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.“Christ almighty.I reckon you’re right.”“Smells like the inside of a Grizzly bear’s stomach,” Johnson said.Morgan strode to the center of the room.His shoulders were squared, his muscles taught and tense, his eyes awake and alert.“Okay, boys,” he said.“Ya’ll know what to do.Gunderson and Stephens, get that door unblocked.Clara, I want you and Gunderson at the door, so we can shoot at them if they come in the perimeter, but be ready to barricade it if they break through our defenses.Parker and Johnson—you’ve got the window.Stephens, you hold back with that shotgun.If they get in too close, the others will holler out.Then you rush in and blast them.Everybody clear?”The group nodded.Their expressions were grim, but none of them seemed terrified now that the danger was at hand.Gunderson and Stephens quickly moved aside the blockade in front of the door.Then, while Gunderson and Clara stood ready with weapons pointed at the door, Stephens opened it.Gunderson knelt on one side of the doorway.Clara stood on the other side.Stephens backed up and stood between them.All three peered out into the darkness.With the door open, the stench grew stronger inside the cabin.“What about me?” Crystal asked Morgan.“What should I do?”“You just stay close to me, darlin’.If they get inside—and let’s hope they don’t, but if they do—then don’t you hesitate to start shooting.Okay?”“Okay.”Morgan turned to Parker and Johnson who were staring out the window.“See anything?”“No,” Parker whispered.“It’s too damned dark out there.Maybe ol’ Gunderson might be able to spot something, but I can’t see shit.”“Wait,” Gunderson murmured, still down on one knee.“There’s some clouds over the moon.They’ll pass in a minute.Then we should be able to see better.”Clara glanced at him.“What if—”THWUMPSomething struck the roof of the cabin hard enough to send dust and dirt drifting down from the rafters.Crystal and Johnson both screamed.Parker teetered backward in surprise, nearly falling off his chair.Clara and Stephens both jumped.Only Gunderson and Morgan remained calm as they gazed upward.Morgan held a finger to his lips, signaling the others to be silent.THWUMP THWUMP THWUMPCrystal screamed again.Wheeling around, Morgan clamped a hand over her mouth and pulled her close.“Quiet,” he whispered in her ear.Moving quickly but quietly, Gunderson crossed the floor and closed the door, even as more blows rained down on the cabin’s roof.Each one shook the rafters, spilling more dirt and dust down on them.A long splinter of pine cracked overhead as yet another crash vibrated through the timbers.The bunkhouse trembled.Parker jumped out of his chair and backed away from the window.“What the hell is it?” Johnson yelled.“Just what the hell is going on here?”“Shut up,” Morgan shouted.“All of you! Listen, goddamn your eyes.And watch that window.”Johnson and Parker reacted as if Morgan had slapped them across the face.They stood for a moment, frozen, and then returned to their place at the window.The two men peered out into the darkness.Clara leaned over them, gazing out, as well.Seconds later, she reeled back with a gasp, her hand fluttering to her throat.“Oh Lord…”Shoving Crystal aside, Morgan rushed forward.Gunderson followed right behind him.Crystal spun, teetering.Stephens reached out and grabbed her elbow, steadying her as the others crowded around the window.The clouds were gone, and moonlight streamed into the clearing.The river sparkled like diamonds in the distance.At the water’s edge and standing all along the tree line on both sides of the clearing were dozens of dark, man-like shapes.All of them were well over seven feet tall, and covered with thick, coarse hair, except for around their eyes.The hair varied in coloration—everything from jet black to reddish-brown.“Sweet Jesus,” Gunderson whispered.“I’ve never seen nothing like that in all my life.”“You just saw one last night,” Stephens pointed out.“Not in this kind of lighting.This is worse.One thing’s for sure, though.They ain’t bears, and I dare say they’re not apes, either.”“This ain’t good, ya’ll,” Johnson moaned.“This ain’t good at all.”As more clouds dissipated and the moonlight grew brighter, the group inside the lumberjack shanty glimpsed further details of their attackers.The naked, hulking creatures had large, low-set foreheads with pronounced brow ridges.The tops of their heads were crested and round.Their arms were long, dangling almost to their knees.Insects hovered around them like smoke.One of the creatures raised its head and sniffed the air with a flattened nose that almost resembled a humans’ nose, except for the width of the nostrils.Then it opened its maw, revealing a mouth full of teeth, including long, sharp incisors that were anything but human.It raised one enormous hand in some sort of signal.The thing’s leathery palm was hairless.When it swung its arm down again, the moonlit figures began pelting the cabin with stones again.Kneeling side-by-side, Parker and Gunderson leaned through the window and opened fire.The bunkhouse was filled with the noise of gunshots.A mug crashed to the floor.Crystal clung to Stephens, and he to her.Neither spoke, knowing they wouldn’t be able to hear one another.Morgan and Johnson waited behind Gunderson and Parker.Then, when the gunmen paused to reload, they took their places, unleashing a second volley.The roar of the gunfire was loud.The roar of the crazy bears was louder.Another bombardment of rocks shook the cabin.A watermelon-sized river stone crashed through the ceiling, leaving a gaping hole in its wake, and slammed into the floor, barely missing Clara.Then the creatures withdrew, disappearing into the darkness until only their stench lingered.“We’ve got to get out of here,” Clara shrieked.“Please, Morgan! I can’t stand it.We’ve got to ride out now!”“We’re not going anywhere,” he said, stepping back from the window.“There’s more of them than there are of us.We leave now, they could surround us before we reached the river.”“What did he say?” Stephens asked Crystal.“I can’t hear nothing through this ringing in my ears.”Shrugging, she shook her head.Gunderson waved gun smoke away from his face and peered intently into the clearing.“Looks like we dropped a few of them.”“How many?” Morgan asked.Gunderson paused, counting.“Five.Maybe six.The last one is lying in the shadows.Not sure if it’s a tree stump or one of those things…whatever they were.”“They were Indians,” Parker said.“I mean, they had to be Indians.They just had to.Ain’t no animals like what we seen out there.It was nothing but a bunch of goddamned Indians, dressed up in bear and buffalo skins and playing tricks on the white men.”“No,” Crystal said.“The Indians left this area a year ago.They headed north.”“Well,” Parker replied, “they’re back now.”“Those weren’t men,” Gunderson said with conviction.“And it certainly wasn’t somebody wearing a costume.”Parker frowned.“How do you know for sure?”“Because of their smell.That musk
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