Wulf's Tracks Read online

  Herschel nodded. “We’ll find them a place.”

  “I about shot Mona. I’ve shot two horse thieves—but I guess God told me not to shoot her.”

  Herschel shook his head. “You been through enough. We’ll settle them somewhere and get your things straightened out”

  Wulf put his forehead against the barn post and he couldn’t hold back the tears. “Go on to the house. I’ll be fine. I don’t want anyone to see me cry.”

  “Don’t worry, we can straighten it out, Wulf. We’re family.”

  Family. That was a word that Wulf had forgotten. He’d finally found his own.

  TWENTY-THREE

  THINGS were crowded at the Baker house with all the company. Wulf found Herschel’s wife, Marsha, a strong person, and that made the intrusion of five people as strange as the five of them no big problem for her. The deaf-mute Crazy Mary soon made certain there was lots of split stove wood in her box beside the kitchen range. She and Herschel’s youngest stepdaughter, Sarah, formed a bond. Sarah became her guide and the two became inseparable. Yutta and the baby became the focus of Kate, the oldest, and Nina, the saucy tomboy, fell in with Mona.

  Wulf quickly learned about the jail and law enforcement work in Montana. His stay in the jail in Mason had not been forgotten—he wasn’t ever going back as a prisoner. When he showed Herschel the scars on his back, his cousin shook his head.

  “The man must be mad.”

  “If he ain’t, he ain’t far from it. When are you going after those robbers?” Wulf asked as they walked back to the house for lunch.

  “I need to soon as I can get away. But there is always something.”

  “I want to go along.” Wulf wondered what Herschel’s answer would be as they strode the way in the warming sunshine.

  “I reckon we can do that.”

  “Good. Thanks. You won’t regret it.”

  “No, I know I won’t do that. So you learned animal training from Sam Bellows. He was a great old man at that.”

  “Yes, sir. Oh, I get about half sick thinking how they cut my stallion Calico and wondering whatever they did to my collie Ranger. Wish you’d seen them two coming through the crowd that day. Ain’t many dogs will ride a horse.” Wulf dropped his head. “And that son of a bitch sold them.”

  “Tell me about Andy,” Herschel said. “I knew him well enough. Great blacksmith.”

  “He is, and I can do most of the things he can do.”

  “I’ve been dreading shoeing my own horses.”

  “No problem. We can crank up your forge and I can start.”

  “Hey, I didn’t—”

  “Herschel, I am so glad to be among family, I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here sponging off you. Shoeing horses is my business.”

  “You have some nice horses.”

  “Ule Matters, you know him? The sheep and goat man who gave me the black horse Kentucky, who was an outlaw and I broke him. Then the Culpepper Kid and another rustler named McKinney stole him. Jerome Kane gave me Goose, the gray, to go after them. He was broke. Said he owed my dad.”

  “I recall Matters had a red-brick two-story house?”

  “Yes, sir. He still lives in it.”

  “And Kane was a cow trader with my dad.”

  “I heard that your dad has a big ranch in south Texas?”

  “Yes, he could have used your help down there.”

  “Well, despite all that’s happened, I’m glad that I came to Montana.”

  “I’m proud you came. Especially since there is someone else in my family that shoes horses.”

  They both laughed.

  After lunch, Herschel showed him the forge, the coal, and the tools in the barn. Wulf thought the outfit was fine, and said he’d get started that afternoon.

  Herschel tried to talk him into waiting until he himself could help, but Wulf waved him off. So, wearing the leather apron, Wulf started the fire in the forge and began with Goose, the easiest one to shoe.

  He was tacking a plate on the gray’s front foot when Kate arrived. “You have a letter today.”

  “Who’s it from?” he asked, his mouth half full of nails.

  “Stamped Mason, Texas. Dul—chy Hiestman.”

  He nodded and drove the rest of the nails in, anxious to read her note. He clipped the nails off while wondering just what his Dutch girlfriend had to say. Then, after taking a rasp to the edge of the hoof, he finally set it down.

  “Thanks,” he said, and took the envelope.

  Dear Wulf,

  I hope you are in Montana by now. I got your letter and I had been so worried maybe you’d been scalped or hurt. Oh, I can imagine a million things going wrong. I had lunch with Andy and Myrna. She showed me your letter to them. Is Montana pretty? You missed the bluebonnets. They were everywhere this spring.

  Aunt Frieda sends you her best.

  Your dear friend Dulchy

  “Can I read it? Are you real serious about her?”

  “Sure.” He handed it to her.

  “Scalped? Doesn’t she know the Indian wars are over?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Who’s Aunt Frieda?”

  “That’s her aunt who sponsored her coming to America from Holland.”

  “She tell you what Holland was like?”

  “They have lots of windmills and marshy land. They skate on ice in the winter.”

  “We do that in Montana. Can you?”

  “Never tried. There isn’t much ice in Texas.”

  “Will you marry her someday?”

  “If things work out.” Bent over, he trimmed the frog on Goose’s other front hoof. Kind of different to have a girl in his life.

  “Must be nice to have your life all planned out,” Kate said. “I wish mine was that way.”

  “Oh, it will be someday.”

  “How did you get yours straightened out? I mean, how did you meet her, I guess I am trying to ask.”

  “The day I met her, at first, I tried to run her off. I told her there were lots of rich German farm boys that would love to have her for their bride. Who was I?”

  “What did she say to that?”

  “She didn’t want any rich German farm boys—” He looked kinda pained as he started out the open barn door. “She wanted some fella who shot a rabid dog in the street.”

  “You did that?”

  “It wasn’t all that special. A big brindle cur was fixing to attack a lady with a baby. I just borrowed some man’s pistol and shot him.”

  “Why didn’t the man who owned the gun shoot him?”

  He paused. “I never was sure, but someone had to do it.”

  “I see why she thought you were special.”

  “Oh, she’s very pretty.”

  “I bet she is pretty. What will you do in Montana—shoe horses?”

  “Kate, I’m not certain of anything in my future. My father left me a ranch I love. But my stepfather has it right now. He and I don’t get along—so I left.” He straightened his back and dropped the hoof. “I left so I wouldn’t kill him.”

  “Oh—”

  “I know that’s wrong, but he sold my trained dog and horse. And kept the money. I got a lawyer working on it. It’s better than me taking the law into my own hands.”

  “We were lucky. We got Herschel. He’s the best stepfather in the whole world.”

  “He seems like that.”

  “No, Wulf, we couldn’t have done any better.”

  “Then you’re lucky.” He laughed. He hadn’t laughed about much of anything lately, but just being around this bunch was like being alive again. “How come you don’t have a dog?”

  “Ours died.”

  “Well, we need to get one and train ’em.”

  “I heard you say you trained ’em.”

  He shook his head and drew up the hoof again. “It’s not hard.”

  “How’s the shoeing going?” Herschel called out to him. “Toss a saddle on a horse. We need to go investigate a crime.”


  “Fine, I’ll take the black horse. He’s ready.”

  Herschel turned back to his oldest. “Kate, run to the house and tell your mother we may be back for a late supper.”

  “How late?” she asked.

  “Maybe real late.”

  “Was someone murdered?” Kate asked.

  “Maybe. We don’t know yet.”

  She looked pained. “Is there a body?”

  He nodded and she took off.

  “Now you have me puzzled as to what happened,” Wulf said.

  “Oh. There’s a body in a cabin that a man found yesterday. He thought the man had been shot, but never really looked around closely—I think it spooked him and he busted on down here to tell me.”

  “Anyone he knew?”

  Herschel shook his head. “He said he didn’t know him.”

  When the horses were saddled, they led them outside. Marsha and Kate brought them coats.

  “It may get cold again,” Marsha said, shaking her head at the two of them.

  Wulf thanked Kate for his coat, and Herschel kissed his wife good-bye. Wulf had to hold Kentucky in. As he watched Herschel’s roan, Cob, sidestep out to the road, he about laughed. That horse might really buck.

  Their horses at last settled, they trotted them north and east, catching the main road, and headed for Miles City. Herschel assured him they didn’t have to go that far before they’d turn off and go north to this shack.

  “How do you solve a murder?” Wulf asked.

  “It’s kinda like you probably learned how to swim. You jump in and flail your arms and legs a lot.”

  “Meaning you have to figure things out as you go?”

  “That’s the main way. You get clues from the wildest things, and some you think are great aren’t nothing at all.”

  “Well, I’m along to learn all I can.”

  “That makes two of us.” Herschel laughed.

  “You know, I’ve been around folks all my life, but they don’t seem to have as much fun as your family has. What brings that on?”

  “Aw, don’t take yourself too serious. Don’t mire down on the things that are wrong, and work hard on things you think are right.”

  “I’ll do that. Try it anyhow. I brought enough trouble in your lives with those three Indian women, and I ain’t a easy boarder—but it don’t get you all down.”

  “We’ve had our bad times. These are the good times and we’re enjoying them.”

  “Who brought you word about this dead man?”

  “Charlie Haught. He’s a rancher up on Beaver Creek. Haught ain’t God’s bravest son and he comes untracked easy.”

  “That his shack?”

  “No, it’s an old homesteader’s place. There were several of them up here before the Little Big Horn battle down at Hardin. Many such folks took that battle as a bad omen and left their claims. All they had was a shack, and in the passage of time most are in need of repair.”

  “How did Haught find the body?”

  “Said he was passing through and saw signs someone had been living there.”

  Wulf nodded to show that he understood.

  They reached the cabin in the late afternoon. There were lots of tracks going and coming from the shack to the tilted outhouse. There had been a horse kept in a shed. Looked to Wulf like he’d eaten lots of old dusty hay, but he was barefoot and now he was gone. From the fresh hair that Wulf found on the corners and ends of boards, he’d guess him to be a pinto.

  Wulf came outside in the late afternoon sunshine, and Herschel waved him over to the cabin doorway. “He was shot twice at close range. Powder burns on his shirt show that much. What did you find?”

  “A barefoot horse’s been kept out there. Probably a pinto. He’s gone, too.”

  “So we have a murder and a horse stolen.”

  Wulf shrugged. “That horse probably wasn’t worth much.”

  “The old grizzly character inside suited him, or he suited the horse. But no one’s going to cry over either, I don’t reckon.”

  “What do we do next?”

  “Ride over to bum us a meal off the next rancher and borrow a horse to carry the body in on.”

  “Can I look at the dead man?” If he was going to be any help, he needed to learn all about this business—like it or not.

  “Help yourself. He ain’t saying much. I never recall seeing him around here before either.”

  “What was he eating?” Wulf asked, going by him and steeling himself for the sight of a dead man. Kind of an eerie feeling inside, but he knew it was something he had to do.

  “Canned beans, I guess. There’s some empties in there.”

  On the floor in the dark shack was a body lying on its back. Two black holes with powder burns. The man’s beard was tangled and his greasy hair streaked in gray. Herschel must have closed the man’s eyes. His lips were open and showed his yellow teeth. The old red-black checkered wool shirt was worn, and the man had on a canvas vest and wool pants that were threadbare. But he wore new knee-high boots.

  “He had a dollar and forty-two cents on him and no identification.” Herschel was standing above him as Wulf squatted down, looking for an answer in a silent void.

  “What about them boots?”

  “They are the most memorable things about him.”

  “Can we pull one off?” Wulf asked.

  “Sure. Never entered my mind.”

  Wulf held onto the man’s leg, and Herschel removed the boot with some effort. A shower of twenty-dollar bills floated out of the first boot, and more floated out of the other.

  They counted them and Herschel made a note—380 dollars.

  “Lots of money for an old bum to have, isn’t it? These boots were made in Miles City by a boot maker named Tree.” Wulf had read the label sewn inside the vamp.

  “I bet he’d know this fella or whoever he made these boots for.”

  “You’re thinking this fella is the second owner?”

  Herschel nodded. “Let’s go find a horse to haul him back to town on.”

  Wulf agreed, feeling better being outside even in the setting sun and with the air turning cooler. He shrugged on his jacket, grateful for Marsha thinking of them, and they rode over to Jack Nipp’s place. He loaned them a packhorse and packsaddle. Jack’d seen some smoke over by the cabin, figured it was some fugitive moving through, maybe headed for Canada. Folks like Nipp learned to mind their own business about men on the move, and they only hoped such men didn’t steal a horse on their way north.

  Mrs. Nipp fed them some corn bread and hot brown beans from a kettle that hung in her hearth. They were tasty and well cooked, with some onion and bacon in them. It was past dark when Wulf and Herschel loaded the dead man on the horse, and they rode back by the starlight.

  Marsha met them with a lantern at their house after they left the corpse with the undertaker. “Took you long enough.”

  “We were coming all the time, weren’t we, Wulf?”

  “Sure were.”

  “Who fed you?”

  “Mrs. Nipp.”

  “Ah, how long were you there?”

  “How long does it take to eat two bowls of brown beans?” Herschel asked.

  “Well, did you learn his name? The dead man’s.”

  “No, but we know where his boots were made.”

  “Oh?”

  “Miles City, and my deputy Wulf Baker is going over there and learn all about those boots.”

  “So he’s shipping you off already, huh? Well, I have some apple pie that’s still hot. We better go have a piece of it.”

  Wulf felt good retiring to his pallet in the tack room, which smelled of oats and saddle leather. With so many women in the house, he took his place out there. Come sunup, he’d be a deputy investigating the murder over in the next county. He needed to write Dulchy and tell her all about his adventure. She’d not be interested in the dead man, but he could think of something else to tell her about.

  The stage ride took eight hours to Miles
City, and he felt well rocked arriving there in the late afternoon. He found the Boot Tree Store, and the bell rang overhead when he entered. He drew the boot out of his satchel and put it on the counter.

  A balding man looked at it with a frown. “That’s Jim Robbins’ boot. Where in hell did you find it?”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “Ain’t no one seen him in over a month. Went off on a cow buying trip and ain’t been seen since. Who’re you?”

  “Deputy Sheriff Yellowstone County, Wulf Baker. We found these boots on a dead man in a shack over our way.”

  “Land’s sake, who killed him?”

  “That’s why I’m here. Could be there might be more than one dead man.”

  “Sheriff’s gone, but Biff Adams, his head deputy, was in here an hour ago. Maybe he can help you. They’ve been looking high and low for Robbins.”

  “This fella was whiskered, long greasy gray-streaked black hair. Stood five-eight or nine. Wore a checkered wool shirt and canvas vest.”

  “Sounds like the kind of riffraff comes in on the railroad. How old are you anyway?”

  “Nineteen,” he lied.

  “Guess’ cause you’re kin to the sheriff is why you have that commission. His father was a deputy, too. He was a tough old gunhand. Had it out with some Messicans last year who’d chased him up here from Texas.”

  “That was Thurman Baker, my dad’s brother, I guess.”

  “That was his name.”

  “How do I find this deputy sheriff?”

  “Jail down the street. Since they quit construction again on the railroad tracks, he ain’t very busy.”

  Wulf thanked the man and hurried off to find the deputy.

  Biff Adams wore a large mustache, two six-guns, and had shoulders wide as a longhorn’s rack. He stood in the doorway of the jail as the daylight slipped away. “Howdy, what can I do for you?”

  “I’m Herschel Baker’s deputy. Looking, I guess, for a Mr. Robbins.”

  “I doubt he’s even alive. No one’s seen him in months.”

  “A man wearing his boots is dead, too. Killed this week in a shack in my county.” Wulf went on explaining the situation.