Chapter One
Bark had been scraped off the ponderosa pine, leaving a light streak against the bare trunk. Mike Hackett moved in closer. Elk rubbed against trees, but so did bears. So, sometimes, did hunters. This spot, though, had a little velvet snagged at the edges, curling down like Spanish moss he’d seen in Georgia.
He was on the track of a good-sized bull, based on its hoofprints. They were cut especially deep in the wet muck around a wallow he’d found about an hour before. Judging from those tracks, the animal might be big enough to keep him and his wife in meat for much of the coming winter.
Mike Hackett hadn’t intended to be out alone. Frank Trippi was supposed to hunt with him, but Frank had sprained a wrist the other day. Slipped in his own damn bathtub and caught himself the wrong way. Mike had a license, though, and the first rifle season only lasted a few days, so here he was. In one of the later seasons, he could come back out with Frank, and in the meantime, he’d have meat in the freezer.
Truth was, he didn’t mind hunting alone. He occasionally enjoyed Frank’s company, though that was an enjoyment better sustained on a limited basis. A few hours here and there were plenty. On an all-day or an overnight trip, Frank’s nonstop jabbering got old quick.
Mike felt much the same way about most of the folks in Silver Gap. He was basically happiest when he was by himself, flat on his back looking up into the innards of an automobile. Spending time with his wife was okay, too. Marie didn’t talk too much or demand a lot from him, and that was what he liked in a woman.
He was wearing camo pants, a long-sleeved black T-shirt under a camo shirt, and heavy boots. A blaze orange vest was cinched around his gut, and a hat of the same brilliant hue covered his flattop. Orange was supposed to make a person stand out so he wasn’t shot by other hunters, but these last few years the pines around here had been turning orange and brown, like spreading rust, and he was starting to think he would be safer in some other color. Green, maybe, which was quickly vanishing from this elevation. People said beetles were to blame, and he guessed maybe that was so. He fixed cars; what he didn’t know about bugs would fill an encyclopedia. He didn’t like it when they bit him or got into his house, but that was about the sum of his insect wisdom.
What he did know was elk, or wapiti, which meant pale butt or something like that. White rump, that was it. A nice six-pointer decorated the wall of his living room, and he had room for another. He was hoping for a 7x7 this time, but he’d take what he could get. The .338 Winchester Magnum rounds loaded into his Remington would stop any bull elk he could draw a bead on.
The summer had been hot and dry. There had been one decent snowfall since, and on this mid-autumn day he encountered only remnants of snow, a few frozen patches on the north side of boulders or ridges where the sun never reached. Mike tromped across earth strewn with discolored needles and up a steep rise. At the top he paused for a moment, catching his breath and taking in the view, searching for the fleeting movement that would indicate his target.
The trouble with tracking elk was that every sense they had was stronger than his. They could see him at a greater distance, smell him. He didn’t worry too much about them hearing him, because elk in the wild were not the quietest creatures themselves. But he tried to move slowly and carefully, sticking close to the tree line, and he had put on scent control to neutralize his odor.
As Mike’s gaze drifted down he saw antlers, tawny fur, and the familiar pale yellow behind of an elk. But he also saw white and red—jutting bone and spilled blood—staining the dirt and the fallen pine needles. Something had beaten him to his prize. He drifted closer, Remington at the ready with his finger resting lightly on its trigger guard.
The big animal—the seven-pointer he had hoped for, in fact—had been ripped open at the haunch and up the belly. A strip of skin, meat gnawed from it, hung to one side like the canvas flap of a tent opening. Its organs were gone. Tufts of fur were scattered around the carcass, blown about by the breeze or scattered by whatever predator had done this.
If he didn’t know better, he would have thought wolves had taken the elk down. But this was Colorado, and Colorado didn’t have wolves. He squatted beside the gory mess, breathing through his mouth but still catching the musky, sour-sweet aroma. Fat flies buzzed about the thing. He put a hand on its still side. Not yet cold.
Silver Gap was in Larimer County, close to the Jackson County line. He might even have crossed over that line, on the hunt. Both counties abutted Wyoming, where gray wolves had been reestablished. There, and in Montana and Idaho, the damn enviro-libs had practically put out bowls of Alpo, inviting wolves down from Canada to predate livestock and game animals.
Coyotes wouldn’t have brought down such a magnificent beast. And he hadn’t heard about any wild dog packs in these mountains. No, it had to be wolves. He rose and walked around the carcass, finding paw prints in the blood. That wedge-shaped rear pad and four clawed toes. Definitely doglike.
Mike swore and spat into the dirt. Wolves. Shit.
They had stolen his prize, and they would pay for it. Wolves had been expelled from Colorado decades ago. If he had his way, he would eliminate them again.
He started following those tracks. Six or seven different animals, he thought, but they were all on top of one another, so it was hard to be certain. After a while, he wondered why they had left the elk behind with so much uneaten. Crossing a slender axe-edge of a valley and starting up the far slope, he remembered something he had read in Field & Stream—along with TV Guide, the only magazine to which he gave any credence at all. Wolves, it had said, would eat until they were full, and if they had not finished consuming their prey they would go someplace nearby to rest, then return to the prize later. But they wouldn’t go far, and they rarely left a meal altogether until they had exhausted the supply of meat.
Sweat tickled his upper lip and streaked down his sides.
They might be nearby. Watching him right now, even.
Hunting wolves was one thing. But if they were hunting him?
Something else altogether.
A shadow crossed the sun at the top of the ridge. Mike scanned but didn’t see anything. It could have been the wind blowing tree branches in front of the sun, except the pines on that ridge, like many around here, had been stripped of needles, their branches bare.
He heard something off to his left, a sharp intake of breath. Like a sniff.
Then he saw the first dark, furry muzzle. Yellow eyes gleaming in the sunlight. Lips peeled back to expose huge, sharp fangs.
He raised the Remington to his shoulder, aimed quickly, and fired. The round went way wide. He tried to rein in growing panic and fired again, but his hands betrayed him. They were shaking, and he couldn’t slow down his heartbeat or hear anything but blood rushing in his ears. He snapped off a third round—or was it? One in the chamber, three in the magazine. Had he already fired one or two? He couldn’t remember.
There were more of them now, coming toward him from different directions. He couldn’t shoot them all.
He hurled the rifle at the nearest one. It spun in the air and missed by more than a foot. He turned and started to run.
That was the worst thing he could have done.