Charles West - Day of the Wolf

“Because you look…,” Reuben started; then, aware of the expressionless eyes searching his face, he said, “No reason. What can I do for you”

“I need some coffee beans if your price is not too high, and maybe some flour if you have some,” Wolf told him. It had been some time since he had flour to make bread.

“My partner just brought in a wagonload of goods this week,” Reuben told him. “We got a load of both coffee and flour.”

Wolf remarked that he was surprised to find wagons up in the hills. “Ain’t no problem,” Reuben said. “Hell, this spot is gonna be a regular city before you know it. They’ve already got a name for it, Stonewall, after that general in the War Between the States. And they’re scouting out a stage road between here and Fort Laramie—said it’ll go on down to Cheyenne when they finish.”

None of this was welcome news to the stoic child of the mountains. He was positive now that he would move his camp again. “How much for the flour?” Wolf asked.

“How are you thinking about paying?” Reuben wanted to know. “I don’t do any trading for pelts. This is a store, not a trading post.”

“I’ll pay with gold,” Wolf said. “How much is the flour?”

“Right, I didn’t mean to insult you. I do all my business with the prospectors, and they don’t have pelts to trade. Flour is hard to come by. I was damn lucky to get my hands on a barrel of it. Then you have to get it by the Injuns, and there’s a big demand for it, so that makes it kinda expensive. I have to get a dollar a pound just to break even.”

Wolf thought that over for a few seconds and decided he could do without bread. He settled for a twenty-pound bag of coffee beans, a purchase considerably cheaper than the flour. He waited patiently while Reuben weighed out his coffee and dumped it in a sack, then surprised the storekeeper with a double eagle to pay for it. “What’s your name, mister?” Reuben asked. “You gonna try your hand at prospecting?”

“I’m called Wolf,” he said. “I’m not a prospector.”

“Well, if you’re gonna be staying around for a spell, I’ll be getting in a lot of supplies that you don’t see here yet, including shirts, boots, and trousers.” He couldn’t help wondering how many more double eagles Wolf had.

“I ain’t gonna be stayin,” Wolf said, took his sack of coffee beans and his change in the form of a small sack of gold dust, then walked out the door. In the saddle once more, he never intended to visit Stonewall again unless he became desperate for supplies.

Reuben walked to the door to watch him ride away. He ain’t the first one of his kind I’ve ever seen, he thought. But I’ll sure remember him . “Wolf,” he repeated. “I wouldn’t doubt he was born in a litter of pups by an old wolf bitch.”

Back in his camp at the foot of the mountain, Wolf looked around at the progress he had already made to ready the camp for the winter, now rapidly approaching. He thought it over, trying to make up his mind to stay until spring or to move right away. He walked to the edge of the stream and stared at it, wondering if there was any gold in its rushing waters that might bring a storm of prospectors to search for it. In the end, he decided to move farther north. He felt crowded, and there was still time for him to build a winter camp. He could not waste any more time, however, for there was a lot of hunting and curing of meat to be done to prepare for the long months when the mountain passes would be clogged with snow. These were the only things that occupied his thoughts now, for he had no way of knowing that he himself was being hunted by three men sworn to kill him. And although they had long since lost his trail, they were in the Black Hills, searching, working their lawless way from mining camp to mining camp, sometimes leaving a trail of murdered prospectors in isolated streams and lonely gulches, knowing that inevitably they would track him down.

Far behind them, another had joined the hunt. Nate, youngest of the Dawson brothers, was already on his way to find them and hopefully to find the man called Wolf. It had been as difficult as he had anticipated to bring his aunt Mavis the news that all three of her sons had been killed. Mavis Dawson Taggart was not a woman to accept injury to any of her family without bloody retribution. When he had ridden into the front yard of the tiny cabin on Lodgepole Creek, he had found his aunt sweeping the bare ground around the porch steps with a broom made from willow switches. As soon as she saw him, she stopped dead in her tracks, sensing bad news in some form. She propped her broom against a porch post, wiped her hands on her apron, and waited patiently for Nate to dismount.

“Nate” was all she said as she watched him step down.

“Howdy, Aunt Mavis,” Nate returned. “I reckon I got some bad news.” He told her then about the tragic ending of her sons. She didn’t make a sound, nor shed a single tear, as he identified their killers. A clenching of her jaw and the slight narrowing of her eyes were the only emotions registered. It was not the reaction Nate expected, and he wondered if she realized what he was telling her until she finally spoke.

“Gimme their names,” she said, her voice steady as a rock.

“Mace told Boyd that a marshal named Ned Bull was the one that killed Arlo, and Mace killed the marshal. But the one that shot Beau and knifed Mace got away.”

“His name?” Mavis asked, still with no emotion evident in her weathered face.

“I ain’t sure if it’s his real name or not, but Clem said he was called Wolf.”

“Wolf?” Mavis questioned, not sure she had heard right.

“Yes, ma’am,” Nate replied, still puzzled by his aunt’s lack of emotion. “But don’t you worry none. All three of my brothers are already on his trail, and I’m fixin’ to head that way myself. Me being the youngest, Buck made me come give you the news, or I’d be with ’em. Don’t you worry, we’ll get that feller.”

“If you don’t, I will,” she promised. Then, without a change of expression, she asked, “Are you hungry? Have you had your breakfast?”

“No, ma’am,” he replied. “I ain’t et no breakfast yet, but I expect I’d best get started after my brothers pretty quick. I ain’t even been to the house to tell Ma and Pa the bad news yet—thought you oughta been the one to hear about it first. I expect they’ll be comin’ over as soon as they find out.”

“Can’t hardly do your best if you start out hungry,” she insisted. “Come on in the house. I’ve got biscuits I baked this mornin’.”

“Yessum, thank you, ma’am. I reckon I could eat a biscuit or two. Then I’ll go see Ma and Pa before I go after my brothers. That murderin’ dog ain’t gonna get away with what he done.”

She fed him coffee and biscuits, and then he was on his way. She waited until his horse dropped below the rise that stood between her cabin and that of her brother Doc’s before she released the agony that his news had created. She raised her face to the cloudy sky and brought her grief up from deep inside her in a mournful howl, like that of a coyote. With nothing in her life that meant anything to her other than her three boys, she would have satisfaction from their killers if she had to do it herself. I may be old, she thought, but I ain’t feeble. Nobody gets away with harming my boys. But she still had her nephews. They would avenge her sons. She would see to that.

Winter set in with bitter cold temperatures and heavy snowfalls, but Wolf’s camp was well prepared, as he had coped with wintry camps since he was first on his own in the Wind River Mountains. He had pushed on only about a day’s ride from the boomtown of Stonewall before he came upon an ideal setting for his winter home in the form of a deep gulch running back into the side of a mountain that provided cover for his two horses as well as himself. When he first discovered it, he hurried to fashion a roof over the narrow end of the gulch with a smoke hole for his fire. As soon as it was finished to suit him, he worked hard to stock up on firewood, and then he spent all his time hunting. He was content there with nothing to concern himself with except seeing that his horses were protected and fed. Though game was scarce, there would still be some to supplement his store of smoked jerky as the occasional herd of deer moved through the sheltered valleys. Of more concern was the feed for his horses, but they could make it on a great deal less, since they would be doing little more than waiting for spring.