Buffalo Wolf E-Book

Colin Bainbridge

• Herausgeber: Robert Hale
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

John Creed is a loner, a Buffalo Wolf - till he meets Polly Chantry. Each of them has a reason to be making their separate ways from Tamarack Creek to the diggings. Creed has letters to deliver. Polly is looking for her father. Then fate throws them together as they struggle to get through. At the diggings they meet with Timber Wolf Flynn and his Sauk wife, White Fawn, but there is no sign of Polly's father. Creed and Polly set out on a double mission; to find Polly's father and acquire weapons to help the prospectors fight off the increasing threat from the outlaws. Their quest leads them high into the mountains and a frightening discovery at Gaunt's Peak. From there the trail leads to an unexpected encounter with the Sioux and another confrontation with the outlaws, before the decisive showdown and a shattering denouement back at the diggings. At the end, will Creed still be a Buffalo Wolf?

Leseprobe

Buffalo Wolf

John Creed is a loner, a buffalo wolf – till he meets Polly Chantry. Each of them has a reason to be making their separate ways from Tamarack Creek to the diggings. Creed has letters to deliver, Polly is looking for her father. Then fate throws them together as they struggle to get through.

At the diggings they meet with Timber Wolf Flynn and his Sauk wife, White Fawn, but there is no sign of Polly’s father. Creed and Polly set out on a double mission; to find Polly’s father and acquire weapons to help the prospectors fight off the increasing threat from outlaws.

Their quest leads them high into the mountains and a frightening discovery at Gaunt’s Peak. From there the trail leads to an unexpected encounter with the Sioux and another confrontation with the outlaws, before the decisive showdown and a shattering denouement back at the diggings. At the end, will Creed still be a buffalo wolf?

By the same author

Pack Rat

Coyote Falls

Shotgun Messenger

Guns of Wrath

North to Montana

Blood on the Range

Six-Gun Nemesis

Back From Boot Hill

Tough Justice

Buzzard Roost

Gila Monster

Hoofbeats West

Desolation Wells

Flame Across the Land

Writing as Emmett Stone

Last Reckoning for the Presidio Kid

A Message for McCleod

Payback at Black Valley Forge

Applejack

Splintered Canyon

Writing as Jack Dakota

Showdown at Dirt Crossing

Hell Stage to Lone Pine

Comanchero Trail

Stop Ollinger!

Writing as Vance Tillman

Riders on the Wind

Dust and Bullets

Late for Gettysburg

Buffalo Wolf

Colin Bainbridge

ROBERT HALE

© Colin Bainbridge 2016

First published in Great Britain 2016

ISBN 978-0-7198-2205-6

The Crowood Press

The Stable Block

Crowood Lane

Ramsbury

Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.bhwesterns.com

Robert Hale is an imprint of The Crowood Press

The right of Colin Bainbridge to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him

in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter One

John Creed was at a loose end. The young lady who had attracted his attention the day before was absent from the breakfast room, so when he had drunk his last cup of coffee he wandered outside. It was just as well. He was passing through. Still, she hadn’t been easy to ignore. Down the street he could see the old man dusting the boardwalk outside the stage depot; he meandered in that direction. When he got there the oldster looked up over his broom.

‘I got me a problem.’

‘Yeah? What’s that?’

‘The wagon’s ready with the mail, but I ain’t got nobody to drive it.’

It was early morning and the street was deserted. The old man spat into the dust.

‘Unless you fancy taking it out, sonny?’

The person he addressed was in his early twenties. Creed walked around the small wagon and examined the horses.

‘Give me ten minutes,’ he said.

He turned on his heel, walked back up the street and entered the Ground Hog Hotel. In five minutes he reappeared carrying a roll, a sheepskin jacket and a Paterson rifle. These items he slung into the wagon, alongside a number of sacks that were lying there. His six-guns were slung low, tied with rawhide thongs.

‘How far and where to?’ he asked.

‘Just head for the diggings. Less than sixty miles.’

The old man went inside the building and returned with some blankets and a buffalo robe.

‘Take these,’ he said. ‘I see you travel light and it can get real cold up in the mountains.’

Creed took them and threw them into the wagon alongside the other things.

‘Appreciate it,’ he said.

He stepped up on to the wagon box and flicked the reins. The horses strained and the wagon began to trundle slowly down the dusty street.

‘Ain’t you forgot somethin’?’ the old man called.

‘What’s that?’ Creed replied.

‘Pay!’ the man called. ‘If you get back within the month it’s one hundred dollars.’

Creed nodded.

‘If you ever get back,’ the oldster added beneath his breath. If the boy did return he calculated to be still well in profit at fifty cents for letters and twenty-five cents for newspapers, even allowing for the wagon and horses.

As the wagon rolled out of town Creed turned his head to take another look at its contents. The old man had included supplies. Creed had his own, anyway. In addition to the blankets and the buffalo robe, there was feed for the horses, and various other items were wedged in and lashed with ropes. With one hand he built himself a smoke. It was quite pleasant up on the wagon box with the early sun just gathering strength and a cool wind blowing from the east. Along about mid-afternoon he met two riders heading towards town, but otherwise the country seemed deserted.

It was flat here and featureless. He had no worries about getting the wagon with its team of four horses as far as the foothills, but the mountains were a different proposition. Even though he had taken the job on the spur of the moment, it never occurred to him not to see it through.

On the next day he saw the smoke signals. He did not have the knowledge to read them, but he figured they spelt trouble. But why would the Sioux bother about him? It would be sensible to be cautious. It was now mid-morning. The smoke signals continued, a single column followed by spherical clouds rising into the air. Then they ceased. Creed kept a watchful eye on the surrounding country. His rifle lay across his knee. It seemed to him that a strange intense silence lay across the prairie.

He stopped the wagon early in the afternoon and ate some pemmican washed down with water from the canteen. He took out his Colts, checked them and slid them back into their holsters. The chomp of the horses cropping the grass seemed unnaturally loud. The sun was hot and the landscape shimmered. A roadrunner crossed in front of the wagon and entered a thicket of thorny shrubs. The atmosphere was oddly hypnotic.

Soon he became aware of a distant drumming. At first it seemed to be inside his head but suddenly he realized that it was the sound of hoofbeats. Seizing the rifle he snapped to attention. Riding into view was a group of six Indian warriors. Their faces were painted and the leader, riding a white pony with a warpaint hand imprinted on its neck, wore a split-horn headdress and carried a lance lined with eagle feathers. He drew his sinewy horse to a halt, raised the lance, then lowered it again. Creed, placing the Paterson across his chest, held the upraised palm of his right hand towards the chief. The Sioux returned the greeting. So far, so good, thought Creed, but now what? The Indian turned and his glance swept the landscape in an inclusive gesture. Then, fixing the lance into the ground, he slid from his horse and approached the wagon.

Creed stood aside as the warrior began to riffle through the mail bags. The Indian drew a knife from a scabbard at his side, slit through one of the bags and emptied some of its contents on to the floor. He picked up first one of the letters and then another. Seemingly not able to make anything of them, he threw them back. He walked around the wagon, stopped to examine the horses, and stood face to face with Creed. For a few moments they regarded one another.

The Sioux chief had a broad forehead, high cheekbones and a strong nose. There was a resolute quality to his features. He nodded, turned and vaulted back on his horse. Taking up his lance, he muttered some words to the others, then turned again to Creed. With his forefinger pointing first to Creed, then to himself, he traced a rippling motion in the air. There could be little doubt that this signified the crawling movement of a snake.

Creed was thinking fast; a snake might mean an enemy, but the Indian had already returned his sign of friendship. His pointing movement was inclusive; maybe he was indicating a mutual enemy. Without further ceremony the Indians wheeled their horses and began to ride in the direction they had been following before coming upon the wagon. Creed watched them go. He was trying to puzzle it all out. The best he could come up with was that the Indians were giving him some kind of warning. Could they be trusted? He had liked the look of that chief.

The rest of the day passed without further sign of the Sioux. Creed was enjoying himself. So far this job was proving simple. He would deliver the letters and then pick up easy money at the end. He was in a state of limbo but the dice would have time to roll. For the moment he didn’t have to think too much. Although it was autumn the days were mild. The landscape was still flat but varied with bushes and trees. Large balls of tumbleweed blew across the plains, sometimes spooking the horses.

Occasionally Creed came upon the vestiges of camps: objects that had been abandoned by migrants heading West. Some of these – mining tools, a bookcase – he claimed for himself, thinking that they might come in useful. The bookcase he broke up for fuel to boil his battered coffee kettle. He was making pretty good progress and reckoned he would soon be among the foothills of the mountains.

On the next day he picked up sign of riders. He got down from the wagon and examined the ground carefully. It was well churned up. He calculated there must be at least a half a dozen horsemen. The horses were shod, so they were not Indian ponies. They had come down from the direction of the hills, in which case he was now ahead of them. He recalled the gestures of the Sioux chief. Could this have something to do with what the Indian had seemed to be warning him about?

Later that afternoon the wind grew stronger and big cumulus clouds began to fill the sky. Creed knew that he was in for a storm. Soon he could see squalls streaking towards him through the turbulent grey heavens. He jumped from the wagon and he did what he could to secure the contents, covering the bags of letters with the buffalo robe; then he took shelter underneath. The sky was almost black now, and the wind howled across the empty land. The rains swept in and Creed gathered his slicker around him. He was reasonably well protected but soon long streams of water were flowing beneath the wagon. The drumming of the rain was incessant and, high over the prairie, silver lightning forked across the sky. Thunder crashed and reverberated. Creed was concerned that the iron wheel-rims might attract the lightning and, reluctantly, he crawled out to take his place by the horses sheltering miserably behind some rocks. The storm was passing overhead. Again lightning flashed across the heavens, illuminating the landscape for a brief moment in an eerie blue glow.

For what seemed like hours the storm continued, but at length the wind and rain began to falter as the deep low tones of the thunder grew steadily fainter, rolling through the foothills. The storm was raging towards the south and east after beginning as snow in the mountains.

Just then the sun burst through a rift in the clouds and across the heavily overcast sky a rainbow spread its radiant arch. From under the brim of his dripping hat Creed observed it with admiration. Then he rolled himself a cigarette.

The uplands here were crossed and scarred by run-offs and washes. After the rain the streambeds were babbling watercourses. The grass had become boggy and the horses’ hoofs sank into the marsh. Creed was finding it hard going after the storm. Only when he had stopped to rest the horses did he become aware of an object in the distance. He took out his field glasses and trained them in that direction. It was a wagon and it seemed to be leaning over. Creed guessed that it had become bogged down in the soft ground. He looked again; the front wheels had sunk almost up to the axle. A figure appeared from around the side of the wagon and Creed involuntarily blinked.

‘Goldurn it,’ he muttered. ‘It’s a girl!’

Tugging on the reins, he turned his own wagon in her direction. He made slow progress and it was some time before she seemed to see him. When she did she disappeared into her wagon, then came back again carrying a rifle. She jumped down from the wagon box and, planting her feet firmly on the ground, she swung the gun towards him but pointed high.

‘Hold it,’ he called. ‘I am a friend.’

The response was a shot, which went singing harmlessly over the prairie.

‘Now that ain’t what I would call friendly,’ he muttered.

He carried on in her direction, to be greeted by a second shot. Then he realized that she wasn’t shooting in self-defence or in an effort to scare him off. On the contrary, she was signalling that she had seen him and needed help. In response he waved his hand and was rewarded by her waving back. She went back into the wagon, to reappear once more as he approached.

‘Mister,’ she said, ‘I sure am glad to see you.’

Creed jumped down. To his surprise he recognized her. He had seen her only briefly at the Groundhog Hotel, but she was not the type to be easily forgotten.

‘Stuck?’ he said.

She nodded. ‘Can’t seem to make any headway. I was beginning to think I might not be able to make it any further.’

‘Let’s take a look,’ Creed responded.

He climbed down and made his way to the back of the woman’s wagon. The rear wheels were on firmer ground and she had already begun to unload the wagon in order to make it lighter.

‘Give me a hand to unload the rest,’ he said.