“Dunno,” Jesse said, “but he did.”
“He came into the corral, probably got hit here,” Clint said. “His rifle went flying. He never had a chance.”
“The wolf musta hit him so fast,” Evie said.
“Wolves are fast, all right,” Jesse said.
They all stood there a few moments, then Clint got out of the corral.
“Okay,” Jesse said, “where did the sheriff get it?”
“I’ll show you,” Thompson said.
They mounted up again.
“Where is it?” Jesse asked as they started off.
“The other side of town.”
“Not near here?”
“No.”
“That far away? You sure it was the same wolf?”
“Well, no,” Thompson said, “we ain’t dead sure it was the same wolf.”
“How do we know it was a white wolf that killed both men?” Jesse asked.
“Well, somebody saw a white wolf around Lou’s place,” Thompson said.
“What about where the sheriff was killed?” Jesse asked.
“Dunno.”
“What was the sheriff doin’ when he got killed?” Jesse asked.
“He was just ridin’,” Thompson said. “Comin’ back to town from one of the ranches.”
“He wasn’t huntin’ the wolf?” Jesse asked.
“Nope. Sheriff weren’t no hunter. He also wasn’t much of a sheriff.”
“What’s the deputy like?” Clint asked. “We haven’t talked to him yet.”
“He’s just a kid,” Thompson said. “They’re gonna have to appoint a sheriff real soon.”
“How far is this place?” Jesse asked.
“Other side of town, I said,” Thompson replied. “If we go around town and not through it’ll take about an hour.”
“Still,” Jesse said, “let’s go around. I wanna get the lay of the land.”
“Around it is,” Clint said. “Lead the way, Lee.”
TWENTY-NINE
“What are they doin’?” Willis complained. He hated the cold.
“I heard in town,” Cole said. “Two men were killed by a wolf. One of them musta lived here.”
“And the other one?”
“I guess that’s where they’re goin’ now.”
“Great,” Willis said. “Why don’t we just shoot them now and be done with it?”
“Because if the other two are just scouts, they’ll be gone soon.”
“Then we can take the other two.”
Cole looked at Willis.
“When I say so.”
Willis shook his head, but kept quiet. He didn’t really understand why Cole was going through all this trouble, and Jesse Trapp wasn’t even the man who’d actually killed his brothers. But he’d go along because he said he would.
And because he was afraid of Cole West.
“Here,” Thompson said. He looked around, then nodded.
“Yeah, here.”
“You sure?” Jesse asked.
“I think so.”
“It don’t look right,” Jesse said.
“Why not?” Evie asked.
“We’re on the road,” Jesse said. “What’s a wolf doin’ attackin’ a man on the road?”
“Or on his own property, for that matter,” Clint added.
“Yeah, right,” Jesse said. “This wolf don’t seem to be like no other wolf.”
“Well,” Evie said, “it’s white,” as if that explained it all.
They all looked at her.
“Well, ain’t white wolves different?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Jesse said, “they’re different . . . but this one is too different. I don’t like it.” He looked at Lee Thompson. “Where was the sheriff’s horse? Did the wolf get away?”
“Yeah, it came back to town without him, which is why folks went lookin’ for him.”
“And where’d they find him?”
“Way I heard it, they found him in the road,” Thompson said.
“You didn’t see ’im?”
“No, I didn’t see the sheriff,” Thompson said, “but I heard they found him in the road with his throat tore out.”
Jesse got down and walked the ground, staring intently. Clint couldn’t see anything, but he knew that didn’t mean a thing. He was good at reading signs, but he wasn’t in Jesse Trapp’s class.
“It hasn’t been back since the snow fell,” he announced, mounting up again.
“So what do we do?” Evie asked.
Jesse looked at Clint.
“I don’t like that it killed two men so far apart,” he said. “I’m thinkin’ we might have more than one wolf—which really makes more sense. They usually do hunt in packs.”
“Jesus, if there’s more than one, the town is gonna panic—” Thompson started.
“We don’t say anything about this,” Clint said. “It’s only a theory. There’s no use panicking the town. Understood?”
“Sure,” Thompson said.
“I understand,” Evie said.
“Good.”
“No point in us goin’ back to town,” Jesse said. “We’ll start from here.”
“Lee,” Clint said, “you can go back. Tell your boss what’s going on, but don’t talk to anyone else.”
“I won’t. What about her?”
“Evie’s stayin’ with us,” Jesse said. “We can use somebody who knows the area.”
Thompson shrugged as if he didn’t care. “When will you be back?” he asked. “My boss is gonna wanna know.”
“We won’t be back in,” Jesse said, “until we done what we came to do.”
Thompson nodded again, said, “Good luck,” then turned his horse and rode back toward town.
“We got enough supplies for that?” Evie asked Jesse.
It was Clint who answered her. “We do if you don’t eat again like you did this morning,” he said.
“Don’t worry ’bout me,” she said. “I can make do on coffee and jerky.”
“We’ll do a little better than that,” Jesse said, “but not much.”
“They’re riding across,” Cole said, “making it easier to track.”
Willis seemed uninterested.
“And look.”
“What?” Willis asked.
“There’s only three now.”
“So one of them went back to town,” Willis said. “Now it’s four to three.”
“Unless the girl is still with them, acting as a guide,” Cole said. “Then it’s four to two.”
“Unless she’s Annie Oakley,” Willis said.
“What are the chances of that?” Cole said.
Willis remained silent.
“Hold up,” Cole said, reining in.
“What?” Willis asked.
“Well, look.” He pointed down.
Willis looked.
“I don’t see—”
“The wolf track,” Cole said.
“Oh.” Willis said. “So they found it and are trackin’ it?”
“No, look at it,” Cole said. “It’s behind them. The wolf is trackin’ them!”
THIRTY
“Maybe we should’ve kept Mr. Thompson,” Jesse said sometime later.
“Why’s that?” Clint asked.
“Then we could have had two of us look around here, and two look around at that ranch, where the first man got killed.”
“This is where the second kill took place,” Evie said. “Ain’t that better? To start here, I mean?”
“Yeah,” Jesse said, “if there’s only one wolf.”
“I hope there’s only one,” Clint said.
They rode three abreast, with Evie in between them.
“I don’t,” Jesse said.
“Why?” Evie asked.
“Because they usually hunt in packs,” Jesse said. “A lone wolf . . . well, that’s different.”
“But a white—”
“I know, I know,” Jesse said, “a white’s different, anyway. But go
t to remember, a white is still a gray.”
“So?” she asked.
“It should still be with a pack. Unless . . .”
“Unless what?” Clint asked.
“Unless its pack is gone, or dead. Or it could have a mate and some pups in the area. Maybe it’s protectin’ them.”
“They’d be in a cave somewhere, right?” Clint asked.
“Probably.”
“Where are there some caves around here, Evie?” Clint asked.
“North of here,” she said, pointing.
“Take us there,” Jesse said. “Likely be a cave it’d be takin’ refuge in, anyway.”
“Okay,” she said, “this way.”
“Up there,” she said, sometime later, pointing.
“Leave the horses here,” Jesse said. “Let’s go and look for some tracks.”
They all dismounted. Jesse and Evie tied their horses loosely, Clint not at all. If there was a wolf around, he wanted Eclipse to be able to run—or fight.
They walked up the slope toward the caves.
“Stop!” Jesse said.
They did.
“Look.”
Clint and Evie both saw what he was pointing at: wolf tracks in the fresh snow.
“This is too easy,” Jesse said.
“Nobody else came to look in the caves,” Evie told him. “Ever.”
Jesse looked at Clint.
“Not everybody knows about wolves and caves,” Clint said.
“Maybe not . . .”
“I notice somethin’ else,” Evie said.
“Oh yeah?” Jesse asked. “What’s that, little lady?”
“These tracks come out,” she said, “but there are none goin’ back in.”
“That’s real good.”
“So it came out after last night’s snow,” Clint said, “and hasn’t been back in, yet.”
“It’s out there,” Jesse said, “somewhere.”
At that moment they heard shots.
“What the—” Evie said.
“Where’s that comin’ from?” Jesse asked.
“Not from near here,” Clint said.
“How can you tell?” Evie asked.
“We’re not hearing shots,” Clint said. “We’re hearing the echo of shots.”
When they heard the shots, the men turned in their saddles to look behind them.
“Damn,” Willis said. “What the hell?”
“That ain’t far behind us,” Cole said. “Come on.”
They turned their horses and rode back the way they had come.
Cole and Willis rode into a clearing and stopped short.
“Jesus Christ,” Willis said.
The snow in the entire clearing was red with blood. And lying there with their throats torn out were Shoemaker and Truett.
“A wolf did this?” Willis asked.
Cole looked around for their horses, but the animals must have run off in panic, maybe with the wolf in pursuit.
“We gotta find their horses,” Cole said. “We’re gonna need those supplies.”
“Supplies?” Willis asked. “They’re dead, Cole.”
“I can see that, Dave.”
“We gotta get out of here.”
“I ain’t leavin’ until Trapp is dead,” Cole said. “And if you try to leave, Dave, I’ll kill you. So you and me are gonna go and look for those horses.”
“What about them?” Willis asked. “Don’t we gotta bury them?”
“No,” Cole said. “I ain’t gonna be caught on the ground by that wolf. Now let’s go.”
Willis thought Cole had a point. Being on the ground wasn’t a good idea. He wondered if Shoe and Truett had been on the ground, or if the wolf had somehow taken them out of their saddles.
Just the thought of that was scary.
They listened, but there were no more shots—or echoes of shots.
“Could be anything,” Clint said.
“Hunters,” Evie said.
“I said nobody was to come out lookin’ for that wolf while we was out here,” Jesse said.
“Maybe,” Clint said, “they’ll panic and end up killing each other.”
“I hope so,” Jesse said. “Better than havin’ some amateur kill us.”
THIRTY-ONE
They walked around in front of the caves for a few minutes, each in a different direction until Jesse called out.
Clint and Evie ran to join him.
“There,” he said.
“Wolf tracks, coming out, but not going back in.”
“We know that,” Clint said.
“No, look closer,” Jesse said.
They did.
Clint shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“I do,” Evie said.
Both men looked at her.
“That’s a second wolf,” she said. “The tracks are slightly different.”
“Good,” Jesse said, impressed.
“They’re a little smaller,” she added.
“True,” Jesse said.
“A female?” Clint asked.
“Could be two males,” Jesse said, “one full-grown, one not.”
“How do we tell?” Clint asked.
“That part’s easy,” Jesse said. “We find ’em.”
“What’s the hard part?”
“Killin’ them before they kill us.”
“I’m gonna go into the cave,” Jesse said, taking his Big Fifty from his saddle.
“Why?” Evie said. “They’re out here.”
“There might be cubs inside.”
“And if there is?” she asked.
“I’ll kill ’em.”
“What?”
“We can’t just wait for them to grow up and then kill’em,” he said.
“But . . . they’re babies.”
“They’re wolves,” he said.
“Clint?”
“Don’t look at me,” Clint said. “He’s the hunter. What he says goes.”
“Can I go in with you?” she asked Jesse.
“What for?”
“If there are cubs, I wanna see ’em.”
“Why? That’ll just make it worse for you when I kill’em,” he said. “Or do you think if you go with me you can keep me from killin’ them?”
“I—well, no—”
“Because you won’t,” Jesse said. “This is my job. And if you’re a hunter, it’s yours, too.”
“Well—”
“In fact, you know what? You can come with me. And if we find the cubs, you can kill ’em.”
“No,” she said, “I don’t think—I better stay out here with Clint and watch his back. He’ll be all exposed out here.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Jesse said, as if he hadn’t thought of that. “Okay, so you stay outside, while I go in.”
“Okay.”
Jesse approached the slope.
“You want me to go to the mouth of the cave with you?” Clint asked.
“No,” Jesse said, “just find a good-size branch and make me a torch.”
“Be good if we had some lamp oil.”
“On the mule,” Jesse said.
Clint found a thick-enough branch and the oil, pulled a shirt out of his own saddlebags, and wrapped it around the branch. Then he doused it with oil and carried it back to Jesse.
“Here,” Clint said, “and take these.” He gave Jesse a few lucifer matches.
“Thanks. I’ll be out pretty quick if there’s nothin’ in there. If I find cubs you’ll hear my pistol, not the Sharps.”
“Okay.”
“The Big Fifty would make a mess of a wolf pup,” he said.
“Jesus,” Evie said.
Jesse hefted his torch and his rifle and worked his way up the slope.
“So what do we do now?” Evie asked Clint.
“Let’s wait by the horses,” Clint said, “just in case.”
“In case what?”
“In case a bunch of wolves come pouring out of that cave.”
&nb
sp; “You think there might be a pack in here?”
“No,” he said, “I just want to make sure the horses, and the mule, don’t go anywhere. Come on.”
THIRTY-TWO
Cole and Willis found one of the horses, and were able to salvage some of the supplies, including the coffee and beef jerky. The pot was already in Cole’s saddlebag.
“Now what?” Willis asked.
“We’ve got to get back on Trapp’s trail,” Cole said.
“Cole, maybe we should go back.”
“No!” Cole said. “I’ve come this far, I ain’t givin’ up now.”
“We could get help—”
“We don’t need help,” Cole said.
“But there’s wolves out here!”
Cole drew his gun.
“You wanna take a chance with wolves or a bullet from my gun?”
“Okay, okay, take it easy,” Willis said. “Put the gun away. I’m with you.”
Cole holstered the gun and said, “Then let’s get goin’.”
“Can we go around that clearing?” Willis asked. “I don’t wanna see all that blood again.”
“Sure,” Cole said, “we’ll go around.”
Cole and Willis picked up the trail again, even after going around the bloody clearing. They followed it, Cole keeping aware so that they wouldn’t accidentally just ride up on Adams and Trapp.
“Is that wolf still followin’ them, too?” Willis asked.
“Looks like it.”
“Jesus . . .”
“Don’t worry about it,” Cole said. “They’re all in front of us.”
“Yeah, sure . . .” Willis said, looking around nervously.
Cole had to admit he was a little nervous, himself. He was ready to deal with Jesse Trapp or the Gunsmith, but some bloodthirsty wolf was another story. The animal must have moved incredibly fast to take both Shoemaker and Truett with only a few shots fired. Maybe they’d wounded it, but he hoped not. He’d heard all the stories about how much more dangerous animals were when they were injured.
Maybe Trapp would do his job and take care of the wolf before they took care of Trapp.
Clint and Evie watched as Jesse went up the slope to the mouth of the cave, paused to light his torch, and then went inside.
Hunt for the White Wolf Page 8
