“Get out!” Noble said, doing his best to say the words in a menacing, guttural growl.

“I’m not going—”

Ceballo managed just three words before Argus punched him in the side of the head. The blow knocked the man out cold and he flopped back down on the bed.

“Easy, easy,” Noble said.

“I didn’t hit him that hard.”

“And don’t use your hand,” Noble instructed. “If you break the skin and he gets infected—”

“I know, I know.”

They looked around the trailer.

“Here!” said Noble, handing Argus an ax handle. “Try this.”

Argus felt the wooden handle in his hand, swinging it several times to find the right balance.

Ceballo’s eyes fluttered open. “I’m not…We’re not leaving. You can’t scare—”

Argus hit Ceballo with the handle and he immediately blacked out.

“Works like a charm,” Argus said, hefting the ax handle in his hand.

“Good,” said Noble. “Let’s go.”

Argus reached down and picked Ceballo up off the bed. With hardly any effort, the huge werewolf threw the man over his left shoulder and carried him out of the trailer.

“Anyone around?” Noble asked Tora.

She shook her head.

“What did you hit him with?” Harlan wanted to know. “It sounded like a home run.”

Argus carried Ceballo from the camp to a large redwood that was about twenty-five meters away. The tree rose up more than a hundred feet in the air with branches up top that were more than thick enough for what the pack had in mind.

“Can you do it?” Noble asked Argus, as they stood at the base of the tree.

Harlan and Tora were busy wrapping a length of rope around Argus’s waist. When they were done, Argus twisted left and right, bent his knees and adjusted the unconscious Ceballo over his shoulder. “No problem,” he said. “But I’ll need my hand free.”

Noble thought about it for a moment, then took the ax handle from him.

At that point, Ceballo roused once more, mumbling a string of words. “We’re harvesting these trees whether you like it or—”

Argus took a step forward, slamming Ceballo’s head into the massive trunk of the redwood. Again, the man was out like a light. “How careless of me,” Argus said, smiling.

“Okay then,” Noble said. He stepped back from the tree along with Harlan and Tora.

They watched Argus begin climbing.

* * *

Grant Willem stepped around another trailer, looked left and right, then scratched his head. The man was just nowhere to be seen. He tried another trailer, checking both the inside and out, even underneath—just in case the man had had a bit too much to drink and had decided to slip beneath the trailer to sleep it off.