“And . . . ?” Will asked.
“I swung by Bridger’s cabin one spring a couple years later, ’spectin grub an’ a bottle. What I found was my frien’ ripped into bits an’ pieces, liver an’ heart gone, a arm here an’ another there, tool an’ eggs gone, eyes tore out . . . an’ so forth. So you listen to me good, Will Lewis: Wampus ain’t a puppy dog. One day he’ll turn. I flat-out promise you that. I can’t say when. I wish I could, but I can’t. It’ll happen, though, an’ it’ll be a sad thing, ’cause you ain’t gonna be ready.” Ray was quiet for a long time. “I can’t say, though, that I ever seen a cross love a man like Wampus does you. There’s always a ’ception to a rule, no?”
Will stared into the fire for several uncomfortable moments. “Looks like the meat’s ready,” he said.
The crippled buffalo was even better than the men expected—and the aroma of it cooking made them expect a lot. Because he was barely older than a yearling, he hadn’t yet developed much muscle that would make his meat tough. And being a gimp slowed him way down, always trailing the herd, spending more time grazing, building up that sweet marbling meat lovers savored.
Buffalo meat isn’t radically different from beef, although it has a distinctive, slightly gamey flavor that makes it yet more appealing to those who are fond of it.
After they’d eaten much more than they needed—including Wampus, who worked off his feed burying knuckle bones and other choice bits and morsels—Will leaned back against his saddle and built a smoke. Ray made up some coffee and set the tin can aside to cool to a handling temperature. He picked the can up with a pair of small branches; both began to smoke as he moved the “coffee pot.”
“Oughta get you a tin can an’ we wouldn’t have to pass this one back an’ forth,” Ray said. “Ain’t that I’m complainin’—there’s nobody else I’d rather share my fine coffee with, mind you—but it’d make things easier.”
“Yeah. I’ll do that. Funny thing—any moron saddle tramp can cook up a shaggy steak, but it takes a special touch to brew real good coffee. An’ I’ll say this: you make the strongest, best-tastin’ java I ever had the damn good luck to drink.”
“Well thanks, Will. You ain’t generally one to hand out compliments.”
“No, I ain’t. Sometimes they’re deserved, though.”
The men watched the embers of their cook fire fade from white to red to almost black. Wampus, asleep next to Will, whimpered, and his front paws scampered a bit, as if reaching out for something.
“Chasin’ a rabbit, I ’spect,” Will said.
“More likely sniffin’ after a wolf bitch, doin’ his best to climb on her. Them stud wolves like their ladies a awful lot.”
“Ya know,” Will said, “I don’t know that I’m sure ’bout how much wolf blood flows in Wampus. I don’t doubt there’s some—maybe a good bit—but I never seen nothin’ wolflike ’bout him.”
“Well, lemme count for you: One—that howl. No dog howls like that. ’Course a blue tick has a howl that’ll carry farther an’ clearer than a wolf’s, but that’s a complete different thing. Two—the way he hunts—hell, Wampus could find and fetch in a jackrabbit in the middle of a ocean. And three—the way he pulls a man down an’ kills him dead quiet in a heartbeat. No dog ever borned can do it like that.”
Will rolled another cigarette. “You might could have some points, I’ll admit,” he said after lighting his smoke with a lucifer. “But look at that critter, Ray. He’s got the heart of a pussycat an’ . . . an’ he loves me. He purely does. He coulda took off the second I got that wire from ’round his neck, but he stayed on with me. Why? Gratitude! Gratitude an’ love. Ain’t a wolf ever lived or will ever live that showed them two things to a man.
“I know you know wolves, Ray. I ain’t disputin’ that fact. Thing is, though, in any breed of animals there’s one or two that’s way different from the others, that goes sideways from his breed. I’d say Wampus is that one—the strange one. Wouldn’t you agree with that?”
Will waited for a response. His only answer was a grinding, nasal snore. Ray was sound asleep. Will rolled another cigarette, smoked it, tossed the nub into the moribund fire, and slept.
The next morning Ray came up on Will, who’d walked a couple hundred yards out into the prairie. “What’re you doin’?” Ray asked.
Will seemed to scramble for words. “I . . . uhh . . . jus’ thought I’d take a little walk ’fore the sun gets to work. Yeah—a little walk.”
Ray sighed. “If any of those boys got the wires yet, it’d be a miracle. We ain’t goin’ to see no one for two, three days at the earliest. You standin’ out here like a totem pole ain’t gonna draw ’em in any sooner.”
“I s’pose.”
“Anyways, Wampus’ll let us know if anyone’s comin’ toward us. Look, c’mon back. I got some coffee brewin’.”
They sat close together, passing the can back and forth until it was empty.
“Wanna play some cards?” Ray asked. “I got a deck in my saddlebag.”
“Ain’t but two of us. Two fellas can’t play poker.”
“Sure they can. We jus’ deal a hand and set it down an’ play ’gainst each other.”
“I’m not much on gamblin’, Ray. I never saw no sense to it.”
“I didn’t say nothin’ ’bout money. We jus’ play for pertend. Thing is, you can’t bet a hundred on a pair of threes or like that.”
“OK. I’ll play.”
After two hours, Will would have owed Ray $125,000 if they’d been playing for real money. Will tossed his cards to Ray. “This is a pain in the ass. You bluff too good. Hell, you didn’t have nothin’ but horseshit an’ slivers, most of them hands you won.”
“ ’Nother hand?”
“Hell no.” Will was staring over his friend’s shoulder. “We might better get ready for rain, anyway. Looks like there’s a storm comin’ up outta the east.”
Ray turned to look. It was still a good ways off, but the sky had become slightly darker to the east. “Yeah. Nothin’ we can do ’bout it but get wet, I guess.” He gazed east for several minutes. “Funny. I ain’t seein’ no flashes of lightning at all—none. Even that far away, you’d think we’d see a couple.”
“Dust storm?”
“Nah. That ain’t what a duster looks like. It’s too high in the sky an’ there’s no wind behind it. It’d be moving a lot faster if it was a duster.” As they watched, the ends of the storm spread wider and the center grew darker and heavier. There was an odd, electric tension in the air, not like the calm before a summer storm, but more like that created when there’s a constant, just barely audible sound that makes the hair rise on the back of a man’s neck.
Both men felt it; neither mentioned it.
About an hour and a half later the horses got screwy, pulling at their stakes, arguing, snapping at one another.
“We’d best hobble them two before they get to fightin’ ’an tear one ’nother up,” Ray said, “or take it in their heads to run off.”
For the first time since Will had known the pinto, the horse moved away from him. When he pursued it, the horse swung his back around, dropped his head, and kicked out with both rear hooves. Had a hoof struck Will, it would have crushed his head like an anvil dropped onto a cherry pie from a considerable height, or crushed his rib cage and punctured his lungs and heart.
Will moved very carefully around the horse and managed to snag the rope that led from the stake. He walked down the rope slowly, humming quietly, shushing the horse when he became fractious again. Finally, he was able to slide the hobbles on the pinto’s forelegs.