A Wolf in the Fold

“Are you all right? You appeared to be in pain there for a moment?”

“Just a twinge.” I was quick to change the subject. She was too observant, this one. “Tell me more about the bad blood between the LT and the Butchers.” It always paid to hear other points of view.

Calista placed her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “The LT is run by Lloyd Tanner. He owns practically all the land between the two Sisters. About twenty hands ride for his brand, and as you just saw, they are a salty bunch. His wife, Gerty, is a friend of mine. They have a son named Phil who recently came home from back East, where he went to school.”

“And the Butchers?”

“Hannah and Everett Butcher moved here from Tennessee about five years ago. They staked a claim to land up on the Dark Sister. Everyone thought they were loco, but the Butchers are hill folk, and used to living by themselves.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Carson and Sam had stopped eating and were listening.

“Eight months ago or so, Everett disappeared. Indians, everyone figured, although the Comanches haven’t acted up in a coon’s age.”

“It weren’t no danged Comanche!” Carson Butcher interrupted. “Pa was too savvy to be caught by any mangy redskins.”

“Be that as it may,” Calista said skeptically. “Now Hannah runs the clan. Sam is the baby of the bunch. Next oldest is Carson, there. After him is Kip. Then there is Jordy, Clell, and Ty. The two girls are Daisy and Sissy.”

I had been counting them off on my fingers under the table. “Eight in all. That’s some brood.”

“There was a ninth,” Sam mentioned. “But he died a few days after he was born. Something to do with his heart, the doc said. Ma wouldn’t leave her bed for two weeks, she was so sad.”

I finally got around to the reason I had been sent for. “When did the trouble over the cows start?”

“During the spring roundup,” Calista revealed. “A tally showed the LT was fifty head short. They scoured the countryside and someone found a hide with the LT brand up on Dark Sister. Since only the Butchers live up there . . .” She did not finish. She did not need to.

Carson did it for her. “Since only my family lives up there, naturally everyone blames us. But we had nothing to do with that hide, and we sure as blazes didn’t steal no fifty head.”

“So far it’s been a lot of finger-pointing,” Calista said. “But it won’t be long before lead starts to fly.” She extended an arm across the table and lightly clasped mine. “Your arrival is a godsend.”

“In what way?”

“Isn’t it obvious? You can do what no one else can. That collar gives you the right. You can stop the bloodshed before it begins.”

Little did she realize I was there to do the opposite. “Blessed are the peacemakers.” I was rather proud of that one. There was more to the quote, but I’d be dipped in gold if I could remember it.

Calista warmly squeezed my hand. “I knew you would understand. Now if you will excuse me, I have breakfast dishes to attend to.”

I pondered the situation over my coffee. The letter had been short and to the point, merely stating that I was needed to regulate rustlers. My standard fee of a thousand dollars was acceptable, half on arrival, half when the job was done.

I often marveled at how far and wide word of my services had spread. I did not advertise. I did not mail flyers. I couldn’t. In some jurisdictions what I did was out and out illegal and would earn me the privilege of being the guest of honor at a hemp social as quick as you can spit. In others, such as the recent business in Wyoming, Regulators were tolerated so long as they did not make a spectacle of themselves. Secrecy was my byword.

Yet despite that, word spread. From town to town and territory to territory, until now there probably wasn’t a soul anywhere west of the Mississippi who had not heard of Lucius Stark the Regulator. That might be an exaggeration but not by much.

I knew I was playing with fire. Those who lived by the gun died by the gun. Eventually, if I stayed at it, someone would put a slug in my back or prove quicker or cleverer. But I didn’t intend to stay at it forever. I had a plan. Or rather, a dream.

I saved nearly all the money I made. To date I had over twenty thousand dollars. That might not sound like a lot, but I was almost halfway to my goal. As soon as I had fifty thousand, I aimed to call the regulating quits. I would take my money and buy a small but comfortable place in New Mexico and spend the rest of my days lazing on a rocking chair.

I admit I was growing impatient. I wanted that fifty thousand. I wanted my life of ease right that second. So I was taking jobs as fast as they were thrown at me, with little regard for anything other than how fast I could get each job done and be paid.