Charles West - Day of the Wolf

“Wait a damn minute,” Lorena yelled when her caller continued to knock on her door. Her request succeeded in giving her only a few moments of peace before the knocking began again, this time a bit louder.

“Lorena,” a man’s deep voice called, “open up.”

“Dammit,” she yelled again, angry to have a caller this early in the morning. “I’m on the damn chamber pot! Just hold your horses.” The knocking stopped. After a few minutes, she opened the door to find Ned Bull standing there, a grin on his face. “Well, Marshal,” she said, surprised to see the big deputy, “you musta got an early case of the itch to come around before I’ve even had breakfast.”

“Afraid not,” he replied. Even if he had the urge, the mental picture of the disheveled middle-aged woman seated on a chamber pot was more than enough to discourage any thoughts of a carnal nature. “I just wanna talk to you for a minute about your friend Wolf.”

Already having guessed the purpose of the marshal’s call on her, she sought to play coy. “Well, now,” she teased, pulling her housecoat up tighter around her throat, “people have to pay me for my time, and that’s for talkin’, diddlin’, or whatever.”

“Like I said, this ain’t a business call. I just wanna ask you a few questions.”

“All the same,” she began, still playing coy in spite of an aching head that was crying for black coffee to help lessen the effects of too much drinking the night before.

“Well, let me put it this way,” Ned interrupted, tired already of the game. “I don’t have time to fool around. I can just as easily haul your ass back to the guardhouse for aidin’ and abettin’ an escaped prisoner—and lock you up till the army gets through with you. So let’s make this easier on both of us. All right?”

Lorena couldn’t help grinning. “You wouldn’t really do that, would you, Marshal? You look like a big ol’ softie to me. Hell, I was just havin’ you on a little.” She paused to give him a wink. “Besides, I know they ain’t got no place to hold women in that guardhouse.” They both grinned then. “But for God’s sake, let me put on a pot of coffee before I keel over dead.”

“I could use a cup of coffee myself,” he said, and walked over to the small table by the window and sat down to wait for her.

“Wouldn’t hurt if you stirred up that fire in the stove a little while I go get some water,” she said. He picked a couple of sticks of wood out of a box behind the stove while she went outside to the pump. Using one of the sticks for a poker, he poked at the reluctant flames until they caught on again, then dropped the sticks onto the rekindled fire.

Lorena was back shortly with the coffeepot filled with water, and soon there was coffee bubbling on the stove. Never in a hurry when there was coffee working, Ned waited patiently while Lorena pulled herself together to face yet another day. She sat down at the table with him with two cups of the boiling hot liquid. “All right,” she said. “Whaddaya wanna ask me about Wolf?”

Before he had a chance to open his mouth, there was a light tap on the door, and a male voice asked, “You up, Lorena?”

“Yeah,” Lorena called out. “Come on in.”

The door opened to reveal the owner of the male voice to be Billie Jean. She paused when the door was still only half-open. “You entertaining?”

“No, this is an official call from a U.S. deputy marshal,” Lorena replied grandly. “Come on in.” Then she looked quickly at Ned. “Is that all right, Marshal? I’m the official coffee maker around here. Rose will most likely show up in a minute or two.” Ned shrugged his indifference. A moment later, Rose came in, right on cue, equally surprised to find the lawman there. Ned noted that, unlike Lorena and Billie Jean, Rose was at once nervous and seemingly fearful.

“I reckon we’ve got everybody now,” Ned declared. “So I need to know what happened to your guide last night. One thing I know for sure is that he was here to get his horse.” He looked askance at Lorena. “Or should I say your horse?” Lorena nodded soberly, and Ned went on. “Where’d he say he was headin’ when he rode outta here?”

“I’ll tell you the same as I told those soldiers last night,” Lorena said. “He didn’t say much of anythin’ to the three of us—just showed up suddenly, grabbed the horse, and took off. Didn’t none of us have time to ask him where he was headed.” She looked around at the other two women for confirmation.

“That’s the God’s honest truth,” Billie Jean swore solemnly, and gave Rose a confirming nod.

“Which way did he go when he left here?” Ned asked.

“West,” all three answered, almost simultaneously. “He headed west to follow the North Platte River,” Rose volunteered further, causing both Lorena and Billie Jean to frown in her direction.

“How do you know that?” Ned asked. “You just said he didn’t say much of anything, just took your horse and took off.”

“Well,” Lorena answered for her, wishing at that moment that she had not told Rose anything. “I forgot. He did say he was headed that way, but I told those soldiers that last night.”

Ned shifted his gaze back and forth among the three faces all trying to present an earnest facade. He finally let it settle upon Rose. “You know what? I’ve been thinkin’ about what I’d do if I was in his shoes. I believe I’d head someplace like the Black Hills where there’s a lot of room to hide—up there where the Indians don’t want any white men to come. Now that they’ve found gold up there, there’s so many miners slippin’ in their sacred Paha Sapa that it’d be damn hard to find one more white man.” He caught an immediate flush of panic come over Rose’s face.

“He didn’t go there!” she blurted. “He said he wasn’t going there. He said he was heading west.”

Ned smiled at the naive young woman. He couldn’t help a feeling of compassion for her apparent concern for the fugitive, but she had told him what he wanted to know—unless she was smarter than he gave her credit for. He doubted that. The fact was, however, that he had no earthly idea where Wolf had in mind to run, but judging by her fearful reaction, he now at least had a place to start looking. The problem he faced was what he had said about the odds of finding a man in that territory of high mountains and steep passes. He wouldn’t bet on any success. He’d be damn lucky to find Wolf. The man was more Indian than white, but that was what the government paid him to do, so he’d give it his best shot.

He stayed long enough to get another cup of coffee, asking the women about how they happened to know such a man as Wolf. They answered his questions freely, and all made it a point to convince him that the man he was assigned to arrest had done nothing wrong. “My job ain’t decidin’,” he finally told them. “My job is to bring ’em in and let the smart folks do the decidin’. Thank you for the coffee. I’ll be on my way now. Your boy has already got a big enough head start.”

The three of them watched from the back window of Lorena’s cabin as Ned walked toward the corral, leading his horses. “What’s he heading there for?” Billie Jean wondered aloud.

“Maybe he’s looking for feed for his horses,” Rose suggested. But it was soon apparent what the big man was doing when he began studying the tracks around the stable and corral.

“He’s looking for a trail to follow,” Billie Jean said, “trying to find one horse that headed north.” She snapped at Rose then. “You just as good as told him that Wolf was heading for the Black Hills.”

At once alarmed, Rose pleaded, “No, I told him Wolf wasn’t going there!”