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Chapter one.

When Pablo Cardoso discovered a small gold nugget in his washing pan, he blessed his good fortune. He had panned the streams trickling down the mountain of Aqua Caliente for the better of six months, and soon he would have enough pesos in raw gold to pursue his dream once again. Six endless months of prospecting, cursing, digging and panning for nuggets the size of a dried pea, under the scorching Mexican sun. But Pablo Cardoso was a beaver with a dream; a dream that kept him awake at night and stayed with him throughout the day, like the ghost of Christmas past. Now, he wiped the grit off the single, shining nugget and squatted by the campfire where a meal of ham and beans bubbled like a New Mexican hot spring. He stretched his aching back and was about to let out a whoop of joy, when three tall shadows blocked out the sun. He looked up from the stream and blinked, his vision momentarily spotty from afterglow fireflies of sunlight.

"Carlos," he spat in disgust when he recognized the familiar face of the coyote in front. He tried to remain calm, but his throat clenched in a stranglehold of fear and the warm sweat that soaked his shirt turned cold and sour by the blurry sight of the three riders.

"Carlos?" The coyote scratched his unshaved muzzle with the mouth of his revolver. "I haven't heard that name in a long time. Everyone calls me "El Cayo" now, but you would know my name better than everyone else, eh Pablito?" The coyote flicked his ears and his partners immediately drew their revolvers.

El Cayo sat down and scooped up a ladleful of the simmering stew. "This is fresh meat," he noted. "Not salted or dried, and the beans are fresh." The coyote ate slowly and patiently while his compadres of unflinching desperados kept their aim firmly fixed at Pablo's chest.

"You've been doing well for yourself."

The beaver offered no reply, but stared into the cold eyes of two loaded revolvers. "I see Garras is still with you, and Verdugo ...but Mesqualito's missing. Did he finally get fed up with you?"

The coyote put down the ladle with a loud clang and bit off a generous mouthful of chaw tobacco. "Maybe Mesqualito got cold feet... just like you."

"Shooting up men and beating up prostitutes ain't my kind of game," sneered the beaver. I'm hauling my life in a new direction."

"You carry a grave burden, Pablito." Grinned the coyote. "Why don't you let me take that load off your chest?"

"How did you find me?" asked the beaver and felt the blood in his veins turning into ice.

"We have a common friend," sneered the coyote through yellowed teeth. "Someone who cares enough to show me the way."

"The map is mine," sneered the beaver. "I'd rather die than see it in the paws of an honourless half-breed like you."

"Then, you leave me no choice," sneered El Cayo and cocked his revolver. "If you don't want to die with your boots on amigo, you'd better take them off... now."

---

Larry Colt was used to being stared at. Stared at for being a timber wolf among Southern coyotes and pumas, mistrusted for riding a horse in a way that was too human, or simply for being recognized for what he was: a drifting bounty hunter.

Colt was tall and weather-beaten. He had a face that would have been called handsome if it wasn't for the scar that ran from his muzzle to his left ear. The scar narrowly missed his eye and tugged at his upper lip to bare his teeth in a snarling grin that never relaxed. Not when he slept, not when he made love, not even when he killed. The hateful smile was the last thing a wanted criminal saw before his world faded into darkness, yet the wolf possessed an honest, brutal charm that women found irresistible. Larry Colt was a wolf who knew how to survive and love in the lawless west, and he wore the scars to prove it.

But it wasn't his rugged good looks that attracted attention the day he walked into Tucson, dragging his horse behind him; it was the rolled-up camp-fire blanket that lay slumped across the saddle, containing a shape that could only be a dead body. He ignored the muffled whispers of "Look! It's El Hombre!" and stopped outside the Sheriff's office.

"Who did you bring in, this time?" Asked an aging cougar wearing a sheriff's star. Larry Colt unwrapped the blanket and the dead body of a puma slumped to the ground.

"Why, it's the Mesqualito Kid," grunted the sheriff when he recognized the face of the dead outlaw. "But how?"

Colt wiped the sweat from his mount with a pawful of hay. "I tracked him down outside San Pacas; alone, penniless and drunk. He must have left El Cayö's gang." He prodded the corpse with the toe of his boot. "Never get caught drinking when you have a bounty on your head, kid."

The sheriff nodded. "Mesqualito was a small-time desperado, but he never had the nerve for anything big." He went inside to stamp the papers to clear the five hundred dollars reward for the outlaw. The wanted poster stated "wanted, dead or alive," but the sheriff preferred the former, because dead outlaws didn't take up space in jail. The corpse of the puma had been in the sun for days and the smell of decomposition was getting to him, yet the bounty hunter didn't seem to notice.

"If Mesqualito was scared enough to leave the gang, it can only mean that El Cayö is up to something big, and that's when people start dying."

---

The town clerk, a portly racoon with poor eyesight wiped his gold-framed spectacles, before counting the pile of banknotes spread out in front of him. Then he stamped a handful of documents with a wax seal. "There," he said. "If you'll just sign here mister, one hundred acres of prairie land is officially yours." He looked over the rim of spectacles neatly balanced on his muzzle and stared intensely at the stranger across the desk. "But it's right next to Blackpaw territory. It's a dangerous place to start a ranch, mister...?"

"The name is Colt, Larry Colt."

"Colt?" The raccoon stopped mid-stamp and gazed at the stranger. "You're the wolf they call El Hombre."

Colt nodded back with unblinking blue eyes. "I won't be starting a ranch," he growled in a raspy baritone. "My tribe needs the land more than I do."

---

Colt rented a room for the night in the saloon and sat down for a meal of pork and beans. The patrons were the usual crowd of hard-drinking coyotes, mountain lions and hyenas. Rumours that El Hombre was in town spread fast, but people knew he never drew unless provoked, or if there was a bounty on your head.

Colt locked eyes with a fellow wolf, sitting by a table and playing poker with two important looking badgers. The wolf was neatly dressed in a silk shirt and embroidered vest, while his opponents wore government suits, drank hard and played badly. The wolf nodded at Colt, inviting him to join the table, when it was obvious the game was about to close in his favour.

"Pinkerton agents don't know how to bluff," said the wolf as the badgers left, relieved of two week's pay. "Never play if you don't know how to bluff."

"The locals don't care much for hustlers," Said Colt. "You'd better check your back for bullets."

The wolf laughed. "I won't be staying enough for that to happen. I'm on my way to the grand poker tournament in Reno." The wolf collected the dollar notes spread across the table and offered a paw shake. "Maurice Gourdeau; poker enthusiast extraordinaire out of Baton Rouge."

"Nice to meet you Maurice, I'm..."

"Monsieur Larry Colt," interrupted Gourdeau. "I know; professional killer."

"I prefer bounty hunter, myself."

Gourdeau shrugged. "I too have been called a lot of names, some kinder than others, but at the end of the day, you and I are both gamblers: we both put our faith in the luck of the draw." He shuffled the deck and dealt two new hands of five cards. "Do YOU know how to bluff, Mister Colt?"

"I never bluff," said Larry Colt bluntly as he picked up the hand.

---

With a desperate, adrenaline-fuelled burst of rage, Pablo Cardoso made a lunge for his Colt 45. "Dig my grave in Reno, you lowlife son of a human," he growled. His fingers were inches away from reaching his weapon, when a hail of lead lifted him off his feet and sent him sprawling into the flowing river. He dropped to his knees, blood pouring from his mouth like a burst waterpipe.

"Yiff in hell, bastarde!" he rasped. "I curse you and that whore we both call our mother." Then he fell sideways into the cold water and his eyes glazed over.

El Cayö unbuttoned Pablo's shirt and took out a neatly folded patch of buffalo hide, now stained with crimson blood. He shook the water off his fur, poured himself a mug of steaming hot coffee from the pot on the fireplace and studied the writing on the leather.

"San Blas," he muttered thoughtfully. "So, the treasure is hidden in San Blas."

The jaguar outlaw known as Garras holstered his revolver and twiddled his well-groomed whiskers between two fingers. "San Blas is only three days ride away, Cayo. We'll be rich by the time the church bells ring on Sunday."

"You're so impatient, amigo," said the coyote. "San Blas is vast and filled with caves. Without the other half of the map, our muzzles will be grey before we find the treasure. We need the second half, and I know the man who has it."

---

Chief Long-Tail extinguished his pipe and put another log on the fire. The Arizona night was quiet, except for the chattering of blackfoot children complaining about their parents telling them to brush their fangs before bedtime. He was almost alone, and only the softest whispers of fur against pelts revealed he was no longer alone in the tipi.

"Yá'át'ééh, Hok'ee," said the chief without looking. He raised his nose, sniffed and invited Colt to join him by the fire. "Come sit with me, my son."

Larry Colt seated himself next to the blackpaw ferret and placed the deed to one hundred acres of new territory by the chief.

"Jim "gentleman" Jackson, Muff Potter and now the Mesqualito Kid," said Long-tail with a grin. "You've been keeping yourself busy, my child." Chief Long-tail chuckled when he noted the look of surprise on Colt's face. "When a blue-eyed wolf buys up prairie land from the gains of bounties, rumours spread faster than smoke signals."

"The blackpaw tribe saved my life twice already," said Larry Colt. "I'm only repaying my debt."

"Look around, child" said Long-tail. "The blackpaws are your brothers and your sisters, the tribe is your family and the camp is your home, the mountains and the rivers are your ancestors. You may be a wolf but to us, you will always be Hok'ee - the abandoned one."

Larry Colt joined Long-tail by the fire. Slowly, his muscles relaxed in the company of the blackpaw he had known since he was a cub. "People outside call me El Hombre -the human," he said. "They don't trust me because I was raised by a pack of men."

Long-tail sighed and looked into the embers as if connecting with the spirits. "When_Honani_ found you, so many winters ago, you were dying in the smouldering ruins of your parent's home. Honani was only twelve and too young to foster a cub. He did the best he knew by taking you to Fort Colt."

To most, Larry Colt was an impenetrable wall of mystery; a silent rider with two loaded pistols and no past, but even stonewalls crumble and to Long-Tail, he was but another foster-child of the blackpaw tribe. "They hate me, because I'm different. I'm neither wolf nor man, but both - a human, trapped in the body of a wolf."

"You must seek acceptance, both in the now and in the past," said the chief. "Honani would have been pleased, if he were only alive to see the warrior you have become. You may have been taught in the ways of a human, but the proud heart of a wolf still beats within you."

Larry Colt left the tipi to mingle with the tribe. He looked at the smiling faces of his Blackpaw brethren, he returned their smiles and exchanged greetings, yet he felt no pride inside. He had lived and hunted with the tribe he was proud to call his own.

They called him "wolf" - but only the dark heart of a human swells and races with every death he inflicts.

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TO BE CONTINUED

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