Charles West - Day of the Wolf

Wolf cranked another cartridge into the chamber of the Henry, then quickly made his way down from the top of the hill, ready to fire as soon as he caught sight of a target. He cursed himself for getting there too late to keep Ned from being shot, but now he was concentrating on settling with the second of the two bushwhackers. When he got to the bottom of the ravine, the man was gone, but he could see where he had crawled out of the other side of the gully and escaped through a notch that led to the open prairie. Hoofprints he found there told him that the men had left their horses there while they set up the ambush on Ned. Knowing there was not enough time for the second bushwhacker to have gotten very far, he ran up to the top of the hill. From there, he spotted the fleeing assassin hightailing it at a gallop on a spotted gray horse and leading a riderless buckskin. He wanted to go in immediate pursuit, but he had to first see about Ned.

He found the wounded lawman lying several yards from the mouth of the ravine. The red roan named Brownie was standing beside him, waiting for his master to get up, but Ned was not moving. Wolf knelt down to search for any sign of life. When he rolled the heavy body over, he was met with Ned’s .44 pistol aimed squarely in his face. With instincts as fast as the beast he was named for, he grabbed the weapon and pushed it aside just as Ned pulled the trigger and sent a bullet whistling up toward the clouds. The wounded man was too weak to struggle further against the powerful hand that pinned his wrist to the ground. “Ned, it’s me, Wolf. They’ve gone.”

The fingers holding the pistol relaxed then, freeing the weapon. Ned’s shirt was already soaked with blood. The wounds looked serious. “Wolf? What are you doin’ here?” His words were slow and laboring, his breathing becoming more and more difficult as he tried to speak. “I’m sorry I almost shot you,” he managed before he coughed several painful times, bringing blood up from his nose and mouth.

“Don’t try to talk no more,” Wolf said. “It’s makin’ you bleed too much. I’ll try to fix you up.”

A tired smile formed on the old deputy’s face. “Ain’t nothin’ you can do to fix me up.” Interrupted by a coughing spell, he then went on, forcing his words out: “Watch out them two don’t come back,” he warned. “Mace Taggart and Beau Taggart, they’re as bad as they come.”

“I’ll see if I can get those bullets outta you,” Wolf said, though not sure if he could or not. Ned needed a doctor, and he needed him right now, and the nearest doctor that Wolf knew of was in Fort Fetterman, a post he had never been to, but he knew it was closer than Fort Laramie. He wasn’t sure Ned could make it that far.

Ned saved him the trouble. He laid his hand on Wolf’s and, speaking barely above a whisper now, said, “I’m gettin’ too old and tired to do this anymore. Take care of Brownie for me.” He smiled then and seemed to relax.

Wolf gazed at him for a long moment, trying to think what to say to his friend of such a short time. Several more seconds passed before he realized that Ned was gone. He immediately sensed a great loss in his life, a loss he had experienced only twice before—when his parents were killed, and when Big Knife was slain. There had been a bonding between the young man and the older deputy marshal, and Wolf felt a great void with the passing of Ned Bull. He was especially regretful of the fact that he had not had the opportunity to tell him that he had come after him to let him know he had changed his mind. He had decided to take Ned’s advice to go to Fort Fetterman and seek a job as a scout. Now that notion was out of the question, for he felt the world would not be right again if Ned Bull’s killer was allowed to live. Even now, kneeling beside Ned’s body, he could feel the anger warming the blood in his veins, and he knew he could not rest until the remaining Taggart brother paid for Ned’s murder.

There were thoughts of Mace getting away while he lingered there, but he would not leave Ned lying there on the prairie to be feasted upon by buzzards or coyotes. Resigned to the fact that the hunt for Taggart would be completed no matter how long it took, he looked around him for a suitable burial spot. With his hand ax and a short-handled spade he found on Ned’s packhorse, he set to work on a spot in the shade of a pine tree. The ground was hard, causing him to spend some time before Ned was at rest in his grave. The lost time was of little concern to Wolf, because he was determined to track the killer down, no matter how long it took.

With Ned in the ground, there were other matters to take care of. He stopped to take another look at the other body that had fallen that day. A smallish man, younger than himself, he wore a pair of hand-tooled boots with the name Beau etched out near the top. His reading and writing skills had not been tested since he was eleven, so he guessed that was the way “Beau” could be spelled. So the one that got away was Mace, Wolf thought. Ned said Mace and Beau Taggart . He at least knew now which Taggart he was going after. The next question was what to do about the horses. He had two more than he needed. Ordinarily he would welcome the gain of extra horses, but for the job he had before him, two extra horses would be too much trouble to manage. The decision as to which two he would keep was already made for him. He could not part with the bay gelding he was riding, and Ned had asked him to take care of Brownie, so he would use Ned’s horse as his packhorse and set the other two free. There were other useful items he “inherited” from the big lawman, since he didn’t know if there was any family waiting somewhere for Ned. Foremost among these was a Winchester ’73, but not far behind in importance was Ned’s coffeepot. He kept a few more useful items: a flint and steel for making a fire, a straight razor, and Ned’s bearskin coat. It would be handy when the mountain passes filled with snow. He hated to leave Ned’s saddle, but it was fairly well worn, so he left it in the gully along with the other discarded items. Then he turned and, said good-bye to Ned, climbed into the saddle, and, with Brownie following, started out westward on a quest that would end in death—either his or Mace Taggart’s.

The trail of two horses at full gallop was not hard to follow at first, but within thirty minutes of starting the chase the sun sank below the hills on the horizon and all light fled from the prairie before him. Having started out straight toward the setting sun, the trail had veered off to the south within a distance of half a mile. The change in direction prompted Wolf to make a decision to wait until daylight before taking up the chase again. Taggart had made one change in his direction of flight. Was it just the first of many, hoping to shake anyone trailing him? If so, Wolf was reluctant to take a chance on losing the trail in the dark. I’ve got plenty of time, he told himself, and nothing else to do . So he made his camp by one of the tiny streams in the area. He was in the process of building a fire when two dark forms approaching from behind him indicated that the two horses he had set free were reluctant to part company with him. He was not surprised. Both had been packhorses and were accustomed to following the other two. When morning came, they were still there, noisily pulling grass near his blanket. “Sooner or later you’re gonna realize you’re free,” he said to Ned’s packhorse. “Then you can do what you damn well please.” He did not linger over Ned’s coffeepot and was in the saddle again before the sun cleared the eastern horizon.

The trail, still easy to follow, continued in a fairly straight line until striking the Lightning River. Then it followed the river for a day and a half. Taggart was pushing his horses hard, for Wolf could not make up any ground on him. He guessed that Mace was most likely changing from one horse to the other and resting them very little. As he rode, Wolf speculated on where Mace might be heading. Following the Lightning as he had been would indicate his intention of going to Fort Fetterman on the North Platte. But why would a wanted outlaw head for an army post? The question was answered when a point was reached about three miles north of the post, and Taggart had turned more to the west to circle around the fort, striking the North Platte a mile or so west of it.