Charles West: Day of the Wolf

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 clothes 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.