Read Beneath Ceaseless Skies #172 for Free Online

Indians were something fierce that year, and he’d been younger too. He concentrated, and urine shot from his body in a warm stuttering stream.
Piss on the devils, piss on the past, and piss on Golden Falls.
            A creature rose up out of the brush in front of him. He leapt backwards with a yelp, splashing his leg. A wolf’s sturdy head swung towards him, lips raised high to reveal black gums in the pre-dawn light. “The only thing I smell out here is you,” it said with a growl.
            “Fuck you.” Halpern grabbed his pants and set them straight.
            Merrill’s wolf stepped aside and became Merrill, fur receding, teeth pulling, going in just as smooth as they had come out. Then sharp wet sounds, like a beaver tail-slapping the top of a lake, until just a hairy naked man was left behind. Merrill stretched and walked into the campsite, naked as a newborn, and Halpern followed him back.
            “There’s nothing out there, Eldred.” Merrill helped himself to the saddlebags, pulling out packed clothing. “Even if there ever was a wendigo here, which I doubt, it’s long since gone.”
            “We’ll go until we see the wagon for ourselves,” Eldred said, sitting up with a yawn.
            “It’s a waste of time.” Merrill yanked on a shirt, pants, boots.
            Halpern looked down at his urine-stained pants. “Bringing you—that was a waste of time.”
            Merrill growled. Eldred looked between them. “Go ahead with the horse then. See if you can lure it out.”
            The nag, to her credit, tried to stove Merrill’s head in. But eventually he caught hold of her tie and dragged her up the road behind him. Halpern squatted beside his saddle and reassigned his belongings. The saddle itself could wait for his return, but—
            “Carry this.” He handed rope and an axe over to Eldred. Lifting his lightened bag, boxes of bullets jingled inside.
            “That sounds like a lot of ammo,” Eldred said.
            “That’s because it is,” Halpern said, standing up.
    * * *
            The road went around the edge of a hillside, letting them see between the trees to the valley below. Somewhere out there the Golden River ran along, cold as the ice it came from, scattering flakes of gold into a few lucky sluices; like a moody farmer’s daughter scattering grain for chosen pullets but leaving forgotten ones to starve.
            There’d been no sign of Merrill or the nag all morning. Halpern gnawed on jerky as they walked, between deep gulps of air. The mountain was robbing his breath, making his lungs work twice as hard. Eldred didn’t seem to mind.
            “When’s Junior going to change?” Halpern asked, after inhaling deep.
            “Soon.”
            “And then?”
            “He’ll be like us. One way or another.”
            Halpern waited for him to explain. Eldred waited, too. He could out wait the damn dead. “Eldred—”
            “It’s none of your business.”
            Halpern turned on him. “He’s my nephew too! If you’d been more honest when this whole thing started—”
            “I warned her.” Eldred’s eyes narrowed. “She knew.” His voice went low, and his breath came hard. “She accepted me.”
            Eldred’s wolf was coming on, and Halpern didn’t care. The thin air made things clearer, shined his anger more bright. “You were supposed to protect her,” he said, pointing at Eldred, one hand on his gun.
            A branch snapped behind them. Eldred, wolf-at-the-ready, snarled. “Who’s there?”
            “Protect her from what?” asked a timid voice, far to the right of the road.
            “Junior!” Eldred shouted.
            Junior peered out from behind a distant tree. “I did it! I snuck up here, you all didn’t smell me or