A Wolf in the Fold

Along about midnight I reined up to switch mounts yet again. I tugged on the lead rope and Brisco came obediently up next to the mare. Without dismounting, I switched from the mare to Brisco, careful not to use my left arm more than I had to. I then switched the lead rope to the mare and was ready to go. But as I raised Brisco’s reins, I spied a tiny point of flickering light perhaps a mile off across the prairie.

My breath caught in my throat. It was a campfire. It could belong to anyone, but I knew whose it was.

“They’re mine!” I cried, and pricked Brisco with my spurs.

The next half a mile was a blur. I looked neither right nor left but only at the point of light, which grew slowly but steadily bigger. I came to my senses when I realized they would hear me if I went any closer on horseback. I used picket pins to ensure Brisco and the mare would not wander off.

The Winchester in the crook of my left arm so I was free to draw the Remington with my right if I had to, I crept through the tall grass. My senses were more alert than I ever remembered them being. I could not account for it and did not try.

I slowed to a turtle’s pace. A stand of cotton-woods hove out of the night. The pair were camped close to the trees but not in them, which was strange given the trees offered better cover.

A black hat and vest and an ivory-handled Smith & Wesson left no doubt as to the identity of the figure seated by the fire. Nearby, a second form was curled under a blanket.

Bart Seton was having trouble staying awake. Twice he closed his eyes and his chin dipped, but each time he snapped his head up and shook it to break free. He was facing the northwest, the direction I had come from.

I circled around behind them. Their horses were too exhausted to do more than flick their ears. I fixed a bead on the center of Seton’s back, but I did not shoot. He must not die quickly or easily. He must suffer, and suffer gloriously.

I glanced at the form under the blanket. It was up over Gertrude’s head, probably so the firelight did not keep her awake.

If it is possible to drool with anticipation at killing someone, I did. In this instance, two someones.

Bart Seton placed his rifle on the ground and reached for the coffeepot. I waited until his fingers closed on the handle. He never heard me. So much for his reputation. I touched the Winchester’s muzzle to the nape of his neck and said quietly, “So much as twitch and you’re dead.”

Some men would have jumped up anyway, or gone for their revolver. All Seton did was tense slightly. “Well, well, if it isn’t the famous Lucius Stark. Looks like you’ve caught me with my britches down.”

“It wasn’t hard,” I bragged. In fact, it had been too damn easy. Nor did I like how calm he was.

“So what’s it to be?” Seton taunted. “A slug in the head?”

“You wish.” I glanced at Gertrude, but she had not stirred. “Shed your revolver and hold your arms out from your sides.”

“I don’t believe I will.”

I came within a whisker of blowing out his wick then and there. “You’ll do it or I’ll shoot you in the knee.” That should cause enough agony to last a good long while.

Bart Seton swiveled his head to look at me with what I could describe only as contempt. “How you have lasted so long is beyond me. Did you think we would just roll over and die?”

With abrupt clarity I saw it all: that he was calm for a reason, that the bulges under the blanket were not those of a person, and that I was the world’s worst jackass. I whirled, but I was not quite around when thunder boomed and leaden lightning struck me high in my left arm. The Winchester fell and so did I, to my knees. I did not draw my Remington. Not when I was staring up into the shadowy barrel of another Winchester in the hands of Gertrude Tanner.

“Finish the buzzard off!” Bart Seton urged her.

Gertrude stepped fully into the light, her harpy features aglow with wicked delight. People say I am vicious, but she was every bit as unregenerate, which made it doubly unsettling, her being female and all. Baring her teeth like a she-wolf that had caught a bobcat sniffing about her den, she paid me the supreme insult. “I didn’t think it would be this easy.”

Between the old wound under my collarbone and the new wound in my arm, my left side was worthless. The arm was half numb. I suspected the bone had been shattered. I flexed my fingers, or tried to, and nearly passed out.

“Why you let him spook you is beyond me.” Bart Seton was beside her. Stooping, he relieved me of the Remington. “All the damn running we did, and for what? I could have taken him anytime.”

“Don’t use that tone with me,” Gertrude said. “He’s not to be taken lightly.”

“Sure, sugar, sure.” Sneering at me, Seton hefted my revolver. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not impressed.”

I was unprepared for the blow. He slammed the barrel against my temple and the world faded to black. How long I was out I couldn’t say, but I came to with water falling on my face. Sputtering, I struggled to sit up and managed to rise onto my right elbow.