Page:Weird tales v36n07 1942-09.djvu/26

24 briefly. "She casts a shadow. They was lost soulsan' lost souls ain't got no shadows. The padre knows these things. The silver bullets kill theman' give them back their souls. I dunno how, but the padre ought to know. He's a man o' God."

"I never believed in souls," Slim said hollowly.

Sam Carver shook his head slowly. "Never took much truck in 'em myself'til now. Guess people ain't as smart as they think they are, Slim. Lots o' things we don't knowan' lots o' things we do know an' won't believe."

The old man brooded in the moonlight, a somber shadow towering over the dead girl. Then he turned and shuffled with his companion toward the shelter of the cottonwoods.

Three yards from the pitifully naked body, eyes glowed in the deep grass. A lean, gray wolf wriggled forward on its belly. The beast's jaws quivered. From between them, the pink tongue reached slowly forth and licked tenderly at the still warm cheek of the dead girl. The faint breeze stirred in her golden curls, and the gray wolf turned away. He drew his legs under him and sprang swiftly up the slope.

"There goes one! Git 'im!"

Rifles spat a ragged volley. Silver slugs whined and crackled around the fleeing wolf. The prodigal waste of precious metal was a sign of the ranchers' determination.

HE were-beast reached the shadows in safety and skulked there, looking down upon the valley. The human eyes showed grief and sorrow, but no hate or fear. The creek and its cottonwoods was a black snake wriggling the length of the valley. Men hid in the cottonwoodsmen with silver death in their guns.

In the west the moon hung low. The starshine had begun to pale in the east. So, little time was left.

He turned and trotted up the slope, among the whispering pines.

The clan had gathered on the ridge. Above lay only gloomy rocks and barrenness. The ranchers waited below. The gray wolf moved silently among the pack. They were afraid, and he knew it.

Picking his way carefully, the gray wolf moved to a spot above them, atop a gaunt, ill-shaped boulder leaning out of the mountainside. In black silhouette against the milky dawn, he lifted his muzzle to the jewel-spattered velvet of the sky. He howled as a wolf howls, savagely, mournfully, with desperate loneliness and grief. One by one, the pack took up the cry and gave voice to their own requiem.

The men in the valley shuddered at the hideous sound that floated down from the ridge upon the chill breath of dawn. Some crossed themselves. Others cursed under their breath.

The wolf looked with glowing eyes upon the remainder of his people. He would lead them. He would lead them into the deliverance he had promised himself they should have. The words of Sam Carver had shown him the way.

The moon slipped behind the shoulder of the mountain that was like a great, sleeping wolf set to guard the valley. The shadow of it cut ominous and menacing across timbered slopes and grassy prairies. The chill of dawn fingered into the cottonwoods.

Like shadows came the wolves, streaming down the slope. The sky in the east grew whiter and whiter still. In the heart of the gray wolf was calmness and peace. His people followed him into the face of death by silver. And it freed them of Satan's bondage.