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Shane looked at Melanie questioningly, suddenly struck with wonder over Melanie's coming to
Trapper Dan's cabin. How did she even know the man?
''Melanie, why were you coming to see Trapper Dan?" he asked suddenly.
Melanie's eyes wavered. What would he think when she told him that she had known for a long time that Trapper Dan was in the areathat she had been shown only yesterday where he resided! What would he do when he discovered that it was Trapper Dan, and Melanie's brother, who had been the cause of all of Shane's torment? She had so wanted not to be in the position of telling him, especially about Terrance.
Someone yelling for help in the distance reprieved her momentarily from revealing truths to Shane that would make her uncomfortable. Shivers rode her spine when another shriek filled the air. It was a cry of stark fear.
Melanie's insides grew cold as she looked quickly up at Shane. Had he recognized the voice?
She had!
It was Terrance! He was in trouble!
"Shane, it's Terrance," she said, looking anxiously in the direction of the cries. She ran to her horse, grabbed its reins and mounted. "I must go to him. He's in danger."
Though she had sent Terrance away, there was no doubt that she still loved him, for at this moment her heart was pounding with fear for h
im. No matter what he had done to Shane, she wouldn't want anything to happen to him. He was her brother.
Melanie's hair blew in the breeze as she rode away. When she heard Shane on horseback behind her, grateful tears burned at the corners of her eyes. He had every reason in the world not to help Terrance, yet he was prepared to.
But would he, if he knew the truth?
Chapter Thirty-one
Melanie rode hard, then drew her reins tight, stopping her horse when she finally saw Terrance only a short distance away from her now. A sick feeling swept through her. Terrance was on his horse, a bluff at his back, cornered by Wild Thunder, the Stantons' prize longhorn which had escaped only a few days ago.
Melanie stifled a cry of fear when she looked away from Terrance at the longhorn. Angry and frightened, its bloodshot and bulging eyes were burning like bull's-eye lanterns. A great Brindle bull, Wild Thunder was seven years old and at the apex of his prowess. His powerful neck showed a great bulge just behind the head. A big dewlap accenting his primeval origin. He seemed mad through and through, having taken a position on a rise of open ground perhaps a hundred yards from Terrance.
Melanie could tell that the longhorn had been pawing dirt for a long time. As she watched him, scarcely breathing, he lifted the dirt with his forefeet so that it went high up in the air and fell in part upon his own back. He often stopped to hook one of his hornsthe "master horn"into the ground, goring down to a kind of clayish damp that stuck to the tip. He even hooked both horns in, one at a time, and kneeling, rubbed his shoulder against the ground.
His powerful lungs bellowed out streams of breath that sprayed particles of earth away from his nostrils. Now, with earth plastering his horns, matting his shaggy frontlet, and covering his back from head to toe, he was a spectacle.
"Melanie, for God's sake, do something!" Terrance shouted, afraid to move. The longhorn was hellbent on attacking him!
Terrance watched Shane ride up next to Melanie, an Indian woman clinging to him. "Shane! Kill the damn longhorn!" he shouted, his voice ragged. "Shoot him!"
Melanie pleaded with Shane with her eyes. "Shane, what can we do?" she asked, all cold from fear inside. "One false move and the longhorn will attack Terrance. My brother won't have a chance!"
"Inch your horse back slowly," Shane said, guiding his backward. "Then slip slowly from the saddle. Right now the longhorn isn't even aware that we're here. His eyes are on Terrance only."
Melanie followed Shane's lead. They moved
their horses back a safe distance, then slipped slowly from the saddles. Daphne stayed put, too afraid to move.
Shane lifted his rifle from the gun boot on the side of his horse. "Melanie, I'm going to have to kill the longhorn," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
"I know," she said, moving to Shane's side. "It's a shame, though. He's one of our handsomest bulls."
"Turn your eyes away," Shane said, raising his rifle. "It won't be a pretty sight."
"I'm afraid for Terrance," Melanie said, biting her lower lip in frustration.
"Turn your eyes away, Melanie," Shane said flatly, his finger on the trigger.
Melanie took one last look at the longhorn. He was talking to himself, his truculent head swaying. Hoarse and deep, like thunder on the horizon, he mumbled uh-huh-uh-uh-uhing, then raised his head in a loud, high defiant challenge, combining a bellow from the uttermost profundities with a shriek high and foreign.
