Wulf's Tracks Read online

  “Good luck. I hope Montana treats you well.”

  “Be careful,” Myrna said. “There are more mean men between here and there than you can shake a stick at.”

  “I’ll watch for them.”

  Going out of town, he rode by the Matters place. They weren’t up in the cool predawn. Their lights weren’t on yet in the house. He jog-trotted the two horses up the road since they were settled down and he had miles to go. Later, he paused to water them at the crossroads store. The storekeeper didn’t come out and sweep his porch either. It disappointed Wulf not to be able to share his plans with the pleasant man. He rode on.

  He was past Brady before he camped for the first night. Avoiding towns as much as he could, he rode through the ones he couldn’t avoid, drawing little attention except that he saw several men eye his horses in passing. Four days later, when he neared Fort Worth, he noticed the Colonel’s red wagons parked in a field south of the city. The draft teams and other horses were hitched on a long picket line. He looked for Calico, and at last spotted him.

  Head hung low, Calico stood hipshot between two teams of draft horses. The dried black blood inside Calico’s hind legs shocked Wulf. Those worthless sons of bitches had castrated him. The telltale dried blood told him everything. One of the last links to the Comanche bloodlines had been neutered.

  He thought he might vomit. And they called themselves animal trainers. He reined Goose back toward the road, grateful he had not seen a single person to shoot standing around the wagons. They’d not recognize the farm boy from Mason in his garb anyway, and just as well. With a weary shake of his head, he swallowed a hard knot in his throat and shifted the Colt on his hip.

  He found Fort Worth, with its fancy women under parasols strolling the sidewalks, the horse-drawn street-cars, and the confusion of traffic, hardly a place for his two horses and himself. He crossed over the Trinity River and north of town, found a farmer who let him camp in his barn.

  “Going far?” the gray-headed man asked, chewing on a straw.

  “Montana.”

  “Never been there. But I hear it’s a fur piece, too. Fifteen years ago, I came down from Arkansas to here. Like to never got here with oxen and a family. Buried my oldest son in Texarkana, my first wife two days later at DeKalb. Tried to farm west of here, but that ain’t farming land ’cept in the creek bottoms. Met my second wife here. She was a widow and had this place.” He dropped his head and shook it ruefully. “She died and I married her oldest daughter. I’ve sure had real bad luck with wives.”

  “You sure have.” Wulf wasn’t in a big talking mood. The picture of Calico standing straddle-legged with the dried blood inside his legs made him too upset to even eat anything.

  The farmer at last left him, and Wulf curled up in a blanket in the hay. Maybe sleep would make him forget the dreadful image of his stallion’s fate.

  Colonel Armstrong, you bastard, you better be wearing that pearl-handled pistol next time we meet.

  EIGHTEEN

  HERSCHEL and his prisoner, Auggie McCafferty, left Deadwood by stage for Buffalo before sunup. The eighteen-year-old, with his left arm in a sling, was recovering from Herschel’s bullet, which had penetrated his left shoulder and emerged out the front of his upper chest. He looked pale, but Herschel figured he was tough enough to survive. By the time they stopped at Spearfish, the day had warmed. The road was a muddy slurry and the driver had his hands full, crossing several swollen creeks and fighting the mud.

  Herschel sat back and enjoyed the warmer air coming in the coach for a change, wondering how the man he met coming over had done at acquiring deposits of coal. Maybe if Herschel had Buffalo Malone’s money, he could worry about buying things like that for future gain. Instead, he worried about buying a couple of new shorthorn bulls out of Dakota to improve his cattle herd.

  “Guess your brother and father are in Nebraska by this time,” Herschel said.

  Auggie twisted and looked crossly at him. “Where you getting that from?”

  “That’s where you live, isn’t it?” Rocked by the stage’s churning, Herschel sat up straight again.

  “We ain’t got no place in Nebraska.”

  “We need to get one thing straight, McCafferty. I ain’t putting up with any lies. I know for a fact your father owns a place south of the Sioux reservation in Nebraska.”

  Auggie became sullenly silent.

  Herschel didn’t give a damn. Before they got back to Billings, he’d know the exact location of that ranch and all about it.

  “I never ever heard of a sheriff coming that damn many miles just to get back some old squaw man’s money,” Auggie finally said.

  “Been ten bucks, I might not have gone quite that far, but you boys stole too much money.”

  “Hell, I knowed we were in big trouble when I seen six of them boxes.”

  “Yeah? What did you say?”

  “I told Paw we should only take one or two of them. Take all six, and we’d not only have the law after us, but every frigging outlaw as well.”

  “Why only one or two?”

  “That old buffalo hunter wouldn’t have turned us in. He didn’t want anyone else to know he had all that gold. So even if we’d left him two trunks, he’d not’ve ran to you.”

  “What did your paw say?”

  “‘Screw the old man,’ he said. So we took all six and stole three horses to pack them. Paw never rode a paint or loud-colored horse in his life. I bet you tracked us by just asking about them three ponies.”

  “I called them my markers.”

  Auggie hunched up with a grimace of pain. “I told them two that we needed to buy some bay horses—”

  “Tell me about the rape of that woman at the stage stop north of Buffalo.”

  “I never raped anyone.”

  “You guarded the horses, huh, while your father and brother raped her?”

  “Not my gawdamn idea.”

  “Guess it was your paw’s.”

  McCafferty’s blue eyes looked set on some distant object out on the brown prairie—no answer.

  “I asked you a question.”

  “Yeah, Paw had to have her. Grayson, he was reeled in to the deal.” The youth dropped his gaze to the floor. “I never minded robbing that old man. I just watched the torture, and that was hard, but her—that made me sick.”

  “Then you stayed at Kate Devero’s above Buffalo?”

  “Man, she was a pretty woman, but she’s meaner than a rattler, huh?”

  “Yes, and your paw knew her from the Whitten brothers days.”

  “They lynched them when I was little, so I’d never met her.”

  “He didn’t rape her, did he?” Herschel stretched his stiff arms over his head, touching the roof of the stage.

  “He was smarter than that. I don’t figure Kate let anyone touch her that she didn’t want them to.” McCafferty laughed.

  “They say you and Grayson are half brothers.”

  “We are. My maw was his third wife. Grayson’s was his second.”

  “Has the old man got any more kids?”

  “Not that I know about. He never said much about his first wife. I kinda figured he simply rode off and left her in Kentucky or somewhere back there where he came from.”

  “Your maw on his place in Nebraska?”

  “No. She left when he moved in with a Sioux squaw.”

  “Ever hear from her?”

  “No. She’s in Ogallala.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Ezra McCafferty.”

  “Ezra?”

  “Ezeriamorya was her full name.”

  “Where does she work?”

  “Same place he found her. Silvia’s Whore House.”

  “Guess your paw and Grayson are going to live it up now they have all that money.”

  “I damn sure won’t be there to help them.” He became silent again.

  He must be thinking about all he was missing. Herschel went on. “Reckon they’ll go to Ogallala and d
o it?”

  “He said no, but knowing him, what he says ain’t always what he does.”

  It was late in the evening as the stage was making a hard grade and the horses were down to a crawl when the driver shouted, “We’re fixing to be held up. Be calm. All they want is the strongbox and mail.”

  “Don’t anyone try anything,” the rider with a flour sack on his face said, riding up to the coach.

  Herschel made no move for his gun deep under his long coat.

  “Hey,” McCafferty called out. “Let me go with you fellas. He’s taking me to jail.”

  “Who?” the rider asked as the driver threw down the strongbox and the canvas mailbag.

  “Don’t do it,” Herschel said under his breath. “It’ll only grow harder on you.”

  “Get out. Who’s holding you?”

  “A U.S. marshal—”

  “We ain’t messing with no gawdamn U.S. marshal,” another man shouted.

  “Get out here,” the first bandit said.

  McCaffery started to leave the coach, and nodded smugly at Herschel.

  “Get on behind me,” the holdup man said as his horse fidgeted around. His prisoner was soon on behind him and the gang was leaving. Three men, now four, were leaving, leading a braying mule they must have put the strongbox on. Two of them were whipping hell out of the mule, and soon they were all out of sight.

  Herschel regretted his .45 had been deep under his coat. He swung down outside and looked up in disgust at the driver.

  “Who’s that bunch?” he asked.

  “They call them the Humbolt Gang, but I don’t know none of them.”

  “How far do I need to ride to get a horse and go look for them?”

  “Sundance.”

  He considered it all. Go home, get some rest, make certain his family was all right, and then come back with some help and find them. If Wyoming law couldn’t get them, he would.

  “What’cha going to do?”

  “Ride on.” Herschel shook his head in disgust. “I’m going home. Head her for Sundance.”

  He’d been through enough. Damn, a bunch of holdup men taking his prisoner. The West was chock full of their kind.

  The law in Sundance took his information, but he felt it was like marking it on a slate board in chalk. As soon as he was gone, they’d erase it and put someone else’s up there.

  Finally back in Sheridan, he switched to the Billings stage line, and knew in another thirty-six to forty hours he’d be home with Marsha and his girls—where he belonged.

  He needed some time with them before he left on another wild-goose chase.

  NINETEEN

  THE Red River ferryman cranked Wulf and his horses across the tree-choked stream. A large black man with thick arms worked the reel. “Better leave you whiskey for me.”

  Wulf laughed loud enough to be heard back at Fort Worth.

  “Dem U.S. marshals from Fort Smith will sure enough fine you for bringing it in the Indian Territory.”

  “I don’t drink,” Wulf said.

  “They’s might plant some on you’s and then arrest you. I’s never said they was all honest.”

  “I’ll watch for that.”

  “Good thing not to drink the devil’s brew, but you can read their threat going up de bank. You a smart man and can read. Lots of dem boys goes up there past it can’t read shit. I likes to warn them—no spirits beyond this dock.”

  Wulf missed his friends at home a lot as he crossed into the Indian Territory and headed northwest for Kansas.

  The trip across Texas had been uneventful, aside from his discovery of what Armstrong had done to his horse—that worthless outfit. Again, he was glad no one had shown their faces when he rode by. What had they done to Ranger? No telling. Then, as he rode up the steep embankment onto the Indian Territory, he wished he’d’ve found Ranger, too. The situation with his animals grated on his conscience. As he rode by the sign, he glanced at the rules about no spirits in the territory.

  He had been teaching his horses to come when he whistled sharply. Rewarding them with sugar or grain had worked well. His first night on the prairie in the Indian Territory was marked by a thunderstorm that blew up out of the west in a great curtain cloud that flashed and roared like an insane thing. He’d seen some storms, but this beat any he could recall at home. Maybe because there was so much to see of the storm coming at him—like a sea washing in.

  His boots still soggy, the next day he headed north, scattering killdeer and bobwhite quail in his advance. Meadowlarks sang to him and red-tail hawks screamed at his invasion of their sanctuary. He passed scattered small farms, and the world he rode through was wide with few people. Some thickets of wild plums had already bloomed, and several wildflowers like Indian paintbrush had already broken out as he rode on north.

  Wrapped in their filthy blankets, two Indians on horseback stopped him. “You got some gawdamn whiskey?” the older one asked.

  The other one rode over and began looking at his panniers like he was going to take them away.

  “You two want to become good Indians?” Wulf asked, his anger growing by the minute.

  “We plenty damn good Indians,” the one close to him said, beating his chest with his fist.

  Wulf’s eyes narrowed at the man. “No, I mean good Indians.”

  “What you mean?”

  “If you don’t get the hell away from me and my horses, I’m going to make real good Indians out of you. Dead ones.”

  When he drew his .45, they both looked shocked, turned their mounts away, and rode off beating their skinny horses to go faster. He watched them look back and talk loud in some guttural language. Plenty crazy mad gawdamn white man.

  He didn’t care what those two thought of him. His purpose was to get on north in one piece, and that required both his horses and his supplies.

  Late afternoon, he was in the hills. Earlier, he’d taken the wrong turn in the road. A freighter he stopped, who was headed south, told him it made no difference which turn he took. If he kept on, he’d come out on the great western road of Captain Marcy’s halfway across the territory a little more east than if he’d taken the other turn.

  The hardwood trees were just beginning to leaf out. Everywhere he passed a homestead, folks were out working the ground to plant crops and start gardens.

  Before he reached the next crossroads, a young Indian boy running barefooted alongside his horses informed him about some stew for sale. At the crossroads store, there were two Indian women in very colorful dresses who were busy dipping stew from a great cast-iron pot for ten cents per customer. One of them was thickset and older; the other one looked to be in her late teens—very tall. Maybe a mother and daughter. He simply turned his horses free to graze on what they could find with the reins tied over Kentucky’s neck and the lead rope bunched under Goose’s halter.

  Wulf wiped his own spoon on his pants and stepped up to the young lady, who had to be inches taller than he was. “Ma’am, I don’t have a small pail like these other folks. Do you have a bowl I might borrow?”

  The tall girl blushed and dropped her gaze to the steaming stew in the pot. “I have a turtle shell is all.”

  “Hey, a turtle shell sounds great to me. He won’t miss it, will he?”

  She looked aghast at him as she wiped a shell out with the tail of her apron for him. “No, no, these all died naturally.”

  “Good to know.” He used his finger to show her the white inside of the shell. “You pour that hot stew in there. I don’t want him coming back for it.”

  “You are very funny. Very funny,” she said, laughing easily at his words.

  “My name’s Wulf Baker. I didn’t catch yours.”

  “Mary Ann Donavan. Are you Cherokee, too?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m mostly German.” He shrugged like he couldn’t help it. “Some of our family were horse thieves and we were never sure of their nationality.”

  “Won’t your horses run away?” she asked, chuckling at his word
s.

  “No. When I finish my stew, I’ll show you how I gather them.”

  The straight-backed girl with the high cheekbones and the deep black hair tied behind her neck with a leather thong shook her head in amused disbelief at him. “You are a clown.”

  “No, ma’am, I am a horse trainer, among the things I do well,” he said between spoonfuls of the tasty stew. It had been days since he’d talked to anyone besides his horses, and he certainly enjoyed the chance to visit with her.

  When he handed her back the shell, she simply refilled it. “It is all you can eat for ten cents.”

  “Really? You could go broke doing that.”

  “No, we won’t. But look at all the people who are eating here. Many would eat something like old cooked rice or burned hoecakes.”

  “You are good people to do that,” he said, starting on his second bowl.

  “I want to see how well trained your horses are when you finish.” She folded her arms over her bustline like she was skeptical.

  Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he gave her back the shell.

  “No, you should keep it,” she said. “It could bring you good luck. We have many more. Here, I will wash it for you.” And she took the shell and spoon away and went to the two pails of hot water on the grate over the fire, washing the shell and spoon first, then rinsing them. Then she carried them back but refused to give them to him. “I can hold them. Let me see you bring in those horses.”

  By then, Kentucky was grazing upon a high bank across the road, snatching dry grass like he was starved. Goose was in the other direction, eating some grass that was under an old parked wagon.

  Wulf put two fingers in his mouth and whistled loud and clear. Kentucky half reared to turn back, and then he bailed off the dirt bank on his heels and hit the road trotting. From the west, Goose came at a jog nickering. Both horses jogged up and put their faces against Wulf. Disengaging from them, he broke out some corn from canvas nose bags and fed them.

  She handed him back the shell and spoon. “You are a good horse trainer. I am pleased to meet you, Wulf Baker.”