Winchester 1886 (17 page)

C
HAPTER
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WENTY-SEVEN

They had come down into Nebraska on their way to Hay Springs for—what else?—winter hay. Sergeant Jay Chase, 6th U.S. Cavalry, didn't care much for the assignment, wet-nursing eighteen new recruits. Most of those green peas either drove or sat in the backs of big wagons. Three, though, rode half-broke, poor excuses for horses that should have been shipped to a glue factory, not an Army post in South Dakota. But orders were orders, and there he was—cold, butt hurting, thighs chapped—riding herd on those nitwits the idiotic lieutenant had saddled him with. They included some kid from the New York slums who knew nothing about horses, three fools fresh off the boat from Italy or Spain or Portugal or some such place, and two drunks who spent more time in the guardhouse than in the field. The rest were even worse.

Then they saw the wolves.

Snarling they were, inside and outside some ramshackle tent that the wind had half blown over. Something inside that tent sure held those big curs' attention. A couple horses and a mule, all looking like something even the stock buyers for the 6th Cavalry would have passed over no matter how much of a kickback the mustangers offered to pay, were tethered in a miserable structure behind the tent.

Yet, for the moment, those wolves did not pay any attention to that poor excuse for livestock. They focused on whatever lay inside the tent.

Carcasses, some skinned, others still frozen solid, were stacked all around what remained of the tent.

That trooper from the Fifth Ward got bucked off by the gelding. Scared senseless by the wolves, it bolted down the road toward the flea-bitten town of Hay Springs. Another trooper's mount started sidestepping, but at least that idiot had the sense to slide off the saddle into the snow and get a good hold on the reins.

“Halt!” Sergeant Chase yelled. He looked around at the wagons, filled with hay from the farms east of town. The drivers had set the brakes, and sat still, staring at the wolves, color draining from their faces. One dark-skinned foreigner in the back of the third wagon vomited on the hay.

The sergeant's horse became skittish, but it wasn't some half-dead mount. It was a solid, smart dun—Captain Thurston's horse—Chase had bribed the saddler back at Fort Meade to give him.

“Easy, boy,” Chase told the horse. He reached for the Springfield sheathed in the scabbard. It was awkward pulling that heavy single-shot .45-70 carbine, his heavy woolen coat flopping in the wind, his gauntlets stiff from the freezing cold. He had considered ordering one of the recruits to do this job, but after looking at those green pups, he decided they would likely either shoot a horse or mule, or Sergeant Jay Chase.

The wolves had not run off, had not been scared by the arrival of these noisy, lumbering wagons and horses. Of course, it had been a bitter winter, and they had found something in that tent—or what was left of a tent—that made them defiant.

Chase's carbine would stop that.

He aimed at the closest wolf, squeezed the trigger, and heard the roar as the Springfield's stock slammed against his shoulder. The dun horse, trained by Captain Thurston, barely flinched. The wolf slammed into a snow bank, spraying the canvas of the tent crimson.

The wolves lost their nerve and beat a hasty retreat into the frigid landscape.

Chase shifted the Springfield into his left hand and fumbled with the leather cover that protected his Army revolver. When he had the snap released, he drew the .45 and popped three rounds into the air. Just to make sure the wolves did not return.

It caused two more horses to buck off their troopers, and the lead wagon to run about twenty-five yards before the driver managed to stop the frightened mules.

Chase barked a few choice curse words at the Greek driver, yelling at him for not having the brains to set the brake earlier. Then he cursed the fools who pulled themselves out of the snow, brushing off ice and shame. He shook his head, holstered the Colt, sheathed the Springfield, and brought the dun to the nearest wagon, tethering him to the rear wheel.

“You.” He told the driver. Chase couldn't remember the man's name. “You and you.” He pointed to two other troopers. “Follow me.”

Snow crunched underneath their boots as they trudged through the snow. Soon, the smell hit them, and they stopped to bring up their kerchiefs or woolen scarves to cover noses and mouths. Chase spit and stepped over the wolf he had killed. Drawing his Colt again, he used the barrel to push open the flap in the tent.

He was the first inside. Only the driver followed him The other two recruits stood outside, shivering.

He cursed and spit into his yellow kerchief. He pulled it down and spit again, the saliva freezing in the air. He shook his head. Behind him, the driver muttered some prayer in his native tongue and began bawling like a newborn.

“Out,” Chase managed to tell him. “Get out.”

The trooper did not need any further orders. He staggered through the canvas, ripping part of it as he tumbled beside the two waiting soldiers.

Chase had read fanciful stories about wolves attacking men, but as far as he knew, all those stories were hogwash. Outside, he could hear other soldiers moving cautiously from their wagons, listening as the driver muttered what he could in English, trying to tell them that those beastly wolves had attacked and ripped apart two human beings.

“No.” Chase told himself. He eased forward, dropped to his knees, and used the barrel of the Colt to move one of the corpse's arms. Tried to, anyway. It wouldn't move. Either frozen from the cold or stiff in rigor mortis.

The man's arm had fallen over his face, and the wolves had made a mess of things, but he could see the bloody hole in the man's belly—at least, where the wolves hadn't gotten to it yet—and the powder burns on the man's coat. He had been shot at point blank range. Chase also saw the Green River skinning knife still gripped in the man's right hand and the frozen blood on the blade.

Chase looked at the second dead man.

The wolves had moved the bodies around some and had gone for the fleshy parts, but if Chase read things right, these two men—skinners of some sort—had killed themselves. The camp was squalid. So were what remained of the dead men.

He could see the busted and broken jugs, flasks, and bottles. These two fools must have been drunk. Gotten into some quarrel. One pulled a gun. One pulled a knife. A few moments later, both were shouting at the devil.

Well, he had seen things like that happen with his own troopers in all his years in the Army.

He asked himself, “What were they fighting over?”

Then he saw the rifle.

“Wolfers,” Ferdig told Chase. “Mr. Clements hired them for the Circle C-7. They've been a pest of late.”

“Wolves?” Chase asked. “Or the wolfers.”

Ferdig smiled and sweetened the sergeant's coffee with a little rye from his flask. “Honestly, I don't even remember their names. Mac-something. The other, I don't know. Figure they killed themselves?”

Chase nodded. They were sitting in the coffeehouse, half-tent, half-soddy, but warm and cozy. The coffee tasted better than anything the chowhounds poured at Fort Meade. Of course, maybe that rye whiskey had something to do with it.

“Don't surprise me.” Ferdig had ridden in from someplace called Box Butte.

Chase had sent a rider to the ranch after some girl at a bucket of blood had said she seemed to recall two sorry-looking cusses asking about bringing in wolf pelts for the bounty or reward or whatever they called it. It was a month or two back, but she remembered them asking about Mr. Clements, who owned the Circle C-7.

“Too cold to bury them, I reckon,” Ferdig said.

Chase wasn't sure if that was a question or a statement or just some idle thought. He sipped more of the coffee. “You wouldn't know if they have any kin, would you?”

Ferdig laughed so hard he had to draw a rag out of his coat pocket to wipe his nose. “Wolfers? I don't rightly expect their own mothers would have claimed them.” He tasted his whiskey straight from the flask. “Guess we'll just send them off like Vikings. Burn 'em. And the wolf pelts they got. How many did you say?”

“I didn't,” Chase told him.

“Well, we'll take care of them, I guess. After all, they were working for the Circle C-7, and Mr. Clements takes care of his men. Or wolfers. Whatever the case may be. You've done your job, your duty, Sergeant. Might as well ride on back to your fort with your hay.”

“Might as well.” Chase decided that he did not care much for Mr. Ferdig. He had a strong hunch that, yes, Ferdig and his cowboys would burn the remains of those two dead wolfers, but he might take the pelts for himself and collect the bounty or whatever was being done in Nebraska. But that was none of his affair. Besides, he had just learned what he needed to know.

Those two dead men didn't have any kin.

Sergeant Jay Chase thanked the Circle C-7 foreman and finished his coffee. “Guess I need to get that hay back to Fort Meade before all our mounts starve to death.”

The horses were usually half-starved anyway. But this, he did not say.

“All right, Sergeant.” Ferdig stood. “You say wolves were eating the bodies?”

Chase nodded.

“Sounds sort of like justice, don't it?”

“I don't know a thing about justice. I'm a career Army man.”

They shook, and Chase left the coffeehouse, hating to be back outside, and then swung into the saddle and eased the dun down the road to where he had left his command. They had found their horses, and most had recovered from the shock of the wolves and the wolves' meal.

Chase knew they could have stayed in Hay Springs for a night, but he wanted to be shun of this country. He had the boys ready to ride fifteen minutes later, and they eased their way north and west toward Chadron. They would move along the White River, crossing it at Crawford and heading to Fort Robinson.

Eat some Army chow for a change and sleep in warm bunks. Let their horses and mules rest a day or two, before moving into South Dakota, crossing the Pine Ridge Reservation and moving through the Black Hills and on to Fort Meade.

Chase's first thought, his first plan, was Fort Robinson.

They made only five or six miles that day, camping along the side of the trail. The next day, after five more miles, he let them halt for a while.

Sergeant Jay Chase tied the captain's dun horse to the last hay wagon's rear wheel and walked through the snow to the lead wagon. “Martin,” he told the driver as if
Martin
was that bloke's real name. “I'll take that Winchester now.”

The trooper dumbly reached under the seat and fetched the powerful weapon.

“Don't hand me a gun barrel first, you bloody idiot!” Chase snapped. “That Winchester might blow me in half.” He jerked the weapon out of the green trooper's hands, almost pulling the poor kid down from the wagon and into the snow.

“What you gonna do with that repeater?” the recruit from New York City's Fifth Ward asked.

“Shoot it,” Chase answered. “What else.” He jacked the lever. Needed oil. A good cleaning. No, a thorough cleaning. He doubted if those wolfers had ever rammed a greased patch down the barrel. He should clean it, but he wanted to try it first.

“Fifty caliber.” He shook his head, grinning. “Never seen the likes of a rifle like this.” He whistled. “Fifty caliber.”

“I thought they was only found in buffalo guns. Or mountain men's guns.”

Chase ignored the trooper, then turned and barked an order. “Every brake on every wagon had best be set, and every trooper on a horse better have his feet on the ground and the reins wrapped firmly around two hands.” He wasn't about to lose any more time chasing after runaway stock. “You can walk the hundred and thirty miles to Fort Meade.”

“Do they let sergeants carry repeaters?” another kid asked.

“It'll be my personal rifle”—Chase glared at those kids—“which I'll use on any fool that asks me another fool question.”

The rifle came up, and he smiled. That crescent stock fitted his shoulder like a glove. He drew a bead on the top center of a fence post, and sighed, remembering all those times when a soldier could have crossed this country without seeing a fence post or a cow or anything but Sioux and Pawnee.

He drew a deep breath, held it, let it out, and squeezed the trigger.

His shoulder throbbed, but he wouldn't let any of the greenhorns see how much that rifle's kick had hurt. He grinned and pointed at the post. The .50-caliber slug had blown the top of the fencepost off.