Wilderness Double Edition 26 by David Robbins

Author:David Robbins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: the rockies, pulp westerns, david robbins, westerns ebook, nate king, historical adventures, frontier and pioneer west usa, american wilderness eboook, hawked rifle, wilderness men
Publisher: Piccadilly

WILDERNESS 52

GLACIER TERROR

Dedicated to Judy, Shane, Joshua and Kyndra.

Prologue

The animals feared the Thing in the glacier. They feared it the most on the nights of the full moon. For that was when the Thing emerged from the icy depths of its lair.

The deer in the thickets, the squirrels in their treetop nests, the rabbits and badgers in their burrows, heard the piercing howls, and trembled.

Part of their fear was instinct. They were always wary of the unknown, and the Thing in the glacier was unlike anything, anywhere. It was different from them, different from all that was.

Part of their fear was experience. The Thing hunted them and slew them, ate their flesh and drank their blood. Big or small, it made no difference. The Thing even killed bears and mountain lions, creatures that normally preyed on everything else. When the Thing was abroad, the bears and mountain lions slunk off into the shadows and wanted nothing to do with it.

As time passed, the Thing had to roam farther afield to find the succulent flesh it craved.

So it was on a night when the full moon hung golden and huge above the miles-high peaks that the Thing emerged and moved to the edge of the ice cliff. Below and away stretched a mountain and a valley. The Thing threw back its hairy head and voiced its challenge, a cry not like those of any other animal in the valley, more shriek than howl but not really either. It froze deer in their tracks. It caused a roaming black bear to turn and hasten elsewhere. It startled an owl into flight.

With eager tread the Thing descended to the forest below the glacier. It moved as silently as the wind, with a peculiar shuffling gait. Often it stopped to tilt its head to listen and sniff.

The Thing came to a bench sprinkled with boulders. Far down the mountain was the lake the Thing seldom visited. A grunt of surprise escaped the Thing at the sight of pinpoints of light where there had never been lights before. Its brow furrowed, and an ominous growl rumbled deep in its barrel chest. The Thing knew what those lights meant and did not like it.

Then the wind shifted, and an acrid odor brought the Thing’s head up to sniff anew. It glanced to the northeast, and there, much nearer than the lake, was another point of light that flickered and danced as if alive.

The Thing snarled. It was displeased. Yet, at the same time, it tingled with expectation, for where there was fire, there were those who made the fire, and those who made the fire were no different to the Thing than deer or mountain sheep or grouse. They, too, were prey.

The Thing glanced at the lake and the other points of light, then turned and made for the nearer one. It moved with consummate care, seeming to be part of the night itself.

Sounds reached the Thing’s ears. The sounds made by the creatures that had made the fire.

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