Charles West: Day of the Wolf

MAN OR SPIRIT

His mission done, Wolf had one more thing to check on, so he returned to the front door of the trading post and entered. The Cheyenne woman made no move and no sound when the man in animal skins suddenly appeared in the doorway, a Winchester rifle in his hand. Wolf looked at her, then looked toward the corner where Boyd was just beginning to stir on the cot. Turning back to the woman then, he asked, “His name is Taggart?”

She shook her head slowly, then spoke. “His name Boyd Dawson.”

Wolf nodded solemnly. “Then I got no quarrel with him.”

He started to turn and leave, but Clem appeared in the doorway to the back room, holding a shotgun. When he looked into the eyes of the baleful avenger, the Winchester rifle ready to speak, he dropped the shotgun at once and held up his hands. Wolf fixed his gaze upon the frightened storekeeper for a moment before taking a step toward the door. “You’re him, ain’t you?” Clem asked hesitantly. “The one they call Wolf.” Wolf didn’t answer, but Clem was sure it was the man the Indians talked about, the one some of them were convinced was a spirit and not a man at all.

DAY OF THE

WOLF

Charles G. West

A SIGNET BOOK

For Ronda

Chapter 1

Wolf was as much a part of the violence of the forest and mountains as the savage beast for which he was named, and that name was almost a legend among the Lakota and Cheyenne bands that roamed the Powder River Valley. A ghostlike presence that haunted the rugged hills and valleys of the Big Horn Mountains and the Wind River Range, Wolf was seen on rare occasions by Indian hunting parties, but almost never by white men—soldiers or settlers. Even these infrequent sightings were only by his choice, such as a visit to a trading post or an unusual circumstance, like the time he suddenly appeared to warn two Lakota women and their children, who were picking berries, unaware that they had managed to come between a mama grizzly and her cubs. The women had never seen the lone hunter before, but they were sure that he was the one their people called the Wolf, for he appeared out of nowhere and advised them to take their children back the way they had come. He then distracted the bear until they were safely away.

Ernie Crockett, who traded with the Indians before tensions heated up to the point of open war with the Lakotas and the Cheyenne, said that Wolf was a man and no legend at all. It was likely a name the Indians had created, maybe from a rare sighting of the man disguised with a wolf hide over himself for the purpose of getting close enough to a buffalo to use his bow. It was a tactic used by the Indians themselves, since buffalo were accustomed to seeing wolves skulking around the herd. “Before I packed up my tradin’ post and left,” Ernie claimed, “the man came in and traded pelts for .44 cartridges on more than one occasion. He was real enough, just quiet and kinda edgy till he got his cartridges and left.” Ernie chuckled when telling it. “Yep, he was real, all right, but I reckon the Injuns would rather have him be a spirit or somethin’.”

On this day, however, man or spirit, Wolf was facing a situation he had never faced before. He had fought a cougar with no weapon but his skinning knife, and faced down an angry grizzly until the bear retreated. But he had never felt as uncertain and cautious as he did at this moment. His better judgment told him to back away carefully.

“Where you goin’, darlin’? You ain’t bashful, are ya?” Seated on a quilt draped over the tailgate of her wagon, her knees spread like the springs of a bear trap, Lorena Parker beckoned with an index finger, enticingly, she presumed. But her quarry seemed more intent upon retreating. “I said I’d pay you to take me to Fort Laramie,” she went on. “What did you think I meant? Money? Hell, I ain’t got no money. That’s the whole reason I’m goin’ to Fort Laramie.”

Wolf was distracted for a moment by the delighted giggles of the other two women who sat nearby as casual witnesses to Lorena’s negotiations. He cast a wary glance in their direction before turning his gaze back to the buxom woman. His intimate experience with females was limited to a casual encounter with a young Crow maiden when he was little more than a boy. It was a time of innocence that bore no resemblance to the almost certain peril lurking within the jaws of the beckoning trap spread so easily before him. He took another step back.

“I swear,” Lorena remarked, duly puzzled now by Wolf’s reluctance. “What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you skin them buckskins off? You look like you oughta be a ragin’ stud.” Closing her knees then and sitting upright, she studied the wary young man. “Maybe I ain’t the one you got your eye on. Maybe you’d rather take your trade out on Billie Jean or Rose. Is that it? I expect either one of ’em would be happy to accommodate you.” The suggestion brought a new round of giggles from the two women, and finally caused him to find his voice.

“I’ll take you to Fort Laramie,” he stated flatly. “There ain’t no charge.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Rose teased.

“I bet he’s got himself a little wife somewhere, and he’s true-lovin’ her,” Billie Jean chimed in. “Is that it, stud?” Her question was answered with a blank stare of disbelief.

“As soon as your horses are rested up,” he said, ignoring the question, “we’ll start out for Fort Laramie. They’ve been drove too hard.” He paused before adding, “And in the wrong direction.” He turned then and walked away to tend to his horse, silently cursing the luck that had caused him to come to the rescue of the three prostitutes. It was the first time he had ever seen a prostitute, as far as he knew, and he found it hard to believe that a man would part with money to risk a tussle with the two older women.

“Suit yourself. I wasn’t hankerin’ after it myself,” Lorena called after him, although she could not deny a certain fascination for a man who looked to be akin to a cougar. When he made no reply, but kept walking toward the bay gelding at the edge of the creek, she attempted to excuse her erroneous sense of direction. “That no-good son of a bitch we hired in Cheyenne headed us out this way.” If he heard her, he made no indication of it. “How the hell do we know you’re any better’n he was?” she asked in a lowered voice, primarily for the benefit of her two companions, since she was not willing to give him cause to change his mind.

“I reckon we oughta offer to feed him, since he ain’t lookin’ to take it out in trade,” Rose suggested. “There’s no telling where we woulda ended up if he hadn’t come along when he did.”

“Most likely Medicine Bow is what he said,” Billie Jean recalled, “if we’da kept goin’ west.”

“Or nowhere a’tall after you drove my wagon into that damn creek,” Lorena reminded her.

“Well, I was wonderin’ how long it was gonna be before you started blaming me for that,” Billie Jean responded. “I wasn’t the one who decided to cross where we did. We all three thought it looked like a good place to cross, so don’t lay that blame on me.”

“We shoulda known that darker water meant there was a hole there,” Rose said. “Ain’t nobody blaming you.” She paused to recall the incident. “It was kinda scary the way he showed up, though, wasn’t it? One minute we were stuck in that hole in the creek with nobody else in sight. The next minute we turn around and he was there, just sitting on his horse, watching us trying to get outta that hole.” She turned her head then to gaze at the somber man leading his horse up from beside the creek.