The Range Wolf (5 page)

That night, after the herd had been driven more than twelve miles north over not too unfriendly terrain, I was just about finished helping Cookie serve the meat from the animal Wolf Riker had slaughtered for supper.

Through the day, while carrying out my kitchen chores, I had been privy to bits and pieces of comments and conversation from the drovers. Comments mostly lamenting the outcome of the encounter between two beasts—one human and the other horned. The boldest remarks came from the young prison graduate, Leach, and French Frank—bold, but well out of earshot of Wolf Riker, and the trail boss, Chandler, who wasn't doing much bossing.

Riker now sat away from all the others, except for his driver and knife provider, Pepper. The two of them had finished eating. Riker smoked one of his cigars, and Pepper was working on a cinch with that knife of his.

I carried a plate of meat and beans toward one of the wagons, the path to which took me past Riker and Pepper, when I heard that unmistakable voice—and stopped.

“Guth.”

“Yes, Mr. Riker.”

“I see you've quite a good appetite.”

“This is not for me, Mr. Riker.”

“No? Who then? Your fiancée?”

“No, sir. She's not conscious yet. But I thought Dr. Picard might . . .”

“Very thoughtful, Guth. I presume he's going to provide his own whiskey.”

“Dr. Picard hasn't had any whiskey since . . .”

“The operation? Well, we'll see how long his state of sobriety lasts. I'll wager not as long as his patient. I've seen it happen before.”

“Yes, sir. But there's always a first time.”

“Not always.”

Pepper stuck the knife into the ground and tugged at the cinch with both hands.

I couldn't help but glance from the plate of meat I carried to the knife sticking out of the earth.

And, of course, Wolf Riker noticed my glance.

“Ever see one like it before, Guth? The knife, I mean.”

“No, Mr. Riker. I haven't.”

“It's known as a Bowie knife. Quite a story behind it. This one was given to Pepper by Jim Bowie himself. You must get Pepper to tell you about it sometime, if you'd be interested.”

“Yes, I would.”

“Well, on your way, Guth. We don't want to keep you from your good works.”

“Thank you, Mr. Riker.”

Not once during that conversation had Pepper even glanced up at me. But still, I somehow got the impression he was watching me.

After walking several yards away—another voice—this one out of the darkness.

“Mr. Guthrie.”

I stopped and turned.

“Reese. Alan Reese.”

“Oh, yes. The man with the Bible.”

“Do you want it? I have it with me.”

“No, Mr. Reese. You might as well keep it. You and the rest of them, along with everything that belonged to us.”

“That's what I wanted to talk to you about. The others gambled for the belongings from the stagecoach. But I did manage to put aside a suitcase with your initials on it and one that's obviously the lady's. Both still with their contents. They're in the utility wagon. That's all.”

“Mr. Reese, wait a minute. That was very kind and thoughtful of you, and I truly appreciate it. Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

“You say they gambled for the rest.”

“It's not the first time that happened.”

“On this drive?”

“Oh, no. All the way back to Calvary.”

“The Centurions . . . for His robe?”

“Good night, Mr. Guthrie.”

He walked back into the darkness.

She lay breathing softly by lamplight. A patrician profile befitting a Ruritanian princess asleep in a palace by a verdant hill.

I sat silently looking at her for how long I was not aware.

But she was no Ruritanian princess and this was no palace by a verdant hill. And I certainly was no prince. We were in a shadowy wagon that creaked from a vagrant wind, though that wagon stood unmoving in the midst of a forgotten Texas terrain.

Dr. Picard set his empty tin plate on the floor next to him, then let the knife and fork drop into it.

I turned at the sound.

“Thank you for the repast.” Picard smiled. “I'd almost forgotten what it was like to eat.”

“You can thank Wolf Riker for the repast. He killed your supper with Pepper's Bowie knife—and his brute strength.”

“Yes, I know. I looked out at the commotion and caught sight of the contest.”

“Not exactly Saint George and the dragon.”

“Not exactly. But it had to be done, and he was the only one who could do it.”

“You sound as if you admire him.”

“There's little about Wolf Riker that I admire, but his strength is undeniable and . . .”

“And what?”

“There's much about Wolf Riker that's not evident—at least at first. Like an iceberg, there's much more beneath the surface.”

“Doctor,” I said, glancing at Flaxen. “What do you think are her chances?”

“The positive part of the prognosis is that during the day, the herd and this wagon are not moving very fast. She's resting in relative comfort. Even speaks a word or two now and again.”

“What does she say?”

“That I can't discern. Not yet.”

“You think . . . she'll make it?”

“I think the odds are better today than yesterday. How long have you been engaged?”

“What's that?”

“You and Miss Brewster. How long have you been engaged to be married?”

“Oh . . . not very long.”

“Have you set a wedding date?”

“I'd say that now it very much depends on two people.”

“Two people?”

“You . . . and Wolf Riker.”

“Well, there's not much more I can do. Most of my effort on her behalf is already done. As for Wolf Riker, I'd say that's largely between you and him.”

“Do you think I have a better chance than . . .”

“Than what?”

I pointed to the empty plate.

“There's a fundamental difference between you and that beast. You have brains.”

“You're the second one who's mentioned that to me.”

“Who was the first? Surely not Cookie.”

“No. It was Simpson.”

“Well, that's good counsel. I hope he takes it, too.”

“Tell me something, doctor.”

“More counsel?”

“No. How is it that someone like you . . . educated . . . skilled . . . a doctor, is in the company of a man like Riker on a drive like this?”

“Your description omitted one word . . .”

“What word?”

“Drunkard.” He went on speaking in a colorful monotone. “You're here quite by accident—you and your fiancée. Mine is a different story. A long story.”

“I'd like to hear it. If you don't mind.”

“No. I don't mind. I said it's a long story. But I'll give you the abbreviated rendition if you're sure you care to listen.”

“Yes, Dr. Picard. I would.”

“Then it begins during the war. Dr. Miles Picard, the city of San Francisco, prestigious, prospering, if not yet prosperous. Never more than a drink or two during the evening—and after years and years of study and sacrifice, and yes, loneliness, in love with a beautiful, young lady, Catherine Graham, engaged to be married, like you and Miss Brewster.

“But the war was going badly for the North, so badly that the Confederates, led by Lee and his generals, mostly West Point graduates, seemed invincible, winning battle after battle: Fort Sumter, Lexington, Belmont, Shiloh, Fort Royal, Bull Run—with Union casualties mounting every month and week and day and hour, without nearly enough doctors to save the lives of the sick and wounded.

“I believed that even one more doctor could make a difference. I also believed that a woman would wait, but a war wouldn't. Catherine begged me not to go, or, at least to marry her before leaving. But no, I felt that would be unfair to her if I didn't come back.

“And so I enlisted as a doctor in the Medical Corps.

“Sherman said that ‘war is hell.' No one knew that better, or more bitterly, than a battlefield doctor tending hundreds of causalities on both sides, amputating arms, legs, sometimes arms and legs, trying to stop the bleeding amid screams of agony and the smell of death in so-called operating rooms at the front lines. And sometimes there were no lines. Yesterday's victory turned into today's defeat.

“But as time went on there were more victories than defeats for the Union. Still the casualties mounted and the doctors sought relief for those casualties and for themselves. Analgesics. Morphine. Whiskey. Anything to get the wounded and the doctors through the endless operations.

“And then the letter came. Another casualty. This one not in the battlefield. More than a thousand miles away. A deadly fever had struck San Francisco and her family wrote that Catherine was among the dead.

“And in a way so was I.

“If I had been there I might have saved her—and others. There weren't enough doctors.

“Somehow I found enough strength or courage or determination to go on. But unfortunately, I found that strength or courage or determination in a bottle, until, near the end, the hand that held the scalpel was no longer steady and the brain that guided that hand became unclear and unreliable.

“So Dr. Miles Picard received a medical discharge even as Grant received Lee at Appomattox and the war ended.
That
war—while Dr. Picard became a derelict, who for some reason still carried a medical bag and found himself in a flyspeck of a saloon in a flyspeck of a Texas town called Gilead—not far from what was left of a once proud ranch owned by a man named Wolf Riker.

“Unfortunately, I still wore remnants of a Union uniform from which I withdrew my last Yankee dollar and ordered another drink. And even more unfortunately, there were three pig ugly brothers who entered and sat at a nearby table.

“The bartender brought a bottle and set it in front of me. I reached for the bottle but another hand beat me to it. A hand that belonged to one of the pig ugly brothers.

“‘This town don't serve Indians, niggers, or Yankees,' he growled. ‘We saw enough of your kind during the war.'

“Another brother grabbed my medical bag from the table and snapped it open.

“‘Let's see what the bluebelly's got here.'

“He held up a couple of scalpels.

“‘Knives,' he grunted.

“‘Put that back, and leave him alone,' a voice commanded from the bar.

“The voice, I was to find, belonged to Wolf Riker.

“The three brothers didn't care who it belonged to.

“‘He's a goddamn Yankee and we're gonna . . .'

“That brother never finished. It all happened so fast they never knew what hit them—and neither really did I.

“He sprang from the bar, both fists thundering into faces and bodies until the three brothers lay in three crumpled heaps on the sawdust of the floor.

“One of those three stirred and started to lift his head until the heel of Riker's boot stomped it hard back into the floor.

“Then Riker turned to me.

“‘You are a doctor, aren't you?'

“‘According to a certain medical institution, I am.'

“‘Then grab that pouch'—he pointed to the medical bag on the table—‘and come with me.'

“I pointed to the three unconscious victims.

“‘Those fellows could use some medical attention. '

“‘I don't give a damn about them. Come on!'

“I grabbed the bag and the bottle and followed him out the door.

“As I sat next to him in the buckboard on the way to wherever we were going, I couldn't help occasionally glancing at the man who looked straight ahead, and who had rescued me from the post-war wrath of three unreconstructed belligerents, and who had suffered the wrath of a human whirlwind.

“A granite face atop a wide shouldered chest and with heavy hands that held the reins. A man who for his size moved with the grace and power of a panther.

“He said nothing until I uncorked the bottle of whiskey and took a deep swallow.

“‘Go easy on that until we get there.'

“‘Get where?'

“‘My ranch.'

“‘How far?'

“‘Not far.'

“‘You don't waste many words, do you, Mister . . .'

“‘Sometimes . . . Riker. Wolf Riker.'

“‘Miles Picard. Dr. Miles Picard. Can you tell me what this is all about . . . this time?'

“‘Somebody's sick. Fever. Sick in bed. I came into town to get a doctor.'

“‘Did you expect to find him in a saloon?'

“‘I didn't know it, but the doctor left town, left Texas; I stopped for a drink.'

“‘Lucky for me . . . I think.'

“I started to take another drink from the bottle. He spoke without looking at me.

“‘Part of the Hippocratic Oath is that a doctor will do no harm,
Doctor
Picard.'

“‘Whom am I harming?'

“This time he did turn and look at me. The penetrating glare in his eyes answered my question without his saying a word.

“‘All right, Mr. Riker, Dr. Picard will drink no more until after tending to the patient.'

“‘There it is.'

“‘What?'

“‘The ranch.'

“From a distance it looked like a huge stone bridge over dry land, arching high and wide across the narrow trail we had been following. But it was not a bridge. It was an entrance. A proclamation. Across the top of the arch were carved two ‘R's' back-to-back. A brand.

“‘Two R's,' I said. ‘Riker and Riker?'

“‘Not anymore,' he replied. ‘Riker's Range.'

“Farther ahead, the main building was an imposing Spanish-style two-story structure with a tile roof and wide veranda. Nearby, corrals and small buildings, bunkhouses. A stable. Nothing in the condition it once must have been . . . and should be.

“Dozens of ranch hands, some on horseback, most on foot, none of whom waved at, nor greeted, Riker, nor did he acknowledge their presence.

“As the buckboard pulled up to the main building, Riker loosed the reins, looked toward the porch, stroked at the scar on his forehead and spoke . . . but not to me.

“‘I'll be goddamned. You son of a bitch!'

“Standing on the porch, leaning to the left, smoking the stub of a black cigar, a well-worn cowboy rubbed the stubble of a speckled beard, squinted and smirked.

“‘'Bout time you got back,' the cowboy said.

“‘Pepper, you son of a bitch.'

“‘What's wrong?' I managed to inquire.

“‘Wrong?! That's your patient. He was on his deathbed when I left.'

“We both got off the buckboard as the cowboy limped off the porch and closer to us.

“‘Well,' I remarked. ‘He doesn't seem to be dead anymore. What happened to the fever?' I asked.

“‘It just decided to go away, so I just decided to get up and smoke one of Mr. Riker's cigars.'

“‘It happens to patients sometimes,' I said to Mr. Riker. ‘Partly they die and partly they revive. May I take a drink before I leave?'

“‘You can drink the whole damn bottle, doctor . . . and stay as long as you want. Pepper, this is Dr. Miles Picard—and to paraphrase the Bard, ‘At journey's end . . . present mirth hath present laughter.'

“Well, Mr. Guthrie, you asked how Riker and I met. That's how. As to why I stayed, the truth is I had no place to go and no money to get there . . . and I was fascinated by the so-called Range Wolf, a man who could beat three men senseless without compunction or conscience . . . and at the same time care for an old crippled cowboy while quoting Hippocrates and Shakespeare. And in spite of his primitive nature he seemed to enjoy the interchange of views with a sometimes sober doctor. He pays me a pittance, enough to provide for a limited supply of spirited libation.

“As for my medical duties on the ranch, mostly I set an assortment of broken bones of wranglers with a degree of success, but not in the case of a young wrangler, who was thrown off a horse and suffered a broken neck.

“And now, Mr. Guthrie, enough of my autobiographical rambling. You must tell me the story of your life some time . . . some other time.

“I'm tired and sleepy.”