Free Red Moon by Ralph Cotton Page B

their right, Dawson looked up, startled, gripping the pocket pistol.
    Sam stared at him and nodded, feeling the roan snap awake and jerk at the rein in his hand. Rising to his feet, Sam stood close to the roan, settling it. He stroked its muzzle, rein in hand.
    â€œThey’ve thought it over,” he said quietly to the worried shotgun rider. “Sounds like they’re going to test us awhile.” He ran a hand along the Winchester, stopped his thumb over its hammer and cocked it.
    â€œYou going to take a couple of potshots at them—turn them back before they work up their nerve?” Dawson asked, looking back and forth in each direction as another howl rose from the other end of the ledge.
    â€œLet them howl awhile,” Sam said. “It’ll give us an idea how many we’re facing.”
    â€œThe longer they howl, the bolder they’ll get,” Dawson cautioned.
    â€œAnd the more surprised they’ll be when they find out we’re not helpless here,” Sam said. As he spoke, he stepped back and guided the roan a few feet from the fire. Dawson watched him reach behind his back with his rein hand and come back with a half dozen .45-caliber pistol bullets he’d popped from the band of his gun belt.
    For the next hour they stood, ready and alert, hearing the howl of the wolves grow closer, bolder, more intent. The howling helped the Ranger draw a mental image of the pack’s numbers, the sound resounding across either end of the ledge path and along the hillside atop the overhang.
    â€œStep back, Dawson,” Sam said, judging the pack to have worked itself into a killing frenzy.
    With a short torch he’d made burning in his hand, Dawson stepped back away from the fire as the Ranger reached forward and pitched the six pistol cartridges into the red, glowing embers.
    â€œHere they come!” Dawson said, hearing the sound of running padded paws on the stone path to his left.
    Almost before he’d spoken his words, a flurry of fur, fang and claw spilled around either end of the path into their wider camp area.
    Sam turned loose of the roan’s rein and threw the shortened rifle into play. At hip level he fired, levered a fresh round and fired again. His first shot picked up a big wolf in full leap and hurled him out over the edge of the overhang. His second shot sent a young wolf rolling backward in the dirt, causing others to have to leap over him to continue their attack.
    The sound of shots alone turned back the less courageous animals. But there were plenty left to tear two men and a horse apart. On Sam’s left, the roan whinnied in terror, but its hind legs pumped like pistons into the writhing, snarling wall of fur that had set its sights on horseflesh.
    Sam levered another round, hearing the pocket gun explode in Dawson’s hand. He caught a glimpse of a wolf falling back, yipping, screaming in pain. Seeing that he himself had no time for a third shot, Sam swung the Winchester barrel around just in time to crack a wolf across its open, snarling mouth.
    The animal flew into its pack mates, but it rolled onto its paws again and charged forward. This time a bullet from the Winchester nailed it backward in a twisting bloody ball of fur. But now other wolves were upon him; Sam felt fangs sink deep into his shoulder as he struggled too late to lever another round into the rifle chamber. He felt himself going down, the wolf’s jaws holding his shoulder in a powerful grip.
    But at that second the bullets in the fire began exploding amid the charging pack. Bits of fiery coals sprayed up and filled the air like angry fireflies. Wolves panicked, not only at the roaring cacophony of gunfire and the spray of burning coals, but also at the feel of hot embers burning deep through their outer fur and sizzling on their skin.
    Just in time. . . .
    The wolf had dragged the Ranger to his knees, the rest of the pack ready to leap in, join the takedown and