by Ralph Cotton
Just in time. . . .
The wolf had dragged the Ranger to his knees, the rest of the pack ready to leap in, join the takedown and the kill. But now with the pack breaking and scurrying away from the bullets and exploding campfire, Sam managed to swing the Winchester around and lever it. As the wolf slung its head back and forth trying to get the Ranger flattened beneath him, Sam jammed the tip of the barrel into the animal’s lower guts and pulled the trigger.
The animal flew away, but he did not turn loose easily. The Ranger felt the skin and muscle atop his left shoulder rip as the fangs raked and sliced away from him. He swayed on his knees; this was no time to fall, he told himself. Shaking the pain and dizziness off, he struggled to rise, levering another round into the Winchester.
The pack had scurried away, yelping, their tails tucked, all except for three of them. These three were atop the roan, taking it down. The roan struggled down on its front knees, a wolf astraddle its neck, its fangs trying to take a hold there, but the horse’s thrashing head managing to dodge the fangs, for now. Another wolf snapped viciously at the horse’s exposed muzzle but hadn’t yet caught it. A third, younger wolf clung by its fangs to the horse’s front shoulder.
With all his strength, Sam drew the rifle around one-handed by its barrel and swung it, his left arm hanging at his side. The heavy rifle chamber hit the wolf at the base of his skull and sent him flying from the roan’s back. The roan, whinnying, snorting, threatening rose, still fighting for its life. Sam swung the rifle again at the young wolf on the horse’s front shoulder. But the animal saw what was coming, releasing its grip on the roan and darting away. Sam heard it yelp as a shot from Dawson’s pocket gun hit it in its rump.
The wolf at the roan’s front turned tail at the same time and disappeared in a flash of fur, paws and lowered head. Sam grabbed the roan’s rein. His right hand still holding the rifle, he gripped the rein and held firm, lest the horse in a panic run away along the same path as the wolves.
“Easy, easy . . . ,” Sam said, trying to hold the roan steady, offering his hand to its muzzle to calm it. But the roan was wild-eyed with fear and fury and would have none of it. The horse reared and twisted and kicked. Sam held firm and turned down Dawson’s offer to take the rein when Dawson stepped in beside him, the smoking pocket pistol in hand.
“I’ll take him, Ranger. You’re bleeding,” he said.
But Sam held on for a moment and felt the roan begin to settle. He let the horse cut back and forth, snort and blow and scrape a hoof as he looked it over. The roan was bleeding from claw and fang marks, but nothing that couldn’t be dressed and attended to, he told himself with relief.
“You’re bleeding, Ranger,” Dawson repeated, out of breath but sounding stronger, more confident than he had earlier.
Sam looked Dawson up and down.
“So are you, Dawson,” he said.
Dawson saw the questioning look and gave a thin smile.
“I dread a fight coming worse than anything,” he said. “But once it gets here and gets started, I’m into it up to my neck.”
“That’s good to know,” Sam said. “Because I’ve got a feeling they’ll be back most any time. I don’t think I saw the leader.”
“Let them come,” said Dawson. He raised his voice and called out into the storm, “I hope they do come back! We’ll be ready for them!”
He took the roan’s rein and helped the Ranger over to the fire and seated him. He looked at the wound and grimaced.
Sam took the roan’s rein in his right hand, his rifle across his lap.
“There’s no time to do anything but to wrap it good and tight,” he said to Dawson. “I want to be on my feet when they come back for the kill.”
“Maybe they learned their lesson,” Dawson said, carefully peeling the swallow-tailed coat back off Sam’s ripped shoulder, seeing exposed muscle and tendon.
“Maybe,” Sam said, looking at the wound with him, “but I’m not counting on it.”
Chapter 8
A new round of storms rolled past the hillside with the same hard-blown intensity as before. The outer edge of the cliff overhang lay draped behind a waterfall. Yet, seven feet behind the veil of runoff water, men and animal were dry and warm. With the fire fed and stoked a little brighter than it had been earlier, the Ranger sat with his ripped swallow-tailed coat and shirt off, lying on the ground beside him. The roan stood wearing a loop of rope from the Ranger’s wet saddle that Dawson had fashioned into a hackamore. Sam sat on the remaining coil of the rope while Dawson tore the sleeve off his bloody shirt and ripped it into strips for a bandage.
On either side of the ledge and on the hillside above them, the howling had begun again. Sam and the shotgun rider looked at each other with dread in their eyes.
“Sounds like I’d better hurry some,” Dawson said, even though he had been working quickly all along.
Sam nodded, his free hand over the broken Winchester across his lap. He turned his head sideways and looked down as the shotgun rider cupped his hand under a large flap of meat and carefully turned it over and smoothed it back into place atop the Ranger’s left shoulder.
“I hope I cleaned that good enough,” he murmured, second-guessing his medicals skills.
“So do I,” said the Ranger. He watched as Dawson picked up strip after strip of the torn shirtsleeve and circled them snugly under Sam’s armpit and up around his shoulder.
“I’m thinking if everything heals down into place, this is just as good as getting sewn up,” Dawson said. “What do you think?”
Sam just looked at him for a moment, realizing the shotgun rider had decided they weren’t going to come down from this hillside. Their bones, and the bones of the horse, would join the other bones he’d seen lying scattered along the inside of the ledge.
“I don’t have enough thread anyway,” Sam replied. “The drummer took it all.”
Dawson nodded and went back to bandaging.
“Just as well, then, I reckon,” he said.
A twisting bolt of lightning lit their stony lair; the roan flinched and nickered under its breath. Sam took his hand off the rifle and gripped the rope running beneath him, preparing for the coming clap of thunder. But the roan handled the thunder better than he had before, and Sam turned the rope loose and looked back at the bandaging going on.
“I’m out of bullets, you know,” Dawson said quietly as he worked.
“I figured you were,” Sam replied.
On either end of the ledge, the howling continued in spite of the storm.
Dawson shrugged and didn’t look up as he wrapped the last of the strips around the Ranger’s shoulder.
“It don’t matter, though,” he said. “I just don’t want to go down without making a good showing.” He paused, then added, “I expect no man does, huh?” As he asked he picked up the Ranger’s shirt—now a one-sleeved shirt—and held it down and open for the Ranger to slip his left arm into.
Sam didn’t answer. Instead he looked his bandaged shoulder over and carefully lifted his arm and slid it into the shirt. His hand was stiff and numb; a deep, dull pain radiated from his upper arm up into his neck. But both arm and hand were working.
Good enough for now, he thought.
“Did you and Long know the young dove?” he asked quietly, as if they had been discussing her all along.
Dawson, looping a length of cloth over Sam’s neck for a sling, stopped and gave him a quizzical look.
“I swear, Ranger,” he said. “At a time like this, whatever made you ask something like that?”
“Just curious,” Sam replied quietly, slipping his left arm into the sling. He gestured for the shotgun rider to hand him the swallow-tailed coat. “Did you, know her, that is?”
Dawson shook his head as he picked up the coat, holding the sleeve open for the Ranger’s right hand; he only draped it up ove
r his wounded left shoulder.
“Jenny Lynn?” He seemed to have to consider it first. “No, I can’t say I did.” He closed the coat enough to button one button in the middle.
“What about Long?” Sam asked.
“He didn’t either,” Dawson said. “Leastwise, if he did, he never let on like it.” He grinned and cut a glance toward Daniel Long’s gray-faced body leaning against the wall. Then he lowered his voice as if Long could hear him. “Dan’l ain’t a man who liked speaking much about his private goings-on.”
“I understand,” Sam said, listening, noting that the howling wolves had moved into a closer circle around them. Outside the overhang, the storm raged and flashed and pounded. What kind of wolves came out in this kind of weather? Sam considered the question while adjusting his coat. He placed his hand back on the shortened rifle. Loco lobos . . . He quoted a saying he’d heard an old Mexican mutter regarding the habits and peculiarities of the wily Sonoran Desert wolves.
“Mas loco lobos . . . ,” he repeated, murmuring in a trailing voice; and in spite of the howling and the hard passing storm, he closed his eyes for a moment and felt himself begin to drift.
Whoa! None of that, he scolded, throwing his eyes open quickly, looking all around.
“I was going to let you sleep awhile longer,” Dawson said beside him, feeding another piece of wood into the fire. “They’ve quit howling. I’ve heard no sound of them.”
Sam shook his head, confused.
“I’ve—I’ve been asleep?” he asked.
“Yep, nearly an hour,” Dawson said.
“I . . . didn’t mean to,” Sam said, trying to clear his mind.
“You might not have meant to,” said Dawson, “but you did all the same. I expect you must’ve needed it.”
Sam looked all around, noting an odd stillness to the night, the water from overhead no longer rushing down, only dripping steadily. The wind had died down, leaving only a light, falling rain—more of a mist. The roan stood over him, seeming more at ease as he looked up at it.
Taking the rope from under him, Sam handed it to Dawson and stood up stiffly.
“What about you?” he asked. “How long’s it been since you’ve slept?”
“Ha! I don’t do much sleeping, Ranger,” Dawson boasted. “I never did.” He held the roan’s rope and gestured out across the night. “Storm’s gone too. At least for now anyway . . . maybe for good,” he added hopefully.
“Maybe,” Sam said idly.
He walked close to the edge and looked out across the night. The sky still lay low and swollen, black and moonless overhead. The wind had turned to a barely noticeable breeze. In the distance, where the storm had moved off to, a low rumble of thunder threatened new terrain. Lightning flicked like dim candlelight.
“Figure we could make ourselves a run down from here come morning?” Dawson said.
“Yes,” Sam said, “wolves or no wolves.”
Winchester in hand, Sam looked down at the rolling flatlands below them. He saw only a gray shroud of fog banked and hanging in low spots between the lower hills.
“Now we’re talking,” Dawson said. He fished a railroad pocket watch from inside his trousers, slapped it on his palm and opened the case. He studied the round face of the watch in the firelight and said, “If the water didn’t ruin this thing, we’ve got near two hours before sunup.”
Sam looked at the ledge in each direction.
“I can’t figure what happened to those wolves,” he said, sounding concerned.
Dawson stepped closer, the roan right behind him. The horse pawed at the ground and chuffed, getting nervous again.
“Mas loco lobos,” Dawson said with a grin and a shrug. “Crazy wolves,” he translated, “like you kept whispering in your sleep.”
But Sam didn’t return the grin.
“It’s too quiet. I don’t trust it,” he said.
Dawson’s grin went away as suddenly as it appeared. The roan reared and whinnied loud.
“No, I don’t either!” he said in a hushed tone, holding on tight to the horse’s rope. He gestured a nod toward the ledge leading off to their left, where in the outer glow of the fire stood a large wolf staring at them from the turn in the path.
Sam swung the rifle up one-handed, cocking it.
The leader, or his second-in-command? The thought raced through his mind as the tip of his rifle followed the wolf, trying to get an aim at it, seeing it race straight for the roan as if he and Dawson weren’t even there. Then it was too late. The wolf was too close to the roan for him to take the shot.
Dawson had to give the roan slack. When he did, the roan took it. The horse reared high, wild-eyed, and came pawing down savagely at the wolf with a lot of fight in his blood. The Ranger saw it; at the same time he saw three more wolves slip into sight at a run, as silent as smoke, straight at him and Dawson.
His shot lifted one of the wolves off the stone path, sent it sprawling backward and off the ledge. The other two swerved around their fallen pack mate and kept coming. The Ranger levered the shortened rifle one-handed and fired again. One of the wolves rolled away. The other circled and ran back around the turn in the trail as if something had fouled their attack plan.
Sam turned quickly to help the roan. The horse, holding its own, swung around, kicking hard and fast, still holding the first wolf at bay. Sam saw his chance and shot the first wolf as it leaped up for the roan’s rump.
As he saw the wolf slam against the stone wall and fall, he turned stunned at the sound of rifle shots exploding from the other side of the overhang.
“What the hell!” Dawson shouted, turning with him. “Who’s out there?”
From the other side of the ledge, another shot exploded. A wolf rolled into sight in a spray of blood and slid pawing for its life off the rock ledge and into the bottomless darkness.
The two saw the blaring glow of a lantern coming into sight along the ledge path.
“Don’t shoot at us, Dawson!” a gruff voice shouted. “It’s me and Doc Simmons. We come to rescue you two stagecoach bummers!”
“Thank God,” Dawson murmured. “It’s all right, Ranger. Here’s our rescue party.”
Sam breathed in relief and turned his cocked rifle to the other side of the ledge path. Seeing no more wolves, he stood slumped and uncocked his Winchester as the lantern-bearer stepped into sight.
“Ranger,” said Dawson, “this is Clevo Strait.” To Strait he said, “Ain’t it just like you to show up once we got everything under control?”
Strait, a large full-bearded man in a set of wet buckskins behind an open rain slicker, looked Sam up and down in surprise. He held a smoking Spencer rifle over his right shoulder.
“I thought it was you and Long up here, needing help,” the man said, touching his hat brim toward the Ranger as he spoke to Dawson.
“It is,” said Dawson, “except Long is dead.” He gestured toward the body lying against the stone wall. “This is Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack.”
Strait looked first at Long’s gray-faced body in the shadowy glow of lantern light. He shook his head with regret, then turned to Sam.
“Howdy, Ranger,” he said, touching the brim of his wet hat respectfully.
Behind him, a younger man wearing a long frock coat and carrying a medical bag and a rifle walked into sight. He stared at Long’s body and also shook his head in regret. Then he noticed Dawson’s bloody feet, then Sam’s arm in the sling.
“I’m Dr. Simmons,” he said efficiently. “Who needs attending first?” He held on to his leather bag but slipped a haversack of supplies from his shoulders, dropped it at his feet and leaned a shiny new Winchester against it.
• • •
The night remained calmer save for the rumble of distant thunder and the diminishing sound of runoff water running down all around the hillside. Beneath the ove
rhang, the oil lantern glowed white-gold in the moonless night. The Ranger had turned down a bottle of rye whiskey Doc Simmons offered him. He sat sipping hot coffee made from the ground beans the young doctor took from a package inside his haversack while he treated the Ranger’s shoulder wound.
Dawson and Clevo Strait each ate from heated tins of beans taken from the same source, the two of them having taken position at either side of the campsite watching the ledge path in both directions. The roan stood to the side chewing and appearing to savor a handful of grain that Strait had poured on the ground for him.
Halfway through sewing the Ranger’s shredded shoulder back together, Doc Simmons looked over at Dawson taking a long swig of the rye, washing down a mouthful of warm beans.
“Almost finished here,” he said to Sam. He stared at Dawson from above his wire-rim spectacles. “If you’re going to change your mind about the whiskey, Ranger, you’d better not wait long. Dawson’s got the manners of a pig when it comes to rye.”
“I heard that, Doc,” Dawson called over to him. The doctor ignored him.
“I’m good, Doctor,” Sam said. “Beans and coffee was plenty for me.” An empty tin plate he’d eaten from lay beside the fire. The doctor looked at it and shook his head.
“I don’t know that I ever saw a man eat while I was still sewing him up,” he said. As he spoke, he ran the half-circle needle through the Ranger’s flesh and made another stitch. Sam clenched his teeth but otherwise ignored the pain.
“The Ranger don’t fool around, Doc,” Dawson said, the bottle standing on a rock beside him while he spooned more beans. “I’ve learned that about him.”
“How long on this wound, Doctor?” Sam asked, glancing down at his shoulder while the doctor drew the thread snug and began looping it with the point of the needle, tying it off.
“Three or four days you’ll be using your arm without it feeling like it’s on fire,” the doctor said. “It’ll have to heal awhile longer, but you’ll be able to use it well enough.” He clipped the thread and prepared it for another stitch, his fingertips bloodred to his second knuckles.
