Charles West - Day of the Wolf

Ned leaned down to tell him, “I reckon you had one more lesson to learn. If you’re fixin’ to shoot somebody, don’t stand around crowin’ about it like a bantam rooster—especially if the other feller’s carryin’ a handgun tucked in his belt.” He stood erect again and stared down at the wounded man. “You came mighty damn close to skinnin’ my cat. Maybe I am gettin’ too old for this job.” He knelt down beside Arlo and said, “Well, let’s see if we can get you to Fort Laramie before you cash in. Maybe they can do somethin’ to stop that bleedin’ at the hospital there.”

He did what he could to ease Arlo’s pain, but it was plain to see that the outlaw’s prospects didn’t look encouraging. Before he got the horses saddled and broke camp, Arlo took his last breath. Ned gave the matter a few minutes’ consideration before deciding to take the body on in to Fort Laramie to let the army deal with it. “It’ll sure take the strain offa the rest of the trip,” he decided.

Chapter 2

“I was afraid of that,” Billie Jean Gunter lamented as she stood beside the front left wheel of the wagon. “The damn wheels stood in that creek too long before we got the wagon out and they’re already trying to swell up.” Billie Jean’s father had been a blacksmith back in Arkansas, so she knew what she was talking about. She squatted on her heels to get a closer look.

“Well, what does that mean?” Lorena asked, concerned. “Are we gonna break down?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Billie Jean answered. “They’re sure as hell gonna warp, though.” She ran her hand along the iron rim. “They may hold together till we get to Fort Laramie.” She looked up at Lorena. “How far did he say it was to Fort Laramie?”

“About eight days, he said, once we strike the Chugwater.” Lorena shrugged, uncertain. “He admitted that he don’t know much about how far we can travel in a day, though.”

“Well, I don’t know if these wheels will make it that far, this one here in particular,” she said, standing next to the left front wheel. “Maybe if the weather stays warm and dry, they’ll shrink back down.” She shook her head, perplexed. “If I was back home in Little Rock at my daddy’s forge, I could fix ’em.”

“Huh,” Lorena grunted, “if I was back home in New Orleans, I’d be ridin’ in a fancy carriage instead of a damn farm wagon.” She shrugged then. “Well, what are we gonna do?”

“Drive it and hope for the best, I reckon,” Rose answered, arriving just in time to hear the last of the conversation between her two companions. By far the most optimistic of the three, Rose always expected things to work out in her favor.

“I reckon she’s right,” Billie Jean said, “but if this wheel goes, we’re gonna be riding horseback the rest of the way.”

Rose nodded toward their somber guide, who was in the process of leading the horses back from the creek, preparing to hitch them up to the wagon. “What about him?” she asked. “Do you think he can fix the wheel?”

“I doubt it,” Billie Jean said, “even if we had the stuff to fix it with. If this wheel breaks down, your wagon stops right where it is.”

The concern was obvious on the faces of all three women when Wolf led the horses up and backed them into the traces. He didn’t ask, but Lorena told him of their problem. Billie Jean was correct in her assertion that he would be unable to do anything to fix the wheel. When told of her doubts the wagon would make it through eight days of travel unless the wheels shrank in the meantime, he couldn’t help a twinge of conscience. He had not told the women of his intention to guide them only as far as the Chugwater, then leave them to follow it to the Laramie, all the way to Fort Laramie. That route was one he figured they could follow with no chance of getting lost. When he had estimated the distance, he was allowing for the winding route of the Chugwater, as well as the many turns of the Laramie. In actual distance from where they now stood just south of Horse Creek, the journey was about half that by heading almost straight north. The route would take them over some pretty rough country, and he figured the chance of their getting lost in the process was definitely possible. So he could not in good conscience send them on alone. Damn! He scolded himself once again for coming back to visit the Crow village, for he knew he was going to have to lead them to Fort Laramie. He studied the situation silently for a few minutes, trying to find a way out of it, but there was nothing short of abandoning three women on the open prairie. He took a long look at the wheel before declaring, “Get ready to go.”

They hurried to load up, as if trying to get moving before the wheel decided to break. Lorena took the reins and prepared to start the horses, but hesitated when Wolf turned his horse’s head directly north. “I thought the Chugwater was that way,” she called after him, pointing west.

“It is,” he answered. “This way’s a shortcut.” Without looking back to see if she was following, he started out to the north, grumbling under his breath about the folly of offering assistance to the women. Behind him, Lorena could not help being reminded that the last guide who took them on a shortcut had abandoned them in this wilderness.

It took them until late afternoon to reach Horse Creek, a distance of perhaps eight or nine miles, because of the necessity to find a passable route for the wagon through a region of rough cuts and draws. Impatient with the slow progress of the wagon, Wolf reluctantly stopped for the night. The horses needed the rest, and from the weary faces of the women, he figured they would have protested if he suggested going farther. So they went about making camp. Wolf led the horses to water, then hobbled them on the bank where there was a sparse patch of grass. “I expect your horses need some grain if you’ve got any,” he said to Lorena when he came up from the creek. “There ain’t much grass for ’em here.”

“There’s a sack of oats in the wagon,” Lorena told him. “Got a quilt spread over it. Rose has been using it for an easy chair.”

Wolf found the sack of oats and fed the team of horses, then took a little extra for his pony. “Don’t go gettin’ used to this,” he said, using his hat as a feedbag. Once the horses were cared for, and the women busy with the campfire and preparation of supper, Wolf decided to scout along the creek on the chance he might find something to eat other than the bacon the women had brought.

“Where’s he off to?” Billie Jean asked when she returned from the creek with the coffeepot filled with water.

Poking at the fire to encourage it, Lorena glanced in Wolf’s direction before commenting, “He said, and I quote, ‘I got a need for some real meat.’ I guess he don’t like bacon.”

“Ha,” Billie Jean grunted. “Tell him we’ll get him a lobster dinner first fancy restaurant we come to.” She, like her two companions, was not sure their stoic guide was any more dependable than Lige Ingram had been.

“Hell,” Rose said, finishing Billie Jean’s thought, “at least Lige could make conversation.”

“Yeah,” Lorena offered, “he sure as hell talked me outta my money.” She shook her head when recalling. She had tried to talk him into taking them to Fort Laramie before paying him a cent, but he protested, reminding her that she always made him pay in advance before servicing him. So she gave in and gave him half of the one hundred dollars they had agreed upon. Her thoughts returned again to the somber man now out of sight beyond a bend in the creek. He had not asked for any payment. Maybe he’s thinking he’ll take everything we’ve got, she thought. It might not be as easy as he thinks. She patted the single-action Colt revolver she carried in her skirt pocket as a precaution. The Colt was not the only weapon the ladies had. Lorena was not fool enough to set out across the prairie without some means of protection. In the wagon there were three Sharps carbines and a good supply of ammunition.