The Range Wolf

by Andrew J. Fenady

  I knew that Leach and his fellow conspirators would not give up. Another attempt on Riker’s life was likely. But how? And when? Either that, or they would leave the drive—disappear in the dark of night and head back across the Red River to Texas. But it was also likely that they would await the outcome of Dr. Picard’s effort to save Simpson’s life. Likely, but not definite.

  Once again, Flaxen was at the side of Dr. Picard, and once again Simpson’s life was in the balance—this time in more ways than one.

  I had taken two plates into the wagon for Flaxen and Picard, and once again asked the inevitable question.

  “It’s a fascinating situation,” Picard said. “Pepper’s knife went deep, and Simpson’s lost a lot of blood. But that Bowie didn’t decimate any vital organs. I might be able to save his life. But why?”

  “Your oath is why. The Hippocratic Oath.”

  “But Wolf Riker didn’t take that oath. He swore another oath. He’s going to hang Simpson. Is that what I’d save him for?”

  “Doctor . . .”

  “Have you ever seen a man hang, Christopher? I have, and it’s ghastly.”

  “Doctor, you’re ahead of yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean save him first, after that anything can happen.”

  “Such as what? A thunderbolt from above striking Riker dead? Or a sudden clarion call of conscience cleansing that warped brain? Never, my friend.”

  “Do you think that Leach and the rest of them who attacked Riker that night are—”

  “You mean that night that you saved him?”

  “—you think they’re going to help, or stand idly by, and let Riker hang Simpson?”

  “You’re right about that,” Picard nodded, “One way or another, there’s going to be some casualties.”

  “That’s what I mean by being ahead of yourself. Do everything you can to save Simpson, after that . . .”

  “After that, what?”

  “So will the rest of us.”

  “Christopher’s right,” Flaxen said. “And I don’t think you even thought of doing anything else . . . Doctor.”

  Picard shrugged, then smiled.

  “Of course. I just wanted to hear it from somebody else. But there is something we have to do first.”

  “What?” Flaxen asked.

  Picard pointed to the plates.

  “Eat.”

  I had seen Cookie scurry toward Riker’s wagon, knock, then enter.

  I waited for what I thought was long enough—but not too long—walked to the entrance past Pepper, and knocked.

  “Who is it?” came Riker’s voice.

  “Christopher Guthrie.”

  “Come in.”

  I did.

  Riker was seated at his desk holding a piece of paper. Cookie stood nearby, the cat who swallowed the canary on his dirty face.

  Wolf Riker glanced up at me.

  “I’ll be with you in a minute.” And he went back to the paper.

  I nodded, turned and looked once again at the “unsurrendered sword” on the opposite wall.

  It was less than a minute when I heard Riker’s voice.

  “All right, Cookie—you can leave now.”

  “I said ‘good as done,’ didn’t I?” Cookie grinned. “Well, it’s done. All the names . . .”

  “I said you can leave now, Cookie.”

  Eustice Munger walked past me cackling and mumbling as if I weren’t there.

  After the door closed I turned toward Riker. He, too, was looking at the sword, then down at the paper still in his hand, then at me.

  “Well, Mr. Guthrie, I wonder why you’re here?”

  “Do you?”

  “To give me a report on the condition of Dr. Picard’s latest patient, the would-be assassin? Or to plead for his life in case he survives?”

  “He may survive.”

  “The hanging?” Riker smiled.

  “Mr. Riker, in the name of heaven . . .”

  “Heaven! But we’re not in heaven.”

  “Nor in hell, or are we?”

  “What about justice?” Riker waved the paper at me. “These men tried to kill me and so did Simpson. There’s such a thing as retribution, and justice.”

  “You need those men. If you hang Simpson, or try to, they’ll take retribution on you. I repeat, you need them. Indians. Comancheros. Border Raiders. God knows what else. Why should they follow you? You’ll never finish this drive. They won’t fight for you.”

  “They’ll fight and finish the drive—for their own greed.”

  “Not if you hang Simpson.”

  “I have a surprise. It’ll make a good chapter for your book.”

  “What surprise?”

  “You’ll see tomorrow, along with the rest of them.”

  Wolf Riker folded the paper and put it in his pocket.

  “Life is full of surprises, Mr. Guthrie.”

  CHAPTER LIII

  Wolf Riker said that he wanted all of us to be there.

  “But a lot of the cattle will stray,” Alan Reese said.

  “Let ’em stray. We’ll gather ’em up later. I want everyone to hear what I have to say.”

  We were all there. All except Simpson.

  Riker stood on a box and lit a cigar as his eyes swept across the assembled drovers, Pepper, Cookie, Dr. Picard, Flaxen, and me.

  I had never seen him more confident, calm, and composed. Rather than harshness, there was humor in his voice and attitude.

  “Good. All of you step closer. Mr. Guthrie, Miss Brewster. That accounts for everyone except Simpson. We’ll get to him later.

  “First of all, I want to talk to you about mathematics, among other things.

  “More than half of you have worked or ridden with me before—some in uniform, in good times and now in not so good. But there could be something good—better than we’ve had in a long time—in Kansas.

  “I think I can count on that half, I know that most of you have some complaints—well, so have I—but for the most part, we’ll stick together and see it through to Abilene.

  “But there’s a handful among you that wants to see me dead. We’ll put that aside for a minute, because as I told Mr. Guthrie last night, I have a surprise in store for all of you—everybody that’s here.

  “It’s true that our supplies are low, too low—flour, sugar, dried beans, coffee and the rest of it, and you haven’t got two dime neighbors in your pocket—and even if you did, there’d be no place to spend ’em ’til we get to Kansas.

  “Well, the surprise is that there’s a place where we can get flour, sugar, beans, coffee, and something stimulating to drink, and the money to fill all your pockets, and then some—and it’s not far from here—a damn sight closer than Kansas.”

  There were shouts from the drovers.

  “Where?”

  “How close?”

  And more.

  Riker continued, sangfroid as before, between puffs.

  “Fort Concho. That’s where. There are some maps in my wagon and only Donavan knew about them. How many of you noticed that we’ve been veering west the last few days?

  “That’s because I’ve got a contract to sell a hundred head of cattle at ten dollars a head to Major Randall Wagner of the U.S. Army—some of them for the Indians and some for the soldiers at the fort.”

  There was a favorable reaction from most of the drovers, but not all of them.

  Leach called out through his perpetual snarl.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about this before?”

  “Because I saved it for just such an occasion, when spirits were low and everybody needed a boost. Well, you’re getting that boost now.

  “And that’s not all. A hundred head at ten dollars a head, speaking of mathematics, you know how much that is? One thousand dollars coin of the realm.

  “And do you know how much of that I’m spreading among you? All of it! I’m not pocketing a dime until we get to Kansas.”

  This pr
oduced an even more positive reaction, even from Leach.

  “After Concho, it’ll still be rough going ’til we get to market, and there’ll be trouble along the way, but we’ll make it and you’ll go home rich.

  “Even with five thousand head at twenty dollars a head that’s a hundred thousand dollars.

  “I’ll keep two-thirds, and the rest is split among you. You figure out how much that’ll be—enough to buy a whole hell of a lot of Texas.”

  At this point there were even cheers. But not from Leach, whose snarl was once again evident.

  “How do we know you’ll do it?”

  “I’ve been called a lot of things by some of you. But nobody’s ever called me a liar. Even so, I intend to put it in writing—today.

  “But before I do—about those of you who’ve already tried to kill me . . .”

  He removed a slip of paper from his pocket and unfolded it.

  “. . . I have the names of those conspirators on this piece of paper.”

  This time there was a nervous, uncertain reaction.

  “Now do you know what I’m going to do with them?

  “Nothing. Not one blessed thing.

  “And something else. I’m not going to hang Simpson. I’m going to free him . . . after I tear up this paper and forget about it.”

  Riker knew he had them, all of them, as he smiled and tore the paper in half, then again and again—and let the pieces flutter to the ground.

  “But I have to tell you something else. You’ve got to be more careful. There’s a spy among you . . . an informer.”

  There was a momentary silence, a pause, as Riker drew on his cigar and allowed the revelation to sink in.

  Leach, Smoke, French Frank, and some of the other conspirators all cast their eyes toward me.

  I was uneasy to say the least. With Wolf Riker you never knew where you stood, or what he was going to say, or do, next.

  “I see you’re glancing at Mr. Guthrie. No, gentlemen, not Guthrie. He made a bargain with you and kept it. I tried to persuade him, but he wouldn’t inform.”

  Riker looked at Cookie who was abashed at Riker’s breach of trust as Riker went on.

  “The spy is Cookie. I can’t abide a spy.”

  By then, Cookie was terrified.

  “You have my permission to repay him for his treachery.”

  That’s all they needed. Lead by Leach, Smoke, French Frank, and Dogbreath, they chased after Cookie, who already was trying desperately to scramble out of reach as the pursuers shouted after him.

  “The son of a bitch . . .”

  “Dirty squealer . . .”

  “Get a rope. We’ll drag the dirty bastard . . .”

  There were other epithets, more purple and descriptive, as they chased after the cursing Cookie, dodging and ducking. But the pursuers came from all directions.

  Riker stepped down from the box grinning. Flaxen, Dr. Picard, and I were jolted by Riker’s machinations. Pepper stood seemingly unaffected.

  A couple of the men grabbed ahold of Cookie, who flailed with both fists and even managed to draw his knife, but it was quickly taken away as he was swarmed over, whining and gibbering, his mouth flecked with bloody foam, while he was brought down on the ground. In seconds a rope circled his wrists, and bound them tight. French Frank appeared on horseback and threw out the loop end of a lariat.

  The men fastened it under the shoulders of the quivering and screaming victim.

  “Drag him!” Leach commanded.

  French Frank needed no encouragement. He spurred his mount until the rope snapped tight and jerked Cookie off the surface of the ground but only for a moment. He landed hard and was bobbing and bouncing through the torturous terrain tearing at his hurtling body.

  But French Frank did not want to deny the drovers the sight and satisfaction of their revenge.

  After a couple hundred feet or so, he whirled his horse and started back toward the onlookers, this time at a slower pace, still dragging and punishing the hapless man across the rugged tract through chuckholes, mesquite, and rocks.

  But the drovers wanted more, shouting at French Frank to speed up again. He reacted favorably, spurring his mount.

  But as the rider and horse began to bolt, Riker reached out his hand and Pepper lodged the handle of the Bowie into Riker’s palm, who with one sure stroke severed the taut rope, and Cookie lay on the ground, barely conscious, twitching and cursing.

  The drovers, most of them, obviously were disappointed that Cookie’s travail had come to such an abrupt conclusion, surprisingly by the hand of Wolf Riker. But then, Wolf Riker was full of surprises that day. He looked at Flaxen, whose face was white, her eyes dilated with distress as she turned away.

  “Man play, Miss Brewster,” Riker said, drawing on his cigar. “It could have been much worse. He’ll be back to his pots and pans soon enough, won’t he, Dr. Picard?”

  Picard was already leaning over Cookie. So was Alan Reese, cutting away the ropes that still bound the battered and contused Cookie.

  Riker handed Pepper his Bowie, and looked at me.

  “You see, Mr. Guthrie, I told you they’d finish the drive.”

  Then Riker turned and walked away, followed by a trail of cigar smoke and Pepper.

  CHAPTER LIV

  After that we were on the Hallelujah Trail to Fort Concho—or so the drovers thought.

  But for Flaxen and me it would be the end of the trail. The end of this trail—and the beginning of a new one. That’s where the two of us would bid adiós to Wolf Riker.

  From Fort Concho there had to be a safer passage West, and Flaxen and I would book that passage.

  After Wolf Riker’s surprise speech, and Cookie’s ordeal, there was almost an air of celebration along the way.

  Picard, Flaxen, and I told Simpson that Riker had pardoned him from execution by hanging. He understood what we said, but reacted as if he had something else in mind. And as Riker predicted, soon after Dr. Picard’s ministering to the cuts and bruises, Cookie was back among his pots and pans again. During the interim, Morales One and Morales Two filled in with an assist from me, and the cuisine was much improved.

  The drovers, anxious to get to Fort Concho, drove the herd and themselves hard. At the end of each day men and animals were near exhaustion. But there were no complaints—not from the men.

  On a couple of occasions there were even songs around the campfire—Lorena, Shenandoah, Bringing in the Sheaves—and Morales One and Two serenaded the moon in Spanish.

  One night Wolf Riker invited me into his wagon for a cigar and brandy. When I entered he was going over his maps and looked up with a contented smile.

  “Well, Mr. Guthrie, tomorrow or the next day we should be within sight of Fort Concho.”

  “Have you been there before?”

  “No,” he said, “but I know a little something about it. Years ago, to protect the wagon trains and stagecoaches moving West, the government set up army posts in the territory, but those outposts fell like a dark shadow over the Indian way of life. When the war broke out the Union Army needed all the manpower it could get, especially if that manpower had already been exposed to the ways of war. Much of that manpower was in the West. Some of the forts were abandoned. Others had to make do with reduced ranks. One of those was Fort Concho. All I know is that it’s still there among the Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyenne, Cherokees, and a whole lot of other tribes—some of them sided with the Union and some with us. At any rate, I’ve got a deal to provide the army with beeves. We’ll find out more when we get there.”

  And we did, much more.

  From a distance it looked tiny—almost like a toy—anchored in a sea of sand.

  And even closer it was still small—too small, it seemed, to make much difference in such a vast expanse.

  We could sense that there was something wrong.

  An unreal quietness.

  No guard was posted. No colors flew from the staff. The gates were open, but nothing stirred. No livin
g sound came from within.

  And an uneasy quiet fell over all of us until Wolf Riker barked his commands.

  Leach and Smoke were to stay outside with the herd.

  The rest of us, including the wagons, were to follow Riker through the gates and into the fort.

  Once inside it didn’t take long to realize our worst fears.

  Fort Concho had been attacked and wiped out.

  In the center of the compound the ashes and remains of a huge pyre—a crematorium for the dead and wounded—from which came the odor of burnt flesh and bones—the smell of death.

  Even those who had been battle hardened during the war had never seen anything to compare to the sickening sight and smell within the walls of Fort Concho.

  We were stunned into silence—for how long I’m not sure—but only until that silence was ruptured by gunshots.

  CHAPTER LV

  They were at the gates—then inside the gates.

  Indians. Some with rifles, others with lances, bows, and arrows.

  How many, it was hard to tell. But too many.

  And with them Leach and Smoke, bound by leather thongs and with blood leaking from a wound at Leach’s head.

  Carrying a coupe stick, the Chief was on the biggest horse, a piebald. His age, indeterminate, but he was no longer a young man. His eyes, two hard, narrow streaks. His face, worn, dark, and broad.

  Next to the Chief, a younger warrior, the Goliath of the tribe, bigger even than Wolf Riker, with mounds of muscle bulging from his bare chest and arms. And on another mount, an Indian with a bullet-torn, and bleeding shoulder. The Chief spoke.

  “I am Satanta.”

  “And I’m Wolf Riker.” He stepped forward. “I know of Satanta, who was once called The Great Orator of the Plains”—Riker pointed to the pyre—“. . . and now butchers and burns instead of speaking words of wisdom for his people.”

  Satanta’s gaze went to the pyre and then to Riker.

  Satanta dismounted, so did some of the other warriors, including the giant. Satanta took a step forward carrying the coupe stick in his left hand.