Jack Slade, page 1
WOLF HUNTER
A JACK SLADE NOVEL
RICHARD DAWES
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Thank You For Reading
About the Author
Also by Richard Dawes
WOLF HUNTER
Copyright © 2022 by Richard Dawes
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ISBN: 978-1-955784-68-9
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Melange Books, LLC
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
www.melange-books.com
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Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.
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Published in the United States of America.
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Cover Design by Ashley Redbird Designs
1
The thick grey fog was impenetrable. The Jaguar’s windshield wipers were useless against the heavy mist as it crept along the highway at ten miles per hour. The reflected glare of the headlights blinded Slade. His nose pressed to the windshield, he strained to see three feet down the road in front of him.
A sign appeared on the right side of the highway, then disappeared in the fog. He stepped on the brakes, shifted into Reverse and backed up until he could see the placard. Years and wind-driven sand had wiped out whatever had been painted on the wooden sign, but it seemed to be pointing to something off the highway. Glancing at the ground, Slade spotted the markings of a weed-choked dirt road leading off into the darkness.
He looked at his watch. It read one in the morning. He had been traveling all day and was exhausted. The thought that there might be a place to hole up for the remainder of the night somewhere down that road prompted his decision. He spun the wheel and turned down the rutted path, his grey eyes scanning the darkness to keep from running off the road into a ditch or crashing into a tree. The wheels must have found every pothole and rock in the road as he inched through the shimmering mist. His insides felt like mush when the blurred, dripping outlines of buildings suddenly loomed ghost-like in the misty darkness on both sides of the road.
As the Jaguar crawled down the middle of the rutted track, Slade peered through the drifting fog at ancient wooden buildings in an advanced state of dilapidation, windows boarded up, roofs sagging, sidewalks broken. Apparently on the verge of collapse, the tottering buildings leaned against each other as if seeking support. Moisture dripped in long streamers from the sagging eaves, like the wispy beards of old men staggering blindly through the night.
Slade braked in front of a building that seemed just a little more stable than those around it. The windows were boarded up, but the roof seemed relatively solid, and the door was open, a black hole in the mist. To Slade’s fatigued brain, this seemed to promise shelter from the endless night. He reached behind and pulled the tan leather traveling bag from the back seat, climbed out, closed and locked the door, then looked around. The sky was opaque. Heavy fog rolled through the darkness in swirls and eddies. A cold wind whistled eerily through the broken walls and sagging roofs of the town.
“Looks like I stumbled onto an old ghost town,” he muttered, then moved toward the building.
After picking his way carefully over the rotten sidewalk, he paused at the entrance, reached into an inside pocket of his black leather jacket and pulled out a pencil flash. He flipped it on, then probed the darkness inside with the slender beam of light. Apparently, it had been some kind of store, with a counter running along the back and empty shelves clogged with glistening cobwebs lining the walls. Dust covered the counter, shelves, a few broken down wooden crates against one wall and floor like a fluffy grey blanket. Although the floor creaked, it seemed solid enough as he moved with a light tread toward the counter in the back. As dust burst in powdery clouds around his ankles, brown mice scurried across the floor, tiny eyes glittering, squeaking in panic, escaping through holes in the walls. The counter sagged on one end, but it seemed strong enough to support his weight. He flashed the light around, spotted an old mildewed broom leaning against a wall, and used it to sweep the dust off the counter’s surface. He found a ragged piece of burlap hanging on a nail, shook it out, then used it to wipe away the last of the dust. Finally, after what seemed an interminable amount of coughing, he placed the traveling bag on one end of the counter, stretched out on his side on the surface with his head resting on the bag, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.
Slade suddenly opened his eyes. Sunlight streamed into the room through cracks in the boarded-up windows and the open door, forming a yellow oblong patch across the rotten floorboards. Standing in the middle of the patch, dust particles dancing in the light around him, was an old Native American dressed in faded Levi’s, blue long-sleeved shirt, and scuffed cowboy boots. A blue bandanna held back his shoulder-length grey hair, revealing a face that was nothing but a mass of wrinkles, the color and texture of old leather. His mouth, above a strong chin, was a gash that could have been sliced in with a razor. Black, piercing eyes stared at Slade without blinking.
Slade lay perfectly still and gazed into those eyes, probing, assessing, and knew that he was in the presence of a shaman. Very slowly, he raised up into a sitting position, allowing the left side of his jacket to fall away, revealing a .38 automatic in a black leather holster set to the left of his belt buckle, angled for a cross draw.
The old man took it in without change of expression.
Slade let his feet dangle and rested his palms on the edge of the counter. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“I saw black Jaguar coming through the night,” the old shaman replied in a deep, guttural voice. “I came here to see in daylight.”
“You saw my car last night, driving through the fog?”
“No. I saw you.”
“Ah, I understand,” Slade breathed as light dawned. “You saw me in a trance.”
“I see you in smoke.”
“All right, you’ve seen me in daylight. Now what?”
“I came here to ask for your help.”
“My help?” Slade’s head jerked back in surprise. “What can you possibly need from me?”
“I know who you are.”
“What does that mean?”
“You are Jack Slade, Demon Hunter. You are night stalker who can track prey here or in vision world. All shamans, wise men, and brujos know who you are. You fight and kill many demons, black sorcerers, and evil shape shifters. That’s why I came here to ask for your help.”
“You’re clearly a man of power,” Slade returned, combing his straight black hair off his face with his fingers. “Why don’t you solve the problem on your own? Why call in an outsider?”
“When I tell you story, you will know why.”
“All right, tell it.”
“I am Ogllala Sioux,” the old man began, his black eyes taking on a distant expression. “I live on the Twin Peaks Reservation ten, fifteen miles over mountain to the north. For many years, we live at peace with the town of Crawford, twenty miles to the northeast. Then last year, some of the young men of Crawford caught one of our women while she was picking berries in the mountains. They raped and killed her. We went to the authorities in Crawford and made a complaint. One of our boys had seen the young men driving away in a pickup truck. He identified the youths. They were brought up before a judge, but he decided that the evidence was too circumstantial to warrant a jury trial, and the charges were dropped.” The old man paused, infinite sadness clouding his eyes. “The murdered woman had a brother,” he went on. “His name is Johnny Tall Trees. Although still a young man, he is a shaman of great power, maybe greater than mine. When we failed to get justice from the white man’s system, he went insane with rage and grief. It was terrible to see. Nothing I did or said could calm him down. Finally, he vowed vengeance on the white youths. One night, he left the reservation and went into the mountains. He dropped his reservation name and started using his vision name, Running Wolf. And then the killings started.”
The old man stopped talking and stared at the dust-covered floor.
Slade’s harsh features had gotten grimmer as the tale progressed.
“I suspect the first people killed were the young men who raped his sister,” he stated quietly.
The shaman glanced up and nodded. “The thing is, he shape shifts into the form of his power animal, a wolf, so the white police haven’t been able to discover who or what is doing the killings. All that is left of the bodies is bloody meat, as if wolves had ravaged them. They have hunters out, searching for a rogue wolf or pack of wolves. Even if they were lucky enough to stumble onto Running Wolf, they wouldn’t know it was him, because he would be in his human form.”
“All right,” Slade returned. “So he’s taken vengeance. What do you need me for?”
“He’s moved on to murdering other people?”
“Yes.”
“My question remains the same: what do you want me to do?”
The old man spread his hands. “I fear Running Wolf has gone truly insane. Or he has become possessed by the dark nature of the wolf. A member of our tribe was hunting in the mountains. He failed to return. When we found him, he lay in a pool of blood, his body mutilated almost beyond recognition. I believe Running Wolf no longer cares who he kills. Insane with blood lust, he now lives only for the killing.”
“Why not just go to the police and tell them the truth?”
The shaman chuckled coldly. “And bring the fury of the town down on us? And that is even if they believed me. White men do not believe in shape shifting. Besides, not even the other members of the tribe suspect that the killer is Running Wolf. They think he just disappeared. Such knowledge would cause too much trouble among us. Like the white men, they think a pack of wolves is doing the killing. I let them think that. Only I know the truth.
“I believe what we need is a white man—you—who can move in the white man’s world as well as the vision world. Who can shape shift as well as Running Wolf. Who is a killer every bit as deadly. I request that you go after him and bring him down before he does any more damage.” His black eyes glittered. “If the townspeople discovered that a Sioux was responsible for the killings, these mountains would run red with blood.”
Slade pondered for a moment, then slid off the counter and pulled his traveling bag along with him. “Well, I suppose I can look into the situation for you,” he said. “It’s clear you need some help. If I can do something, I will. But,” he held up a finger, “the first thing I need to do is get something to eat. I’m starving. Where’s the nearest restaurant around here?”
The old Indian’s gash of a mouth split in a wide grin, revealing strong but yellow teeth. “We go to reservation. You stay at my house. You can eat all the food you want.”
Slade looked down at him. He stood inches above six feet, and the old man barely came up to his shoulder. “By the way, what do I call you?”
“Call me Joe.”
Slade chuckled. “All right, Joe.” He gestured toward the door. “My car is outside. Guide me to your reservation.”
A couple of miles north of the ghost town, the dirt road widened out and became smoother. It wound through rolling hills covered with tall grass and dotted with black oaks. Occasionally, streams cut the surface of the road, splashing and sparkling in the morning sunlight. In the distance, lofty mountains reared against a clear blue sky, their steep slopes covered with vast stands of tall pine and fir trees. Joe sat straight and silent in the seat next to Slade, his spine barely touching the back of the seat as his keen black eyes ceaselessly scanned the terrain. They were nearing the mountains when a fork appeared in the road ahead, one fork leading to the northeast and the other to the northwest. Joe raised an arm and pointed to the road leading west into the mountains.
The road narrowed as it wound up through the forest, and the Jaguar’s throaty growl echoed off towering green ramparts that blocked the sun and cast a glimmering twilight across the road. Slade spotted white-tailed deer grazing under the pines and watched grey squirrels scamper across the nettled branches arching overhead. They rounded a turn, and the thick forest abruptly opened out into a wide valley. Slade blinked against the sudden burst of sunlight. He braked where the dirt road butted into a paved highway running from east to west. The trees had been cleared along the lower slopes. Slade noted wooden houses, shacks, and mobile homes dotting each side of the road, grey smoke rising from chimneys then drifting on the morning breeze.
Sensitive to atmospheres, an overwhelming sense of poverty struck Slade. In spite of the lush greenery surrounding the valley and its prolific wildlife, there was a terrible sense of hopelessness and despair that weighed down the very air. He glanced at Joe and found the old man watching him, his black eyes cold and hard, the wrinkles on his face a little deeper.
But he merely raised his arm and pointed west. “That way.”
A mile down the road, Joe pointed to the right and said, “My house.”
Slade turned in at a dirt driveway, pulled up and stopped behind an old Chevy pickup sitting in a covered carport. As he shut off the engine, he glanced at a rambling one-story wooden house, windows fronting the road, and a stone chimney from which smoke curled into the air.
“Come inside,” Joe grunted, opening the door and climbing out. “My woman will cook you something to eat.”
Slade pulled his traveling bag from the back seat, got out, raised his arms above his head, and stretched. He was stiff from sleeping on that wooden counter, then sitting behind the wheel for a couple of hours. He walked behind the old man along a dirt walkway to a roofed porch, mounted three steps, then followed him through the front door. An old woman with long grey hair flowing down her back, dressed in an ankle-length shapeless dress with an apron belted around her thick waist, and a round face only slightly less wrinkled than Joe’s, walked out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel. Slade noted an affectionate sparkle in her black eyes as she regarded the old man.
They spoke to each other in what Slade took to be the Sioux language. Her voice had a musical lilt that contrasted starkly to Joe’s deep gutturals. He must have told her that Slade was hungry, because she smiled at him and pointed into the kitchen.
“My woman will feed you,” Joe said. “I need to go into my room for a minute then I will come back and eat with you.”
While the old man disappeared into the back of the house, Slade dropped his bag on the floor against the wall and followed the woman into the kitchen. It was large, with a huge stove set against one wall, deep sinks against another, and a huge brick oven against a third. She motioned him to a chair at a table sitting beneath the window, looking out on the road. He sat with his back to the wall, where he had a clear view of the kitchen and the living room beyond.
“Coffee?” she asked, holding up a fire blackened pot.
“No thank you.”
“You just relax. I will fix breakfast. You like venison, eggs, potatoes?”
“That sounds great.”
As she turned to the stove, Joe appeared from the other room and dropped into the chair on the opposite side of the table. Slade glanced at him, then looked again, puzzled, trying to figure out what was different. He looked the same. He was dressed the same. Even so, something was different. The old man’s lip-less mouth stretched in a grin as he waited for Slade to discover the answer. Then it hit him. Everything about Joe was more solid—more real.
“You’ve been in your astral body all this time,” Slade said wonderingly. “That’s how you were able to travel down to the ghost town this morning to see me.”
Joe and his woman exchanged glances, and they both laughed.
Slade bowed his head as a sign of respect. “Anyone who can materialize their astral body to that extent is extremely powerful. It makes me wonder again why you think you need me to deal with this issue.”
“I am getting old. Fighting is a young man’s game. Besides,” his eyes narrowed, “I am a Sioux. I think we need a white man to solve this problem.”
Joe pointed into a small room off the living room. “You can sleep here.”
Slade looked in at a bedroom with a colorful Indian rug thrown over the wooden floor, a narrow bed against the wall, an old chest of drawers against another, and a curtained window looking out at the road. “This suits me fine,” he said and threw his bag onto the bed. “By the way, what’s your woman’s name?”
