by Ronald Kelly
Chapter Eight
Timber Gray’s eyes snapped open at the first sounds of the howling.
“They’re here,” he said, loud enough to rouse the others. Then he hurriedly pulled on his trousers and boots.
The cabin was dark except for the last glowing embers of the hearth. The hunter could hear soft swearing and the rustling of clothing as McCorkendale and Big Swede dressed and found their guns. He bucked his own gunbelt around his waist and took his rifle out of the corner by his bunk.
“We’d best get out there and lend Seth a hand,” said Tom. The cowpoke slipped a long coat over his lean frame and tugged on his hat.
“Yah,” agreed the swede. The big man checked a Remington .44 and stuck it in his belt. “I think he is going to need it.”
The three of them were leaving the cabin when they heard the echoing crack of Seth’s Winchester break through the howl of the winter wind. They wasted no time with saddles. They led their horses from the lean-to stable and mounted them bareback. They had ridden only a few hundred yards into the valley when they heard a second shot, this one from a six-shooter.
“Over yonder!” motioned Tom, his voice booming against the growing commotion. “He’s over yonder near the river!”
The three riders spurred their horses into a gallop toward the western end of SpruceValley. They were halfway there when the cattle lunged out of the darkness, their nostrils flared and their eyes wide with panic. Having no reigns to hold the horses steady, the men grabbed fistfuls of mane and hung on for dear life. The herd came on, splitting in the wake of the three riders, but keeping them from going anywhere.
“Damn these cows!” swore Tom. “We gotta get to Seth… fast!”
Even in the darkness, Timber could see the frightened determination in the cowhand’s eyes. The same look was evident in the Big Swede’s bearded features. The wolfer knew they were all thinking the same thing. They had the unfortunate Charlie Piper on their minds and knew very well that Seth Adams could end up that way, too.
“The herd is thinning!” said Big Swede.
He was right. The cattle were spreading now and the center, where the riders were caught, was sparse enough to ride through. They urged their mounts forward, dodging stray cows and searching the dark flatland ahead for some sign of the boy.
Seth’s scream hit them all like a blow to the gut. Hearts pounded and hands filled with blued steel as they ran their horses to the limit. The young cowhand’s agonized wails lasted only an instant. Then there were only the distant snarls of wolves somewhere on the far side of the valley.
“Confound it!” said Tom. Anger twisted his face into an ugly scowl. “We’re too late! They’ve already gotten to him!”
They reached a small dip in the pasture and, upon topping a steady rise, came upon the wolves. There must have been a dozen of them on the sprawled body of Seth Adams, and a dozen more on the bucking form of the bay gelding. Other wolves swarmed across the frozen grass, chasing cattle and feeding upon those unlucky enough to have fallen.
“Good God Almighty!” gasped Tom McCorkendale. “Will you look at them?” It was clear to see that he had never encountered so many wolves in one place in all his born days.
Timber Gray was also shocked at the sheer number of the pack, but did not let it numb him into immobility. He slid off the back of his horse, knelt, and took aim with the fluid motion of a seasoned hunter. He shot one wolf through the heart, levered another round into the Winchester, and put another slug through a second wolf’s right eye.
The reports of deadly firepower finally had the desired effect. The pack began to disperse and vanish into the night like streaks of silver lightning across the dark earth. Tom and Big Swede were off their mounts now and firing after the fleeing wolves. Swede’s pistol found no targets, while Tom’s scattergun only grazed a wolf, sending it wounded and peppered with buckshot into the blackness.
The men ran toward Seth’s still body, sidestepping several gutted cows, and stopped a few feet from the murdered hand. They stared at his torn body, glistening with blood and exposed bone, then turned away in anger and horror. That was, except for Timber Gray. He let his rifle muzzle droop to the ground and knelt silently beside the young cowhand he had taken a liking to in such a short time.
The wolfer laid his rifle gently on the earth beside him. Reaching across the blood-soaked body, he took fistful of gray fur and drug a slain wolf off the towheaded boy from Texas. With a grunt of rage, Timber heaved the beast away and regarded the cowhand sadly. The boy’s body had been eaten at, but his youthful face had been untouched. It was Seth’s glazed eyes -- the eyes of a frightened child -- that reached deep down into Timber Gray’s soul and tore open an old wound. Once again he saw the resemblance of his lost son in the Texan’s freckled face.
“Todd,” whispered Gray, emotion rising hot in the back of his throat. “Oh, Todd, not again!”
Tom McCorkendale stepped forward and stared at the wolfer in puzzlement. “What did you say, Timber?”
The agonized memory lingered with Timber for a moment more, then faded. But the anger stayed, along with the old hatred. He stood up and canted the rifle over his broad shoulder. “It’s just such a waste. Such a damned awful waste.”
Tom nodded bitterly. They watched as Big Swede brought Seth’s horse back by the reigns. The bay was wild with pain, and no wonder. The horse’s back legs, from hooves to hindquarters, had been stripped of flesh by the teeth of the blood-hungry wolves.
“This horse, it is badly hurt,” said the swede. The big man’s apparent love of horses could be seen in the pained expression in his crystal blue eyes. “I am afraid he must be…”
“Yeah, I know,” said Tom. “Stand back.” As soon as Big Swede had released the bay, McCorkendale shouldered his twelve-gauge and fired the remaining barrel. The charge took off the top of the injured horse’s head. The animal’s body struck the frozen ground with a heavy thud.
“What a hellish night this has turned out to be!” said Big Swede. His beefy face was as pale and haggard as those of the other men.
Timber Gray breathed in deeply, attempting to ignore the stench of fresh blood, and stared to the southwest. That was the direction the wolves had fled to. A lush forest of spruce and pine grew ten miles along the Tongue River; a timbered haven for the escaping pack. But it would not hide them for very long. There were forty-six wolves left now and such a number would leave tracks easy to follow. Gray hoped to catch up to the pack and dispatch at least a few of them before the blizzard hit, if he left right away.
“It’ll be light in a couple of hours,” he told the two. “I’m gonna prepare my horses and be ready to follow their trail by daybreak.” He started across the pasture, toward the line station.
“What about these wolves?” asked Tom.
“Skin the four, take the hides to Whittaker, and collect the eighty dollars bounty,” Timber told him. “Give poor Seth a fitting burial, then send the rest of the money to his folks in Amarillo, along with my regrets.”
McCorkendale nodded grimly. “We’ll surely do that, Timber. But just promise me one thing, will you?”
“What’s that?”
“Kill as many of those stinking wolves as you can! Don’t let them do in Wyoming what they’ve gotten away with here in Montana.”
“That was what I was hired to do,” said Timber Gray. But he knew it went deeper than that now. Much deeper.
Chapter Nine
Timber Gray stood on a stony ridge near the Montana-Wyoming border.
He took a pair of old field glasses from his saddlebags and, lifting them to his eyes, focused on the floor of a narrow ravine that stretched between twin lines of timber. There, near a stream, the pack had hamstrung a large elk. A few wolves still lingered around the empty carcass, devouring the few scraps of meat that remained. The others laid about in leisure, while a group of young males chased one another playfully.
The hunter counted them with the help of the binoculars. Yes, th
ey were all there, all forty-six of them.
A day and a half had passed since Timber left the line station at SpruceValley. He had followed their trail along the curving channel of the Tongue River, then due south as the pack took to a dense forest that stretched toward the Wyoming territory. The wolves had split up several times, then regrouped; something that Gray had never known a pack to do before. That action alone made it obvious that the pack knew it was being hunted and that its leader was much more cunning and dangerous than the majority of wolves Timber had tracked during the past fifteen years.
He centered his attention on a large group of about eighteen that stood beneath the gnarled limbs of an old sycamore tree. There was one wolf among them, older but larger than the others, that Timber figured to be the leader. The wolf’s coat was white with age, but other than that the hunter could not make out any other distinguishing features. After all, Timber was a good distance away, hidden where the pack could not catch his scent or glimpse him on the rocky rise above.
Careful to make no noise, Timber Gray climbed off the ledge to where his horses stood grazing in a hollow only a hundred yards away. Now was the time to act, while the wolves’ bellies were full and their movements sluggish. He took a moment to chew a bite of jerky and gulp down a swallow from his canteen. Then he went to work… patiently and without any indication of being in a hurry.
He took a cartridge belt from one of the horses’ packs and slung it over his left shoulder. The long brass casings of the .50-140 cartridges were slotted in the belt’s loops. He then pulled the Winchester rifle from its boot, levered a round into the breach, and tucked it under his arm. The last thing he took before heading back up the scrubby deer path to the ridge was the Sharps buffalo gun. The breech-loading rifle was built for taking down game at long ranges. Although it was originally intended for such large game as buffalo or moose, Timber had found it just as effective when bringing down wolves.
Reaching his spot on the ridge, he took another quick glance through the field glasses. Only a couple of wolves had shifted their positions. It was clear that they intended to stay there a while and rest off their meal before moving onward.
Timber laid his rifles on a broad, flat stone; the Winchester first, then the .50 long gun. He slid six cartridges from the belt and stood them, one by one, in a line near the Sharps. The lever action was already loaded, holding seventeen rounds in its tubular magazine.
He took another long look through the glasses, then stuck them back in the saddlebags. He had already determined his first target. It was a lone wolf closest to the ridge, a wolf that had been abandoned because of the crippling wound in its left rear haunches. Tom McCorkendale’s buckshot had found its mark that night at SpruceValley, but the shotgun pellets had only grazed the fleeing wolf. That was the main reason Timber decided to take him out first. Even though the wolfer held a strong dislike for the creatures, he did not enjoy seeing any animal suffer from a hunter’s misplaced shot.
Timber Gray took his time preparing for the first shot, for he knew when that first wolf dropped, the rest would be hellbent for the cover of the surrounding forest. He cast a slow study around the sprawling countryside. It was quiet, almost serene, the air crisp and cold. The stormy winds of a few nights ago had died down to a gentle breeze, but the heavy mat of dark clouds was growing more threatening overhead. More than likely, the Whittaker ranch was already under a few feet of snow. Timber knew it wouldn’t be long before he saw some of it himself.
After pulling a pair of worn deerskin gloves over his hands, he reached over for the Winchester. The hunter lay prone near the lip of the rock shelf.
Resting the rifle’s barrel atop his doubled saddlebags, he set the curved buttplate solidly against his shoulder. The bristles of his graying beard rasped on the wood of the stock as he pressed his face to the cheekpiece.
The wounded wolf stood no more than a hundred yards away. Timber centered the front and rear sights on his first target. He breathed in deeply and relaxed. The wolf limped a few feet, then twisted its head around to lick at the buckshot wound. That was when the hunter steadied his aim and squeezed back on the trigger.
The shot cracked through the stillness of the ravine. It echoed across the grassy clearing and into the dense growth of long-leafed pine. The pack forgot their leisure, jerking their heads toward the direction of the rocky rise. They watched as their injured brother slumped to his side, the top of his head blown away by the .44 bullet.
Timber already had his rifle levered for another shot when the pack rose to their feet as one. They began to head for the safety of the forest, just as the wolfer had predicted. He shifted his sights a fraction of an inch and fired again. A she-wolf was caught in the back by the second shot. The slug snapped her spine cleanly and she rolled several times before lying dead in the brown grass.
A third shot followed. It found a wolf as it crossed the clearwater stream. The beast was in mid-bound when the slug burrowed through the heavy fur, lodging deep into the muscle of its heart. The wolf hit the churning water with a magnificent splash and lay there, ice cold water washing its life’s blood downstream. Timber Gray fired a fourth time, but the shot fell short, kicking up earth a yard behind the wolf it had been intended for.
The pack had escaped the Winchester’s range. Now it was the Sharps’ turn. Timber stood from his prone position and picked up the single shot rifle. Skillfully, he unlatched the triggerguard and dropped the breech open. A .50 cartridge was placed in the chamber, then the breech was closed. The hunter crouched to one knee on the stony ledge and brought the heavy gun to his shoulder. He flipped a rear tang sight up into position, adjusting it for greater accuracy. When the heavy octagon barrel was steadied and the target determined, the wolfer cocked the hammer, then pulled back smoothly on the trigger.
The Sharps sounded like a cannon compared to the Winchester. A wolf fell a good three hundred yards away, dispatched by the Sharps’ big 700 grain bullet. Timber peered intently through the pall of sulfurous gunsmoke, reloading as he chose his next mark.
Three more wolves fell to the Sharps before the remainder of the pack disappeared into the woods. The wolf hunter had hoped to take out the lead wolf – the old one with the white coat – but it had been one of the first to reach cover. A breeze dispersed the cloud of gunsmoke that hung around Gray. He stood staring down at the results of his handywork. Six wolves lay on the grassy floor of the ravine, and one in the stream. He looked toward the thick forest, satisfied. The pack now numbered thirty-nine. Still a formidable number, but at least down by eleven.
The wolfer reached inside his sheepskin coat, unbuttoned the pocket of his flannel shirt, and took out the makings. He slowly rolled himself a cigarette. After lighting it, he stooped and gathered his rifles and saddlebags. The two unfired cartridges were returned to the belt where they would wait until Old Reliable was again called upon to do its owner’s bidding.
Timber Gray climbed off the ridge and made his way down the hollow to where his horses were picketed. He slid the rifles back into their scabbards, then led the gelding and the two pack horses over a narrow deer trail. They reached the ravine a short while later. The horses were skittish at first, the smell of wolves and fresh blood strong in their nostrils. But soon they realized there was no danger present… only death.
The wolfer went to one horse and began to rearrange the supplies in the canvas-shrouded pack, making room for the skins that would soon be lashed there. Tossing his half-smoked cigarette aside, Gray drew a bone-handled skinning knife from a sheath at his belt and went to work on the first wolf.
Timber awoke the next morning to find snow on the ground.
The dreaded storm that he had eluded since leaving the boundaries of the Whittaker spread had finally caught up to him. He sat up in the lean-to he had constructed from fallen limbs and pine boughs the night before and looked out across a clearing near a stand of scraggly fir trees. A heavy blanket of virgin snow covered the ground and the limbs of trees
hung low with its weight. It wasn’t snowing the hour of Gray’s awakening, but the sudden drop in temperature and the sharpness of the wind told him that last night’s snowfall was nothing compared to what would soon follow.
Timber Gray yawned and turned his blankets aside. He still wore his sheepskin coat and gunbelt over his traveling clothes. He stood up and, slipping on his hat, stepped outside the makeshift shelter.
The three horses stood picketed beneath a thick growth of white pine. He was glad that he had anticipated the chance of bad weather, putting them in the shelter of the grove instead of out in the open. Breathing in the frigid air, Timber went to one of the packs and took out a pound of coffee and the tin pot to boil it in.
He started back for the shelter, but stopped for a moment, his gray eyes lingering thoughtfully over the countryside of northern Wyoming. Ahead of him lay miles of thick timberland; the perfect place for a pack of wolves to vanish into thin air. The snow that covered the ground had also erased any tracks that Gray could have followed, therefore making his job twice as difficult as before. Eventually, he would come upon their tracks in the newly fallen snow, but that would be hours away, and by then the wolves may have traveled a far piece, having reached the treacherous slopes of the Bighorn Mountains. And if they reached the maze-like canyons and passes of the Bighorns, they could very well evade the hunter until they made it to the safety of the Rockies.
For the first time in his long career, Timber Gray felt a twinge of uncertainty. He had never doubted his ability as a hunter before, but that early morning he was having a few second thoughts. He had hunted the most dangerous game imaginable; grizzly, wildcat, wolf. The latter had always been his specialty, even though they were, by far, the most cunning and savage of the three. He reckoned he had bagged nearly five hundred of the beasts since coming west.
The thought of one man even hoping to track down and kill a pack of fifty wolves was flat-out suicidal. But then, deep down inside, wasn’t that the reason he was hunting them in the first place? Ever since the slaughter of his family in the Tennessee mountains, hadn’t he been hunting wolves simply for the chance of meeting one more cunning than all the others? Hadn’t he braved the risks on the hope of finding that one wolf that would make it, unscathed, past his guns? Then it would be as it had been on the banks of Chestnut Creek, man against beast. And the stronger of the two would win, ending this tiresome quest for vengeance once and for all.