The Wolf Pack (Cutler #1)

by John Benteen

  “Meaning I’ve got Fair’s ranch strung with steel. Two days, I’ll have yours full of traps, too. Meantime, though, you ought to get your association people together and head for Bobbitt’s. All the riders and dogs you can lay your hands on. Help him guard his range; likely, if you got enough people there, when he comes to kill, you’ll spook him and he’ll back off. Next time, he’ll cut south back across your land and Fair’s and head for Sam Kelly’s place, if this map means what I think it does. By then, you and the association can be at Kelly’s to turn him and I’ll have steel on Bobbitt’s ranch. We keep shifting like this, getting out ahead of him, you can buy time enough for me to get all the traps in place. Then we lay low and no matter where he goes, we got a good chance of gettin’ him.”

  Fellows was silent for a moment; then he spat. “And what if you’re wrong? What if he don’t oblige by followin’ your map?” His voice rose. “Suppose he hits me again while we’re off somewhere else? I can’t afford another blow like this ...”

  “Fellows, it’s the only way. He’s followin’ a route like a travelin’ salesman. Block him off while I get steel out all along it, we’ll have him soon. Either that or he’ll go to killing on Holz’s land, and Holz’ll pay the price for shelterin’ him . . .”

  “Maybe,” Fellows said thinly. “Me, I think there is another way. But all right. We voted you in as the expert, fair and square. We’ll give you one more chance. But get this, Cutler, and get it straight. That wolf kills one more head of my beef, I aim to find Gilbert wherever he is and bring him in here and have him poison this whole range from end to end, if that’s what it takes to bring that lobo down. You understand?”

  Cutler met his eyes. “I understand,” he said. “Now, let me get to work. There isn’t any time to waste.”

  Leaving Fellows at the butchering, he mounted Apache, picked up the familiar enormous paw marks, spent a long time patiently unraveling the wolf’s route of travel. Even with the urgency that he could not help feeling, there was nothing for it but to make haste slowly. An ill-set trap only alerted and educated an animal as clever as the Victorio Wolf, and Cutler was meticulous, as always, in planting the big Newhouses. Perhaps even more so; for there was within him a grim determination to get this animal at any cost, not for the bounty, not even to stave off the poisoning of the range.

  The wolf was a wanton killer and, animal or human, that was something Cutler hated. It had to be eliminated, and the only way to do that was to match his wits and cunning against its feral shrewdness. Long experience had taught him that the scale was not always weighted in favor of the human in such a duel; animals like this lobo possessed an almost uncanny sixth sense and a razor sharp intelligence of their own. But he knew now that he would not rest until he’d laid the Victorio Wolf low, and the remembered sight of all those slaughtered cattle and the desperation in Tom Fellows’ eyes restrained him from quick, slipshod work.

  Just before sundown, Fellows and his rider pulled up to Cutler’s wagon as he swung down off Apache. “We’re doin’ like you said,” Fellows rasped. “Headin’ for Bobbitt’s place. Every other rancher’s doin’ the same. But God help you, Cutler, if you’ve guessed wrong. That wolf moves in, kills somewhere else while we’re all gone, your name’s mud in the Davis Mountains!”

  Then he wheeled his horse, rode away.

  It was noon two days later when Cutler’s wagon jingled into the Rocking R yard with Apache loping alongside; and Big Red, tethered to a tree, set up a thunderous welcome bark. Cutler stopped the mules, swung down wearily. All day yesterday he had worked from dawn ‘til dark stringing more steel across Tom Fellows’ range. Still, there could be no rest for him. If the wolf held to its pattern, it would hit Bobbitt’s herd tonight. He wanted to be there when it struck and have the Airedale with him. He’d give it another run, at least as far as Holz’s boundary, and if he failed to catch it, in the morning he’d start setting a line on Bobbitt’s land. He was, he vowed, not going to be idle for a minute until he’d studded every route the lobo traveled with cold steel.

  After he’d wrestled with Big Red a moment, he strode to the house. “Fair!” he bellowed. “Jess!”

  Nobody answered. In the kitchen, Cutler found a note. “John. We’re out running your trap line. Fair.”

  Cutler shoved back his hat, chunked up the fire, put coffee on to make. It was just starting to boil when he heard the hoof beats outside, two riders coming hard. He strode to the door, frowning as he saw Fair and Jess lashing their mounts. Tensely, he waited until they came up. “Fair!” he snapped. “What’s wrong?”

  “John!” She swung down off her horse. “Thank God you’re back. Jess and I just came in off your trap line and . . . John, it’s . . . it’s uncanny! It must have been last night . . . But the wolf has come along and dug out and sprung every trap you set!”

  John Cutler stared. “What?”

  “It’s true.” She sucked in breath. “Yesterday, the traps hadn’t been disturbed at all. Today they’re all turned upside down and the ground’s all scratched up around ‘em and . . . It’s like he did before, when Sam Kelly and Harry Dolan tried to trap him!” She rubbed her face wearily. “What is he, anyhow, John? Some kind of devil, like the Mexicans say?”

  “I don’t know,” Cutler replied grimly. “Once in a while a smart wolf’ll find a trap or two and learn how to dig ‘em out and spring ‘em. I had it happen when I first started out. But not in the past five years . . .” He whistled for Apache. “I’ll ride out and take a look.”

  “You can set ‘em again, can’t you?” Jess asked.

  “Not in the same places.” Cutler shook his head. “On top of which, if I’ve been doing something wrong, I’ve got to figure out what it is.” He swung wearily up into the gelding’s saddle. “But right now, I’m damned if I know what it could be.”

  “John!” Fairfax said. “Don’t you want to eat first?”

  Cutler’s mouth thinned. “I’ve just lost two days hard work and maybe it’ll cost somebody some cattle. Until I make it good, I ain’t got time to eat!” Then he spurred the horse.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was in the draw behind the house. All four traps he’d laid so carefully in a square to block its mouth lay jaws down and closed, chains exposed, and there were deep claw marks in the sand around them, typical scratchings of a wolf. Cutler hunkered there, staring dully at them, reviewing in his mind every minute detail of their preparation and setting. Then, slowly, he shook his head, gathered up the steel, lashing the devices on behind his saddle. For a moment he stared down at the house below. An animal that smart could come and go as he pleased and might do anything. Cutler felt the short hair on the back of his neck prickle, as Jess turned Big Red loose and began to frolic with him.

  Then he rode on.

  Two hours later, he’d completed the circuit of the trap line, and it was as Fair had said. Every trap had been dug out, overturned, sprung, and around each was that same contemptuous clawing. As he tied the last trap in place behind Apache’s saddle, Cutler frowned. Instead of mounting, he leaned against the horse, rolled a cigarette, ran his eyes over the surrounding hills. The Mexicans, he thought, called the wolf a ghost. Maybe they were closer to being right than anybody knew. Only an evil spirit could have sensed so aptly the location of every piece of steel despite all of Cutler’s precautions to disguise its odor and to mask the place where it was hidden in the ground. And only an evil spirit could have traveled the entire trap line, dug up every trap, left its sign wolf-fashion, and yet not have put down a single full and clearly visible track in between. A few fresh claw marks, yes—he’d seen those. But not one full pad print.

  Cutler let smoke blow out his nostrils. Either he had completely lost his skill as a trapper or he’d run into an animal unlike any he’d ever encountered. It was as if the wolf had actually followed him as he had set the traps, marked with its own eyes the location of each, and then methodically gone down the line. Again Cutler’s gaze roved the hills. The damned animal m
ight be up there now, hunkered down, tongue lolling, muzzle grinning in the way wolves had that was almost human . . . Once more Cutler felt that prickle of short hair on his neck. Then he shook his head, swung up on Apache. He’d not make Bobbitt’s ranch tonight. And now he had no confidence in what he had told Fellows. An animal that could do this might do anything.

  And yet—Cutler’s mind worked, clawed at something. An idea moved beneath its surface, refusing to rise and take recognizable form. He rode back to the Randall ranch at a slow walk, shoulders slumped, brain seeming to churn, the bitterness of defeat like gall in his mouth.

  It was impossible. After all the animals he had trapped. To have his nose rubbed in the dirt this way by a lousy lobo . . .

  He dropped the traps by the corral, unsaddled Apache, turned him in with the mules. He’d let Jess feed him. He walked, head down, to the ranch house. There, Fair met him at the door, her face questioning him wordlessly.

  “I don’t know,” Cutler said. “I just don’t know . . .”

  “Come in and eat,” she said, her voice gentle.

  He followed her to the kitchen, slumped into a chair, accepted the cup of coffee she put before him. His whole body seemed to fill with weariness. He stared at the veil of cigarette smoke that rose before him. Damn it, there had to be an answer . . .

  Then he came straight up out of the chair as Big Red’s thunderous bark split the twilight silence. “John!” Fair exclaimed, but before she could go on, Jess’s voice rose high and shrill. “Hey, Mr. Cutler, come here, come here quick!”

  Cutler’s long legs propelled him across the ranch yard at a run. Big Red was a rusty streak rocketing across the valley, and Jess, on his pony, leaned forward, pointing. “Look a-there, Mr. Cutler!”

  It was a small, yellowish dot a quarter of a mile away. It weaved, twisted, contorted, fell down, got up again, ran ten feet, fell again. Even at that distance, there was no doubting that it was a coyote. Red made straight for it, then halted, skidding, as Cutler’s high-pitched whistle split the air.

  “John!” Fair exclaimed, coming up behind him. “What . . .?” She broke off, shading eyes with her hand. “A coyote. But it’s acting so strangely. John, do you think—hydrophobia?”

  “No,” Cutler said harshly, yet with exultation. “No, that’s not what it is. I know what it is.” He turned, ran to the corral, slipped the hackamore on Apache, swung up bareback. Then he was galloping full tilt toward the animal. Behind him, Fair slipped a bridle on her horse, also rode bareback after him.

  By the time they reached the coyote, it was no longer walking. Foaming at the mouth, it writhed and rolled and twisted on the ground, snapping at its own belly as if its body were its enemy. Fair and Jess stared. “Good heavens,” the woman whispered as the little animal bent nearly double, sank its fangs in its own flank, then straightened out convulsively. “What . . .?”

  “Poison,” said Cutler harshly. “The critter’s eaten a bait of strychnine. Not far from here, either, because it acts fast.”

  “How ghastly,” Fair whispered.

  “That’s what poison does,” Cutler said, and he pulled his Colt. Its thunder was loud in the silence of the dusk as he shot the coyote.

  “Jess,” he said, in the hush that followed. “If you will, bury it. Then pile some rocks over its grave so nothin’ else can dig it up and eat it. Me, I’ve got business elsewhere, and I’ve got to hurry.” He swung Apache around.

  “John!” Fair called. “Where’re you going?”

  “As fast as I can get rolling,” Cutler said, “back to Tom Fellows’ ranch!”

  Because he was up the whole night long, Cutler slept late the next morning. Awakening in the wagon, he yawned, stretched, swung out of bed. Around him, the home ranch belonging to Tom Fellows was silent and deserted; Fellows and his rider were still at Bobbitt’s, and Fellows was a bachelor. But, as always in this country, the ranch house was unlocked, and Cutler used its kitchen stove to cook a leisurely breakfast which he ate slowly and with enjoyment.

  After that, he saddled Apache and rode out to check the traps he had set in the past two days.

  When he came to the first one, he was not surprised to find it overturned and sprung in the midst of clawed sand. He grinned a cold grin that was itself very much like a wolf’s snarl. He pulled the Winchester from its saddle boot, laid it across the pommel, and rode on.

  The second trap, set in a low draw just across a clump of cactus that the wolf was accustomed to taking in a bound was in similar condition.

  Cutler left it, rode on, and now he was a long way from the home ranch. His whole attitude changed. The third was on a hump of ground overlooking the entrance to a canyon. Likely, he thought, that was where he would have had the action, and as he approached the set, he was tense, alert, eyes sweeping the land around him continually.

  Then he was staring down at the place where he had set the trap, and he laughed softly, in his throat. It was not a pleasant sound.

  The wolf trap was still in place, undisturbed. But a foot away, the ground was churned as if a mighty struggle had occurred there, and the big, clear mark of a heavy drag led off across the flat.

  Cutler’s mouth thinned. Holding the rifle, he swung off his horse. Apache would stand indefinitely, ground reined, and Cutler dropped the hackamore. Then he went forward on foot, following the trail of the drag. He ran crouched low, taking advantage of every bit of cover.

  The sign was plain to read; he’d used a three-foot section of thick juniper, buried in the ground. It made what was practically a road through the grama grass, leading toward the canyon’s mouth. Cutler halted once, fell flat on his belly. He stared at the canyon, its flanks clad with juniper. Up there in the thicket, he told himself. That’s where he’s got to be.

  And now he was no longer a trapper. He was the man who had brought in the Thomas boys and wiped out the Boone gang in the Indian Territory, and he went forward slowly, sometimes crawling on his belly, sometimes running hunched from rock to rock—but always on the trail of the drag.

  Now he was at the canyon’s mouth, a narrow entrance between two thicket-shagged hills. The trail led straight up into the juniper on the right. Cutler grinned, backed off, cut a wide circle. He took his time, climbing the back side of the ridge whose forward slope formed the canyon wall. He came down into the silent pungency of the juniper thicket from behind, his rifle ready, and he made no more sound than a ferret stalking a mouse. Dodging from trunk to trunk, taking advantage of every clump of branches, he descended the hill. There was no sound in here but the whisper of his own breath, the audible pumping of his heart.

  Then he heard it, a strange, muffled groan. He gave that wolf’s grin once more, swung right. Twenty yards, still in utter quiet. Then he saw the gleam of gunmetal, caught the outline behind it. Slowly he raised the Winchester. He lined it carefully. Then his voice rang out, echoing in the hush: “All right, Gilbert. Drop the gun. You’re covered.”

  Chapter Six

  There was a full thirty seconds when the man leaning against the juniper fifty yards below did not move.

  “Or you can shoot,” Cutler rasped. “That gives me the right to kill you.”

  He kept his eyes fixed on the upthrust rifle barrel. He saw it tremble, and then it arced out into space as it was thrown down the hill. Cutler said, “If you’re packing the six, let it go, too.”

  “God damn you,” a pain-wracked voice answered.

  “Throw the pistol,” Cutler said. “And your knife.”

  He watched the six-gun hurtle after the Winchester, the sheath knife follow. He laughed softly. Then, with the rifle poked out in front of him, he went down the slope, circling again and coming up below, so that he could confront head on the poisoner, Gilbert, who leaned back against the juniper trunk, face pale beneath its ginger beard, lips pulled back in a snarl of agony, eyes dull with pain. Gilbert sat with both legs stretched out in front of him. The foot of the right one, below the enormous bear-trap clamped on its ankle, w
as vastly swollen. The trap chain stretched to full length down the mountainside, its long spike at the end driven deeply into the juniper log.

  “Well, aren’t you a pretty sight,” Cutler said, halting, training the gun on Gilbert.

  Gilbert stared at the muzzle of the Winchester. “Cutler,” he rasped. “In the name of God, get this thing off my foot before gangrene sets in.”

  Cutler squatted, stared at him. There was no mercy on his face. Very softly, he said, “Now that I’ve made sure you’re fairly caught, what I ought to do is turn around and ride out.”

  Gilbert’s face turned even paler, a sickly color beneath his tan. “Cutler, you wouldn’t . . .”

  “All I got to do,” Cutler said, “is pretend I didn’t run my line today. Lots of trappers don’t run their lines every day. Maybe tomorrow or the next day or a week from now, I might come back and find that I made a catch. Of course, if I leave, I’ll take your weapons. Then you won’t have a gun to signal with. And you won’t go far with that bear trap on your foot. It’s special made, for grizzlies. Weighs forty pounds. The drag weighs the same. A man don’t go far with eighty pounds hooked on his right leg.”

  “Cutler, for Jesus sake . . .” Gilbert whined.

  “When somebody found you, if somebody found you,” Cutler went on in a chill monotone, “the foot would be gone. The leg, too, likely. Maybe the rest of you.” He chuckled softly, a sound like cold water running over sharp rocks. “Who knows? Maybe the wolf might find you first. It’s gettin’ bolder every day, Gilbert. I don’t think it would wait long before takin’ on a helpless man. One who couldn’t even run. One who maybe by that time was too dry even to yell.”

  “Cutler . . .” Gilbert’s voice rose shrilly.

  Suddenly John Cutler sprang up, thrust out the rifle. “All right, Gilbert, let’s have it—everything. How much did Holz pay you to ruin my trap line?”

  Gilbert’s mouth opened, shut, wordlessly.