Shadow on the Moon (18 page)

As he ran his fingers over the
textured backside of the mold, the motor home rocked on its tires. Beneath the
roar of the gale, Schumacher thought he heard a beast howling.

His teeth began chattering again.

* *
*

Dana woke up with a start. It took
a minute before she realized what was wrong. The room was too quiet. She'd
grown used to the ceaseless roar of wind, but now it had finally stopped.

She leaped up an rushed to the
window. Moonlight reflected off a calm sheet of snow.

The storm was over. She could leave
in the morning and be back to her life before nightfall.

Familiar sounds from Morgan's room
broke her moment of joy. How long would those horrible noises he called music
last this time? Mercifully, it soon stopped, and seconds later a door creaked,
a latch opened, then clicked closed. Dana yearned to follow him and find out
where he went during his excursions, but knew it was a foolish waste of energy.
She must stay fresh for the long hike ahead. The mystery surrounding Morgan
Wilder would remain unsolved.

So why had she let him kiss her?

Let him? That kind of dishonesty
just wasn't in her. It had felt so right, as if she'd waited for that moment
all her life. No, she'd welcomed that kiss and deeply regretted its untimely
interruption. She wondered exactly how far she would have let it go if Fenris
hadn't saved the day, so to speak.

Morgan, in many ways, reminded her
of wolves. That same untamed quality simmered beneath the surface of his
civilized veneer. Also like them, he seldom talked unless he had something to
say. She felt he would choose his partner carefully, too, and commit for life.
Standard wolf behavior, but not necessarily true for the human male.

Yet he was also a loner, which
wasn't common among wolves, those very survival depended on pack cooperation.
It wasn't even common among humankind.

How had a city psychiatrist come to
live in such solitude? What horrible loss had he suffered to make him leave
everything behind?

She would never know.

Trying to deny her sorrow, she
drifted back to bed, but found she could only toss and turn. As she sat up to
straighten the tangled covers, she again heard music.

Not Morgan's usual listening
tastes. Drums beat steadily, rhythmically. A flute, its high, sweet notes
calling to something deep in her soul. She listened for a time, transfixed,
then realized the melody wasn't coming from the bedroom.

Then, from afar, she heard barking.
Fenris, who'd been snoozing by the fire, jumped to his feet and loped to the
door, where he gave several yips before darting to Dana. He nudged her hand,
whined, hurried back to the door and stared at her imploringly. When Dana
failed to move, he again rushed to her side, still whining. The dogs continued
barking.

Something was wrong at the kennel!

Dana jumped up and grabbed the
jumpsuit from the rack, then pulled it on. Moments later she was in her boots,
gloves and snowshoes in hand.

When she yanked the front door
open, snow again fell across the threshold. She paused, trying to decide if she
should take time to shovel it away. But the barks outside were becoming frantic
yowls. Dana stepped over the wall of snow and tried to kick enough away to
allow the door to close.

Fenris knocked her aside, squeezed
through the crack, and leaped from little porch to rush toward his teammates.

"Fenris!" Dana called.
"Fenris!"

But he was already just a dark
streak on the moonlit snow.

Giving the door a pull that finally
closed it, she tossed down the snowshoes and quickly donned them. As she began
plodding after the disobedient runt, she slid her gloves over her rapidly
numbing hands.

By the time she reached the
smokehouse, Fenris was throwing himself at the kennel fence. When he saw her,
he whirled, lunged several yards in her direction, whirled again, then stared
into the distance.

A large white canine loped along
the rim of the canyon.

Aphrodite had escaped!

Dana called her name, but she
continued running.

The team was now milling around the
pen, some baying, some leaping at the fence, and when Dana got there she saw
Aphrodite darting along the perimeter of the enclosure.

Then what was . . .?

Her heart skipped a beat, but she
immediately recovered. No, Morgan was right. Her dream of finding wolves was
simply that—a dream. More likely, that dog belonged to Lily and Jorje.

Just then the distant dog stopped,
turned to look at them, and let out a chilling yowl. Fenris broke into a frenzy
of barking, and the other dogs joined in.

Dana stared in dismay. Should she
try to run the dog down and return it? As she turned to grab a harness and
leash from a small shed beside the gate, Fenris gave an angry snarl, then
lunged through the churning snow after the white dog, which spun and took off
along the ridge of the canyon.

 
 
Oh,
God! Morgan would kill her if she lost his dog again!

She started clumsily after him,
leash in hand. The two dogs loped along the canyon, Fenris several hundred
yards behind the white animal. They sank and rose in the swirling snow, their
forms silhouetted against the sky like the undulating humps of a sea serpent.
Crystalline flakes pelted Dana's face as she forged on, head bowed against the
wind. After what seemed a long period of time, the white dog neared the forest
that intersected the canyon lip.

Dana struggled to move faster. If
she didn't catch Fenris immediately, he'd disappear into the thick woods. Not
only that, a thick cloud was now drifting toward the moon. If it moved over it,
she wouldn't be able to see a thing.

She shouted Fenris's name. He
turned, and looked at her briefly, then continued after the white dog. The
cloud covered the moon. All was black.

Dana stopped. In her alarm, she'd
given no thought to her own safety. Now her body hummed, and she realized she
was alone in a place where people had been brutally murdered, without even
Fenris to protect her.

The music was still playing, coming
from somewhere off to her left. The drumbeat quickened, the flute notes almost
danced, and the melody grew even more beautiful.

A sheep bleated pitifully. Not
pastoral baas, but the cries of an animal frightened out of its wits. Dana's
body vibrated like the strings of a harp and she struggled to retain her wits.

Mercifully, the moon reappeared.
Dana peered through its silvery light, searching for Fenris. She let out a wail
of despair. Where had he gone? She had to find him!

Here the snow had grown crusty.
Giving a frustrated scrape of her snowshoes, Dana began skating closer to the
canyon's edge, calling Fenris's name. When she neared the lip, she hesitated,
cautiously moving forward. Her eyes followed a glimmer of moonlight reflecting
on smooth rocks, and she saw a path that led to a clearing below.

Huge stone towers jutted from
man-high snow clusters, but otherwise the clearing was oddly bare of snow. Dana
assumed the canyon walls either protected the location or it was so windswept
that snow blew off immediately. Regardless, she found the results more ominous
than pleasing.

A fire blazed down there, and Dana
crawled forward to get a closer look. A band of men sat around the flames. They
had been making the music, Dana saw, and it was now growing more passionate
with every note.

One of the men got up to throw
several more logs on the fire. It flared, allowing Dana to see the sheep
tethered just feet from the edge of the stone-rimmed pit. Although not as
frightened as before, it still skittered nervously within the confines of the
rope. Streaks of vivid blues, oranges, and reds stained its wool, looking like
hieroglyphics.

The man picked up a long-stemmed
pipe and raised it high over his head. He wore a thick fur cloak with a hood
fashioned from the head of a mountain lion. The lion's mouth was open; fangs
glimmered in the firelight. Dana scanned the circle and saw the others were
similarly dressed. Some wore simple cloaks and headbands, while others had on
elaborate headdresses decorated with fur or feathers, beaks or laws or fangs.
Several men pounded on crude drums, while another held a reed flute to his
mouth.

The standing man brought the pipe
to his mouth. A second later he exhaled a rising stream of smoke circles. He
then took the pipe to another man and sat down. More puffs of smoke rose to the
sky.

Some kind of Native American
ceremony, thought Dana, watching as they passed the pipe from man to man. Were
these the Indians Morgan spoke of, or simply Native Americans from the
surrounding reservations trying to restore the old ways?

Regardless, she didn't care at the
moment. She'd already seen more unexplainable occurrences, met more eccentric
people, than she'd ever cared to. All she could think of was finding Ferris.
Had he gone down there? She squinted, searching the shadows, but saw him
nowhere.

When the howl came, Dana jumped
like something had hit her.

The sheep bleated in panic and
lunged against its tether. The men shot to their feet. In a whir of activity,
they gathered their instruments. Before Dana could collect her thoughts, the
entire band had disappeared into the trees.

Another howl came, chillingly near.
Then all was quiet again except for the squeals of the lunging sheep.

The sounds had chilled Dana's heart
just like the ones she'd heard at the base of the mountain had. This was no
ordinary wolf howl. Had the men made those noises? She'd been sure they'd come
from the forest.

And Fenris was still out there
somewhere!

Although her skin prickled like
she'd fallen in a cactus patch, Dana knew what she had to do. She took off her
snowshoes and dropped them and the dog leash on the ground. Then, although she
was almost too scared to breathe, she inched her way down the rocky crevasse.
By the time she got to the clearing, the sheep was screeching in terror,
fighting its tether until it fell, then scrambling up to try again.

She looked at it in pity, but
Fenris was foremost in her mind. Hollering as loud as she could, she traversed
the clearing, seeking the runt, praying he was all right. Each echo of her
voice sent her blood racing, and after a while she gave up.

Still the sheep bellowed and
struggled to be free.

For just an instant, Dana wondered
why the Indians had left it there. Then it came to her.

However unnatural those howls
sounded, they did come from wolves. The men had left the sheep to keep the
wolves away from themselves. Had she been less frightened, she would have
shaken her head at their misguided efforts. Wolves were hunters, and providing
such easy prey dulled their skills so much that they sought more of the same.

Like Fenris.

She glanced back at the sheep. If
she freed it, might it then draw the pack away from anything else roaming in
the forest? She thought so, and moved closer.

Unwilling to risk a kick from those
sharp hooves, she picked up a stick, then inched her way to the fire pit and
shoved it in the flames. Soon she had a torch, which she held in front of her
as she approached the sheep. Caught between two foes, it froze. Dana cautiously
bent to release its tether.

The stake went deep; the thick rope
was braided from many strands of leather. With one hand holding the torch and
the other covered with a heavy glove, her dexterity was poor, and she found
untying the rope very rough going.

Another howl echoed through the
canyon.

Dana trembled and continued
working. She heard another howl, louder, nearer. Then another.

Her breathing got heavy. Her heart
skittered.

Finally the tether broke free. The
quailing sheep almost collapsed in fear. For a moment it simply stared at her
with wide, darting eyes.

"Shoo!" she shouted,
waving the torch near its face.

With a last piercing bleat, the
sheep spun and ran into the woods.

Feeling weak with relief, Dana
turned toward the path. When she was just feet from the crevasse, she heard the
sheep cry out again, its voice rising to a shriek that was cut off by a
sickening sputter. She felt a moment's regret, then told herself it was the way
of nature. At least the pack would be feeding for a while, giving Fenris a
chance for survival.

She cried his name again and
waited, hoping beyond hope he would show up. When he didn't, she started for
the trail.

Just then leaves rustled in the
underbrush. She broke into a run, knowing even as she did that it was no use.
As fit as she was, she couldn't outrun hungry wolves. Their keen noses would
sniff her out instantly. She needed a small place to hide, too small for them
to enter.

She scanned the clearing, searching
. . . searching. The rustling became a deafening rattle. Her skin burned.
Slowly, she backed up toward the crevasse, wielding the torch.

Something burst from the forest
wall.

Chapter Fifteen

Dana almost dropped the torch.

A figure charged out of the woods,
rapidly gobbling up the rocky span with long, two-legged strides. It was taller
than the door to Morgan's cabin and covered in silver-white fur. Moonlight
gleamed red in its deep-set eyes and reflected off its sharp teeth. Garbled
inhuman snarls streamed from its pointed snout, which was open a staggering
width.

Dana's scientific side noted that
the creature had both canine and primate physiology, but her fragile, human
side simply gaped in astonished terror.

 
Grandmother, what big teeth you have, she
thought giddily as the creature drew so near she could see saliva dripping from
its fangs.