Chapter 1

  Silas - Day 1

  The stagecoach stopped outside Dry Gulch's depot. Silas Crow dismounted from his black mare and tied her to the rail. The passengers huddled near the coach while the driver unloaded their bags.

  "Much obliged for the escort, Marshal," the driver said, tipping his hat. "Wouldn't have made it through the mountain pass without you."

  "Thank you, Marshal," one passenger said. The others nodded and walked down the street, walking fast and looking back over their shoulders.

  Silas adjusted the rifle slung across his shoulder and paused, scanning the length of Main Street. Too quiet.

  Dry Gulch stretched along Main Street. Half the storefronts stood empty. The church sat on a hill at the west end, its steeple crooked. The jailhouse needed paint. Smoke rose from the blacksmith's forge near the center of town.

  Two kids kicked a tin can between them in the road. One glanced up at Silas and froze. The other followed suit.

  They ran off.

  Dog barked once from under a porch and didn't come out.

  Silas lifted his head, testing the air. Dust and something rotting. A sun-bleached ribcage jutted from the dirt.

  He passed the saloon. The sign above the door read THE SILVER SPUR, paint faded but still legible. A few shapes moved behind the dusty windows. No music. No laughter. Just clinking glass and the scrape of a chair.

  A poster nailed outside flapped in the wind.

  MISSING. $10 REWARD. LIVESTOCK DEAD – STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES.

  Handwriting shaky. Below the text, someone had scratched a symbol in charcoal. Four claw marks, wide and long, dragging down like the sign itself had been gouged.

  Silas peeled it off the wall and folded it into his coat.

  He didn't like the feeling in his stomach.

  "Something wrong with your eyes?" a voice croaked from the porch.

  Old man. Gray beard down to his collarbone. Eyes milky with cataracts. A rifle lay across his lap.

  Silas stopped. "Looking for the sheriff."

  "Dead."

  "When?"

  "Three nights back."

  "How?"

  The man's lips cracked into something like a grin. "Not rightly sure.” He tapped his cane against the porch boards. "Name's Dalton."

  Silas pulled the worn telegram from his coat. Pike's request for help, six weeks old. Too many railroad troubles had tied up every marshal. Now he was here, and Pike was dead.

  Damn. Too late.

  "You're law?"

  He touched the badge on his coat.

  Dalton nodded slowly. "Pike kept saying someone would come a territorial marshal. Someone who might listen." His milky eyes fixed on Silas. "Question is whether you got the sense to believe what you're gonna hear."

  "Believe what?"

  Dalton's grin showed missing teeth. "That some doors shouldn't be opened, Marshal. But they're cracking wide anyway." He tapped his cane twice against the porch. "Pike found that out."

  Silas walked on. Maybe too late.

  The jailhouse sat on the north side of Main Street. Its front door hung crooked on the hinges. Inside, dust drifted in the afternoon light. One desk, one cell. A few wanted posters curled at the edges.

  A hat rested on the desk. Broad-brimmed, leather band, old. Sheriff's badge pinned to the crown. Dark stain on the brim.

  Silas stared at it a long moment. The sheriff didn't go down easy.

  Then he opened the desk drawer.

  A small leather-bound ledger sat on top of a box of cartridges.

  He flipped through the pages. Most were filled with short complaints, livestock, drunken brawls, someone stealing cornmeal.

  Silas flipped the page.

  "Hattie Wilkes missing. No sign. No struggle." "Goats found gutted behind the Parson's barn." "Children say they saw a 'tall man with glowing eyes' in the orchard."

  The final page just said:

  They walk now.

  Scrawled big, uneven, like someone had written it in a hurry or shaking with fear.

  A cold sweat beaded along Silas's spine. What the hell does that mean?

  Through the open doorway, he saw a woman across the street shut her curtains. The blacksmith's hammer rang once and then stopped. A bird flapped off a roof and disappeared.

  Silas walked the length of Main Street, noting the boarded windows and empty lots. Someone with medical training might have answers.

  The doctor's office sat at the east end of Main Street, marked only by a small wooden sign that read "B. Tiller, Physician." Silas knocked and waited, listening to shuffling footsteps inside.

  The woman who answered had thin gray braids. She looked him up and down before stepping aside. She wore a practical dress covered by a leather apron.

  "Doc Bea Tiller," she said. "And you'd be that marshal Pike kept saying would come. 'Bout time."

  "Marshal Silas Crow. I'm investigating Sheriff Pike's death."

  "Course you are." She walked toward her desk, gesturing for him to follow. Shelves of bottles and instruments lined the walls, and papers were scattered across a small desk near the window. The smell of medicine and herbs hung heavy in the air.

  Not exactly the warm welcome I expected.

  "I examined Pike after they found him," Doc Tiller said, dropping into her chair. She let out a long breath. "And I ain't got a blessed clue what done it."

  She pulled out a leather folder and opened it with a snap. "I been doctoring these mountains for nigh on forty years, Marshal. Seen bear attacks, mountain lion maulings, wolf pack kills." She jabbed at the papers. "But this... this don't match nothing I ever seen."

  That's not what I wanted to hear.

  Silas studied the detailed sketches. "Could these bite marks be from wolves?"

  "Too big for wolves," Doc Tiller said, jabbing at the drawings. "Look at the size of these teeth impressions.”

  "What about something larger? Mountain lion? Bear?"

  "That's what I thought at first." She turned to another page showing claw marks. "But look at these gouges. No mountain lion's got claws spaced this wide." Her finger traced the measurements. "And even the biggest bear I ever patched up after... wrong pattern entirely. See how deep they go? Whatever made these was stronger than anything that belongs in these mountains."

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  Those claw marks are enormous. What kind of animal...

  "Have there been other attacks?"

  "Three families this past month. Same strange wounds every time." She closed the folder with a snap. "And every time, I'm left scratching my head like some green medical student."

  If she can't identify it, then what the hell am I supposed to be hunting?

  "Any theories at all?"

  Doc Tiller laughed. "Theories? I got plenty of questions and not a single answer that makes sense." She stood and walked to the window. "I sent sketches to colleagues in other territories. You know what they told me? 'Must be mistaken.' 'Check your measurements again, old woman.'” She grunted. “Old woman. Like forty years of experience don't count for nothing.”

  "So you really don't know what could have done this?"

  "That's what's eating at me, Marshal." She turned back, lines deepening around her eyes. "I pride myself on knowing wounds. Animal attacks, knife fights, gunshots - I can tell you what happened just by looking. But Pike..." She shook her head. "I got nothing."

  "Why hasn't word spread to the territorial government?"

  "Because I can't give them answers they want to hear," she said. "Government men need facts. 'What kind of animal?' they'll ask. And I'll have to tell them I don't rightly know. Makes me look like some addled old biddy who can't tell a bear claw from a wolf bite."

  She's right. The territorial office would want neat explanations. Something that fits in a report.

  Silas studied the sketches again. The impossibility of the proportions troubled him. He pulled out his notebook and began sketching the claw mark measurements. "Mind if I copy these down?"

  "Go ahead," Doc Tiller said. "Though I warn you, government men won't like what those numbers tell them."

  He copied the spacing measurements and bite impressions.

  "Thank you for showing me this, Doc."

  "Don't thank me yet." She walked him to the door. "Whatever done this to Pike, I can't tell you what it is. But I can tell you what it ain't - and it ain't like anything that belongs in these mountains."

  She paused in the doorway. "Forty years doctoring, Marshal, and this is the first time I can't give a man straight answers about what killed someone. That ought to worry you more than anything else I could tell you."

  It does worry me.

  Silas stepped back onto the street.

  But what exactly am I hunting? Need to talk to more people.

  He pushed through the Silver Spur's doors.

  "Never seen anything like..." The words stopped. Chairs scraped. All eyes turned his way.

  Three men played cards at one table. A woman sat alone near the window. Two others nursed drinks at the bar. The woman behind the bar had dark hair and green eyes. She polished a glass while watching Silas cross the room, floorboards groaning under his boots.

  Everyone stared.

  Silas walked to the bar, spurs ringing on worn floorboards. Set his hat down and pulled out his badge.

  "Marshal Silas Crow. Pike requested territorial assistance, and now... well, I'm investigating what happened to him."

  The woman poured whiskey. Seraphine, according to the faded nameplate behind the bar.

  "Bit late for that, don't you think, sugar?" she said.

  "Got here as soon as I could." Silas glanced around the room. "But does anyone know what killed him or why he needed help?"

  "Pike went looking for devils in the dark, honey," Seraphine said, setting the glass before him. "Found them lurking in shadows deeper than he imagined."

  A small, wiry man with prominent ears shifted at a nearby table. "Name's Bobby Fletcher. I know everyone's business in this town." His fingers drummed against the wood. "Pike's business got him killed."

  "Bobby, mind your tongue," a middle-aged woman looked up from her mending.

  But Bobby was already standing, chair scraping. "Territory man's here asking questions. Might as well give him answers."

  Silas sipped his whiskey. "What kind of answers?"

  Bobby glanced around the room. "Devil wolves."

  A weathered rancher snorted without looking up from his cards. "Here we go again."

  "It's true!" Bobby said, standing quickly. "Ask Martha, she's seen the tracks."

  The middle-aged woman stopped her mending. "I seen tracks, Bobby, but they could be anything."

  "Could be bears," the rancher said. "Hungry bears coming down from the mountains."

  Bobby shook his head frantically. "Bears don't hunt in packs. Bears don't tear families apart."

  "Bobby," another patron said. "Father Merrick's worried about you."

  "I ain't drunk! The Henderson place got hit. The whole family gone. You all know it."

  "Wild animals," the rancher said. "Tragic, but natural."

  Bobby paced behind his chair. "Natural? You call it natural when something plans its attacks? When it leaves warnings?"

  Plans attacks?

  "What kind of warnings?" Silas asked.

  "Symbols. Carved deep in bark, scratched in fence posts. Like they're marking territory."

  The rancher dealt another card. "Bears scratch trees all the time."

  "Not like this they don't." Bobby turned to Martha. "Tell him about what you saw at the Miller place."

  Martha's needle paused. "I... I saw scratches. Deep ones."

  "See?" Bobby said. "Martha knows."

  "Martha sees what she wants to see," the rancher said. "Just like you see devils where there's only hungry bears."

  "Fear makes people see all sorts of things," another patron said.

  "It ain't fear!" Bobby said. "Pike believed me. Pike was the only one who listened."

  "Pike got himself killed chasing your stories," another patron said.

  Seraphine refilled Silas's glass. "Poor Pike. Too curious for his own good."

  "Curious about what?"

  "Same thing that's made half the town run," Bobby said, pacing. "Things that hunt like men but ain't men."

  The room went quiet.

  Things that hunt like men.

  "Tell him about Hattie Wilkes," Martha said.

  Bobby's hands fidgeted with his glass. "Girl disappeared two months back. Her brother found her three days later, wandering like she was sleepwalking."

  "Found her alive?"

  "Changed," Bobby said. "Wouldn't talk for weeks. When she did, said she'd seen tall things in the trees. Things with glowing eyes and too many teeth."

  "Where is she now?"

  "Family left," Martha said. "Child wasn't right after."

  Seraphine traced patterns on the bar. "Fear has its own scent, darling. Carries on the wind like smoke from a dying fire. These things... they taste it from miles away."

  "Next full moon's coming," Bobby said. "That's when they get bolder. Come down from the high country looking for fresh meat."

  Martha looked up from her mending, face pale. "It's the blood moon this time."

  "What's that mean?" Silas asked.

  Eyes shifted between Martha and Bobby. The rancher set down his cards.

  "Blood moons bring out the worst in them," Bobby said.

  "Blood moon," the rancher muttered. "Now he's predicting the apocalypse."

  Martha looked up nervously. "Blood moons do bring... unusual things."

  "Superstition," the rancher said.

  Seraphine's voice was soft. "Some superstitions, darling, are just old truths wearing new names."

  Half the room believes in monsters. Half thinks it's just bears. How do I tell which is right?

  Bobby sat down. "Y'all can laugh at me all you want. But when those things come howling down from the mountains, don't say I didn't warn you."

  "We'll take our chances with the bears, Bobby," the rancher said.

  Bobby shifted in his seat. "But folks say someone's been hunting them back. Up in the mountains."

  Someone is hunting them back. That's new.

  "What kind of someone?" Silas asked.

  Bobby looked around, then leaned closer. "Ghost in the pine forests. Pike collected stories about him. Said he moved like smoke and carried silver guns."

  "What is his name?"

  "Nobody knows his real name," Bobby said. "Folks just call him the ghost. Could be he don't want to be found."

  The rancher snorted. "Could be he ain't real. Just wishful thinking."

  "Pike didn't think so," Martha said. "Pike tracked every story, every sighting."

  That might be my only lead.

  "How does the ghost fight them?" Silas asked.

  Bobby shrugged. "Don't know exactly. But Pike said this ghost has been hunting them for years. Keeping them from overrunning the territory."

  "Ghost stories and devil wolves," the rancher said. "What's next, Bobby? Dragons?"

  Martha whispered. "There have been stories. Some talk about someone in the mountains."

  "Old timers talk about a lot of things," another patron said. "Doesn't make them true."

  The talking stopped. Chairs creaked as people shifted.

  Seraphine leaned against the bar. "You have that look, Marshal. Like bullets will solve this." Her voice dropped. "They won't, honey."

  "What will work?" Silas asked.

  "That, sugar," she said, "is what separates the living from the buried."

  Silas thanked them and stepped back into the fading daylight.

  He needed supplies before investigating further. Across the street, the general store's windows were thick with dust. Silas bought coffee, hardtack, and ammunition.

  "You wouldn't happen to know about a Marshal who came through last spring?"

  The proprietor, a thin man with wire spectacles, went pale. "Agent Garrett. Had two deputies with him. All three horses came back. All three saddles bloody."

  "What kills three armed men but leaves the horses alone?"

  The proprietor shrugged. "That's what Pike kept asking." The man glanced toward the windows. "He organized a search party. Found their camp torn apart."

  "Find anything?"

  "Just blood. Lots of it. Pike said whatever got them didn't leave much behind."

  Silas touched his badge. Three lawmen. Gone. He glanced around the nearly empty store, then toward the street.

  "Town seems empty."

  "Half the folks have left. Place is bleeding people."

  Through the window, Silas could see boarded storefronts. Empty buildings. Town's dying.

  "You staying?"

  The man's mouth twisted. "This store's all I got. Three generations of family work."

  Silas spent the rest of the afternoon asking questions around town. Same story everywhere. Devil wolves, missing people, strange tracks. And always, stories of the ghost whispered like a prayer or a curse.

  If this "ghost" is real will he help me?

  The sun was setting when Silas finished. Need to get Whisper settled for the night.

  The stable sat at the end of Main Street, a weathered building that looked more solid than most in town. Inside, the familiar smells of hay and horses provided a welcome relief from the day's grim discoveries.

  A young man emerged from one of the stalls, wiping his hands on a rag. Hay stuck in his brown hair.

  "Help you?"

  "Marshal Crow. Need to stable my mare for the night."

  "Jake Morrison." The stable hand nodded toward Whisper. "She's a fine animal. Been traveling hard?"

  "Hard enough." Silas began unsaddling his horse. "You run this place alone?"

  "Me and my pa, but he's laid up with a bad back." Jake took Whisper's reins, running his hands over her legs. "Don't get many marshals through here."

  "Investigating Sheriff Pike's death."

  Jake looked away. "Shame about Pike. Good man." He led Whisper to an empty stall. "Been strange around here lately. Horses get spooked easy. Had three break out of their stalls last week."

  "What spooked them?"

  Jake shrugged. "Sounds in the night, mostly. Animals know when something ain't right."

  Silas paid for Whisper's care and found lodging at a small boarding house run by an elderly woman.

  As darkness settled over Dry Gulch, Silas lay on the narrow bed, reviewing Pike's journal.

  Then he heard it.

  Something howled in the mountains. Then another, from a different direction. And another. Silas sat up. What kind of wolf makes that noise?

  He opened his notebook and wrote for several minutes. Outside, the howling continued. Silas closed the notebook and extinguished the lamp.

  He stared at the ceiling, listening.