The Wolfer

by Loren D. Estleman

  His fingers closed around the hilt of a knife buried in the flesh. Then his legs gave away and he pitched backward into space.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As in some hideous nightmare he fell and fell, cart-wheeling through empty air for what seemed an eternity, and then, with a suddenness that tore the breath from his lungs, he struck something solid. But the nightmare was not yet over, and before his senses could catch up with his body the something parted and he fell still farther, crashing through one yielding surface after another, through fingers that clawed at his face and clothing even as he hurtled beyond their grasp. He lost consciousness then, knowing even as the blackness swept over him that he would never regain it, that this at last was where it ended, at the base of a remote canyon in a wild land where he had no right being.

  He awoke to find himself very much in this world. His head felt swollen with blood, for the very good reason that he was looking up at his feet, one of which was caught between two pine branches and tingling for lack of circulation, while the other dangled free. His coat was shredded from having run the gauntlet of other such branches on the way down, and his face burned from cuts and scratches received the same way.

  The surface he lay on swayed like a hammock. When he tried to rise, his ankle slipped three inches and he snatched at the nearest support, which turned out to be yet another needled branch. He looked down at the river rushing some fifty feet below, and didn't repeat the attempt.

  A web of interlocking branches alone separated him from his fate. Slowly, lest a sudden movement deprive him of his precarious perch, he reached his right hand across his chest and groped at the wound in his left shoulder. He found to his relief that the fall had dislodged the knife and that the hole wasn't very deep. The padded canvas of his jacket had absorbed most of the impact. He had lost a substantial amount of blood, however, and his weakness concerned him along with the possibility of infection.

  But those were worries that could wait until he was on solid ground. He had set about seeing what he could do to realize that goal when two men came to gaze down at him from the ledge he had just left.

  His initial reaction was to hail them, but the shout lodged in his throat when he saw the tall crown of a black hat outlined against the blue of the sky. The last time he had seen that hat, a bullet from North's Ballard had plucked it from Dick Lightfoot's retreating head. Fulwider had no idea who his companion was until he turned to say something to the other and the sun glinted off the steel rim of his spectacles.

  Chapter Seventeen

  For an agonizing moment the journalist remained still, clutching the branches on both sides while the two men scanned the canyon at their feet. He had no way of knowing if they could see him among the treetops, but in case they could he was determined to convince them that Lightfoot's knife had done for him even if the fall had not. The thought of Sam Fire Eye making sure with his Sharps carbine paralyzed him, for which he was grateful.

  His thoughts were a jumble. How Fire Eye had survived last month's withering fusillade nagged at him, conjuring up images of undying monsters left behind with the nightmares of childhood. To compound matters, his foot had begun to slip a fraction of an inch at a time from between the crossed branches holding it. In his weakened condition he didn't think his grasp on the others would prevent his own weight from finishing the job Lightfoot had started. He held his breath.

  The half-breeds were withdrawing from the edge when his foot came loose.

  The branch in his right hand held him for an instant, then parted. Releasing the broken piece, he clung with both hands to the limb on the other side and felt again that nightmarish sensation of hurtling movement as he swung, swung sickeningly through space and then, with a jolt that nearly wrenched his arms from their sockets, stopped, suspended twenty feet above the ground by a brittle cable the circumference of his thumb.

  He let out his breath shallowly, sucked for air and felt a sharp, agonizing pinch in his right side. It was his first indication that he had injured a rib, possibly two. He hoped they weren't cracked.

  The limb was creaking ominously. Slowly, his heart hammering, he uncurled the fingers of one hand from around it and began lowering himself hand over hand. Twice he stopped, breathless, when the wood split with a noise like a pistol shot and he dropped another foot. Then he resumed his descent more cautiously. At last he reached the end, only to find his feet still dangling five yards above the bank of the river. He was contemplating the chances of a successful leap when the limb made the decision for him. There was a long, peeling crackle and he was in space once again.

  He had just time enough to let go of the useless branch and twist to keep from striking on his fragile right side, and then he hit the ground feet first with a force that drove his knees hard into his chest and rolled. He heard his own grunts as he hurtled along the ground out of control. When at last he came to rest he was lying face down in a tangle of rocks and branches with one hand dangling in the swift, icy waters of the river. His injured shoulder throbbed and the pain in his side was so sharp he feared that he had rammed a jagged edge of broken rib into a lung.

  He lay still for he knew not how long, waiting for his breathing and heartbeat to return to normal and half expecting them to stop altogether. Then he marshaled his strength, placed his hands beneath him, pushed himself to his knees and, with the support of a dead cottonwood nearby, pulled himself upright. Nothing seemed broken. Though his right ankle was twisted and he was now certain that he had at least bruised two ribs, he could boast that he had survived a drop of two hundred feet.

  If he lived long enough.

  With a start he remembered the half-breeds and limped for cover into the canyon's wooded fringe, squinting through the treetops to see if anyone was watching from above. He couldn't tell, and had no way of determining if the noise of his descent had alerted them. Finally he gave up looking and hobbled back to the river.

  There he bathed his lacerated face and stripped off his shredded jacket and shirt to get at his shoulder. He cleansed the wound as thoroughly as he could with his soaked kerchief and applied an awkward pad bandage jury-rigged from the tail of his shirt to keep out infection. It occurred to him as he did so that since coming west he had grown adept at crude frontier first aid. He then applied a cold compress to ease the pain in his side and tested it with probing fingers to assure himself that the rib cage was indeed just knocked about and not fractured or broken. Dressing carefully, he considered examining his hurt ankle, then vetoed it for fear of not being able to get the boot back on.

  His exertions had taken their toll, and for a long time he sat there, literally too weak to move. But for miscellaneous minor injuries and a general sensation of having been trampled under a herd of healthy bison, he had passed through a harrowing episode relatively unscathed. Yet he was far from elated. That he had used up his allotted miracle, and was living on borrowed time from now on was not a pleasant thought. His only consolation was that Sam Fire Eye was in similar straits after sustaining enough gunshot wounds delivered at close range to destroy a small army and living to tell the story.

  At that point, Fulwider stopped thinking about himself. For if, as he hoped, the killers believed him to have been dealt with, they would now seek to settle their account with Asa North.

  The journalist was hardly in a position to stop them. On foot, weaponless and without supplies, he was as much at the mercy of nature as he had been at Lightfoot's lack of it. His wisest course was to return to Rebellion. Without a horse it would be a week's journey, but that was preferable to following the half-breeds on North's trail, in which case he would face death on two counts, from lack of the materials necessary for survival and from Lightfoot and Fire Eye themselves. Sanity demanded that he go back to town.

  He chose to follow the half-breeds. Had he been sane he would never have selected journalism as a vocation in the first place.

  Believing at first that a crutch would slow him down, he endeavored to make his way
without one. But after a hundred yards his ankle began to throb, and when it showed signs of swelling he stopped and used his pocket knife to fashion a support from a forked maple limb. To his surprise, once he got the hang of it he found that he could make better time with the crutch than without it, and by this means he followed the upward slope of the bank and regained the ledge by nightfall.

  He stood unmoving as the last traces of sunlight withdrew beyond the peaks to the east, listening for footsteps or whispers that would betray the presence of others. He heard none, and soon grew tired of waiting.

  He selected a fairly broad spot littered with pine needles, swept the latter with the side of his good foot into a mattress of sorts, and hugging his coat about him against the spring chill, bedded down for the night. Almost immediately his stomach began to rumble. He regretted having declined breakfast, as he had vomited up most of what he had eaten the evening before and it had now been nearly thirty-six hours since he had enjoyed a decent meal. But his exhaustion was greater than his hunger, and even his fear of discovery by the enemy couldn't prevent sleep from overtaking him.

  His dreamless state was interrupted only once. He sat up, certain he had heard something. It echoed in his head as an eerie, drawn-out wail, oddly human. Wondering grumpily when he would get used to the sound of wolves howling, he turned up his collar and dropped back into unconsciousness.

  The sun was in his eyes when he came to himself. Immediately he started coughing, white-hot pain ripping his side. When it was over he felt drained and the urge to drink was greater than the urge to live. There were flecks of blood in his handkerchief. In the light of day he wondered what had possessed him to choose this course instead of the safety of civilization. But he had come too far now to turn back.

  He groped blindly to his feet, put too much weight on his swollen right ankle and clutched at the clammy stone of the canyon wall to keep from falling. His crutch leaned nearby. He fumbled it under his arm and began swinging his way deeper into the Caribou Mountains, coughing with each step.

  He hadn't gone half a mile when something crunched against stone up ahead.

  He flattened against the wall. The noise had come from the other side of a long bend. He waited five minutes, but when no one appeared he inched his way forward, one hand gripping the crutch that represented his only weapon.

  Moments later, the sound was repeated, accompanied by a drawn groan, as of the creaking of a ship's rigging in rough seas. Again he stopped, waited. Again no one showed himself. He lifted a stone the size of an egg from a small pile of rubble on the ledge and cast it around the bend, hugging the wall as it struck the edge and fell clattering to the canyon bottom.

  There was no reaction. After another minute he squared his shoulders and stepped boldly out into the open, muscles primed for self-defense or retreat.

  Jim Stemmer hung from a rope tied to a tree at the top of the wall, twisting slightly as the wind caught him and dragged his boots against the stone. His eyes and tongue protruded and his face was the color of the dark iron that streaked this side of the canyon.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Fulwider was no tracker, and yet the signs were easily enough read if he dared to believe them. The young wolfer's shirt was open, exposing more than a dozen ugly brown sores as large as dimes on his chest and stomach, such as might have been made by the glowing tip of a cigar. The sour smell of burned flesh was thick in the air. Nearby lay a small conical boulder, mossy side down.

  Lightfoot and Fire Eye had waylaid Jim on his way to town with the first load of skins, strung him up and erected the boulder so that he balanced on top of it between life and death. They had proceeded to torture him into disclosing the whereabouts of Asa North and his brother. Once they had obtained that information they had kicked away his support and left him to strangle. All this had taken place last night, for his flesh was cold to the touch.

  The journalist peered over the edge. He couldn't see for the trees, but it was probable that the half-breeds had run Jim's mount and pack horse into eternity on the banks of the river far below to prevent them from wandering and spreading curiosity. Perhaps Fulwider's gray had shared their fate, or been claimed as spoils. He remembered the wail he had attributed to wolves last night and wondered if it had been the horses'screams he had heard or Stemmer's cries of agony.

  Fighting back nausea, he set up the boulder and climbed on top to cut down the remains. They flopped to the rocky surface like a sack of laundry. For a long moment he stood staring down at the corpse, and then he grabbed a handful of Jim's collar and dragged it one-handed to the edge. Balancing on the crutch, he pushed it on over. There was a short silence after it finished crashing through the trees, followed by a distant splash. That was better than he'd hoped, for there was a chance that someone would discover the body downriver and send help.

  The deed done, Fulwider lowered himself to the ledge and spent several minutes dry-retching into the canyon.

  The rest of that day and the following night dropped through a ragged hole in his memory. Shaggy and unshaven, his emaciated figure draped in rags, he stumped on his rustic crutch through flashes of delirium and lucidity, aware only of his pain and the next step and then the next. He had a vague impression of curling up for another night on a bed of green moss in a hollowed-out section of wall, but entertained no clear thought until the next morning, when he found himself deep in the mountains. He shielded his eyes against the bright sun with a hand filthy with moss and dirt and bits of bark from the crutch. His stomach seemed to brush his backbone with every breath and something was crawling under the bandage on his shoulder, but he was afraid to look and see the maggots.

  He tested his weight on the twisted ankle. It seemed to be holding. Briefly he considered the forked limb, then flung it as far across the canyon as he could manage. It began its descent ten feet short of the opposite wall, twisting and flipping end over end for a long time before vanishing in a white smear into the river.

  He started climbing, dragging himself hand over hand up the rocky incline over which he and North and Dale Crippen had coaxed their horses in another lifetime. He tore his hands on the craggy surface and wore his trousers through at the knees, but he continued scaling. Once he placed his hand inside a slot between rocks and something scurried over it on its way out. He snatched at it, catching it by its stubby tail. A ground squirrel. He wrung its neck and devoured it, bones, intestines and all.

  Fortified by his first meal in three days, he continued to the summit and pulled himself onto the plateau where so much had happened since his journey west. There he rested, stretched out on his stomach in the tall grass. After an hour he rose and stumbled onward. Night was falling when he reached the base of the mountain and the wolf's den.

  The ravens should have prepared him for what he found. He had spotted them upon reaching the level, wheeling and diving in the scraped blue sky over the peaks, but he had assumed they were feeding on the carcasses of the slain wolves. What was left of Aaron Stemmer when with squawking fanfare the curtain of flapping black wings was lifted made his stomach lurch.

  He had been camped when the killers came upon him, and probably sleeping. That explained the charred remains of a fire, long since extinguished, and the fact that he was still wrapped, more or less, in his blanket. It had been all but dragged off by wolves, coyotes and the ubiquitous ravens in a feeding frenzy.

  A shuddering snort behind him brought Fulwider around in a crouch. Startled, the bay gelding he remembered from the pack string backed up and rolled its wall-eye. The animal was contrary by nature, and could be expected to return after having been run off by the half-breeds. Fulwider relaxed.

  Missing along with the other horses were Aaron's Winchester carbine and Colt revolver, and Asa North. Lightfoot and Fire Eye would have confiscated the firearms, and North would have been well up the mountainside when they struck the camp, having laid his plans to keep moving while the Stemmers took charge of skinning and transporting.

&n
bsp; A brief search uncovered Jim Stemmer's rifle, an ancient cap-and-ball affair with an overlong barrel bound in brass, abandoned in the weeds. Evidently they had taken it from him over the river and discarded it in favor of his brother's more modem weaponry. It had been fired.

  "Whoa, boy." Repeating it over and over soothingly, Fulwider worked his way toward the skittish horse. The animal tossed back its head and shied away. He stopped.

  A full moon had risen, throwing his shadow across the beast's forefeet. Snorting, it danced away from the long black thing that appeared to be reaching for it. The journalist noted this and circled around slowly until he was facing the moon. The horse pivoted to keep him in sight. He advanced with a nonchalant gait.

  When the distance closed to eight feet he leaped, grasping a double handful of mane. The animal whinnied and tried to rear, but he got a hand on the harness that secured the packs to its back and dug in his heels, releasing the other hand to stroke its long neck. They waltzed around like that for two or three minutes. At length the horse settled down, reacting to the gentle stroking. It blew out its nostrils contentedly.

  Fulwider untangled the leather halter and tethered the bay to a low bush. With shaking hands he opened the bundles and took out tin after tin of sardines and peaches, slabs of bacon and salt pork, sacks of coffee and boxes of matches.

  Immediately he unwound one of the sardine containers and scooped the oily fish into his mouth. Aaron Stemmer was forgotten. He opened three tins in all, ate what was inside and drank off the juice. It tasted even better than the stewed beef with a fancy French name he and his fellow reporters had consumed in Commodore Vanderbilt's kitchen while covering the 1873 crash.