Spirit of the Wolf (7 page)

Chance
got to his feet and rolled his bedding into a tight cylinder. As he stowed it among his gear, he thought back several weeks, to the conversation he'd had with Micah:

"I've got to thank you for what you've done for my boys," the old
er
man had said. "Since their mama died, I've sort of thrown myself into my work; gets my mind off missing Mary."

When
Micah stared off into space,
Chance
realized t
he man wasn't focusing on the dense pine forest, the contented cattle that grazed in the field beyond it, or the brown-board fences that hugged the property on all sides.

"I'm afraid I haven't been much of a father to them. What they know about farming they learned from the hired hands."

Chance
remembered feeling a mite sorry for the man. But all too soon, pity was replaced by low-burning anger.
That day, h
e'd had a mind to tell Micah that it would have been better for the boys if he'd fessed up about his grief; honest sorrow,
he
reckoned, would have been easier to bear than the distance Micah had put between himself and
his sons
.

But he'd learned long ago that a man seldom spoke what was on his mind, and
it was rarer still for him to speak
what was in his heart. So he kept silent his opinions, telling himself Micah had been as good a father as he knew how to be.
Chance
wondered how well
he'd
have borne up, if he'd lost the love of a woman like Bess.
Just a day later, he found a new insight into Micah's behavior, when he'd
stood in Micah's parlor, staring at the row of silver and brass- and bronze-framed photographs on the mantle.

His favorite
? T
he tintype of the Beckley clan. In it, Bess
and Mary sat on a red velvet settee
wearing
identical dresses and matching smiles. Behind them,
Micah held his dark-bearded chin high
, and in front of them,
Matt and Mark
—like miniature
male versions of their mother
—stared into the camera's lens. J
ust a typical family portrait, folks might say. But
Chance
knew better, because he'd seen what went unnoticed by most: There, in the shadows behind their children, w
here they thought no one would notice
, Micah and Mary had clasped hands,
proof to
those who looked closely enough proof of their undying love and genuine affection for one another.

The photo had entranced
him
, and he found himself making up excuses to step into the parlor
,
again and again, if only for a moment, to drink in the sight of true familial warmth. Sometimes, as he waited for sleep to rescue him from the snores and grunts of the bunkhouse, it was that picture, floating in his memory, that helped him drift off to sleep.

Mark
's sudden appearance beside him
startled Chance.

"What did you do," the boy asked,
"roll over and thump your head on a rock during the night?"

Chance
shook off the last of his daydream and accepted the blue speckled metal mug from the boy's extended hand. He took a sip of hot coffee and frowned. "What
in tarnation are
you
yammering
about
, boy
?"

"Didn't mean to rile you."
Mark shrugged. "You seem a mite addlebrained this morning, is all."

Matt elbowed his brother. "Think maybe he's love-struck, little brother?"

Mark's eyes widened as he considered the possibility. "Sure looks that way to me." The boy drained the last of his own coffee
before facing
his twin. "And if you call me 'little brother' again," he challenged, grinning, "I'll stick your nose in the dirt and plow the bottom forty with you! Just 'cause you were born two minutes before me don't give you no right to rub my face in it."

Matt tossed several pebbles at his brother's booted feet. "Wipe the ground up...with
me?
Ha! I'd like to see you try!"

It was invitation enough, and before
Chance
could open his mouth to forestall it, the brothers started wrestling in the dust like a couple of rowdy pups. He grinned, and wondered for a moment what it might have been like to grow up with a brother who really gave a hoot what happened to you, instead of coming to age in a house with no
kin
but
the
man who despised
him
.
Chance
frowned to smother the fury that always rose within him when he thought of Uncle Josh.

"You boys act more like four than fourteen," he said, forcing a sternness into his voice that he didn't feel. "I'll give you one minute to pack up this gear."

The playful jostling came to a grinding halt and their dark-eyed expressions changed from young-boy-happy to young-man-wise.
Chance
swallowed the lump of guilt that formed in his throat at having caused the abrupt change, and pretended to busy himself by saddling his horse.

He listened as the twins stashed tin pots and metal plates and utensils into
grub sacks
and tied them to their saddles. "If we dig in good and hard," he said as he hung a coil of hemp rope over the saddle horn, "we can get this job finished up today."

"Good," Matt said, brushing dark curls from his eyes. "My belly is cryin' for some of Bess's corn biscuits."

"And a piece of her deep-dish apple pie," his twin added.

Chance
would have settled for a glance at her pretty face.
But h
e stanched that mood before it could start. "Saddle up, boys, and let's head out. We're burnin' daylight."

They'd been riding for all of fifteen minutes when Matt spotted two riders on the horizon. "Who do you suppose that could be all the way out here?"

Chance
stared hard at the spot where Matt pointed. Just as he caught sight of the distant silhouettes, one of the riders turned, and sunlight winked from something metal on his shirt.
Chance
's blood ran cold and his heart beat hard. The shiny thing, no doubt, was a badge. And it belonged, no doubt, to a U.S. Marshall.
So they've tracked you down again
, he thought miserably.

Neither man seemed to have spotted
Chance
and the boys yet, however. If the three of them headed back to Foggy Bottom at a fast clip, maybe the marshals would never know he'd been in Freeland at all....

Just then, Matt smacked his horse's rump and thundered toward the marshals.

"Are you out of your mind?"
Chance
hollered.

"I'm aim to find out who's cuttin' through our property without permission...an' why," the boy shouted over his shoulder.

Chance
spurred his own horse into action, yelling as he went. "That field is full of mole holes. Your horse is sure to
—“

The warning came a heartbeat too late. Matt's horse went down, pitching the boy head over heels. He landed with a quiet
thump
on a grassy knoll.

"Ohmigosh," Mark said, his voice a childlike whisper. "That's just the way Ma died...."

Bess had told
Chance
about the night Mary's horse bucked, overturning her wagon as she rode home after delivering the Thomas baby. The agonized tone in Mark's voice made
Chance
's heart ache.

In seconds, Mark and
Chance
were at Matt's side. They quickly dismounted and inspected the damage: The boy lay unconscious, his right leg bent at an awkward angle beside him, his right arm twisted beneath him.

"Looks like he busted himself up pretty good," Mark said, voice trembling.

Chance
was far more concerned with the huge bump on the boy's forehead. "Get the canteen," he ordered, "and
fetch
my saddle bag."

As the boy ran for the supplies,
Chance
scanned the horizon once more. The commotion must
not
have attracted the marshals' attention, for they were heading in the opposite direction now.

Like soldiers, most U.S. Marshals could splint broken bones and tie tourniquets with the best of medics. As
Chance
saw it, he had two choices:
Make tracks
and don't look back, or see to it
that
Matt got the help he needed.

Run, and avoid the gallows.

Stay, and save Matt's life.

Chance
, still kneeling beside the boy's broken body, bowed his head.

T
hen he unholstered his pistol, and fired a single shot into the air.

"Trouble?" the biggest man asked as he reined in his beast.

"
B
oy's horse threw him,"
Chance
explained, pulling his hat low
to hide his face from the marshal's view.

Both men stared down at Matt's twisted body. "Good Lord Almighty," the first one said. "I ain't never set a broken bone a-fore." He looked at his buddy. "How 'bout you, Richie?"

Richie shook his head. "Nope." He met
Chance
's eyes. "Guess that's what you was hopin' when you fired that shot, eh?"

Chance
nodded.

Only after the men dismounted did
Chance
realize they weren't U.S. Marshals at all, but two of Freeland's border farmers. And what he'd thought had been a silver star badge was, instead, the cinch of the smaller man's black four-in-hand tie.

Relief flooded
Chance
's veins and he exhaled the breath he'd been holding since he made the decision to put Matt's welfare ahead of his own.

The first man held out a big, calloused hand. "Name's Luke. Luke Elliot," he said. "Sorry to make your acquaintance this-a way."

He pumped the man's arm. "
Chance
Walker. This is Mark."
Chance
then gestured to Matt, who lay motionless on the ground, "and Matthew Beckley."

For what seemed like an eternity, no one spoke. Finally, Mark broke the endless silence. "So what're we gonna do about Matt,
fellers
?"

Richie and Luke rubbed their bearded chins. "Well, we might
-
could help you whack
d
own
a
couple of
those saplings over yonder," Richie said, nodding toward a thicket. "
Wrap some
blankets 'round 'em nice an' tight
,
and they’ll
make a
right
passable litter."

Chance
placed a hand on Mark's shoulder. "Stay here with your brother," he instructed, handing him the canteen and a neckerchief. "Dribble a bit of water on his lips from time to time."

Mark immediately fell to his knees and began drizzling water over Matt's forehead and cheeks. "Hey, there, big brother," he said, his voice quaking slightly, "you'd better wake up and start thinkin' up some good excuses, 'cause when Bess sees that nasty rip in your britches, she's gonna give you the worst tongue lashin' of your life...."

The men walked several hundred yards due east in search of strong, young saplings. It took several whacks of Luke's hunting knife to cut the small trees down, but soon, they were with the boys again.

After placing all their blankets one atop the other,
Chance
tethered them to the now-branchless trees with strips of cotton torn from his shirttails and cuffs.

Richie's contribution were two, long, leather bootlaces.
Chance
cut each in half, and used the four strings to bind the litter to his saddle girth. Once he'd tested it for strength and durability,
Chance
gently eased Matt's unconscious body onto the litter. Even out cold, the boy moaned with pain.

"In his condition, it'll take us a day just to get him back to the house,"
Chance
said to the group. To Mark, he added, "Ride on ahead and fetch the doc. See that he's waitin
g
when we get there, y'hear?"

Mark climbed onto his horse and gathered the reins. "Yessir!"

"And mind that you avoid those confounded mole holes
. We've only got one litter, after all
!"

"Yessir!" the boy
said again as he
rode off.

The men
mounted their horses, too. "We were on our way to Morris Meadows," Richie said. "
H
eard-tell that Isaac Junior had a wagon for sale. Luke, here, wants to buy it for his girl. She's gettin' hitched next week." Richie elbowed his friend. "He's gonna deck it out in baubles an' bows for the weddin', ain't ya Luke?"