A Wolf in the Fold

Calista gazed out the window. “The whole town is buzzing like stirred-up bees. Most everyone figures the Butchers had a hand in it, but they can’t figure out how Clell got himself murdered. None of the LT hands claim credit.”

I saw several cowboys rein up out front. “What will the LT do?”

“Ask them,” Calista said with a jerk of her thumb. “Knowing Gerty, I wouldn’t want to be a Butcher. It will be all-out war now.”

Sunlight spilled across the floor as the door was flung wide and in jangled two of the cowboys. One was a stocky slab of muscle who wore a Colt in cross-draw fashion. The other was a rangy bundle of sinew and bones with salt-and-pepper gristle. They ignored the other patrons and came straight toward my table.

“Reverend Storm, Miss Modine,” the slab said, politely doffing his hat. “Sorry to intrude.”

“That’s all right, Jim,” Calista said.

“Mrs. Tanner sent us, ma’am,” the rangy cowboy explained. “She would be obliged if the parson, here, would plant her husband tomorrow at noon.”

“I would be honored,” I said.

Calista focused on the rangy one. “What is the latest, Chester? Have you found Lloyd’s killer?”

“No, ma’am. Not yet.” Chester realized he still had his hat on and yanked it off. “We’re all for riding to the Dark Sister and wiping those varmints out, but Mrs. Tanner won’t hear of it.”

“That’s not like her,” Calista said.

Jim agreed. “It sure ain’t. Especially as mad as she is. We think maybe she’s leaving it for the Texas Rangers to handle.”

“You shouldn’t ought to have sent for them, ma’am,” Chester chided. “You’ve gone and hobbled us, is what you’ve done.”

“That wasn’t my intention,” Calista defended herself. “But you must admit this has gotten out of hand. Murders every time we turn around. Men and women. If it’s not a job for the Rangers, I don’t know what is.”

“I reckon I can speak for every puncher on the LT when I say I’d rather chuck my own lead, thank you very much,” Chester said testily. “It’s bothersome to have lawdogs meddle.”

“I’m sorry, but I would do the same had I to do it over again,” Calista declared. “This isn’t just about the LT. It involves the whole community.”

The cowboys were disposed to debate the point, but I was hungry and nipped the argument in the bud with, “Tell Mrs. Tanner I will be out at the LT by eleven tomorrow morning.”

“You can tell her yourself, if you’d like, Parson,” Chester said. “She’s over to the undertaker’s seeing about the coffin for Mr. Tanner.”

For some reason that troubled me. Why had Gertrude sent the two cowboys to ask me to conduct the service for her husband when she could just as well have asked me herself? “I believe I will go have a talk with her,” I announced, rising.

“What about your breakfast?” Calista asked.

“It can wait.”

Chester and Jim accompanied me to Ira Jackson’s. Jackson was the best carpenter in Whiskey Flats, and as a result, whenever anyone needed a coffin, they came to him. He wasn’t a real undertaker, but he was all they had.

Half a dozen cowboys lounged out front, waiting for their mistress. Gertrude emerged as I approached, saw me, and frowned. “I didn’t say you were to bring him back with you,” she said to Chester.

“He came on his own account, ma’am.”

“I am sorry about your loss—” I began, and was peeved when she held up her hand to silence me, then motioned for me to walk with her. As soon as we were out of earshot of her hands, she stopped and faced me.

“Tell me again why I hired you?” Gertrude did not wait for me to reply but went on with, “Ah, yes. Now I remember. I hired you to dispose of the Butchers. I trust you will forgive me for my next comment, but you have done an abominably poor job.”

“You can’t blame your husband’s death on me.”

“Can’t I?” Gertrude snapped. “If you were half as competent as I was led to believe, the job would be done by now.” She was so mad, she practically hissed. “Not only are seven of those wretches still breathing, but the Texas Rangers will show up soon to spoil everything.”

Her emotional state could be blamed on the loss of her husband, but I still did not like her attitude. “I’ll finish it before the Rangers get here. I promise.”

Gertrude’s features pinched together like she had sucked on a lemon. “You have one day and one day only. If by this time tomorrow you have not done as I hired you to do, you may consider our arrangement no longer in force.”

“I don’t like being rushed.”

“Frankly, Mr. Lucius Stark, I don’t give a tinker’s damn what you like or don’t like. Your incompetence has created complications I can do without.” Gertrude sniffed and started to turn. “Twenty-four hours. Not a minute more.”

“You don’t want to hear who killed Lloyd?”

“Tyrel, obviously.”

I was impressed. “How did you know?”

“Tyrel and Clell were inseparable. They went everywhere together. What you were doing there, and why you killed one and not the other, is beyond me.”

So she had figured that out, too. “I was trying to stop them.”