Beartooth Incident Read Free Page B

idiots.”
    Both wolves turned and loped off, snow spraying from under their flying paws.
    Fargo smiled. It worked. He started on again, and his smile changed to a frown.
    The wolves had stopped. They were looking back at him. One growled. Then both came slinking toward him, their heads low, their teeth bared.
    “Hell.”
    Fargo still had about fifty yards to go to reach the next stand. On flat, dry ground he might have stood a chance of reaching it before they got him. In the deep snow he stood no chance at all. Bending, he slid his fingers into his boot and palmed the Arkansas toothpick. Ordinarily it had a comforting feel. But a knife against two wolves? He was in trouble.
    Fargo kept walking. He must get to that stand no matter what. In there he stood a prayer. He could put his back to a tree so only one wolf could get at him at a time. Out here they could attack from two directions at once. It would be easy for them to hamstring him and bring him down.
    God, Fargo wished he had the Colt or the Henry.
    The wolves had separated. They were coming at him from two sides, exactly as he predicted. They held their bodies low to the snow, their fur bristling. Both snarled and showed their teeth. Their eyes were fixed on him with the fierce intensity of starving animals.
    Forty yards to go to the stand . . .
    Fargo yelled at the wolves but all they did was take a few steps back and then resume stalking him. He resisted an impulse to run. All it would do was tire him out and make it easier for them.
    Thirty yards to go, and now a wolf was a dozen feet out on either side of him. This close, their age was even more obvious. These two were at the point in their lupine lives when they would eat anything they could catch and bring down. And they were about to bring him down.
    Raising both arms to make himself appear bigger, Fargo bellowed at one and then the other. Both crouched and growled but neither backed off. They weren’t scared of him at all. They didn’t care that he was human. To them, he was meat, nothing more.
    Fargo hefted the toothpick. The doubled-edged blade was razor sharp. He could cut them, cut them deep. He would go for their eyes or their throats. Or their legs. They couldn’t get at him if he crippled them.
    Twenty yards to go and the wolves continued to pace him.
    Fargo was beginning to think they wouldn’t attack before he reached the trees. Suddenly the wolf on the right came at him in a rush, spraying snow. He spun toward it and the wolf on the left did the same. Neither came within reach. Both loped away but not as far back as before.
    Fargo kept walking. They were testing him, taking his measure as they would a buck or a bull elk. He glanced from one to the other and back again, alert for sign of another rush.
    Ten yards now, and Fargo would be in among the snow-laden trees.
    The wolf on the right snarled and the wolf on the left answered, and in they came, as fast as they could, which wasn’t as fast as they normally moved, but it was fast enough that they were both on him before he could break into a run to try to reach the stand.
    Fargo slashed at the wolf on the right and it pranced out of reach. The wolf on the left nipped at his leg but he jerked aside. Its flashing fangs missed. He stabbed at its neck but he missed, too.
    Both were growling. Hackles raised, they circled him.
    Fargo twisted, trying to keep both in constant sight. His mind filled with images of them ripping into him and bringing him down, and he shook his head to dispel them.
    The next moment the pair pounced, both at once, each going for a different leg. Fargo cut at one and then at the other. He barely drove them off in time. When they resumed circling they were closer.
    Their next rush, they would have him.
    Fargo knew it and they knew it. His mouth went dry. He broke out in a cold sweat. He must try something, but what? In anger he kicked snow at the wolf on the left and it skipped back a few feet. He kicked snow at the other