The ride back was worrisome for Jeff on several counts: drive the horses too hard, and he might lose them; ease off and they might not make camp by nightfall. Is it possible those wolves had trailed the herd, and were just waiting for the cloak of night to attack? Was the prospector to be trusted, or did he have something to do with the murder of those men?

“I’d check the man’s boots, first thing,” Cal opined. “One article most thieves’ll covet, is a good set of boots. If his boots is new, but the size is off, I’d say most likely he killed and robbed. ‘em.”

“He’d have had help,” Jeff insisted. “That one body looked like a posse shot him up.”

“Alright, maybe they’s fugitives. On’y from all I know, a posse wants to share a reward, they gotta haul back the body as proof.” Cal turned his head and spat off to the side before concluding, “Ain’t nothing righteous in that killing, Major.”

The sun was but a sliver of orange rind on the horizon as they inched their way into camp. The prospector had organized the posting of torches. He pointed to a few large pockmarks in the sand.

“Hid the traps below the sand. Careful not to grit the mechanism. Oughtta surprise any unwelcome guests.”

Jeff nodded approval, and stole a peak at the prospector’s feet: work boots, not for riding, and pretty near out at the sole. Jeff made a quick count of the horses, and found them all accounted for, hobbled at the front ankles and wearing dark hoods over their eyes. The howling might scare them to death, but at least they wouldn’t stampede. The last cowhand, Andrew Simmons, crouching in a pit and visible only from the shoulders up, swung the prospector’s pickaxe.

“That there’s a deadfall. Figure to cover it over with my tent, some dirt and grass over that. Would work better if’n we had spikes for the bottom.”

“There’s a spare wheel for the wagon. Take the spokes and sharpen the tips.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Wait. Where’s Benny?” Jeff asked.

The prospector shook his head, “Not doing so well, Major. Not well ‘t’all.”

Jeff found Benny sweating on an improvised pallet, his head propped up by a saddle. Somewhere between sleep and delirium, Benny shivered with every muscle clenched. Jeff sent Calvin to rummage through the wagon for medicine, anything that might bring the fever down.

“Likely that arm’s infected,” the prospector whispered. “Might call for a hard choice.”

“You’re not talking about taking his arm?”

“Let’s hope it’s only an arm, Major. If he’s got the hydrophobia. I seen it before; it sure ain’t pretty…”

Jeff grabbed the old coot and shook him hard.

“Do you know what I’ve seen that’s not pretty? Dead bodies on your land. Not my men. Others. Shot and hastily buried. Their clothes stripped off them. Perhaps you can explain that to me?”

The prospector stared bewildered. “Men? You’s the first men I’s seen in a month. Two.”

“These men weren’t dead more than a day. Maybe they were after your claim. They threatened you. You had it out with them. You were going to bury them decently, but our herd came pushing through, so you had to do it quickly. You left them exposed.”

“Major, I don’t have the vaguest notion what you are talkin’ ‘bout.”

Jeff saw no dissemblance in the old man’s face. He loosened his grip. “Best get to those spikes for the deadfall.”

“Yes, Major. Right away.”

The last glimmer of the sun’s corona melted behind the hills. A low howl reverberated, a sinister wave washing the valley floor. Jeff felt a tremor in his boots shoot up his spine. Turning he saw a chromium moon, entirely full. A second howl sliced through him and he shouted, “Light the torches! Now!”

He grabbed a burning ember from the fire and ran to the periphery. He lit the torches on the camp’s left side as Cal swept about the right. The prospector furiously whittled a wheel spoke to a spear-sharp point, then dropped it and started another. It took another hour before all the spikes were ready, an hour in which the horses grew frantic and Benny seemed to descend into madness, in which Jeff, Andrew and Cal lay on the ground surveying the terrain below the torchlight. Finally, the stakes were embedded, the pit filled with an inch of lamp oil, the prospector’s tent laid atop, and the edges of the tent covered with dust to obscure the boundary of the pit.

Jeff was satisfied they’d made the best camp possible considering the open ground: six torches ringed the camp, between each torch was an iron trap hidden beneath the dust. The men spaced themselves out, lying on the ground, their rifles or shotguns pointed toward the darkness. In the center was the wagon, Benny’s pallet, and the horses, with the deadfall as their last defense. Jeff’s greatest fear was an attack on the herd that caused a stampede of the camp. For that reason, they’d camped farther from the herd than usual, hoping the beasts would content themselves with beef, though in his heart he sensed they preferred human flesh.

The volume of the howls increased; Cal briefly left his post to soothe the horses with a gentle touch and a bribe of sugar cubes. Benny was not as easily placated; he writhed, gnashed his teeth and moaned in his delirium. Jeff, straining to filter out the background noise as he peered into the darkness, felt the camp enveloped in deathly silence, suddenly broken by a low snarl. Benny answered, bolting upright and crying out. Jeff saw him wild-eyed, crazed, scramble to his feet and charge the intruder. A paroxysm had seized Benny, impelling him towards certain death. Jeff lunged from his crouched station and tackled the sergeant. But Benny’s strength in the throes of his fit was unworldly; he shed the Major with a swift blow from his good arm and kicked his way forward, disappearing beyond the torch line.

“Benny!” Jeff wailed, and unthinking, gave chase, almost reaching the outer ring of the camp, when an explosive growl and abrupt lunge from the curtain of darkness, propelled him backwards. A wolf crouched to charge, but a fusillade of rifle shots pierced the air. Stung, the beast darted left, determined to snatch Jeff in its jaws. A fortunate misstep, as a trap sprang with the crack of a cleaver splitting bone. The beast yowled, but lurched on, tripped as the anchor chain snapped taut. Then, straining to break the chain or shed its near-severed limb, the beast clawed forward.

Jeff scrambled back to retrieve his rifle, when a second wolf darted into camp, cutting him off from his weapon. Jeff hit the dirt, immediately opening the wolf to his comrades’ fire. Jeff rolled to the fringe of the deadfall, inviting a last, fateful lunge from the trapped wolf. The shredded sinews of its hind leg snapped, freeing the beast to charge after Jeff. The Major’s standing jump cleared the deadfall, as the unlucky beast dropped into the pit. The stakes found their mark; the beast cried like hell unleashed, writhing and clawing at the sides of the pit.

Jeff grabbed a smoking brand from the campfire, and watched as the second wolf dodged bullets and the first managed to get paws, head and shoulders above the confines of the pit. When the second wolf lowered its snout to inspect the pit, Jeff struck, tossing the brand and igniting the oil, immolating the trapped wolf. The flare of the oil singed the face of the second, blinding it. The prospector then charged with fixed bayonet, dispatching the second wolf onto the holocaust.

The stench of charred hair and flesh fouled the air, and, for a moment, an eerie calm shrouded the camp. Keeping their eyes on the periphery, the men drew together, wondering if the attack was over, if, after the losses of last night, these two had been all of the pack remaining. Then came the answer, not in a plaintive howl or insolent snarl, but a tomb-silent march to the border of darkness and light, where, standing like sentinels of hell, the cold-eyed dogs bared razor teeth, flared black nostrils and leapt.

Cal was taken first. His shot missed wide, and the light-fast cur was on him, tearing his throat open so he choked on his hemorrhage. Then Andrew was overrun, tackled and devoured Jeff kept up his fire until his rifle jammed, then retreated to the wagon to retrieve a shotgun, unloading it in the breast of a beast, which landed dead atop him, slamming him against the hub of a wheel. Momentarily dazed, Jeff rolled under the wagon and crawled on his belly toward the horses, bucking furiously as they tried to run free. He found the prospector hunkered down behind his Eloise, and whimpering like a child.

The predators paced in a deliberate circle around the horses, which froze, conceding the inevitable deathblow. Jeff peered through the horses’ legs into the gray eyes of a merciless hunter.

“Now it’s us, Major,” the prospector sobbed. “Now we’re dead and for what? For this?” He clutched a pouch of silver within the donkey’s saddlebag. “Take it, y’fiends! Take it back to hell!”

He threw a sack of silver and the wolf jumped back with a yelp. It paced back and forth, refusing to advance beyond the bag. His two companions joined in a mournful chorus. They turned and kicked dirt with their hind legs onto the bag, and loudly wailed from its offense.

Jeff fingered the slim chain at this throat, down to the locket. His mind flashed back to the previous night, the wolf on his chest, the fangs by some force contained, even repulsed.

“The silver,” he gasped. “That’s why the wolves wouldn’t charge the mine. They don’t like silver.”

The prospector pulled another pouch from the saddlebag. He scooped out some dust and salted his hair and his beard. He gave a third pouch to Jeff who did the same. When they’d gone through the stash and thoroughly powdered themselves, they slowly rose from their knees to a crouch and edged their way back along the wagon. The wolves mirrored their movements, but came no closer.

Jeff eyed the shotgun he’d dropped, and reached out his toe to slide the stock toward him. He stretched an arm back into the wagon, grabbing a pair of shells. The prospector stood at his side, presenting his rifle, its bayonet ready.

“I got no bullets, Major,” the prospector wheezed. “How fast can you reload that shotgun?”

“All depends on how the silver deters them.”

“No matter how it sticks in their gullet, they ain’t gonna let you grab up that gun.”

Jeff slowly lowered himself to a knee.

“I can keep one off you, but not three.”

“Stick one, then roll under the wagon.”

Jeff laid his hand on the shotgun stock. The lead wolf tilted its head, discerning well the Major’s intent.

“That plan ain’t, uh, altogether complete.”

Jeff snatched the shotgun and threw the latch, before he could jam the shells home, the wolves charged and the prospector lunged. Jeff felt a black shock rumble at his side, a wave a fury that walled off the attack. A fourth wolf, more furious than the rest, tore at the breast of the pack’s leader, and tossed him to the ground. He violently snapped at the cohorts who split and engaged the intruder from either side.

Jeff snapped the shotgun closed and took aim, blasting the flank of one beast, which yowled and rolled, dragging itself clear. He reloaded and took aim again, waiting for the hero wolf to clear, then discharging his shot in the face of a villain. The wounded dabbed his bloody muzzle on the sparse grass, staggered, then limped off in a whimpering retreat. Now two remained, the alpha and the interloper, locked in mortal combat. Jeff reloaded the shotgun again, but the closing click alerted the alpha, who wanted no more of that weapon’s sting. His ears pricked up, and the beast spun about, fleeing camp with their godsend in frenzied pursuit. The last the men heard of their hero was an exultant howl, an apparent celebration of whatever sweet revenge he’d taken.

Still, Jeff and the prospector could not relax. They kept the torches lit, reset the sprung trap (tossing the severed hind leg into the pit) and then recovered the deadfall in anticipation of another attack. They sat with their weapons across their knees until the moon set, then in the first light of dawn, went about the grim work of burying their dead.

Jeff knew he had to get the cattle to better grazing and soon. He seriously questioned whether the horses were dependable. He chose what looked like the freshest, untied the hobbles and threw a saddle over her back. The mare would have none of it, bucking and thrashing her head up and down. With the prospector holding the bridle, Jeff managed to stick the saddle, but the stubborn beast puffed out her barrel against his efforts to cinch it.

“Got some fight left in her,” the prospector chuckled. “That’s a fair sign.”

“I’d thank you to hitch a team to the wagon. We’ll pull out soon’s I get back.”

“And where you fixin’ to go, Major?”

Jeff strapped a shovel to the back of his saddle, and took the reins from the old man. “Going to find Benny.”

The prospector shook his head somberly, but Jeff read in his visage a note of relief; death by dismemberment at least being quicker than the graduated torture of rabid madness. Then came a look of shock, then ecstatic joy.

“Major, look!” he cried. “If that don’t beat the pantalones offa Santa Anna.”

Jeff squinted from the glare of the low sun, focusing on what seemed an apparition, a tattered effigy wafting on the vapor of the simmering horizon. “Benny?” he muttered. Jeff rummaged for a canteen and sprinted towards his friend, who trudged bootless, his clothes mere remnants, hanging in strips from his stiff frame.

“Benny,” Jeff shouted, “you’re alive!” But his friend pivoted away, doubled over and wretched. Jeff crouched toward him, but Benny extended a stiff arm, halting him. Jeff offered the canteen, “Water?” and Benny snatched it quickly, rotating further away, as he drank greedily.

“What’s that on you?’ he grunted.

“What?”

“It’s sickening.”

“We tangled with them last night. I guess we’ve got their stench about us.”

Benny struggled to his feet, and cut a swath around the Major.

“Benny, where were you?”

“The hills. The….”

Jeff stared incredulous as Benny pointed across a vast distance.

“You were…?”

“I found water.” Benny spat; his tone clearly intended to cut short the discussion. Jeff persisted, stepping after him, but Benny threw up his arms and barked defensively. “Aaugh. Stay off me!!” Benny marched toward his pallet and grabbed at his saddle, then as if sensing a threat, turned toward the cloaked pit.

“Major,” the prospector whispered. Jeff ignored him. He watched Benny grab the prospector’s tent and yank it off, revealing the charred carnage.

“Major,” the old man rasped. “His arm.”

Jeff watched in amazement: Benny flapped the dust off the tent and rolled it into a tight mass. His arm, but for a faded, red imprint, was completely healed. Benny stripped off his raged shirt, exchanging it for one out of his saddlebags. He hefted his saddle without any difficulty, and though his mare acted skittish, even spooked by him, Benny got her turned out.

As much as Jeff tended to give Benny air when he was in a humor, he had to confront him. “Benny, your arm. How…?”

Benny shrugged, as if it didn’t merit a mention. “Gonna water the cattle.” He snapped the reins and left Jeff standing in the dust of his wake. He was brought back to attention, when he felt a slight pull on his hair. The prospector jumped back placing a silver fleck in a pouch.

“I know we cain’t recover it all, but I’s at least want to get the big pieces.”

***

It was mid afternoon when they spotted a town. Just on the outskirts was a cattle yard, which, given the attrition, was suitable to accommodate the herd. Jeff considered the guarantee of feed and water, plus the temporary relief of the stressed men from duty, to be well worth the fee. So they drove the cattle through the gates, and checked their horses at the livery.

The decision was then made, based on reactions of townfolk to the sight of them, to find the local bathhouse. Jeff also had in mind getting a doctor to check Benny’s arm, but he’d flatly refused any discussion of the wound. He’d apparently consigned it to the deepest recessions of his memory, along with Goodrich Landing, Miliken’s Bend or any other battle they’d waged together.

The town was a single street of storefronts dominated by a saloon, reminiscent of their last stop, except for the plaza at the far end, which featured a Catholic church with a gallows practically on its portico. The church was built in the Mexican style of a century or so past, but Jeff was more interested in who’d built the gallows, and more importantly, who oversaw its use. But a few minutes later, those dark thoughts lifted as Jeff relaxed in a steaming tub, quite blissful until the prospector leaned over and whispered, “Don’t mind, I’d like to pan your water when yer through.”