The Wolves of Seven Pines

by E. L. Ripley

  Silva found a startlingly ugly tree, and Carpenter watched in silence as he dug a shallow hole, buried the bundle, and covered it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The sun dragged itself tiredly over the horizon, and the birds got to shouting at one another while a stiff breeze rustled the pines. Carpenter did what he always did in the morning, giving his sore back and joints their due. Between a dream without pain and the waking world and its aches, he knew which he preferred.

  After the best breakfast he had ever had on the trail, Carpenter resigned himself and opened his mouth.

  “You can turn back,” he told Silva as they got the team ready. The horses were a good deal better rested than either man, but they still struggled with this burden. What Silva needed was a few oxen for this trail, but there was no money in mentioning that now. “Their notion would have been for you to break down yesterday. They’ll be coming on this way now. Can’t say exactly when, but if we keep on west, we’ll meet them.”

  “I have a great deal tied up in Antelope Valley,” Silva replied, unperturbed. He climbed into the driver’s seat and picked up the reins. “I can’t let myself be frightened off.”

  “It ain’t about being scared,” Carpenter pointed out. “There’s no sense in it, walking into trouble when you got no cause to.”

  “If anyone wanted me dead, I would be. And if you thought you were in danger, you wouldn’t be along.”

  “My wife is gone,” Carpenter told him frankly, tossing his bedroll into the wagon. “I have lived my life, and not all that well. Only kin I got left is at the end of this trail. Might as well go. You’ll understand when you get to my age, and you’re tired and sore all the time. A bullet isn’t the worst thing I can think of.”

  Silva snorted, then pointed at the wagon. Maria jumped up obediently. “You’ll forgive me, Mr. Carpenter. I did not know of your woes. I’d have brought my violin.”

  “You should worry about your own.” He climbed up to the wagon. “Or did I figure you wrong, and you actually know how to use that pistol?”

  “The bullets come from the narrow end if my memory serves me rightly.”

  “I admit my mistake,” Carpenter said dryly, handing him the reins. “Just tell me before you shoot them all, so I can cover my delicate ears.”

  It wasn’t even an hour before there was distant dust in the air, rising over the trees. It was a sure sign of mounted men.

  “We’ve been seen.” Silva’s voice was calm, but he’d taken a hand off the reins to rub Maria’s head for comfort. “Are they coming?”

  “No. They didn’t think they’d find us moving. They thought we’d be broken down, I’m sure.”

  “We’re making excellent time.”

  “I’d hate to be late for an ambush,” Carpenter said tiredly. “That would be rude. You could build your factory somewhere else.”

  “I could do even better and just build it in Mexico.”

  “It’ll be there that they hold us up.” Carpenter pointed ahead. The trail rose steeply, curling around the mountain, into a particularly thick cluster of tall trees. If there were riders here for them, they’d take their horses around the rock face and return on foot. That tight pass was the perfect place to make a play for travelers.

  “Are you speaking from experience as a highwayman?” Silva asked curiously, though he didn’t slow down. Maria raised her head, but stopped short of growling.

  “I speak from my experience of knowing my own name and how to walk in a straight line.”

  “Did you get those marks on your back by walking in a straight line?”

  “As a matter of fact I did,” Carpenter replied, surprised and a little annoyed. It was true they’d bathed in a stream yesterday, but he’d made a point not to show his back. So Silva didn’t want to notice what someone had done to his wagon, but he took note when another man had taken lashes. “And I was glad to have them.”

  “That seems like an unusual thing to say.”

  “The alternative was to hang by the neck until dead.” Carpenter reached over and took the reins, bringing the wagon to a halt. The worst part of the pass was just ahead.

  “And why would anyone want to hang you, Mr. Carpenter?”

  Silva was unbelievable; he’d keep chatting until he was old and gray, or dead with a bullet, rather than think about the moment he was living in. The men who had sabotaged his wagon were concealed up ahead and he knew it, even if he liked to behave as though he didn’t.

  “Cowardice,” Carpenter replied, dropping the reins and climbing down from the wagon.

  Silva looked startled, but Carpenter ignored him, pulling his shotgun from its sheath. He cradled it in his arms and took a few steps forward. “You may as well come on out,” he called.

  Silva had stiffened, but at least he didn’t panic. The growl in Maria’s throat was low. Carpenter glanced back and caught the other man’s eye, indicating the dog. Silva grabbed her with one hand and rested the other on his pistol, but Carpenter gave a little shake of his head.

  “While I’m still young,” he added, addressing the shadowed road ahead. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  Today there were two hawks in the sky, but no deer in the woods. That alone would’ve been telling, even if they hadn’t had every reason to know this was coming.

  “I would just as soon stay where I am,” a voice replied from somewhere off to the right.

  “Would that be because you enjoy the shade?” Carpenter replied, raising his voice to make sure they all heard him. “Or because you are one of these men of the notion that you cut a better figure without a hole in you?”

  “What is your name?” the hidden man shouted.

  “Why do you want to know that?” Carpenter shouted back.

  “Because I do not know who you are!” the voice replied, indignant.

  Carpenter took another step forward. “I’m the man you’re going to regret you tried to rob,” he roared, pulling back both the shotgun’s hammers. “That is, if you live long enough.”

  It was a beautiful day to look at, though not for standing in the sun, but that was what he did. There had only been one voice, but there were certainly more men. That watcher at the lodge hadn’t ridden ahead to report to nobody; he had been sent by someone. Maybe this fellow out there in the trees.

  It was too hot to wait any longer. After another minute, Carpenter put his shotgun over his shoulder and returned to the wagon.

  “They’re gone,” he said, and it wasn’t worth the effort to try to hide how much that surprised him. Those men had had them dead to rights. If they’d wanted this wagon of rifle parts, there wasn’t a thing that could’ve stopped them from taking it. What they’d have done with it—that was less obvious. Why would anyone bother to steal this? They wouldn’t. No, it was whatever Silva had buried the night before that they were after. Carpenter had never reckoned himself a genius, but that much was fairly clear.

  “Do you want to be shot?” Silva asked after a moment, letting go of Maria and picking up the reins.

  “Not in particular. But if I’m going to be, might as well be on my feet.”

  The other man let out a long breath. “What would you have done if they had opened fire?”

  “Died,” Carpenter replied, settling tiredly in his seat. He broke the shotgun open and showed Silva that both barrels were empty. “I expect.”

  “To what end?” Silva was baffled.

  “Maybe you’d realize what a fool you are and try to run away.”

  “You went out with an empty scattergun to threaten a band of robbers, and I’m the fool?”

  Carpenter rubbed his eyes and adjusted his hat. “That’s the long and short of it.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mr. Karr is my partner. He has property and a claim outside town, but he has experience with this work,” Silva said, adding more wood to
the fire. Clouds had come late in the day, and that made for a conspicuously dark night. Carpenter added some wood as well; there was something about that extra layer of shadow that made it seem wise to build up the fire a little higher. Or at least it was easier to credit it to shadows than to lingering apprehension from the confrontation on the road.

  “Where is he now?” he asked.

  “There, in the valley. He’s supervising the workmen. The materials for the factory were ready before I left. By now it should be all but complete. We’ve already had one setback with Mr. Orr.”

  “Who’s he?” Carpenter asked.

  Silva was chatty, but it wasn’t him talking right now; it was his nerves. It was best just to let him, and there was no sense blaming him for it. Anyone would have been rattled by what had happened, but Silva had more than that to grapple with. He had to come to grips with his beliefs and the knowledge of how wrong they’d been. It was a hell of a thing to go to war and see those things done, things that no one ought to do, but it hadn’t taken Carpenter completely by surprise.

  Silva, though? A fellow like him wouldn’t expect people to actually do something to him. Now he had to live in a world that wasn’t the same as the one he’d lived in a little while ago. Or maybe Silva already knew how things were and was just giving a convincing performance of ignorance.

  “He would’ve been our third partner, but he’s fallen ill. He has a very large family, and they were to be half my workforce. The sooner he’s back on his feet, the sooner we will be able to achieve full production. I was traveling alone, Mr. Carpenter. But I’m not alone.”

  “Good,” Carpenter grunted, trying to get comfortable beside the flames, but comfort was like Silva’s civilized world. It might’ve been real at one time, but it wasn’t now, and it never would be again.

  “Don’t worry. Maria won’t let us be killed in our sleep.”

  Carpenter wasn’t convinced that was true. The staghound was too friendly and agreeable for her own good, or for Silva’s. Anyone with a bit of meat could probably buy her silence.

  Best not to mention that. Silva worked hard to hide it, but he was more worried than Carpenter, which was telling. He’d said himself that if these men wanted them dead, they would have simply killed him. If that was true, what did he have to worry about tonight? It would be no easier for an enemy to creep up in the dark than it would’ve been to just shoot them both a few hours ago. No one was coming tonight; Silva could sleep soundly.

  But he wouldn’t.

  Carpenter sat up and looked at the staghound, who was dozing. Silva was lost in thought, and he couldn’t hear the distant wolves. Their howls were faint and mingled with the wind, but Carpenter’s ears were a good deal better than his eyes.

  Well, they were a long way off.

  They would come, though, and he would worry about them when they did. Going to sleep wasn’t the same as going to the gallows, even if there were nights when it was no more appealing. You came back from sleep, at least most of the time.

  Wolves would have the decency to show you their teeth, and whatever they had in mind, they wouldn’t drag it out. People, on the other hand—well, there wasn’t any getting around it. Dogs barked, birds sang, and people did the things that people liked to do.

  The captain had always liked the sound of his own voice, and to his credit, nobody else had ever seemed to mind it much. On May 9, 1862, he’d gotten to put it to use for something more than giving orders and trying to put men at ease.

  In fact it might’ve been the first time he ever put himself forth to be so cross. The first time he ever raised his voice this way, and not just him.

  The sweltering courthouse had been packed with people, so many that it was hard to know who they were all supposed to be, but now Carpenter was there again, and it was as real as it had ever been.

  There were Joe and Yates and Isaiah. Fred too. The chaplain, Roy Brown, and a few of the others. O’Doul had not come along. They had all chosen to be there; none were required except the captain. By choice they had come to swelter in this place, and at least one of them would go on to swelter even in his dreams.

  The captain, his head still swathed in bandages, stood out there alone, and Bill couldn’t see the wooden floor and the tables and the chairs because they weren’t really there. They might all have been wearing the same color and speaking, but this was nothing as civilized as a meeting. It was a battle, and the tobacco smoke that choked the place might as well have been cannon smoke.

  And like a grand barrage dying away, so did the captain’s voice as he finished.

  “For God’s sake,” he roared, but that was where it ended. There must have been more he meant to say, but he didn’t do it. Probably because he could see what Bill could: that no one was really listening. There was only so much you could tell by looking at a man’s back.

  So the captain stood out there by himself, staring down the supposed tribunal, which was not a mere three men, but probably closer to twenty. It was best not to think about, let alone wonder aloud, where all these officers had come from to sweat in this place when McClellan was still on his way, same as he ever was.

  But they weren’t here to wait for McClellan; they were here to hang Bill.

  It was always a bit of a surprise that no matter how stubbornly a man found himself living in the past, it wasn’t any good at all at stopping the future from coming.

  * * *

  * * *

  So it was no surprise that in the morning, Silva was dragging his feet. This would be the final day on the trail; there wasn’t much ground left to cover, and anyone in the world would know at a glance that Silva was in no hurry to get where they were going.

  He’d been this way at the lodge as well. He could smile and be friendly, but something was missing, and now Carpenter knew why: the other man didn’t know what to expect, but he did know he wasn’t going to like it. Why was he going through with it, then? Did he think that if he pretended to be invincible, things would just work out in his favor? Was that how he’d gotten along until now?

  Silva stood at the wagon in the hazy morning light, his waistcoat open and his hair disheveled. He was looking at Carpenter’s empty shotgun, which was back in its worn sheath.

  Carpenter settled the straps of his suspenders and rolled up his sleeves, watching the other man. What was he thinking about? That a scattergun would do him more good than the letter in his pocket? He hoped not; the gun was nearly as long as Silva was tall.

  “There’s always a way,” Carpenter said, kicking a little more dirt over the fire and picking up his bedroll and hat. “But sometimes you have to give up ground.” Silva turned to look at him, and Carpenter just met his eyes. “It’s all right,” he said simply.

  For a moment, it looked like Silva intended to argue. Then he shook his head and turned away from the shotgun.

  “I expect you’re right, Mr. Carpenter,” he said.

  There weren’t any hawks in the sky today, just the sun and its blinding light spilling over the pines. It had been a long, slow climb, but they were deep in the mountains now. Carpenter kept his eyes open for every glimpse of the distant snowcapped peaks that the trees would give him. This journey had been supposed to be about the past, but instead there was something new.

  It wasn’t Virginia, which he knew he’d miss, but he could sit and look at these mountains all day.

  There was still enough light to see by when they arrived, but Antelope Valley wasn’t much to look at. It was a valley, or that was what some would’ve called it. Carpenter called it the most asinine place to build a town he had ever seen. It had obviously lasted this way for a couple years, but he was ready to wager that the first big rains they had would wash away the entire street with a landslide. Or if there was a big snow in the mountains and it all melted, that would be just as bad.

  He hoped Silva was building his factor
y on higher ground.

  There were people down there, though not as many as he’d expected. This place was supposed to be in a boom, but who’d have thought a boom would be this quiet? Even the smells of woodsmoke and horses were faint. The wind carried just a hint of music. The air should’ve been a miasma of awful smells, and there should have been half a dozen rowdy joints to keep the miners and prospectors amused.

  But it was almost peaceful.

  Silva stopped the wagon; a single rider was making his way up the trail.

  The rider drew up in front of them, a man like Carpenter in age but closer to Silva in size. He’d done away with his jacket and collar, and his dark shirt was damp with sweat. He’d shaved, though, and on the whole, he looked good.

  He obviously intended to say something, but he was just looking at Carpenter, who tipped his hat.

  “Hello, Roy.”

  “Your acquaintance?” Silva looked surprised. And then there was a hint of panic—and then resignation.

  “Well, he was supposed to be our chaplain,” Carpenter said mildly, ignoring those flickers that he’d seen going across the other man’s face. “But he was more of a wet nurse. Kept us fed when we had no supplies. Talent for fishing. There’s something in the good book about that, isn’t there, Reverend?”

  “You know,” Roy said dryly, “I believe there is. It’s good to see you, Bill.” What he said was friendly enough, but he wasn’t smiling. “I got no good news for you, Mr. Silva.”

  “I’ve grown accustomed to that, Reverend.”

  “There wasn’t anything anyone could do. Your property—by the time we knew there was a fire . . .” He left it at that, shaking his head. “Ain’t much left of your cabin, son.”