Charles West - Day of the Wolf

Now, that sounds like a right sensible idea to me, the observer in the bush thought, knowing enough of their tongue to understand, and close enough to hear. The other four Lakota must have also agreed, for they immediately did Lone Buffalo’s bidding. He gave them plenty of time to depart before he backed away from his bush and hurried up the hill, anxious to tell the women what was going to happen, so they wouldn’t shoot at anyone attempting to recover their dead.

Scrambling back down the gully, he paused before reaching the horses, remembering to give Billie Jean the signal. He whistled and waited for a response. All he heard was the cocking of a carbine. Not sure she had heard him, he whistled again, this time a little louder, then a third time, even louder. Finally he heard Billie Jean say to Lorena, “That don’t sound like what he said was a birdcall.”

Losing his patience, he blurted, “Dammit, Billie Jean, it’s me and I’m comin’ in!”

“Oh,” she reacted, startled, when he suddenly appeared beside her elbow. “You scared me.” And she was reminded of the first time he had showed up to help them pull the wagon out of the creek—just popped out of nowhere. “You don’t need to waste your time whistling a signal. A body can’t see you comin’ anyway.”

“We heard the shot,” Rose said. “We were worried.”

“They’re leavin’,” Wolf said. “They’re gonna pick up their dead and leave. We just need to keep an eye on ’em to make sure they don’t change their minds. If you see one of ’em, don’t shoot at him. Just let ’em go about their business.”

They remained vigilant throughout the rest of the long night, but there was no sign of any movement on the wide expanse of prairie leading up to the hills that were their refuge. When the sun finally struggled up over the plains to the east to draw long shadows from the knobby clumps of sagebrush on the prairie, the bodies were gone. “Damn,” Lorena marveled. “When did they do that? We were watchin’ all night. Hell, that one crazy one that came runnin’ at us wasn’t but twenty-five or thirty yards right out in front of us.” She seemed to aim her question at Wolf.

He shrugged and replied, “They’re Injuns. They don’t ever stomp around, makin’ a lot of noise.”

She stared at him for a long second, astonished by his seeming indifference to the fact that they had all escaped with their scalps against a war party three times their number. Suddenly a thought occurred to her. “What the hell is your name?” In the time they had been in partnership with this strange man, he had never volunteered his name. Her question caught the attention of Rose and Billie Jean, and they both paused to hear his answer.

“Wolf,” he said.

“Wolf,” she repeated. “Well, that’s a good name for you, Mr. Wolf. Ain’t it, girls?” A strange name for a strange man, she thought. “Somethin’ Wolf, or Wolf Somethin’?” she asked.

“Just Wolf,” he replied.

“I’d drink to it if I had something to drink with,” Billie Jean offered. They were reminded then that they were bottled up in a dry gulch with no water and no wood to build a fire.

“Hitch up the horses,” Wolf said, “and we’ll pull outta here. On the other side of these hills, in about two hours, I’d say, we oughta strike Old Woman Creek. We can stop there and fix somethin’ to eat and rest a little. There’s wood for a fire and good water if the creek ain’t run dry.”

Once again, they set out for Fort Laramie. Although hungry and tired, all three women were in high spirits now that the danger had been met and overcome. When asked of the chances of encountering another Sioux war party, Wolf replied that the odds were long, since they were now only a little over a day’s travel from the fort. “I was mighty surprised to see that bunch runnin’ this close to Fort Laramie,” he confessed. “I doubt we’ll see any more.” This was the news the women wanted to hear, so the rest of the trip was under much more cheerful skies.

Chapter 3

Early afternoon found them approaching the Laramie River just short of its confluence with the North Platte. Wolf pulled his horse to a complete stop to gawk at the steel structure across the North Platte. The bridge, completed the year before, was not there the last time he had been to Fort Laramie and it seemed an amazing accomplishment to his mind. “Ain’t you ever seen a bridge before?” Lorena asked when she pulled the wagon up beside him.

“Ain’t ever seen one like that,” he confessed. “Reckon how they lifted all those steel pieces up there?”

“I don’t know,” Lorena replied, “but if you think that’s somethin’, you oughta see some of the bridges back east.”

“I don’t think I wanna see ’em,” he decided without having to give it much thought. He had lived with the Indians long enough to know that the rivers were put here by God, or Man Above, and they were meant to be left alone, free of bulky hunks of steel and iron. Lorena looked at Rose and shook her head. “Yonder’s the fort,” he said, pointing across the Laramie River. “I don’t know where you wanna go. I know where the post trader’s store is. I never had any business anywhere else. There’s a ferry a short piece down the river, a bridge, too, but it don’t look like that one.” Thinking his job was surely finished, since they were in sight of the post’s buildings, Wolf did not plan to cross over the river with them. Lorena was of a different mind, however, and was reluctant to part company with him. She insisted that she would repay him for his time and certainly for the cartridges he had spent to protect them from attack. The thought of replenishing his supply of ammunition was enough to change his mind about leaving.

None of the three women had ever been to Fort Laramie before, so they weren’t sure where to look for an establishment that might have need of their special qualities. “We’ll try the post trader’s store,” Lorena decided. As luck would have it, they pulled onto the post’s parade ground right after a changing of the guard, and the wagon with two women in the seat, with one more standing behind it, was spotted by the officer of the day. He came at once to intercept them. Thinking to address Wolf, who was leading the wagon, he signaled for him to stop.

“Where do you think you’re going with that wagon?” the lieutenant wanted to know.

“I reckon you’d best talk to the women,” Wolf replied, and turned his horse back toward the wagon.

Having heard the lieutenant’s question, Lorena told him that they were new to the fort and were seeking information. “We were figurin’ on goin’ to the sutler’s store to find what we needed.”

Needing no more than a brief look at the three women, the officer advised them that what they were looking for was probably not at the post trader’s store. “I think the place you ladies are trying to find is the social center, about three miles down that road at the corner of the stables.” He pointed toward the road, but refrained from referring to their destination by the popular name for it, the Three-Mile Hog Ranch. “That’s more than likely the best place if you’re looking for a place to camp. Otherwise, you’ll have to park your wagon on the far side of the river with the other civilian wagons.”

“Well, thank you kindly, Lieutenant,” Lorena replied sweetly. “I guess we’ll be on our way, then. Hope to see you again.”

“Don’t count on it,” the lieutenant muttered.

Anxious to be on his way, and away from the busy army post, Wolf nevertheless resigned himself to three more miles with the women if he was to get the money Lorena promised. Without a word, he turned the bay toward the road that had been pointed out, and started again.