Free Outcast by Gary D. Svee

climb into the largest tub the Last Chance Emporium stocked. He would soak off the dirt let his mind wander back to the meadow.
    Standish stepped through the door to the cabin. The tub had been dragged out by the table, a puddle of water on the floor beside it. His teeth ground together and he roared. a terrible cry rooted in the caves of his ancestors. That little son of a bitch had taken Standish’s bath in the biggest tub in stock at the Last Chance Emporium.
    The roar echoed through the trees, driving the flash of white Standish had thought was a deer faster through the trees toward home. Arch hadn’t had a chance to dress. He didn’t want to dress anyway, Standish coming up on him unexpected like that.

CHAPTER 4
    Ed Miller fidgeted. His boss, Samuel Bodmer, was standing at the window behind his desk, staring at the streets below. Miller glanced at the clock for the third time in five minutes.
    â€œBoss.…”
    Bodmer turned. “He’s out there, you know. I thought I saw him this morning, just a shadow by the theater building, but by the time I got my telescope, he was gone. He’s watching me, Ed. He’s been watching me.”
    Miller nodded. He dropped his attention to a blank piece of paper on the desk, shifting it back and forth. His words came tentatively, like a question without a question mark. “Maybe, we should let him go.”
    Bodmer jerked. “No!”
    â€œWe’ve been chasing him for three, close to four years now, and we’re no.…”
    Bodmer stomped to the desk, thrusting his face within inches of Miller’s, “No!”
    Miller’s voice wafted soft as a spring breeze. “Boss, could you sit down for just a minute.”
    Rancor sloughed off Bodmer, and he dropped into his chair. “Sorry, it’s just.…”
    Miller nodded. “I know.”
    â€œNo,” Bodmer was shaking his head. “You don’t know. You couldn’t know. You haven’t been in hell watching a demon prowl through the camp, murdering your friends. You haven’t seen him, tearing raw meat from men you have known and eating it, blood dripping from his mouth.”
    Bodmer was no longer in his office; he was back in that mining camp, listening to a howling winter wind and the screams of men dying under the demon’s knife.
    Miller intruded as deftly as a surgeon into Bodmer’s thoughts. “Boss, he was never charged with that.”
    Bodmer bristled. “I know that. How could you think I don’t know that? By the time, they got back up that mountain, the predators—the other predators—had torn at the bodies. There was nothing left, but cracked bones. They knew I was right. I was the only man to survive that time in hell with that demon, but.…”
    â€œBut they couldn’t prove anything.”
    Bodmer looked stricken. “No, they couldn’t prove anything.”
    â€œSo they didn’t file charges.”
    â€œNo, but there isn’t a man who knows that story who wouldn’t shoot him at first sight or leave him hanging for the magpies to pick at.”
    â€œWithout charges, that’s murder, boss.”
    Bodmer sighed. “If we’re caught, I will take full responsibility. They can hang me if they choose, but I cannot let him go free. What if he comes on a family, an isolated ranch family, and.…”
    A tear trickled down Bodmer’s face. “I couldn’t take that, Ed. I just couldn’t take that.”
    Bodmer stood and walked to the window. “He’s out there, Ed. I know he is. I see his shadow. I see it all the time, standing out there looking at me.”
    Arch waited in the early morning darkness. No lights in the cabin yet. Standish was still asleep. A stomach spasm nearly doubled the boy over. Some of his mother’s bread and huckleberry jelly and Standish’s bacon would taste really good now. Arch tried to jerk his mind away from food.