Spirit of the Wolf

by Loree Lough

  Purdy perched on the edge of the arm chair across from her. “One, thank you kindly, ma’am.”

  A lone sugar cube landed in the bottom of the cup with a tiny clink, and an instant later was drowned in steamy, rusty-brown liquid. “Cream?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Relax, Mr. Purdy,” she said as the barest hint of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth, “Despite what I’m sure you’ve heard about me, I don’t bite…,” she said, grinning, “…unless provoked.”

  He returned the smile, and with trembling hands, accepted the cup. “Ma’am, if I ain’t learned nothin’ else in life, it’s that nobody is what they seem to be.”

  Balancing the delicate china on her knee, the widow took a deep, shaky breath. She stared off into space, eyes vacant, as if remembering the moment when they told her that her husband was dead. “It was his eyes, I think, that made it easy to believe that young man had…that he’d….” The widow cleared her throat. “So Pastor Atwood did it, you say?”

  “No, ma’am. Ain’t me who says it. It’s W.C.‘s uncle, who says it. And if you don’t believe me, you can ask him yourself.” He gave a short, nervous laugh. “Smitty’s got him locked up good an’ tight down at the jail.”

  Daintily, Mrs. Pickett leaned forward and placed her cup and saucer on the gilded silver tray. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Purdy.” Closing her eyes for a moment, she shook her head. “Now then, do tell me how Mr. Atwood claims this so-called ‘accident’ happened.”

  Purdy put his cup down, too. “You sure you’re strong enough to hear?”

  She sat up taller. “Mr. Purdy, my size and stature may make me appear weak and frail, but as you so astutely pointed out, appearances are deceiving.”

  “Well, it’s just that according to the preacher, Mr. Pickett wasn’t entirely blameless….”

  Shaking her head, she sent him a hard glare. “My husband and I had been together nearly thirty years when he was killed. I know what sort of man he was better than anyone in this town.” She leveled Purdy with a glare. “Now tell me what you know, or leave me in peace.”

  “All right, then.” Purdy coughed, and plunged in. “The preacher said he’d heard W.C. give your husband a dressing down for scarin’ Francine. Said he heard W.C. issue a threat of his own: ‘If I ever hear-tell of you threatening a woman again, I’ll break your fat red neck.’” Purdy shrugged. “Well, that very night, the preacher and Mr. Pickett were, ah, well, let’s just say they were in the same place at the same time when the preacher heard your husband threaten…let’s just say he threatened another woman.”

  “You needn’t fancy it up for me, Mr. Purdy. He was with a prostitute.” Frowning, she stared at her hands, folded primly in her lap. “Wasn’t he?”

  The carriage clock on the mantle ticked five times before he said, “All I know for sure, ma’am, is that he was out back of the saloon when the preacher saw him.”

  Tears misted in her eyes and she managed a small smile. “You’re very kind to try and protect me from the truth. But the fact is, we’ve been constant companions, Truth and I, from the moment I said ‘I do’ to that horrible man. Now please, do go on….”

  He shook his head. “Well, the ladies, they—“

  “Ladies?” she interrupted, accenting the plural. “You don’t mean to say that the pastor was with one of those…that he’d been…upstairs the saloon, too?”

  “Like I said, ma’am, all I know for sure is the two of ‘em were out back, in the alley. What went on before they got there, I can’t say for sure. But the preacher claims he saw Mr. Pickett slappin’ the woman around, says he saw him shove her to the ground. Says she’d hit her head, that she was crying and bleeding when he stepped in to put a stop to the beating.” Purdy hesitated. “Guess it went pretty quick from a shoving match to a fistfight….”

  He took a deep breath before going on. “I reckon you know that the preacher wasn’t just younger than your husband. He was bigger and stronger, too.” Another shrug. “Preacher says he gave your husband a good sock in the jaw, hoping to knock him out, so’s he could get the girls out of the alley and back upstairs, where they belonged. Only…only he hit him harder than he intended and….”

  “…and when Horace fell,” the widow inserted, “he broke his fat red neck.”

  Purdy nodded slowly. “Yes’m. Least, that’s how the preacher tells it.”

  She tidied the folds of her skirt, tucked a wayward tendril of white hair back into the severe bun at the nape of her neck. “Then it happened just that way. I’m certain of it.”

  And then the widow was on her feet, pacing back and forth in front of the marble fireplace. “That poor young man,” she said from behind her hands. “Ten years on the run, and his own uncle, not only the accuser, but the killer!” She stopped so abruptly that her skirt whirled around her ankles. “But the pocket watch. The boy had Horace’s watch in his possession when—”

  “Don’t rightly know how W.C. came by the watch they found on him, Mrs. Pickett, but it weren’t your husband’s. That much is for sure.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because tonight, when me an’ the preacher were goin’ at it in the alley, a watch fell out of his pocket. It belonged to your husband. Atwood, he’s had it all this time.”

  Eyes wide, she folded her hands beneath her chin. “But…but how can you be sure it’s Horace’s watch?”

  “From the inscription under the lid.” He scratched his bristled chin and frowned hard. “If memory serves, it went something like ‘from this day forth, my husband, my own’.”

  Fingertips pressed to her lips, the widow Pickett slumped into the nearest chair. “Dear Lord in heaven, I’m almost as much to blame for that poor boy’s fate as the pastor is,” she whispered, shaking her head. “It never occurred to me to tell them to look inside the watch, because those eyes of his….”

  “W.C. led a hard life, Miz Pickett, and it turned him hard long before that night.”

  “Yes, yes, I know…lost his parents in that horrible fire, and went to live with the pastor and his wife….” On her feet again, the widow resumed her pacing. “The watch! I remember someone telling me they’d need it for the trial…as evidence, you know? But afterward,” she said, more to herself than to Purdy, “when I asked the sheriff if I could have it back, he said he’d given it to the boy, as a cruel joke, when they locked him into the jailer’s wagon. Naturally I assumed….” With trembling hands, she lifted the teacup, took a sip, then returned it to its saucer with a clatter. “If only I knew how to get in touch with him, I could—“

  “I know where he is, ma’am.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been gettin’ telegrams from nearly every city he’s been in since leavin’ here.”

  “And you never let on?” She shook her head again. “If you don’t mind my asking, Mr. Purdy, if you were so close to the boy, why didn’t you speak out on his behalf? Why didn’t you tell them what you knew?”

  Purdy got to his feet and faced her. “I tried, ma’am. I told ‘em W.C. couldn’t have killed your husband. I told ‘em all about the things that boy had done for me…the clean clothes he brought me, the warm meals he’d sneak—“ Frowning, he shook his head sadly. “Name one person in this town who pays me any mind, ‘ceptin’ as the town drunk.”

  The widow merely stared at him for what seemed a full minute, her silent appraisal causing him to shift from one crumpled boot to the other.

  She nodded, then walked purposefully toward the foyer and took her shawl from a peg on the wall. “Mr. Purdy, will you kindly escort me to the telegraph office?” she asked, draping it over her narrow shoulders.

  Purdy started for the door. “Be happy to, ma’am. But I don’t get it. What’re you plannin’—”

  She jerked the door open and stepped aside, one hand inviting Purdy to exit, quickly. “What I’m planning,” she announced, offering him her elbow, “is to send that poor young man a message. I want to be the
one who tells him that his name has been cleared, that he’s welcome to come home…if he still considers Lubbock home, that is.” Purdy took her arm and as they began marching up the street, she added, “And you, sir, are going to tell me where to send it!”

  Chapter Twenty

  It had been a long, hard ride, a fact that surprised Chance more than he cared to admit. He’d crossed Arizona’s Yuma Desert before, had learned the hard way how to prepare for such a trip: Plenty of water and jerky, saddlebags of grain for Mamie….

  Strange things could happen in the desert if a man didn’t plan well, things that could cost him his life. And so Chance ate sparingly of the jerky, sipped cautiously from the lip of the canteen, carefully meted out Mamie’s grain. Consequently, he stayed hungry and thirsty from the moment Mamie first stepped onto the endless sea of sand.

  The hunger burning in him had little to do an empty stomach. He missed Bess more now than he had in those first days, when the sheriff and the ex-deputy were hot on his heels. He’d led them on a dizzying chase, hoping to confuse them as he zig-zagged across the country. The idea was, wear them out and frustrate them, make them think they’d done him in at long last, so that they could go home with a victorious tale to tell, and he could head east, to Foggy Bottom…

  …to Bess….

  Obviously, he’d done something right, for he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of them in months. Still, he couldn’t be too careful…or too patient. Last thing he wanted was to lead them right back to Foggy Bottom and endanger the only real family he’d known since boyhood.

  Mamie, head low and ears back, sauntered along at a slow, rolling pace. The soft thud-thud of hooves beating sand lulled him into a drowsy dream-state, and he closed his eyes, more to conjure an image of Bess than to block out the unrelenting rays of the noonday sun.

  Hot white fear made him snap them open again. “I can’t see her,” he whispered past parched lips. “I’ve been gone so long, I can’t even get a picture of her in my mind anymore!”

  The admission ached inside him, doubling him over the saddle horn. She’d been the sole reason for his dogged determination to outrun Carter and Yonker. She’d been his incentive to keep going when winds howled and rains pelted and snow threatened to bury his last shred of hope. If he couldn’t even see her….

  He sat up, closed his eyes again and clenched his teeth, intent upon conjuring the image of her dark eyes, her sweet lips her creamy white skin.

  But it was no use.

  Try as he might, he couldn’t summon her to memory.

  If he couldn’t call her image to mind when there was nothing but the occasional scorpion and cactus out here to occupy his mind, what must Bess see?

  “She’s moved on,” he said to himself. “And why shouldn’t she? Didn’t you tell her that if love came knockin’, she oughta answer?”

  Chance hung his head in sorrow as the agony of it welled up inside him. True enough, he’d written those words. But somewhere deep inside him, he’d hoped she wouldn’t listen, that she’d wait for him.

  “Bess…ah my sweet, sweet Bess….”

  Chance knew that she deserved a life free from worry and fear, deserved to share it with a man who’d give her a home, and children, and—

  “She deserves better than the likes of you, W.C. Atwood!”

  His heartwrenching bellow stopped Mamie in her tracks, and was quickly swallowed up by the dry grit and the sun-baked desert air.

  He gave the horse a soothing pat. “Sorry, girl,” he said, “didn’t mean to scare you….”

  Chance climbed out of the saddle, dug around in his ruck sack. As Mamie nibbled oats from his cupped palm, Chance uncorked the canteen and tilted his head back and drank his fill. When his thirst was quenched, he dug a small metal bowl out of the pack, filled it with warm water, and let Mamie have a turn. She lapped greedily, nudging him for more when the bowl was empty.

  “Don’t you fret, girl,” he said, stroking her forehead. “Pretty son now, I’ll see to it you get a proper meal and a good brushing, and all the water your belly can hold.”

  After recapping the canteen, he stowed the bowl and hoisted himself back into the saddle. “If we ride straight through and don’t pamper ourselves,” he said, patting the horse’s right shoulder, “we’ll be in Lubbock this time next week.”

  It was as though the horse understood, and agreed with his plan, for she stepped up her pace and continued due east.

  “Easy, girl,” he advised, “it’s a long, long way to Texas from here. We’ve got to go sure ‘n’ steady if we want to make it alive.”

  Not that it mattered, because once they got there….

  Mamie dutifully slowed her pace. As they plodded along, he closed his eyes again, and this time, he saw Bess’s big eyes and sweet smile. Experience had taught Chance that if he let himself, he could hear the lyrical notes of her laughter, feel the softness of her kisses and the tenderness of her touch, too.

  He opened his eyes and focused on the drifting mounds of never-ending sand. “No point torturing yourself, man,” he said. “She’s replaced you.”

  With a decisive nod, he pulled the brim of his hat lower on his forehead and squared his jaw. “You’re plumb loco,” he said. “How else do you explain that you’ve been talkin’ to yourself for the last hundred miles!”

  Some other time, he might have chuckled at the confession. Some other place, the acknowledgment might have coaxed a grin, at least.

  But he was alone, again, and that’s the way he’d end his days.

  Chance took a deep breath and sat up straighter. Soon, he’d ride into Lubbock and hand himself over to the sheriff.

  Because even the hangman’s noose was an easier fate to face than a lifetime without Bess.

  ***

  Bess sat on the front porch and listened to the distant wail of the lone wolf. There was a chill in the air, and she acknowledged sadly that soon, the bright-blinking golden light of fireflies that lit the night would be dimmed by winter’s determined approach.

  Another season without Chance, she thought, hugging the small bundle in her arms.

  A year ago, her father and brothers had said she should give up hoping Chance would ever return. But a lot had happened in a year….

  She’d known the moment she caught sight of Micah’s dour expression when he returned late that afternoon that he’d brought home more than a supply of flour and corn meal. Without even bothering to unload the wagon, he’d trudged up the walk and handed her the envelope that bore the name W.C. Atwood.

  “I can’t open this, Pa,” she’d protested. “It’s addressed to Chance.”

  “You’re his wife in every way but one,” he’d barked. “Open it!”

  As she did, he’d added in a low growl, “If I knew for sure where he was, I’d hang him myself for leaving you the way he did.”

  Hands trembling, Bess had slumped onto the parlor sofa and unfolded the telegram:

  W.C., it said, PICKETT’S KILLER BEHIND BARS. And it was signed JOE PURDY.

  The dispatch had provided Bess with the first tangible hope she’d had in many, many months…hope that Chance was all right…hope that he’d come back to her.

  She left first thing next morning to send a telegram of her own, care of Lubbock’s sheriff. Certain that Chance would be back in Texas by then, she watched as Stoney Frasier click-click-clicked the simple message that would vibrate through the wires between Baltimore and Lubbock—the only connection between her and Chance:

  COME HOME SOON. STOP. SOMEONE I WANT YOU TO MEET.

  That evening, and every evening since, she’d sat in this very spot, watching the horizon. At first, she watched for Stoney’s son to ride up on his dapple gray to deliver Chance’s reply. When weeks passed with no sign of the boy, she began watching for Chance himself, thinking, hoping he’d decided to tell her in person what he might have said in a telegram.

  More than a whole lonely year had passed since she got word that Chance had cleared his name and found
his elusive freedom, yet she continued to sit in the big rocker every sunset, staring at the horizon. What choice did she have but to believe that one day soon, his silhouette—tall and proud and unfettered by the chains of his past—would appear in the distance. She pictured their loving, joyous reunion, imagined his jubilation at learning that he had a daughter.

  They’d plan a wedding, a party afterward to celebrate their union, then maybe build a little cottage in the clearing beyond the manor house. He’d tell her every detail of his life…including what the initials in his name stood for….

  Bess’s shining dreams dulled a bit with each day that passed without word from him. A week ago, on a night very much like this one, she admitted the awful truth:

  She would never see him again.

  Still, something drove her to the front porch rocker every day. Perhaps her father was right. Maybe she was just torturing herself, sitting here, looking for what would never arrive. But what choice did she have?

  The baby squirmed, reached a tiny, pudgy-pink hand toward her mother’s doting face.

  Smiling past her tears, Bess tenderly hugged her three-month old daughter. “Maybe your daddy isn’t coming back,” she whispered, kissing the baby’s cheek, “but I’ll see him every day of my life…in your beautiful ice-blue eyes….”

  ***

  Chance led Mamie down the center of the gritty road at a slow, even pace. He hadn’t known what to expect, exactly, but it surprised him how little the town had changed.

  The tidy row of buildings that ran down the center of Lubbock had been given a fresh coat of paint. There was a new sign on the feed and grain, the bank had changed names, and the old hotel was a restaurant now.

  But music and laughter still filtered from the saloon, the steady sound of hammer meeting iron still rang from the blacksmith’s shop. And the weathered rocker still sat on the porch of the Lubbock Sheriff’s Office.

  Chance headed for the livery stable, intent upon taking care of first things first.