Devil Moon by David Thompson

was done she wiped her hands on her dress and said, “Well.”
    Dega wondered if he was supposed to say anything to that. He tried a “Well,” of his own.
    “Here we are.”
    Where else would they be? Dega asked himself. All he said was “Yes.”
    Evelyn stood and turned in a slow circle. “It’s pretty here, don’t you think?”
    “It quiet.”
    “That will change once the wind picks up and the sun starts to go down,” Evelyn predicted. By then the meat-eaters would be stirring and fill the night with their howls and roars and screams.
    “We have picnic here?” Dega asked, and patted the ground.
    “We could so the water is handy,” Evelyn said. But the truth was, a secluded nook was more to her fancy. She pointed at the woods to the west. “I’d like over yonder better.”
    “What you wish,” Dega said. Until that moment he hadn’t realized how they nearly always did what she wanted and rarely what he wanted. The same as how she led when they went riding.
    Evelyn’s saddle creaked as she swung up. “Let’s go, Buttercup,” she said, and flicked the reins.
    Dega trailed after her. Conflicting tides of emotion were tearing at him. He had much he wanted to say once they made camp, but he was afraid to say it for fear he would lose her.
    Evelyn hummed as she rode. She couldn’t wait to set up camp. She imagined how it would be that evening around the fire, talking, and other things,and she grew warm in anticipation. Then Buttercup snorted and stopped, and she looked up. “Oh my.”
    Dega drew rein beside her. He saw what she was looking at. “Someone live here.”
    “Surely not,” Evelyn said. Yet there was the evidence, right in front of her eyes: a lodge made of limbs and brush with a hide over the entrance. By Shoshone standards it was crude. A vague memory tugged at her, and she said, “I know who made that.”
    “You do?”
    “Sheepeaters.”
    “Sorry?” Dega had heard mention of many new tribes since his family came to the mountains but never a tribe by that name.
    “The Tukaduka. My pa says they’re related to the Shoshones, but they don’t live like the Shoshones do.” Evelyn gigged her horse closer. Suddenly a foul odor assailed her, and she almost gagged.
    “Look!” Dega exclaimed.
    Evelyn stopped in alarm. The body of a woman lay near the hide, which she now saw was ripped and torn as if by razor-sharp knives. Jerking her Hawken up, she probed the woods beyond. “We better have a look-see.”
    Dega firmed his grip on his lance. He’d never expected to find death in so remote a place, yet if there was one thing he had learned about the wilderness, it was to expect the unexpected. “This bad, yes?”
    “This is very bad,” Evelyn King said.

Chapter Eleven
    The dark one stirred in his lair and sat up. He was uneasy and his shoulder was bothering him. Rising, he padded onto the ledge and gazed over his domain. He listened and sniffed the air. Birds warbled in the trees. Other than that, the valley he had claimed was quiet and peaceful.
    He paced back and forth. It was early, and he didn’t yet feel the pangs of hunger that nightly impelled him to prowl in search of prey. A pair of ravens flapped overhead and he watched them fly off.
    The dark one went into the niche in the rock cliff and lay on his belly with his chin on his forepaws. He closed his eyes and dozed. Images filled his head, and his legs twitched. He was running after a doe. He could see the white of her tail and her pumping legs, and he leaped and landed on her back. He bit her neck and slashed with his claws and she crashed down, thrashing and pumping her rich wet blood over him and the grass. He growled and lapped it, and then he was awake again and raised his head.
    His uneasiness persisted. He went back out to the ledge. The sun was warm on his body. Lethargy crept over him, and he dozed again. When next he woke, the gray shadows of twilight were spreading and the hunger was on him.
    Descending, the dark one