They followed the white wolf for a couple hours.
The sun climbed high and cut through the canopy in bright slants. The wolf stayed just ahead, moving through the trees at an easy lope. Every time Colt thought he’d lost the wolf, it’d be there waiting behind a trunk or sitting in a patch of light. Then it’d run again.
The ground started to rise. The pines grew thicker, then thinned, then thickened again. Colt’s shirt stuck to his back.
Clay pulled up next to him. “We been walkin’ for hours, Colt. Where the hell is this thing takin’ us?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.” Clay shook his head. “We’re followin’ a damn wolf through the woods and we don’t know where it’s goin’.”
“They helped us before. The pack. They fought the ninjas.”
“That don’t mean it’s on our side.”
Colt didn’t have an answer for that. He just kept walking.
They stopped at a creek to drink. The water was cold. Clay splashed some on his face, then stood there dripping, staring in the direction the wolf had gone.
“That man,” Clay said. “The one that healed me. You said he turned into a wolf.”
“Yeah.”
“And you think this one’s like him?”
Colt wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I think so. The eyes ain’t wolf eyes.”
Clay grunted and didn’t say anything else.
They kept moving. The forest started to change. The pines spread out more, letting in bigger patches of sky. The ground leveled off, then started sloping down.
“You think it’s leadin’ us to its pack?” Clay asked.
Colt stepped over a fallen branch. “I don’t know. But it definitely wants somethin’.”
Up ahead, a flash of white between the trees.
“There.” Colt pointed.
The wolf stood at the base of a rise, head turned back toward them. It let out a short bark, then took off running.
Colt picked up the pace. Clay matched him.
They pushed through a stretch where the canopy opened up. Colt looked at the sky. Blue and clear, the way it should be.
Except for one spot.
About a mile out, right in the middle of all that blue, sat a patch that didn’t belong.
Colt stopped walking.
It looked like a bruise. Violet at the center, darker than the streaks that had fallen yesterday. Blue bled out from the edges in a way that made his eyes hurt if he stared too long. The whole thing just hung there, just sitting in the sky.
Violet lightning flickered inside it. Short bursts that jumped from one side to the other. No thunder followed. No sound at all.
Clay came up beside him. His face had gone pale.
“Ho-ly shit.” He drew the words out slow. “That ain’t nothin’ good, Colt.”
“Looks like a mile out,” Colt said. “We’re gettin’ close to the other side of the forest.” He squinted past the trees. “Should be able to see the mountains when we break through.”
Clay was still staring at the sky. “You think that’s where they came from? Them ninjas?”
Colt didn’t answer. He didn’t want to think about it.
They started moving again.
The wolf was waiting up ahead. This time it didn’t run.
Clay slowed. “What’s it doin’?”
“I don’t know.”
It stood in a clearing where the sunlight fell in a wide circle. It’s white coat almost glowed in the brightness. It crouched low, turned a slow circle, then stopped and looked straight at Colt.
“It’s waitin’ for us,” Colt said.
He patted Clay’s shoulder. “Come on.”
They walked toward it. The wolf stayed put. When they got within a few feet, it let out a soft sound. Not a bark. Something quieter.
Colt stopped.
This wolf was beautiful. It’s coat was pure white, not a spot of dirt on it. And it’s eyes weren’t like the black wolf’s had been. Those had been old eyes, tired eyes.
These were deep blue. There was a softness in them he couldn’t name.
Something told him this was a she wolf.
She held his gaze. He held hers. The forest went quiet around them.
The wolf turned and started up a hill at the edge of the tree line. Colt followed. Clay came up behind him.
She reached the top first and stopped behind a thick pine, peering around the trunk. Her ears swiveled forward. Her body went still.
Colt and Clay climbed up after her and found their own trees to hide behind.
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Colt looked out at what lay beyond the forest.
“Jesus,” he breathed.
The land sloped down into a wide valley. Grass that should have been green had gone brown. In the distance, the mountains rose up gray against the sky, their peaks still holding snow.
But between here and there, right underneath that bruise, was something else.
A camp. A big one.
Colt tried to count the ninjas moving across the valley floor. They swarmed over the ground like ants on a kicked hill. Some carried timber on their shoulders. Others dug trenches in the dirt. More hauled rocks and stacked them into walls that were already chest-high.
They were building something.
Wooden frames rose up in rows, the bones of buildings not yet finished. Colt watched as a group of ninjas struggled to lift one of the frames into place. Six of them on each side, straining, the wood wobbling above their heads.
Then something else stepped in.
Colt’s breath caught.
One of the big ones. Nine feet tall, maybe more. It walked up to the frame, grabbed it with one hand, and shoved it upright. The ninjas scrambled to brace it. The giant had already turned away.
There were more of them scattered through the camp. Colt counted. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. He stopped at fifty. The regular ninjas numbered in the hundreds. Three hundred at least.
“See that, Colt?” Clay’s voice was tight. “Them big fuckers. This is bad.”
Colt nodded slow. “Looks like they’re settin’ up camp.”
“Looks like their building a whole damn fort.” Clay added.
The ground under the bruise was black. Not dirt-black. Burned-black. Scorched down to nothing. The grass around the edges was brown, but the center was just gone. Ash and char.
A thin fog hung over the whole area. Curling around the ninjas’ feet as they worked. It didn’t move with the wind. It just sat there.
Colt looked down at the wolf. She was watching him again.
“Colt.” Clay grabbed his arm. “Look at him.”
Colt followed where Clay was pointing.
One figure stood apart from the rest.
He sat on a horse near the center of the camp. A black horse, armored from head to hoof. The ninjas worked around him like water flowing past a rock. They didn’t look at him. They didn’t get close.
His clothes were different. Gold fabric that caught the light, trimmed with violet along the edges. He sat straight in the saddle, shoulders back, hands resting on his thighs.
On his head sat a hat Colt had never seen before. Wide and flat, spreading out from his head in a perfect circle. A small point rose from the center. The whole thing cast a shadow over his face.
His voice carried across the valley. Sharp words in that foreign tongue. When he spoke, ninjas moved faster. When he pointed, they ran.
The man on the horse turned his head.
Colt’s whole body went cold.
For one bad second, he thought the man was looking right at them. Right at the tree line. Right at the spot where Colt was hiding.
Then the man turned back to his workers.
Colt exhaled.
“That one’s in charge,” Clay whispered.
Colt nodded. The gold clothes. The horse. The way every ninja jumped when he spoke. The way nobody looked at him directly.
Yeah. That one was in charge.
The wolf let out a low whine. Colt looked down at her. Her ears had flattened back. Her body had gone tense.
Her eyes weren’t on Colt anymore. They were fixed on the man in gold.
She was afraid of him.
Colt looked back at the camp. At the hundreds of ninjas. At the giants pushing frames into place. At the blackened earth and the bruise in the sky and the fog that crawled across the ground.
And at the man on the horse, sitting there like he owned it all.
Clay’s hand tightened on Colt’s arm. “We need to go. Now.”
The wolf was already moving. She slipped back down the hill, staying low. Colt watched her go, then took one last look at the valley.
The man in gold hadn’t moved. Still sitting on that black horse. Still watching his army work.
Building something.
Colt ducked low and followed Clay down the hill.
They followed the wolf back into the forest.
She moved faster now, weaving through the pines, her white coat flickering between the trunks. Colt tried to keep up but his legs were burning. Clay was breathing hard beside him.
Then she was gone.
Colt stopped. Looked left. Looked right. Nothing but trees and shadows.
“Where’d she go?” Clay asked.
“I don’t know.”
They stood there listening. Wind in the branches. Birds somewhere off in the distance. No white fur. No blue eyes.
Colt looked around. The trees were thinning ahead. He could see brighter light through the gaps, the edge of the forest maybe a hundred yards out.
“She was leadin’ us this way,” Colt said. “Let’s keep goin’.”
They started walking. Colt watched the ground, looking for tracks. Paw prints in the soft dirt. Bent grass. Anything.
He found them. Small prints, spaced out in a run, heading toward the clearing.
“This way,” Colt said.
They followed the tracks. The trees kept thinning. The light kept getting brighter. Colt could see the clearing now, a wide open space just past the last row of pines.
A growl stopped him cold.
Low at first, then a loud roar coming from somewhere to their left.
Then heavy footsteps. Fast. Getting closer.
Colt turned his head.
The grizzly came through the brush like a freight train.
It was huge. Bigger than any bear Colt had ever seen. Its shoulders were massive, and along its spine the bones pushed up under the fur in hard ridges, too big for its body. Like something had twisted it. Changed it.
Its eyes burned violet.
Colt froze. His hand was on his revolver but he couldn’t make it move. His legs locked. His chest locked. Everything locked.
BOOM.
Clay’s shotgun roared. The bear stumbled sideways, fur and blood spraying from its shoulder.
It didn’t go down. It turned toward Clay and roared, mouth open wide, teeth longer than Colt’s fingers.
Colt’s hand finally moved.
He drew.
SIDEARM EQUIPPED
Colt Single Action Army — .45
6/6
He fanned the hammer. Fast as he could.
6/6
5/6
4/6
3/6
2/6
1/6
0/6
Six shots punched into the bear’s chest. It staggered. Kept coming.
Colt fanned the hammer again.
0/6
Click.
0/6
Click.
0/6
“Run, Colt! Run!”
Clay grabbed his arm and yanked him toward the clearing. Colt’s boots found the ground and he ran.
Behind them the bear roared again. Trees cracked and splintered. The ground shook with each step it took.
Colt didn’t look back. He just ran.
They burst out of the tree line into the clearing.
Colt’s boots hit grass and he stumbled, almost went down, caught himself. He spun around, expecting the bear to be right on top of them.
It wasn’t.
But he could hear it. Crashing through the trees. Getting closer.
“Colt.”
Clay’s voice was strange. Quiet.
Colt turned.
Shoshone. Fifty of them at least, standing at the far edge of the clearing. Warriors with paint on their faces and weapons in their hands. They stood in a loose line, watching Colt and Clay with eyes that gave nothing away.
In front of them all stood the man from before. The one who’d turned into the black wolf. The one who’d healed Clay. He looked the same as he had in the forest. Dark hair. Weathered face. Paint in clean lines across his skin. His eyes locked on Colt.
And behind him, just to his right, almost hiding behind his shoulder—
A girl.
She looked about Colt’s age. Her hair was white. Not gray, not blonde. White as snow, falling past her shoulders. And her eyes—
Deep blue. Clear as creek water.
The same eyes as the wolf.
Colt stared at her. She looked down at the ground.
Then the roar came from behind him. The crashing got louder. Closer.
“Grizzly!” Colt shouted.
The old man’s body shifted. Fur rippled across his skin. His bones cracked and reformed. In a heartbeat, the black wolf stood where the man had been.
Colt and Clay ran past him, to the line of warriors.
The wolf started walking toward the tree line. He moved slow, with a calm behind him. Like he had all the time in the world.
Colt stopped next to the girl. He was breathing hard. His hands were shaking. He looked at her and their eyes met for half a second.
Blue. So blue.
He looked away.
The trees at the edge of the clearing exploded outward.
The grizzly crashed through, violet eyes blazing, blood matting its fur, those twisted ridges along its spine rising and falling with each breath.
It saw the wolf and roared.
