AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jeb scarcely heard what Clint was saying. He was still confused by how the huge hawk could be there one minute and gone the next. It was as though someone or something had plucked it from the sky.
Then he jumped in alarm when he saw something else up ahead. It was a wolf bounding through the trees away from them.
What frightened him the most was the thought that where there was one wolf, there was usually a pack.
He looked on both sides of him, and then over his shoulder, but when he saw no signs of any other wolves, he again focused straight ahead on the one he did see. It still ran onward, apparently having not realized that Clint and Jeb were so close.
And then Jeb stopped dead in his tracks. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? He thought he saw the wolf suddenly change into a muscled, scarcely clothed Indian!
Jeb reached out for Clint. He had stopped behind him, his eyes wide with fear.
In desperation, Jeb grabbed hold of one of Clint’s arms. “Clint, you can’t tell me that you didn’t see what I just saw,” he said. He gulped hard. “How can it be? How…can…a wolf…change into a man? And…and…I’d bet my last dollar that the hawk I saw…changed into that wolf!”
“This has to be a haunted island or something,” Clint said, coming out of his own fearful amazement. He slapped Jeb’s hand from his arm. “And that Injun up there surely lives on this island.”
He blinked his eyes and then rubbed them, but when he looked ahead again, he still saw the Indian. The warrior was running somewhere mighty fast, thankfully away from him and Jeb.
“I don’t kno
w what’s goin’ on here but I do know one thing,” Jeb said, already turning and running toward the river. “I’m gettin’ off this island as fast as my legs will carry me to the boat. Come on, Clint. Let’s get away from this place before someone turns us into toads.”
As Clint ran beside Jeb, he wanted to laugh at Jeb’s joke about toads, but he was too terrified. He had always heard that Indians practiced witchcraft, but this took the cake! He just had to forget about having seen it or else he might lose his mind. What they had witnessed just didn’t happen.
Yes, it had to have been a figment of both his and Jeb’s imagination!
Clint’s knees were weak with fear. Suddenly they buckled beneath him and he fell into a thick clump of bushes, crying out when thorns pierced his breeches and stabbed him in his legs.
“Good Lord, Clint,” Jeb said, stopping and reaching down to help his partner up. “Now’s not the time to be a big baby. Come on. We’ve got to get to that boat.”
Wolf Hawk stopped dead in his tracks when Clint’s yelp of pain carried to him on the wind.
He turned and saw two men, one on the ground, the other reaching a helping hand to him.
Wolf Hawk had been too focused on getting to his grandfather to have heard the intruders on Shadow Island. He supposed they had sought shelter on the island from the earthquake.
That had been their first mistake.
The second was allowing Wolf Hawk to know they were there.
No white man was welcome on his grandfather’s island, now…or ever.
Before Jeb could cock his rifle, Wolf Hawk was there, taking the weapon away from him.
Clint struggled to his feet, his eyes wide with fear. He would never forget the terrifying sight of the wolf changing into this Indian.
He knew that it hadn’t been his imagination, yet how could it have been real? All he knew was that Indians were capable of mysterious things, and that was frightening.
Wolf Hawk wasn’t certain if these men had seen his transformations. If they had, he could not allow them to spread the news to others. Yet he was not a man of violence. He did not wish to kill them.
Suddenly he recognized the amulet necklace that hung around the one man’s neck, and Wolf Hawk knew to whom it had belonged.
These were the very men who were responsible for the deaths of the two braves.
He could only conclude they had brazenly returned to Winnebago land to get the pelts they had left behind.
But Wolf Hawk didn’t immediately accuse them of the deaths. He would think through just how they should pay for their crime.
He realized now that Talking Bird must have known the two trappers had returned to this area. He had purposely caused the earthquakes to force them to seek safety on the island.
