A Wolf in the Fold Page 9

It was Jordy, armed with a rifle and a brace of pistols, perched in the crook of an oak.

  I was amazed he had not spotted me. Then I saw that the heat of the afternoon was getting to him. He kept yawning. His chin would droop to his chest, and when it did, he would jerk his head up and shake himself to stay awake.

  I could have picked him off. One shot, and he would drop like a sitting grouse. But he was not the only fish I was there to fry and the others must not be forewarned. So I lay still and waited.

  The sun was well on its downward sweep when the crackle of brush and low whistling warned me someone was coming.

  Kip Butcher strolled into view, carelessly holding his rifle by the barrel. He halted at the base of the oak and glanced up.

  “You’re the ugliest squirrel I’ve ever seen.”

  “Did you come to spew insults or do you have a purpose?” Jordy retorted.

  “Ma says I’m to relieve you and stay out here until midnight. Then Carson will take my place.”

  Jordy started climbing down, saying, “Are you sure you made enough noise? The Kiowas might not have heard you.”

  “There ain’t no Kiowas within a hundred miles.”

  “Maybe so. But you know better than to barge around like an elk in rut. You can bet those cowboys won’t make noise when they pay us a visit.”

  “If they come,” Kip said. “I suspect they’ll think twice after what Ty and Clell and Carson did to those two in town.”

  Jordy did not say anything until he reached the ground. Then, “Listen to me, little brother. There’s no if about it. The cowboys will come and they will come in force. We had damned well better be ready or we will damned well be dead.”

  “I’m as ready as you are.”

  “Like hell. Or you wouldn’t clomp through the woods like you did.” Jordy put a callused hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Your problem is that you are never serious enough about things. You take life too lightly.”

  “I’ve taken Sissy’s death serious enough.”

  Jordy gazed at the surrounding forest, his eyes passing right over me without seeing me. “Stay alert. Spot them before they spot you and get word to us pronto.”

  “You don’t have to tell me what to do. I was there when Ma gave us our instructions, remember?”

  “She’s smart, our ma. Like a fox,” Jordy said. “Killing those two cowpokes will make the rest come to us. We can fight them on our terms, as she puts it, and not on theirs.”

  Kip nodded. “There are more of them, but we’ll have the edge. They don’t know these woods like we do.”

  “It will be even better if they come at night. Most cowboys can’t hit the broad side of a barn unless they’re standing right next to it, and in the dark their aim will be worse.”

  “The one who shot Sissy had good aim,” Kip remarked.

  “He was using a shotgun,” Jordy said, “and shotguns are like cannons. They don’t need aiming. You just point and squeeze.”

  Kip reached up to a low limb, then paused. “Say, what if all the cowboys bring shotguns?”

  “There aren’t that many hand howitzers to be had in these parts,” Jordy said. “Besides, we’re ready for them this time.”

  “I sure as hell hope so.” Kip went up limb by limb until he came to the fork. He hooked a leg over one limb and his other leg over another, but that did not suit him so he hooked both legs over the same limb.

  Jordy was heading for the cabin and had his back to me.

  I resumed crawling. I was almost to the edge of the trees when the front door opened and out ambled Daisy. I was pleased to see her and shouldn’t have been. I considered raising my rifle and shooting her through the head to prove I could do it, but that was plain stupid.

  Hannah emerged. They came in my direction, apparently for no other reason than to stretch their legs. They were calm and at ease, remarkable in light of the circumstances.

  “—you would reconsider.” Hannah’s words reached me. “I’ve already lost one daughter. I don’t care to lose you, too.”

  “I’m a Butcher, ain’t I?” Daisy responded. “I refuse to run out on my kin when they need me most.”

  “It’s not running, daughter. It’s playing safe,” Hannah said. “Calista said she would take you in. You could lie low until this is over.”

  “No means no,” Daisy declared.

  “I’d take it as a favor.”

  “Don’t. Please, Ma. I could never live with myself if they bucked out all of you and I wasn’t here to help. Why, I would march right up to the LT and call out that shrew and shoot her dead unless they shot me first.”

  “Consarn it, Daisy Mae. Don’t be so blamed pigheaded,” Hannah said, but she said it tenderly.

  Daisy grinned. “I take after my ma.”

  “Nothing I can say or do will change your mind?”

  “Not short of conking me over the noggin so you can hog-tie me and cart me off to Whiskey Flats,” Daisy said.

  Hannah was trying to appear madder than she was. “I should do just that to spite you. But I won’t. Because you’re right. You are part of this family and this family always sticks together through thick and thin.”

  “Now that that’s settled,” Daisy said, “how about you let me take a turn at keeping watch?”

  “I’ll think about it,” Hannah said in a way that hinted she would not give it any thought at all. “In the meantime, you’re not to wander off by your lonesome. You hear me?”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to wear a leash?”

  Her comment reminded me of their dog. I had not seen it the night I shot Sissy; I did not see it now. Yet the logical place for it to be was outside where its sense of smell and hearing could be put to good use. Where had it gotten to?

  “We only have one leash and Ty and Clell took it with them,” Hannah was saying. “I hope my plan works. I’m taking an awful chance.”

  “None of us would have thought of it,” Daisy said by way of praise.

  “When a pack of wolves is on your trail, you don’t sit and wait for them to surround you,” Hannah said. “You go after the wolves in their own den.”

  I was suddenly all ears.

  “But what if Ty and Clell only get one or two and not all three?” Daisy asked.

  “Just so long as one of those they bed down permanent is Gertrude Tanner. She’s the boss of that outfit, not her weak-kneed husband. All our trouble is due to her.”

  “But why? What does she hope to gain?”

  Hannah let out a long sigh. “I wish to heaven I knew. With all the land she has, she doesn’t need our patch. Whatever she’s up to, it ends as soon as Ty or Clell puts a bullet in her brain.” Hannah squinted up at the sun. “They’ll wait until late to move in. The Tanners won’t be expecting us to take the fight to them, so your brothers should be able to slip in close.”

  “With Samson along it will be a cinch,” Daisy said.

  I realized with a start that Samson was the dog. I had to warn Gertrude. She was the one who had hired me. If anything happened to her, I wouldn’t get the rest of my money. I hesitated. Here was the perfect chance to shoot Hannah and Daisy. They were so close, I could throw a stick and hit either one. But I didn’t. Instead, I crawled back the way I had come until I was past the oak Kip was in. Then I stood and ran. I told myself that I had not shot them because I needed to reach the LT without delay. But I was only fooling myself.

  I led Brisco from the thicket, forked leather, and applied my spurs. The Butcher homestead was a jinx, I decided. Twice now I had gone there to pick them off, and twice now fate played a wild card.

  I assured myself I was doing the right thing. But I might arrive too late. It would be well after dark when I got there, and by then Ty and Clell might have struck.

  Brisco raced like a Chinook. It had been a long while since I rode at a full gallop for so long and I think he enjoyed it as much as I did. Some horses were content to lounge their days away in a stall or a corral, but not Brisco. He had musta
ng in his blood. At heart he liked to roam wild and free, unhindered by the hand of man. In that respect we had a lot in common, him and me.

  The shortest route to the LT was through Whiskey Flats. But the citizenry would wonder if they beheld the parson riding hell bent for leather through the middle of town. I had to skirt it, which added another fifteen minutes.

  Chafing at a pace that would win a race, I still had miles to go when the sun sank. I was glad of that. My one worry was that some of the LT cowboys would spot me and want to know why I was in such an all-fired hurry. I had to get in, do what needed doing, and get out again with no one the wiser.

  Hannah had said her sons would wait until late. Exactly how late was the question. Late as in sometime after supper, or late as in after everyone had gone to bed. Were it me, I would wait until the Tanners—and the cowpokes in the bunkhouse—had turned in. Never leave anything to chance was the cardinal rule I lived by. Or tried to. Life had a knack for spoiling the best-laid plans.

  I had to hand it to Hannah. Striking at the Tanners was brilliant. Gertrude would never expect it, not on her very doorstep. And Hannah was right about Gertrude being the bullwhip that drove the husband and son. Remove her, and Lloyd and Phil might end the blood spilling.

  Cattle appeared. Not a lot at first. The nearer I drew to the ranch buildings, the more cows there were, and where there were cows, there were bound to be cowboys. I did not come across any, however, which was puzzling.

  Brisco was lathered from neck to tail when I finally reined to a halt. Swinging down, I was about to slide the scattergun from my bedroll when I changed my mind. I chose other items from my saddlebags. Better to deal with Ty and Clell quietly. And the dog. I must not forget the dog. I must not forget it could hear me and smell me from a long way off.

  I had killed dogs before. I never liked to kill them because I was fond of dogs, but sometimes they had to be dealt with. I always did it quickly so they wouldn’t suffer, and so they would not bark or yip and give me away.

  There I was, cat footing across the prairie and thinking about dogs in general when I should have been thinking about Samson in particular, and Ty and Clell. I was forgetting the rules that had kept me alive for so long, rules I had made myself. It showed how rattled I was about Daisy.

  I came on a gully I had not known was there, stumbled down the slope, and collided with someone slinking along the inky shadow at the bottom. The next instant iron fingers clamped like a vise onto my throat.

  Chapter 11

  In the dark above me loomed Clell Butcher. I seized his wrist and sought to wrench his hand from my throat, but he was as strong as a bull. His other hand locked on my right wrist even as his knee gouged into my gut, and he slowly bent me backward into a bow. All the while, his fingers dug deeper into my flesh.

  I could not break his hold. I could not throw him off. My lungs started to ache for lack of air.

  Clell grinned wolfishly. His face lowered to within an inch of mine and I could feel his hot breath on my cheek and smell the onions he had recently eaten. Suddenly he recoiled and straightened, and the next thing I knew, he had me by the shoulders and was shaking me and saying, “Parson! What in God’s name are you doing here?”

  I couldn’t answer. I was sucking in precious breath.

  “I’m sorry, Parson! Honest, I am! I had no idea it was you.”

  I sagged to my knees so my body hid my right hand as I slid it under my pant leg and into my boot. I suppose some folks would call my boot knife a dagger since it was double-edged and slender, but to me a blade is a blade and I always called it a knife.

  A hand gently clasped my shoulder. Clell was bending over me. “I’m awful sorry, Parson. But I took you for a cowboy.”

  I had to swallow a couple of times before I could rasp, “I was looking for you and your brother.”

  “Why? And how did you know we were here?”

  “Your mother told me,” I managed to get out. “I know what you are up to. I came to stop you.”

  “This doesn’t concern you, Parson. Go back to town, where you belong.”

  The throat or the eye? That was the question I was asking myself as he helped me to my feet. The throat did not always kill a man right off. A big bear like Clell would take a while to expire, thrashing and gurgling and maybe calling out. I had seen it before.

  “Ma should know better,” Clell was saying. “She’s always been respectful of men of the cloth, but you could have got yourself killed.”

  “Where is your brother?”

  Clell gestured vaguely in the direction of the buildings. “Over yonder. We drew straws. I’m watching the horses. They’re up this gully.”

  “And the dog?”

  “Samson is with Ty. Land sakes, Ma told you about him, too?”

  “I can’t let you murder the Tanners. We must find Ty and stop him and get out of here before the entire ranch is up in arms.”

  “Sorry, Parson, but no.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We have it to do if we’re to save our family,” Clell declared. “And neither you nor the Bible nor God Almighty will stop us.”

  By then I was breathing normally and the ache had faded and my body was my own again. “You’re mistaken.” I spun and lanced the knife into his left eye socket. The six-inch blade sliced through his eyeball as if it were a grape. I thrust as deep as it would go, and twisted.

  Clell Butcher reacted as most men did. His whole body stiffened and he staggered back. His mouth opened, but the only sound that came out was a strangled whine of disbelief and astonishment. I tried to hold on, but warm blood was spurting from the socket, making the hilt too slick to grip.

  Clell looked at me. The white of his other eye made it seem as big as a saucer. He tried to say something, maybe to ask why, but all that did was cause blood to flow from his nose and both sides of his mouth.

  Ordinarily, I let them die without saying a word. But now I heard myself saying, “If you had agreed to ride off with your brother and me, this might not have happened.” Who was I kidding? I could not spare them if I wanted to.

  Clell plopped to his knees. His hand rose toward me, but he was weakening fast and his arm slumped halfway to my neck.

  “Nothing personal,” I said quietly.

  For a minister to take a life was unthinkable. Clell was confused and it showed. Again he sought to lay his big hands on me. That he had lasted this long was remarkable. Most died within five to ten seconds.

  “I won’t make the rest of your family suffer. You have my word.”

  Clell didn’t hear me. He was dead. His chin had dropped to his great chest and his body slowly oozed forward until his forehead rested on the dirt. His hands were in front of him, palms up, as if he were begging a favor.

  I should not have felt anything, but I did. Bending, I tugged at the knife. It was stuck. I had to work it back and forth for the longest while before it slid free. After wiping it on his shirt, I returned it to my boot.

  I was up and out of the gully and hurrying toward the house when I glimpsed movement. A figure materialized next to a lit window. No, two figures, the second low and shaggy and attached to a leash.

  I wanted to shout to warn the Tanners, but they wouldn’t hear me. I drew the Remington, but I was not close enough.

  Metal glinted at the window. The flash of the muzzle and the crack of the shot were simultaneous. Five more boomed, rolling across the grassland like peals of thunder. Then Ty whirled and bolted into the night, Samson at his side.

  Soon the place would be crawling with punchers. No explanation I could offer would explain my presence. The only one who might stand up for me was Gertrude, and she was probably dead.

  There is a time to fight and a time to light a shuck. A good Regulator has to know the difference. Pivoting on a boot heel, I raced toward Brisco. Once again fate had foiled me. If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all of late.

  The ride to town was a blur. I was too dazed to thin
k. With Gertrude gone I could forget being paid the rest of the thousand dollars. I had no reason to finish the job. The Butchers were safe, a not altogether unappealing prospect.

  I fell into bed fully dressed. I slept longer than I usually would and did not shuffle down to the restaurant until almost ten. No sooner did I take my seat than Calista was beside him.

  “Have you heard the latest?”

  “Not more bad news, I hope.”

  “There have been more killings,” Calista related. “Last night at the LT someone shot through the parlor window at the Tanners.”

  “I will be happy to conduct their funeral,” I offered. It would be a fitting touch. Then I could head for Denver.

  “You need only conduct Lloyd’s. He was shot in the head. Phil was hit in the shoulder and will live.”

  “And Gertrude?” I asked, thinking of Daisy.

  “From what I understand, a bullet missed her by a whisker. One of the LT hands was in town a while ago. He says she is in a rage.”

  “At who?” As if I couldn’t guess.

  “You haven’t heard the rest,” Calista said. “After the shooting, the cowboys spread out to find the culprit and discovered the body of Clell Butcher in a gully not far from the house. He had been stabbed.”

  “My word,” I exclaimed. “Who did it?”

  “That is what they and everyone else would like to know. It’s a mystery. If Clell shot the Tanners, then who killed him?”

  “What about the other Butchers? Were any of them involved?” I half hoped the cowboys had caught Ty and relieved me of the responsibility of having to take care of him myself.

  “Not that anyone can prove,” Calista answered. “Some of the hands thought they heard a horse gallop off.” She paused. “It gets stranger. They found tracks under the window, in a flower bed. Tracks of a man, and paw prints.”

  I feigned surprise. “Paws?”

  “That’s what they say,” Calista confirmed with a bob of her head. “Big paw prints, too. Some of the cowboys think they are dog prints, but others say the tracks are those of a wolf.”

  “Maybe they’re coyote prints,” I suggested.

  “I’m no tracker, but supposedly there is a difference and these were definitely not made by any coyote.”