Spirit of the Wolf (28 page)

Reminded of his purpose, Purdy licked his lips. "
Innocent, I tell you
," he repeated as the broom
whisked
past the sheriff's boots. "Wouldn't want
his death
on
my
conscience...."

Yonker had heard about all he cared to hear from the town drunk. "Ain't nobody interested in what you got to say,
you old fool
." Then, facing the sheriff once more, he bit out, "You want to get W.C., you get
me
." Snickering, he punctuated his statement by adding a last poke to Carter's shirt.

In the wink of an eye, the sheriff was behind Yonker, one big hand filled with shirt collar, the other firmly gripping his manhood. "The man ain't been born who can wriggle out of this here Bouncer's Grip," Carter said calmly. "You poke that finger in my chest again, I'll break it off and shove it down your throat. You got that?"

Squealing like a stuck pig, Yonker nodded. "Didn't mean nuthin' by it, Sheriff. I swear
!
"

"Smartest thing I ever did was to fire you. You were trouble ten years ago, and I can see time hasn't changed a hair on your ugly head." With the power of The Grip on his side, Yonker was little more than a willing puppet. He walked on tip-toes in his futile attempt to climb out of Carter's painful hold on him. With a rough shove, Carter released him,
and then
turned him around. "If I get W.C.
—and
I think we both know
that
I will
—it’ll
be on
my
terms
, not yours
."

"But...but you don't know where he is," Yonker whimpered.

Casually, Carter slipped another toothpick from the
shot glass
on the corner of his desk.
“But I have a pretty good idea, thanks to you.
"
He paused, walked the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.
"
And y
ou don't know his whereabouts, either. Dumb as you are, if you did, it would-a been the first thing out of your mouth."

Yonker
sneered and
patted his hip pocket. "Got me fifty dollars here says otherwise."

Shaking his head, Carter smirked. "Yeah. And Joe over there ain't a drunk, neither.
"If you w
ere
half as smart as you think you are, you might just be dangerous.
Now get on outta here. I ain’t got time for your fairy tales.”

"
Fairy tales!”
Yonker's fists doubled up
as
he blurted, "He's in a town north of Baltimore, working as a foreman on a farm called Foggy Bottom."

Carter stared for a moment,
and then
chuckled.
"Hey,
Purdy,” he said, “
put that broom away and get a mop,
so you can
sop up this mess ole Forrest made
when he spilled his guts
."

Grinning at the sarcastic joke,
Purdy
shook his head
as
Carter sauntered toward the door
.
"You a card playin' man, Forrest?" he asked, opening the door wide.

His reckless confession had humbled him, and like a disobedient pup trying to earn back his master's approval, Yonker followed. "What's cards got to do with anyth
—“

"Do yourself a favor," he said,
shoving
the ex-deputy onto the boardwalk, "and stay away from the poker tables. You ain't got the
stomach
for it!" With that, he slammed the door and sauntered back to his desk.

The old chair squealed in protest as the sheriff slid onto its burled wood seat and leaned back, resting his boot heels on the corner of the desk once more. Unsheathing the hunting knife that hung from his leather belt, Carter began to trim his fingernails. "Like I said the day you ran off, W.C., you can run," he whispered, moving the toothpick to the other side of his mouth, "but you can't hide."

Old Joe continued to sweep as a
worried
frown
etched
his brow
.

***

Forrest Yonker headed straight from the sheriff's office to the general store, where he bought himself passage on the next stage leaving Lubbock. Once he got to Kansas City, he'd buy a one-way train ticket to Baltimore, find some farmer with a nag for sale, and the rest would be like taking candy from a baby.

He rubbed the half-inch still-pink scar above his left eyebrow, the unconscious reminder of the beating Atwood had given him on the Baltimore dock. Years ago, when he was younger
—and dumber—he
might just have bought himself a bottle of whiskey, chanced another pounding
in the hope he’d win this round...and
trade
W.C’s
body for bounty....

But he was older now. Older, and wiser, too.

Atwood hadn't been much more than a boy the day the jailer's wagon overturned. But time on the run had sharpened his wits, had toughened him up, and Yonker had the scars to prove it.

Alone with his own thoughts, he didn't mind admitting that Atwood scared him worse than any
imagined monster
. He'd come at him like a madman, teeth bared like a wild animal, bloodlust in his eyes. According to the stories, Atwood was sly, had outslicked every lawman who'd come looking for him.
Rumor had it
he'd earned
the
nickname 'Widowmaker'. Yonker didn't have a wife, but he didn't relish the idea of being planted six feet under beside married men who'd tried to make a name for themselves by bringing in the elusive W.C. Atwood....

L
ike the child whose fear of
the dark
abates with the morning light, the passing time has a way of easing a man's fears
, and
he'd headed straight back to Lubbock after the altercation on the dock
. H
alf the reward money was better than no money at all.
Let
the s
heriff
puzzle out
a way to get Johnson back to Texas
.
Then it’ll be Carter’s bones they bury out behind Calvary Baptist, whilst I count the cash
.

Bravado now fully intact, Yonker scowled as he tucked a brand new box of shotgun shells into his rucksack.
When are you gonna learn to keep your big mouth shut?
he asked himself, slamming a fist into his open palm and cursing his own stupidity for having tipped Carter off.

Yonker rubbed his jaw and remembered how, after Atwood's powerful punch, it had ached for days.
The wanted poster said
“
Dead or Alive.
”
He'd
rather be dead than admit what the thought of another beating from Atwood.
Why risk it when
he could take the fugitive d
own with one well-placed bullet, fired from a safe distance?
Wouldn’t make a whit of difference to Horace’s widow if
Atwood died at the end of a rope or a
t the business end of a shotgun.
Dead's dead!

His strategy was simple: Find Foggy Bottom
. Find Atwood…
and kill him.

Yonker peered down the muzzle of his double-
barreled
shotgun.
Could use oilin', he thought. Then again,
why bother, when it would only take
one shot.

With a satisfied smirk, he snapped the breach shut. "You can run, W.C.," he said, patting the shoulder pouch that held the shells, "but you can't hide...."

***

The telegram arrived the evening after
Bess found him in the hayloft.
Chance
knew instantly that
the message
was
bad news. What else
could
it mean, since only one man knew what name he'd been using since coming to Baltimore?

His heart clenched wit
h dread as he admitted that d
eputy-turned-merchant marine-turned-bounty hunter, Forrest Yonker
knew
....

Chance
accepted the envelope from the boy on the pony and handed up one silver dime. "Gosh, thanks, Mister," the boy said, grinning at the generous tip.

But
Chance
didn't hear him, for he'd already headed for the porch. Slumped in one of the twin rockers that flanked the wide, oak doors, he read the name on the envelope.
WALKER
, it said, and nothing more. Heart hammering with fear and dread, he tore it open and read:

CARTER AND YONKER HEADED EAST
--STOP
—
PURDY
.

For as long as
Chance
could recall, Joe Purdy had been Lubbock's resident vagrant. Most of the time, the man had been too drunk to do much of anything useful, but he'd managed to sober up just often enough to push his big boar-bristled broom around town and earn
some
cash to buy his next bottle.

Once, the old sot saved
Chance
from his uncle's wrath by putting himself between the man and the boy. Why Joe had deliberately accepted the lash of Josh's meaty leather belt in his stead,
Chance
had never quite figured out, but the action earned Joe a place in his heart.

Between the ages of twelve and fifteen, he shared school lunches with the man. From the time
Chance
finished school 'til the day he left Lubbock for good, as Joe slept off his latest binge,
Chance
replaced soured shirts and socks with the ones he'd secreted away the week before and washed down at the creek. It had given him a certain satisfaction, believing Joe didn't have a clue who was responsible for the acts of charity. But on the night of Horace Pickett's murder, he learned differently:

"I know you, boy," Joe whispered through the barred jailhouse window. "Anybody who treats a good-for-nothin' drunk the way you've treated me all these years ain't no killer!"

Later, w
hen he arrived safely in Acapulco,
Chance
had sent a telegram to the only person who seemed to give a damn about him:
SAFE
,
SOUTH OF THE BORDER--
STOP
--HOPE YOU'RE CHANGING YOUR SOCKS
.

Every town after that, he'd sent a similar bulletin.
Joe had never taken very good
care of himself
. F
or all
Chance
knew, he'd been communicating with a dead man all these years.
Still, in every new town, he'd plunk down his hard-earned coins to get a message to old Joe Purdy, because
it felt good, believing
that someone,
somewhere,
knew where he was....

Now,
Chance
said a quick prayer of thanks
. Not only did this prove his
old
friend
was
indeed
alive
, he’d
probably
spent the c
ost
of a bottle o
f cheap rye to send the
telegram.

Sheriff Chuck Carter had never been one of
Chance
's favorite people, but he was an honest man who took his job seriously. He hadn't shackled
Chance
to the jailhouse wall ten years earlier because of a personal vendetta
. Rather,
he'd done it
because according to the letter of the law,
it
had been
the right thing to do.
Chance
would much rather have Carter on his trail than Yonker
.
At least with the sheriff, he'd get a fair shake.

Chance
folded Joe's message in half, in half again, and slid it into his shirt pocket. Then, to ensure it couldn't slip out and fall into the wrong hands, he buttoned the pocket's flap.

With grim determination, he set his jaw.

He'd known since walking away from that overturned wagon in the Texas desert that the day of reckoning would eventually dawn.
Chance
took a deep breath and surveyed the horizon, possibly his last chance to enjoy the beauty and tranquility that was Foggy Bottom.

He rose on shaky legs and headed for the bunkhouse
, where h
e'd pack
his meager possessions. Then he’d
saddle Mamie
—a
Christmas gift from Micah
—and
head north, into Canada.

But first, he had a message of his own to write....