A Wolf in the Fold

Chapter 11

In the dark above me loomed Clell Butcher. I seized his wrist and sought to wrench his hand from my throat, but he was as strong as a bull. His other hand locked on my right wrist even as his knee gouged into my gut, and he slowly bent me backward into a bow. All the while, his fingers dug deeper into my flesh.

I could not break his hold. I could not throw him off. My lungs started to ache for lack of air.

Clell grinned wolfishly. His face lowered to within an inch of mine and I could feel his hot breath on my cheek and smell the onions he had recently eaten. Suddenly he recoiled and straightened, and the next thing I knew, he had me by the shoulders and was shaking me and saying, “Parson! What in God’s name are you doing here?”

I couldn’t answer. I was sucking in precious breath.

“I’m sorry, Parson! Honest, I am! I had no idea it was you.”

I sagged to my knees so my body hid my right hand as I slid it under my pant leg and into my boot. I suppose some folks would call my boot knife a dagger since it was double-edged and slender, but to me a blade is a blade and I always called it a knife.

A hand gently clasped my shoulder. Clell was bending over me. “I’m awful sorry, Parson. But I took you for a cowboy.”

I had to swallow a couple of times before I could rasp, “I was looking for you and your brother.”

“Why? And how did you know we were here?”

“Your mother told me,” I managed to get out. “I know what you are up to. I came to stop you.”

“This doesn’t concern you, Parson. Go back to town, where you belong.”

The throat or the eye? That was the question I was asking myself as he helped me to my feet. The throat did not always kill a man right off. A big bear like Clell would take a while to expire, thrashing and gurgling and maybe calling out. I had seen it before.

“Ma should know better,” Clell was saying. “She’s always been respectful of men of the cloth, but you could have got yourself killed.”

“Where is your brother?”

Clell gestured vaguely in the direction of the buildings. “Over yonder. We drew straws. I’m watching the horses. They’re up this gully.”

“And the dog?”

“Samson is with Ty. Land sakes, Ma told you about him, too?”

“I can’t let you murder the Tanners. We must find Ty and stop him and get out of here before the entire ranch is up in arms.”

“Sorry, Parson, but no.”

“Excuse me?”

“We have it to do if we’re to save our family,” Clell declared. “And neither you nor the Bible nor God Almighty will stop us.”

By then I was breathing normally and the ache had faded and my body was my own again. “You’re mistaken.” I spun and lanced the knife into his left eye socket. The six-inch blade sliced through his eyeball as if it were a grape. I thrust as deep as it would go, and twisted.

Clell Butcher reacted as most men did. His whole body stiffened and he staggered back. His mouth opened, but the only sound that came out was a strangled whine of disbelief and astonishment. I tried to hold on, but warm blood was spurting from the socket, making the hilt too slick to grip.

Clell looked at me. The white of his other eye made it seem as big as a saucer. He tried to say something, maybe to ask why, but all that did was cause blood to flow from his nose and both sides of his mouth.

Ordinarily, I let them die without saying a word. But now I heard myself saying, “If you had agreed to ride off with your brother and me, this might not have happened.” Who was I kidding? I could not spare them if I wanted to.

Clell plopped to his knees. His hand rose toward me, but he was weakening fast and his arm slumped halfway to my neck.

“Nothing personal,” I said quietly.

For a minister to take a life was unthinkable. Clell was confused and it showed. Again he sought to lay his big hands on me. That he had lasted this long was remarkable. Most died within five to ten seconds.

“I won’t make the rest of your family suffer. You have my word.”

Clell didn’t hear me. He was dead. His chin had dropped to his great chest and his body slowly oozed forward until his forehead rested on the dirt. His hands were in front of him, palms up, as if he were begging a favor.

I should not have felt anything, but I did. Bending, I tugged at the knife. It was stuck. I had to work it back and forth for the longest while before it slid free. After wiping it on his shirt, I returned it to my boot.

I was up and out of the gully and hurrying toward the house when I glimpsed movement. A figure materialized next to a lit window. No, two figures, the second low and shaggy and attached to a leash.

I wanted to shout to warn the Tanners, but they wouldn’t hear me. I drew the Remington, but I was not close enough.

Metal glinted at the window. The flash of the muzzle and the crack of the shot were simultaneous. Five more boomed, rolling across the grassland like peals of thunder. Then Ty whirled and bolted into the night, Samson at his side.

Soon the place would be crawling with punchers. No explanation I could offer would explain my presence. The only one who might stand up for me was Gertrude, and she was probably dead.

There is a time to fight and a time to light a shuck. A good Regulator has to know the difference. Pivoting on a boot heel, I raced toward Brisco. Once again fate had foiled me. If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all of late.

The ride to town was a blur. I was too dazed to think. With Gertrude gone I could forget being paid the rest of the thousand dollars. I had no reason to finish the job. The Butchers were safe, a not altogether unappealing prospect.

I fell into bed fully dressed. I slept longer than I usually would and did not shuffle down to the restaurant until almost ten. No sooner did I take my seat than Calista was beside him.

“Have you heard the latest?”

“Not more bad news, I hope.”

“There have been more killings,” Calista related. “Last night at the LT someone shot through the parlor window at the Tanners.”

“I will be happy to conduct their funeral,” I offered. It would be a fitting touch. Then I could head for Denver.

“You need only conduct Lloyd’s. He was shot in the head. Phil was hit in the shoulder and will live.”

“And Gertrude?” I asked, thinking of Daisy.

“From what I understand, a bullet missed her by a whisker. One of the LT hands was in town a while ago. He says she is in a rage.”

“At who?” As if I couldn’t guess.

“You haven’t heard the rest,” Calista said. “After the shooting, the cowboys spread out to find the culprit and discovered the body of Clell Butcher in a gully not far from the house. He had been stabbed.”

“My word,” I exclaimed. “Who did it?”

“That is what they and everyone else would like to know. It’s a mystery. If Clell shot the Tanners, then who killed him?”

“What about the other Butchers? Were any of them involved?” I half hoped the cowboys had caught Ty and relieved me of the responsibility of having to take care of him myself.

“Not that anyone can prove,” Calista answered. “Some of the hands thought they heard a horse gallop off.” She paused. “It gets stranger. They found tracks under the window, in a flower bed. Tracks of a man, and paw prints.”

I feigned surprise. “Paws?”

“That’s what they say,” Calista confirmed with a bob of her head. “Big paw prints, too. Some of the cowboys think they are dog prints, but others say the tracks are those of a wolf.”

“Maybe they’re coyote prints,” I suggested.

“I’m no tracker, but supposedly there is a difference and these were definitely not made by any coyote.”

“How peculiar.”

Calista gazed out the window. “The whole town is buzzing like stirred-up bees. Most everyone figures the Butchers had a hand in it, but they can’t figure out how Clell got himself murdered. None of the LT hands claim credit.”

I saw several cowboys rein up out front. “What will the LT do?”

“Ask them,” Calista said with a jerk of her thumb. “Knowing Gerty, I wouldn’t want to be a Butcher. It will be all-out war now.”

Sunlight spilled across the floor as the door was flung wide and in jangled two of the cowboys. One was a stocky slab of muscle who wore a Colt in cross-draw fashion. The other was a rangy bundle of sinew and bones with salt-and-pepper gristle. They ignored the other patrons and came straight toward my table.

“Reverend Storm, Miss Modine,” the slab said, politely doffing his hat. “Sorry to intrude.”

“That’s all right, Jim,” Calista said.

“Mrs. Tanner sent us, ma’am,” the rangy cowboy explained. “She would be obliged if the parson, here, would plant her husband tomorrow at noon.”

“I would be honored,” I said.

Calista focused on the rangy one. “What is the latest, Chester? Have you found Lloyd’s killer?”

“No, ma’am. Not yet.” Chester realized he still had his hat on and yanked it off. “We’re all for riding to the Dark Sister and wiping those varmints out, but Mrs. Tanner won’t hear of it.”

“That’s not like her,” Calista said.

Jim agreed. “It sure ain’t. Especially as mad as she is. We think maybe she’s leaving it for the Texas Rangers to handle.”

“You shouldn’t ought to have sent for them, ma’am,” Chester chided. “You’ve gone and hobbled us, is what you’ve done.”

“That wasn’t my intention,” Calista defended herself. “But you must admit this has gotten out of hand. Murders every time we turn around. Men and women. If it’s not a job for the Rangers, I don’t know what is.”

“I reckon I can speak for every puncher on the LT when I say I’d rather chuck my own lead, thank you very much,” Chester said testily. “It’s bothersome to have lawdogs meddle.”

“I’m sorry, but I would do the same had I to do it over again,” Calista declared. “This isn’t just about the LT. It involves the whole community.”

The cowboys were disposed to debate the point, but I was hungry and nipped the argument in the bud with, “Tell Mrs. Tanner I will be out at the LT by eleven tomorrow morning.”

“You can tell her yourself, if you’d like, Parson,” Chester said. “She’s over to the undertaker’s seeing about the coffin for Mr. Tanner.”

For some reason that troubled me. Why had Gertrude sent the two cowboys to ask me to conduct the service for her husband when she could just as well have asked me herself? “I believe I will go have a talk with her,” I announced, rising.

“What about your breakfast?” Calista asked.

“It can wait.”

Chester and Jim accompanied me to Ira Jackson’s. Jackson was the best carpenter in Whiskey Flats, and as a result, whenever anyone needed a coffin, they came to him. He wasn’t a real undertaker, but he was all they had.

Half a dozen cowboys lounged out front, waiting for their mistress. Gertrude emerged as I approached, saw me, and frowned. “I didn’t say you were to bring him back with you,” she said to Chester.

“He came on his own account, ma’am.”

“I am sorry about your loss—” I began, and was peeved when she held up her hand to silence me, then motioned for me to walk with her. As soon as we were out of earshot of her hands, she stopped and faced me.

“Tell me again why I hired you?” Gertrude did not wait for me to reply but went on with, “Ah, yes. Now I remember. I hired you to dispose of the Butchers. I trust you will forgive me for my next comment, but you have done an abominably poor job.”

“You can’t blame your husband’s death on me.”

“Can’t I?” Gertrude snapped. “If you were half as competent as I was led to believe, the job would be done by now.” She was so mad, she practically hissed. “Not only are seven of those wretches still breathing, but the Texas Rangers will show up soon to spoil everything.”

Her emotional state could be blamed on the loss of her husband, but I still did not like her attitude. “I’ll finish it before the Rangers get here. I promise.”

Gertrude’s features pinched together like she had sucked on a lemon. “You have one day and one day only. If by this time tomorrow you have not done as I hired you to do, you may consider our arrangement no longer in force.”

“I don’t like being rushed.”

“Frankly, Mr. Lucius Stark, I don’t give a tinker’s damn what you like or don’t like. Your incompetence has created complications I can do without.” Gertrude sniffed and started to turn. “Twenty-four hours. Not a minute more.”

“You don’t want to hear who killed Lloyd?”

“Tyrel, obviously.”

I was impressed. “How did you know?”

“Tyrel and Clell were inseparable. They went everywhere together. What you were doing there, and why you killed one and not the other, is beyond me.”

So she had figured that out, too. “I was trying to stop them.”

Gertrude gave me a strange look. “You failed rather spectacularly, didn’t you? Retaining your services was a mistake. You have clearly underestimated the Butchers, and you have severely underestimated me. That will cost you, Mr. Stark. That will cost you dearly.” Her spine as stiff as a ramrod, she marched off.

Leaving me with the gut feeling I had just been threatened.