The Wolves of Seven Pines

by E. L. Ripley

  The young man’s name was Rene, and he was another of the boys in Hale’s employ. A few years ago, he probably wouldn’t have been necessary, but though Yates seemed spry enough, it had to help him a great deal to have a pair of hands to haul the baggage.

  It didn’t feel good to come this far on foot, only to go back the same way. Yates and Rene couldn’t have brought their horses any farther than the top of that first rise out of town, so they’d come a long way with their boots as well.

  On the bright side, Carpenter had finally come to the place where he’d walked enough that he just didn’t notice the pain in his feet anymore. It was a familiar feeling; he’d had it more than once on the march during the war. A man wasn’t made to walk all day, and it was anyone’s guess if it would be his feet or his knees that gave in first. For all his youth, Silva wasn’t doing much better. Rene was the same.

  Yates wasn’t having any trouble, though. He was miserable, but not because of the exercise. He’d always been that sort: the one who ran the fastest, shot the straightest, and generally complained the least. Even when his luck turned bad, as it had after the war. He’d married, and Carpenter had never met her, but Hale had mentioned in a letter that she was really something. Things must have been all right for a while, then. But five or six years later, Hale mentioned that Yates had lost a little one.

  And then a year or two on, the wife as well. All that, and still not a single letter from Yates himself. Carpenter had written him, though, and he remembered composing that letter. How he’d only done it because it seemed the decent thing to do, not because he understood. He hadn’t understood, and worse, he hadn’t expected he ever would. Penelope had still been with him then, and he hadn’t even been able to imagine that the day might come when she wouldn’t be.

  With Yates, there wasn’t any denying it. He’d had a hard run of things, but it looked as though Hale and the boys had stood with him through it.

  Now, as Carpenter slogged through the pine needles with his eyes on Yates’ back, he realized he was following in the other man’s footsteps in more ways than one. Or he would have, if he hadn’t met Silva. Yates had lost his wife and, for lack of other family, gone back to the boys. Carpenter hadn’t given it any thought, but he’d done the exact same thing.

  “You weren’t at dinner the other night,” he said.

  “I was riding back from the Gray Hollow claim,” Yates said over his shoulder. “It took so long because the assayer thought he found something, but when we looked closer, it wasn’t nothing worth the time.”

  “You sure? Or did he tell you that so he could go back himself?” Carpenter asked.

  “I don’t believe so. If he did, that’s the last mistake he’ll ever make,” Yates said lightly.

  “Then there’s nothing at Gray Hollow?” Silva asked.

  “Don’t look like it.”

  “That’s a pity.”

  Yates glanced back and snorted. “That it is.”

  “About the only claim within ten miles that anyone was really sure about,” Silva said to Carpenter. “Who owned it, Mr. Yates?”

  “Wayne Palance.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Palance. Has he been found, by chance?” Silva asked dryly.

  “He has not,” Yates replied, just as dryly.

  “Where’d he go?” Carpenter asked.

  “Who can say?” Silva replied, his eyes on Yates’ back. “I’d hate to think someone did something untoward. Particularly if it was for nothing.”

  “You do hate to see that sort of thing happen.”

  So Yates was Hale’s agent for seeking out the gold in Antelope Valley. Had he really killed a man because he thought his claim might be worth something, as Silva wanted to imply? Carpenter preferred to think that Yates wouldn’t do that, but he’d also have preferred to think that Yates wouldn’t shoot at him. Even just to put one in his wing.

  That wasn’t a good feeling, but of the four of them, none could have been feeling worse than Rene. The boy kept his mouth shut and toiled along stoically, watching Carpenter and Silva, but it was as clear as day that this wasn’t what he was here for.

  “I guess I can’t blame you for doing what the captain tells you,” Carpenter said. “But it ain’t right to bring the boy into it, Yates.”

  “The boy volunteered,” Yates replied, taking a few big steps to scale a slope. He put his rifle in the crook of his arm and reached back to help Carpenter up. “Isn’t that so, Rene?”

  “I did, sir.”

  “Son, do you understand what’s happening here? I can’t imagine that you do. If you did, you wouldn’t want no part of it,” Carpenter said, disappointed.

  “Mister, I understand that I need to do a good job for Mr. Hale,” Rene said, only a little breathless. He had backbone at least, and there was no faulting him. He probably had a family to think about, brothers and sisters. Everybody needed money, and it was no surprise that the people of Antelope Valley were still under the mistaken impression that Hale had some.

  The boy hadn’t been to war, but Carpenter wouldn’t be able to count on him losing his nerve if he had to shoot.

  The going was even slower with four, and the daylight didn’t wait for them. As the twilight came on, the trail grew more treacherous, not just for the two men with tied hands. Prisoners were harder to watch in poor light, and Yates was being careful. He called a halt well before it was fully dark.

  Carpenter couldn’t be pleased about his circumstances, but he didn’t complain about a fire, a meal, and a chance to rest. He’d been through enough that having to eat with his hands tied was the least of the hardship.

  “Do you really need to watch me so close?” he asked Yates. “I’m soft, remember?”

  “You used to be, sure enough.” Yates was on the other side of the fire, and he’d made a point to keep Rene close to him and far from Carpenter. He’d also tied a rope from Carpenter’s right ankle to Silva’s left, and done it with some impressive knots, a few of which were new to Carpenter. “I saw Will. That fist of yours ain’t none too soft, Bill.”

  Carpenter glanced down at his scabbed knuckles. That was true enough. “I do regret that.”

  “I’ll guess you only did what you had to. Will ain’t stupid,” Yates added. “But he ain’t what you’d call a thinker.”

  “This from a man who’s traded chasing gold for chasing men,” Silva remarked.

  “Well, men are a good deal easier to find,” Carpenter said, taking a bite of bread. “By and large.”

  “Can you play the harmonica with your hands tied, Bill?”

  “I did not know you played,” Silva remarked, affecting a hurt look.

  “I could, if it weren’t in my saddlebags.”

  “And where are they?” Yates asked.

  “My hotel room, I expect.”

  “You really did leave in a hurry.”

  “Well,” Carpenter replied, settling back against his tree stump, “they were shooting at us.”

  Yates sighed. “Wasn’t no call to hurt the dog. I liked that dog.”

  “So did I,” Silva replied darkly.

  “Hang it up, Silva,” Yates told him, getting to his feet. He came around the fire and offered Carpenter his smoke. “Ain’t no money in making it difficult.” There wasn’t any money in going quietly, either, but Carpenter didn’t point that out. This was as close as Yates would come to talking about what lay ahead, and Carpenter knew better than to ask.

  “Beautiful country out here,” he pointed out instead, taking in some smoke. “You wouldn’t fault the man for not wanting to leave.”

  “Too many Yankees for my liking,” Yates grumbled, going back to his spot across the fire and settling in. “And not enough gold.”

  “What would you do with it?”

  “What?”

  “The gold,” Carpenter said. “If you had it
.”

  Yates was taken aback, and for a moment he didn’t say anything. “Hell,” he muttered. “I don’t know.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It was something about the ropes on his wrists that put him in mind of it, though at the time it wasn’t ropes but iron manacles. Still, at the feel of his hands being bound, that was where Carpenter’s mind went. And wherever his brain staggered off to, his dreams would always follow.

  But in the dreary, disappointing dreams that weren’t dreams but just echoes of the past, the whip falling on his back didn’t hurt so much. Even if it had, Carpenter was used to it. In fact, in the dream he didn’t mind it at all. In the dream he knew the captain and the boys were there waiting for him when it was over, and there was a sense that the business was closed and the scales were balanced.

  He knew it was only a dream, and that would’ve been all the more reason to stay there a little longer, but Yates wouldn’t allow it. Camp was broken in the gray before dawn, and the march was back on, though one couldn’t really march in the mountains. There was a clear sense of urgency in Yates, and Carpenter wasn’t sure what to make of it. He had no plans to ask, but Yates fell back to go along beside him while Silva trailed behind, and Rene brought up the rear.

  “I seen you panning in the river,” Yates confided. “How did it look?”

  “Just a few spots of color, that was all.”

  “Where’d you get the pan?”

  It sounded as though Yates hadn’t taken much of a look around after he missed his shot at the river. It was a fair question; he knew the two of them had gone on the run with nothing.

  “There was a prospector who died. We found his body.”

  “Don’t sound like that, Bill. I’d rob a dead man too in your place. Where was he?”

  “In from the bank a bit, fifty yards or so. Near where the water bends around the tall rocks, the two of them, reddish and sharp.”

  Yates had seen them as well; it was a pretty view from that point.

  “Had he found anything?”

  “Only some dust,” Carpenter told him. “He might have hidden something else, I suppose.”

  “Did you take it?”

  “That really would be stealing. We took what we could use.”

  “Is there anything that can get you off that high horse?”

  “If there was, you’d know it by now. That fellow used stones as markers, but I didn’t see many holes. I’m no miner. I don’t know what he was up to. Look in my pocket.” Carpenter indicated his shirt, and Yates obligingly took out the folded piece of paper. He put his rifle over his shoulder and unfolded the paper curiously.

  “Well,” he said, brows rising. There was no mistaking the way he looked at it or the way he spoke when he talked about gold. Yates had never struck Carpenter as greedy; or rather, he’d never shown any real ambition beyond a desire to win the war and settle down. He’d gotten half of what he wanted.

  “Can you make sense of it?”

  Yates halted and turned around. “Hold on, Rene. Bill, is this meant to be the river?” He indicated it on the crude map.

  “Has to be.”

  Silva caught up, awkwardly wiping his brow. It was still early, but already it was getting warm. Carpenter pointed to a pine needle stuck to the other man’s neck, and Silva irritably brushed it off.

  Rene reached them, pistol in hand, though he wasn’t pointing it at anyone. He took his role as Silva’s guard seriously; Hale would have been proud. An earnest kid like him shouldn’t have been mixed up in this; he should’ve been working cows and looking for a wife.

  But there weren’t very many cows in Antelope Valley. Maybe things couldn’t be that simple.

  “Then here’s where he panned and where he dug. Wasn’t he lettered?” Yates complained. “Or is this a cipher?”

  “No,” Carpenter told him, halfheartedly waving at bugs buzzing around his head. “Don’t judge the man, Yates. He ain’t the one marching prisoners.”

  “You ever think, Bill, that if we could find some damn gold we wouldn’t need prisoners?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  “No, look. This is interesting.” Yates snorted and tapped the paper. “You see? He made a triangle, and he figured there was a deposit here. Right in here. That’s where he thought the quartz had to be. Were there holes?”

  “I don’t know,” Carpenter told him. “It ain’t my business.”

  “Are we meant to be prospectors now?” Silva asked tiredly.

  “Might be foolish not to try while we got the chance.” Yates looked up from the map, scowling at the trees. “We ain’t meant to treat this as government land yet, but we will one day. Might as well get the gold out before that day comes.”

  “I suppose it don’t matter who owns it,” Carpenter noted lightly.

  “I can’t see that I’d lose sleep for stealing from federals,” Yates replied.

  “What about from Mr. Silva?”

  Yates just snorted. “I don’t know how good your prospector was, Bill. This here? This is likely bedrock. A deposit could be where he thought. Or it could be here, on the other side.”

  If Yates was so knowledgeable, where was his gold? But it wouldn’t have been wise to ask.

  “You think there’s something there, Mr. Yates?” Rene asked, eyeing Silva suspiciously. Silva wasn’t doing anything to put the boy at ease; he challenged him with his eyes every time he looked at him. If Rene had been Hale’s son, William, he’d have shot Silva miles back.

  But there wasn’t any point telling him not to provoke the boy. Silva wasn’t listening to anyone right now, and why should he with what was waiting for him? He didn’t have much to lose, but he hadn’t given up. He was still hoping for a chance.

  With Yates, he probably wouldn’t get one. Carpenter had met better men than Yates, if that was a fair thing to judge, but he’d met relatively few who were more competent.

  He still wasn’t convinced that Yates had missed him accidentally. Maybe that had been his chance to get away, and he hadn’t delivered on it. Maybe Yates had followed them from the stream, hoping to lose the trail, hoping not to succeed. It was difficult to tell; Yates wasn’t an easy read, except for when he was talking about gold. There was no subterfuge there, and no question about how he felt. Gold didn’t make men crazy like everyone said; it just made them stupid.

  “It ain’t so far out of our way,” Yates said hesitantly, looking at Rene. He was weighing it in his mind, or pretending to. He was thinking about their provisions and how long it would take to go back to the place along the river where he’d missed that shot. He was wondering if that prospector hadn’t died before confirming his suspicions.

  He was wondering if there wasn’t gold there for the taking. It wasn’t really a deliberation; Yates had already made up his mind.

  “It’d be a shame not to look,” Carpenter admitted after a moment. He’d have been the last one to discourage the man; anything that could buy time before returning to Hale was worth trying. And there was a part of him that wanted to believe that if there was gold near enough to Antelope Valley to bring the prospectors, maybe there was a path forward where Captain Hale didn’t have to go through with all this.

  There might be another way, but getting that notion pushed all the way up the hill and into the bright light of belief would be a big job, and Carpenter was too old. Maybe a younger man could do it, but not him.

  All the same . . .

  “Aw, hell,” Yates grumbled, giving the paper one last look. “Why not? A little extra walking won’t kill us. We ain’t that old yet.” He clapped Carpenter on the shoulder.

  * * *

  * * *

  The sun rolled across the sky as they slogged through the trees, and it was astounding the way every step always seemed to be uphill. The day moved along, but Carpenter’s spirit was stuck i
n place, unsure if revealing the paper to Yates had been the right play. He wasn’t much of a chess player at the best of times. Silva was pretty good, but he wasn’t thinking at his clearest right now. His dislike of Yates was justified, and Yates hadn’t made it any better by bringing up the dog. He had better be wary, because given the chance, Silva would kill him in a heartbeat.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The woods were nice enough to look at, but it wasn’t easy to appreciate beauty when one was roasting in the heat and constantly pestered by insects. It was better by the water, where the breeze was always strong and the damp air felt almost cool. It was also flatter, and the smooth stones on the riverbank were less treacherous than the loam and the pine needles.

  But it was hard to hear the bubbling of the water without remembering how Yates’ shot had shattered the day and sent them running for their lives. It was a good walk back, and it took a full hour of searching to find the grave of the prospector. When they did, Yates seemed struck by it.

  “What’s the matter?” Carpenter asked, wincing at the pain in his wrists, which were now thoroughly raw. “Did you think I was leading you on?”

  “No. I was just thinking it was mighty decent of you to do this for a stranger.”

  “You’d have done the same,” Carpenter told him.

  “If I’d been feeling spiritual,” Yates replied after a moment, “I suppose I might have had the boy do it. But no, Bill, I don’t think I would have. Would I have to dig him up to get his dust?”

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  Something twitched in Yates’ jaw. “No,” he said after several long minutes. “No, I wouldn’t.”

  It was another chore to orient themselves to the makeshift map, which was appallingly bad. The locations of the markers left Yates scratching his head, and even Carpenter felt a touch of irritation. An organized and methodical approach was supposed to be at the core of prospecting. Without that, what did you have? But that wasn’t the most pressing concern for a man with his hands tied and a less-than-certain future.