“What?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Just sitting out there in the woods. Big guy, beard, he was sitting about ten yards out in the trees looking at us.”
“Seriously, stop fucking with me man. I’m not as good as you with this shit.”
“I’m not making it up. Got even me a little scared. Maybe it’s the cancer playing tricks on my brain, or the whiskey, but I could see him out there. Just outside of the light of the fire, just looking. Nothing else.”
“Fuck you.”
“I don’t think we got anything to worry about. I think he’s just an old mountain man. Just wants us to know he’s there. Probably has a cabin around here, probably grows marijuana or something, just wants to get us on edge so we don’t got peeking around. Don’t worry. Look.”
I looked across the near darkness of the tent to see a revolver glimmer for a moment.
“I got us covered if we need it, but we won’t. Sleep tight.”
Of course it wasn’t easy to drift off to dreamland after Ezra finished the day with those statements, but a couple of hours after bedding down, the strain of the day finally outweighed my fears.
Sleep came to me.
I don’t think I was out long before I woke up again, still in the pitch dark. A howling sound from off in the distance was just loud enough to poke me out of my slumber. I wiped my eyes and stayed frozen in my sleeping bag with my ears honing in on the distant song.
After a few seconds of careful listening, the sounds became unmistakable. They were of someone moaning in pain, howling. It was the siren song of the old coyote farm I had heard about before. These sounds would not be possible to confuse with the wails of a wild dog though, they were clearly the sounds of a human being tortured – deep, guttural, pleading, begging to die.
