Page:Weird tales v36n07 1942-09.djvu/18

16 "No. Slim says they ain't dog-tracks. Slim used to trap wolves for the bounty. When he says wolf, I have to believe him."

"You have set traps for these wolves?"

"Of course."

"And the wolves avoid themI know. They have the cunning of man. Have any of your riders ever seen these wolves?"

"Sure. Shot at 'em, too. Missed."

"Perhaps," reflected the priest. "Perhaps not. You don't miss with silver. These loups-garous"

"You better be right," the big rancher murmured. He stood up and combed his fingers through his shock of white hair. "Hateful damned business! You staying here, padre? I'm ridin' out to meet the boys. See you when I get back."

"I will still be here," the priest said, smiling confidently.

ENNETH MULVANEY opened his eyes in the dark. Moonlight no longer flooded the wall. There was only a faint reflection from the argent puddle that spilled across the foot of his bed.

The voice of Joan Jordan sounded in the room.

"You're awake now."

He swiveled his head, blinking in consternation. The moonlight glowed on the naked body of the girl sitting at his feet. He started to sit up, then drew back, ashamed for her. Her eyes gleamed feverishly bright. White breasts throbbed with the rapidity of her breathing. She murmured in ecstasy.

"Isn't it a lovely moon!"

Words strangled in Mulvaney's throat.

"After all," he broke out hoarsely. "Isn't this a bit?"

He choked then, and his face and neck burned. The girl laughed, matching the silver of her voice against that of the moonglow. The sound of it was naïve, ingenuous. This was a different Joan Jordan than the girl he had met that afternoon. He wondered apprehensively if she still possessed her reason.

Without knowing or understanding, he realized the effect the change had wrought in her. She did not know she was nakednot in the sense she would have that afternoon. She was as innocently naked as Eve in the Garden before the Fall.

His feeling of shame for her went away. It was best to humor her. He smiled in the dark. She smiled in return. The moonlight glinted from tiny, sharp teeth, astrally brilliant against the blood-red of her lips. In spite of their sparkle, the blue eyes remained curiously blank.

Mulvaney found that he was no longer surprised at her being there, even though he did not know the motive of her presence. And he did not think it strange that her gleaming body cast no shadow in the moonlight. It was only a point he noticed in passing.

"You have no shadow," he remarked.

"Of course not. The moon is full."

"I had no shadow tonight in the lamp-light," he continued.

"No. You wouldn't have. The moon is full and you are one of us."

The repetition irritated him.

"I always had a shadow before!"

"Things are different in the Valley."

Mulvaney was beginning to believe that they were.

"I don't understand you at all," he said petulantly.

She threw back her golden head, and her slim, white body arched in the moonlight. Red lips parted breathlessly.

"Hurry! The full moon calls!"

He thought of his clothes on the chair across the room.

"My clothes" he began.

The change in herhe could not define it. But he knew she would not understand about clothes.

"Come like this?" he asked feebly.