A Wolf in the Fold

by Ralph Compton

  An hour became two and the two hours became three, yet I saw no sign of my quarry. They might ride all night. But that was fine. I would do the same, and with two horses, I could cover the same ground much more swiftly. I was sure that by daylight the long chase would be over.

  Along about midnight I reined up to switch mounts yet again. I tugged on the lead rope and Brisco came obediently up next to the mare. Without dismounting, I switched from the mare to Brisco, careful not to use my left arm more than I had to. I then switched the lead rope to the mare and was ready to go. But as I raised Brisco’s reins, I spied a tiny point of flickering light perhaps a mile off across the prairie.

  My breath caught in my throat. It was a campfire. It could belong to anyone, but I knew whose it was.

  “They’re mine!” I cried, and pricked Brisco with my spurs.

  The next half a mile was a blur. I looked neither right nor left but only at the point of light, which grew slowly but steadily bigger. I came to my senses when I realized they would hear me if I went any closer on horseback. I used picket pins to ensure Brisco and the mare would not wander off.

  The Winchester in the crook of my left arm so I was free to draw the Remington with my right if I had to, I crept through the tall grass. My senses were more alert than I ever remembered them being. I could not account for it and did not try.

  I slowed to a turtle’s pace. A stand of cotton-woods hove out of the night. The pair were camped close to the trees but not in them, which was strange given the trees offered better cover.

  A black hat and vest and an ivory-handled Smith & Wesson left no doubt as to the identity of the figure seated by the fire. Nearby, a second form was curled under a blanket.

  Bart Seton was having trouble staying awake. Twice he closed his eyes and his chin dipped, but each time he snapped his head up and shook it to break free. He was facing the northwest, the direction I had come from.

  I circled around behind them. Their horses were too exhausted to do more than flick their ears. I fixed a bead on the center of Seton’s back, but I did not shoot. He must not die quickly or easily. He must suffer, and suffer gloriously.

  I glanced at the form under the blanket. It was up over Gertrude’s head, probably so the firelight did not keep her awake.

  If it is possible to drool with anticipation at killing someone, I did. In this instance, two someones.

  Bart Seton placed his rifle on the ground and reached for the coffeepot. I waited until his fingers closed on the handle. He never heard me. So much for his reputation. I touched the Winchester’s muzzle to the nape of his neck and said quietly, “So much as twitch and you’re dead.”

  Some men would have jumped up anyway, or gone for their revolver. All Seton did was tense slightly. “Well, well, if it isn’t the famous Lucius Stark. Looks like you’ve caught me with my britches down.”

  “It wasn’t hard,” I bragged. In fact, it had been too damn easy. Nor did I like how calm he was.

  “So what’s it to be?” Seton taunted. “A slug in the head?”

  “You wish.” I glanced at Gertrude, but she had not stirred. “Shed your revolver and hold your arms out from your sides.”

  “I don’t believe I will.”

  I came within a whisker of blowing out his wick then and there. “You’ll do it or I’ll shoot you in the knee.” That should cause enough agony to last a good long while.

  Bart Seton swiveled his head to look at me with what I could describe only as contempt. “How you have lasted so long is beyond me. Did you think we would just roll over and die?”

  With abrupt clarity I saw it all: that he was calm for a reason, that the bulges under the blanket were not those of a person, and that I was the world’s worst jackass. I whirled, but I was not quite around when thunder boomed and leaden lightning struck me high in my left arm. The Winchester fell and so did I, to my knees. I did not draw my Remington. Not when I was staring up into the shadowy barrel of another Winchester in the hands of Gertrude Tanner.

  “Finish the buzzard off!” Bart Seton urged her.

  Gertrude stepped fully into the light, her harpy features aglow with wicked delight. People say I am vicious, but she was every bit as unregenerate, which made it doubly unsettling, her being female and all. Baring her teeth like a she-wolf that had caught a bobcat sniffing about her den, she paid me the supreme insult. “I didn’t think it would be this easy.”

  Between the old wound under my collarbone and the new wound in my arm, my left side was worthless. The arm was half numb. I suspected the bone had been shattered. I flexed my fingers, or tried to, and nearly passed out.

  “Why you let him spook you is beyond me.” Bart Seton was beside her. Stooping, he relieved me of the Remington. “All the damn running we did, and for what? I could have taken him anytime.”

  “Don’t use that tone with me,” Gertrude said. “He’s not to be taken lightly.”

  “Sure, sugar, sure.” Sneering at me, Seton hefted my revolver. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not impressed.”

  I was unprepared for the blow. He slammed the barrel against my temple and the world faded to black. How long I was out I couldn’t say, but I came to with water falling on my face. Sputtering, I struggled to sit up and managed to rise onto my right elbow.

  “That’s enough,” Gertrude said.

  Turning the canteen, Bart Seton scowled and said, “You keep spoiling my fun, sugar. I don’t like it when you do that.”

  “How many times have I told you not to call me your damned sugar?” Gertrude snapped without taking her eyes off me. “Keep it up and I will be inclined to dispense with your services.” She sidestepped to her saddle and perched on it with one leg bent at the knee on the pommel. “I trust you understand, Mr. Stark, why I do not end your life as quickly as my hired shootist wants.”

  I understood, all right. She was so much like me it was spooky. I shifted slightly so I was closer to the fire and slumped as if I was about to collapse. “What will it be? Stake me out on an ant hill?”

  Gertrude chortled. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not an Apache. I wouldn’t know where to find one.”

  “Let me dish out what he’s got coming,” Bart Seton said. “I promise you, before I’m done he’ll beg us to put him out of his misery.”

  “And deprive me of the pleasure of doing it personally?” Gertrude shook her head. “I should say not. Just because I am a woman does not mean I am squeamish.”

  The fire was uncomfortably hot. I shifted again, even closer, so that the unlit end of a burning log was almost at my fingertips.

  “I will enjoy this immensely,” Gertrude smirked. “You have caused me no end of setbacks. With you out of the way, I am free to lay claim to the silver and live in luxury the rest of my life.”

  I had to goad her, so I said, “You can start by rebuilding your house. Or isn’t that good enough? Maybe you want a mansion.”

  “Why must I rebuild?”

  “Oh. That’s right. You haven’t heard.” It was my turn to smirk at her. “I burned your house down along with the rest of the LT. The stable, the bunkhouse, there isn’t a building left.”

  Gertrude surged to her feet. “For your sake I hope you are just trying to make me mad. My house contains everything I hold dear. Heirlooms from my mother and my grandmother. Gifts from my sister. Things I’ve had since I was a child. Things I can never replace.”

  “That’s too bad. They’re all ashes.”

  Her eyes flashed and she jerked the rifle to her shoulder, then just as quickly lowered it again. “No. I see what you are doing. You want to goad me into getting it over with. But it won’t work. I want you to suffer before you die.”

  It was not working. I had to come up with something else. “Like your son suffered? You should have heard him scream and blubber.”

  Gertrude took a step toward me. “Have a care, Stark.”

  “Or what?” I had pricked her. “You’ll kill me? I’m dead anyway.” I deliberately laughed. “Y
ou should have seen Phil when I pried one of his eyeballs out of its socket. He bawled like a baby.”

  That did it. Livid with rage, Gertrude advanced, raising the rifle to bash the stock against my skull. “You bastard! You miserable, rotten bastard!”

  I gripped the log. As she reared above me, I levered onto my knees and thrust the flaming end in her face. I went for her eyes. She shrieked and frantically backed away, colliding with Bart Seton as he sprang to help her. Locked together, they tripped over their own legs, and fell.

  I was in motion before they hit the ground. Vaulting over the fire, I plunged into the tall grass. My left side flared with torment, but I clenched my teeth and bore it. Breaking into a run, I made for Brisco and the mare. In my saddlebags was my short-barreled revolver and other tools of my trade. I might yet prevail.

  Boots pounded the ground. I glanced back to find Bart Seton in swift pursuit. I ran faster, my body protesting with more spikes of pain and a fierce hammering in my temples. I had a twenty-yard lead. To him I had to be no more than an inky silhouette in the dark, yet he snapped off a shot that sizzled the air next to my ear. At least part of his reputation was deserved, after all. He would not miss a second time.

  I pretended to be shot. Suddenly flinging myself down, I thrashed about, all the while hoping and praying he would not finish me off with a shot to the brain. Nothing happened, and after a minute I stopped and lay still, curled into a ball, my right hand on my right boot. Still shamming, I looked up.

  Bart Seton had his Colt trained on my head and the hammer thumbed back. He wanted to squeeze the trigger. He wanted to badly. But he growled, “On your feet! I should bed you down permanent, but she would have a fit.”

  “Give me a moment,” I gasped.

  “Like hell.” He kicked me in the back.

  I winced and nodded. “All right. All right.” Propping my right hand under me, I pushed myself up and sat with my head between my knees, sucking air deep into my lungs. “It hurts,” I said.

  Bart Seton laughed. “You’ll hurt a lot worse before we’re done.”

  I attempted to stand, then sank back. “I can’t,” I protested. “My legs won’t hold me.”

  “You damn well better get up or you can crawl the whole way,” Seton snarled, coming closer.

  “I might have to,” I said, and turned as if about to lower myself onto my belly. Instead, I lunged and slashed. The blade caught him right where I wanted it to, at the back of his knee, biting deep. He yelped as his right leg gave out from under him. The Colt went off, but he missed and before he could cock it I sliced him across the hand, opening his knuckles and nearly severing two of his fingers. He couldn’t hold on to the Colt if he wanted to.

  Cursing, Seton threw himself at me, but I rolled aside and rose. I cut his left leg at the same spot I had cut his right, then skipped back, unfurling.

  Bart Seton was nearly beside himself. He tried to stand and fell, tried to stand again and fell. Dumfounded, he glanced at his legs, then at me. “What have you done?” he bleated.

  “Your hamstrings,” I said.

  Shock set in. Seton slid his hands under his chest and got to his knees. The instant he straightened, I was on him. My first stroke opened his right elbow to the bone. He instinctively clutched at the wound with his left hand and I opened the left elbow the same way.

  Seton reached for me, but his forearms were useless. A howl tore from his throat as he realized what I had done. He couldn’t stand. He couldn’t walk. He couldn’t hold a revolver. He was totally and completely helpless, totally and completely at my mercy. “God, no!” he breathed.

  “You’ll find out soon enough if there is one,” I said, and turned my back on him.

  “Where are you going?”

  As if he had to ask.

  “You can’t leave me like this.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.” He would keep. I hurried, afraid Gertrude would ride off before I got there, but to my surprise she was huddled by the fire, cradling her face in her hands and rocking back and forth. She heard me and stiffened.

  “Bart? Is that you?”

  I saw her face, and stopped.

  “Did you get him? Answer me, damn you! It’s my eyes! He burned them! I can hardly see! Everything is a blur. Take a look and tell me how bad they are.”

  I stepped up to her and bent and touched the cheek under her right eye and then the cheek under her left eye. “They’re bad,” I said.

  “You!” Gertrude recoiled and groped for the Winchester, but I beat her to it. She stopped after a bit and glanced wildly about. “Where are you? What did you do to Bart?”

  “He’ll join us shortly.”

  I had to hand it to her. She was beat, and she had to have some notion of what was in store, but she squared her shoulders and said with no hint of fear, “All this because I double-crossed you and shot you in the back.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Why, then?”

  “All this because of what you let him do to Daisy.”

  Gertrude absorbed that. “You were fond of that little tramp?” Then she did the worst thing she could have done: she laughed.

  They were two days dying.

  On the third day I added their horses to my string and gigged Brisco to the southeast. I was heading for Galveston. From there I could take a ship to anywhere in the world. South America, maybe. I would hide out down there for a year or so and then come back. By then the Texas Rangers were bound to have lost interest.

  Cows can fly, too.