A Wolf in the Fold

Still, Calista was encouraged. I was not. I did not want the Rangers poking about in what I considered a personal matter. If they arrested Gertrude before I was ready to deal with her, I didn’t know what I would do.

Who was I kidding? Of course I knew. I would not rest until everyone involved suffered the same fate, or worse, as Daisy and her family. I owed it to myself. I had been shot and nearly burned to death. If that didn’t give me the right to bring the LT to its knees, nothing did.

The Texas Rangers and the townsfolk were walking to their mounts. Calista invited the lawdogs to stop by her place later for a meal. “It’s on me. My way of saying thanks for helping us.”

“We’re just doing our jobs, ma’am,” Dee said.

“But I’m never one to pass up free grub,” Lee assured her.

My own meal that evening was roast venison. I shot a doe. I couldn’t carry or drag it to the hollow, so I cut off a haunch and dragged that. Meat, lots of meat, would restore me to my old self, and over the next several weeks I did more to reduce the Dark Sister’s wildlife population than all the predators in Texas.

Three weeks, it took. Three weeks, wishing every second that I was restored to my usual vigor and vim.

Then one morning I woke up, stood, and stretched, and didn’t feel an ache or pain anywhere. To test myself, I decided to climb up the Dark Sister higher than I had ever gone before. I was at it for hours, until I came, quite unexpectedly and much to my amazement, out of the forest into a green meadow.

It was not the meadow that amazed me. It was the ornery four-legged cuss and the Butcher mare he had taken up with. The whole time I was down by the cabin suffering and barely able to move, my not-so-trusty steed was dallying with a filly in their own little high country paradise.

“So this is where you’ve been?” I said as Brisco came up to me. The mare hung back because she did not know me, which was just as well for her. The tart.

I patted Brisco and scratched around his ears and marveled that my saddle was still on. The cinch was loose and the saddle was smeared with dust and dirt and grass, but it was in one piece and none of my effects were missing. “Looks like my luck has turned,” I remarked.

The mare did not want to leave. The hussy shied when I rigged a hackamore, but I threw a loop around her neck and brought her along anyway. It pleased Brisco, but I was thinking that the Apaches claimed horseflesh was downright tasty.

God had been good to me. I was fit again. I had my own revolvers and my rifle and plenty of ammo. I had two horses and my saddlebags with the tools of my profession. Some might take it as a sign the Almighty was on their side, but I was more practical. If there was one thing I had learned from reading Scripture, it was that the Lord was powerful fond of blood. He loved spilling it and loved watching it spilled, and I was about to treat him to a spilling the Angel of Death would envy.

My last day on the mountain started early. I was up at first light. Breakfast waited while I went upstream to a pool. Stripping, I jumped in and swam about for all of a minute. The water was too cold. Teeth chattering, I climbed out and hopped up and down until I felt halfway alive again. I quickly dressed. Once back at the hollow, I rekindled the fire. I was not in the mood for squirrel meat, but it was all I had.

In my saddlebags I kept a small mirror. The man who stared back was not me. It was a ragged hermit with an unkempt beard and a tangled mop. I shaved and trimmed my hair.

After removing my parson’s garb—gladly, I might add—I donned my spare shirt and pants, and polished my boots. When I was done I looked like a whole new man, and felt like one, too.

I placed my shoulder holster and the hideout in my saddlebags and strapped on my long-barreled Remington. I had lost my hat on that night I would never forget. My coat had been so badly singed and so caked with soot, dirt, and grime that I had discarded it long ago.

I was as ready as I would be.

I walked over to Brisco, unwrapped the mare’s lead rope, and forked leather. I headed east. As I passed the charred timbers that had been the Butcher cabin, I touched a finger to the middle of my chest and felt the new scar under my shirt.

Those responsible were going to answer for it.

I couldn’t wait to start.

Chapter 18

I did not use the trail. I could not risk being spotted. Then there were the two Texas Rangers to keep in mind. They complicated things. They could be anywhere, at any time. Rangers were notorious for popping up when you least expected and least wanted them to.

I swung to the south and was winding down a canyon toward the foothills when a strange sound reached my ears. I drew rein and listened. It sounded like two rocks were being smacked together, and it went on and on until I gigged Brisco and warily led the mare lower.