Read Online Range War (9781101559215) by C. J. Cherryh - Free Book Online Page A

with their throats torn out, more than a few with their bellies ripped open and their intestines in coils on the grass. They were still wet from the rain, and much of the blood had been washed into the earth.
    Dismounting, Porfiro stumbled to a ewe, dropped to his knees, and clasped its head in his hands. “Our poor babies. Why didn’t they run? Why did they let themselves be slaughtered?”
    Fargo thought he had the answer. “It came on them in the storm.”
    â€œAnd they couldn’t hear or see it until it was too late?” Porfiro nodded. “Yes, that makes sense.” He gestured. “But how could one animal kill so many? I have seen mountain lions kill two or three, but this—” He had no words.
    Fargo had heard tell of similar frenzies. In New Mexico once, a mountain lion killed upward of twenty. And in Arizona a big cat got into a sheep pen and tore apart thirty or more. He mentioned the attacks to Porfiro.
    â€œBut this wasn’t a lion, senor. It was the Hound. Dogs do not do such a thing.”
    â€œIt is more than a dog,” Lorenzo said. “It is a devil.”
    â€œA demon,” said the other man.
    â€œHere we go again,” Fargo said.
    â€œDo not talk nonsense,” Porfiro chided them. “We have heard it. Senor Fargo has seen it. It is flesh and blood, like any animal, and like any animal, it can be killed.”
    â€œIf you say so,” Lorenzo said dubiously.
    Porfiro gently lowered the ewe’s head, and stood. “We must salvage what we can of the wool and the meat. Go back to camp and bring the others.”
    â€œWhat about you?” Lorenzo asked.
    â€œI will stay with Fargo and look for sign.”
    Fargo was already searching. He threaded among the bodies, bent low. Thanks to the storm, there wasn’t any sign to find. The rain had washed away the few prints the Hound may have left. He drew rein at the tree line and stared off up the mountain wondering where the beast had gotten to.
    â€œWhy have you stopped?” Porfiro asked. “We must hunt it down while there is daylight left.”
    â€œWe can’t find it if there aren’t any tracks,” Fargo said. But he gigged the stallion and climbed anyway. Twenty feet up stood a number of small spruce, their branches close together. He went to go around and drew rein, instead. Swinging down, he dropped to a knee.
    â€œWhat have you found?”
    â€œSee for yourself.”
    In a patch of bare earth was a print. Just one, but it was complete and clear and left no doubt as to its maker’s identity.
    â€œMadre de Dios,” Porfiro said in amazement.
    Fargo didn’t blame him. The track was eight inches from end to end, and nearly as wide as it was long. He whistled to himself. In the geyser country a few years ago he and some others came across wolf tracks six inches long, and they were considered gigantic. Eight inches was unheard of.
    â€œWhat is it, senor?” Porfiro asked. “A dog or a wolf? You can tell by the track, can you not?”
    â€œUsually,” Fargo said.
    â€œWhat are you saying?”
    â€œDog and wolves have four toes, the same as coyotes and foxes,” Fargo began. “On dogs the inner two are closer together than on a wolf.”
    Porfiro intently studied the track. “I can stick my thumb in the space between the inner two on this one. So it must be a wolf, yes?”
    â€œIf that was all we had to go by,” Fargo said. “But the shape isn’t like any wolf track I’ve ever seen.”
    â€œIt is neither a dog nor wolf? How can that be?”
    â€œIt can’t,” Fargo said, and confessed, “I don’t know what the hell it is.”
    â€œI don’t understand,” Porfiro said.
    â€œMakes two of us.” Fargo moved in among the spruce and found a partial print of a rear paw. Like the front, it was gigantic. Like the front, it seemed to suggest that the animal