Spirit Wolf (18 page)

The old man's voice was coming once again from the depths of the buffalo robe, muffled and soft, so Nash moved closer to hear more clearly.

“Once Colonel Dodge took some of my people to see an iron horse. But when they got there, they saw this thing made of steam and smoke and iron and wheels. They watched, waiting for it to do some tricks, but it did nothing but roll up and down the track. We were ready to go home. Everyone was disappointed because we could see no magic in the iron horse.

“But then one of the railroad men stepped up to one of the tall poles that carries the talking wires. The man put his belt around the pole and climbed it. We put our hands over our mouths. Now, there was magic!”

The old man shifted on the log, and Nash could see the glitter of his eyes again. “We were not yet ready then to see the magic of the iron horse. It was beyond our understanding. Maybe the spirit wolf is beyond your father's understanding.”

The old man's voice grew even softer. “And maybe God made the spirit wolf because I was not yet ready to see what He is. I have wondered about that since the time I spent with the black-robes. Sometimes, I think I can only see the man climbing the telegraph pole.…

“Your father knows these things are impossible, so he does not listen and think about them. I leave that to you, boy, as a gift along with my knife. I must go back to my camp now. The time is very near.”

Nash watched as the old man shuffled back to the fallen log at the edge of the camp, brushing it free of snow and sitting down to wait. Nash was still watching the old man when the shout went up from the other side of the camp. His heart sank as he looked up. Bullsnake and Maxwell were riding into camp on the far side, and draped across Bullsnake's saddle was the wolf.

Until that moment, Nash hadn't realized how important the wolf had become to him. He didn't know yet why that was. The images ran together: the irrigation ditch his family needed to survive; his mother, sitting at the piano, looking at her hands and weeping; Ettie watching as he rode home in triumph; his father's terrible secret; the storm, Bullsnake, and the old man. He couldn't understand how they all fit together. But he knew somehow that he and his father and the old man were linked to the wolf.

The old man was still sitting at his camp. He hadn't moved. Maybe he was as stupefied as Nash. Maybe he could not understand what had happened either.

Uriah stepped into camp. His face was empty, ashen.

“Let's go see.”

Nash climbed numbly to his feet. They hurt so. So did his hands. He seemed to hurt everywhere, hurt and be numb at the same time. He felt pain in each step as he walked across the camp to the gathering of men surrounding the gloating Bullsnake.

“It's all in knowing what the hell you're doing,” Bullsnake was saying. “We figured there was no sense going out while all you amateurs—farmers,” Bullsnake spat, with a nasty look at Uriah, “was out fooling around. We figured that we'd let you get this old wolf running, keep him from killing for a few days, and force him out in the open. So we waited, sitting in camp all nice and comfy, while you did our work for us.”

Through it all, Maxwell stood at the edge of the group, saying nothing, face hidden in the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat.

But Nash was paying no attention to either of the men. He had eyes only for the wolf. It was marked as Flynn had said: mostly white with a band of dark fur around the eyes and back toward the tail. The animal wasn't nearly as large as Nash's imagination had painted him. He was tall, but skinny, and his hide was mangy, with no luster. Hairs around the muzzle were white with age.

Without realizing what he was doing, Nash walked up to Bullsnake's horse. He reached down and took the wolf's right front foot. Three toes! This was the old man's spirit wolf, all right.

“You want to look at this killer wolf, farmer boy?” Bullsnake asked. “Have a gander, but don't get too close. You been around that old buck, and my horse spooks at the smell of Indian.”

Bullsnake laughed his mean nasty little laugh, as he untied the rope. The wolf's still-warm carcass slithered off the horse and fell to the ground. One of the men in the crowd reached down and stretched the wolf out.

Nash could see the animal had been magnificent once, but he had long since passed his prime. Nash couldn't imagine how the scruffy old beast had survived in the wild.

“Pretty good shot,” Flynn said. “Right between the eyes.”

“Wasn't much,” Bullsnake snorted. “He was running about two hundred yards away, and he made the mistake of looking over his shoulder. With me on the rifle, he didn't have a chance.”

“Where'd you get him?” Flynn asked.

“Big ridge, north and east of here,” Bullsnake said, so pleased with the attention he was getting that he even winked at Nash.

But Nash wasn't thinking about Bullsnake.

“A big ridge north and east of here.…” Bullsnake and Maxwell must have hunted the ridge where Nash and Uriah had seen the track. They had been just a day too early. That one day had nearly killed them in the storm, and now Bullsnake and Maxwell were here with the wolf.

“I meant, where did you get the wolf before you staked him out on that ridge?” Flynn asked quietly.

“What are you saying?” Maxwell hissed.

“I'm saying that this isn't the right wolf, and if this animal hasn't been penned, I've never seen one that was.”

“You calling me a liar, old man?” Bullsnake snarled, and for the first time, he frightened Nash. Bullsnake came up on the balls of his feet, fists clenched at his side. Maxwell was edging around the group when Flynn spoke again.

“You've got a helluva gun, Bullsnake, to leave powder burns on an animal at two hundred yards.”

“Maybe I exaggerated a little,” Bullsnake said. “So what? This is the wolf, exactly as you described him. The marking is the same. He's missing a toe on his right front foot. Personally, I don't much give a damn what you think. You can't prove this isn't the wolf. He's just aged a little. You should know about that better than any of us here, except maybe for that old buck.”

“He's marked the same,” Flynn said. “But I'll bet that dark mask wouldn't hold up in a heavy rainstorm.”

Bullsnake snarled and lunged for Flynn, but Uriah stepped in between the two.

“And old or not,” Flynn continued with an eye on Maxwell, “I've never known an animal to grow another set of teeth in its old age.”

Flynn reached for a deerskin bag hanging from a leather thong around his neck. “I told you the first night you were here about that time in Billings when the wolf killed that big mastiff and ran up the wall of the auction arena to take a swipe at ol' Charley. He missed Charley's throat, but he cut his arm to the bone.

“Nobody else noticed, but I saw that the wolf had stuck one of his fangs in the arena wall. I took it with me, and here it is.”

Flynn opened the sack, dumping the contents into his left hand. Then he held the fang up between his thumb and forefinger. It was broken off cleanly, and no one could know how long the whole tooth was, but the portion in Flynn's hand was enough to set the imagination working. Long it was, and thick as a woman's little finger. The years had yellowed it, but still it held a sense of threat—and majesty, too.

“A tooth,” Maxwell whispered through gritted teeth. “Nobody told us about any damn tooth.”

Bullsnake chimed in. “Nobody told us that because it ain't true. Flynn likes to play games, and he's trying to pull a fast one on us now.”

Warming to his subject, Bullsnake's eyes swept the crowd, searching for support from the watching men. There was none.

Then another man spoke, someone Nash had seen but not met before.

“This wolf,” he said, pointing at the animal on the ground, “looks a lot like one I saw one time in that dog and pony show over by that hot springs on the Clark Fork. Except for that black mask.” He reached down and rubbed the dark hair on the wolf's head between his fingers. They came away black.

Flynn's voice was thick: “Bullsnake, you and Maxwell better be out of here by early tomorrow morning. No later.”

“You ain't telling me nothing,” Bullsnake shouted, but Maxwell's “Shut up!” stuck like an exclamation point at the end of Bullsnake's speech.

Maxwell stalked off, Bullsnake following on his heels. Bullsnake walked about fifteen feet, then turned and sneered at the group. “There isn't any killer wolf, anyway. Those stockmen just wanted to put on a show. Do you think they'd offer five hundred dollars if there really was a wolf out there? You're like a bunch of dumb son-of-a-bitchin' sheep.” Then he turned on his heel and followed Maxwell.

Nash looked up. His father's face was wooden. He nodded toward their lean-to. They walked back together, not talking, feeling a strange sense of futility that weighed down every step.

“Let's build up that fire a little,” Uriah said, pitching on a couple of logs.

“Want me to get some more wood?” Nash asked.

“No, I don't think we'll be needing it.”

“The old man didn't move, Dad. How do you suppose he knew that wasn't the wolf?”

“Wrapped up like he is in that buffalo robe, he probably didn't even notice the fuss. If you were to go over there and ask him about it now, he'd probably say, ‘What wolf?'”

“We'll be going, won't we?”

“Yeah, I think so. Lot of work to be done at home. We can't leave that hanging on your mother. I'd like to take a look at that ridge one more time, see if we could pick up any tracks, but it would most likely be a waste of time.”

“Do you think that was the wolf's tracks?”

“Might have been. Big as a horse he was, to leave tracks like that.”

Nash held his hands out to the fire's warmth. “Dad, I'm real sorry.”

“Yeah, son, I am too.”

They were quiet then, looking up as Flynn walked into their camp, snow squeaking beneath his feet. He settled down on a log without speaking.

Finally, Flynn broke the silence. “Bullsnake and Maxwell have pulled out their celebrating whiskey. They're sitting over there now, getting drunk and mean.”

“That was a dumb stunt with the wolf,” Uriah said.

“I imagine those two have been called damn near everything but smart,” Flynn snorted.

“Nash and I are thinking of leaving, maybe tomorrow.”

“Lot of people are. Bullsnake and Maxwell kind of took the fun out of it.”

“Is that what we're doing, having fun? If this is fun, Mr. Flynn, I wish you had been along with Nash and me in the storm. That would have been a real knee-slapper for you.”

Both men chuckled.

“You know what I mean,” Flynn said.

“Yeah, I know. But there's not much magic in it anymore.”

“Not much,” Flynn agreed. “What do you say we put a real cap to this, have a big blowout tonight. Maybe you and Nash could go get a deer and we could eat steak and maybe I could rustle up a drink or two.”

“Sounds good. Know any likely areas close by?”

“There's usually a bunch wintering around a spring about a half mile west of here. If you come up on them real quiet, you should be able to get one easy enough. They're pretty accustomed to seeing men on horses.

“It might do Nash a lot of good,” Flynn said, staring into Uriah's eyes so the emphasis would not be missed, “to get out of camp for a while.”

Uriah nodded. “Can't go anywhere until tomorrow, anyway. Come on, Nash. Let's go shoot us a deer.”

Nash's fingers felt stiff and awkward as he saddled Nell, and he had to wrap the cinch around his hand to pull it tight. It was then he noticed Uriah watching him.

“Mine, too,” Uriah said.

They rode east, walking the horses, working the kinks out of strained muscles and tender fingers and toes.

“It's warmer, just like the old man said,” Nash said.

“It's warmer anyway,” Uriah said. “Suppose there was just as much chance it would be warmer as anything else. You know what they say: Only fools and crazy people predict the weather in Montana.”

“It seems funny he didn't come down to see the wolf.”

“The old man? Probably just didn't strike his fancy. Indians seem to do things pretty much by impulse. If he wasn't like that, he wouldn't be here. He'd still be on the reservation where he belongs.”

“Do you suppose he knew it wasn't the real wolf?”

“Nash, you're making more of that old man than there is. His mind is all tangled up with the years. There isn't any more to it than that.”

“The wolf is really important to him, and he didn't even come down to look. Seems he would have done that, if he hadn't known that it couldn't be the right wolf.”

“That's the way it seems, but that isn't the way it is.”

“What will happen to him when we leave?”

“That's up to him, not us.”

They rode a few moments in silence, and then Uriah pulled the roan to a stop, twisting in the saddle to study Nash.

“You aren't planning to take him home, are you, boy, like a stray puppy?” Uriah's face broke into a grin. “I'd dearly love to see the look on your mother's face if you brought that old man home and said he was moving in with us. Whooee! That would be a sight to see.”

Nash was glad to see his father laugh. Uriah was still smiling as they came to the coulee Flynn had described. Uriah shifted his weight in the saddle, studying the lay of the land.

“Now, if we were to hunt this right,” Uriah said, “we'd probably get off here and walk along the other side, hoping we'd spook something up one way or another. But the way my feet are feeling right now, I'm not about to climb down in that cold snow. So we'll go horseback up this ridge to the top and come down the other side. What with the storm last night, they'll be coming out a little earlier than usual. We'll just take our time and watch for them.”