Episode 67: Pack Mentality
Written By Karl White
As the untamed West opened, there were those who turned away from towns and cities, disappearing into the high country. Some sought boundless freedom, where days were measured by weather and distance, not time or names. They lived by rivers and ridgelines. And took only what the land was willing to give. In the wide silence, solitude was not loneliness but liberation. It sometimes felt as though this was the shape life was meant to take, before the world learned to crowd itself.
By the mid-1800’s, Jones was a veteran mountain man, grizzled by the elements, sharpened by distance, living on the fringes. Suffice it to say, he was the most comfortable he’d ever been. Without the rules of his mother, or the prying eyes of others, judging, deciding he was an outcast.
Jones, grizzled mountain man - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
He was free to feel, to grow, and to embrace who he truly was. And as he wandered along untamed rivers, and slept beneath indifferent stars, he came to understand what he wanted most out of life. He wanted to be respected, revered... spoken of the way men spoke of his father.
Clinton Jones had served under George Washington. It was rumored he took a round of buck and ball meant for the General, stopping an assassin’s musket during the Revolution.
Growing up, Jones heard that story everywhere he went. A legend walking beside him like a shadow. But no one held the same regard for the son. A timid conversationalist, awkward, struggling to meet the world’s eyes. Yet the wilderness had given him time, and with it came clarity. If he ever found his way back to society, he would no longer let himself be small.
His burgeoning judicious view of himself, along with his wants and desires, was fueled by the power of the curse surging through his veins. The endless vitality. The animal certainty. It made Jones believe anything was possible. But to become as powerful a man as he was a werewolf, he needed more than claws in moonlight. He would need something that made other men lower their voices when he entered a room.
The very same Lewis & Clark expedition he had vanished from, opened the West for business. Jones had heard of the wealth some men were carving out of the earth as gold fever spread. By all accounts, the money was enough to buy instant respect. But Jones had no patience for panning, no appetite for waiting on luck. Somewhere along the trail of his years, he’d learned something only nature teaches -- the world belongs to those willing to take it. And Jones knew of a faster, surer way to claim the status he craved.
Attack on a mining camp - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
In Colorado he’d lay in wait outside a busy mining camp. Several prospectors hit it big and at sundown, Jones turned into a werewolf, raiding the camp. But he was met with more guns than expected. Bullets ripped through the dark, and he barely made it out with his life. He had underestimated the lengths those seeking money would go to hold onto "found" riches. Jones had to alter his approach.
He quietly headed in the direction of the setting sun, following hermit trails and forgotten passes, seeking loners and outsiders, men like himself. The criteria was simple, those cast out from civilized society...yet hungry for more.
JONES: Ever feel like the world shut its door on you? Like every town you pass treats you like a ghost? Well ghosts don’t owe anyone manners...or mercy. Men’re getting rich pretending they earned it honest. I aim to remind 'em otherwise. Lets take back what the hills and streams never meant to give just anyone.
He’d appeal to their sense of isolation. Promising them belonging, and the perks the curse could offer. Only once he’d gathered enough men to stand beside him would he reveal the full plan, guaranteeing considerable wealth in exchange for loyalty.
The pack rides to Junction City - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
By 1849, with a disciplined pack, the Jones Gang rode into the lawless gold town of Junction City in the Northwest Territories. They’d head straight to the bank inquiring about open claims available to buy. They’d also ask about who owned the most lucrative deeds in the area. No trouble was caused, but something about them turned heads. And for the rest of the day, the outsiders surveyed the town while being followed by Sheriff Ambrose Cook and his men.
Before sundown, Jones and his gang would ride off together. Strangely, for all of their questions no land was purchased, and no one in town was able to recall the name of any of the men. The next morning brought tragedy. Four of Junction City’s most prominent claim-owners were dead, torn apart as if by some vicious animal. And then, as if conjured by misfortune itself, the suspicious group rode back into town and proceeded to buy the newly freed claims. Each one registered under the name, Jones.
Over the next few weeks, more townsfolk were mysteriously killed. And after each death, Jones appeared at the bank, calm, deliberate, purchasing land as if picking fruit from a tree. The mines were worked. The yields were strong. Wealth began to accumulate. The connection between the killings and the gang became impossible to ignore. Sheriff Cook and his deputies rode out to one of the newly purchased claims to confront Jones...but they didn’t return.
Days passed with the Sheriff and his men missing. Anxiety rippled through town. Concerned citizens hesitantly united and decided to put a stop to the gang’s misdeeds. At sundown, led by the trembling glow of torches, the timid mob marched into the hills searching for the gang. They found not men, but a pack of bloodthirsty werewolves -- Needless to say, there were no survivors.
As dawn broke, the Jones Gang rode into the empty settlement, sacking every house and business, stealing anything of value. Before leaving, they set the town ablaze, and rode south to begin their deadly business again. And soon the stories spread, whispered in camps, passed along in saloons, carried like smoke on the wind. Town after town. The same pattern. The same name. A roaming plague wearing the shape of men.
Jones Gang wreaking havoc across the West - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
By the late 1880s, Jones and his pack had amassed a sizable fortune, yet still remained on the frayed edges of civilization. But in every town they destroyed, Jones witnessed something with unsettling clarity...He thought about why people gathered together...and what they wanted most. Safety. And a thought began to take shape in his mind.
What if they could live somewhere no one knew existed? That was the flaw with towns, strangers, the uncontrollable flow of outsiders passing through. If Jones could build something hidden, something sealed, then the world could be kept out, and his kind could finally live without fear of consequence.
Witnessing the underbelly of the lawless West, and with most of the pack having retreated from the overcrowded East, the tightly banded group agreed, distance from the world seemed best suited for them. And with the wealth they’d stolen, there was no reason they couldn’t live like kings. Keep to themselves. Create the very security that every man wanted, but only they would be allowed to have.
It wasn’t what Jones had first intended, but it was solid. Sensible. He was the leader of the gang, respected by those who rode with him. And what could be more powerful, more satisfying, than overseeing an entire town of werewolves? A kingdom built for monsters, hidden in plain wilderness. And so they struck out with a new mission, to find their own corner of the world, plant their flag, and call it home.
The Jones Gang confronts Clive and Komeha’e, 1893 - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
But Jones’ plan was nearly derailed, as in 1893, while in the Arizona territory in search of suitable land to invest in, the gang discovered they were being tracked, hunted by a group of Nightwardens. Clive and Komeha’e Watkins, along with their two children Levi and Mae. Who had been commissioned by several towns that feared the Jones Gang, from stories that had trickled down over the decades. Jones and his men ambushed the pursuers...but the children escaped into the wilderness.
The gang was forced to move on quickly, expecting the Watkins children to return with help. Jones and his men rode out. Their time in the West was over. They would keep searching, until they found a place out of human reach. A place no one could take from them. A place where a respected man could finally rule.
TO BE CONTINUED…