Bert spoke through clenched teeth while the local doctor, Herman Alcorn, cleaned the wound in his leg. “The man ain’t human,” Bert said. “Hold your leg still,” Doc Alcorn said. He held a reeking wad of cotton in one hand, a long slender probe in the other. “He’s human,” Wolf said. “And I know who the bastard is, I think.” “Who in hell is he?” Bert asked as he winced in pain. “According to Abel Fogarty, the man’s name is John Slocum. He’s been snoopin’ around, checking on that claim transfer I filed.” “Never heard of him,” Bert said as Doc Alcorn swabbed his wound and poured some yellowish fluid into it. They were in Wolf’s house, a log cabin that had once been the town’s first small boardinghouse. Bert lay flat on his back atop a long table in the center of the front room. Tony Hobart sat in a chair by the window nearest the front door.
