Lars shrugged and went on. “I can do you with my hand. Healthy man, healthy desire.”
“I’m cold,” Ned called over from his spot, where he was hunched under the ridiculous coat made of a whole array of animal hides that covered him like a cape. “You got any whiskey? Shine? Any booze really…”
That was a welcome change, so Cole rose from the seat he’d made out of his duster coat, and approached his saddlebags. So maybe he didn’t want to be pleasant to Ned in any capacity, but it was as good an excuse to leave Lars’s side as any. He rolled his shoulders to ease the sting of cramps that had been plaguing him since they’d decided to come to Beaver Springs, and produced a small flask.
“As long as you promise to shut up.”
“No!” Lars complained. “The opposite. He’s barely spoken. Only give it to him if he tells us how he became the Wolfman.”
Cole swallowed, and his eyes zeroed in on Ned’s face. The matted hair and beard made him appear much older than he was. The elements hadn’t been kind and had left his skin blemished, with sore spots and bits of flaky skin on the sides of his nose. But still, this was Cole’s Ned, the first man he’d freely touched, and despite the hate burning in Cole’s heart, in that moment he realized that he did want to know how the smiling young man with freckly skin kissed by sunshine ended up as a local bogeyman.
With his throat tightening, he approached Ned and offered him the flask. “What do you say, O’Leary?”
The nod he got was too pliant, and Ned’s eyes stayed on the bottle, as if he no longer cared for anything else. “Sure, why not?”
Cole knew that look. He’d seen it the two times Tom and Zeb had attempted to curb Scotch’s drinking. They’d failed both times. Cole stilled and stepped back without thinking when Ned leaned forward, his mouth opening as if he’d trudged through the desert without a drop of water to moisten his tongue.
What a pitiful end. “You know, I remember you called Scotch useless because of his habit. And look at you now,” Cole said and shook the flask to make the liquor splash inside. So it was cruel, but this man deserved no mercy.
Ned huffed and pulled on the chain at his neck like a wild beast when it wouldn’t allow him to move any farther. “It don’t matter. Just give it to me.”
Cole’s blood boiled, but he stood still, smelling the burning wood and frost as his world reduced to the small area lit up by the glow of the flames. “You’re pathetic. Can’t believe I used to ride with the likes of you.”
Can’t believe I used to love you more than my heart could contain.
He didn’t hesitate any longer and offered the booze to Ned’s lips. The green eyes shut as Ned latched on, hollowing his cheeks as if he were trying to suck out more liquor. His lips smacked when Cole pulled the flask away, and when some of the booze drizzled into his beard, Ned opened his mouth wide, trying to gather each drop with the back of his tongue.
Cole had seen many things, most of them ugly, but witnessing the level-headed Ned O’Leary lose all inhibitions still came as a shock.
Ned took a deep breath and looked between the two of them, perhaps hoping for more if he offered something. “It happened during a long winter,” he started. “Couldn’t leave the house for days ‘cause of the wolves. But there was one… he… he wanted to get in me. Under my skin, you see?”
Lars couldn’t possibly understand much from that kind of babble, but he nodded and slurped his coffee as if Ned’s words made perfect sense. Cole refused to validate the mad ramblings and stared in horror as Ned’s eyes lost their focus. He kept on speaking in a strange, disorganized way that did not fit with anything else he’d said since his capture.
“I think it secretly knew I was one of them. It was me who didn’t know it yet. I didn’t remember. I didn’t want to remember? But I could either go out there and fight, or starve.”
Cole frowned and stared at the wolf furs that made up the majority of Ned’s coat, his pulse picking up. “And?”
“I didn’t have any bullets, so I made myself a spear. Several spears. If one gets stuck in an animal, you might lose it, and you’re a goner. No one’s gonna help you up there in the mountains, so you gotta fend for yourself, so you need more spears. You have to fight them one by one. No use trying to take on a whole pack. But it was my house!” Ned got up, only to get dragged back down by the chain at his collar. He spoke several deep breaths later, leaning back to ease the pressure the iron ring had put on his Adam’s apple. Watching him like this, chained down like the filthy dog he was gave Cole unexpected pleasure, so he stared while Ned went on, “so I let the demon in. Only one. He couldn’t win on my turf. He got me on the leg, but I speared the beast to the floor then ripped its head off, and it was done. I covered myself in its blood so they’d know who mastered whom, and when I left that house and howled, not a single one of them dared approach me. Now I’m more of a beast than any of the wolves. They don’t come to my house. No one does. Because it’s my land.”
Lars frowned and cocked his head. “You’re not making any sense, O’Leary. How’d you even get here?”
Cole couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Ned was mad. Completely deranged. “And what… you were all alone up there?” he asked, pointing at the peaks they’d left behind.
“No. I’ve got the animals.” A barking chuckle left Ned’s lips as he rocked back and forth. “We’re all animals anyway. Just gotta accept our nature.”
“What animal do you think you are, Cole? I’d be a mountain lion, for sure.” Lars said carelessly, as if he didn’t see the dreariness of the situation. Then again, what did he care about some outlaw turned mountain man. All that counted for him was the bounty on the man’s head.
“Cole is a wolf,” Ned said before Cole could have put a word in. “Dangerous, but will do anything for his pack. And since I’m the Wolfman, neither—”
“We’re no longer in the same pack. You’re a wolf, we’ve heard you. But I’m a mountain lion, like Lars,” Cole grumbled in an effort to distance himself from Ned, even in this stupid game.
Lars grinned at him as if they were sharing a romantic secret. “Listen, maybe we could get the Wolfman bounty for him here, then steal him out of jail, make it seem like it’s some mountain magic, and then take him to the US Marshal in Denver for the premium? Craig’s grudge against this meatsack is as deep as the Grand Canyon.”
“You think he’s worth the risk?” Cole asked with his mouth drying as Ned murmured beneath his breath.
“Cole is a wolf. A wolf.”
Cole ignored him and chewed on his lip to keep his emotions in check, because an odd sensation was rising in his chest. He just wasn’t sure whether it was rage, disappointment, or sadness over his life turning full circle, back to Ned O’Leary.
Trapped between Lars and his own need to ask Ned questions, he was desperate to get rid of his companion, even if only for half an hour. For seven years doubts had rotted him from the inside, and he was fed up with not knowing the truth.
“And you know what a mountain lion needs? Fresh meat roasting above the fire,” he said, offering Lars a small smile.