Yellowstone Run

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Hickok sprang erect, as did the rest of his companions, and took a stride toward the leader of the Breed. “Get your paws off her!” he snapped.

“What do you mean by breakfast?” Priscilla queried, watching the pair of bearish mutations start to convey Milly Odum to the center of the clearing.

“Surely a smart human like you can figure it out,” Longat replied, and turned.

Eagle Feather’s features registered profound shock. He ran up behind Longat, grabbed the creature by the left shoulder, and spun the genetic deviate around. “You didn’t!”

Umgat’s visage became a mask of sheer hatred. “You dare lay a hand on me, you human scum!” he bellowed, and raised the tomahawk overhead.

With a swift bound Hickok launched himself into the air and tackled Eagle Feather, looping his arms around the Flathead’s waist and bearing both of them to the ground before the mutation could strike. He let go and rolled to his feet.

Over a dozen of the Breed converged on the captives, surrounding the humans to prevent them from interfering.

Glowering, Longat slowly lowered the tomahawk. “You were lucky this time,” he said to the Flathead. “I don’t want to waste food. But well take you next.” He wheeled and stalked off.

“What does he mean by food?” Priscilla inquired of no one in particular. “He can’t mean what I think he means.”

“He does,” Hickok confirmed, and offered his hand to Eagle Feather.

“You saved my life,” the Flathead said, and allowed the gunfighter to pull him up.

“Think nothin’ of it.”

“I wish you hadn’t.”

“Why?”

Eagle Feather gazed toward the middle of the clearing, where the rest of the Breed were forming a circle around Milly Odum. “Because now I know what happened to my family. I wish I was dead.”

“Would your loved ones want you to give up without a fight?” Hickok asked, noticing the sorrow etching lines in the Flathead’s face.

Eagle Feather appeared not to hear the question. He looked blankly down at the grass. “My wife and sons are gone,” he said softly, shinned.

“And what a horrible way to go.”

“Don’t you want to get revenge?” Hickok commented.

Again the Flathead did not respond. “Those I loved most have been taken from me! Murdered by these monsters!”

Geronimo placed his bound hands on Eagle Feather’s right shoulder. “I know how rough this is for you. We’re here if you need us.”

“I’m too late,” Eagle Feather said numbly, “Too late.”

“What are they doing to Milly?” Priscilla interjected.

The petrified woman was standing with her arms hanging limp and utter helplessness reflected in her expression, gaping at the ring of hostile creatures surrounding her. Her lower lip trembled and her fingers twitched.

“We’ve got to help her!” Priscilla declared.

Hickok scanned the 14 mutations enclosing them. “How?”

“I don’t know. But there must be something we can do.”

One of the Breed laughed. “There’s nothing you can do, human. Watch closely, because it will be your turn before you know it.”

His stomach tightening into a knot, Hickok saw Longat weave through the pack of abominations and walk directly up to Odum. The woman gazed fearfully into the mutation’s eyes.

“Oh God. No!” Priscilla said. “Please no!”

Four of the Breed detached themselves from the main group and hurried into the forest, returning within a minute bearing limbs and sticks which they carried to the middle and deposited near Longat and Odum. They made another trip to gather wood, and came back with even more.

“That should be enough,” Longat told them, and nodded at the pair who usually attended him.

The duo seized Odum by the arms and held her fast.

“Brothers and sisters of the Breed,” Longat said, raising his arms and beaming, “The time has come for us to feed again. Because we’ve been fortunate enough to obtain a supply of our favorite delicacy, we’ll enjoy a feast and remain here until noon. But before we fill our bellies, I must address you on an important issue.”

“How soon before we return to our valley?” a husky mate interrupted.

“We’ll be home in two weeks,” Longat stated. “We’ve seen enough of the outside world to know that the humans will pose no serious threat to our plans to expand the territory under our control. We’ll start slowly at first and subjugate those towns nearest to our valley. In ten years we should control all of the former state of Idaho.”

Hickok couldn’t resist the opportunity to taunt the mutation. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “You’re out of your gourd, jerk-face. There aren’t enough of your bozos to lake over a whole blamed state.”

Longat stared balefully at the Warrior. “There will be once we convert half of the humans we capture.”

“Convert them to what? Your slaves?”

“No, you pathetic imbecile. We have the means of transforming humans into the genetically superior species we are.”

The revelation jolted Hickok. For a few seconds be believed that Longat might be lying to get his goat, until he saw the leader’s smug countenance.

“That’s impossible,” he blurted out.

“You wish it was impossible. But we can transform hundreds, even thousands of lowly humans given time and their unwitting cooperating.”

“How?”

“We have a way.”

“You’ll never get the time you need,” Hickok said. “The Federation will send in an army to eliminate every last one of you.”

“We know about the Federation. And we know the Federation can’t destroy us without first locating our home, which they’ll never do. There’s no way the Federation army can cover every square inch of the Pacific Northwest.”

“The Federation will stop you crumbs,” Hickok stated, hoping he projected more confidence than he felt.

Longat gave a contemptuous wave of his hand, dismissing the statement as irrelevant, and faced his followers. “You’ve heard this human babble, and you all know how insignificant humans are in the grand scheme of things. Back in the early days, when the Breed initially appeared, there were those of our ancestors who viewed the transformation as a curse. They were still new to their condition and foolishly persisted in regarding humans as the acme of development on his planet.” He paused and smirked. “But we know better now. We know that humans are a blight, a demented species who nearly obliterated all life on Earth. They have no natural right to rule this world. They lost any claim to ascendancy by conclusively demonstrating their inherent insanity.”

“Humans suck!” one of the creatures yelled.

“Death to all human scum!” chimed in another.

“No, not to all of them,” Longat corrected him. “We’ll cultivate some of the humans as a food source, but our primary priority must be to increase our own ranks, to render us invincible. That is the reason I’ve proposed using the lake water to transmute large numbers of humans. Between natural reproduction of our species and the transformation process, we can triple our population in a single generation. In two generations the Breed will number over one hundred thousand and the humans will crumble before our combined might.”

Lake water? What did lake water have to do with the transformation?

Hickok wondered. He stared at Milly Odum, at her terrified face, his heart going out to her, wishing he could save her from her impending fate. But what could he do with his wrists tied? He glanced down at his hands, furious at his vincibility.

“Long live the Breed!” Longat cried.

From the throats of every creature came the same cry, repeated in unison several times. “Long live the Breed! Long live the Breed! Long live the Breed!”

Hickok looked at the mutation standing in front of him and smiled sweetly. “I hope you all keel over by tomorrow.”

“And now to enjoy our feast!” Longat declared, turning to Odum.

“Prepare her!”

The duo who always attended the leader stepped in close and snatched at the woman’s clothes, easily tearing the fabric with their nails, laughing evilly as they stripped her naked.

Odum screeched and vainly tried to cover herself with her hands, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.

Many of the Breed cackled at her discomfiture.

Geronimo, scowling, looked at the gunfighter. “We can’t just stand here and let them kill her.”

“I know, pard.”

“Then when?”

“Now,” Hickok said, and leaped at the nearest mutation, his hands clenched together, sweeping his arms up and then lashing out at the creature’s head.

Geronimo jumped at another bear-man.

For a few moments the Warriors had the advantage of surprise and the mutations briefly gave way.

Hickok smashed his knuckles into the mouth of the closest creature, knocking it backwards, and then swung at the mutation on his right, clipping the thing on the side of the head and knocking it down.

Geronimo succeeded in battering two of the bear-men to the ground and managed to take four swift strides in the direction of Milly Odum.

The remaining guards pounced en masse, swarming over the Warriors and overwhelming them by sheer force of numbers.

Heavy fists thudded into Hickok’s face and stomach, and he doubled over. He beat at the Breed ineffectually. There were simply too many.

Hands roughly seized his arms and one of the bear-men applied a headlock. He glimpsed Geronimo being similarly subdued and ceased to resist. The things were holding him in viselike grips and he couldn’t move his arms or legs.

“Be still, human!” a burly brute hissed, and slapped the gunman across the mouth.

The salty taste of blood touched Hickok’s tongue, and he glared at the creature that had struck him. “You’ll get yours, sucker!”

“Fat chance.”

Hickok twisted his bead to see the middle of the clearing, Longat and the majority of the Breed had been intently watching the one-sided struggle. Now Longat chuckled and nodded at the duo.

“Hold her arms!”

Milly screamed and attempted to pull free as the hairy beast men took hold of her, each one clasping a wrist and extending her arm to its limit.

“Leave her alone!” Priscilla shouted, tears in her own eyes, her slim hands molded into fists.

Longat ignored the distraction. He hefted the tomahawk and stepped in front of the helpless prisoner. “Have you any last words, woman?”

Milly’s eyes were as wide as they could be. Her mouth moved but no words came out.

“Articulate bitch, aren’t you?” Longat quipped.

Hickok vented a growling noise every bit as bestial as the bear-men could make. A burning rage flared in every cell of his being. Never had he felt so frustrated! He glanced at Eagle Feather, who was standing a few feet away, seemingly in a daze, then back at the tableau in the center of the clearing.

Longat was smiling broadly. “Let us proceed,” he said, and nodded again.

The two creatures grasping Odum’s arms suddenly surged in opposite directions, every muscle on their bodies rippling, as they pulled with all their might.

Milly lifted her face to the sky and gave voice to a plaintive wail.

Hickok gritted his teeth in impotent fury. He saw the duo strain, exerting their enormous strength, and he saw Milly Odum shriek in abject fear, and then her arms parted from her shoulders with a sickening ripping sound, tendrils of flesh hanging from the ragged sockets, blood spurting from each cavity.

Milly’s eyelids fluttered and she started to collapse.

Gleaming in the sunlight, the tomahawk whipped in an arc as Longat buried the edge in her forehead, cleaving her skull nearly in half, exposing her brain. He laughed as he wrenched the weapon loose.

Dead on her feet, Milly Odum’s body sank slowly to the ground.

The duo waved the severed arms they had held in the air, beaming happily.

Hickok felt flushed. He wanted to pound every last one of the Breed into a pulp. A bitter bile rose in his mouth and he swallowed it. A frenzied cry to his left drew his attention to Priscilla.

The Mormon woman had taken all she could stand. Her self-control snapped and she threw herself recklessly at a nearby bear-man, striking at its face, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Startled, the mutation defended itself instinctively, lashing out with a mallet like hand. His blow caught Priscilla on the tip of her chin and snapped her head back with an audible crack.

“No!” Hickok yelled, striving to break free, Priscilla Wendling straightened, her forehead knit in bewilderment.

She endeavored to speak, but her head sagged to the right at an unnatural angle and she abruptly pitched forward.

“No! No!” Hickok shouted, tugging and thrashing.

Priscilla lay on the grass, her head tilted crazily upward, her lifeless eyes fixed on eternity.

Hickok went slack, staring at her in shock.

“Let me through!”

The creatures parted at the command and Longat walked up to the Mormon woman and halted. The bloody tomahawk was in his right hand.

He frowned and looked around. “Who did this?”

“I did,” replied the mutation responsible. “I’m sorry,” he added sheepishly.

“You idiot, Komsey!” Longat barked. “You know that wasting meat is strictly forbidden.”

“She took me by surprise,” Komsey responded. “I didn’t mean to hit her so hard.”

Longat sighed and placed his hands on his hips. “Well, it’s no use crying over spilt blood. And we’re not going to let her go to waste. Get the fire going. We’ll eat both of them.” He smiled. “There’s nothing like a hearty meal and a full stomach after a hard night’s work.”