by John Benteen
“Maybe,” Cutler said. “He’s sure been busy elsewhere.” He took Apache’s hackamore, led his gelding limping to the barn, and Fair walked beside him. Once inside the building, out of view of Jess, she moved into his arms. “John . . .” Her lips were hungry under his. He held her for a long time. When he released her, she said, huskily, “John . . . Don’t ride out tonight.”
Cutler looked at her gravely. “I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to. But time’s so short. I’ve got to get that wolf before they call Gilbert in. His poison won’t be worth a damn against it, nor his set-guns, and . . . Like I told Fellows, it’s lost its fear of people. I’ll fix Apache up, then ride down to Kelly’s place and take a look.”
“Well,” she said fiercely, “I’ll tell you this now. Whether you get the wolf or not, I won’t have Gilbert and his poison on my range, even if I have to drop out of the association.”
Cutler grinned at her. “You’re pretty loyal, aren’t you?”
Her eyes met his. “Yes,” she said. “When I like a man.”
Cutler pulled her to him again. Then he turned away, knowing how much he still had to do. She stood by him as he examined Apache’s leg again.
“How bad is it?”
“No permanent damage. But there will be if I ride him for the next couple of days. I’ll have to use a mule.” His lips thinned. “The mules are good in rough country, but they don’t have the speed. Just one more thing . . .” He tipped back his hat.
“John, you need a drink and a bath and a meal before you ride out again.”
“The last two, yes. The first—I told you, I don’t drink when I’m working.”
“Well, I’ll go start supper.” She turned away. Then she halted, added, “The coyote hide Jess fixed is hanging behind the barn. Take a look at it before you go, will you, and let him know what he’s done wrong? Or right. He’s so proud of it.”
“Sure,” Cutler said. He watched her as she strode out, and deep within him something stirred.
He gave Apache oats and hay, rubbed liniment into the foreleg, and started for the house. Then he remembered the hide and walked around the barn. It was on a wooden stretcher hanging by a nail from the wall, and Jess, he thought, had done a damned fine job for a nine-year-old. Cutler turned away; and then he froze.
The ground behind the barn was hard-packed, thinly coated with dust that blew back and forth from the constant wind, and it would not hold a track for long. That meant that the one that riveted Cutler’s attention had been made very recently, not more than a few hours earlier.
Cutler took one long step and knelt over it. He stared down at it. When he arose, his eyes lifted to the draw behind the house. They were like bits of gunmetal, and his weathered face was grim. Once more, he looked down at the track.
It was the paw print of an enormous wolf; and it had been made that morning.
Chapter Eight
“It’s time for Jess to go to bed,” Cutler said.
“A little early.” Fair looked at him across the table. Supper was over; Jess played in the front room of the house with Big Red. Cutler and Fair sat in the kitchen over coffee.
“Send him to bed,” Cutler said. “Now.”
Her eyes met his, and she caught the significance in his voice. “All right,” she said, and she arose and went into the living room.
Cutler got up, poured another cup of coffee from the pot on the wood stove, and he did not miss the shaking of his hand as he did so. No, he thought. No. Not even you have the nerve for that.
He sat down again at the table. Saw once more that great paw print and the two others just like it and the fragments of more, half obscured by drifting dust, that he had found behind the barn and the corrals and within thirty feet of the house. He drank his coffee, trying not to think, and yet unable to keep from thinking. But there was no way around it.
The wolf had prowled all through the yard of Fair Randall’s ranch.
She returned to the kitchen, smiling. “He fussed, but he’s down. He’ll be asleep in a minute or two.”
“That’s good,” Cutler said. “You let Big Red out?”
She nodded, poured more coffee, sat down across from him. “John, I wish you wouldn’t ride again tonight.” Her voice was soft, meaningful.
“Maybe I won’t,” Cutler said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I need a good night’s sleep before I take out after him again.” He kept his voice easy, casual. “You say you were home all day today, you and Jess?”
“Yes. I had some washing to do, and he had the coyote to skin and . . .” She gestured. “We were both tired. We’ve run your trap line and tried to gather cattle . . .”
“Don’t worry about the cattle,” Cutler said. “When I get the wolf, I’ll help you make your gather. It won’t take long. You and Jess were home all morning?”
“I said we were. I boiled clothes in front of the house. Jess sat beside me and talked while he skinned the coyote and stretched the hide . . . Then we had dinner and I straightened up the house, and Jess went outside to play . . .”
“When did Fellows and the others come?”
“About four o’clock, I guess. Just before you showed up.” She frowned. “John, what’s all this questioning about?”
Cutler looked down at his cup. “Just curious,” he said. “Just wondering how you spent your day.”
“It’s a rare day I spend that way. Usually I’m out trying to do a man’s work on the range ... I guess tomorrow I’ll be at it again, seeing what Jess and I have left in the way of stock up in the hill pasture, running your trap line . . .”
“You can let the trap line go,” Cutler said. “I’ll see to it.”
“Then you will stay here tonight.”
“Yes. I’m staying here tonight.” He toyed with his cup. “I guess I’ll ride out tomorrow morning.” Then he stood up. “I’m gonna check on Apache and then take a bath. When Jess is asleep . . .”
She smiled. “Yes. Yes, when he’s asleep.”
Later, Cutler held her close to him in the wagon, feeling the warmth of smooth, curved nakedness against his own hard body. She drowsed, her head on his shoulder. Presently, sleepily, she spoke.
“This is so good,” she whispered. “When you hold me like this, I feel so safe.”
Cutler stared at the darkness overhead and did not answer. His hand caressed her. After a long time, he said, “I want you to do something for me.”
“What? You know I’d do anything.”
Cutler licked his lips, swallowed. His throat seemed constricted. “Don’t ride out tomorrow. Don’t worry about my traps, don’t worry about your cattle. I want you and Jess to stay right here at the ranch—all day.”
Fair’s body stiffened slightly. “Stay here? But, John, I’ve got to . . .”
He said, “I told you, I’d help you make your gather.” His voice was sharp. “I’ve got a lot of dirty clothes. I want you to wash them for me. Boil them in the pot, just like you did the other stuff today. As for Jess . . . You make him stay with you. He can work on the coyote hide. He left a lot of fat and grease on it. It needs fleshing. But you stay here tomorrow and wash my clothes and do whatever chores you’ve got to do. I don’t want you out on the range tomorrow.”
Her body was still rigid; then it relaxed. “Oh,” she said. “I understand. You’re worried that the wolf . . .”
“Yes,” Cutler said. “I’m worried about the wolf. There’s no telling what he’ll do. None at all. You’re . . . better off here.”
“Well, then, of course,” Fair said.
Cutler said, “I’ll be gone before daybreak, me and Red. It’ll be a while before I see you again.”
Fair was silent for a moment. Then she murmured, her hand stroking his neck and shoulder, “In that case . . .”
“Yes,” Cutler said, and he turned over and pulled her to him desperately.
Later, when she had gone, he lay on his bedroll for a long time, staring at that darkness overhead. And he saw it all again: Doreen,
what had been left of her when the bear was through with her. The bloody thing that had been his wife, the woman he had held and loved and cherished ... He heard her gasping, dying voice, saying words he could not bear to remember.
“No,” he said aloud. “No. I can’t. It’s impossible.”
But, of course, there was no other way; and he knew that now. He did not have three days. He might not even have twenty-four hours.
With sleep beyond all question, he sat up, lit the lantern, hung it to a hoop overhead. Then he took out a gun-cleaning kit, oil, solvent, patches, ramrod, wire brush. Sitting cross-legged in the wagon while, outside, Red roamed restlessly, not, however, leaving the area of the wagon around which he had been commanded to stay, Cutler detail-stripped the Krag-Jorgenson. Carefully he cleaned every working piece of it, and carefully he reassembled it and dry-fired it to make sure that its action was smooth, easy, and dependable. Then he did the same thing with the Winchester. After that, he took ammunition from the respective boxes and minutely examined every shell. He loaded five rounds in the Krag’s swing-down magazine, clicked it shut; he loaded the Winchester with equal care. Then he sat there for a long time, smoking one cigarette after another. He took out his pocket watch, looked at it in the lantern light. Three hours until sunrise.
He dressed. When he got out of the wagon, the house was dark. He thought of Fair and Jess sleeping soundly, trustingly, within it. His teeth clamped together.
He went to the corral, and the mule Emma came to him at once. He put a saddle on her, thrust the Winchester in its boot, led her out. He replaced the corral bars. He made sure the length of chain was in the saddlebags. Then he swung into the saddle, walked the mule across the yard, and called softly to Big Red. The huge Airedale trotted obediently alongside as Cutler rode south.
Two miles from the ranch, in a grove of juniper, he checked the mule, swung down. Red came to him at the soft snap of his fingers. Cutler knelt by the dog, clipped the chain into the ring of the thick leather collar around Red’s throat. Red whimpered, not understanding, as Cutler tied the chain’s other end securely around a thick juniper trunk. He barked once, deeply, and ran to the end of the chain, as Cutler mounted the mule and rode away.
A mile from the ranch, Cutler swung down again, drew the Winchester, tied Emma firmly to a willow at the edge of a small spring welling from the bottom of a valley. After that, Cutler went on foot, drifting like something made of fog through the drowsing hills. Still veiled by darkness, he ran across the ranch yard, climbed back into the wagon, which was parked where it had been for the last three days, a hundred yards from the front of the house. Once inside it, he rolled up the wagon cover on one side by perhaps two inches. He adjusted his bedroll so he would be wholly comfortable while he waited. Then he checked both Krag and Winchester again and his Colt for good measure. It was now an hour until dawn.
Cutler waited.
Sunrise came to the Davis Mountains. Mist cleared away from towering hills, juniper thickets, great rock faces, and light fought the darkness in a hundred draws and seams and ravines, finally penetrating, wiping out the last pockets of the night. Everything for miles around stood out in clear and startling relief, and in that transparent air, the reach of the human eye seemed doubled.
Cutler lay in the wagon, motionless, watching the yard of Fair Randall’s ranch, keeping his eye especially on the draw behind the house. He still had four traps there, but Gilbert had revealed their location, and there had been no other place to set them to block the draw. He could only hope that they would stop the wolf before . . .
The door of the house opened. Jess piled out, running, cavorting, glad to be released in the morning after the night’s long imprisonment. He raced all around the yard, came back to where Fair strode from the door in a brush jacket, Levi’s, with the Colt holstered on her hip.
She spoke to Jess. He went reluctantly to the woodpile, brought back kindling and blocks of juniper and mesquite. Fair moved the black iron cauldron in which Cutler had boiled his traps and built a fire. Then she set the pot over it and she and Jess carried water from the windmill outlet by the tank and filled it.
While Fair waited for the pot to boil, she and Jess fed the stock. Most of the time, they were in sight, for the wagon’s position commanded a view of almost the whole yard of the ranch. But there were times when they disappeared behind the house or the corner of the barn, and when that happened, he held his breath and there was a sickness in his stomach. Never did he take his eyes from the yard or the hills and draw behind the house. And, always, the gun muzzle was up and ready.
An hour later, the pot was boiling. Fair went into the house and came out with an armload of clothes, which she dumped into the pot. Jess brought out the coyote skin and opened his knife and sat down cross-legged near the fire as Fair put the clothes in the cauldron and stirred them with a stick. Then she lugged out a metal washtub and set it on a bench near the kettle. She filled it with a mixture of hot and cold water and put the clothes into it, and then, rubbing them against a corrugated washboard, her sleeves rolled up, her hair curling in steamy tendrils around her temples, she began to sing, her voice soft but sweet and clear. The sound of it did something to Cutler; he felt as if every muscle in his body suddenly locked itself in place, and he was almost sick with fear at the realization of what he was doing, the chance he was taking, with this woman whom he now knew he loved and her child. But there was no other way.
The washing took a long time, Fair piling each garment in a wicker basket when she was satisfied that it was clean. Jess had finished with the coyote hide or he was bored with it, and he arose to take it back behind the barn. Fair spoke to him and he halted, waiting while she dried her hands, hitched at the holstered Colt hanging from her slender waist. Then she went with Jess.
Cutler lived through an eternity as they disappeared behind the building. His eyes swept, minutely, everything in his field of vision, seeking not an outline as much as a motion. He saw nothing to alarm him, but that did not mean anything. He knew how invisible a creature like that could make itself. When they reappeared again, he let out a long, shuddering breath of relief.
Fair went back to washing clothes. Jess sat on the ground, digging in the sand, playing some childish game of his own. Fair began to sing again, a sweet, sad mournful song. Black is the color of my true-love’s hair . . . Cutler, who had had no breakfast, felt no hunger; his belly seemed shrunken, clinched. His hands were getting sweaty on the Krag; one by one, he wiped them dry on his pants. His eyes burned now from the constant staring.
Then he tensed; for the first time, there was a sound that had nothing to do with the normal activities of the ranch.
In the distance, behind the house, high over the mountain, a crow cawed: two rasping croaks that carried a very long way. Cutler lifted his eyes, saw in the blue arch of sky above the draw a black flake circling, then lining out straight. It gave one more cry, then disappeared.
Cutler licked his lips; his heart began to pound.
He watched the leaves of the oak tree near the ranch house, gauged the wind. It held steadily away from the house and the corrals, which meant that the mule and horses would not scent the creature when it came. He could not depend on them to give the alarm.
Cutler’s hand caressed his rifle bolt.
Now, it was noon. Fair spoke to Jess. They went inside the house. Smoke curled from the chimney. Cutler had a swig from his canteen, rolled back into position again. An hour slid by with excruciating slowness. Cutler’s eyes were getting heavy, stinging with lack of sleep and constant staring into the glare. He yearned for a cup of coffee—to get out of the wagon, to stretch his legs. None of that, of course, was possible. He flexed his arms to keep them limber, agile, bent his legs; there was nothing more he could do.
Then Fair and Jess came out again. The water in the wash pot was cold now, and she dumped it out. She rebuilt the fire. Jess sat down where he had been digging and began to dig again.
Fair picked
up two buckets, carried them to the windmill pipe, filled both, turned, and came back with them. They were heavy and she walked awkwardly with them. She set them down, straightened up, rubbed her back. She looked up at the sky, squinting into the sun, taking pleasure in the beauty of the day.
And while she stood like that, hands on hips, the Victorio Wolf came.
One moment there was nothing. The next, it was there.
Cutler saw it pad silently out from behind the house, gray, enormous. It halted. Tongue lolling, it looked coolly at the woman and the child, whose backs were turned to it.
Cutler’s mouth went dry. It was not twenty yards from Fair. One quick rush, one chop of those savage jaws . . . He swung the rifle into line, praying that she would not move. The slightest movement would trigger that leap, and if he missed. He lined the sight, held his breath . . .
In that instant, Fair turned. She saw the wolf. Her mouth opened in a silent scream. There was a single frozen second while she and the wolf stared at one another. And then the Victorio Wolf made its charge.
It launched itself as if released by springs, its great gray bulk open-mouthed, making for her in a mighty bound. Fair’s scream took voice, rang out high and shrill and full of terror. And Cutler, knowing he had time for one shot only and knowing that it must go true, swung the rifle barrel, taking a lead, and fired.
The sound of the shot was tremendous. Jess jumped, whirled, let out a cry. In midair, the wolf seemed to slam against something impenetrable and invisible and bounce back. Its flying body twisted, and then it landed on its side, legs kicking, great jaws snapping. Cutler worked the rifle bolt and fired again, as Fair snatched up Jess and ran.
The second round went home, slamming into flesh and bone, and the huge wolf’s kicking ceased. Its massive head lifted; from its open jaws issued the deepest, most terrible howl that Cutler had ever heard from any animal. And then that huge head dropped and the wolf was dead.
