Day of the Wolf

  MAN OR SPIRIT

  His mission done, Wolf had one more thing to check on, so he returned to the front door of the trading post and entered. The Cheyenne woman made no move and no sound when the man in animal skins suddenly appeared in the doorway, a Winchester rifle in his hand. Wolf looked at her, then looked toward the corner where Boyd was just beginning to stir on the cot. Turning back to the woman then, he asked, “His name is Taggart?”

  She shook her head slowly, then spoke. “His name Boyd Dawson.”

  Wolf nodded solemnly. “Then I got no quarrel with him.”

  He started to turn and leave, but Clem appeared in the doorway to the back room, holding a shotgun. When he looked into the eyes of the baleful avenger, the Winchester rifle ready to speak, he dropped the shotgun at once and held up his hands. Wolf fixed his gaze upon the frightened storekeeper for a moment before taking a step toward the door. “You’re him, ain’t you?” Clem asked hesitantly. “The one they call Wolf.” Wolf didn’t answer, but Clem was sure it was the man the Indians talked about, the one some of them were convinced was a spirit and not a man at all.

  DAY OF THE

  WOLF

  Charles G. West

  A SIGNET BOOK

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

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  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

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  First Printing, September 2012

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © Charles G. West, 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-60265-2

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Printed in the United States of America

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  For Ronda

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Black Horse Creek

  Chapter 1

  Wolf was as much a part of the violence of the forest and mountains as the savage beast for which he was named, and that name was almost a legend among the Lakota and Cheyenne bands that roamed the Powder River Valley. A ghostlike presence that haunted the rugged hills and valleys of the Big Horn Mountains and the Wind River Range, Wolf was seen on rare occasions by Indian hunting parties, but almost never by white men—soldiers or settlers. Even these infrequent sightings were only by his choice, such as a visit to a trading post or an unusual circumstance, like the time he suddenly appeared to warn two Lakota women and their children, who were picking berries, unaware that they had managed to come between a mama grizzly and her cubs. The women had never seen the lone hunter before, but they were sure that he was the one their people called the Wolf, for he appeared out of nowhere and advised them to take their children back the way they had come. He then distracted the bear until they were safely away.

  Ernie Crockett, who traded with the Indians before tensions heated up to the point of open war with the Lakotas and the Cheyenne, said that Wolf was a man and no legend at all. It was likely a name the Indians had created, maybe from a rare sighting of the man disguised with a wolf hide over himself for the purpose of getting close enough to a buffalo to use his bow. It was a tactic used by the Indians themselves, since buffalo were accustomed to seeing wolves skulking around the herd. “Before I packed up my tradin’ post and left,” Ernie claimed, “the man came in and traded pelts for .44 cartridges on more than one occasion. He was real enough, just quiet and kinda edgy till he got his cartridges and left.” Ernie chuckled when telling it. “Yep, he was real, all right, but I reckon the Injuns would rather have him be a spirit or somethin’.”

  On this day, however, man or spirit, Wolf was facing a situation he had never faced before. He had fought a cougar with no weapon but his skinning knife, and faced down an angry grizzly until the bear retreated. But he had never felt as uncertain and cautious as he did at this moment. His better judgment told him to back away carefully.

  “Where you goin’, darlin’? You ain’t bashful, are ya?” Seated on a quilt draped over the tailgate of her wagon, her knees spread like the springs of a bear trap, Lorena Parker beckoned with an index finger, enticingly, she presumed. But her quarry seemed more intent upon retreating. “I said I’d pay you to take me to Fort Laramie,” she went on. “What did you think I meant? Money? Hell, I ain’t got no money. That’s the whole reason I’m goin’ to Fort Laramie.”

  Wolf was distracted for a moment by the delighted giggles of the other two women who sat nearby as casual witnesses to Lorena’s negotiations. He cast a wary glance in their direction before turning his gaze back to the buxom woman. His intimate experience with females was limited to a casual encounter with a young Crow maiden when he was little more than a boy. It was a time of innocence that bore no resemblance to the almost certain peril lurking within the jaws of the beckoning trap spread so easily before him. He took another step back.

  “I swear,” Lorena remarked, duly puzzled now by Wolf’s reluctance. “What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you skin them buckskins off? You look like you oughta be a ragin’ stud.” Closing her knees then and sitting upright, she studied the wary young man. “Maybe I ain’t the one you got your eye on. Maybe you’d rather take your trade out on Billie Jean or Rose. Is that it? I expect either one of ’em would be happy to accommodate you.” The suggestion brought a new round of giggles from the two women, and finally caused him to find his voice.
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  “I’ll take you to Fort Laramie,” he stated flatly. “There ain’t no charge.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing,” Rose teased.

  “I bet he’s got himself a little wife somewhere, and he’s true-lovin’ her,” Billie Jean chimed in. “Is that it, stud?” Her question was answered with a blank stare of disbelief.

  “As soon as your horses are rested up,” he said, ignoring the question, “we’ll start out for Fort Laramie. They’ve been drove too hard.” He paused before adding, “And in the wrong direction.” He turned then and walked away to tend to his horse, silently cursing the luck that had caused him to come to the rescue of the three prostitutes. It was the first time he had ever seen a prostitute, as far as he knew, and he found it hard to believe that a man would part with money to risk a tussle with the two older women.

  “Suit yourself. I wasn’t hankerin’ after it myself,” Lorena called after him, although she could not deny a certain fascination for a man who looked to be akin to a cougar. When he made no reply, but kept walking toward the bay gelding at the edge of the creek, she attempted to excuse her erroneous sense of direction. “That no-good son of a bitch we hired in Cheyenne headed us out this way.” If he heard her, he made no indication of it. “How the hell do we know you’re any better’n he was?” she asked in a lowered voice, primarily for the benefit of her two companions, since she was not willing to give him cause to change his mind.

  “I reckon we oughta offer to feed him, since he ain’t lookin’ to take it out in trade,” Rose suggested. “There’s no telling where we woulda ended up if he hadn’t come along when he did.”

  “Most likely Medicine Bow is what he said,” Billie Jean recalled, “if we’da kept goin’ west.”

  “Or nowhere a’tall after you drove my wagon into that damn creek,” Lorena reminded her.

  “Well, I was wonderin’ how long it was gonna be before you started blaming me for that,” Billie Jean responded. “I wasn’t the one who decided to cross where we did. We all three thought it looked like a good place to cross, so don’t lay that blame on me.”

  “We shoulda known that darker water meant there was a hole there,” Rose said. “Ain’t nobody blaming you.” She paused to recall the incident. “It was kinda scary the way he showed up, though, wasn’t it? One minute we were stuck in that hole in the creek with nobody else in sight. The next minute we turn around and he was there, just sitting on his horse, watching us trying to get outta that hole.” She turned her head then to gaze at the somber man leading his horse up from beside the creek.

  Lorena didn’t respond verbally, but it had been a little unnerving. All three women were startled to find the lone rider calmly watching their efforts to undo their mistake. She assumed they had been too absorbed in their predicament to notice his approach, but it did appear that he had simply popped up out of thin air. Her first thought upon seeing him was that they were about to be robbed at best, and maybe killed at worse. She didn’t know which for a few long minutes, for he said nothing, his face absolutely devoid of expression. She had not been sure at first if he was white or Indian, for he was dressed in animal skins and carried both rifle and bow strapped in his saddle sling. When he finally spoke, it was to say, “You ain’t never gonna get it out that way.” Then he fixed his gaze upon Billie Jean, who had been flogging the horses in hopes of encouraging them to pull the wagon out of the hole that had trapped it. “Stop whippin’ them horses,” he calmly directed. She immediately dropped the reins. He nudged his horse out into the creek to check the extent of their problem and, after only a minute or two, took a coil of rope from the side of the wagon, stepped out of the saddle into the water, and tied the rope to the rear axle. In the saddle again, he took a couple of turns around the saddle horn and pulled the rope taut. “All right,” he ordered as he nudged his horse, “haul back on the reins.” The wagon backed out of the hole with very little strain. Letting the rope go slack, he rode back into the water to take hold of one of the horses’ bridles, then turned the wagon upstream and led it out on the bank.

  “Well, mister, I reckon we’re beholden to you,” Lorena had remarked, although she allowed that she might have come up with the same simple solution, given a little more time. Her main concern at that point had been to determine the strange man’s intentions, now that the wagon was high and dry, although everybody was wet to some extent. His only reply to her comment was to suggest that they should build a fire to dry out. She couldn’t argue with that, so she helped Billie Jean and Rose gather wood while he, without a word, unhitched her horses. I reckon we’re going to rest here a spell, she had thought, somewhat chagrined.

  Things had not gone according to Lorena’s plans since she had decided to leave Cheyenne, where the competition in her line of employment had gotten too crowded for women of her age. One of her regular customers, Lige Ingram, had claimed to know the country like the back of his hand and for a price would take on the job as her guide. Her decision to accept his offer was not due to his claim to know how to go to Fort Laramie. There was a well-traveled trail between Cheyenne and the fort, but there had been recent trouble with the Sioux. Lige persuaded her that he knew shortcuts that would also lessen the danger of meeting an Indian war party. She looked upon it as insurance, for she felt responsible for Billie Jean and especially Rose. Billie Jean really needed no one to look out for her, but Rose was an unfortunate victim of fate who should not have found herself engaged in the ancient profession that Lorena and Billie Jean embraced. Her story was one of innocence betrayed by an unlucky encounter with a pair of rapists and the stigma the incident left on her in the tiny community where she was born. Although her abusers were caught and punished, she found she would be forever branded and ruined as far as young men who knew her were concerned. Feeling there was no future for her in her hometown, she left to try to make a new life for herself. Unfortunately she found that her only way to survive was to market her youthful body. Her story was not a great deal different from other soiled doves’, but Lorena felt an obligation to watch over her. So when Lige lit out in the middle of the night, evidently content to settle for the half of the agreed-upon fee he already had in his pocket, Lorena was burdened with a feeling of increased responsibility.

  As far as Lige was concerned, he was probably lost anyway, she figured, for he had led them away from the common road in a ruse to make them think he was taking a shortcut. Good riddance, she had thought, even though she hated the loss of the money, and had assumed that they should simply continue in the same direction he had been leading them. Now, with an agreement with this mysterious stranger, she couldn’t help wondering if her situation was worse. She had not feared Lige Ingram, for she speculated that the three women could probably handle Lige if he chose to take advantage of them. But this wild-looking creature who had gotten their wagon out of the creek might be an entirely different kettle of fish.

  On the other side of the fire, Wolf was no more comfortable with the unexpected partnership than Lorena. He still counted it as bad luck to have ridden this way. But after having come upon the three women, he had offered to lend a hand simply out of concern for the two horses that Billie Jean was flogging so relentlessly. Upon hearing their accounting of the unfortunate contract with Lige Ingram, he had not felt right about leaving them to find their way to Fort Laramie on their own—although the fort was easy enough to find. So he decided he would take them a little farther west until reaching Chugwater Creek. Then he could be done with them, for from that point, they could follow the Chugwater to its confluence with the Laramie River. Once they reached the Laramie, they could simply follow it to the fort.

  Although eager to take his leave of the three women, he could not deny a measure of fascination for their unabashed lack of modesty. All three had removed their outer garments and hung them by the fire to dry while they proceeded to prepare a meal in the flimsiest of undergarments, seemingly oblivious of his curious eye. He found himself hoping that their clot
hes would dry quickly. There were other things about the women that he found interesting, however. He was especially curious about the coffee mill Rose used to grind the beans. It was a square wooden box with intricate carving on the sides and a cast-iron crank on the top. After pouring the coffee beans in the top, she turned the crank for a while, then pulled out a small drawer in the front of the box that held the ground coffee. He had heard of coffee mills before, but this was the first he had actually seen. If his mother had one when he was a small boy, he didn’t remember it. He was impressed. It certainly was an improvement over his method of crushing the beans with a rock.

  Lorena took note of his curious eye as he watched their every move and fixed his gaze on her preparation of pan bread. “Have to let it rise a little,” she explained, although he had not asked why she had left the pan on the warm coals at the edge of the fire instead of cooking it closer to the center where the coals were hotter. “Then it’ll be ready to bake,” she said. He nodded in response, understanding then. A fleeting memory darted across his mind of his mother baking bread in an iron stove, but he quickly blinked it away, sending it back to the childhood that had been a prior life. Lorena glanced at Billie Jean, who was watching the two of them with a smile of amusement on her face. He’s like a child watching me, Lorena thought. He must have been living under a rock all his life.

  Lorena’s thoughts were probably natural under the circumstances, but her mistake was in judging the man’s fascination as a sign of innocence in all things. To the contrary, he knew the savage world he chose to live in better than any man, for he knew the ways of the red man and the mystery of the mountains and forests. More than anything else, his ability to survive in the isolation of the mountain wilderness to the northwest of this creek in the prairie was in great part due to his ability to observe and learn.

  He was eleven years old when his parents were killed along with twenty-eight others as their wagon train traveled through South Pass. Eight men and their wives perished on that day, and all their children, save one, were murdered by an Indian war party. By which band, Wolf never knew, for none of the settlers could tell one Indian from another. With a shotgun taken from his dead father’s hand and a sack of shotgun shells, the boy crawled nearly seventy-five yards up a narrow streambed to escape the scalping party that overran the wagon train to finish off the wounded. From a small stand of pines, the boy lay and watched the ransacking of the wagons and the mutilation of the dead. Tears had streamed down his face as he witnessed the desecration of his parents’ bodies, and the agony he felt burning inside him almost caused him to rush to avenge them. But he knew that it would be useless to try. There were too many to fight. So he sat, helpless, and watched for what seemed an eternity while the savages darted from wagon to wagon, scattering furniture and belongings that had been hauled halfway across the continent, destined to be the seed for a new life in the Oregon country.