybe the trunk and the books inside it were rotting away, but they belonged to Ben Chamberlain and Frank made it a habit to respect other folks’ property. He could come back for them, though, and take them to the Chamberlain mansion once he had returned Ben himself to that redwood edifice.

He took a quick look around the rest of the cabin. His boot prints and Dog’s tracks were the only marks that disturbed the hard-packed dirt floor. No one had been here recently. That agreed with what Nancy had told him about her brother avoiding the cabin that had once been his home in the woods.

Ben had hacked several cubbyholes into the cliff face, probably using a hammer and chisel and enlarging openings that were already there. Frank could see the marks of the tools on the rock. The young man must have used them for storage of some sort, but they were empty now except for cobwebs. That explained how Dog had gotten the silky strands stuck on his muzzle. He might have smelled the last vestiges of food scent in some of them and stuck his nose in to see what was there.

Satisfied that he had seen everything there was to see, Frank turned toward the doorway. He stopped when he spotted something else from the corner of his eye, a flash of white from the corner where the crude bunk was. Something was wedged up between the branches and the cabin wall. He went over and knelt to reach in and pull it out. The shadows were starting to grow thick in here now, so he couldn’t see very well. He thought maybe what he’d seen was a piece of paper.

Instead, what his fingers encountered was a smooth cylinder of some sort, maybe an inch or a little more in diameter. It had a slight curve to it, he realized as he closed his hand around it and started working it past the branches.

His jaw tightened and his breath hissed between his teeth when he pulled the thing out and saw that it was a bone. He was no expert on anatomy, but he was pretty sure it was an arm bone from a human being.

A sudden sick feeling made Frank’s stomach clench. Still holding the bone, he stood up and moved closer to the doorway so the light would be better. He studied the thing closely, hardly wanting to admit, even to himself, that he was looking for teeth marks.

A feeling of relief went through him as he realized the bone was still smooth. The flesh and sinew were gone, but they had been stripped away by insects rather than gnawed off. That made him feel a little better.

Still, he couldn’t help but wnder how a man’s arm bone had come to be here in this cabin that had belonged to Ben Chamberlain. Was it Ben’s bone? Was Nancy’s brother dead after all, as Frank had warned her that he might be? Or had the bone come from somebody else?

He had no way of answering those questions right now, and the fading light reminded him that night would be falling soon. He wasn’t a superstitious man, but clearly there was something in these woods that was dangerous, and he didn’t particularly want to spend the night out here. He had a pretty good idea which way Eureka was from here. He would head for town, find a hotel room, and ride out here to take up the search for the Terror again the next morning.

Frank went over to the trunk, opened it again, and put the bone inside with the books. He would figure out what to do with it later, when he had a better idea who it belonged to.

“Come on, Dog,” he said to the big cur. “I don’t want to spend the night out here, and I don’t reckon you do either.”

Frank pushed the blanket aside and stepped out of the cabin. As he did so, Dog growled. That warning was enough to make Frank lift his head and look around, and as he did so, he caught a glimpse of orange flame in the shadows under the trees on the other side of the clearing. At the same time, the wicked crack of a rifle shattered the peace of the late afternoon.