Read Online Wind Walker by Terry C. Johnston - Free Book Online

then with that. Each time one of the wolves appeared ready to leap, he swung a knife in a wide arc. Inch by inch the lanky-legged predators steadily worked toward the two trappers, at the same time Titus inched his way backward in the direction of their rifles.
    “Scratch!”
    Just as he was twisting about to look for Shadrach, Titus watched the wolf free its hold on Sweete’s ankle—and immediately whirl about to seize hold of the big man’s forearm. Shad shrieked anew as he shook the arm violently, attempting to dislodge the predator’s teeth from his flesh.
    “Use your goddamned pistol!” Bass ordered over his shoulder.
    Shadrach grumbled, “Shit—I’m trying to get to it!”
    Finally freeing his pistol, Sweete hauled back on the hammer of the big weapon, jammed its muzzle under the beast’s jaw, and blew a lead ball right on out of the top of the wolf’s head. As the animal collapsed, its jaws still locked on the man’s arm, it toppled Shadrach over with its weight.
    A swirl of ground snow blinded Titus for a moment as the closest wolf growled, leaping for Sweete as the man hit the ground. Landing on the trapper’s back, it sank its teeth in Shad’s shoulder as Titus dove for his rifle. Wheeling it in an arc, Bass brought the hammer back from half cock and didn’t wait to set the front trigger. Instead he pulled the back trigger with a powerful surge of adrenaline while bringing the muzzle down on the wolf snarling atop Sweete’s back.
    The bright muzzle flash flared against the murky snow scene as Shadrach sank to the ground beneath the dead animal’s weight.
    “Load me!” Scratch bellowed, dropping the rifle over the cow’s carcass so that it landed right beside Sweete.
    “Don’t think I can move my arm,” he groaned. “The shoulder, can’t move it—”
    “Your pistol?”
    “Only one is empty,” Shadrach admitted.
    “Try your best to hold the rifle up ’cross’t your arm,Shad,” he begged. “The rest of this pack don’t know your gun’s gone empty.”
    “H-how many more?”
    “I see’d four more of ’em out there in the snow,” he replied, watching the dark shadows lope back and forth, no more than fuzzy blurs in the dancing snow.
    “I—I’m bleeding bad, Scratch.”
    “Where?” he asked, not taking his eyes off those ghostly attackers.
    “First’un got my leg,” he answered weakly. “Likely I can wrap it tight. The last’un got my shoulder … it didn’t have time to rip out a hunk of meat. But—when that first’un got his teeth in my arm … hell, I can’t feel a thing from my shoulder on down.”
    “That’s good, you don’t feel the pain so bad,” he soothed, worry already worming in his belly. “Wrap your other hand around your arm, Shadrach. Clamp down tight—see if that holds off the bleeding.”
    As Sweete did what Bass suggested, Titus went about quickly reloading. But after pouring in a measured antler tip of powder, he decided not to waste any more time fishing out a patch lubricated with bear grease from the pouch that hung at his right hip. Instead, he started the ball into the muzzle with his thumb, then rammed it home with the straight-grained hickory wiping stick.
    “What’s your caliber, Shad?”
    “Six … sixty-two.”
    “Shit,” he grumbled as he clambered over the cow’s partially bared carcass. “Gonna have to dig a ball out for your gun. Pistol too?”
    “It’s the same. Sixty-two.”
    “Good man,” he whispered as he knelt beside Sweete, quickly peering down at the arm his friend had clenched between the fingers of his big right hand. “Allays good to have the same caliber for rifle and belt gun too. H-how’s that bleeding?”
    “Dunno. Can’t tell yet.”
    “Hold down on it tight for a little more,” he sighed, fearing the worst would come through in his voice. “Lemme get all our guns loaded, then we’ll have me a look at what you gone and done to yourself.”
    It took some doing, getting both rifles and those two