Wolf Shadow (Wind River Book 3)

by James Reasoner

  WOLF SHADOW

  JAMES REASONER

  and L. J. Washburn

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  Copyright © 1994 by James M. Reasoner and L.J. Washburn

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address, P.O. Box 931, Azle, TX 76020 bookplc@flash.net .

  First printing: December 1994 Harper Paperbacks

  Second printing: August 2011 The Book Place

  For Ed Gorman

  Chapter 1

  The winter wind was howling outside, and the people who had taken refuge in McRaney's Trading Post for the night were mighty glad they were inside and not out. Blizzards in the Wyoming Territory were killers, pure and simple, and since nightfall had closed in and the winds had increased a couple of hours earlier, no one had come in the door. Anybody who was still outside was probably a goner.

  McRaney himself, a wizened Scotsman seemingly made out of red hair and beef jerky, was in the back of the trading post's single room, behind the rough planks laid across whiskey barrels that formed a bar.

  He had come to the Rocky Mountains forty years earlier to trap beaver. He had taken himself an Indian wife, a squaw of the Teton Sioux band, and lived free for a long time, working his traps in the spring and summer, hunting with his wife's people during the fall, then wintering with them as well. It had been a good life.

  The Shining Times were over now, though, and had been for more than twenty years. McRaney's wife was dead, and the kids he'd had with her were gone, scattered all over creation, most of them going with the Sioux when the band had moved east onto the plains.

  McRaney had stayed here in the mountains where he had spent the best years of his life, and for the past ten years he had operated this trading post on an offshoot of the Oregon Trail.

  Not many folks used this road anymore, and fewer still would in the future since the Sioux war chief Red Cloud had signed a peace treaty with the government a couple of months earlier. The Bozeman Trail, or the Powder River Trail as the old-timers still called it, would get most of the traffic from now on. Not only that, but the Scotsman had heard tell that the railroad was coming through the southern part of the Territory. The railhead was all the way to Rock Springs already.

  That was all right with McRaney. He didn't need much business to live, and he figured there would always be a few travelers wandering his way. The old fur trappers such as himself had all given up, but there were gold strikes up in Montana Territory and immigrants still bound for Oregon. A few ranches had been started in the area, and although the mountain valleys weren't really very well suited for farming—too cold in the winter, too dry in the summer—there were still quite a few pilgrims stubborn enough to try to make a go of it. The rough wooden shelves of McRaney's post held everything from supplies for the trail—flour, salt, gunpowder, axle grease—to hoes and plowshares, and even some yard goods for farm women who sometimes longed for a dress that wasn't made out of homespun.

  The smokehouse out back held an abundance of hams and sides of bacon. McRaney had even managed to get his hands on a supply of coffee, and the thick smell of a pot of Arbuckle's simmering on the stove behind the bar mingled with the blue haze of pipe smoke in the air.

  Then there was the whiskey, which lured many a traveler. McRaney made it himself, of course, since it cost too much to have the stuff freighted in, but he took pains with the blend that not many did. As far as he knew, not one person had ever died from drinking any of his who-hit-John.

  Tonight, there were a dozen people in the trading post listening to the howl of the blizzard winds outside. Along with McRaney himself, naturally, there was the half-breed woman who cooked and kept up the place for him. She never opened her mouth except when she was alone with him and hardly then, which suited McRaney just fine.

  There were five would-be miners bound for the gold fields of Montana, all of them drunk and raucous already. The dead of winter was no time to be heading for Montana Territory, McRaney knew, but the lure of gold was strong enough to muddle most men's thinking.

  Competing with the miners in boisterousness were three young men McRaney took to be cowboys who either rode for one of the ranches in the area or were looking for work. For their sakes, the Scotsman hoped they weren't riding the grubline. At this time of year it would be hard to find jobs if they didn't have something lined up already.

  That left the two men who had drifted in just before dark, and although they were dressed similarly to the young cowhands in denim pants, sheepskin coats, and pulled-down hats, it took only a glance to see that they were made of different stuff. They had bought a bottle of McRaney's whiskey, then taken it and a couple of glasses to an empty, overturned barrel that served as a table. They sat there in a couple of rough-hewn chairs and drank in intense silence.

  They made McRaney a little nervous, but he had a loaded shotgun on a shelf behind the bar, and anyway, nobody would hold up a place on a night like this. Where would they go to make their getaway?

  One of the miners was demanding another drink, and McRaney said, "Keep yer shirt on, laddie. Just le' me fetch doon another bottle—"

  Suddenly the roar of the wind became louder, and cold air full of snowflakes swirled into the room. McRaney's head jerked up. He saw that the door of the trading post had been opened and a huge, brownish-black bear was shambling inside. McRaney’s eyes widened in shock, and he whirled around and lunged toward the shotgun.

  Before he reached the weapon, he realized how unlikely it was that a bear could have unfastened the latch on the door. He turned and saw the newcomer pushing the door shut against the incredible force of the wind, seemingly with little effort. The big furry shape swung around when the door was closed and rumbled, "Sorry I let in some cold air, folks. Figured I'd best get inside 'fore all my joints was frozen stiff."

  He lifted an arm like a tree trunk and pushed back the hood of the bearskin coat, revealing a rumpled thatch of reddish-gray hair and a bushy beard of the same shade. The growth was so thick that little of his face was readily visible except for a pair of startlingly blue eyes.

  The stranger's coat reached below his knees, and fringed, high-topped boots disappeared beneath the garment. He batted a thick layer of snow off the fur coat with gloved hands. The air near the door was cold enough so that the snow didn't melt right away but showered down around his feet in a miniature blizzard. He stomped more snow off his boots, then headed for the bar.

  "Wha' kin I do ye fer?" McRaney asked as the stranger came up to the planks. The Scotsman had to look up to voice the question. The newcomer towered over him.

  "Need something to warm me up a mite. Got any rye?"

  "I make me own whiskey," McRaney told him. "But 'tis th' best ye'll find this side o' Cheyenne."

  "I'll take a bottle," the stranger said. McRaney reached for a glass to go with the whiskey, but the man went on, "I don't need that. Just the bottle."

  McRaney shrugged, took one down from the shelf, and handed it across the bar. "Three dollars, or a pinch o' gold dust if ye be comin' from th' diggin's up north."

  "I've got cash money," the big man said, begging the implied question. He delved under the thick coat and brought out some coins, let them drop onto the bar.

  The would-be miner who had asked for a drink earlier said angrily, "Don't forget about me, mister. I was here before this big galoot."

  The stranger turned his head t
o look at the man and said with surprising mildness, "Beggin' your pardon, mister. Didn't mean to make you wait."

  "Well . . . that's all right, I reckon. Just don't let it happen again."

  McRaney heaved a sigh of relief. He didn't want any trouble in his establishment. All kinds of men passed through here, but the trading post had the reputation of a place where a man could come without running into any trouble. The Indians had always left it alone because of McRaney's old connections with them, and the hardcases who drifted through honored its neutrality.

  The warmth from the stove and the stone fireplace on the other side of the room quickly dispelled the chill that had crept into the room while the door was open briefly. The young cowboys and the men on their way to the diggings in Montana Territory went back to talking and laughing among themselves, and the two men at the barrel table kept drinking in silence.

  The newcomer in the bear coat lifted the bottle of whiskey, pulled the cork with his teeth, and tilted the bottle to his mouth. The fiery liquor gurgled as he took a long swallow. The big man lowered the bottle after a moment and wiped the back of his other hand across his mouth in satisfaction. "Not bad for panther piss," he told McRaney.

  "I'll thank ye no' t' refer t' me whiskey tha' way," said McRaney. "I go t' a lot o' trouble t' blend it an' age it. Why, th' barrels sit fer damn near a week afore I tap em."

  "And I can tell that, too," the stranger said dryly. Those blue eyes of his moved along the area behind the makeshift bar until his gaze reached the half-breed woman, who sat by the stove mending a pair of McRaney's long underwear. The big man grunted. "Your squaw?"

  McRaney shook his head. "No, she only works for me, cookin' an' mendin' an' such."

  "She for sale?"

  "She is no' mine t' sell," McRaney said, stiffening. "If ye be in th' mood fer a bit o' sport, best ye go on doon t' Wind River or Cheyenne."

  The stranger frowned. "I've heard of Cheyenne, but where s Wind River? Is that a town?"

  "Aye. 'Tis doon on th' Union Pacific railroad, south o' here. Named it after th' mountains we're in, they did. I hear tell 'tis gettin' t' be a good-sized place."

  The bushy beard moved up and down as the stranger nodded. "Maybe I'll stop there on my way south."

  "After this here blizzard's over, o' course. 'Twill be no use travelin' in weather like this."

  The stranger didn't say anything to that, only lifted the whiskey bottle and took another healthy slug. He had come out of the blizzard, McRaney recalled; maybe he intended to go back into it. But if he did, he would be truly crazy. McRaney figured it would be a couple of days anyway before the trails would be clear enough to travel, and maybe longer.

  A few minutes passed in relative quiet. The massive man in the bearskin coat was standing at the bar between the group of would-be miners and the trio of cowhands. The young punchers were getting drunker and louder as the evening wore on, and finally, after quite a few furtive glances and some low-voiced conversation among themselves, they began edging down the bar toward the newcomer. One of them said boldly, "Howdy, mister. You're sure as hell a big'un, ain't you?"

  The stranger regarded the three of them for a long moment, then nodded and said flatly, "Yep."

  "They grow all of 'em that big where you come from?"

  "Not really," the stranger replied. The whiskey in the bottle was almost gone now, but he didn't seem particularly affected by it.

  Another of the cowboys said, "What do they call you? Mountain man—or man mountain?" He laughed at his own feeble joke, his companions joining in.

  "That's a good one, I reckon," the stranger said. "I'll have to remember it."

  "You do that," said the first cowboy with a sneer.

  McRaney didn't like the looks of this, didn't like it at all. The cowboys had obviously decided to hooraw the stranger for a while. Anything to liven up a dull night, that was the way they would see it. To McRaney, though, the potential trouble shaping up meant nothing but a mess he'd have to clean up if a fight broke out. He said sharply, "Here now, laddies. Why don't ye just go on doon t' yer end o' the bar, an' I'll fetch ye another bottle. On th' house this time."

  "We don't need another bottle. We're talkin' to this big, hairy gent here, and we don't like bein' interrupted." The young man who had spoken glared across the planks at McRaney.

  The man in the bearskin coat made a slight motion with one hand. "These boys ain't both-erin' me," he told the Scotsman. "They're just havin' a little fun."

  "That's right. You just keep your nose out of this, bartender."

  McRaney drew himself up to his full height—a little over five feet—and glared at the cowboy. "I happen t' own this place," he told the youngster. Being called a mere bartender was an insult to McRaney’s dignity. The trading post might not be much, but it was his by God!

  The cowboys ignored him. They started spreading out a little now, moving so that they could come at the big man from three sides. "We ain't looking for trouble," one of them said—which was quickly becoming a blatant lie—then he continued, "But it looks to us like you ought to be taken down a notch or two, mister. Big feller like you probably thinks you're better'n us poor cowhands. Ain't that right?"

  "I never said any such thing, sonny," the stranger replied. "And since I don't want no trouble either, there's no real reason for this, is there?"

  "Maybe we don't need a reason," one of the other cowboys said.

  The big man heaved a weary sigh. "I was afraid you'd say that."

  Over in the corner at the barrel table, one of the previously silent hardcases suddenly leaned forward and hissed to his partner, "Hell, I recognize him now! That big bastard's Yancy Rowlett!"

  At the bar, one of the cowboys let out a whoop and swung a punch. The big man called Yancy Rowlett was already moving, however. He flung up an arm to block that punch and at the same time lashed out behind him with the other hand. His gloved fist crashed into the middle of a cowboy's face. The young man yelped in pain and sank to his knees, his hands going to his face as his pulped nose spurted crimson.

  The third cowboy howled in anger and leaped onto Rowlett's back, trying to reach around the big man and lock his arms around his neck. Rowlett shrugged his massive shoulders and shook off the attack. As the cowboy landed on the floor and stumbled backward, trying to keep his balance, Rowlett whirled and backhanded him. The blow added to the cowboy's out of control momentum and sent him flying backward to land with a heavy crash.

  The cowboy who had thrown the first punch was still on his feet. He launched another roundhouse blow that Rowlett avoided easily. Rowlett hooked a hard right to his belly. The sheepskin coat the cowboy wore might have absorbed some of the impact, but he still gasped for breath and turned an unhealthy shade of pale as he doubled over in pain. His hat fell off. Rowlett probably could have brought clubbed fists crashing down on the unprotected back of his opponent's neck and maybe snapped his spine with the blow, but instead he settled for giving the cowboy a hard shove that sent him spinning off his feet.

  The fight had run its course so fast that behind the bar, McRaney had his hands on the shotgun but was only starting to turn around with it. A loud explosion slammed against the ears of everyone in the room, but it didn't come from the Scotsman's greener. The bullet smashed into one of the bottles on the shelf behind the bar, showering the startled McRaney with whiskey and slivers of broken glass.

  A curl of powder smoke drifted from the muzzle of a Starr Arms Company .44 revolver in the hand of one of the men who had been sitting at the table in the corner. Both of them were on their feet now. The other man was holding a more common Colt revolver, and he said sharply, "Just put that scattergun on the bar, mister. Now!"

  McRaney was shaking with shock and anger, but he regained enough control of himself to gently place the shotgun on the planks of the bar. He wasn't foolish enough to argue with a cocked and pointed .44, not at this close range.

  The man with the Starr gestured with the pistol and ordered, "Step
away from the bar, Rowlett."

  "You got the advantage of me, mister," Rowlett said as he moved a couple of feet away from the bar.

  "In more ways than one," chuckled the man with the Colt. "You may not know us, but we sure as hell know you. And we can get our hands on a lot of money by taking you back to Montana Territory with us."

  Bleak understanding dawned in Rowlett's eyes. "I guess the word's gone out," he said.

  "Damn right it has."

  Slowly, Rowlett shook his head, the movement making him look like a bear again. "I won't go back with you."

  "You ain't got no choice."

  A hint of a smile touched the lips under the bushy beard. "I'm not worth anything dead, now am I, boys?"

  The two hardcases exchanged a quick glance. Everyone in the room could see that Rowlett was right. Whatever reason these men had for capturing Rowlett and taking him to Montana Territory would be voided if they had to kill him.

  McRaney's teeth were clenched tightly. He didn't want any more gunplay in here, but he didn't see any peaceful way this standoff could end. The men who had been heading north to the mines watched with frightened intensity, just like the Scotsman. This was none of their business, but in these close confines, a gunfight could be deadly to innocent and guilty alike.

  One of the cowboys was sprawled on the floor, out cold from Rowlett's sweeping backhand, but the other two young men were conscious, although still so stunned that they might not be aware of what was going on. The only person in the room who seemed truly unperturbed was the half-breed woman, who had put down McRaney’s underwear and picked up a pair of his socks to darn.

  The beard-stubbled face of the man with the Colt suddenly creased in an ugly smile. "You may not be worth anything dead, mister, but we can get you back up there without killin' you. We'll just shoot your kneecaps and your elbows, and once we've done that, you won't give us no trouble."