Asa Sweet's Devil

Ebenezer Shaw preferred to hunt alone at night. He cut off a shank of venison and tied it to a low tree branch. He waited down wind in the bushes with his fifty caliber Hawken rifle to see what would appear. He didn't hunt for food, hide, or even profit. He hunted for the pure love of killing. He would kill anything that walked, crawled, or flew - and savor every moment of his victim's pain and agony. This night would be different. Unknown to him, he was the prey.

Ebenezer Shaw was a squat, repulsive little necrophile in his early fifties. He had a chubby face, pocked and scarred with very broad, black eyebrows and hollow slate-gray eyes. The skin underneath his buckskin garments was pale pink and unhealthy looking. His thick tongue licked incessantly at an old knife wound in the corner of his mouth. He was covered with a thin sheen of sweat, sexually stimulated at the thought of killing again.

The night sky contained only a few scattered clouds drifting leisurely overhead. The full moon's golden radiance bathed the pristine wilderness of the Oregon Territory, providing sufficient illumination for Shaw to see any creature that approached his trap.

He sat patiently on his haunches chewing on a fresh wad of tobacco thinking and smiling about what the crazy old proprietor of the Lake Pend Oreile Trading Post had told him the day before. Shaw reasoned that Asa Sweet's yarn about a monster-devil with a craving for human flesh had to be the granddaddy of all bears, or some banished sideshow freak that had no particular immunity to fifty caliber musket balls. He hoped for the latter. Ebenezer Shaw gained greater pleasure from killing people than he did animals.

Afterwards, he thought, he would sneak back to the trading post in the middle of the night and cut the old man's throat while he slept. Shaw was almost at the point of laughing out loud when he heard the piercing snap of something big stepping on dead timber behind him. He nearly choked on his chaw. At that same instant he smelled something offensive that reminded him of a ripe animal carcass rotting in the hot sun. He couldn't believe what was happening. It was the first time ever, anything had sneaked up on him. Shaw cocked the hammer on his rifle and whirled around to face the threat. In doing so, the trigger snagged on the thick brush and the weapon discharged prematurely. Shaw knew he was in big trouble.

There would be no time to reload. Whimpering with fear, he dropped his rifle and fumbled at his side for the Bowie knife he had taken off the body of a man he had murdered and violated years earlier. Something huge and powerful reached out from the brush and grabbed him by the chest. He felt his ribs crack as it tighten its grip. The pain was excruciating. It lifted him high above the ground. The bright moonlight revealed every gruesome detail of Asa Sweet's devil. Ebenezer Shaw screamed and screamed, but there was no one around to hear him or to help him, and all because he preferred to hunt alone at night.

**************************************************

It was in the late Spring of 1848 when Kyle Doogan and his trapping partner, Henry Hatfield, having less than modest luck, planned to explore and trap a savage and remote mountainous pass that split the forks of the Salmon and the Wisdom Rivers in the newly organized Oregon Territory.

Seeking to replenish their near depleted provisions before setting out, Doogan and Hatfield stopped at the Lake Pend Oreile Trading Post. Hardly more than a shack, it had been beaten over the years by the frigid mountain wind until the once yellow fir logs had taken on the color of old dead bark. The two wilderness hardened men tied their lean mountain ponies to the hitching post and entered the single story dwelling. It was filthy and dimly lit within. The whole place stank of feet that had not seen the inside of a wash tub since the spring thaw. Thin shafts of light needled through breaks in the clapboard roof. The sole occupant was a gaunt, mottled-faced old man standing at the far end of a raw plank bar raised on empty molasses barrels. In his seventies or eighties, the nauseating old codger was leaning up against the counter picking at open sores on his arms with only a ridiculous lace nightgown hanging over his bony carcass and a grubby fedora covering his head. He looked more dead than alive and was as rank as an overflowing chamber pot.

"This place stinks something bad!" Said Henry Hatfield, voicing a complaint to the old man. "When was the last time ye had a bath?"
"Welcome!" Said the man, ignoring Hatfield's remark. The sincerity in his tone was evidence that he didn't enjoy the company of many customers this far out in the scrub. He looked both men over with the scrutiny of a slave buyer. Their buckskin shirts hung in folds over their strong bodies and were soiled with years of trail grime until the garments had the look of burnished leather.

Kyle Doogan was a man of some thirty years of age, stoutly built and just under six feet tall. His light brown hair hung almost to his broad shoulders. Doogan's unkempt beard, cornflower blue eyes, and dark complected leather-clad form never failed to turn a lady's head when walking down a St. Louis street, a trait he never failed to exploit. "How are ye, old man?" He greeted.

"I's fine. I's fine," responded the proprietor. "I kain't get it up anymore, but ever'day I spends above ground is a good day. What are ye boys a-doin' here in these parts? I don't regular sees many this far out. What can ol' Asa Sweet do for ye lads?"
"We need...." Started Doogan.

"Don't ye be a-tellin' me now. Let me guess." Asa Sweet's eyes, peeking out from under the drooping brim of his pliant felt fedora, radiated like a bullfrog peering above rippling water bloodied by the setting sun. "Ol' Asa bets ye's a-lookin' for beaver and will be needin' supplies."

Doogan gave his partner a surprised glance and then said to Asa, "Are ye some sort of mystic?"
"Nothin' mystery'us about it!" Exclaimed Asa, slapping his knee and jumping around like a harlequin. "Two young stout men in their prime like yourselves out here in the middle of the Lord's own creation is a-lookin' for either gold or beaver. Ye don't look like miners, so I figured it had to be beaver. But ye is a-wastin' your time because there ain't no beaver... or gold in these parts."

"Well that ain't what we heard, old man," said Hatfield.
"Now boy, ye just tell ol' Asa what ye heard, because I's been in these here mountains long before ye was a twinkle in your pappy's eyes. And I's a-tellin' ye there ain't no beaver. Leastways not where ye boys'd want to go."

Henry Hatfield, a chronic complainer, was a stocky, barrel-chested fellow with shoulder length flaming red hair and a scraggly beard. He figures his was born in the Winter of 1816 or the Spring of 1817. He wasn't sure which. He had no idea who his father was, and his mother, a Saint Louis prostitute, died of measles when he was a child. Henry had grown up illiterate in houses of ill repute along the Missouri River and was cared for by a host of benevolent prostitutes. When he was about fifteen, he fatally stabbed an obese Madame with an ice pick when she tried to beat him for eavesdropping on the action. He bade a hasty adieu to Missouri and worked his way West on a wagon train bound for Fort Lupton, Colorado. Hatfield looked Asa Sweet in the eye and said, "We's heard there's beaver so thick in these parts that ye don't need traps. Streams so rich with beaver that ye can cross the water on their backs without gettin' your feet so much's damp."

"HA!!" Asa Sweet roared with laughter loud and long. "That there's a real good 'un! Ye have the brains of buff, boy, if ye believes that. There ain't no beaver in these here parts I tells ye!"
"What would an old man wearin' a lace nighty in the middle of the day know about beaver?!" hissed Hatfield. He was incensed. He gritted his teeth and clenched the handle of his sheathed Bowie knife. He looked as if he was about to clobber Sweet in his toothless mouth. "Ye are pretty bodacious for such a scrawny ol' fart!"

Doogan stepped in between the two men and told Asa they intended to scout and trap the pass that divided the forks of the Salmon from the Wisdom Rivers.

"Oh no!" Gasped Asa, glancing back and forth between the two of them. His bottom lip quivered uncontrollably. Urine streamed down the front of his nightgown and splashed into a puddle at his bare feet. Both Doogan and Hatfield took a step backwards. Intestinal gas hissed from Sweet's anal cavity like an angry spitting cat. They took another step backwards. Doogan feared the crazed old loon was going to up and croak right there in front of them. He certainly smelled like a week-old corpse. The unmistakable terror in Asa Sweet's eyes was genuine. "Ye boys don't want to be a-goin' there!. That place's evil! The Devil himself lives there!"

"That's bullshit!" Exclaimed Hatfield. "An' ye a-tryin' to put the scare in us don't shine much with this crowd!"
"No, no!" Said Asa Sweet. "That place's evil I say. Many have passed by here to that place, just like ye boys. Few come back. And the ones that do are scared so shitless that they just keep on a-ridin'. Just last fall two prospectors who'd been through here, returned a week later with yarns of findin' a body they thought to be Ebenezer Shaw, a hunter and a loner, who'd had the flesh eaten clean off his bones a night or two earlier."

"Mor'in likely a bear or some other hungry critter," said Doogan.
"No sirre-e! It weren't no bear I tell ye," insisted Asa. "Bears don't eat people like that. And anyway there ain't no bears there. They's got more smarts than men. They knows the ol' Devil lives there. Even the Injuns gives that place a wide berth. But ye boys go ahead and go there and get yourselves killed and eaten."
"Maybe it was ol' Liver Eatin' Johnston," suggested Doogan.
"Great Jehosophat no!" Growled Asa. "It weren't Johnston! I heard that flea-bitten cannibal and Hatchet Jack are down towards Santy Fe. Besides I never knowd him to eat a white man before. Only Injuns, and Crows at that for what they done to his wife and young 'uns."

"I reckon we'll be a-gettin' on over yonder anyway."
"Go ahead and go. Don't listens to ol' Asa. But I tells ye this....make certain your peace with the Maker first before ye enter that evil place."
The eccentric old recluse outfitted them with the supplies they needed and lent them an old pack mule. They paid him with their last twenty-dollar gold piece. Asa Sweet stood in the doorway and watched them mount up.

"Thanks for the use of your mule, Asa," said Doogan. "I'll see that ye get him back."
"I ain't a-frettin' none about that ornery critter. Ye just let him go when your done...and he'll wander back when he gets hungry enough. It's ye boys I's worried about. If ye goes to that place, me thinks I's seen the last of both of ye."
"Thanks again," replied Doogan, pulling on the reins of his horse, seeming to ignore Asa's last remark.
"Maybe if ye took a bath once in a while," said Hatfield, chiding the old man, "more folks might be obliged to stop by."

"One last bit of advice," warned Asa, stepping out the doorway.
"What's that?" Responded Doogan.
"Doogan!" exclaimed Hatfield. "Let's be on our way. I'm a-gettin' saddle sore a-sittin' here a-listenin' to this crazy ol' coot rave on."
"Seein' how ye boys are bent on suicide," said Asa, "They say ye can tells when ol' Beelzebub's near."
"This is bullshit, Doogan!" said Hatfield. "And ye know it! I don't believe ye are a-wastin' our time a-listenin' to this! There ain't nothin' out there except maybe a rogue bear."

"Them's the same words ol' Ebenezer Shaw said, boy!" replied Asa. "He was one of the craftiest hunters there ever was, and he got himself ate! Ye will do well to heed my words!"
Doogan's horse reared up. Nervous. Ready for the ride. "Whoa! Easy boy!" said Doogan, calming his pony.
"We are a-listenin'."
"They say when he's near, he reeks worse than a garlic fart!"
"Ha!" laughed Hatfield. "I kain't imagine anythin' a-reekin' worse than ye, ol' man!"

Kyle Doogan tipped the brim of his hat in acknowledgement. Asa Sweet smiled, his eccentric sardonic grin narrowed his slanted eyes and lit up his corpselike complexion. He watched both men ride off and disappear down the winding mountain trail.
"What in the hell do ye think ye were a-tryin' to prove back there, Henry?" asked Doogan. "Why'd ye want to go and piss off that old man for?"

"He was a bullshitter."
"Well so are ye. Ye are one of the biggest bullshitters I've ever known."
"Well I don't stink like he does!"
"I've known ye to be pretty ripe, Henry. When was the last time ye had a bath?"
Hatfield flipped him the finger. Doogan smiled and no more was said.

Kyle's father was a trapper at Fort Pueblo, on the Arkansas, at the head-waters of Fountain Creek. His mother, a Pennsylvania Quaker, broke the faith and followed his father west. She died of pneumonia at Fort Platte the day after Kyle's six birthday. His father disappeared two years later, believed killed in an avalanche in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Kyle grew up rugged and wild, working for scraps at Fort Platte. As he approached manhood he spent his time doing the only thing he knew how, trapping beaver and selling the pelts to Wild Bill Sublette's Rocky Mountain Fur Company.

As a Sweet's tall tale of the unfortunate Ebenezer Shaw and the supposed evil of the region weighed very lightly with Doogan and Hatfield, both who were as daring and able-bodied as any other mountain men of their day. Paramount on their minds was the expectation of cashing in on a rich harvest of beaver pelts.

Doogan always took the lead and rode ahead, his brawny torso hunched slightly over his frayed saddle, across which rested his ponderous fifty caliber Hawken plains rifle. His anxious eyes on the alert for potential trouble, scanned the broad skyline.

Henry Hatfield trailed behind with his rifle at the ready and the reins of Asa Sweet's mule tied to his saddle horn. He spent several years learning the trade of trapping beaver from a grizzled old Frenchman known throughout the Far West only as Le Beau, who was rumored to be a silent partner in the Hudson's Bay Company. After Le Beau died of a rabid skunk bite, Hatfield wandered around alone in the mountains until he met up with Kyle Doogan at the San Joaquin River rendezvous in the early Summer of 1838. Doogan and Hatfield, who had been partners and friends for the past ten years were as tough as the parfleche soles of their mountain moccasins.

They rode their ponies to the foot of the pass and entered an open meadow. Rising before them was a towering wall of dense tangled trees.
"Jeeesus H. Christ!!" Bellowed Hatfield, standing straight up in his saddle stirrups. "From the ol' Mississip to the hills of Californy... I've seen some badass scrub before... but never anythin' like these here woods! Have ye?"
"Nay. And we've trapped a-heap together, Henry. Those trees are thicker than ticks on a hound."

"What are we goin' to do with the nags? They'd be about as useless as tits on a boar hog in them woods."
"Hobble'em and leave'em here I guess, them woods are too thick for these critters."
After fettering their mounts and unpacking the mule, Doogan and Hatfield struck out on foot through the vast, sunless forest. The jagged timber-strewn ground was difficult to negotiate even for the most experienced outdoorsman.

"My feet hurt!" Whined Hatfield. "What the rush? Them beaver ain't a-goin' anywhere."
Doogan stopped and waited for Hatfield to catch up.
"Ten years we've been a-knockin' about in these here mountains, Kyle. We've trapped a-heap...and what's come of it? We're just as broke as we were when we met up and the scrub don't get any better."

"What are ye a-tryin' to say, Henry?"
"I say after we cash in on this pack of fur, we head west to Californy. Pick up some of that gold I hear is just laying about near Sutter's Mill. Maybe find some filthy rich widow-woman to take care of me. I don't mind if she's a little plump, but she's got to have plenty of money and will have to be real nice to me."

Doogan smiled and continued working his way through the dense woods. He tolerated Hatfield's constant complaining. He had gotten use to it a long time ago. Henry was Henry. It was his nature to complain. He wouldn't be happy if he didn't have something to bitch about. Doogan knew that he could count on him when danger was present. They had saved each others lives more times than he wished to remember.

By late afternoon they happened upon a small glade of mountain grass not more than twenty or thirty yards wide which was on one side of a narrow stream that divided the glade from a high timber-thick knoll. There were abundant signs of game everywhere.

"This looks as good a place as anywhere," said Doogan, wiping the sweat from his brow and letting his backpack slide from his shoulders. It dropped to the ground with a thud.

"Yeah," agreed Hatfield. "I reckon we got a couple hours of daylight left. Let's pitch camp and then give that there creek a look-see. I smells beaver, Kyle. I can feel'em in my bones. Them furry lil' bastards are just a-waitin' for us to pluck 'em out of the water and skin 'em."

After constructing a lean-to of brush and tree limbs, they started hiking up stream. The heavily wooded terrain was near impenetrable in places. There was much fallen timber strewn about, with occasional breaks in the forest of small glades carpeted with pale green mountain grass.

It was dusk by the time they returned to their camp. To their astonishment they found the lean-to had been ripped apart. It look as if a tornado had touched down in the glade, snapping the support columns of the shelter and stripping the leaves from the brush and tree limbs that had been cut to construct the roof. The contents of their packs, clothing, and bedding material hung scattered in the lower branches of the trees. Pots and pans were strewn about the glade like garbage. The stones they had used to surround the campfire had been carried off into the forest.

"That ol' fart Sweet has been here... bent on a-robbin' us I bet," said Hatfield as he sat down on the ground. "Ye should've let me kicked his ass clean out of his lace nighty back there, Doogan. I'm tired and I don't feel like cleanin' this mess up tonight. I ache all over something wicked."

"I don't think it was Sweet," replied Doogan. "Look at these here tracks...more like a bear."
"All the more ye should've let me kicked his ass, because that makes him a bullshittin' liar. He said there weren't no bears in these parts."
"Let's get this crap picked up. I'll cut new beams."
"Nay, let it wait until morning. I'm tired. My feet still hurt and my back is sore. Why don't ye fix supper while I rest a spell?"

"Henry!" Said Doogan sharply, "Off your ass! It's a-goin' to be dark soon and I don't want to be a-sleepin' out in the open tonight. I've got a bad feelin' about this place."
"Kain't we at least do it after supper?"
Hatfield knew the answer to that question before he asked. "Christ o'mighty!" He protested, slowly raising to his feet. "I swear Doogan, sometimes I think ye enjoy a-seein' me when I hurt all over!"

The footprints were deeply imprinted in the soft soil and quite plain, but Doogan and Hatfield paid little attention to them as they busied themselves with the chore of rebuilding the lean-to and gathering wood for a fire. Darkness was nearly upon them.

While Doogan was preparing their evening meal, Hatfield decided to take a closer look at the intruder's footprints. He seized a brand from the fire and began to follow the tracks. He soon discovered that the trespasser had walked along a game trail after leaving their camp in shambles.

Walked! Hatfield thought in amazement. Bears don't walk upright on two feet! He also realized that the footprints in the soft soil were too deep and too large to be made by the likes of Asa Sweet or any other man for that matter. After the brand flickered out, Hatfield returned to the fire and stood silently for several minutes. As he peered out into the darkness, a sudden chill seized him. Finally, he said: "Kyle."

"Yeah, it's almost ready," replied Doogan, thinking that Hatfield was complaining about supper being late.
"That there bear has been a-walkin' upright."
"What?!" laughed Doogan.
"Upright, I said. On two legs."
"Bears don't stroll about on two..."
"I know! I know!" insisted Hatfield. "But this one did!"

Doogan laughed again and just shook his head.
"Don't be an asshole! Come and look for yourself if ye don't believe me!"
Hatfield held the brand while Doogan knelt down for a closer look. "I think ye are right, Henry. It sure looks like this critter's been a-walkin' on his hind legs. But they don't look like any bear prints I ever saw before."

"I know. More like a man's footprint. Except they's too big. They're a foot and a half long if they's an inch. And look at the claw marks in front of the toes...I ain't never in all my born days seen anything like them prints."

After much discussion whether the footprints were human, they concluded they were not and had to be the smudged paw prints of a bear. The two baffled men returned to their camp and settled in under the lean-to for the night.

Just after midnight Doogan was awakened by the crunching sounds of someone or something moving about through the maze of fallen tree limbs that encircled their camp. At first he thought Hatfield had gotten up to gather wood for the smoldering campfire, but he soon discovered Henry was still asleep at his side.

"Henry!" Doogan whispered excitedly, while prodding him in the back with his fist.
"Don't bother me, I'm a-tryin' to sleep."
"There's something peculiar out there!"
"Well go look for yourself. I'm nice and warm and I ain't a-budgin' for no man or critter."

There was a sudden and sharp crack of dead wood. Both men sat up in their bedrolls. As they did so, a foul odor worse than rotting flesh stung their nostrils.
"My God Doogan!! What'd ye do man... crap your breeches?!"
"It ain't me!" Exclaimed Doogan, pointing to the mouth of the lean-to. "It's a-comin' from out there! There's something out there I tell ye!"

"Well, go check it out. Ye don't need me to scare off some poor little critter a-scurryin' about."
Suddenly both men detected the loom of an immense man-like body creeping around in the darkness at the opening of their lean-to. Doogan seized his rifle and fired at the vague shadow, but in his haste to get the shot off, must have missed. Moments later they heard the commotion of a great beast smashing through the underbrush, screaming like a castrated cat as it hurried off into the cryptic blackness of the timberland.

Nervous as penned wolves, both men spent the balance of the night sitting cross-legged by the rekindled fire with cocked muskets draped across their laps, but heard nothing more from the nebulous intruder.
"Kyle," said Hatfield, spitting a wad of tobacco into the fire, "Ye think that was ol' Sweet's....?"
"Don't ye be a-sayin' it, Henry," grunted Kyle disdainfully. "I don't believes in that touched ol' man's devils. That was just some critter, pure and simple. Mor'in likely a bear."

"That critter reeked like no bear I ever smelt before. If I smelt that bad, I reckon I'd be a-hidin' out in the woods too."
The morning sun rose as thick golden honey and cast its colors through the primeval forest like panes of cathedral glass. Dew still sparkled in the beaver meadow when Doogan and Hatfield started out to check the few traps they had set the evening before and prepare new ones. As if some unspoken agreement was enforce, both men stayed close together the entire day. Twilight was on the horizon by the time they returned to their camp.

They were not surprised to find the lean-to torn to the ground again, and the clearing littered with their belongings.
"That lil' prick has been here again," sighed Hatfield.
"I don't think he's so little, Henry. Lookit how deep the varmint's feet sunk in the ground."
"He's a mean 'un, Kyle. Meaner 'an horny banny rooster defending a henhouse. He did this outta shear nastiness. I'll bet he'll be back tonight."

"We'll be a-waitin' for him if he does."
The intruder's footprints were as clear as if they were made on freshly fallen snow. Doogan and Hatfield followed the tracks a short distance along the brook. Whatever the brute was, it had walked in and out of their camp on two legs.

"I don't like this," said Hatfield. "Not one lil' bit. I wanna go to Californy and find a rich widow-woman to take care of me."
"I thought ye wanted to pick gold up off the ground at Sutter's Mill first."
"I've decided that's too much work. I'd rather find a rich widow-woman... and help her spend her money. That's more to my likin'. I've had a 'hole gut full of this here mountain life and that stinkin' critter out there in the scrub that keeps makin' more work for me."

"One thing's certain, Henry," concluded Doogan, his uncertainty evident in his tone. "What we're a-dealin' with here ain't no bear."
"That ain't no lie," agreed Hatfield. "I say we light a fire tonight that can be seen all the way back to Saint Louiy. I think the bastard's scared of fire."
Doogan nodded in agreement.
Both men, thoroughly spooked, began to gather great heaps of dead wood. They kept a roaring fire blazing throughout the night with one or both standing a nervous vigil. Shortly before midnight the creature returned.

"Kyle," whispered Hatfield, cocking the hammer on his musket.
"I hear him, Henry. Take it easy. Don't ye be a-shootin' unless ye see the bastard. Ye hear?"
"I hear."
"Pheew!!!" wheezed Doogan, fanning his nose with his hand. The contorted look on his face told it all. "What shit pile has that damn thing been a-rollin' around in!? I mean... there's stink and then... there's stink! I ain't 'member anything, ever a-stenchin' that bad!"

"That varmint smells worser 'an any squaw's crotch I ever sniffed...an' I've shore've sniffed some bad 'uns!" replied Hatfield. "I shore wish it would mosey on downwind!"
"Ye be ease'n off that trigger, Henry, unless ye gets a clear shot. Cause if it comes a-chargin' and your musket is spent, I think we both are gonna be a-suckin' a skinny sow's hind tit."
"He's a-creepin' around over there," said Hatfield, pointing his weapon into the void. "Just on the other side of the creek on the hillside."

For the better part of an hour they listened nervously with hands poised on cocked triggers as the beast moved about in the thick underbrush snapping dead wood with each heavy step.
"That thing must be as big as a buff," said Doogan
"What in God's name...!?" Exclaimed Hatfield in response to a curt, long-drawn grating wail from the unseen creature in the bush. "That outhouse-stinkin' thing out there sounds as bad as it smells! If that damn varmint looks anything like it sounds or smells... then it's one butt ugly critter!"

"Henry, ye've known me a long time...and ye know I don't scare easy, but that thing out there scares the livin' dog piss outta me! I ain't gonna put up with this crap again tomorrow!"
Another perfect sunrise greeted the sleepless frontiersmen. A meager breakfast of corn pone, a small portion of dried venison, and last night's beans couldn't dispel their sense of dread. They sat across the fire from each other in silence. Finally Hatfield spoke.

"Kyle, are ye a-thinkin' what I'm a-thinkin'?"
"Ye mean about leavin'?"
"Yeah. My feet hurt. My back hurts. I ache all over. I wants to be a-headin' on to Californy and find me a rich widow- woman before they're all married off. We've been here two days and ain't trapped squat. Plenty of sign, but no fur. And with that stinkin' critter on the loose out there... I don't think we are gonna trap nothin' around 'ere."

"I agree," said Doogan, scratching his beard. "I want to be outta here by this afternoon."
"Afternoon my ass! I say we get the hell outta here now! This morning before that walkin' shit pile decides to pays us another call!"
"What about our traps?"
"Leave the damn things. Ye ain't gonna need them for findin' gold in Californy and I ain't gonna need them to find me a rich widow-woman."

"Now that's bullshit, Henry! I ain't gonna let out like some yellowbelly and leave our traps! I just ain't gonna do that! Stinkin' critter or not!"
"But..."
"But nothing!" Exclaimed Doogan emphatically. "I ain't gonna leave our traps! Them doin's just don't shine with me. Ye go ahead and go if ye wanna. I'll meet up with ye where we hobbled the nags."

"Nay," conceded Hatfield, sucking in a deep breath. "I'll help ye haul in the traps. But then we get our asses outta here. I don't wanna spend another night in this here place."
"Agreed. I don't want to either. I got no hankerin' to be rubbed out by that critter."
With Doogan in the lead, they went without talking in single file down a narrow and rather dubious deep-forest path, which at certain points was almost like being inside a tunnel. Thirty minutes or so out of their camp, Doogan stopped when he felt the touch of his partner's hand on his shoulder. When he turned around, he saw Hatfield saucer-eyed and holding a vertical finger to his dry lips.

"Shhh," whispered Hatfield cocking the hammer on his Hawken rifle. "I think we're bein' followed,"
Doogan also cocked his weapon. Both men stood there on the trail for several minutes not speaking or moving. A vast silence brooded over the forest.
"Is it...?" started Doogan.
"I dunno. No stink. But then we must be upwind."
"Did ye hear something Henry?"

"A twig snap... maybe a rustle in them there spruce thickets. I got this feelin', Kyle. Deep inside, all the way to my marrow that we're bein' followed."
"I got the same feeling. Let's get on with it so we can get the hell outta here."
Throughout the morning and past noon, Doogan and Hatfield were as inseparable as the Gemini and kept well within sight of one another, retrieving empty trap after empty trap. By noon they had worked their way back within a mile or two of their camp.

"This is bullshit!" exclaimed Hatfield, pulling up another empty trap. "We'd find more fur on a whore's twat than here in this stinkin' place! I hurt all over and we ain't got shit to show for it! I ain't never in all my born days seen such slim pickin's!
"Mor'in likely no pickin's is what we got here."
In the warm midday sunlight, both men were starting to feel a little foolish about their fears. In the fifty caliber Hawken rifle which each man was armed with, a weapon that had a splendid reputation for putting a hole in a bear the size of a man's fist. Any brute or enemy that was unfortunate enough to find themselves on the receiving end was just plain dead.

"How many more we got to get?" Complained Hatfield.
"Three more... in that lil' pond over yonder in that ravine."
"I ain't goin' over there. I ain't gonna do that. My feet hurt too much. Ye want them damn traps...ye go and fetch them yourself. I'll wait right here for ye. I need a little rest."
"What say ye if I go and fetch the last three traps and ye go on ahead and break camp and make ready the packs?"

"Sounds like to me that I'm a-gettin' the smelly end of the stick here. Ye want me to go back to camp and do a-heap of work while ye fetch three little ol' traps. I like better that I wait here for ye and rest a spell, and then we both go back to camp together and make ready the packs."
Doogan just sighed and shook his head in frustration. "Henry, I was just thinkin' that if ye went on ahead to camp and made ready our packs, we can be outta here all the sooner and back to our nags before sundown. And the sooner we are outta here, the sooner we can be on our way to Californy and the sooner ye will find that rich widow-woman ye have been..."

"Oh alright! If ye're gonna be a baby about it, I'll go on ahead and make ready the packs. But I want ye to know that I'll be hurtin' something real bad while a-doin' all that hard work all by myself."
"Be on the watch for our stinky companyero," warned Doogan.
"I'd plum already forgotten about that stinkin' critter," said Hatfield. "I ain't in no mood for any crap from him. If it shows its ugly face, me and Mister Hawken here is gonna to fix him up with a brand new asshole."
"See ye in about an hour or so."
"Well hurry it up. I want some help a-breakin' camp because I still ache something awful all over."

Doogan watched his partner until he entered the dense spruce thicket and was swallowed up by the tangled heaps of flora. The forest had an unnatural and eerie aura about it, as if it resented their presence. There was an uncomfortable and yet hauntingly familiar smell that Kyle couldn't quite put his finger on. The foliage grew so thickly and spread so widely in some places that he could scarcely see more than a few yards in any direction. Tree limbs hung down like tentacles waiting to snare some unsuspecting creature that happened to pass by. Scattered remnants of morning fog still lingered in spots where the roving wind seldom penetrated.

The entire region gave him unexplainable chills. It was the first time he and Hatfield had venture into these particular mountains, but there was a dreamlike familiarity to them. A shiver crept down his spine. He got a hollow, deep feeling he would not see his companion again. He almost yelled to Henry, rescinding his suggestion. Accustomed as he and Henry Hatfield were, through long lonely years of wandering in the mountains of the Far West, facing every imaginable hazard from nature, marauding animals, Indians, and even fellow mountain men, he could not shake the feeling that Asa Sweet's paradoxical warning should have been heeded.

Upon reaching the small pond where the last of the three traps were set, Kyle Doogan was astounded to see that two of them contained beaver. The third, however, had somehow been dislodged from its mooring and dragged into a beaver house of immense size. It took him several hours to tear down the wood- entangled structure and retrieve the trap and the prize it held. He took the better part of another hour to skin and prepare the three beaver. By the time he was heading back to camp, he noticed, with much distress, how low on the horizon the sun was getting. The shadows of the tree-lined ravine became longer, seemingly by the second, chasing after him, trying to overtake him like a hound after a hare. The slanting shadows crossed the forest so fast that it was like a having a blanket thrown over him.

In his haste to get back to his companion, he stumbled and fell to the ground. There was no soft mountain breeze. No chirping of birds. No chatter of insects. Nothing. Complete silence. He sat dazed for a moment under the towering pines. In the eerie stillness of dusk, the desolation and hush of the impenetrable primordial forest seemed to close in on him like a bird of prey. He rose to his feet and continued. His moccasins made no noise on the soft dried pine needles as he lengthened his stride.

Weary and short of breath, he approached the edge of the glade where they were camped. He felt a surge of relief and happiness knowing that he would soon see the whiskered face of his friend.
"Yo! Henry!" Shouted Doogan.
No answer.
"Yo! Henry! Yo!" He repeated. He didn't want Hatfield mistaking him for the intruder and putting a fifty caliber musket ball in his belly.
But again, there was no answer from the camp.
"Don't ye be a-shootin'! Ye hear me!? It's me! Damn ye Henry Hatfield! If ye are a-tryin' to play one of your tricks on me... I ain't a-findin' it one lil' bit funny! Don't shoot!"

Doogan was beginning to suspect something was afoot. The fire was near spent. Only a thin stream of gray smoke curled skyward, undisturbed in the windless twilight, up into the canopy of the tall trees forming a ghostly shroud over the camp. Something was wrong, sensed Doogan. Henry would not have allowed the fire to die out. Fire was life. In the wilderness, it often tipped the scales in favor of survival.

He saw where Hatfield had neatly arranged and tied the packs. Everything was ready for them to depart. But no Henry.
"Henry!" He called out.
No response.
"Henry!!" He shouted at the top of his lungs, hoping that he'd had just stepped behind a convenient bush or tree to make a last deposit before they set out.

Still no reply.
Abruptly as a Bowie knife in the back, Doogan's eyes fell upon Hatfield's cadaveric frame sprawled out on his stomach. His head was wrenched around one-hundred-eighty degrees like a doll abused by a child. The grim face was contorted and frozen at the height of a scream of pale horror.

Terror as deep as the pit of Hell stabbed at Kyle Doogan's heart. It was as if invisible hands, powerful hands, were grabbing from behind the loose skin on each side of his cheeks and stretching it rearward. Doogan rushed towards the corpse of his friend and knelt down beside it. His neck was broken, the body still warm. Blood oozed from numerous massive fang wounds in Hatfield's throat and trickled down his neck forming a puddle on the ground. The exposed bone and cartilage gleamed in the early evening light.

Anguish and dread gnawed like a starved rat at Doogan's soul. Despite Hatfield's ceaseless complaining and whining, he had been Doogan's friend and companion for ten years. They had survived much in the wilderness together. Doogan's sorrow was deep-felt and surpassed only by Hatfield's horrible death.

Doogan had to pull himself together, for there was much danger present. Adept in reading animal sign, he knew at a glance what had happened. Hatfield, after breaking camp and preparing the packs had apparently sat down on a fallen spruce tree facing the campfire, his back to the thick forest to await Doogan's return. It was evident to Doogan that the killer had been lurking near their campsite, waiting for an opportunity to catch one of them alone and off guard. The assailant's footprints, just as clear and plain as before and still walking upright on two legs, had approached Hatfield from behind and snapped his neck like a piece of driftwood. For some unknown reason, the beast then retreated into the depths of the forest without eating the remains.

Doogan trembled uncontrollably with fear. He scanned the forest for some hint of the killer. The dim twilight of dusk flickered indistinctly on the undergrowth and the trees like vague reflections on calm, dark water. Panic swelled thicker than phlegm in his throat when a light breeze from the copious timberland filled his nostrils with the familiar stench of the yet unseen creature. A thousand horrifying thoughts accelerated through his mind all at once.

Doogan heard a stifled sound that seemed to emanate from somewhere ahead of him on the other side of the fallen spruce that Hatfield had been setting on. Slowly he looked about. His eyes locked on the unadulterated horror of a man-shaped beast crouching on another fallen tree ten yards or so in front of him. It sat there on the log, hunkering on its heels glowering at Doogan through slitted, iniquitous eyes. Kyle sensed that any sudden move would be his last. Its long arms and massive body was fleeced with dirty gray hair. Protruding from a short, flat snout, Doogan could see the beast's upper and lower jaws were laced with rows of long pointed predatory teeth, some of which were crooked. On its head, between two large bat-like ears were a pair of short, but distinct hornlets. The face was human-like and hairless except for several inches of goatee beard on the chin, still soaked with Hatfield's blood.

Backwards, ever...so...slowly backwards, Doogan stepped, gradually rasing his musket to the ready. Not taking his eyes off of the nightmare crouching in front of him, Doogan fumbled for the hammer on his weapon. In what seemed like a single leap, the creature sprang from its perch to the fallen spruce that Hatfield had been sitting on and stood up with its powerful long arms wide open, hissing at Doogan. It was all of nine feet tall.

The sudden movement startled Doogan. Still back-stepping he raise his rifle to fire and at the same time stumbled over one of the packs. His rifle discharged with a thunderous boom. The beast lurched to one side as it felt the musket ball whiz by its head. Doogan dropped his weapon and yanked out his Bowie knife. Still on the fallen spruce, the reeking, hairy thing squatted down on its heels and hunkered there, gaping its mouth, exposing its fearsome array of teeth. It look like it wanted to laugh at the puny threat Doogan's Bowie knife posed. Kyles's eyes darted around the camp and then realized that what he was looking for, Hatfield's Hawken rifle, was missing.

The creature reached down with one of its long hairy arms and grabbed a hold of Hatfield's body, pulling the limp form up and cradling it over its thick muscular legs. Doogan's stomach churned with horror as Asa Sweet's devil dismembered and began to eat his friend. His skin grew cold and the hair rose on his nape. Terrified like never before in his life, the grizzled Doogan abandoned everything but his rifle and fled through the forest towards where they'd left Asa Sweet's mule and their hobbled ponies grazing.

His limbs ached profusely and his chest heaved as he bolted blindly through the timberland. The only light was from the stars that filtered through occasional breaks in the forest canopy. Several times he tripped and fell on the tangled array of thicket and fallen tree limbs. Each with a mind of its own bent on retarding his escape. To Doogan, it was like the forest was alive and against him--an ally of his pursuer. The stench, ever present, grew stronger each time he had to pick himself up from the ground. Once he thought he heard a faint, gravelly giggle or snicker. The utterance was inhuman and demonic.

Up and running afresh, he only lasted a few minutes before he once again found himself on his face. His rifle slipped from his grip. The stench was so thick that he choked like a drowning man. Blind, as if he was in a cavern, he probed the damp ground searching for his rifle; it was hopelessly lost. Suddenly he felt the beast grab his left ankle, squeezing and tugging, he expected to feel the bone splinter at any moment. The pain was agonizing. It lifted his leg up and rolled him over on his back. He could barely make out the loom of the creature, darker than the rest of the surroundings, towering over him. Something wet and vile, perhaps drool or blood dripped on his face and neck. He wanted to throw up. Doogan screamed and kicked.

His foot slipped out from his moccasin and he was up and off sprinting through the forest with all the speed and agility of an antelope, not stopping until he reached the small glade where he and Hatfield had left their hobbled ponies. The mule was gone, just as Sweet had prophesied. But the two ponies were still securely fettered, munching away at the lush mountain grass. Without haste, Doogan freed his mount from its restraints and leapt into the saddle. At that very moment, the unrelenting stench once again seared his nostrils...and the horse's as well. Kyle's horse, spooked by the unseen terror, reared straight up on its hind legs. He tumbled off backwards like a novice and his pony took off like a shot without him.

Doogan started for Hatfield's still hobbled pony, but it panicked and had tried to run. It fell, breaking both of its front legs. The sound of the bones snapping reverberated around the glade like two sudden rifle reports. The poor animal's piercing shrieks were horrible and heart-wrenching.

It was very close. Kyle could hear the deep, laborious air exchange of massive lungs breathing in and out. At any moment he expected to see it emerge from the forest. Doogan wondered in horror what it was waiting for. Surely it knew it had him. Was it toying with him like a cat tormenting a cornered mouse? Was it going to allow him a smidgen of false hope that he might succeed in getting away, and then snare him at the last possible moment? His despair was incalculable. To come so close to escape and fail.

The stinking nightmare was nearly on Doogan, when out of the corner of his eye he saw a ghostly figure with a lantern enter the glade not far from him. He ran over to the stranger, but stopped a few yards short of the fellow when he saw the business end of a rifle pointing at him.

"Sweet!?" Said Doogan, gasping for breath. "Thank God! Ye were right! Ye were right all along!" Doogan was stunned to see that the old man was still wearing that same lace nightgown. Asa Sweet held the rifle at hip level with his right hand. His left hand grasped the barrel and the lantern together.
"I knows that I was right," he replied.
"It's after me!"
"I knows that to."
"Ye mind pointing that shootin' iron someplace else! Saaay, that there Hawken rifle looks a lot like Henry's Hawken... that is Henry's! How'd ye come by....!"

The blinding flash from the muzzle cut him short. Doogan felt the musket ball rip into his thigh, shattering the bone. The impact knocked him to the ground.

"Jesus!! Ye crazy old bastard! Why'd ye go and do that for!? It's gonna be here any second!"
"Right again, boy. In fact, he's here right now."
Doogan slowly turned his head and, to his horror, saw the monstrosity standing over him, drooling. Its moist, dagger-like teeth gleamed in the light of the lantern. Frantically, he tried crawling away from it towards the old man.
"I would introduce ye proper like," said Sweet, "but I sees ye has already met my little friend."
"What!!?" exclaimed Doogan in disbelief.

"He came to me one night, I reckon, near fifty years ago when I was out trappin' beaver. Ridin' on a falling star he was. Came thundering down outta the heavens not far from where ye boys were camped. He was near dead and ol' Asa nursed him back to life. He was a mighty smaller than. He's grown a-heap since. He's the closest thing I can call kin. Ye may thinks he's ugly, but I loves him like he was my own."

"Ye boys kain't say I didn't try and warn ye now, can ye? Ye are just like all the rest who didn't believe ol' Asa. Ye had to come to this place and find out for yourselves."
"Sweet!" pleaded Doogan. "Help me! Please help me!"
"Ye ain't a bad sort, Doogan...not like that asshole partner of yours. I's truly sorry that I kain't just kill ye outright and put ye out of your misery. But ye see, and I hopes ye understand, my little friend here, well he's kinda fussy. He won't eat anything dead, unless he kills it himself. He likes to have his meal screaming and thrashing about when he bites into it."

"Sweet...!"
"Now boy, don't ye fret none that I don't stay. My little friend here's a messy eater and it sicken's my stomach something awful to watch him feed. And when ye see the Maker shortly, ye be sure and tell Him that ol' Asa warned ye not to come, but ye wouldn't listen."
Asa Sweet turned away and called for his mule. He couldn't bear to watch as his devil reached down and took Doogan by the hair and dragged him into the forest kicking and screaming.
"I warned them boys," said Asa Sweet to himself with a clear conscience. "I warned them all and they wouldn't listen to ol' Asa."