We moved to the log and sat.
“I was alone on a buckboard, comin’ back from Gilead, gettin’ close to the Double R and there was horses and riders—as big a roundup as I ever seen. And also there was Dirk Riker with another imposin’ fella mounted next to him. That fella, he wore a red scarf ’round his neck, and Dirk, he greeted me friendly enough.
“‘How you doing, Pepper?’
“‘Leanin’ forward all the way.’
“‘Good. How’s that roundup of beeves coming along?’
“‘Good enough. Gettin’ close to the seven thousand mark. Looks like . . .’ I pointed ‘. . . you’re doin’ good, too. Never seen that many horses, maybe near a thousand.’
“‘Maybe more. Good ones.’
“‘Never seen so many riders either. Looks like a whole brigade.’
“‘Not quite.’
“‘Notice they’re all wearin’ red scarves—like your friend there.’
“‘Pepper, this is Adam Dawson, late of General George Armstrong Custer’s Michigan Red Scarf Brigade.’
“‘Yeah, they was also known as Custer’s Wolverines. I heard of ’em, guess everybody did—on both sides.’
“‘Glad to meet you, Mr. Pepper.’
“This Dawson fella had a sunny smile for such serious eyes.
“‘Ain’t no mister about it, nor “sir,” nor ol’ timer—just plain Pepper. How far did you ride with Custer?’
“‘Well, “just plain Pepper,” nobody rode with Custer, we all rode behind him—from Chickahominy, Brandy Station, Falls Church, Gettysburg, Yellow Tavern, to Appomattox.’
“‘Yellow Tavern, huh? Surprised you didn’t meet up with Dirk’s brother. He rode with J.E.B Stuart.’
“‘Maybe we did, once or twice. Never did have time for introductions.’ Dawson continued to smile.
“‘Well, don’t meet up with him around here.’
“‘War’s over, Pepper.’
“‘Don’t try tellin’ that to Wolf Riker.’
“‘Adam,’ Dirk said, ‘my brother hasn’t beat his sword into a plowshare, and never will.’
“‘That’s right, Dirk. And do you mind if I give you and your Red Scarf Brigade a little friendly admonition?’
“‘Wouldn’t try to stop you, Pepper.’
“‘Don’t come too close to the Double R durin’ your roundup, or to Wolf Riker’s herd durin’ the drive.’
“And that’s the last time I seen Wolf’s brother—and the last time I want to see him ’til the drive’s over.”
Pepper took the last long puff from his pipe, then knocked the ash off on the log.
“Well, I guess that’s enough for tonight.”
“Yes,” I nodded, “I’d say that’s plenty, and, no matter what happens, I’d guess you’ll stick with Wolf Riker.”
“Till the wheels come off and the pissants carry me through the keyhole.” Pepper got to his feet. “I hope you enjoy that supper.”
CHAPTER LIX
Cookie begged off cooking and serving the supper, saying that he was feeling poorly. Morales One and Morales Two took over the task, much to everyone’s satisfaction.
Dr. Picard reluctantly accepted the invitation, as did Flaxen.
Once again Wolf Riker was a charming host—at first.
And once again Riker broke out the brandy and cigars. Flaxen partook of the brandy, Dr. Picard of neither.
Through supper the conversation remained innocuous until Riker inquired—
“How’s your patient, doctor? Will he be willing and able to resume his duties?”
“Able? I think so. Willing . . . ?”
“I’ll take care of that part.”
“I’m sure you will,” Picard said.
“And you, John-a-dreams, how’s the journal coming along? And your characterization of me?”
“Any characterization is incomplete until the end is known.”
“Not always. Take Milton and his characterization of Lucifer . . . ‘hurled into hell, he was unbeaten and was not afraid of God’s thunderbolts . . . a third of God’s angels he led with him . . .’ Yes, Mr. Guthrie, ‘better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.’”
“What about Corona’s thunderbolts . . . and the drovers’ . . . and your brother’s?”
“I have a few thunderbolts of my own. What do you and your kind . . . like Miss Brewster here, know about those of us who were not to the manor born?”
“My life,” I said, “was a waste, a sham, but . . .”
“All you care about is your kind.”
Then Riker looked at Flaxen.
“I’ll wager that if you weren’t a high born lady of refinement you wouldn’t be engaged to Guthrie; he would not be your benefactor, your protector. If you were . . .”
“But I’m not.”
“Not what?” Riker asked.
I motioned to Flaxen not to say or reveal anymore, but she ignored me and went on.
“A lady. I’m not a lady. I’m a thief. At least a thief’s accomplice. He happened to be my father . . . but still . . .”
“And Guth, you . . . you knew this all the time?”
“Yes, he did.”
Riker pointed.
“The ring . . .”
“His mother’s. He placed it on my finger after . . . after we got here, and before . . .”
“But why? Ah, I see . . .”
Riker studied me for just an instant.
“You thought if the rest of us knew, we might treat her differently. Lucky nobody found out.”
“Dr. Picard found out,” I said, “but he didn’t say anything.”
“Another do-gooder.” Riker looked at Picard.
Picard remained silent, but I didn’t. I rose.
“Why not, Mr. Riker? If we have it in our power to do good . . . why not? And can’t you see that?”
“Why should a wise man look upon fools and wish to be a fool? Why . . .”
Riker paused. I knew what was coming. First one hand, then the other went to his forehead. He tried to rise, but sagged at the hips. His great shoulders drooped and shrugged forward. He was in pain and nearly sightless.
I moved closer.
“Riker, let me . . .”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“The doctor . . .”
“There’s nothing any of you can do. Get out! I don’t need any of you. Get out!”
We left him, his arms on the table, his head buried in his palms . . . and closed the door behind us.
Pepper was outside and started toward the entrance.
“He doesn’t want anybody with him,” I cautioned.
“I ain’t anybody,” Pepper said, and went inside.
No sooner did the door to the wagon close, than a voice came from somewhere in the night. The voice was unmistakably Cookie’s.
“Just a minute, friends. Don’t be in such a hurry.”
But from where?
Out he crawled from under Wolf Riker’s wagon.
“We got somethin’ to talk over,” he said from an even grimier mouth than usual.
He moved nearer to the three of us and spoke in a cackling whisper.
“So the Wolf man’s havin’ another fit. Good! I hope he goes to hell in a hurry. No! Let the bastard suffer. Oh, excuse my language, lady, but then you ain’t a lady are you . . . missy—that’s right I heard it all,” he cackled even nastier. “Bore me a hole under his wagon sometime ago and took advantage of it tonight instead of servin’ supper; so now I know sumpin’ none of them other rawhiders does, and that ought to be worth plenty to you and the . . . missy.”
“Cookie, you are a reprehensible . . .”
“Never mind that, Guth. I can keep a secret . . . for a price . . . say that sparkler missy wears on her ring finger . . .”
“If you say a word I swear I’ll kill you.”
“I believe you would if you could, but that’ud be too late and who knows what might happen to the lady. But I ain’t in no hurry. I’l
l give you two, no, make it three days to think it over—then my tongue just might start to get . . . slippery.” He pointed, “The ring’ud put the brakes on it—so think it over . . . pardners.”
Eustice Munger walked away and left the three of us looking at each other.
CHAPTER LX
The three of us went directly to Dr. Picard’s wagon. Karl Simpson was asleep, or unconscious. At any rate we knew he could not hear what was being said—and decided—in whispers.
I couldn’t help admonishing Flaxen.
“Why did you tell him about yourself?”
“I couldn’t stand his arrogant self-assurance any longer. I had to prove him wrong about something, and besides, I’m tired of trying to live a lie.”
“Look, you two,” Picard said, “never mind what already happened. The question is what are you going to do about it . . . and that rat Cookie?”
“You’re right of course, doctor. And it’s not only Cookie. We’ve got a madman in charge, a mutinous bunch that’s liable to do anything—killer Comancheros ahead of us, and Wolf Riker’s brother probably not far behind. It’s a powder keg that could blow up anytime. We’ve only got one chance. The sooner we get away from here the better.”
“Away?” Flaxen shrugged. “Where?”
“When Riker caught me going over his maps, he let slip that there was a crossing station along the Cimarron a hundred and fifty miles northwest.”
“A hundred and fifty miles,” Picard emphasized.
“It’s a desperate gamble, but a better chance than staying here.”
“What about the Comancheros?” Picard noted.
“They’re less likely to spot the three of us than six or seven thousand head of cattle.”
“That’s true,” he nodded. “But if you go—it’s just the two of you.”
“But why . . .”
“I’m old and weak. I’d only slow you down and you’d need more supplies. You’re better off without me and you know it.”
“What about you, Flaxen? Will you risk it?”
She smiled.
“Sometime ago I said you’d do the deciding. ‘Wither thou goest, I will go.’”
CHAPTER LXI
The next day I managed to secrete supplies in a burlap bag without Cookie, or anybody else noticing—or so I thought.
“Thinking of taking a little side trip?” Alan Reese said when the two of us were alone.
But to my relief he quickly added—
“Don’t worry, Mr. Guthrie. Your secret is safe with me. I think it’s the best course for you, and I’ll even do what I can to help.”
“Will you come with us, Flaxen and me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I broke an agreement once, actually a vow. I have no intention of breaking my agreement with Wolf Riker, no matter what I think of him.”
“You said you are an unfrocked priest. Would you mind telling me why?”
“No, I would not mind. They say confession is good for the soul. Years ago, when I was a young priest, there was this younger couple, both friends of mine, who had asked me to marry them. Of course I agreed. The night before the wedding she was brutally murdered. All the evidence pointed to him. Blood. The weapon. He was convicted and sentenced to hang. But another man who had coveted her, and was now himself sick and dying, came to me and confessed, to wipe the sin from his immortal soul. He knew I could not break the sanctity of the confessional. But I did. I could not bear to see that young boy hang for something he did not do. So I broke the law of the church in order to save his life.”
“But surely the church wouldn’t . . .”
“Wouldn’t unfrock me? I don’t know. I didn’t wait to find out. But I knew that I’d broken my vow, so . . . I unfrocked myself. I took off my collar and ran away . . . to Texas, as good a place as any for a sinner to hide.”
“I’m not of your religion, but I don’t believe that being a priest has anything to do with a frock or a collar—or that you have any reason to hide.”
“Then why is it I see a shadow on the wall, where there is no wall?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I hope you never do, Mr. Guthrie. I hope you never do. Yes, Mr. Guthrie, I’m staying here. But I will help you.”
And he did.
The next day was fraught with anxiety and trepidation.
Cookie kept casting glances at both Flaxen and me that he meant to be meaningful reminders.
And whether it was my imagination or not, it seemed to me that some of the drovers looked at her, also in a different light—Leach, Dogbreath, French Frank. I couldn’t help wondering if Cookie might have voiced, or hinted at some implication regarding her gentility.
Wolf Riker spent most of the day aboard Bucephalus, without seeming to have suffered any residual effects from the previous night’s attack.
Pepper uttered not a word to anyone, not even to the animals pulling Riker’s wagon.
Unfortunately, Karl Simpson took a turn for the worse. Dr. Picard believed that an infection had set in, and there was nothing he could do except dose his patient with laudanum to ease the pain until the end.
Supper was nearly unbearable, and I did my best to suppress the telltale quivering fingers of both hands as I served the drovers for what I hoped would be the last time on the drive.
How we would have fared without the help of Alan Reese is impossible to say, or think.
He had both our horses, Tobacco and Bluebell, saddled and laden with canteens and supplies, waiting at a prearranged spot a couple hundred yards from camp.
As Flaxen and I mounted, I looked down at him and whispered.
“Thank you. And please . . . say a prayer for us, padre.”
“It’s been a long time since anyone called me . . . that.”
“But not a long time since you prayed.”
Then we rode in the direction I hoped was northwest.
CHAPTER LXII
As we rode slowly away in what might have been a romantic moonlight, but in this case wasn’t, I couldn’t help thinking it was tantamount to leaving a large ship in distress with a maniacal captain and mutinous crew on a storm-torn sea, and boarding a compassless dinghy in that same stabbing tempest.
And instead of a liquid horizon in an infinite horizontal track, we faced a vast uncharted terrain—an endless earthen patchwork quilt of soil and stone, mountain and meadow, hillock and crust.
It was as if the Creator couldn’t make up His mind what to do with it, or what it should look like, so He let the pieces fall where they may in a helter-skelter patchwork of some of this and some of that.
It was no wonder that the government gave it to the Indians. The wonder was that the Indians accepted it. But for us it was not only nature’s contention—God only knew what human hostility might strike, be it Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, or Comanchero. And there was the possibility that Wolf Riker would dispatch a couple of his drovers to bring us back to face the consequences of desertion as an example of what would happen to anyone else with the same idea.
All that on one side of the equation; on the other, the fact that Flaxen and I were together and away from what might have been a grimmer fate due to Cookie’s invidious tongue, the drovers’ lust, and Wolf Riker’s caprice.
We rode at a moderate pace to preserve the strength of the animals, fed them the grain I had taken with us, whenever and wherever there was nothing on the ground for them to graze on. And the two of us ate more sparingly than we had ever eaten before—and drank even more sparingly, until the canteens were less than half full and more than half empty.
On the third day and near night, just as a cold wind whipped across our sand-streaked faces, we came upon the first sight of shelter.
A cave.
A natural hollowed out portion of a rocky embankment not far ahead.
A few minutes later, after leaving Flaxen and the animals outside, I entered, gun drawn, and examined the gritrock floor and uneven walls of
the miniature cavern.
No sign of life. No wolves. No coyotes. No bats.
And a short time after that, a fire with warmth enough for the unsaddled horses, and for Flaxen and me.
The cave was, to put it mildly, aromatic from previous tenants, probably wolves, coyotes, and bats, but under the circumstances, it suited us better than the not-so-great and oh-so-cold outdoors.
After a less than hearty meal, Flaxen moved closer, close enough for me to put my arms around her, and for her to return the favor.
“Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes”—a reflection of the pent-up passion in mine.
Each of us held the future in each other’s arms—if we had a future. The only thing we really knew—we had tonight.
And we both knew that what happened after that was inevitable.
In a way, so was what happened the next morning—waking up to guns pointed at both of us.
CHAPTER LXIII
The guns were each in the right hand of George Leach and French Frank—and on their faces, grins—not of good will.
“Well,” Leach said, “nice, cozy setup, while it lasted—but the gimcrack’s over.”
“I thought Wolf Riker might send somebody after us, but I never figured it’ud be you two.”
“Oh, Wolf Riker didn’t send us.”
“He didn’t?”
“Hell, no. We quit on him. Just like you did.” Leach smiled at Flaxen through his perpetual snarl. “Well, not exactly like you, Guth. You got more companionable company than either French Frank or me—so far.”
I did my best to ignore the remark.
“And you just happened to stumble on this cave and us.”
“Not likely. You weren’t all that hard to follow after Cookie told us he heard Riker tellin’ Pepper about that crossin’ station to the northwest.”
“Cookie, huh?”
“Seemed like a good idea—getting’ outta there—better than meetin’ up with them Comancheros.”
“Then I’m surprised there aren’t more of you.”
“Hell, no. Figured it’ud be best to sneak off, just the two of us, better than a few more of us facin’ Riker’s guns and that son of a bitch Pepper in a showdown.”
The Range Wolf Page 23