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  The man under the visor looked wide-eyed and shocked. “I’ve got some wires for you.”

  He handed them to Herschel, and both he and Wulf exchanged serious frowns. The wires must not contain good news.

  Wulf looked out the glass front window. A yellow and white collie sat up on a farm wagon going down the street. Damn, he looked a lot like Ranger.

  “Wulf—I’ve got some real bad news for you. This one is from Andy. Marsha forwarded it here to me.”

  “What is it? Have I lost the ranch in court?”

  “No, there’s been a diphtheria epidemic in Mason. And—Dulchy died over a week ago.”

  A sour knot rushed up his throat and, not seeing, he ran outside to puke. Holding the hitch rail, he gagged and gagged. His vision was blurred by the tears. Was there nothing in his life worth having that he could keep? First he’d lost his father. Then his mother to Hughes. Then Calico and Ranger. Now diphtheria had taken Dulchy away from him. All his plans. All the things he’d hoped for had become like the vomit on the ground—a damn sour mess.

  Then he realized that Herschel was standing beside him, saying, “I know how you planned on one day having her for your wife. I know how much you loved her. If anything took Marsha away from me, I’d go crazy. You tell me what I need to do for you.”

  “I can’t think of a thing. I better go back to Texas and settle things. All living there would do was remind me too much of her every day, I figure. Damn, have I been that bad to deserve this?”

  “God don’t pass out punishment here.”

  “Man, I can’t figure that.”

  “Maybe you’re being tried for greater things.”

  Herschel’s words struck a chord. What were they? Where did he start? But thoughts of the Three Crosses had turned out to be for him like the clabbered milk he dumped out for the hogs. He couldn’t ever stand to go back to Mason and recall those walks to her aunt’s or the porch swing. Crushing her starched dress against him in his tight arms and kissing her. He’d known an angel—maybe God needed her more than he did.

  His chest hurt worse than if a Comanche had stuck a spear in it.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  KEEP my horses. I may come back after them. I’ll let you know.” Wulf went over his plans while pacing the Deadwood hotel room.

  Herschel agreed to do that. “Take the Cheyenne stage and a train from there. You can get back a lot faster.”

  “That sounds awful expensive.”

  “Never mind that. There’s a train I know to Fort Worth. And another to San Antonio, but they have ticket agents know how to get you there. I’m going to pay you seven hundred dollars. Five is the reward on Scopes and two is for helping me.”

  “That’s way too much.”

  “Don’t be surprised if Buffalo Malone doesn’t send you more. Be careful. Don’t get in any fights with your judgment shaken like it is.”

  “I never thought about that—but I remember a man beating his wife and I was there to stop him. I overdid it that day. Not that he didn’t need it.”

  “You get strong emotions mixed in your brain and get all upset over something, you can overdo things like that.”

  “Good. I’ll watch that.”

  “Any way that I can help you in Texas or wherever you land, let me know. I can write you a good letter of recommendation for a job in law enforcement if you want one.”

  “Thanks. I’m glad I came to Montana. Sorry I saddled you with Yutta, the baby, and Mary.”

  “They won’t be any problem for Marsha. She took in a stray like me. You’d never believe how dead set I was against trying to take on a wife when she set her bonnet for me.”

  Wulf laughed. “You were dead set against her?”

  “I was having some problems trying to build up a small ranch. Why, I couldn’t afford a wife with three lovely girls that I love. I was eating oatmeal three times a day and wondering where my next nickel would come from.

  “I liked to died from a beating these hired thugs gave me. Somehow, I made it to her place, and she nursed me back to health and ran my campaign while I was down on my back.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “You’re going to need a money belt. Lets go get that and a good meal before you climb on that stage this evening for Cheyenne.”

  “I hope your life keeps working,” Wulf said, “ I won’t ever regret coming up here. Maybe in the future we’ll get together again.”

  “I’m ready to go find that steak before we both get teary-eyed.”

  They shared a great meal in the plush Capitol Hotel, and with his gear they walked to the stage stop in the setting sun. It had been raining, some light showers, and a rainbow appeared over Deadwood’s canyon like a bridge in the setting sun.

  “That a good omen?” Wulf asked.

  Herschel smiled. “Always to a cowman.”

  Wulf shook his cousin’s hand after they loaded his gear. Hershel clapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck.”

  Wulf nodded, afraid to talk, and climbed in to the coach. It was hard parting with Herschel. Damn hard. The man had become not only a brother like he’d never had before, but also his “dad” reincarnated. Herschel never complained about much of anything, and Wulf simply knew what he expected most of the time.

  In minutes, the coach left, rocking south for Cheyenne. Seated facing the back, he wished for something to occupy his time as he watched the tangled steep mountainsides of dead timber while the road wound through them. Besides some short conversation with a mining engineer who sat beside him, he made the trip thinking and wondering about his future. A solemn, sobering experience. Even later, on the train chugging eastward, with the bitter coal smoke of the engine in his nose, he found few people to connect with.

  Stiff, sore from all the hard seats and the lack of sleep, he arrived in San Antonio. There he took a hotel room, had a bath, haircut, shave, and slept ten hours. After breakfast, he found the mail contractor that went to Mason and bought himself a passage.

  They left at mid-morning with canvas sacks and his gear tarped in back behind a spirited team. Wulf saw no chance of rain in the sky, but helped the driver tie the canvas down. The driver was young man he didn’t know by the name of Stef Schworts. He had a German accent and talked openly about his experiences since leaving the family farm near Fredericksburg.

  “De one thing I don’t understand is women,” Stef said, clucking to his well-matched team. His w’s were more like vee’s. He had the same accent that had gone to school with him in a one-room schoolhouse with various sessions when a teacher was available and aided by his mother’s home schooling who had taken education seriously.

  Wulf shook his head. “I don’t score well in that class either.”

  “Vot do they want? I offer her a ring and she says no to me.”

  “It ain’t easy figuring them out.” He wished he’d given Dulchy a ring. Some part of him to take with her on that trip to the unknown. She’d be in heaven. He had that settled in his mind.

  Past midnight, he went behind Andy’s shop, spread his bedroll on the ground, and slept until the ringing of the hammer on the anvil woke him with a start. He combed back his short hair with his fingers, pulled on his boots, and stuck the hat on his head, carrying his gun belt over his shoulder as he sauntered into the building.

  “My God, when did you get home?” Andy shouted, and rushed to bear-hug him. “Oh, Wulf, I’m so sorry. The doctor did all he could for her. Children were dying like flies. It was horrible.”

  His friend looked close to crying when Wulf clapped him on the back. “I never doubted that one minute. I knew she had the best of care.”

  “Bob has some news for you.”

  “Good?”

  “Yes. I’ll let him explain.”

  “Fine. I’m starved. You’ve no doubt had breakfast already. I got here in the middle of the night with the mail from San Antonio.”

  “Where are your great horses?”

  “In Montana with my cousin Herschel,
who sent his best to you two.”

  “Let’s go get you some breakfast and you can tell me all about that country.”

  Wulf laughed. “That might take a month, and I’d have to tell Myrna all over again.”

  “That’s right. So go to talking.”

  As he started telling Andy about his experiences in law enforcement, they walked into the half-empty café. The rich smell of cooking about made him sick to his stomach. This was where he’d met Dulchy.

  “Just bring me some coffee,” Wulf managed to tell the waiter.

  “What’s wrong? I thought you were hungry,” Andy said.

  Wulf shook his head. “No more—”

  “Oh, damn, Wulf, I forgot she worked here.”

  He reached over and clasped Andy’s arm. “It’s all right. I have to get used to things without her all over again.”

  After the coffee, they walked back to the shop and parted. Wulf went to see Bob in his upstairs office. A young man swallowed in a too-large store-bought suit introduced himself as Mark Gray, Bob’s assistant.

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Baker. I’ll tell Bob you are here.”

  “Thanks.” So now he had an office and a reception area and help.

  “Wulf, I wasn’t expecting you so soon. Come in.”

  After shaking hands and exchanging news about his wife and baby, Bob produced a file. “We about have this climaxed. Hughes still needs to pay the estate some monies for those cattle he sold and deposited in his own account. And the money for the horse and dog. His lawyer requested ninety days and since you weren’t here, I felt the time didn’t matter. Hughes has to pay it or face jail. The judge already warned him. So in three months, the ranch will be yours, with a court-appointed guardian as your counsel until you turn eighteen. Good enough?”

  “What will they do about Mom?”

  “She’s relinquished all her rights to the estate to save Hughes’s neck, so to speak.”

  That would be like her, she was so stuck on that bastard. “I’ll see that she is taken care of.”

  “Well, what do you plan to do now?” Then Bob shook his head and dropped his chin. “I am so sorry. I know how sad you must be losing that pert young lady Dulchy.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “No, you’ll never be fine after a loss like that, but even if you’d been here, there was nothing any of us could do but pray the plague did not spread further.”

  Wulf rubbed his palms on his well-worn pants. He’d need a new pair of something to wear. “I savvy that very well.”

  “What’re you going to do today?”

  “Borrow a horse and look around. How much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing. This is partial repayment for saving my wife, remember?”

  “That only took sixty seconds.”

  “But it was worth a lifetime of work to me.”

  Wulf found a grin of discovery. “I guess the rest of these folks around here are paying you.”

  “Business has been rather busy.”

  He left Bob’s office and went to the livery that belonged to Jim Backus.

  “I need to buy a horse or rent one,” he told Jim, who stood there before him wearing stained overalls and using the suspenders for handholds.

  “I’d loan ya one.”

  “I’d buy or rent him.”

  “Naw, you can put a handle on him. You’re the best at that of anyone I ever knew, so I’m going to loan him to you.”

  “How bad is he?”

  “Well, let’s say he ain’t no ladies’ hoss.” Jim hee-hawed like a donkey at that.

  “You have a deal. I’ll get my kac and be right back.”

  “No rush. Ain’t no one else going to ride him off.”

  “Show him to me before I go get it.”

  They strolled out back in the warm sunshine. “He’s that blood bay.”

  Wulf nodded. He had a good eye for appraising horse-flesh. A handsome long-legged horse with lots of muscle and a quick eye—he must be a handful. Jim was not that run-away generous.

  “I’ll be back.”

  “Oh, he’ll be here.”

  “I know he will be.” And they both laughed. They would soon find out who had bested who in this deal.

  He went by and stopped to see Myrna. He knocked on the open back door, and saw the surprise on her face as she ran to hug him. “You’re home. You’re home. When did you get here?”

  He explained, and she immediately set in making him lunch. She sat him down, and in minutes brought him a huge sourdough sandwich with a glass of sweet lemonade to wash it down. Then he went over some of the details of his great adventure to Montana and back.

  “Bob says the Three Crosses will be yours in a short while and Hughes will have to repay the estate all he stole from you.”

  “You knew she gave up her portion to save him from doing jail time?”

  “Sometimes, we can’t understand people we thought we knew so well.”

  He put down his half-eaten sandwich. “I grew up respecting her. She’s left a terrible void inside of me.”

  “You eat. Breaking Backus’s crazy horse will take your mind off things.”

  “Or pile me off in a patch of prickly pear.”

  “How long ago has it been since you were bucked off a horse?”

  “When I was twelve—”

  She tousled his hair and hugged him to her. “It’s wonderful to have you home full of tales of all of your adventures. I can recall that bashful Herschel and Tom Baker riding horses around here that no one else could even mount. It must run in your bloodlines.”

  “I wouldn’t say Herschel is bashful now. What was Tom like?”

  “He was the ladies’ man. Danced the soles off his boots at the schoolhouse dances back then. Why, he broke more hearts than any man living in the county.”

  “You’d really like Herschel’s wife, Marsha. You and her would get along great.”

  “I doubted Herschel would ever get married.”

  “No, he’s got a good woman, a nice home, and folks up there respect him as sheriff.”

  “Well, now you’ve seen the other edge of the world, what will you do?”

  “I’m trying to clear my mind. Would it be disrespectful of me toward my dad if I sold the Three Crosses and went to a new land without all the scars of this place?”

  “Scars?”

  “Yes, not you and Andy or my friends, but her grave is here, and the way that things have turned out between Mother and me. The beatings I stood and took. It would be hard to swallow all that on a daily basis.”

  “Oh, Wulf. He would understand. Do what you have to, though I’d hate to lose you.”

  “I want to try out this snorty horse Jim Backus is loaning me before dark. I know he must be some bronc. Jim wants me to get a handle on him.”

  “You just be careful.”

  “And I’ll need to go by and pay my respects to her aunt, too. That will be the hardest.”

  “Oh, yes, that always is the toughest part. But she adored you.”

  “I’ll go by and see her.”

  “I have some pie cooling. It may be too hot to eat. You want some?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  After the delightful piece of pecan pie, he hurried to the shop, retrieved his saddle, bridle, and pads, and told Andy he’d try to be back by supper.

  He discovered Jim’s stout horse was frisky when he went to catch him in the pen. Walking him down didn’t work, so he snatched up a coiled reata from the top of the fence post. Snaking out the stiff rawhide loop, he whirled the rope over his head when the bay went by him in an anxious run. Then he sent the oval out and when it settled over the pony’s head, he jerked up his slack with his right hand and set his heels in the deep dirt. That swung the bay around in a half circle, but he ran one more pass before Wulf reeled him in.

  The shaking horse acted undecided about the whole episode. Wulf talked to him all the time in a soft voice, attempting to calm his excitement. Inch by inch, the bay began to re
lax. Still, it was a tense truce between man and horse. But without any scent of fear coming from the conqueror, the horse’s hide quit quivering at Wulf’s touch. Wulf touched and patted him all over.

  At last, Wulf formed a halter with the reata on his head and led the horse out of the pen. Going to his saddle and gear, he held his lead with one hand and worked the blanket first on the horse’s nose so he could smell it, then rubbed the tight muscles in his neck with it, and at last settled it on the horse’s back.

  Bay—his new name—cow-kicked at him over the placement and let out a squeal. The horse missed kicking him and Wulf ignored him. Then he caught the saddle by the fork, and the horse shied from it. Holding the lead in his left hand, he followed him, and when the horse’s butt collided with the corral fence, he eased the saddle on Bay’s back. It took a few minutes to settle Bay down, but Wulf gathered the front cinch first and then the other.

  Bay shied away, but Wulf managed to lead him back to where the bridle was on the ground. By then, several dozen pairs of curious eyes were viewing their every move though corral rails and from the loft of the livery. More joined in, their talk in whispers as Wulf checked the girths. Bay stomped his left hind foot with impatience.

  After Wulf got the bridle on without much struggle, he sat on the ground and put on his batwing chaps. Then he strapped on his light spurs. At this point, Bay had begun to act interested in him, like who was this insistent man who’d roped and saddled him?

  Wulf held the bridle’s headstall in his left hand when he went to mount Bay, forcing the horse in a tight circle while he swung in the saddle and threw his left leg over him. Bay moved sideways under him until the horse slammed into the board fence.

  By then, Wulf sat deep in the saddle and kept his head up. He urged Bay forward, and the horse began taking steps on eggs. Wulf kept him in check with tight reins, and the uneasy truce lasted until Bay reached the street. Then, despite Wulf’s strong-arm efforts, Bay bogged his head down between his front knees and left out in a series of sky-walking jumps.

  He wasn’t the toughest horse Wulf ever tried to ride, but this was no pup between his knees. People ran for cover, and there was lots of hat-waving and whooping Wulf could have done without. Then, some cur dogs joined in chasing Bay, who they must have thought was running away from them. When Wulf reached the west side of town, he let Bay run, and the horse soon eased into a short lope.