The Colonel rode up on a white horse and handed the reins to a groom who had run alongside it. “Ah, sir, you must be the agent for this Wulf Baker.”
Armstrong looked around the grassy knoll as if searching for the real Wulf Baker. His man arrived and set up a folding chair and umbrella for him.
“No, Colonel. I’m Wulf Baker.”
“Well, my, my. You have dressed up. A marker, huh, at Mason dressed like a farm boy?”
“No, that was me then. This is me today.”
“I must say, you’ve come a long ways in your clothing. Is that your dog?”
“That’s him.”
Red Man began to growl, and Wulf turned in his chair to see the large brindle dog on a chain lunging forward on his handler’s leash as the handler brought him over from the wagons. The dog must weigh over a hundred pounds.
“I see you can see Jolie Blank. He’s my wild goat-tending dog.” Armstrong smiled and touched his hat brim in a salute.
Wulf stood beside his chair, watching the dog, who had his mouth gaping open while slinging saliva and growling like a freight train. Then, when they were seventy or so feet away, the handler spilled facedown and the chain slipped from his grasp. Black Mouth came at a dead run for Red Man.
The Colt in Wulf’s hand blasted and the big dog whined, but he kept coming. Round two between his hard-set eyes drove him face-first in the grass and he flipped over.
“Why? Why did you kill my good dog?” Armstong screamed.
Wulf leveled the Colt at him. “I overheard your plan to kill Red Man with that sumbitch and call it a no-show on my part. Well, your plan didn’t work, Colonel. Better send for your stock dog. We’re competing, or you can forfeit. You’re good at that.”
“I ought to—”
“You better shut your mouth and get on with this competition. They tell me they tar and feather welshers in Fort Worth.”
“Was that cur coming for you?” a curious onlooker asked.
“He got loose. Handler couldn’t handle him,” Wulf said.
“You ain’t bad with a gun.”
“No. I’m a deputy U.S. marshal.” Who in the hell could tell any different? It might shore up the way things were run from there on out. He also might need to kiss the lemonade woman when it was all over.
“You are what?” Armstrong asked.
“You heard me. Now get on with this competition.”
Things at once took on a new tenseness. The Colonel gave orders, and the wild goats were delivered to the holding pens and unloaded one at a time. The goats were alternated between the two pens. Four hundred feet to the south stood the tall wooden panels forming the two enclosures that the dogs had to put the goats in.
“Do we flip for first or second start?” Wulf asked the selected official, a justice of the peace who wore a top hat and was dressed very fancy.
“I shall ask the field judges.” He called over the other two men, who looked like ranchers in business suits. They conferred and the decision was to toss a coin.
Armstrong won the toss and chose to go first. His white-eared Border collie was the dog, and he took him to the side of the field that would be used. On the Colonel’s nod, the goats were eased outside. The collie left in a crouch headed for his “bunch.”
Range-bred hair goats are fierce enough to fight a coyote. These billies were some that obviously would. A big gray one caught sight of White Ear and charged. Head and horns down, he still hooked White Ear in his desperate attempt to slip away from his attack.
The crowd groaned as, next, a white and black billy joined the fray, and they caught the collie between them and gave him a good whacking.
“They’re killing that dog!” Wulf pointed to the poor stock dog.
“Let him die.” The Colonel folded his arms, ready to let them.
“You’re worthless. Red Man, get those damn goats in the pen. Hee-yah.”
“That is interfering—”
A judge, holding his hat, ran over. “What’s happening?”
“That Border collie is hurt. Those billies would kill him in one more charge.”
“What about your dog?”
“We’ll see.”
Red Man bit an ear on the white goat till he quit his charge. Then he nipped the shoulder of the gray one, spinning the rest into a mass of high-headed concerned animals. As he worked his way down the field, Wulf encouraged the young dog to keep the goats in a tight bunch and to punish any of them that didn’t mind.
The crowd was cheering by the time they were halfway to the pen. With the goats finally inside, Wulf said to the man on the megaphone, “Since the other dog was hurt, I’ll take the second bunch down and pen them, too.”
He shouted for Red Man, and the second pen was released. Wulf and his dog showed them how to really move bad goats. These may have even been the tougher bunch, but Red Man took no chances, and he snapped at any that even acted like they might challenge him.
When the goats were in the pen at last, the judges declared him the winner. The crowd went wild. On the ridge, he could see the red wagons were already leaving.
“Wait,” he said to the JP. “They owe me—”
“I’ve got it right here. Five hundred dollars.” He handed him the envelope.
It was all there.
“Thanks.”
“First you shot his cur dog, then you saved his other one. Mister, you are something. Folks going to talk for a long time about the man from Mason beating Colonel Armstrong, the world’s greatest animal trainer.” The JP gave a deep throaty chuckle. “Beats all I ever know. Hey, where are you going?”
“To kiss the lemonade lady and give her fifty bucks.”
“What for?”
“Because she deserves it.”
THIRTY-ONE
WULF studied the snag-filled Red River. It was like his own life. Lots of water had flowed downstream over the past three months. He’d sold his father’s ranch—he couldn’t live anywhere near his stepfather. The only reason he’d let the worthless Hughes off the hook with the law was because of his mother. Regretfully for Wulf, his mother wouldn’t leave Hughes. New baby and all.
Wulf’s loss of Dulchy had left a big hole in his heart, and staying around Mason only knifed him harder. The letter in his pocket from his cousin, Herschel Baker in Montana, offered him a full-time position as deputy sheriff. Tempted to accept the job, he still wanted a place of his own. Herschel had told him before he left Montana that a man had to find his own spot in this world and be happy—life was too short not to be happy. Wulf had the money from his ranch sale to buy a place. But where? He’d seen lots of great cow country going north and coming back. Maybe he could figure it out—where to settle down.
There was one more thing he couldn’t forget. A willowy Indian girl named Mary Ann who he’d met going north. She’d served him food at a crossroads, and he recalled the night they’d shared his bedroll. But by this time, she’d probably found herself a real man. Still, there was something about her kindness and soothing ways that he found worthwhile enough to try and find her again. Even if he couldn’t have her, perhaps simply seeing and talking with her would ease her out of his mind.
“Did you leave all your whiskey behind?” the man reeling the ferry over the Red River asked. “Them damn marshals from Fort Smith’ll sure fine your ass if you ain’t.”
“I left mine.”
“Good-looking grays you’ve got there.”
“Thanks. They aren’t for sale.”
“Where are you headed?”
“Oh up the road a ways.”
“Well, the territory is a tough place to be. Folks get robbed and kilt every night up there.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“What’s the matter with that black and white stock dog you’ve got in the wagon?”
“Oh, he got ran over. But he’s going to heal all right. It was touch and go for a while, be he’s getting better.”
“Them two dogs of yours any good at herding
stock?”
“The best two stock dogs in the world.”
“Where did you get them?”
“Texas.”
“Oh.”
Two evenings later he pulled up at a crossroad store. He unhitched the grays and went to search in the back of the wagon until he found his turtle-shell bowl. With it and a big spoon in his hand, he got in line behind some Indian women.
“You don’t have ten cents?” the voice he recognized at the head of the line asked. “Go on, Shelly. Pay me next week.”
“Ten cents—” She looked at the turtle-shell bowl and then at him in growing shock. “I almost did not recognize you. Why—why are you back?”
“I am hungry.” He met the gaze in her large brown eyes.
“No—I mean—”
“You better fill my bowl. There are people behind me. They’re hungry, too.”
She caught his arm. “Why are you back?”
“The turtle brought me back here.” He held up his steaming bowl.
Her frown sent him on. “I will talk to you later.”
“I’ll be here,” he said, with no plans to run off.
“Rentsloe, where have you been?” she asked the next man in line.
The old man laughed. “Waiting for you to get over the shock of seeing that fella again.”
“You saw all that, old man?” she asked, sounding in shock.
Wulf smiled to himself. Good, his appearance had her shaken. He saw no suitors lounging around. Maybe he wasn’t too late after all.
From the serving table, Wulf used one of their cracked cups for his coffee, and also floated some squares of sweet corn bread in his stew. He took a place on the ground with his back against a post oak tree to watch her feeding the line of people. Slowly, he savored each spoonful of the flavorful food, and observed her movements, which were like a willow tree in a soft wind. She looked every bit as pretty as he recalled her. His heart was thumping hard, but he was in fact more pleased with her than he’d even expected to be.
The people in line were finally fed, and she hurried over to join him, sitting on the ground with her many-colored skirt over her knees, which she hugged.
“I thought you had a woman.”
“Diptheria stole her from me while I was in Montana.”
“I’m sorry. Did you like it up there?”
“It’s fine. But I want a new ranch where there’s grass and clear water.”
“Where will you find it?”
He glanced at the ground. “I’m not sure. But I came to ask if you would go with me and search for it.”
She blinked and looked ready to cry. She wet her lips. The tears spilled down her high cheeks. “Why would a rich man like you want a poor Indian woman like me?”
“Oh, I’m not rich, but someday we will be, and I want to share my life wherever I find this new ranch with you.”
“You better tell him yes before he changes his mind, girl.” Her mother, standing above them, winked wickedly at him.
“Mother! Go on.”
The woman sauntered back to refill their empty bowls. Wulf smiled at her words. Obviously, her daughter was embarrassed by her mother’s directness. All the same, he had one ally in this camp anyway.
Mary Ann raised up on her knees, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him. Excited, he reached out, gathering her onto his lap.
Then she cupped her hand and whispered in his ear, “Go find your bedroll. We will need it again.”
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