The Wolves of Seven Pines

by E. L. Ripley

  Choking on the dust, Carpenter tried to get up as Perkins lunged for Silva, falling on top of him with the knife. Silva caught his wrist and kept the blade away, but he was in a sorry state from the beating, and he would not win a contest of strength.

  William stirred, groaning.

  Thurgood knocked Carpenter onto his back and straddled him, delivering a punch with everything he had, then another.

  Perkins had both hands on the knife, pressing down with his strength and his weight. Arms quivering, Silva held the point away from his chest by only inches. He shifted his body and twisted his shoulders. The knife plunged into the dirt, and he struck the other man with his elbow, snatching up a fistful of dirt and flinging it at Thurgood, who flinched and looked away.

  Carpenter shoved him off and rose, spitting blood. Thurgood scrambled up, pulling a hunting knife off his hip and getting ready, shaking the stars from his eyes.

  Silva put his whole body into a punch that sent Perkins stumbling into a stack of lumber hard enough to daze him.

  “I thought you were supposed to be soft,” Thurgood said.

  “I am,” Carpenter replied, arduously lifting Silva’s pistol, which he’d taken from the ground. “That’s why you’re still breathing, son.”

  That stopped him.

  Perkins was straightening up, and Carpenter swung the barrel over to him.

  “Are you finished?” he asked thickly, then leaned over to spit blood.

  Perkins didn’t reply, but William was starting to sit up.

  The ground was rolling like the ocean, and one moment there were four men, and the next there were eight as the world swam and blurred in Carpenter’s eyes. He stood taller and kept the pistol steady.

  “I would take the boy and go,” he said, hoping none of them had the notion that even without having his skull rattled, Carpenter had about as much chance of hitting anyone with a pistol as he had of being elected president. “If I had any sense,” he added.

  Thurgood still had his knife in his hand, and he hadn’t made his mind up yet. Perkins had, though. Without a word, he pulled his bandanna tight around his wounded leg and limped over to William.

  Silva got upright, his shirt and waistcoat open and torn, his eye swelling shut, and blood dripping from his chin. Carpenter knew he couldn’t look much better.

  “Go on,” he said, no malice in the words as he lowered the pistol.

  Thurgood’s fingers opened, then curled tightly around the handle of his knife. He didn’t like to lose a fight. Carpenter would have liked to explain to him that nobody did, and further that it didn’t matter, at the end of the day. They were all in pain and bleeding. Everyone had lost, and no one had won, or if they had, it was only in that they were still alive. There was no profit in this for anyone and, above all, no meaning. Only suffering.

  But Thurgood wouldn’t understand any of that. All he knew was that he’d come off worse in a tangle with a dandy and an old coward. He probably didn’t know which was worse: being on the wrong side of the gun, or that Carpenter hadn’t used it. Dirt in the eyes didn’t matter.

  It was pride that blinded him.

  “Our business ain’t finished,” he said to Carpenter.

  “I thought your business was with him,” Carpenter replied tiredly, glancing at Silva.

  Thurgood didn’t reply to that. He shoved his knife back in its sheath and went to Perkins, who was supporting William. The boy didn’t look so good. Carpenter swallowed. He hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t planned it. There hadn’t been time.

  But he’d hit the boy the only way he knew how, and that was fairly hard.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When he could hear the hoofbeats of the horses departing, Carpenter staggered into the shade of the stacked lumber, and that was where his strength gave out. He fell against the beams and sagged to the ground.

  Gingerly, Silva joined him with a groan.

  Carpenter put the gun on the ground between them, and with what looked like a mighty effort, the other man picked it up and pushed it into his holster. He leaned back and probed around his mouth, then spat out more blood.

  The shade had lost some of its rarity; overhead, the clouds were getting thicker. The birds had more sense than the men, and they had all cleared off without making any fuss.

  A squirrel watched curiously from the top of the lumber pile, sitting beside the whiskey bottle, which was now out of reach for two men profoundly disinclined to stand up. Carpenter had been feeling his age for years, but never quite like this. Throwing punches had never been exactly easy, but just now it had been as though he’d been throwing them through molasses. He couldn’t possibly have many left in him. Or maybe he just hoped he didn’t.

  “I offered to make him a partner,” Silva said after a moment, tenderly rubbing his chin.

  “Who?” Carpenter asked, closing his eyes.

  “Hale.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I showed him my plan. For the metal works and all of it. What we stood to earn.” Silva sighed. “He would not have it, though. Would not meet me as an equal, would not talk business. It offended him that I even approached him.” There was a click, and Carpenter opened one eye to see Silva checking his watch. It was broken. “It was my intent to be courteous.”

  “Would you have drawn on the boy?”

  “I don’t know. I wanted to.”

  Silva couldn’t be blamed for that, though even if he’d been fast enough, that would’ve been his life. Any chance he might’ve had of leaving Antelope Valley alive would’ve been gone, and there was nothing in it for him. Silva thought the weight of his failure here was as bad it could get, but he was wrong about that. So far he wasn’t dragging anything new behind his conscience, and even if he didn’t appreciate that for the blessing it was, it made his burden lighter.

  “I’d like to shoot his father too,” Silva added.

  It wouldn’t help, though.

  He was staring at the lumber and the tools. “There would’ve been profit in the very first order,” he mused. “All this would’ve been paid back and more. Not much more, but it was solid. The plan was solid.”

  “Did Hale see that?”

  “Oh, I think he did.”

  “That’s a pity,” Carpenter said, though the words didn’t quite do it justice. They both fell silent after that. Even the sun’s lackadaisical pace looked dizzying as it crept across the sky behind the darkening curtain of clouds. The business of walking back to town, readying the wagon, and departing would not be an easy one. Just the thought of getting up seemed out of reach. Sitting there was the best he could hope for, but at least it was beautiful country to look at.

  “What if someone did find gold here? Wouldn’t that be something?” Carpenter asked.

  Silva wasn’t listening.

  “Maria’s hungry by now,” he said after a little while.

  “Might as well go, then.”

  “Might as well.”

  Silva dragged himself to his feet and offered his hand, and Carpenter wasn’t too proud to take it. His head was light, but he was no longer seeing double.

  “Should have brought the dog,” Carpenter noted.

  “I had a notion this was coming.” Silva halfheartedly tried to put himself in order, but it was a lost cause. “Best if she wasn’t here when it did.”

  “And they call me soft.”

  “She is the only good thing left in my life,” Silva said earnestly, pointing a warning finger at him. “Do not make light of that.”

  “I would never. I’m just glad you make mention of your life,” Carpenter said, staggering toward the trail. “I was worried you’d forgotten about it. It should mean something to you that you still have it. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to see you keep it. If you can be bothered.”

  “His intent was not to murder me.
”

  Carpenter wasn’t so sure about that, but he held his tongue.

  “I could not help but notice, Mr. Carpenter, young William’s familiarity with you,” Silva remarked as they walked, or more accurately shambled, toward town.

  “I wouldn’t call it that. I only met him last night.”

  “Then Mr. Hale and these men are your friends. I had that notion yesterday from the sheriff and from your intimacy with the reverend. I’d hoped it wasn’t true.”

  Carpenter chose his words carefully, or tried to. Then he thought better of it. “It is,” he replied.

  “These are the men you knew in the war.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you plan to fall in with them?”

  “Don’t know that I could,” Carpenter replied, “even if I wanted to.”

  “I understand.”

  Carpenter doubted that.

  “Will you see to the wagon?” Silva asked, though it must have pained him. It was his pride; no one was free of it. The one thing he wanted even less than running away was to be seen running away, but embarrassment was survivable. Being strung up wasn’t.

  “Yes,” Carpenter told him. “Of course.”

  And Silva could gather Maria and his things. There wasn’t enough of the day left to put as much distance between themselves and the town as Carpenter would have liked, but there was no sense being sore about it. They would go as far as they could before making camp.

  And after that? It was easier not to think about it. Easier than walking uphill, at any rate. He wiped his brow, and his hand came away with as much crusted blood as sweat. The pain wasn’t anything to bother him; after the lashes during the war, nothing else had ever seemed to matter much. The sun was different, though. If it decided to peek out from behind the clouds, this would be a short walk.

  But the clouds held, and as he had for more than fifty years, Carpenter put one foot in front of the other.

  The music came first, and nothing followed it. As they climbed the final slope that would bring them into view of the settlement proper, there were only the distant notes of the pianoforte. There were no voices, or none loud enough to be heard this far off.

  And that wasn’t right. The day was ending; the prospectors stubborn enough to ply their trade in Antelope Valley relied on daylight for their work. They would be returning to the settlement, the whiskey, the girls, and the bunkhouses.

  And they likely were, but they were doing it quietly. Were there any secrets in Antelope Valley? Probably not, except what in the world an antelope was. The people knew of Hale, they knew of Silva, and they knew of the trouble between them. They were also, by the sound of things, hoping to stay out of it. No one could find fault with that, particularly when they likely had no reason to disbelieve the nonsense everyone else was repeating. As far as they were concerned, Silva was every inch the scoundrel he was rumored to be. The truth had no value to them, and there was no help to be found in it. The only recourse was to go, and quickly, before someone had the brilliant notion of endearing himself to Hale by doing something foolish.

  What little sound there was went away as they came into view, shambling onto the road like two men walking in their sleep.

  Reverend Brown was there with his Bible under his arm, outside the sheriff’s office. He said nothing; he just looked on with no expression. Slow and steady, the sun was well on its way. Carpenter couldn’t see especially well in the fading light, but he could feel the eyes on them.

  They split without a word, Carpenter making for the corner to go to the stable and Silva going into the hotel.

  The boy who was supposed to be minding the hay and the water wasn’t there. No one was, and there were two horses tied up, but they weren’t Silva’s. There was no sign of the wagon. It wasn’t coincidence; you couldn’t very well misplace something that size. Carpenter had been struggling to keep his breakfast down all morning, and now it only got more difficult. So they’d taken Silva’s cargo, then come back and taken the wagon and team for good measure.

  The quiet pressed on him from all sides. Naively, he had believed that he understood. The people who lived in this settlement weren’t blind or deaf. They weren’t holding their breath and standing back in shame, waiting for Silva to go on his way.

  No one had thrown dirt in Carpenter’s eyes. This was his doing and no one else’s. Which was worse? That Hale had gotten older and let go of the rope? That the man might act against Silva and against his own interests?

  Or that he wouldn’t?

  Carpenter slipped out of the stable and moved quietly to the hotel, sidling along the rear of the building and keeping out of sight. Was anyone looking? It was difficult to be sure, but it was time to make a change. Speaking softly and giving the benefit of the doubt hadn’t accomplished anything but getting the two of them beaten into the dirt.

  He paused alongside a window and tapped on the glass. After a moment, the curious barman opened it, and Carpenter looked past him. There were men drinking, but none that he recognized.

  Seeing who it was, the barman’s face went blank.

  “Wait,” Carpenter told him quickly. “These two mares,” he said, pointing at the stable. “They’re yours?”

  The man nodded.

  “Sell them to me.”

  Even if the man couldn’t have been blamed for his uncertainty, time still meant something. It had been foolish to assume that Hale would be content to simply watch the two of them drag themselves out of Antelope Valley in disgrace.

  The owner hesitated, and as he did, the hush inside the hotel crept out through the window like a fine mist. They both felt it. The owner turned, and Carpenter leaned in to see what all the men were looking up at.

  Silva came into view at the top of the stairs with something in his arms.

  “Please,” Carpenter hissed at the owner, who looked back with wide eyes and skin as white as chalk.

  The quiet had woven itself into a prickly blanket of dead silence, broken only by those faint notes from the taproom of the joint down the street. Carpenter’s eyes weren’t what they’d once been, but he could still see that Silva wasn’t carrying his belongings. He recognized Maria’s fur, and the still, limp way the staghound lay in Silva’s arms.

  Silva reached the bottom of the stairs, and without a look for the men at the tables, he left the hotel.

  Carpenter grabbed for the owner, who dodged away and slammed the window shut hard enough to crack it. Swearing, Carpenter hurried down the alley, back toward the street, but halted.

  Joe Fisher was there with Isaiah beside him, striding into the street.

  There was no sign of Reverend Brown now.

  There was no sunlight to catch on it, but Joe’s star still shone dully in the gathering twilight.

  Silva paused on the porch with Maria in his arms, his eyes on Joe. Silva hadn’t noticed Fred yet, but he was there around the corner of the general store. And if Fred was there, O’Doul wouldn’t be far away, probably upstairs or even on the roof. Normally it would have been Isaiah on the roof with his Henry rifle, but today he was in the street. The years had taken a great deal from them, but they likely still remembered how to do this much.

  Now Carpenter could clearly see the handle of the knife still buried in the dog’s breast. It wasn’t Joe’s knife, but at this point, it didn’t really matter whose it was.

  Joe didn’t look entirely sure of himself, and that was fair enough. Silva was a sight with his worn and bloody clothes and carrying the dead dog.

  There were too many faces at the windows; Carpenter tried to stay in the shadows, but it wasn’t dark yet, and it wasn’t easy for a man his size to go unseen. He eyed the stable door, but getting in there without being noticed would never happen as long as the town was as still and quiet as a grave. Even a sneeze would carry like a gunshot.

  Silva stood h
is ground on the porch and stared at Joe.

  “Are you here to bring the man who killed my dog to justice?” he asked after a moment, a new look on his face, one that Joe evidently didn’t like.

  The sheriff shifted his feet. “No,” he called back. “Can’t say that I am.”

  “Then what is your business?” There wasn’t even the slightest hint of fear on Silva’s face or in his voice.

  Joe hesitated. “You are,” he said finally, not looking very happy about it. His eyes darted left and up, looking for reassurance or possibly for Carpenter. Joe had never been one for nerves. He wasn’t afraid of Silva as a man; he just had no stomach for this business. All the same, that brought his apprehension out, and now he’d given away where O’Doul was hiding.

  “I was just about to leave,” Silva was saying coldly, “without the expectation of return. I would much prefer if you did not detain me.”

  “So would I,” Joe replied. “But it’s what you did to Will Hale. You gave that boy a beating, Silva.”

  Chickens were clucking in a coop behind one of the buildings, and a dog whined.

  “Do I look to you, sir, like a man who has given a beating?” Silva bit out through his teeth.

  Joe started to say something, but the other man cut him off.

  “I suppose I might explain to you,” Silva said, raising his voice, “what a fair fight is. I’d be wasting my breath, though, wouldn’t I? You wouldn’t know the meaning of the word ‘fair.’”

  Carpenter paused at the corner and peered out.

  Blood from Maria’s body had traced red lines across Silva’s forearms, and it dripped and hung in sticky strings.

  Joe wasn’t blind or stupid, but Isaiah was both.

  “Just come on, now,” Isaiah said, beckoning. “To the jail.”

  Joe might well have done the right thing in that moment, but the moment got away from him.

  “What you done to the boy ain’t right,” Isaiah went on, all but shouting the words. His outrage was as real as the gilding on Hale’s garden columns, but that wasn’t important. His notion was to have everyone in town hear him. Maybe they’d already paraded Perkins, Thurgood, and William through this street to set the stage.