The Range Wolf (16 page)

Part of what happened next, happened while I wasn't there.

I have a feeling that that will be more and more the case before this journal is finished—if it ever is finished.

From time to time I would recall Wolf Riker's prediction concerning me—‘
I'll be interested in the change . . . There will be a change, there has to be . . .'

And up to that time I had changed some. I had begun to carry a weapon. I had become more and more protective of Flaxen. And I had tolerated less and less abuse from that misanthrope called Cookie.

But before the end of that particular day there was an even more evident and enduring change.

From first light the sky had hung heavy and humid, barely shielding the curling clouds that threatened to explode with the wet fury of a Texas downpour.

But the storm didn't come—at least not that storm.

We were, all of us, soaked with the sweat of our own clothes. Perspiration dripping into our eyes and lips as the drive pressed north toward the Red River. And we were getting closer, as evidenced by the narrow forks of its confluent streams, streams that were no more than knee deep, unlike the Red River, itself, which in rainfall could flood its banks and submerge the shoulders of a tall man on horseback.

Luckily for the drovers, Riker chose to camp near one of the streams, and the men took the opportunity to plunge belly down into the rivulet, some with, and others without, the clothes they had worn during the drive—but, of course, without their guns, gun belts, and cartridges.

Even I, stripped to my underwear, sank into the refreshing runlet—as did all of us, all except Wolf Riker, Pepper, Dr. Picard, Flaxen, and, of course Eustice Munger, who seemed averse to anything liquid except for whiskey, which he had been consuming more than usual through the entire day and evening.

It was late, and everyone was asleep, except for the outriders guarding the herd—or so I thought. I was awakened by some sort of sound. I was unsure of what that sound was, since my mind was still somewhat clouded by the effects of a restive sleep.

I stirred, leaned against both elbows and noticed that the area where Cookie normally slept was vacant.

I rose and looked around through the darkness, but there was no sign of Cookie or anybody else except the sleeping drovers surrounding the glittering campfire. I quickly made my way to Flaxen's wagon. To my relief the door was closed, but the relief was short lived as I instinctively turned the knob and the door opened. The wagon was dimly lit by a lamp; but the bed and wagon were empty. I turned and made, for no particular reason, toward the stream where I saw just what I did not want to see.

Two familiar figures—struggling.

And then heard a harsh, hushed voice—as I stood momentarily frozen.

“Shut up you little wildcat, or I'll choke the life out of you . . . I'll have my way, and you'll tell nobody!”

One hand was at her throat, the other under her nightclothes at her breast, while pressing his rude lips against her face. She tried to scream, but he then covered her mouth with one hand while the other searched and moved up and down the front of her body.

It was only for a scant couple of seconds, but it seemed an eternity before I lunged like a mad man at the two figures by the side of the stream.

I crashed into Cookie, who let free of Flaxen as I grabbed him by his shirt and smashed my fist into his sweaty face. But with a fury he fought back in a whirlwind of kicks and blows, gaining the advantage with a knee into my groin.

He slid, then made it to his feet scrambling away, but with me in pursuit.

Dizzy from drink and the effect of my blows, he weaved toward the campfire as I rammed into his back and sent both of us onto the ground again.

The camp came alive with drovers aroused from their sleep.

I twisted him toward me, held him against the ground and beat my fist into his body and face as he did his best to unsheathe his knife.

They had appeared from everywhere, Leach, Dogbreath, Smoke, Simpson, Reese, French Frank, Morales One, Morales Two, and the rest including Dr. Picard, Pepper, then Flaxen and Wolf Riker.

Cookie's knife was in his hand, slashing toward me, ripping across my forearm, drawing blood from a palpable gash. I managed to grasp his knife hand and pound it against a stone near the campfire.

The knife dropped and I hit him—relentlessly—again and again, all my civilized instincts gone as Cookie begged me to stop—but I didn't—until I saw:

Wolf Riker grinning.

I let loose of the battered, bleeding wreck, who dropped in an unconscious heap. I picked up Cookie's knife, paused . . . then tucked it into my own belt, breathing the deepest breaths I had ever drawn.

Most of the drovers seemed amused by this nocturnal diversion, but not Dr. Picard who appeared incredulous. As I rose unsteadily, Picard, Reese, and Simpson moved to Cookie's inert form.

Flaxen's eyes turned toward me until she heard the sound of Wolf Riker's voice.

“What were you doing out here, Miss Brewster?”

“The stream. I thought everyone was asleep, I . . .”

“You'll know better from now on. Now it's best you get back to your wagon.”

She turned again toward me.

“Christopher, are you . . .”

“I'm all right.”

“Sure you are.” Riker smiled, “Mr. Guthrie, you come with me.”

Holding my torn and bleeding forearm, I followed Wolf Riker's command.

Of all the entries in my journal of the Range Wolf Cattle Drive, this, I believe, is the most revealing concerning Wolf Riker, and me—the most revelatory so far.

A few minutes after beating the nelly-hell out of that lecherous bastard, Eustice “Cookie” Munger, I stood in Wolf Riker's wagon, my left forearm still bleeding as I held it, and my mind still reeling from what had occurred.

Riker opened a medical kit and pointed to a chair near a table.

“Sit over there.”

“It can wait. Dr. Picard will . . .”

“Dr. Picard will be busy with Cookie for some ime. Besides, I want to. When Doc was soused I used to do a lot of this. Sit down.”

I did.

Riker started to clean the wound from a basin on the table.

“These hands can kill or cure, depending on . . .”

“Your whim?”

“I told you, you wouldn't take much more. I knew it!”

“It wasn't because of what he did to me . . .”

I reflexively pulled back my arm.

“Here, hold that steady. Ah, yes, it was.” Riker continued his ministering as he spoke in an almost triumphant tone.

“You can tell yourself it was because of the lady, but when you were striking him, that was your own revenge. And it made you feel alive and strong. I told you you'd change. But you were going to kill him. What made you stop?”

“You.”

“How?”

“When I saw you laughing, I realized . . .”

“What?”

“That I was becoming like you.”

Riker shrugged and laughed.

“Suppose you had killed him? You believe in resurrection. Eternity. Immortality. You would have just boosted Cookie's imprisoned spirit to a better place.”

“I've said it before, Mr. Riker, no man has the right to decide who lives or dies.”

“Nonsense. It's done all the time. Well,
Mister
Guthrie, you're the king of the kitchen now . . .”

“I don't want to be . . .”

“Cookie'll wash the greasy pots, peel the potatoes . . . that's your reward because you beat him . . . but since you
didn't
kill him, be careful, there are other knives in the kitchen.”

By then Riker had finished bandaging my arm. As well, I might add, as any doctor could have done.

“There you are.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“That must have been quite a love scene by the stream.”

Riker closed the medical kit.

“Beauty and the beast, wouldn't you say?”

I paused for a moment before I answered.

“There are many things I wouldn't say . . . to you, Mr. Riker.”

“Things about . . . love, for instance?”

I did not answer.

“Since you're writing about me, suppose I told you something I've never told anyone before?”

“About love?”

“That, too. And
maybe
I will tell you . . . sometime.”

“Why not now?”

“Are you serious?”

“Never more serious.”

“But after what happened you must be exhausted.”

“Not too exhausted to listen.”

“Very well, then. Listen, while we have a drink or two of brandy . . . and smoke a cigar.”

Within a minute or two, we were doing just that, while we sat and he spoke.

“In those days, before the war, the Double R brand stood for Riker and Riker. That war divided a nation, state against state, father against son, brother against brother. Somehow my brother and I might not have been divided—at least not unalterably—by the war, but something, someone, else also came between us.

“Dirk's loyalty was to the Union, and against slavery. Mine was to my native Virginia and then Texas—and I didn't give a damn about slavery. I never owned a slave and never wanted to. All I cared about was the empire we were building and that empire was in Texas—and so was my loyalty.

“We both, Dirk and I, tried to avoid talking about it, but after we heard the news of Lincoln's election and after the gunfire at Harper's Ferry, gunfire we didn't hear, but gunfire that sooner or later had to affect us, because the smoke of that gunfire spelled out across the nation and territories, one word:

“
Secession
.

“On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union, followed by Florida, Georgia, then Virginia. Texas would not be far behind.

“And it was then that Pepper told us his niece, a schoolteacher from Baltimore, would be arriving on the next stage.

“He asked if it would be all right if she stayed at the ranch temporarily, until she began teaching in Gilead. Without hesitation we both said yes.

“Then he asked if we'd like to go into town with him and meet the stage and her. Without hesitation we both said no.

“It was almost impossible to look at Pepper and not imagine what his schoolteacher niece must look like. We glanced at each other and conjured up a vision of a skinny spinster who might even have a trace of whiskers and a limp.

“But a different vision stepped off the buckboard as Pepper introduced us to his niece, Elizabeth.

“Byron wrote of another lady:

“But Elizabeth walked in beauty night and day. And that beauty came with an inward glow that affected both Dirk and me as we had never been affected by anyone or anything before.

“Her eyes, midnight blue. Her hair black as a raven's wing.

“And even her traveling clothes could not disguise the flowing form beneath.

“‘On the way here from the stage, Uncle Pepper has told me so much about you both.'

“Her voice had the slight lilt of a cultured Southern belle, completely honest and unaffected.

“But that damn Uncle Pepper had not told us what to expect. And even then he just looked at us with that self-satisfied grin that silently lorded over the both of us.

“Not only were the both of us more than pleased that we had consented to her staying at the ranch, but each of us was already . . . well, shall I say, thinking about considerably more than that.

“In spite of the fact that we had help in the house, she was the first to rise and have breakfast ready for Pepper, Dirk, and me.

“For the noon meal we were usually out on the range, but supper was ready when we were, a supper fit for royalty, a supper which we consumed while barely able to take our eyes off her every movement—and while Pepper looked at the two of us with unconcealed amusement.

“But soon that amusement turned to concern, as each of us vied for her attention—and favor.

“She did her best to show no favoritism and to divide her attention as equally between us as possible. She led neither of us on, even suggesting that she move into town until her term at the school began.

“But we wouldn't hear of it.

“On alternate Sundays she would ride with either Dirk or me. She also suggested that the three of us ride out and spend the afternoons together.

“But neither Dirk nor I agreed to that. Each of us wanted to be alone with her.

“I don't know where the two of them went, but the two of us had a serene spot where we would dismount and talk. After a time more than talk.

“When I put my arms around her, there was a quality about her that made me want to protect as well as possess her.

“It was during one of those times that she told me of a novel she had read,
Wuthering Heights
, by an English lady named Emily Bronte.

“Heathcliff and Cathy were doomed to be separated by Cathy's early death. A story I didn't want to listen to.

“And as the effects of the war affected Texas—and the nearness of Elizabeth affected Dirk and me—he and I found more to disagree about—until it was inevitable that those disagreements would erupt in violence—and even death.

“One afternoon in the presence of Elizabeth, Pepper, and others came the climax. It began about the merits of the Union and Confederate causes but our eyes were on Elizabeth.

“Choices had to be made.

“Elizabeth's eyes widened in apprehension.

“Pepper did his best to arbitrate and intervene.

“‘Boys, this is crazy. You've worked together for years. The two of you own one of the biggest spreads in Texas.'

“‘It's not big enough,' I said.

“‘Not for the two of us,' Dirk added.

“‘One flip of the coin,' I demanded. ‘Winner take all.'

“‘All?'

“He looked toward Elizabeth.

“‘That's up to her.'

“‘If you go through with this,' she said, ‘I'll never see either of you again as long as I live.'

“‘I'll take that chance,' I said and drew a coin from my pocket.

“‘So will I,' Dirk said.

“I flipped the coin in the air. ‘Call it.'

“‘Tails.'

“The coin hit the ground. I looked at it, then at him.

“‘You're standing on my land. Get out now.'

“I started to turn toward Elizabeth and I heard his voice.

“‘I'll leave this with you.'

“He twisted me hard and hit me with all the strength he could muster. Hard enough to knock me to the ground where my head smashed into a jagged rock. In a haze I hollered out.

“‘Draw you son of a bitch!'

“We both drew and fired. My shot hit his shoulder. His shot hit Elizabeth, who had stepped forward to intervene.

“She clutched her heart and was probably dead before she fell.”

I sat in silence, transfixed as he related those events, smoking his cigar and sipping his brandy—while I neither smoked, nor drank—just looked into his eyes and recalled that line from the Bard of Avon.

‘
There is no art to find the mind's construction in the face.
'

What a piece of work was this man. What a contradiction. A fallen angel. The devil incarnate. A human pendulum sweeping between passion and brutality. And here he sat speaking of a lost love and forfeited brother as if it had all happened to someone else.

And in a way maybe it had. Maybe he was no longer the man he had spoken of. Maybe he had become someone else—something else.

But still he carried that scar on his temple, and who knew what scar was buried deep in his heart.

After a momentary silence, the mask that was his face broke into a slight smile.

“You think you can remember all of that, Mr. Guthrie?”

“How could I forget?”

“We'll see.”

“About Elizabeth . . .”

He shook his head.

“No more about Elizabeth . . . except . . . like Cathy Earnshaw, she died an early death, but is not buried on the English moors. She rests on the ground that I'll never give up—in Texas.”

Another moment of silence, then he pointed to the glass on the table.

“You haven't finished your drink, or cigar.”

I rose and lifted the glass.

“I'll drink the brandy . . . and take the cigar with me. Thank you, Mr. Riker.”

I swallowed the contents of the glass and started toward the door.

“One more thing,” he added.

I paused.

“Suppose,” he said, “I was at that stream with Miss Brewster. Would you have attacked me?”

I did not answer.

“Good night, Mr. Guthrie.” He smiled.