The Wolves of Seven Pines

by E. L. Ripley

  “In other words,” Silva said, dust swirling around his ankles, “you mean to say that you want justice.”

  Slowly, he knelt and laid out the body of the staghound. Then he got to his feet and stepped over her, down the steps, which creaked noisily.

  He didn’t walk toward Joe and Isaiah. Silva might never have been a soldier, but he had to know he was surrounded. He had to know these men wouldn’t face him head-on, not even two to one.

  He saw Carpenter in the shadows, and his look didn’t pass along anything Carpenter didn’t already know. He could step out and confess that he had been the one to strike down the boy. It wouldn’t change a thing, certainly not what was about to happen. Silva knew it, and he wanted Carpenter to stay right where he was. And that was rational; Silva was a largely rational man.

  One man was already about to be shot dead in the street. Making it two wouldn’t accomplish anything.

  “Don’t do nothing you’ll regret, Silva,” Joe warned.

  Silva cocked his head. “Why not?” he demanded, sweeping out an arm at Maria. “You already have. And you seem none the worse for wear.”

  “I am sorry about the dog,” Joe said, clearly meaning it. It must have been Fred who’d done it; there was no one else who would have. Fred had always been one for sending messages. It hadn’t been good business during the war, and it wasn’t good business now. The man was older but not smarter.

  As Carpenter made up his mind, he decided the same could probably be said of him.

  The stillness was broken by sudden laughter from inside one of the buildings, but it was quickly cut off. Everyone looked, and as they did, Carpenter stepped back into the gloom and got moving. As he slipped between the empty barrels, squeezing through the alleys, the voices in the street carried clearly. He could hear every word, even if he didn’t care to.

  He stopped for a moment, thinking fast. He was behind the sheriff’s office and jail. There was no one inside.

  The quiet stretched like taut wire, all but humming in the air.

  “You are sorry, Sheriff? No,” Silva called out. “But you will be.”

  Carpenter couldn’t see Silva’s face, but he knew exactly what look was on it. He’d known other men to wear that face, the mask of someone who was ready to kill. None of them had worn it well. It could happen to anyone. There was no time left.

  He picked up a board. Fred, poised at the corner of the alley with his rifle, turned to look back. The board splintered over his head, and he crumpled to the ground. Carpenter dropped the pieces and clambered onto the nearest windowsill to bang on the side of the building with his fist.

  Beams creaked, and the barrel of a rifle appeared over the roof. Carpenter seized it and pulled, bringing O’Doul right over. The other man splashed into the mud. Carpenter jerked him to his feet and wrapped his arm around his throat as the other man cried out in pain. Something was wrong with O’Doul’s leg, but Carpenter’s sympathy had gone away to the same place that all his time had. The other man struggled, but people called Carpenter soft, not weak. He kept his grip and took up the rifle, dragging O’Doul into the street.

  “Joe,” he called out.

  Carpenter wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but the sheriff somehow came to look even more miserable.

  “Damn it all to hell, Bill,” he snarled.

  Isaiah started to take aim, but Carpenter laid his commandeered rifle over O’Doul’s shoulder, and that gave Isaiah pause. Red-faced, O’Doul was still trying to swear, but Carpenter didn’t give him enough breath to do it, and he kept moving toward Silva.

  “You can’t put him in jail, Joe.”

  “I’m the sheriff, Bill. I can put anyone in jail.”

  “Even if they ain’t the one that done it?”

  “I saw the boy’s face, Bill.”

  “So did I when I hit him,” Carpenter snapped. “All Mr. Silva did was receive a beating, unprovoked.”

  “Then maybe I’ll put you both in jail,” Joe said, his hand hovering by his revolver. “Just to be safe. Until we can get it figured.”

  “I’d prefer you didn’t,” Carpenter told him honestly. “I don’t like your jail. It’s too hot in there.”

  For a moment, Joe looked puzzled. Then he turned to look in panic at the smoke rising from the jail. With only matches, Carpenter hadn’t been able to set a very large fire. He’d worried it wouldn’t spread quickly enough to do him any good, but it looked as though it had finally started to catch.

  He shoved O’Doul away and threw down the rifle, then dragged Silva toward the stable.

  O’Doul twisted around and fired, the slug sending wood chips flying from the doors. Carpenter shouldered through, pulling his shaving knife and cutting the two horses free.

  For just a moment, Silva was undecided, standing inside the door with his revolver in his hand. Then he stuffed it back in its holster and leapt into the saddle.

  They burst into the open. Carpenter kicked the mare’s flanks and got low, urging her to a dead run with Silva thundering just behind. For once the red dust could do them a favor, covering their escape. The wind took Carpenter’s hat, but he didn’t mind leaving that behind.

  They got clear of the town and rode for the trail.

  A shot split the air, and he looked back to see Silva and his horse tumble to the ground. There was a glimpse of O’Doul with his rifle, and Carpenter reined in at once, dismounting and ducking as another bullet sailed past. It was the horse that was shot. Carpenter took Silva’s hands and helped him from under the writhing body, reaching for his own reins, but the skittish mare was already galloping away.

  Swearing, he pushed Silva ahead of him, off the trail and into the ferns on foot. They slipped and skidded down a slope of smooth rocks and vines, nearly crashing headlong into a tree as big around as an outhouse.

  Carpenter looked back, and the blood in his ears made it difficult to hear anything but the thudding of his own heartbeat, but he didn’t have to hear them to know they were coming.

  PART TWO

  THE WOLVES AND THE WIDOWERS

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  To stand as he had at the lodge after putting Oceana down and look along the road to Antelope Valley and know how far there was to go, and how his old joints would fare and everything else that went with it—that had really been something. It was also nothing. And it had been nothing in the past, the long marches in his gray wool uniform. The miles had come and gone as easily as the hours of the day, all these years.

  It had never occurred to him before, but one of these miles, sooner or later, would be his last. That thought wasn’t particularly distressing. He’d just always thought that last mile, if it had to come, would come in Virginia.

  Carpenter reached back to help Silva, and they clambered up the rocks. They were deep in the trees, but the moon had come out to light the way, or at least try.

  “Is this enough?” Silva asked, looking down in the gulley and breathing raggedly, as he had been for the past hour.

  It was all Carpenter could do not to wheeze.

  “Better to keep on a little while yet,” he replied. Of Hale’s men he wasn’t aware of any who could track with any reliability apart from Yates, but those were only the ones he knew of; there could easily be someone else. Even if the pair of them had the energy and the inclination, neither had the expertise to conceal the signs of their passing. If someone with any skill at all wanted to follow, he would have no difficulty.

  The way wasn’t easy. Uphill was a struggle, and downhill was treacherous with all the rocks, which for all the magnificent size were none too steady.

  Silva eyed Carpenter for only a moment before shaking his head. “No farther. You won’t last, Mr. Carpenter.”

  “As long as I wasn’t the one to say it first.”

  “I’m not completely without society.”

  Silv
a helped him sit down against the stone; they were nearly at the top of the hill, with quite the gulley stretching out below, covered in pines and boulders. At least if someone was coming from that way, they might be able to see him.

  Carpenter took deep breaths, and only now that he’d stopped moving did the pain in his body become fully apparent. His battered face was the least of his worries; it was soreness and bruises elsewhere that were going to make it torture just to get up in the morning.

  All that time he’d spent looking forward to a feather bed, and he’d gotten what? A few hours in it at most? Well, there was no blaming anyone for that. This was all his own doing.

  He patted himself down and came up with his tobacco, but he’d used all of his matches to start the fire. Sighing, he put the bag back, only for Silva to produce matches of his own.

  “So you are good for something,” Carpenter grunted, rolling a smoke.

  “That’s what I was really thinking about, you know. At the factory.” The place that had been meant to be a factory. “What I would do when I left this place.”

  “I knew you knew you were licked.” If Carpenter still had it in him to be upset, that was what would have bothered him. William hadn’t needed to beat anyone; Silva would’ve been gone by evening of his own accord.

  “I considered it,” Silva went on. “And I was nearly ready. The only thing that made me think I could do it was that I’d have Maria with me.”

  Now he had to start over without her. Carpenter liked dogs as much as the next man, and he sympathized, but he couldn’t really share the other man’s anguish. He was just too cold, perhaps. All he could see was that they had their lives, and they were lucky to have that much. Mourning the dog didn’t seem like the best use of their time, but Carpenter hadn’t been her master. He’d met other folks like that, folks who got stuck on their dogs the way he was still stuck on his late wife. He didn’t understand it, but there was no sense holding it against them.

  He passed Silva the cigarette. They’d found a good stream an hour back and drunk deeply, but they had nothing to carry water with. He licked his lips and looked up at the moon, listening to the wind and the owls. The light of the cigarette might give them away, but it was a chance they were taking. There was no part of Carpenter’s body that didn’t hurt after the long day, and it was hard not to feel as though a bullet to the head would have been a mercy.

  Silva wasn’t the only one with nowhere to go, after all.

  “I suppose I owe you thanks,” the shorter man said.

  “Maybe,” Carpenter replied, trying to get comfortable, though he knew it was impossible. “If I’d left you be, your troubles would be over.”

  “That they would,” Silva grumbled, puffing. “I still have my patent.” He sighed. “It will be a long road, though.” He didn’t mean the walk; he meant the work.

  Carpenter had been thinking about it was well, unable to help himself. All the labor that had been needed for Silva’s dream of a factory, and now he wasn’t just going to have to do it again; he was starting from a debt. A debt of time and money that wouldn’t be settled quickly.

  “There’s some justice, though,” Carpenter told him. “Unless they find gold and soon, it’ll dry up. Hale will have his palace all to himself. There’ll be no camp, no people, and no living for him.”

  “He’s a fool, sure enough,” Silva agreed. “He could have made an investment and had a handsome percentage of my profit without lifting a finger. It would not have been a fortune this year or next.” He shook his head. “But in some time . . .”

  “I know. You have family?”

  “I do.”

  “They have money?”

  Silva nodded. “I don’t want it, though.”

  “That’s fair.” Carpenter glanced down the hill and put out the cigarette. “Though it don’t matter if they catch up to us.” He pointed. “That is north. We covered, oh, seven or eight miles, I think.”

  “Then Howard’s lodge would be to the southeast.”

  “A long way, my friend.”

  Silva shrugged. “It is necessary.”

  Carpenter hadn’t forgotten when Silva had slipped away to bury that parcel when they’d been on the trail. The other man wanted to collect it.

  “Although it would be wise not to go too promptly,” Silva added, looking thoughtful. “It was just as I thought. The boy was sent to spy on me. The lodge may be watched. If I were to appear there too quickly, that could be a mistake.”

  “What did you really do to offend him? For him to have such a grudge?”

  “A grudge?” Silva looked taken aback. “I don’t believe he has one.”

  That wasn’t the answer Carpenter had hoped for, and it probably wasn’t true. If Hale hadn’t borne a grudge against Silva before, he certainly would now.

  * * *

  * * *

  Nothing came in the night but hunger, bad dreams, and a chill that made the bones ache.

  Getting upright in the morning was even worse than expected. It was painful on a good day; now it was agony, but Carpenter kept his swearing to a minimum as he picked his way down the slope.

  The wisest course would be to take a long and leisurely path past Antelope Valley, with plenty of ground to spare. It would cost them some time, but it was best if they could follow the river for as much of that journey as possible. They needed the water, and it would remove all the challenge in navigating. On the other hand, it was the first thing anyone would expect.

  The clouds returned much thicker, and with them a misty rain. It was midmorning when they reached the river, which was wide and frothy, tumbling over the mossy rocks. Tiny lizards crept about on the smooth stones of the bank, and they found a spot shielded by a stone overhang. It was too soon to think they weren’t being followed, but both men were far too hungry to care.

  Silva wasn’t overly attached to his broken watch, so it was a simple matter to turn the front cover into four reasonably good fishing hooks. Worms were plentiful, and once the bait was in the water, they set about quarreling over how best to go about getting small game. Silva wanted to design and build an elaborate contraption with some sort of gate, while Carpenter didn’t understand why they couldn’t just gather some milkweed to make lines for simple snares.

  “We can carry the trap,” Silva explained as they smoked, watching the strings trailing into the water, “and bait it with fish anywhere. With your snares, we have to find dens.”

  “Ideally,” Carpenter replied, rubbing his arms and shivering.

  “I don’t know how,” Silva said, giving him a funny look.

  “I do.”

  There was a pause. “Oh,” Silva replied, taking the cigarette. Carpenter went back to trimming the bark from the green branches he’d cut, and sharpening the ends. The fish were visible under the surface, so it was no surprise that it didn’t take long for them to start biting.

  “Figures we’d be the ones to find gold here,” he muttered, bringing the first up out of the water, held tightly in his hand. He showed it to Silva, who admired the bright golden scales.

  “Pretty,” the other man admitted.

  “Are you as good at cooking fish as you are at your trail food?”

  Silva’s disgusted expression was the only answer that was needed. Carpenter sighed and laid the skewers aside to set about the cleaning himself. Silva made another face when Carpenter threw the guts into the fire. There was no choice; they’d bring wolves otherwise. The fire itself wouldn’t give them away, though. Not with this hazy curtain of rain to camouflage it.

  Soon the fish were over the flames, and the hooks were back in the water. They were trout, according to Silva, and they were about the best fish Carpenter had ever tasted, though his hunger likely played a role in that valuation.

  “You’re a fair cook,” Silva confessed as they ate.

  It
didn’t take much expertise to turn the skewers so the fish wouldn’t burn, but Carpenter wasn’t going to point that out.

  “Suppose I have to be,” he said, yawning. “My wife’s gone, and I haven’t even got my good looks to fall back on.” He probed tenderly at his swollen eye. Silva smirked. “You aren’t so pretty anymore, neither,” Carpenter pointed out.

  The other man touched his own chest, frowning as he probed at his ribs. “That may be. I’m just fortunate to be whole.”

  That was a sensible way of looking at it.

  There was another fish on, but only one out of four. Carpenter left the line where it was. He’d pull them in when they’d all been taken.

  “More fortunate than that boy,” Silva added. “You left half his teeth on the ground.”

  “I know,” Carpenter replied, grimacing.

  “Nothing he didn’t bring on himself,” Silva assured him.

  “You think your son wouldn’t do something foolish to impress his pa?”

  “I like to think my son would have more intelligence.”

  “How much intelligence did you have at that age?” Carpenter asked.

  “Less than I have now, but that’s a strange thing to say.” Silva handed the cigarette back, “as I could not say that I feel unduly burdened by cleverness. At the moment.”

  “Cleverness is easy on the back. As burdens go.”

  Silva grinned.

  * * *

  * * *

  The temptation to sloth was strong, but when the rain stopped, they got back on the move. It was frustrating not to know if they weren’t being pursued due to a lack of means or a lack of inclination. If there was no desire to give chase, that was one thing. If there was unfinished business and Hale simply lacked a tracker to lead his men into the wilderness, that was another matter.