Mountain Manhunt by David Robbins

Author:David Robbins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

11

Fargo reined into the trees, ducked under a limb, and galloped toward several torches thirty yards away. Jerrold was there, a torch high in one hand, a revolver in the other. With him were Horner and Gus, turning every which way as if in imminent fear of being attacked. On the ground lay a fourth man, his hands clutched to his blood-streaked face.

Gus spun toward the Ovaro as Fargo drew rein, and for a second Fargo thought he would fire. But he jerked his revolver down and blurted, “Some guide you are! All hell has broken loose and you weren’t anywhere around.”

“Stay calm,” Jerrold said. “It’s not as bad as all that.”

“Isn’t it?” Gus snapped, and indicated the man on the ground. “What about poor Vern here?”

At that, Vern let out a howl of agony and rolled back and forth, blubbering, “It cut me! Cut me bad! I think I’m blind in one eye!”

Fargo swung down. Deep cuts ran from the victim’s forehead to his chin, narrowly missing his nose. “The mountain lion did this?”

“It struck so fast, none of us could get off a shot,” Jerrold said. “It leaped out at Vern and was gone, just like that.”

Sinking onto a knee, Fargo grasped one of Vern’s wrists. “Let me see how bad it is.”

“I’m blind, I tell you!” Vern wailed, and started thrashing again.

“Lie still.” Fargo seized both of Vern’s arms to pull them apart but Vern resisted, whining and struggling.

“Let me be!”

“Show some grit,” Fargo said, and pried Vern’s arms far enough apart to see his face. Claw marks ran from the temple to the chin but the cougar had missed both eyes and the nose. Blood from the deepest cut was trickling into the left eye, which accounted for Vern’s claim of being blind.

“Is that all the mountain lion did?” Jerrold asked.

Horner broke his silence by kicking Vern in the ribs. “Get up, you yellow jackass! All this blubberin’ over nothin’!”

“What?” Vern bleated, and wiped a sleeve across his cheek. “Wait! I can see! I can see!”

“Idiot,” Horner said, and kicked him again.

Fargo rose. “Let’s head back. We’ll go after the horses at first light.” If they lost one to the cat it would be an inconvenience but not a calamity. They had plenty to spare. He held to a slow walk, enabling Jerrold to keep pace.

“I’m glad you’re back. I don’t mind telling you that the cries the cougar made about froze my blood in its veins. I’ve never heard anything like it.”

“It screamed to scare off the horses,” Fargo said. A favorite tactic that often rewarded the big cats with enough fresh meat to last a week or better.

“Cougars out here are more bold than they are back East,” Jerrold remarked. “Most have been exterminated. Along with wolves and anything else that is a threat to man.”

“Do you approve?” Fargo had always regarded the wholesale slaughter of predators as the last resort of timid types who prized their safety above all else. People who wanted to go from cradle to grave without once ever being at risk.

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