A Wolf in the Fold

Chapter 3

The Tanner ranch was in the shadow of the Fair Sister. Besides the main house, there was a bunkhouse, a cookhouse, a blacksmith shop, the stable, a chicken coop, six or seven sheds, and the inevitable outhouse. Make that two. Gertrude Tanner insisted on having her own, and as I had guessed, whatever Gertrude Tanner wanted, Gertrude Tanner got.

Supper was to be served at seven. I arrived at six in a buckboard I rented from the livery in Whiskey Flats. I had to be careful to keep my black coat buttoned. Otherwise, someone might wonder why a parson wore a shoulder holster. The Remington was the same model as my hip iron except I’d had the barrel sawed down to two inches and the ejector rod removed so it was less likely to snag.

Calista Modine wore a Sunday-go-to-meeting dress that clung to her in all the places a dress should cling. It was all I could do not to let my appreciation show. Fortunately, she didn’t notice me squirm and fidget. At least, I don’t think she did.

The buildings were in sight when she straightened and commented, “It was nice of Gerty to invite us, don’t you think?”

I forgot myself and grunted. Calista had not said much on the way out. Whether she was shy because I was supposed to be a parson or shy around men or just plain shy, I couldn’t say.

“Don’t let her manner put you off. She can be brusque, but deep down she has a heart of gold.”

I tried to imagine Gertrude Tanner as kindly and considerate. It was like trying to imagine a wolf on a leash.

“It hasn’t been easy for her,” Calista went on. “Running a ranch is hard work. And don’t let anyone tell you she doesn’t do her share. Fact is, I’d wager she does more of the actual running than her husband.”

“Lloyd is timid, is he?” I played my part.

“Gracious, no. He has enough sand for five men. But he doesn’t boss her around like some husbands do. He lets her have an equal say in everything.” Calista winked. “Or more than an equal say.”

“How is it there isn’t a man in your life?”

Calista flushed and looked away. “Some questions, Parson, are too personal. They should never be asked.”

“I was curious, is all,” I said, justifying the snooping.

Calista was quiet a while. Her shawl had slipped from her shoulders, but she did not pull it back up. “Gertrude says I’m too finicky. That I’ll never meet the man of my dreams because I set my sights too high.”

“We are none of us perfect,” I remembered a real parson saying once.

“True. And if I have set my standards too high, it’s only because I’ve seen what happens to women who set their standards too low.”

Before I could stop myself, I heard my mouth spout, “My own ma set her sights too low. My pa was lazy and worthless and came home most nights drunk. On good nights he fell into bed and passed out. On bad nights he slapped her around. She would cry and beg him not to, but he would go on beating her anyway.”

“How terrible,” Calista said. “Did he beat you, too?”

“No. Only my ma. I almost wish he had, to spare her some misery. How she put up with it, I will never know.”

“Are they still together?”

“My pa died when I was twelve. He was on his way home one night, drunk as usual, and someone stabbed him to death in the alley behind our house. Stabbed him twenty-seven times.”

“Mercy me. Did they catch who did it?”

“No.” If they had, I wouldn’t be sitting there. I’d warned him to leave Ma lone. I’d told him that I could not stand him hurting her. And what did he do? Pa had ruffled my hair and said I had it backwards, that kids did not tell their parents what to do, that the parents tell the kids. He went on and on about how I was too young to understand, and how I should not meddle in what grown-ups did. The very next night, he beat her. The worst beating ever. He split her ear and broke her nose and knocked a tooth out. Afterward, I could hear him snore, and her cry and cry and cry until she cried herself to sleep. I made myself a promise it would never happen again.

Pa always came by the alley. His favorite watering hole was at the end of the block, and he would cut through to our back door. I had taken the big carving knife from our kitchen and waited for him behind some barrels. He came staggering along, muttering to himself. When I jumped out, it startled him. “I don’t have any money!” he cried. Then he saw it was me.

“What the hell are you doing out here, boy?”

“You’re not to hurt Ma anymore” was my reply. I can still remember the smooth feel of the knife handle, and how the blood roared in my veins.

“We’ve been all through that. Get home.” Pa lumbered forward and swatted at me with the back of his hand.

Skipping aside, I crouched and held the knife out. “Stop where you are, Pa.”

“What’s that you’ve got there?” he demanded. In his befuddled state it was a few seconds before he swore and snarled, “You dare pull a knife on me? On your own flesh and blood?”

“One of these days you could kill her.”

Pa’s cheeks puffed out and he sputtered, “She put you up to this, didn’t she? Sending my own son against me.”

“It was my idea, not hers.”

But Pa was not listening. He was working himself into a rage. “It’s just like her. The bitch! I try and try, but all she does is nag and gripe and wear me down. But even that’s not enough.”

“She didn’t send me, Pa.”

“Don’t lie. It won’t do any good trying to protect her. You think I’ve hurt her before? You haven’t seen nothing yet.”

“Don’t talk that way. Please.”

Pa swatted at me again, but I was too nimble. “Stand still, you blamed grasshopper. Take your medicine like a man.”

“I mean it, Pa.”

“Out of my way, I say!”

I skipped backward and tripped over my own feet. The next I knew, he had me by the front of the shirt and shook me so hard, my teeth crunched. He cast me down like a used rag and stepped over me, his big fists clenched.

“Now for your ma.”

To this day I do not remember jumping on his back. I vaguely recollect having one arm around his neck and stabbing with the other, again and again and again and again, until I was so exhausted I could not lift my arm. I became aware of him on his belly, of me on top, of the damp, sticky feel of his blood on my hands and my clothes. I don’t recall how I got home. Ma undressed me and threw my clothes in the fireplace; that part I do remember. I remember her putting me in bed, and later, the knock on the door and the voices.

Ma knew. She had to know. But she did not tell them. At the funeral she held me close, her fingers digging into my shoulders. Thereafter, late at night, I would hear her sob and sniffle. I thought she was crying for my pa, but maybe she wasn’t. She became sad all the time. She never smiled. She would not eat. Gradually she wasted away until winter felled her with chills and fever, and by spring I did not have any parents at all.

“Reverend Storm? Are you listening?”

I snapped back to the here and now and realized we were near the ranch. I had not thought about my pa in a long time. I try not to. It’s hell when the first man you ever killed is your own father. “Sorry, ma’am. My mind wandered.”

“I inquired as to which denomination you belong to.”

Damn me for a fool. No one ever asked that before. “Denomination?” I stalled.

“Yes. Are you Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, what? Not that it makes much difference. Their beliefs are a lot alike, aren’t they? Although I do hear that some denominations let their ministers marry and some don’t.”

I looked at her. No, it couldn’t be, I told myself. But she had me in a pickle if I picked one she knew more about than I did, which wouldn’t take much knowing. Then I remembered a real parson I met once. “I’m Presbyterian, Miss Modine.”

“What a coincidence! So am I.”

I wanted to rip out my tongue and stomp it to death. “You don’t say.”

“Which group do you belong to?”

This was getting worse by the second. I clutched at a straw she had unwittingly offered. “Does it make much of a difference?”

“No, I guess it really doesn’t. Not to me, anyway. But the Old School and New School have been at odds with each other since before the Civil War. I never have approved of slavery, so I must be New School.”

I was foundering in water over my head. The best I could do was say, “It’s a shame we can’t all live in peace and harmony.”

Calista put her hand on my arm and smiled the sweetest of smiles. “If only everyone believed as you do, this world would be a wonderful place.”

I had wriggled off the hook, but I was wary as I guided the team past a corral and stable to the broad porch that fronted the main house. Our dust had been seen from a ways off, so our hosts were out to greet us.

Gertrude Tanner wore another splendid dress and had done things with her hair that softened the hard lines of her face. But she could not do anything about her eyes, which were the eyes of a bird of prey.

Lloyd Tanner was not what I expected. He was short, for one thing, with shoulders that drooped, a wispy mustache, and lackluster blue eyes. Shaking his hand was like shaking a towel. He had no more vitality than a corpse.

The son was another matter. Phil Tanner was as tall as his mother and had the same hard features. His mouth was not so much a mouth as a slit. When he shook my hand he tried to crush my fingers, but I gave as good as I got and he looked down in surprise. Right then I took a dislike to him, but I reminded myself that business was one thing and my personal likes another and I must not mix the two.

“Reverend Storm, you honor us,” Gertrude sparkled, linking her arm with mine. “You must be thirsty after your long ride. Come inside. I will have the maid bring refreshments.”

Not many ranchers’ wives had maids. As a general rule, the wives are usually as hardy as their husbands and do the cooking and housework themselves. That Gertrude did not said a lot about Gertrude.

The house was not what I expected, either. Most ranchers were content with enough creature comforts to get by. The Tanners smothered themselves in plush carpet, mahogany furniture, crystal lamps, and the like. Walking into their home was like walking into the finest mansion. They had spared no expense. It made me wonder where the money came from. Savvy ranchers could reap high profits, but Tanner would need a spread five times the size of his to account for so lavish a spending spree.

The parlor was as grand as that of a fancy sporting house I had been to last year in Denver. I practically sank into the cushions on the settee. I remembered to remove my hat and balanced it on my knee.

Gertrude roosted in a straight-backed chair across from me. She gestured, and a maid came out of nowhere, a homely thing in her middle years who stood at attention as if she were a soldier in the army. Gertrude fired off several commands. The maid nodded and hastened out.

Lloyd crossed his legs, then uncrossed them, then crossed them again. “I must say it is an honor to have you,” he said mildly. “The last preacher who passed through was ages ago and he didn’t stay long.”

Phil Tanner broke his silence. Unlike the mousy squeak of his sire, his voice was the boom of a bull elk. “I doubt the collections plates were to his liking, Father.”

“Now, now, son,” Lloyd said. “We shouldn’t speak ill of a minister.”

“Why not? He uses the outhouse like everyone else.”

Gertrude laughed merrily. “You must excuse my son, Reverend Storm. He always speaks his mind, but he does not mean anything by it.”

“Oh?” was all I could think of to say.

Phil frowned in annoyance. “I most certainly did, Mother, or I would not say it.” He smiled at me, as cold a smile as I ever received. “You must excuse her, Parson. Like most mothers, she thinks she knows everything.”

“Phillip!” Lloyd exclaimed. “I will ask you to show more respect. Apologize for that unseemly remark.”

The true state of the Tanner household was betrayed by Gertrude’s next remark. “Don’t make more out of it than there was. Phil adores me. He would never intentionally insult me.”

“Of course not,” Phil agreed.

“I still think it was rude,” Lloyd said meekly.

Both mother and son regarded him as if he were a bug they would dearly love to squash, and Gertrude responded, “If I say he wasn’t, then he wasn’t. Honestly. I’m sure the parson did not come all this way to listen to us squabble.”

She was bear fat and axle grease rolled into one, that woman. I smiled and said, “Never fear, Mr. Tanner. I expect to stay in these parts a week or two. There seems to be a great need for spiritual guidance.”

“Oh?” Phil said with a hint of mockery.

Calista defended me. “There was an incident in my restaurant today. Two of your cowboys confronted two of the Butchers.”

“Which of my hands?” Lloyd asked. “I have given specific instructions that they are not to cause trouble. I will see to it they are punished.”

Gertrude motioned with displeasure. “No, you will not. I commend them for having the gumption to stand up to those miserable cow thieves. And now the Butchers are killing our cows out of spite.”

“We can’t prove they are to blame,” Lloyd said.

“Who needs proof?” This from Phil. Evidently the mother and the son liked to combine their assaults on the father, the better to keep him in his place. “Were it up to me, I would wipe out every last member of that thieving family.”

“Who knows, son? You might just get your wish.” Gertrude had icy twinkles in her eyes as she added, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” She bestowed those twinkles on me.