Day of the Wolf

by Charles G. West

  “Howdy,” Mace Taggart called out. “No need for that rifle. We’re on our way north. Thought this looked like a good place to cross over.”

  “It’s as good as any,” Ned called back. “Didn’t mean to alarm you with the rifle. Tell you the truth, I forgot I was totin’ it. Just a habit, I reckon.”

  “Well, it ain’t a bad habit in this country,” Mace returned, “with the Injuns gettin’ all riled up.”

  “What the hell are we waitin’ for?” Beau whispered. “Shoot him.”

  “Keep your shirt on,” Mace whispered back. “At this distance, we might miss, and I don’t know how good he is with that rifle. Let’s find out who he is first.”

  “That’s a fact,” Ned called out, responding to Mace’s comment. “Where you fellers headin’?”

  “Headin’ up in the hills,” Mace replied. “Doin’ some prospectin’. Heard they’ve struck some gold up there.” They rode forward to the river’s edge. “Mind if we come across here?”

  “Why, no, come on across. I sure as hell don’t own the river.” Ned kept a cautious eye on the two men as they entered the water. He couldn’t guess what they might be up to. Maybe they had someplace to go; maybe they were running from the law. He couldn’t say, but he doubted they were prospectors. They had no packhorse and no prospecting tools that he could see. Whatever their story, he wasn’t interested, just as long as they continued on their way.

  “Look at him, Mace,” Beau insisted anxiously while trying to keep his voice low. “He’s a big’un, just like that whore said. I bet he’s that damn deputy. We caught him, Mace! We caught the son of a bitch!”

  “Easy, dammit!” Mace growled, afraid his younger brother was going to get them both shot if he didn’t control his excitement. “He’s got the drop on us right now. You just simmer down till we find out if he’s the marshal or not. If he ain’t, he mighta run into him up ahead somewhere, and he can tell us where he saw him.” He paused to look at Ned again with a cautious eye before adding, “Then you can shoot him.” The two brothers were as opposite as night and day, although both placed little value on a human life. Where Beau was fiery and hair-trigger quick to act, Mace was cool and calculating. Mavis Taggart said of her eldest, “Mace is like a panther, patient on the hunt till it’s right to pounce. Then he’s like a lightning strike on the kill.” There had been a gleam of pride in the old woman’s eyes when she said it.

  Ned took a few paces back toward his horses when the two strangers rode up from the riverbank. Walking their horses up before him, they both dismounted. Mace glanced behind Ned and, seeing no fire, remarked, “Looks like you musta just been fixin’ to make camp.”

  “Nope,” Ned replied. “It’s a little too early in the day to make camp. I just stopped to rest my horses for a spell. I was just fixin’ to ride on when you fellers showed up.”

  “Which way are you headin’?” Beau asked. “North or south?” He took a few steps off to his left, trying to appear casual as he did it.

  Ned responded with a wry smile as he answered, “South, headin’ to Fort Laramie.” He brought his rifle up to waist height, holding it in both hands now. “How ’bout steppin’ back over close to your partner there? I got a bad eye on that side and I can see you better when you’re closer together.”

  Beau froze.

  Mace smiled, suspecting that the big man’s eyes were as sharp as his. “I don’t blame you for being careful with strangers in this country,” he said. “Me and my brother was thinkin’ the same thing. It don’t pay to take chances. You don’t have to worry about me and my brother, though. Ain’t that right, Beau?” It was too late. He hadn’t meant to drop the name, and he caught the slight narrowing of Ned’s eyes and knew he recognized it. He had no choice but to try to carry on with the charade. “Well, I reckon we’ll be on our way. If you was headin’ north, we coulda rode together, but you ain’t, so good luck to you.” He stepped back up in the saddle then. “Come on, brother. We’d best be gettin’ started. We’ve got a piece to ride before sundown.” Beau hesitated, looking uncertain. When he looked up at his brother, he found Mace frowning at him. “Let’s go,” Mace repeated firmly. Although reluctant, Beau got on his horse, trusting that Mace had no intention of permitting the man to ride away.

  “Well, now, you boys have a nice ride, and good luck with your prospectin’,” Ned said. He had never laid eyes on Mace or Beau Taggart, but he was pretty sure that was who they were. Along with their late brother, they were wanted in Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Texas. The problem was that he was in no position to arrest them. If he tried to, one of them was bound to get off a shot before he could secure them both. He had no intention of letting them go free, but his chances were better if he let them ride on, then followed them and made his move while they were sleeping. It did not occur to him that they had been tracking him or that they had any idea he was a marshal. And it was unlikely that they knew of Arlo’s death. Most likely they thought he was in jail in Cheyenne.

  He remained there, watching the two Taggart brothers ride off through the cottonwoods that lined the river until he could see them no longer. Then he hurried to climb into the saddle and give Brownie a kick. In case they had stopped to watch him, he plunged his horses into the river and crossed to the other side, where he kept going, heading south. He figured, if they were suspicious and were now watching him, they might think he had no interest in them. It was not the best of situations for making an arrest, and certainly one he would never brag about, but it was the best he could come up with, given the circumstances. He didn’t stop until he put a low line of hills between himself and the river. “We’re gonna have to wait here a spell,” he told Brownie, “and let ’em get a little head start.” There was still no suspicion in his mind that they knew he had killed their brother. Leaving his horses below the brow of the hill, he crawled up to the top where he could see his back trail and make sure they didn’t take a notion to follow him. He waited for over an hour before deciding it was safe to get on their trail again while there was still plenty of daylight left. He didn’t want to take a chance on the two of them getting too far ahead, causing him to lose their trail in the darkness.

  “There he is!” Beau exclaimed. “Just like you said.”

  Mace moved over from the other side of the ravine to join his brother. “There ain’t no doubt he’s that damn deputy now,” he said, “or he wouldn’t be tailin’ us. What was his name? Mr. Ned Bull?” He snorted a short laugh. “Ridin’ right into the little party we’ve got waitin’ for him.”

  “Yeah,” Beau said excitedly. “He can change his name to Mr. Dead Bull now.” They both laughed, eager to complete the assassination.

  “Don’t get too anxious,” Mace warned. “Let’s let him ride on up in the mouth of this ravine, so there ain’t no chance he can run.” When Beau assured him that he would not be too quick to shoot, Mace returned to his position on the other side so they could have Ned in a cross fire between them. With their target moving in according to their plan, they waited. “This is for Arlo,” Mace said.

  Down on the floor of the valley, Ned approached the line of rugged brakes, cautiously scanning the terrain ahead as he followed a clear trail of the two horses. It occurred to him that the trail might be too obvious, so he paused to consider the narrow ravine that lay ahead. After a moment’s concern, he decided he was probably getting a little too cautious in his old age and continued on. The closer he got to the mouth of the ravine, however, the more hesitant he became about riding between those narrow walls when he could not see the top of the defile. “I don’t like the look of this,” he finally told Brownie, and swung the roan’s head to the side. “We’ll go around and pick up the trail on the other side.”

  “Damn!” Mace swore. “He’s onto us. Get him before he gets out of range!”

  It was unnecessary to tell Beau a second time. The eager young outlaw squeezed off two rounds before Mace could take proper aim. The first shot missed by a short foot. The second caught Ned
in the shoulder, causing him to turn to the side. Mace’s shot slammed into the big deputy’s back, and he fell forward on Brownie’s neck. Startled, the horse bolted. The wounded man could not stay in the saddle and came off hard, the impact with the ground knocking the breath from his lungs.

  “Hot damn!” Beau shouted, and ran down the slope of the ravine to finish the job. Mace was only a few steps behind him. “We got us a U.S. marshal!” Beau shouted in childish delight, moments before the .44 slug slammed into his back and sent him sprawling face-first on the gravel of the rocky defile. In a panic, Mace dived on the ground beside his brother. Dragging himself around on the loose gravel of the ravine, he lay flat, using Beau’s body for a shield. He strained to make himself as flat as possible while he tried to figure out where the shot had come from. Looking back toward the top of the ravine, he saw a lone man standing there, but only for an instant before he disappeared. It was long enough to sear the image into his brain—an Indian, he thought, wearing animal skins and wielding a rifle. Although there only for a brief moment, the image of the hunter who had shot his brother would remain in Mace’s mind from that moment on. Foremost in his mind now was to remove himself from danger. In his haste to save himself, he almost forgot about Beau, so he quickly shook Beau’s body and blurted, “Are you gonna make it?” But there was no answer from the corpse, already on its way to wherever bushwhackers go. Certain now that his brother was dead, he forgot all thoughts about the deputy marshal, driven by the one desire to save himself from the fate Beau had just met. As fast as he could manage, he pushed away from the corpse and tried to drag himself to a gully formed at the bottom of the ravine. As soon as he was free of his brother’s body, a series of shots kicked up dirt around him. Certain to be hit at any minute, he got to his hands and knees and scrambled to the gully as fast as he could. Luck was with him, for the only shot that found him tore through the sole of his boot as he went into the gully headfirst.

  Wolf cranked another cartridge into the chamber of the Henry, then quickly made his way down from the top of the hill, ready to fire as soon as he caught sight of a target. He cursed himself for getting there too late to keep Ned from being shot, but now he was concentrating on settling with the second of the two bushwhackers. When he got to the bottom of the ravine, the man was gone, but he could see where he had crawled out of the other side of the gully and escaped through a notch that led to the open prairie. Hoofprints he found there told him that the men had left their horses there while they set up the ambush on Ned. Knowing there was not enough time for the second bushwhacker to have gotten very far, he ran up to the top of the hill. From there, he spotted the fleeing assassin hightailing it at a gallop on a spotted gray horse and leading a riderless buckskin. He wanted to go in immediate pursuit, but he had to first see about Ned.

  He found the wounded lawman lying several yards from the mouth of the ravine. The red roan named Brownie was standing beside him, waiting for his master to get up, but Ned was not moving. Wolf knelt down to search for any sign of life. When he rolled the heavy body over, he was met with Ned’s .44 pistol aimed squarely in his face. With instincts as fast as the beast he was named for, he grabbed the weapon and pushed it aside just as Ned pulled the trigger and sent a bullet whistling up toward the clouds. The wounded man was too weak to struggle further against the powerful hand that pinned his wrist to the ground. “Ned, it’s me, Wolf. They’ve gone.”

  The fingers holding the pistol relaxed then, freeing the weapon. Ned’s shirt was already soaked with blood. The wounds looked serious. “Wolf? What are you doin’ here?” His words were slow and laboring, his breathing becoming more and more difficult as he tried to speak. “I’m sorry I almost shot you,” he managed before he coughed several painful times, bringing blood up from his nose and mouth.

  “Don’t try to talk no more,” Wolf said. “It’s makin’ you bleed too much. I’ll try to fix you up.”

  A tired smile formed on the old deputy’s face. “Ain’t nothin’ you can do to fix me up.” Interrupted by a coughing spell, he then went on, forcing his words out: “Watch out them two don’t come back,” he warned. “Mace Taggart and Beau Taggart, they’re as bad as they come.”

  “I’ll see if I can get those bullets outta you,” Wolf said, though not sure if he could or not. Ned needed a doctor, and he needed him right now, and the nearest doctor that Wolf knew of was in Fort Fetterman, a post he had never been to, but he knew it was closer than Fort Laramie. He wasn’t sure Ned could make it that far.

  Ned saved him the trouble. He laid his hand on Wolf’s and, speaking barely above a whisper now, said, “I’m gettin’ too old and tired to do this anymore. Take care of Brownie for me.” He smiled then and seemed to relax.

  Wolf gazed at him for a long moment, trying to think what to say to his friend of such a short time. Several more seconds passed before he realized that Ned was gone. He immediately sensed a great loss in his life, a loss he had experienced only twice before—when his parents were killed, and when Big Knife was slain. There had been a bonding between the young man and the older deputy marshal, and Wolf felt a great void with the passing of Ned Bull. He was especially regretful of the fact that he had not had the opportunity to tell him that he had come after him to let him know he had changed his mind. He had decided to take Ned’s advice to go to Fort Fetterman and seek a job as a scout. Now that notion was out of the question, for he felt the world would not be right again if Ned Bull’s killer was allowed to live. Even now, kneeling beside Ned’s body, he could feel the anger warming the blood in his veins, and he knew he could not rest until the remaining Taggart brother paid for Ned’s murder.

  There were thoughts of Mace getting away while he lingered there, but he would not leave Ned lying there on the prairie to be feasted upon by buzzards or coyotes. Resigned to the fact that the hunt for Taggart would be completed no matter how long it took, he looked around him for a suitable burial spot. With his hand ax and a short-handled spade he found on Ned’s packhorse, he set to work on a spot in the shade of a pine tree. The ground was hard, causing him to spend some time before Ned was at rest in his grave. The lost time was of little concern to Wolf, because he was determined to track the killer down, no matter how long it took.

  With Ned in the ground, there were other matters to take care of. He stopped to take another look at the other body that had fallen that day. A smallish man, younger than himself, he wore a pair of hand-tooled boots with the name Beau etched out near the top. His reading and writing skills had not been tested since he was eleven, so he guessed that was the way “Beau” could be spelled. So the one that got away was Mace, Wolf thought. Ned said Mace and Beau Taggart. He at least knew now which Taggart he was going after. The next question was what to do about the horses. He had two more than he needed. Ordinarily he would welcome the gain of extra horses, but for the job he had before him, two extra horses would be too much trouble to manage. The decision as to which two he would keep was already made for him. He could not part with the bay gelding he was riding, and Ned had asked him to take care of Brownie, so he would use Ned’s horse as his packhorse and set the other two free. There were other useful items he “inherited” from the big lawman, since he didn’t know if there was any family waiting somewhere for Ned. Foremost among these was a Winchester ’73, but not far behind in importance was Ned’s coffeepot. He kept a few more useful items: a flint and steel for making a fire, a straight razor, and Ned’s bearskin coat. It would be handy when the mountain passes filled with snow. He hated to leave Ned’s saddle, but it was fairly well worn, so he left it in the gully along with the other discarded items. Then he turned and, said good-bye to Ned, climbed into the saddle, and, with Brownie following, started out westward on a quest that would end in death—either his or Mace Taggart’s.

  The trail of two horses at full gallop was not hard to follow at first, but within thirty minutes of starting the chase the sun sank below the hills on the horizon and all light fled from the prairie
before him. Having started out straight toward the setting sun, the trail had veered off to the south within a distance of half a mile. The change in direction prompted Wolf to make a decision to wait until daylight before taking up the chase again. Taggart had made one change in his direction of flight. Was it just the first of many, hoping to shake anyone trailing him? If so, Wolf was reluctant to take a chance on losing the trail in the dark. I’ve got plenty of time, he told himself, and nothing else to do. So he made his camp by one of the tiny streams in the area. He was in the process of building a fire when two dark forms approaching from behind him indicated that the two horses he had set free were reluctant to part company with him. He was not surprised. Both had been packhorses and were accustomed to following the other two. When morning came, they were still there, noisily pulling grass near his blanket. “Sooner or later you’re gonna realize you’re free,” he said to Ned’s packhorse. “Then you can do what you damn well please.” He did not linger over Ned’s coffeepot and was in the saddle again before the sun cleared the eastern horizon.

  The trail, still easy to follow, continued in a fairly straight line until striking the Lightning River. Then it followed the river for a day and a half. Taggart was pushing his horses hard, for Wolf could not make up any ground on him. He guessed that Mace was most likely changing from one horse to the other and resting them very little. As he rode, Wolf speculated on where Mace might be heading. Following the Lightning as he had been would indicate his intention of going to Fort Fetterman on the North Platte. But why would a wanted outlaw head for an army post? The question was answered when a point was reached about three miles north of the post, and Taggart had turned more to the west to circle around the fort, striking the North Platte a mile or so west of it.