by Ronald Kelly
Elijah Cox chuckled. “I reckon you know of us and our business then,” he said. “Yeah, we’re after a man, all right. Been tracking him all the way from Colorado for the past few weeks. As slippery a critter as we’ve gone after, too.” Cox fumbled through an inner pocket of his duster and unfolded a crumpled broadsheet. He handed it to the wolfer. “Wonder if you’ve seen him in these parts?”
Timber Gray took the poster and looked it over. WANTED – LUKE BELL FOR THE ROBBERY & MURDER OF MAYOR DANIEL SPENCER OF DURANGO, COLORADO. $1,000 REWARD.
Below the bold lettering was a crudely drawn sketch of a black man in his late twenties. His hair was short-cropped, his eyes and teeth almost comically white in contrast to his soot-black face. Whoever had drawn the picture had let his prejudice against the Negro race bleed through, loud and clear.
“Can’t say that I have,” said Timber with a shrug. He held the poster so Isaiah Cook and his wife could see it. “Have either of you seen this man?” They shook their heads negatively and remained silent.
Elijah grinned sheepishly and returned the poster to his coat pocket. “Just ain’t having a lick of luck a’tall today. Ain’t that right, boys?” The others grumbled in lackluster reply.
Avery Gimble walked his horse closer. He studied the wolf pelts on the pack horse, then eyed Timber with interest. “Hey, ain’t you that wolf hunter?” he asked in a gravely voice. “That fella called Timber Gray?”
The wolfer said that he was.
“Yeah, that’s right!” proclaimed Elijah. “I saw you once in Green RiverCity. You came riding through town with the biggest damned bear I ever did see, lashed to two horses. Remember that?”
Indeed, Timber did remember the grizzly he had taken November of last year down in the BishopMountains of southern Wyoming. The bear had been a nasty one. He had happened upon his cave by accident and found it littered with all manner of bones, those of a man included. Timber’s bones might have joined them if he hadn’t turned in time and put a .50 slug through the grizzly’s brain pan as it was coming for him.
“Looks like we’re almost in the same profession, Mr. Gray,” ventured Cox, scratching his scraggly whiskers. “You know… hunting for bounty and all.”
“Except there’s a difference,” replied Gray. “At least I sleep well at night, knowing my victims are killers. You never really know whether the men you bushwhacked were innocent or guilty.”
Elijah Cox’s golden grin faded. His true colors showed as his eyes glowered coldly at the wolfer, smoldering with an ugly meanness. “Mister, you just went down a notch or two in my good graces.”
Timber Gray knew he should have let it go at that, but he just couldn’t seem to pass up the urge. “You’ve been at the bottom of mine from the very start,” he said. It slowly began to dawn on him exactly how dangerous it was to needle this man. Was it the death wish again, creeping up and pushing him toward a stand-off that would likely end up killing them all?
Their mutual bad feelings might have led to trouble, if something hadn’t happened to draw their attention. That something turned out to be the boy in black. He had trotted his dark horse to the wagon and was looking it over suspiciously. “Don’t you think we oughta check this wagon, Elijah? They might be hiding the nigger, trying to get him down to Greybull past us.”
Cox forgot his beef with Timber for the time being. He rode past the wolfer, toward the side of the prairie schooner. He leaned over in his saddle and put his ear to the wall of bowed canvas. “You just might be right, Jess. I hear somebody breathing inside.” He turned and eyed Timber and the couple on the wagon seat. “Now, you good folks ain’t hiding someone from us, are you?”
“There’s no one back there but a couple of young’uns,” said Timber Gray. He felt his temper heating at the thought of them scaring Paul and Sarah needlessly. “They’re getting some rest. No need to upset them none.”
The boy named Jess sneered at the wolfer and began to swing down off his horse. “Scaring young’uns ain’t something I lose much sleep over.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”
The kid stood there by his horse and stared up at the bearded hunter, peeved at his warning. It was then that he noticed the Winchester lying across Timber’s lap, the muzzle directed squarely at his chest.
“You pointing that thing at me?” Jess hissed, his face growing pale with anger.
“What… this?” asked Timber Gray, looking down at the cocked rifle. His eyes were full of innocence, but his finger never left the trigger.
“I’m not one for playing games, mister,” said the boy. “That’s why I’m ending it right here and now.” He slipped the thong off his Colt and slowly began to draw his gun of ivory and etched silver.
Timber looked over to where Elijah Cox still sat on his horse. “Are you gonna tell this hotheaded fool where we are, before he gets us all killed?”
The bounty hunter glared at Gray, then nodded. “Put the gun away, Jess.”
The kid looked indignant. “The hell I will!”
“I said put it away... now!”
Bewildered, Jess let the gun slip back into its low-slung holster. “But why, Elijah? Why didn’t you let me plug this old buzzard?”
“Cause this is BurialPass we’re in, you piss-ant!” Cox snapped. “You fire a gun in this canyon and we’d all be under a trainload of snow till spring!”
Jess was shocked by the sobering explanation. He turned his eyes to the snowy walls of the pass and stared at them for a long time.
At that moment, Paul and Sarah climbed out of the rear of the wagon and ran to join their parents on the front seat.
“Reckon you weren’t lying to us after all,” said Elijah, flashing another lopsided grin.
“I think we’d best be on our way,” Timber replied, his expression as cold as stone. “And I know you’ll be wanting to get back to tracking that man Bell.”
“Come on, boys,” called Cox. He reined his horse toward the eastern end of the pass. “We’ve wasted too much time here already.”
Jess scowled at the wolf hunter and swung back atop his horse. He patted his holstered Colt with a gloved hand. “I’ll be saving one for you, old man,” he sneered. “Someday we’ll cross paths again and it won’t be in some damned avalanche pass.”
“You’re not long for this country, boy,” Timber told him flatly. “Not with that kind of attitude.”
The kid was about to say something else, when Elijah Cox rode up and slapped the rump of the boy’s horse. “Get going, Jess,” he said, sending the horse at a steady gallop down the canyon. Then Cox turned in his saddle and regarded Gray. “You may not like our kind of hunting, mister, but don’t go badmouthing it none. We do our killing nice and legal like, but sometimes I do get the old urge to drill a man for the pure fun of it. And, Mr. Timber Gray, you’re coming mighty close to being that unfortunate soul.”
Then, with an ugly, gold-studded grin, he rode off down the pass to join the others. Timber Gray sat there for a long moment, letting his anger die down before heading onward himself. He knew he had just made a couple of very dangerous enemies that day. Men who killed for a living and relished in the feel of it. Timber had encountered their kind before, promising to collect on unfinished grudges. In every case, he had never laid eyes on them again afterwards.
But, somehow, Timber Gray knew that wouldn’t be the case with Elijah Cox and his gang.
Chapter Thirteen
The following morning brought a steady snow and an icy wind from the north. They had cleared BurialPass late last evening and had set up camp a mile or so into the foothills. With each passing hour, the temperature dropped and the northern gale blew more and more snow across the mountains toward the town of Greybull .
Timber Gray sat in a small lean-to of heavy pine boughs, sewing up an embarrassing rip in the seat of a pair of faded longhandles. The Cook family had settled their wagon and team across the clearing from him. His coal black gelding was hitched to a towering blue spruce
between the two camps, along with the two pack horses.
After fussing over the threadbare drawers for a while, Gray glanced up to see little Sarah standing before him. Her face was creased with sadness and she appeared almost on the verge of tears.
Timber set his mending aside. “Now, whatever is the matter, Miss
Sarah?” he asked the four-year-old. “You don’t look like you’re none too happy.”
“Could you fix my dolly, Mr. Gray?” she sniffled. Sarah held out her china doll. Its white porcelain head had separated from the rag body. “Mama’s too busy fixing breakfast.”
The bearded wolfer smiled at the fair-haired youngster. “I’ll surely see what I can do, honey.”
Sarah sat on the old Indian blanket beside him. Taking the needle and thread from his hopelessly split ridgerunners, Timber began to meticulously reattach the doll’s head to its body.
Timber Gray winked at little Sarah and received a giggle of affection in return. He had been guiding the Cook family for a couple of days now and already the children had taken to him as though he was a long, lost uncle. The hunter had been apprehensive at first, for it had been a long time since he had lived among the laughter and playfulness of young’uns. But, soon, his hardened heart had warmed up to Paul and Sarah. He also held high regards for their mother, her being as brave and strong-willed a woman as he had ever met. The only one in the Cook clan that Timber was still uncertain of was the Reverend Isaiah. Something about the man’s ways just didn’t set well with the wolf hunter.
As he tightened the last stitch in the china doll’s neck, Timber glanced through the light flurry of January snowflakes, toward the wagon and the large cookfire blazing near its rear gate. Lenora was preparing the morning meal, while Isaiah fed the mules their share of oats. But someone was missing. Paul Cook was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s your brother, Miss Sarah?” he asked, handing the doll back to her.
“Papa sent him over the hill to fetch some water,” Sarah replied, more occupied with her repaired toy than Timber’s question.
“Alone?”
“Uh-huh. He didn’t wanna go by himself, but Papa made him.”
Timber Gray felt his dislike for the preacher come to a boil again. He was standing up, ready to give Isaiah hell for sending the boy to the stream alone, when a crash of tin pans sounded from the campfire. Timber looked over to see Lenora standing there, her thin hands to her face and her mouth widened in a silent scream. The hunter followed her frantic eyes to where they stared in horror.
Paul was running down a distant hillside as fast as his legs would carry him, the water bucket discarded and forgotten. His frightened cries filled Timber’s ears, chilling his heart with terror. Over the boy’s yells there came another sound; a sound that Gray was painfully familiar with. The snapping and snarling of hungry wolves, six of which were gaining on Paul Cook at that very moment.
Timber’s eyes flashed to where his rifles were booted on his horse, a good fifteen feet away. Lenora had regained her senses and she also spotted the weapons jutting invitingly into the winter air. Running to the spruce, she pulled the Winchester from its sheath and held it out to her husband.
“Shoot them, Isaiah!” she cried. “For heaven’s sake, shoot them before they kill our son!”
The Reverend stared at her and the rifle with an expression of pure disgust. “I will not! I’ll not lay a hand on that instrument of Satan!”
“You must!” Lenora wailed. “Confound you, Isaiah! You’ve got to do something!” She shoved the repeater toward her husband.
But the preacher would have none of it. He backhanded her viciously, sending her and the rifle into the snow. “You will burn in Hell for that, woman!” he spat. Then he dropped to his knees and, clutching his worn Bible, began to pray at the top of his lungs.
Timber ran toward the horses, his eyes glued to the snow-crusted hillside a hundred yards away. The boy was losing his speed, out of breath and stumbling through the heavy snow. The wolves, however, were gaining. They had caught scent of the child’s fear and were moving in for the kill. It wouldn’t be long before they dragged their prey off balance and stained the virgin snow with his blood.
The wolfer leaped for the fallen rifle, rolled, and came up in a crouch, the Winchester already cocked and ready. He picked out the wolf closest to the boy, steadied his aim, and fired. The first slug drilled the wolf squarely in the snout, burrowing clear to the base of its brain. The animal’s legs collapsed beneath it and it dropped dead in its tracks.
The .44-40 shucked its fired brass from the breech and chambered another round as Timber worked the lever. Once again the rifle cracked, then a third time. Two wolves collided with each other, their innards speared by well-placed lead.
“Three more!” gritted the hunter between clenched teeth. “Lord, just give me three more, that’s all I ask!”
He shifted his barrel a fraction and fired again. A she-wolf spun head over tail, her skull opened up just below the left ear. Timber pulled back on the trigger again, his hand having worked the lever automatically. The fifth wolf continued to run, a long bloody furrow cut across its hindquarters. The next bullet did not miss its mark, though. It caught the beast squarely in the brisket.
One wolf left. It couldn’t have been more than a yard behind the boy, its slavering jaws snapping in anticipation, its eyes crazed with bloodlust. Gray hesitated in firing. They were so close to each other now that the wolfer was afraid he might miss his aim and hit the boy. But there was no other choice to be made. He had to fire. The rifle slapped against his shoulder with the recoil of the next shot. The bullet missed its target, kicking up snow between the wolf’s swift legs.
“Damn!” Timber Gray cussed and readied the Winchester for one last shot. He held his breath and, for a split second, the rifle barrel stopped its trembling and froze dead center on the animal. “Got you,” said Timber. He eased back smoothly on the trigger.
Paul Cook fell just as the slug hit the wolf right between the eyes. The beast rolled completely over the frightened boy with the force of its momentum. It flipped down the snowy slope until finally stopping with a sickening thud against the trunk of a huge oak. Paul got shakily to his feet, splattered with the wolf’s blood, and ran straight into his mother’s outstretched arms.
“Thank you, Mr. Gray!” wept Lenora, clutching her son close. “You saved him. You saved my boy’s life.”
Timber said nothing. He slid the rifle back into its scabbard and walked over to where the preacher still knelt in the frigid snow. He stood there, glaring at Isaiah Cook until he had said his closing “Amen!” and began to stand up. Then Timber hauled back and punched the good reverend right in the teeth.
Isaiah stumbled backwards and fell on his back beside the roaring fire. He looked up at the bearded hunter in bewilderment, his lip split and his mouth smeared with blood. “You struck a man of God!” he bellowed.
“No!” Timber told him, enraged. “I struck a crazy fool who’ll not raise a finger to protect his own family. Well, you listen to me, preacherman, and listen good. Your mule-headedness ends right here! The next time trouble shows itself, you’d best be ready to take up a gun. Cause, if you don’t, I swear I’ll shoot you myself and leave you as food for the buzzards!”
The hunter saw fear in the man’s eyes and knew that he had succeeded in shocking him back into reality, at least for the time being. Timber hoped it would last for a while, because the next time the wolves set upon them, there was sure to be much more than six. And he would need all the help he could get, even if it meant tying a gun in the preacher’s hand.
“I reckon I’d better get on up the hill and skin out those wolves,” he said, looking toward Lenora Cook. She stood beside the campfire, holding both her youngsters to her skirt. “Maybe you should go on and finish the breakfast, ma’am. We’ll be on our way in an hour or so.”
“All right,” agreed Lenora. She looked down at her bleeding husband and then back at the wolfe
r. A strange smile of cold satisfaction crossed her lips briefly, then vanished as she turned back to the cookfire.
Timber Gray drew his bone-handled knife from its belt sheath. He untied the pack horse with the hides lashed across its back and started across the clearing to the foot of the bloodstained hill. A moment later, Paul Cook’s voice called out from behind him.
“Mr. Gray?”
Timber glanced around. “Yes, boy?”
“Mr. Gray… can I come with you?”
Lenora put a trembling hand on her son’s shoulder. “Maybe you shouldn’t, Paul.”
“No, ma’am, it’s okay,” Timber replied, regarding the boy with deep admiration. It seemed to him that Paul had twice as much backbone than his old man did. “There’s nothing up there that can hurt him now.”
The woman nodded in understanding and went back to her chores. Paul ran to the wolf hunter, his youthful face still pale and frightened, but his eyes steeled with determination.
No words were exchanged as they went up the snowy hillside together.
Chapter Fourteen
Standing atop a snowy ridge, Timber Gray trained his field glasses on the distant town of Greybull . A few kerosene-lit windows could be seen through the blowing snow, but soon the buildings would grow dark as the townspeople settled in for the night. There was a mile or two of dense forest between the Wyoming settlement and the clearing where Gray and the Cooks had made their camp. If there had been a moon that night, the wolfer might have seen the churning waters where the Bighorn and Greybull rivers forked. But the valley below was as black as the depths of a Kentucky coalmine, the blusterous sky hanging heavy with thick stormclouds. The blizzard would reach the western side of the mountain before morning and cover the sloping countryside with a blanket of snow that would lie dormant until spring.
