Day of the Wolf Page 4

  “Just hold your horses,” Ned said as he knelt down on the opposite side of the tree. He laid his rifle on the ground behind him while he untied Arlo’s hands. He backed away to pick up his rifle and said, “All right, you can untie your feet and eat your breakfast.”

  Arlo was very deliberate in his motions to untie the knot that held his ankles around the trunk of the tree. When he was free, he pushed away from the tree, and instead of reaching for his coffee, he rolled away from it and lay on his side as if he was sick. Watching suspiciously, Ned commented, “Damn if that ain’t a helluva way to eat. It don’t go in that end, you know. It goes in the other end.”

  “I’m all stove up,” Arlo complained. “I’ve been settin’ around that tree too long. My arms and legs is gone stiff on me.”

  “Is that a fact?” Ned responded, not totally unsympathetic. It had been a chilly night, and he supposed Arlo might be stove up at that. He had to admit that he was a bit stiff himself when he first got up. “Well, lyin’ on the ground like that ain’t gonna help it any. Roll over and drink some of that coffee. That’ll warm you up some.” He stepped a little closer with the intention of prodding him into movement with the barrel of his rifle.

  “I’ll try,” Arlo said, and slowly began to turn back toward Ned, seemingly in great discomfort. The younger man was a lot quicker than Ned had given him credit for, for he suddenly whipped over and lunged into Ned’s legs, pulling the deputy’s legs out from under him. Ned was a large man, and his heavy body hit the ground with a thud. Before he could recover, Arlo kicked the rifle out of his hand and they both dived for it. Arlo, being the quicker, got his hands on it first. Rolling over and over until he was clear of Ned’s reach, he scrambled to his feet and leveled the rifle at him. “Now, you old son of a bitch, you can start sayin’ your prayers. I told you you’d never take me to Fort Laramie. Somebody oughta told you you was gettin’ too old to be a lawman. But I reckon you can still learn one last lesson—don’t nobody get the best of the Taggart brothers.” He cranked the lever, ejecting a cartridge just to be sure there was one in the chamber. Then he aimed it at the fallen deputy. “Say hello to the devil for me,” Arlo said with a laugh. The grin froze on his face and his eyes opened wide in shocked surprise as a .44 slug smashed into his chest, causing him to stagger backward a couple of steps. He snatched the rifle up again to fire, but before he could pull the trigger, another bullet hammered his breastbone. Quicker than Arlo figured the big lawman to be capable of being, Ned lunged into the startled outlaw and wrenched the rifle from his hands. Arlo crumpled to the ground, conscious, but mortally wounded.

  Ned leaned down to tell him, “I reckon you had one more lesson to learn. If you’re fixin’ to shoot somebody, don’t stand around crowin’ about it like a bantam rooster—especially if the other feller’s carryin’ a handgun tucked in his belt.” He stood erect again and stared down at the wounded man. “You came mighty damn close to skinnin’ my cat. Maybe I am gettin’ too old for this job.” He knelt down beside Arlo and said, “Well, let’s see if we can get you to Fort Laramie before you cash in. Maybe they can do somethin’ to stop that bleedin’ at the hospital there.”

  He did what he could to ease Arlo’s pain, but it was plain to see that the outlaw’s prospects didn’t look encouraging. Before he got the horses saddled and broke camp, Arlo took his last breath. Ned gave the matter a few minutes’ consideration before deciding to take the body on in to Fort Laramie to let the army deal with it. “It’ll sure take the strain offa the rest of the trip,” he decided.

  Chapter 2

  “I was afraid of that,” Billie Jean Gunter lamented as she stood beside the front left wheel of the wagon. “The damn wheels stood in that creek too long before we got the wagon out and they’re already trying to swell up.” Billie Jean’s father had been a blacksmith back in Arkansas, so she knew what she was talking about. She squatted on her heels to get a closer look.

  “Well, what does that mean?” Lorena asked, concerned. “Are we gonna break down?”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Billie Jean answered. “They’re sure as hell gonna warp, though.” She ran her hand along the iron rim. “They may hold together till we get to Fort Laramie.” She looked up at Lorena. “How far did he say it was to Fort Laramie?”

  “About eight days, he said, once we strike the Chugwater.” Lorena shrugged, uncertain. “He admitted that he don’t know much about how far we can travel in a day, though.”

  “Well, I don’t know if these wheels will make it that far, this one here in particular,” she said, standing next to the left front wheel. “Maybe if the weather stays warm and dry, they’ll shrink back down.” She shook her head, perplexed. “If I was back home in Little Rock at my daddy’s forge, I could fix ’em.”

  “Huh,” Lorena grunted, “if I was back home in New Orleans, I’d be ridin’ in a fancy carriage instead of a damn farm wagon.” She shrugged then. “Well, what are we gonna do?”

  “Drive it and hope for the best, I reckon,” Rose answered, arriving just in time to hear the last of the conversation between her two companions. By far the most optimistic of the three, Rose always expected things to work out in her favor.

  “I reckon she’s right,” Billie Jean said, “but if this wheel goes, we’re gonna be riding horseback the rest of the way.”

  Rose nodded toward their somber guide, who was in the process of leading the horses back from the creek, preparing to hitch them up to the wagon. “What about him?” she asked. “Do you think he can fix the wheel?”

  “I doubt it,” Billie Jean said, “even if we had the stuff to fix it with. If this wheel breaks down, your wagon stops right where it is.”

  The concern was obvious on the faces of all three women when Wolf led the horses up and backed them into the traces. He didn’t ask, but Lorena told him of their problem. Billie Jean was correct in her assertion that he would be unable to do anything to fix the wheel. When told of her doubts the wagon would make it through eight days of travel unless the wheels shrank in the meantime, he couldn’t help a twinge of conscience. He had not told the women of his intention to guide them only as far as the Chugwater, then leave them to follow it to the Laramie, all the way to Fort Laramie. That route was one he figured they could follow with no chance of getting lost. When he had estimated the distance, he was allowing for the winding route of the Chugwater, as well as the many turns of the Laramie. In actual distance from where they now stood just south of Horse Creek, the journey was about half that by heading almost straight north. The route would take them over some pretty rough country, and he figured the chance of their getting lost in the process was definitely possible. So he could not in good conscience send them on alone. Damn! He scolded himself once again for coming back to visit the Crow village, for he knew he was going to have to lead them to Fort Laramie. He studied the situation silently for a few minutes, trying to find a way out of it, but there was nothing short of abandoning three women on the open prairie. He took a long look at the wheel before declaring, “Get ready to go.”

  They hurried to load up, as if trying to get moving before the wheel decided to break. Lorena took the reins and prepared to start the horses, but hesitated when Wolf turned his horse’s head directly north. “I thought the Chugwater was that way,” she called after him, pointing west.

  “It is,” he answered. “This way’s a shortcut.” Without looking back to see if she was following, he started out to the north, grumbling under his breath about the folly of offering assistance to the women. Behind him, Lorena could not help being reminded that the last guide who took them on a shortcut had abandoned them in this wilderness.

  It took them until late afternoon to reach Horse Creek, a distance of perhaps eight or nine miles, because of the necessity to find a passable route for the wagon through a region of rough cuts and draws. Impatient with the slow progress of the wagon, Wolf reluctantly stopped for the night. The horses needed the rest, and from the weary faces of the women, he figure
d they would have protested if he suggested going farther. So they went about making camp. Wolf led the horses to water, then hobbled them on the bank where there was a sparse patch of grass. “I expect your horses need some grain if you’ve got any,” he said to Lorena when he came up from the creek. “There ain’t much grass for ’em here.”

  “There’s a sack of oats in the wagon,” Lorena told him. “Got a quilt spread over it. Rose has been using it for an easy chair.”

  Wolf found the sack of oats and fed the team of horses, then took a little extra for his pony. “Don’t go gettin’ used to this,” he said, using his hat as a feedbag. Once the horses were cared for, and the women busy with the campfire and preparation of supper, Wolf decided to scout along the creek on the chance he might find something to eat other than the bacon the women had brought.

  “Where’s he off to?” Billie Jean asked when she returned from the creek with the coffeepot filled with water.

  Poking at the fire to encourage it, Lorena glanced in Wolf’s direction before commenting, “He said, and I quote, ‘I got a need for some real meat.’ I guess he don’t like bacon.”

  “Ha,” Billie Jean grunted. “Tell him we’ll get him a lobster dinner first fancy restaurant we come to.” She, like her two companions, was not sure their stoic guide was any more dependable than Lige Ingram had been.

  “Hell,” Rose said, finishing Billie Jean’s thought, “at least Lige could make conversation.”

  “Yeah,” Lorena offered, “he sure as hell talked me outta my money.” She shook her head when recalling. She had tried to talk him into taking them to Fort Laramie before paying him a cent, but he protested, reminding her that she always made him pay in advance before servicing him. So she gave in and gave him half of the one hundred dollars they had agreed upon. Her thoughts returned again to the somber man now out of sight beyond a bend in the creek. He had not asked for any payment. Maybe he’s thinking he’ll take everything we’ve got, she thought. It might not be as easy as he thinks. She patted the single-action Colt revolver she carried in her skirt pocket as a precaution. The Colt was not the only weapon the ladies had. Lorena was not fool enough to set out across the prairie without some means of protection. In the wagon there were three Sharps carbines and a good supply of ammunition.

  Wolf was gone for over an hour. When he returned, he had nothing to show for his hunt but about a good handful of serviceberries in his hat. He offered them to the women, but only Billie Jean sampled them. “You didn’t have much of a huntin’ trip, did you, stud?” Lorena remarked, unable to resist teasing him. “I thought all you wild mountain men always came back with some kinda game.”

  “Can’t kill anythin’ where there ain’t nothin’,” Wolf said, drew his knife, and speared a thick piece of the salty meat left in the frying pan. He accepted the cup of coffee she offered.

  “There’s beans in that pot,” Billie Jean said. “They’re probably still warm. At least, they were hot about an hour ago.”

  “Much obliged,” he said, and helped himself. He saw no need to tell them the real reason he was late for supper. Around the bend of the creek, he had discovered tracks where a dozen or more horses had crossed over, heading north. They were unshod horses, Indian ponies, and they had crossed only several hours before, by his estimation. Whether they were friends or hostile, there was no way to tell, but they were traveling in the same direction he planned to take. So he followed them across and up through a rocky draw that emerged to a ridge top. At the top of the ridge, he looked back to see if the wagon and camp were visible from that vantage point. Relieved to find they were not, he continued down the ridge for a mile or so with still no sight of the Indians. They were most likely Crow, he told himself, but there was no way to tell for sure. Since it appeared that the Indians were not aware of their presence, he thought it best not to mention them to the women. He wondered, however, if it might be best to swing over a couple of miles to the west in the morning, just to put a little more distance between their trail and that of the Indians. When they set out in the morning, it would only take them a few hours to clear this stretch of rough ridges. There was nothing but wide, flat prairie after that, country where a wagon could be seen for quite some distance. It was not the country he wanted to be caught in if the tracks he found were made by a Sioux war party, especially one of that size.

  His supper finished, he walked over to the wagon where Billie Jean was taking a close inspection of the suspect wagon wheel. “Well, it doesn’t look any worse than it did this morning,” she told him. “I think it’s shrunk back a little, but Lorena’s sure gonna have to have it fixed when we get to Fort Laramie.” His only response was a slight nod, but he was thankful that it seemed to be holding up. He turned then and walked up a slight rise where his horse was pulling up what little grass it could find. Using his saddle for a pillow, he wrapped his blanket around him and turned in for the night.

  “He’d rather sleep with his horse than one of us,” Rose commented to Lorena. “There’s something wrong with a man who won’t take a free tussle when it’s offered to him.”

  “That might be so,” Lorena said. “There might be somethin’ wrong about him, but I believe there’s a lot of things right about him.” She had given much thought to their partnership with the strange young man, and she had come to the conclusion that she was wrongly suspicious of his intentions. For one thing, it didn’t figure that, if he had something evil in mind, he would have bothered to lead them this far to make his move. She expressed as much to her two friends. “You know,” she said, “I think he’s just shy as hell when it comes to women. I don’t think he knows anythin’ about dealin’ with anybody but Injuns.”

  “You may be right,” Rose allowed. “He acts like he’s been living in a cave for most of his life, I swear, but he wouldn’t look so wild if he wasn’t wearing clothes made outta animal skins.” She laughed at her own remark. Finding humor in all but the most dire situations, she reminded them, “Course Lorena’s already tried to get him outta those buckskin britches, and she couldn’t do it.”

  “Huh,” Billie Jean chuckled, “it’d be like skinning a wildcat.”

  “You do carry on, Rose,” Lorena declared. “We’d best forget about skinnin’ Mister…” She paused then. “Damn, I don’t even know his name. Did he say?” Billie Jean and Rose both shook their heads. Lorena shrugged. “Well, anyway, we’d best get to bed. It might be a long day tomorrow.”

  Up on the rise above the creek bank, the subject of the women’s conversation slept, much the way a deer slept, with his ears attuned to the sounds of the creek around him, and alert to any sound that did not belong. The tracks he had seen earlier in the evening had told him that the party of Indians were on their way somewhere to the north, and should be far ahead of them, leaving them no cause for concern. Still, he would remain alert. Indians, like everybody else, could, and often did, change their minds.

  Up before first light, Wolf freshened the fire, knowing that the women would most likely want to make some coffee before starting out. He would suggest that they drink it fast and get under way, stopping for breakfast when it was time to rest the horses. “I figured I’d wait till you got up before I started coffee,” he told Lorena when she climbed out of the wagon, wearing nothing but a suit of long johns for protection from the chilly morning air. “I ain’t got the coffee beans, anyway.”

  “Uh,” she grunted, trying to blink away the sleep from her eyes. “If you’ll go fill the coffeepot, I’ll grind some beans, after I go behind the wagon to pee.”

  “All right,” he replied. “You’d best get them other two outta their beds. We need to put some country behind us before we stop to rest the horses and eat breakfast.”

  “What’s the big hurry?” Lorena asked, thinking that she was hungry now.

  “It’s better for the horses,” he told her. “We can give ’em a longer rest. Easier on ’em in the mornin’ when it’s still cooler, too.” His real concern was for the India
n pony tracks he had seen and the fact that they were too close to the prior line of travel he had at first planned. “They can travel longer in a day that way,” he added.

  “Hell, I don’t wanna travel longer days,” Lorena retorted. “My behind is already gettin’ blisters from settin’ on that wagon seat so long.”

  Wolf ignored her complaining. “Best we get started right away,” he stated stoically, and left to fill the coffeepot with water.

  She started to protest, but decided to let him have his way. He was probably just eager to get the trip over with, so he could go back to living with the Indians and the animals, or whatever it was he wanted to do. After all, he wasn’t charging her anything for the job, so she had no reason to complain. “Rose! You and Billie Jean crawl outta there! We’re fixin’ to get started pretty soon, and if you want a cup of coffee before we go, you best shake a leg.” She waited a moment to hear their groans of protest, then unbuttoned the flap on her long johns and proceeded to squat right where she stood. “Hell,” she groused, “he can’t see me from down by the creek.” She paused a moment, then said, “I don’t care if he can.”

  As Lorena expected, there were complaints from Rose and Billie Jean when she informed them that breakfast was going to have to wait until midmorning. “And we probably wouldn’t stop then if it wasn’t for the horses,” she remarked.

  “Don’t we have any say in it?” Billie Jean questioned. Her protest was interrupted then when she had to grab a rag and pull the coffeepot off the hot coals when it started to boil over. “We aren’t on any kind of schedule. Why don’t you tell him we’ll go when we’re ready? We wanna eat breakfast first.”

  Lorena smiled and nodded in the direction of their guide, walking the horses up to the wagon. “You tell him.”

  Billie Jean sputtered and Rose giggled at her fluster. “Let’s do what he says,” Rose suggested. “There ain’t anything keeping him from taking off any time he feels like he doesn’t wanna put up with us anymore. He ain’t much when it comes to charming entertainment, but I feel a whole lot better having him around.”