The Wolfer

by Loren D. Estleman

  "An hour, I reckon. Long enough to talk to Meredith."

  "He found you?"

  "I found him. He offered to up the bounty to two thousand."

  "Did you accept?"

  He stirred restlessly in the closeness of the room. Fulwider understood and accompanied him out onto the porch. The sky looked like rain. There were lights in some of the other buildings and a cool, wet breeze carried laughter and cigar smoke from the Timber Queen next door.

  "I said I'd do it for the twelve hunnert we agreed on." The broad brim of North's hat cast his profile into somber relief against the lighted window of the general merchandise. He seemed most alone when he was in the midst of people. "I was in Rock Springs buying cartridges when it come to me I let a wolf get the better of me. I backtracked near three hundred miles for another shot at it."

  "I assumed you had business elsewhere."

  "My business is wolfing."

  The conversation faltered at that point, and for a time they watched and listened as the occasional rider trotted down the street and tied up in front of the saloon. They stepped off the porch to allow a trio of dusty cowboys entrance to the house of ill fame. Inside, someone rewound the gramophone and "Whispering Hope" drifted out on the damp air.

  "They get that half-breed Lightfoot?" North asked then.

  Fulwider shook his head. "The sheriff got up a posse and combed the Caribou foothills. They found where he'd come back to bury Sam Fire Eye, but that was all. His description has been wired to every community within two hundred miles. It's only a matter of time before he's arrested or shot."

  "Maybe."

  High in the mountains, a jagged streak of lightning shattered the shadows and withdrew. Moments later thunder rumbled in the distance.

  "Got anything keeping you here?"

  Fulwider paused, absorbing his meaning. He watched North closely. "Why do you ask?"

  "Some wolves call for two men."

  "You can't mean me. There are other wolfers. Real wolfers."

  "I don't much get on with other wolfers. They talk too much. So do you, but you don't get mad when I don't pay mind."

  "That's no reason."

  "It's as close to one as you'll get"

  It struck the journalist suddenly that he was being paid a great compliment. He felt himself flushing with schoolboy pride. "I'm decaying here," he said, with as much nonchalance as he could muster. "I will go with you."

  "Something you should know. I invited two others. You may know them, Jim and Aaron Stemmer."

  He stared. "Why, in the name of heaven?"

  "Little idea of my own. They ain't much at wolfing, but word is they can shuck skin like a snake. With them along we can set up a relay. All you and I got to do is shoot wolves and keep moving. They'll follow with a pack string, yank the skins and send back for the bounty. One follows and skins, the other goes back for the money and comes back for more pelts. That way we can stay out as long as it takes to run down Black Jack. Just like a buffalo hunt."

  It was the longest speech the journalist had ever heard him deliver. "Have you talked to them about it?"

  "After I saw Meredith," he nodded. "Aaron was ready to do anything to keep from eating the rest of that wolf. They'll be getting a fifty-fifty split on the regular bounties. The big one's yours and mine."

  "How do you know they won't just collect the bounty and leave? Especially after what you did to Aaron last month in Bismark."

  "They thought about it. I seen it in their eyes. They won't."

  "But how do you know?"

  "Because I told them they wouldn't."

  He spoke matter-of-factly in that quiet tone that reminded Fulwider of an animal's warning growl. Jim Stemmer might not have understood it, but the journalist pictured his brother fingering the scar on his abdomen and knew that North was right.

  "Did you tell them about Black Jack?"

  "They asked about him. I said he's not their never-mind. They won't be helping us get him."

  "You don't really care about the bounty, do you? All you want is the wolf. He's the reason you came back all this way."

  "He's a wolf like any other." He started walking. Fulwider caught up with him and they started across to the hotel.

  "When do we leave?" he asked, though he knew the answer.

  "First light."

  Assigned to select a pack animal for the journey—a task which in itself attested to the wolfer's confidence in his judgment—Fulwider was astonished to find the stout black he had left behind at the river calmly munching oats in the livery stable. In the barber shop next door he interviewed the German owner of both establishments, who informed him in broken English and with much gesturing that the posse had found the horse during its search for Dale Crippen's killer and that for the price of the animal's care he was free to take it away. He paid the amount gladly, explaining that he would come for it the next morning.

  Sheriff Adamson, the omnipresent shotgun dangling at his side, was waiting for him when he came out. He had overheard the conversation.

  "Planning a trip?"

  Briefly, Fulwider described the mission. The Swede listened in silence, a solid fat man who tapered upward and downward from a huge middle, but whose small, bright eyes spared him the appearance of plodding dullness the journalist had observed in many men of great girth.

  "I am relieved," he said then. "I was afraid that perhaps you were planning to avenge your friend's death by finding and killing Dick Lightfoot."

  "I assure you, the thought never crossed our minds."

  Adamson shrugged. "It is sheriff's suspicion. No man is who he claims he is and nothing he says is to be believed." But he didn't sound apologetic.

  "We are hunting for wolves," stressed the other, "not men."

  "Yes, you said that."

  "I don't think you believed me either time."

  He sighed heavily. "Before North came, there was only one murder here since my election, when old Mrs. Pollard was strangled with a leather halter for the jar of gold coins she kept buried in her pantry. I am still looking for her killer. The jail will hold only two prisoners at a time, and when I catch him and Dick Lightfoot I will need the space."

  "What are you trying to say, Sheriff'?"

  "Only that I know this man North. I know what he did to Aaron Stemmer in Bismarck. A man like that will kill without having to think twice. I would hate to see him drag you down with him."

  Fulwider said nothing. The fat man nodded as if he had.

  "Just see that you kill wolves only." He moved off down the street, swaying from side to side with elephantine grace.

  The journalist returned to the hotel deep in thought.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Stemmers proved disagreeable companions from the start. Fulwider's first premonition came when Aaron, evil-eyed and still belching from his bizarre meal of the previous morning, wasted a half-hour of daylight searching for his brother, whom he had left swilling whiskey in the Timber Queen at 1 A.M. He was discovered at last dozing in the woodbox behind Aurora's place, after which another twenty minutes was lost sobering him up with the aid of a horse trough full of icy water. By that time the weather the journalist had seen yesterday in the mountains had reached town, and the expedition moved out through hissing rain.

  When Jim and Aaron weren't arguing between themselves, they complained about the weather, the condition of the trail, the plodding pace and the disposition of the pack string, two short-coupled chestnuts and a bay gelding with an ill temper and a wandering eye. These carried the brothers'supplies and would be used to transport the skins. North's white-stockinged black bore his and Fulwider's provisions at the end of a halter attached to its master's saddle. It didn't get along with the others, hence the separation. Up front, Fulwider rode his gray, North the wily roan.

  In general, Aaron appeared to have forgotten his injury at the wolfer's hands, or at least to have pushed it aside in view of the profits to be gained from the partnership. He had the large
st vocabulary of curses the journalist had ever heard. His chief dislikes, in order of their importance, were Republicans, Socialists, Catholics (he was a Lutheran), President Cleveland, Nelson Meredith and the Territory of Idaho, the Snake River Valley in particular. He was vocal about all of them, and seemed oblivious to the fact that no one cared what he had to say about any of them.

  Jim, on the other hand, was inclined to smolder in sullen silence, eyes on the road ahead and his blond moustache damp and drooping under the shapeless brim of his hat. Fulwider wondered if this was an effect of his dissipation or an indication of his true nature. If it was the latter he would bear close scrutiny.

  The scenery was almost unrecognizable since the thaw. Gone was winter's barren whitewash, exposing green hills sprinkled with wildflowers in red and yellow and violet. In the foreground, budding branches of birch and oak and maple reached for the rain-sodden sky, while in the distance the worn sawtooth line of the Caribous stood out like something not of nature, cut out hastily and pasted on the horizon, playing hell with perspective for their seeming closeness. The riders' breath showed in quick gray jets against the icy downfall and steam rose from the horses' withers.

  They encountered no wolf signs the first day, nor did they seek them. Rain beat the road into brown soup and obliterated their own tracks almost as they were made. Even the river had changed, and was now a howling torrent sixty feet wide clawing at the banks and girdling trees that shook and shed bark and buds into the current. Finding that the ford no longer existed, the four crossed a mile farther down at sunset and camped on a rise overlooking the south bank. For lack of dry firewood they made a cold camp, using their oilcloth slickers for tents and eating sardines with their fingers from the cans. Afterward they curled up for a miserably cold night while drops pattered the makeshift shelters. Fulwider took a bottle with him to stifle his cough.

  They were up and moving again before dawn. The rain had stopped, but as the sky turned pale a lead-colored mist crept into the hollows, making the trees that spiked up from it look as if they were floating two feet above the ground. The overcast remained.

  Two hours later, the sun wedged itself through a crack in the clouds, forcing them apart and lifting the fog in a body, so that as the riders moved through it the vapor parted and drifted skyward like smoke rings in a room with a high ceiling. Drying, their clothes shed steam like damp overcoats hung next to a stove. By noon all but North had stripped off their jackets.

  They encountered their first wolf droppings toward dusk of the second day, near a bramble at the base of the canyon wall. But these were weeks old, and North scarcely acknowledged them. They began climbing. A third of the way up the incline, the wolfer exclaimed softly and drew rein, leaping to the ground in the same movement.

  He squatted over an indentation in a moist patch of bare earth surrounded by saber-like blades of grass. The track was as large as a man's hand and the claw marks were clearly visible even from horseback.

  "Last night or early this morning," he declared. "Since the rain."

  "A loner?" suggested Fulwider. There were no other prints in sight.

  "Not likely. He's too young and too healthy to be cast out."

  Irritation swept through the journalist, prodded by his discomfort. "That's the second time you've said something like that. How can you tell just from the track?"

  North rose, his skins rustling. "This one was running. Toes deep, rear pad shallow. Old ones don't go in much for speed. Sick ones, hydrophobic and like that, tense up so that the toes are all bunched together. You learn to look for that after a spell."

  "He's right," said Aaron, who then began a narrative about a wolf he had tracked in Wyoming. Fulwider interrupted him.

  "I'll remember that." North had shamed him with his patient explanation.

  "Don't bother." The wolfer mounted. "It won't do you any good."

  Camp that evening was a different prospect. The food was hot, and even Jim Stemmer showed signs of coming out of his funk. He set aside his clean plate and produced a jew's-harp, plucking out a sprightly tune while his brother told of a wolfer they had both known in Colorado.

  "He was a full-blooded Ute," he began, spitting out a piece of unraveled cigar and touching off the end with a stick from the fire. "His right name was Son-of-a Bitch or something like that—"

  "Sun-in-the-Eyes," Jim corrected, and resumed playing.

  "Yeah, something like that. But most folks called him Crooked Mouth Hank on account of he had this scar on his lip that made one side of it look higher than the other. Anyway, he could find a wolf that had died of old age and track it back to where it was born. I went hunting with him one time and figured it out. When a white man goes out tracking, he's thinking about his wife or his whore or what he's eaten for breakfast that morning or if he's going to stop off for a quick one before heading home—a thousand things that don't got nothing to do with why he's out there. A injun, he's thinking about one thing only, and that's what he's tracking. He can't handle but one thing at a time, just like a animal. That's why he's so good at everything he does."

  The dregs from North's cup made an angry hissing noise when he cast them into the flames. "Get to sleep," he said, rising.

  Fulwider heard the Stemmers snickering between themselves as they unlimbered their bedrolls. They knew the story of North's Cheyenne wife and daughter, and the effect of Aaron's crude comment about Indians had been calculated. So he hadn't forgotten old animosities after all.

  Hours later the journalist awoke with his throat closed tight and a screaming need for air. It was still pitch black. He sat up gasping and fumbled the bottle out of his saddle pouch. As he tipped it up there was a crash in the bushes fifty yards away and a sound of feet retreating rapidly. He listened, his mouth full of liquor. After half a minute he swallowed slowly, letting the warming fluid trickle down and widen the opening. When he could breathe normally he packed away the vessel, but before settling back down he picked up his Remington and tucked it beside him under the blanket. Whether he actually heard them or not, those footsteps had sounded human.

  The days were noticeably longer than on the first expedition and unencumbered by snow and ice the party made far better time. The following afternoon found them on the high plain where the earlier trip had come to its shattering conclusion. As they neared the desolate scene, Fulwider's heart grew sick at the sight of the bones of elk and wolf, picked clean by scavengers and all but hidden by the tall new grass. The change of seasons had relegated them to the dead past, Dale Crippen included. It was hard to believe that only a few weeks had come and gone since the close of the drama.

  Aaron Stemmer made a discovery and hailed them over. Upon the spot where the half-breed wolfer had lain riddled with bullets was a mound of fresh earth. A flat shard of birchwood had been jammed roughly into the earth at one end, a crude legend carved across its smooth white surface.

  sam fire eye Under This bord

  is sum uv his bones

  all the varmints left cudnt

  find the skul Murdered

  "That's real pretty, like a poem," Aaron commented. "Jim, something was to happen to me I'd take it right kind if you would stick up a marker like that over me. Other way around, I'd do you the same."

  Jim, who up to that point appeared to have fallen back into his earlier unresponsive mood, replied dryly that if it was all the same to his brother he'd just as soon be eaten by coyotes and ravens.

  "We should of took time to scratch up that grave," said North, as they approached the base of the high peaks. They were his first words since before they had come upon the makeshift headboard.

  "What would you expect to find, other than a few bones?" Fulwider asked.

  He didn't answer for another hundred yards. Then:

  "I done some asking in town. Sam Fire Eye's mother was Cheyenne but he was raised up white in his father's house. He took the injun name after he left. Dick Lightfoot was the other way around—Cheyenne pa, brung up savage."
r />   "So?"

  "So who give Sam a Christian burial?"

  Chapter Fourteen

  Fulwider was still pondering his partner's words when North stopped suddenly. The journalist reined in an instant later, not in time to catch more than a fleeting glimpse of a gray form darting over a rise some three hundred yards west. The others jingled to a halt behind, but by that time the leaders were moving again, cantering in the direction of the sun's descent. When they reached the rise they could see nothing beyond the next.

  "Figured," said North, leaning on his pommel. "Bitch."

  "How can you tell?"

  He pointed out a flat rock roughly the size of a human torso, perched at a slight angle with one end buried in the soil before his roan's forefeet. The surface was littered with gray hairs, many in tufts. Fulwider's gray caught the predator's scent and fought the bit.

  "That's where she was bedded. They start shedding around the belly during denning season. Makes it easier for the whelps to get at the milk. I seen she was pink underneath when she spooked."

  "From that distance? All I saw was a blur."

  "That's because you wasn't thinking wolf."

  "And you were?"

  "All the time. Just like an injun."

  There was no sarcasm in his tone, and from the look on the Stemmers' faces it was hard to tell if they had picked up on the offhand reference to Aaron's conversation of last night.

  "There she is!" Aaron lifted his Winchester, which like North he was in the habit of carrying across his saddle. At the top of the next ridge stood the she-wolf, broadside with her head turned in their direction. Outlined as she was against the sky, her mammaries were clearly visible and clearly hairless.

  "I kilt more curious wolves than any other kind," Aaron gloated, taking careful aim.

  North stretched a long arm clear across the neck of Fulwider's horse and wrenched the carbine from Stemmer's grasp with a sudden exertion. Startled, he pulled at the Colt in his belt. Fulwider looped his reins around the barrel just as it came up and yanked, flipping it out of Aaron's hand. By that time the wolfer had both brothers covered with his Ballard.