The Vengeance Seeker 2 Read online

  “Wolf … that’s a strange name,” she said.

  He shrugged.

  “Is it ... your given name?”

  Wolf shook his head. “My parents were murdered when I was a boy. The man who took me in and brought me up gave me that name.”

  “Your parents were murdered?”

  “Robbed, then murdered. Five riders out of nowhere. I tried to help my folks. They left me for dead.” He turned then so she could look full into his face. “They left my eye back there somewhere in the dust.”

  Helen recoiled in spite of herself. Looking quickly away, she shuddered. “This ... this is such a brutal land.”

  “It’s a brutal world.”

  “Those five men—did they ever get caught, brought to justice?”

  “Yes. It took a while. But each one got the kind of justice he deserved.”

  Something in his voice caused her to look sharply into his face. And then she understood. “You ...?”

  Wolf nodded.

  Helen said nothing further about it, but she stood a little straighter, a little more stiffly. She had come to her decision, Wolf realized.

  “It’s getting chilly,” she said abruptly.

  “I’ll just finish this cigarette,” Wolf said. “Good night, Helen.”

  “Good night, Wolf.”

  He watched her long graceful figure stride across the yard toward the cabin. She was a proud and beautiful woman, with a fierce strength that appealed to him greatly. But he did not come to her whole, as she came to him. So he had let her see that there was more than an eye missing, more than a scar—that something considerably more fundamental than his appearance had been altered when Diego Sanchez christened him Wolf. It would not have been fair to have let her come to a decision without all the facts.

  Wolf turned back to the darkness and finished his cigarette.

  A week later when Wolf took the flatbed into Willow Bend, he noticed as he drove the team down Main Street that The Palace was closed down. When he pulled up outside Obermeyer’s, which Helen was now running herself, he understood why. Slade, wearing an apron that Obermeyer must have worn himself when he was alive, was busy showing a sodbuster a hay rake parked on the wooden sidewalk outside the store.

  “Hello, Wolf,” the man said, straightening up as he saw Wolf hopping down from the wagon.

  “Howdy, Slade.” Wolf stopped on the sidewalk and looked at the man, a slight smile on his face. “You ain’t going to sell much whiskey out here.”

  “I’m selling The Palace,” he said. There was no hint of sadness in his tone. “Hardware’s more durable than whiskey—that’s what Helen says, anyway.” He smiled suddenly, a surprising shyness in his face.

  “Maybe Helen’s got a point,” Wolf said, moving on past the man into the store.

  A few minutes later when Helen finished with a customer and walked over to serve him, he touched his hat in greeting. He wondered if he should say anything, then thought better of it. There would be announcements soon enough, Wolf realized—after a decent interval. But he could not help thinking as he looked at her that she was a fine figure of a woman and that Slade was a lucky man.

  He handed her his list, requesting that Slade load the wagon while he visited the barber shop and make a few other stops. She nodded quickly and studied the list carefully. The question of whether or not Helen Obermeyer would be allowed by Blackmann to trade with the Double B had not come up since the funeral, and it was pretty well understood around Willow Bend that Blackmann would damage himself irreparably if he pushed Helen on this matter. She had already suffered enough.

  Wolf thanked her and left the store.

  The barber’s hand shook as he shaved Wolf, and he kept glancing at the door as if he expected the kid to come charging into the shop at any minute, six-guns blazing. Wolf gave up trying to pump the man for news; he was simply too terrified to tell Wolf anything.

  He paid up and left, to the immense relief of the barber, and as he crossed the street to The Texican, he could feel the wide eyes of the barber following his progress.

  So far, Wolf had seen no sign of Willow Bend’s new sheriff. But the kid was around somewhere, cooking something up. The kid knew Wolf was in town. From the barber’s reaction, there could be no doubt about that.

  Compared to The Palace, the Texican was an unhappy place. There was not even a mirror behind the bar. Wolf walked across the floor, his feet rocking on warped boards, and leaned against the bar, waiting for service. A puncher with his hat on and a bright toothpick in his mouth took his time getting down the bar to serve him.

  “Whiskey,” said Wolf.

  It was rotgut. Wolf winced while he drank it, his eye tearing. He looked around the place. It was close to three in the afternoon and the place was doing a land office business. But that was only because The Palace was closed, Wolf was certain. The four gaming tables were crowded with card players and at least ten men were standing at the bar.

  Despite the population, however, the place had grown steadily quieter the longer Wolf remained in the saloon. Now, as he looked around, he found the place uncannily quiet. Though the card games were still in progress, the only sound the players made was the sibilant whisper of their betting and the clink of their poker chips. And those men standing on either side of Wolf at the bar had carefully pulled away from him.

  Against his better judgment, Wolf paid for a bottle, took it and a glass to a lone chair in the far corner and sat down with his back to the wall to wait for normal activity to return to the place—and loosen a few tongues.

  A half hour later, with The Texican almost empty and the barkeep glaring unhappily at him in the corner, Wolf gave up, slapped the whiskey bottle down on the bar and started from the place.

  As he reached the batwing doors, he turned to face the barkeep. The man froze. “You sell lousy whiskey,” Wolf told him. “Pure rotgut. If I was the sheriff, I’d call that a jailing offense. Yes, I would.”

  Wolf pushed through the door and stepped out into the bright late-afternoon sunshine—and found the street almost deserted. What few people he saw were watching him, waiting. Yes. The kid knew he was in town. That much he had learned.

  He started back to the store.

  The wagon was no longer pulled up in front of the store. Wolf walked past the store’s entrance and looked down the alley and saw the wagon standing in front of the warehouse. He could not see Slade or anyone else around the wagon.

  “Slade!” he called, stepping into the coolness of the alley and starting cautiously toward the wagon.

  There was no response. But when he reached the wagon, he saw Slade standing by the horses, waiting. The look on Slade’s face told Wolf everything. Wolf started to turn, but two pairs of hands grabbed his arms from behind and held him. He saw Gibson step out of the shadows then, his gleaming six-gun trained on Slade, an unhappy, greenish cast to his face. He was going along, but he was not liking it.

  Then, from the other side of the wagon, the kid stepped into view, crossed in front of Wolf, lifted Wolf’s six-gun from its holster, turned around and calmly pumped three shots into Slade. As Slade was flung violently back from the force of the bullets, Wolf managed to shake one hand free. He was reaching out for the kid when someone clubbed him with a gun barrel from behind, seeming to bring the entire universe crashing down upon his head. His knees turned to water and he pitched forward into a well of darkness ...

  Wolf was choking. He twisted his head to get air and something loose inside his skull screamed out in protest at the sudden movement. Someone had just hurled a bucket of water down upon his face. Rough hands dragged him to his feet and Wolf found himself squinting into the new sheriff of Willow Bend’s pale face.

  “Gibson here saw it all, Caulder,” the kid said, smiling slightly. “I got your weapon. Slade’s dead. You’ll hang for it.” He spoke carefully, his soft woman’s voice almost gentle.

  The hands that held Wolf erect tightened as Wolf started forward. The kid smiled easily an
d stepped back and out of Wolf’s line of vision. At the other end of the alley Helen was on her knees by the dead man, sobbing brokenly, townspeople coming up rapidly behind her, some already trying to pull her away.

  Wolf turned. Gibson, still unhealthy-looking around the eyes, was one of the two men holding him. He had a deputy’s badge on his immaculate vest.

  “You a part of this, Gibson?” Wolf managed, his speech sounding clumsy to his ears.

  “I saw you do it!” the man blustered, raising his voice so all those racing in from the street could hear his words. “You never gave Slade a chance. I saw it from the street as I was passing.”

  The kid smiled. “The shots brought me running from my office,” he told Wolf. “It’s right next to the store, you know.”

  The alley reeled about Wolf; he was having difficulty formulating his thoughts. But one thing he knew. It would be useless now to struggle or try to break free. He was too weak. The trap had been a neat one and it had been successful in catching its intended victim.

  As Wolf was turned roughly around and shoved through the crowd now filling the alley, he saw Bob Steele and Phil Olsen riding off the street and into the rear of the crowd. When Steele saw Wolf, he called:

  “What is it? What happened, Caulder?”

  It was the kid who answered Steele. “The son of a bitch shot Slade Hamner! We’re going to give him a fair trial.” The kid smiled. “Then hang him!”

  Steele and Olsen backed their horses hastily out of the alley, then pulled them around and, rowelling furiously, rode back out of town. As Wolf watched them go, the kid pushed him free of the crowd and into the street, then rammed the barrel of his Smith & Wesson into the small of Wolf’s back and gave him a vicious shove in the direction of the jailhouse.

  Ten

  Justice was swift in Willow Bend.

  Two days later, having had only one skimpy meal in the interval, Wolf was hauled out of his cell and brought into the sheriff’s office, where he was made to stand facing the wall while Gibson tied his wrists behind him with fresh rawhide.

  “Sorry we ain’t got no handcuffs,” the kid said, grinning mirthlessly. “But we just have to make do with what we got.”

  As soon as Gibson had completed his task, the kid spun Wolf around and nudged him, none too gently, toward the door.

  “Come on, Gibson,” snapped the kid. “Open it up for our friend here.”

  Gibson, still an obviously unhappy man as the kid’s deputy, scurried ahead of Wolf and pulled the door open. Wolf was nudged a second time, harder. He almost stumbled as he walked out through the doorway and winced at the near-blinding sunlight. He had lost track of time, but from the length and direction of the shadows he realized it was about mid-afternoon of a real scorcher. He stood there on the small porch for a moment, blinking his eyes to get them accustomed to all this sudden light; he had not shaven in three days and a dark stain of dried blood ran down from the crown of his head over the left side of his face, like a particularly ugly birthmark.

  As Wolf focused his eyes and saw the hushed crowd, noting the way they moved back a step or two as his single eye glanced over them, he realized how ugly he must look. He smiled perversely at them, amazed at the number of people packed into the narrow street. The moment he had stepped out of the office, a sea of pale faces had lifted to squint up at him through the bright sun. The women were dressed in their gayest finery; the men were clean-shaven, well dressed, some with white shirts and one or two, Wolf noticed, with full celluloid collars.

  A public trial and hanging was almost as good as a county fair—and cost a hell of a lot less.

  “Let’s go, Caulder,” said Gibson unhappily. “The trial’s in the Grange Hall across the street.”

  Wolf took the two steps down from the sheriff’s office and walked straight through the crowd to the building facing him. As he went the faces peeled back to let him pass; wonderment, curiosity, and—above all—a febrile excitement lit almost every one of the faces. Only a few showed compassion or doubt.

  The flight of steps leading into the Grange Hall was a long one and when Wolf reached the small porch landing at the top, he turned and glanced back. That was when he caught sight of the buckboard pulling up behind the crowd. Pike and Ben were in the front seat, Betsy and Helen in the back. Escorting them was Bob Steele on horseback, flanked by his small crew of punchers. Even as Wolf watched, Phil Olsen and Rod McCracken clattered down the street with their crews and pulled up beside Steele and his men. A quick glance to the other side of the crowd showed the Snake Bar contingent pulling up as well, Josh and Lassiter leading them, their number easily equaling those of the smaller ranchers combined.

  Wolf turned and walked into the Grange Hall.

  The kid stayed behind with a few others to manage the crowd while Gibson prodded Wolf down the center aisle to a front row seat on the far left, facing the long table behind which Judge Waterman now sat waiting. The man was all barbered and pressed for the occasion, a fresh nick on the chin from his straight razor still showing clearly, his thinning gray hair plastered straight back across his narrow dome. His gimlet eyes regarded Wolf with a lidded, unblinking hostility. It was plain he was about to enjoy himself hugely.

  A short shout and a scuffle at the back indicated that the crowd had been let in. Wolf turned his head as Gibson left him to hurry back and help with the crowd. An elderly crone with a wooden cane had made it through first and was hustling down the aisle, wielding the cane like a saber, her ancient eyes alight with triumph. Behind her came Ben, a small purposeful dynamo as he skipped ahead of her and plunged into the row behind Wolf, coming at last to a seat directly in back of him.

  Ben leaned forward. “Don’t you worry, Wolf,” he whispered. “We’ll get you out of this!”

  Then Ben sat back as streams of spectators surged into the seats, swiftly wedging Ben into his. Looking around, Wolf saw Steele and his riders on one side in the rear, Snake Bar riders on the other. In the front row on the other side of the aisle, Pike was sitting with Betsy and a haggard, obviously still shaken Helen. She sat with cold, tearless eyes, her face shiny with grief. Wolf looked quickly away.

  The hall by this time was sweltering from the close-packed humanity, the damp, fetid smell of unwashed feet encased in tight leather boots beginning to rise from the floor around them. Though everyone smelled it, nobody allowed themselves to notice it.

  Wolf turned back around just as Judge Waterman pounded his gavel for silence. The hall quieted at once. The kid and Gibson were sitting on opposite ends of the table the judge was using for his bench. Gibson was the closest to Wolf, sitting so that his suit coat flared back, revealing his splendid firearms. The kid was still wearing his preposterous bowler hat and long buffalo coat. By now no one seemed to notice it. He seemed cold as he sat there and both hands were thrust into his pockets, as if he were trying to keep them warm.

  “The court will come to order!” rasped Waterman. “Court is now is session! The people of Willow Bend versus Wolf Caulder. The charge is murder in the first degree.” The judge turned to face Wolf. “How does the prisoner plead? Guilty or not guilty?”

  A fellow sitting beside Wolf acting as a bailiff nudged Wolf. “You’re supposed to stand,” he whispered anxiously.

  Wolf, experiencing some difficulty with both hands tied behind him, managed to rise. “Not guilty,” he said quietly.

  As he sat down the judge rapped once with his gavel and cried, “The trial will proceed.”

  Suddenly Pike was on his feet. “Just a minute there, Judge Waterman! What kind of fool trial is this, anyhow? Caulder hasn’t even got a lawyer to represent him and there ain’t no prosecutor. And where’s the jury?”

  “We are dispensing with a jury,” Waterman snapped. “It would take too long. I will judge the evidence and give the proper sentence.”

  “That ain’t legal.”

  “Sit down, Pike! Or I’ll have you in contempt of court! Then you’ll see how legal it is!”

&nbs
p; There was much pleased laughter at this and it was obvious to Wolf that most of the spectators were annoyed at Pike for holding up the festivities.

  “That’s all right, Pike,” said Bob Steele from the back, his voice carrying cleanly through the hall. “Wolf’s probably surprised they’re even bothering with a trial. That’s something for this pack.”

  There were shouts of agreement to that from various isolated parts of the hall, but it was obvious that most of the spectators were taking no sides in the matter.

  Waterman banged his gavel furiously. “Order!” he cried. “Any more outbursts such as that last one—and you too, Pike—will result in expulsion from this courtroom.”

  “That’s telling ’em, Judge,” a woman close to the front cried. “Let’s get on with it!”

  Wolf leaned back and turned his head slightly to catch Ben’s attention. As soon as Ben leaned over, Wolf said, “Doing much whittlin’ lately, Ben?”

  The bailiff nudged Wolf between the ribs with the barrel of his shotgun. “Sit up straight there, Caulder,” he whispered.

  Wolf went back to a normal sitting position.

  “The first witness for the prosecution,” the Judge said portentously, “will be George Gibson, until a few days ago the interim sheriff of Willow Bend. Since the murder of Slade Hamner, he has been serving as acting deputy for sheriff Charles Stuart.”

  So that was the kid’s name, thought Wolf, as he watched Gibson get up from his chair and walk the length of the table to the large wooden armchair that had been provided for witnesses. There was a Bible in the chair. Gibson was asked to pick it up, hold his right hand on it and swear that the testimony he was about to give was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God.

  Gibson went through the ritual quickly, nervously—then sat down, his head turned to the judge.

  “Just tell the court what happened, George,” Waterman said, leaning back in his chair and laying down his gavel.