Buffalo Palace (47 page)

Was it something in his lineage, in the breeding, in that Scottish ancestry that harkened back to all those generations among the lowlands, clan ancestors stealing down from the misty hills and out across the foggy moors to relieve the arrogant lords and the British army of so many of their horses? Was it all those centuries of Basses pilloried and tortured by fire, all those Basses hung at the end of short ropes, Basses torn apart by four stout draft horses each whipped in four different directions, all at the
hands of the king’s servants … or was it something given birth on this continent in recent generations? Some feral otherworldly sense born in the blood of his grandpap, who as a young man had fought in the wilderness against the French and their Indians, then so soon thereafter chose to make his family’s stand on the Ohio River frontier against the English and their Indians, as the colonials tore themselves apart from the Tories and Loyalists and George III himself?

If that wildness was truly something passed down in the blood—then how did one explain Thaddeus? If this uncanny savvy was sunk so to the core of Titus, then why was his own pap content to carve settlement out of wilderness, to domesticate and till and build where only the untamed beasts and half-naked savages had roamed?

Was that why he was here among these great mountains and high valleys, after all? Titus had asked himself many a time.

Had he ventured far, far past the last outpost of settlement, leaping past the final vestiges of civilization, just so he could find himself as far from everything that was his father … if only to prove that the blood that had driven his grandpap to hack out a path through the wilderness to seek out a new home was still the blood that ran hot and thick in Titus’s own veins? Was he more the grandson? Or had he come here to these far places to prove to himself, if to no one else, that he was not Thaddeus Bass’s eldest son?

Wau-au-au-ghghghgh!

With the soul-shattering roar from the nearby grizzly, Bass jerked about. The stench from both creatures was unbelievably raw, primal, deadly.

Waugh-ngg-ngg-ngg-ngg!

In that moment the second grizzly burst into view on the slope above him. Every bit as big as the first, it might well weigh even more.

Now it bounced up and down on its four paws, then lumbered clumsily onto its hindquarters. With its fore-claws slashing at the air, it reared its head back, the slobbery muzzle pulled away to bare its yellowed teeth, shaking the massive skull that seemed to rest momentarily on the huge hump between its shoulders.

Crashing back onto alt four legs, the second monster continued its march out of the shadows toward the first grizzly, who was pacing about his carrion territorially, putting himself between the carcass and the intruder. He clawed the ground savagely, tearing up huge clumps of the moist, partially frozen forest floor with his six-inch claws, black clods of earth spraying here, sailing there. Now and again for but a moment he would stop to growl at the interloper before returning to his bristling, defensive behavior.

At the same time the newcomer would halt after every few steps, roaring his challenge, bouncing a bit on all fours and wagging his head as he exposed his rows of teeth, jaws slobbering in anticipation of his meal. Then he continued down the gentle slope through the timber toward his opponent.

And that carcass that had lured him here from miles away.

More closely related to the hog family than anything else, the bear used its keenest sense to locate food and avoid danger. From far downstream, miles away at the mouth of another valley, the interloper had whiffed his first, faint hint of that rotting meat. And as he had turned into the wind to investigate that telltale dawn breeze, the seductive stench grew stronger and stronger. On and on he had come—until he also began to pick up the smell of one of his own kind.

Yet what truly confused him for a moment was the odor of two other creatures he could not identify … not with his dim eyesight as he studied the two-legged and then the frightened four-legged only briefly from this distance. But that smell of blood and sundered flesh quickly recaptured his attention each time his thoughts wandered to the other creatures. That, and the challenge raised by one of his own kind standing guard over the feast that had brought him from so, so far.

Already with the first snowfall come to these high slopes and deep valleys, the ancient clocks were ticking within these creatures as autumn aged, as winter crept farther down from the high places, a great cold racing all the faster out of the north. Something ageless and without rationale had instructed both of these boars to spend the
long days of their short summer months feasting on the rich, nutritious plants of this high country. But as the temperatures began to drop, especially after that first heavy snowfall that had taken days to melt off from the exposed slopes, some new biological imperative had taken over within the beasts. As the grizzly neared its time for hibernation, it no longer was satisfied with leaves and stems and roots. Now as the weather turned cold—the grizzly needed meat.

A terrible season for these boars as they hunted the meat they craved, while at the same time the calendar within them also aroused the ancient itch to mate, to rut, to satisfy that which can be quenched only by coupling with a sow. So it was that in these last days before the deep sleep of winter, the boars roamed their valleys in search of meat and females, their temperament constantly on edge, easily irritable—more than ready for battle or the long sleep that would relieve them of their hungers and their itches.

So first the interloper had to find out if the protector was a sow.

When he reached a spot some twenty-five feet from the carcass, he raised his nose into the air again, sniffing everything he could while the protector rumbled his defiance.

No—the interloper decided: there wasn’t a hint of a female here. No rich, heady aroma that heretofore told him a sow was indeed in heat and ready to accept what he needed to scratch. With a disgusted snort of disappointment he lowered his head, chin almost to the ground as he lumbered side to side, wagging that head he had drawn defensively back into the huge hump to make himself appear all the bigger.

There would be no rutting this day. But there just might be a free meal … if he could drive off this other boar with a few measured cuffs of his massive paws, given deadly execution by his powerful shoulders.

As soon as the interloper turned its full attention back to the protector, Scratch began his sidelong creep, slowly inching his way toward Hannah. She continued her
keer-rawwing
without stop, even though she kept flicking her eyes from those silver-tipped monsters to her owner, back
and forth, over and over. Little chance she was relieved to see her master coming her way. He was all too slow.

While the protector backed up a few feet, he was in reality rocking back on all fours, as if cocking himself, preparing to launch his bulk right into his enemy. He crouched there, snarling, huge jaws frothing in anticipation, his body shuddering with uncontrollable passions. The same juices that prepared him to fight also readied him for coupling with a sow. And for now—the hot fire of those juices shooting through his veins and heaving muscles brought nothing but frightening confusion.

A few yards off the interloper lunged back, rising onto its hind legs, a forepaw ripping bark from a nearby pine tree. Shards of blackened bark exploded off the trunk in all directions, exposing the deep yellow wounds that would soon ooze with pitch.

Shuddering at the vicious explosion, Bass sank back on his haunches near the line of willows. Glanced at Hannah. Then swallowed hard as he turned his attention back to the two monsters. By damn, if a griz could do that sort of damage to the tough, hardened bark of an old pine tree, just think of what the beast could do against mere flesh and sinew.

Then the protector rose on his hind legs, head brought forward as far as he could out of the hump, jaws open wide, but only momentarily, until he began snapping them, clawing at the air, growling loud enough that the sound of both boars rocked back from the valley walls in a never-ending cascade of reverberation.

With a blur of silver-tipped shadow, the two bears lunged, closed, arms swinging, clawing, clutching their enemy at last. Snapping their muzzles ferociously, both tried repeatedly to sink fangs into the other—groping for an ear, biting the muzzle, sinking teeth into the tip of the nose or that thick slab of protective ridge of brow bone over an eye socket.

Then down they tumbled in a heap. Something akin to a frightened yelp burst from one of them as they flew apart, shaking their tough, thick hides … then wheeled quickly to relocate the adversary—charging on all fours.

When they collided again, the ground beneath Bass shook even more than it had before. As the grizzlies
locked themselves together, their bodies rippled and shook with the strain of muscles tested to the maximum. Over and over one another they tumbled, smashing against the trunks of great trees and careening over saplings that snapped like kindling wood, four hind legs flailing, akimbo as each fought for balance, to seize the upper hand.

Then the protector found a soft, vulnerable target in the other boar’s snout—and clamped down with his mighty jaws.

Squealing just like a scalded hog, the interloper struggled this way, then that, to free himself. But in the end he flung the protector off only by pitching his opponent over his shoulder against an old pine that shuddered with the tremendous force of the blow as the protector spilled to the ground, having released his grip on the enemy. Shaking his head in a daze, the protector sat there a moment.

Sat there too long.

The bloodied interloper was upon him that quickly, sinking his teeth into the back of the protector’s neck, one front paw yanking the opponent’s jaws back as he raked and raked with the long claws, biting again and again, filling his huge mouth with the neck tissue there at the rise of the great hump.

Twisting to his left, then twisting to his right, the protector tried vainly to snap at the enemy who had its teeth sunk into his neck, long claws slashing at his vulnerable throat, hindquarters raking along his back. Blood glistened the protector’s coat from muzzle to rump as the boar rolled over, slamming its enemy against the tree. Still the interloper would not release his grip.

Groaning, growling, whining in pain and dismay, the huge protector nailed away at nothing more than thin air, unable to land a paw on his adversary stuck like a spring tick on his back. Meanwhile the interloper snorted each time he sank a more secure hold on the tough, thick hair and hide of the protector’s neck—a grunt of impending victory. He drew his head back slightly, eyes wild, taking measure of where next to plant his powerful jaws.

Suddenly the roar of the protector became a high-pitched squeal the instant he burst free of the enemy’s grasp. Free at last, he tumbled rump over head before he
came up, dazed, surprised to find he had escaped. Now some ten yards or more away, he shook his whole body, licked quickly at one of the glistening wounds, then set himself for the interloper’s attack.

But instead of pursuing his adversary, the interloper settled to his rear haunches, his big tongue lolling out of those slabbering jaws to slap across the bloody slashes on his own muzzle, trying to ease the torment in that most sensitive part of his anatomy. He snorted and swiped at his muzzle with a paw slicked with drying blood and his enemy’s hair. Then he noticed the new scent. Turned to look. And finally discovered what it was that had lured him there from so far away.

Lumbering up the slope to the ruins of the elk carcass, the interloper sniffed it over from broken neck to the rear quarters, where the hide had been torn back and huge gashes made in the thick muscle. Then his nose nuzzled down toward the belly. With a ravenous roar he brought his muzzle out bright with gore and blood dripping, having discovered the soft innards.

At that provocation the protector leaped forward a few yards menacingly, snarling. But he was stopped in his tracks just as quickly as he had started for the interloper, which immediately raised himself halfway and growled that frightening roar of battle. It was enough to give the protector pause.

He settled back on his haunches as the interloper went back to his feast … then, while his adversary ate on the food just taken from him, the protector suddenly poked his nose into the air—as if catching the hint of something on the wind. A moment more and that battered snout sank slowly, his huge blood-flecked eyes narrowing as would any predator who has caught scent of his prey.

Titus watched the nostrils flare as more slobber drooled from the lower lips.

The bear raised itself to all fours and took a step from the trees when it was immediately stopped by a warning snarl from the interloper busy at its bloody feast. Instead of protesting, the defeated boar turned slightly and lumbered off at an angle away from the victor so that he would clearly present no threat to the carcass.

He had something else in mind altogether.

As the badly wounded grizzly cleared the shadows into the first spray of sunlight crowning the forest that dawn, Titus shuddered again. To watch the muscles ripple as it advanced, the way the long hairs of its coat alternately caught and hid the light with each stretch and contraction of its hide, and how the blood glistened at its torn neck, back in the dark furrows on the haunches, or gathered in frozen coagulate across the hump … his fingers tightened on the wrist of the rifle.

No. Bass refused to believe it.

But there was the monster, plotting a due course for Hannah.

Then the grizzly stopped, sniffed—and rose to its hind legs, measuring the breeze again. Slowly turning aside from the mule and its loud braying, as if it suddenly couldn’t hear the pack animal, or at least did not care. Eventually the snout came round to point in Scratch’s direction.

Titus froze where he was, squatting in the brush at the edge of the tall red-leafed willow. He was sure the beast could clearly hear his heart hammering in his chest.