Sheep's Clothing
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive ~ Sir Walter Scott.
Billy Adams liked to fight. He'd been raised with four brothers, so pounding on others and being pounded on himself was as natural to him as breathing. This sunny Saturday afternoon, with several pints of beer and the joy of living coursing through his veins, he was seeking a partner for a friendly round of fisticuffs.
Jess Harper, on the other hand, did not like to fight. Fighting to him was a necessary evil, though he was good at it. Hit 'em quick, hit 'em hard, and if you had to, hit 'em dirty; that was his philosophy. And of course make sure the other man was going to stay down once you turned your back on him.
So it was too bad that Jess Harper was the first person Billy Adams ran into, there on the boardwalk outside the saloon. It was like watching a hound puppy pounce gleefully on a cougar's tail, and onlookers could only shake their heads and suggest that Billy got off pretty easy, all things considered. But damn, that new hand of Slim Sherman's had a short fuse.
It started with Billy bumping Jess and Jess telling him tersely to watch where he was going, friend. That was all Billy needed. He whooped and swung, sending the other man's hat flying. Jess brushed off Billy's haymaker, back-fisted him across the mouth and then landed a short punch to the gut. Billy doubled over and Jess clubbed him neatly and brutally behind one ear, dropping Billy to the ground like a spilled sack of feed. It wasn't Marquis of Queensberry but it was effective.
Jess was picking up his hat when a small pair of black riding boots stepped into view. As he straightened, his glance travelled up past the boot-tops to the hem of a corduroy skirt, to a pink shirtwaist and buckskin jacket and finally stopped at a pair of scornful dark eyes.
They raked him up and down before the owner turned away. She flipped a long tawny braid back over her shoulder and knelt down next to Billy. "Somebody bring me some water," she commanded, and a nearby puncher hastily ducked his hat into the horse trough and presented it to her, dripping full.
"C'mon, Billy," she urged as she gently patted fistfuls of it over the unconscious young man's face. "Wake up an' talk to me."
When Billy did not respond, she lifted one of his eyelids. What she saw there made her shoot another contemptuous glance at Jess.
"Tad, Barney – lend a hand, we need to get him over to Doc Hansen's." The two cowboys thus summoned scooped Billy up by his armpits and knees, and she rose to her feet to follow them. "I think he's got a concussion, thanks to you."
This last remark was tossed in Jess' direction. He stepped in front of her. "Now wait a minute, miss – "
Kate Ferguson lifted her chin and met his angry glare. For her part, she'd seen his kind before – they passed through frontier towns like Laramie frequently, tough young loners with their holsters tied down and a lurking wildness about them, as though the wolf inside was only asleep. She started to walk past but he put a hand on her arm.
"I'm Jess Harper—"
"I know who you are. In fact, I've heard all about you." Her tone said plainly that she'd heard nothing good. "You work out at the Sherman Ranch. What I can't figger out is why a decent, law-abidin' man like Slim Sherman would allow a gunslick like you anywheres near his place."
"Mebbe he hired me 'cos I'm a top hand," he snapped.
She snorted in disbelief. "You're a drifter an' a fast gun. An' you're real good at beatin' up on folks. Should I be shakin' in my boots right now?"
"I got no quarrel with you!" He glowered at her.
"No, poor harmless young'uns like Billy are more your style, ain't they?" She shot back and brushed by him, leaving Jess to reflect bitterly that women just didn't fight fair.
He was still smoldering when he met Slim at the mercantile and helped load up the wagon with the week's supplies. Slim had heard about the fight already, but decided to hold his peace. He didn't approve of Jess going off half-cocked but Billy, in all fairness, was the one who started it. He let Jess tell his version which was a bare statement of facts until it came to the infuriating young woman in the pink shirtwaist – Jess relieved his feelings with a few choice comments, and Slim hid a grin.
"Little half-pint piece of sass, orderin' grown men around. An' them fools runnin' to do her biddin' like she was the Queen o' Sheba. I'd like to see the day any girl could make me jump like that."
Slim told him about her as they drove back to the ranch. Ben Ferguson had come back from the war to a hardscrabble Arkansas farm, took one look at his prospects there and quickly hit the road West. If Mrs. Ferguson had still been alive, he might have reconsidered, but she died about the time the battered remnant of Ferguson's regiment was limping away from Appomattox. All that was left when he got home was his daughter, and that hardy and foresighted child had no objections to pulling up stakes and taking a chance on something better. For six years she'd worked side by side with her father and a few hands to build a prosperous ranch. She was eighteen now, and the right kind of girl for this country; smart as paint, tough as whit-leather and lovely as a mountain rose.
"I have trouble rememberin' to call her Kate—she doesn't like bein' called Katie any more. We got to be good friends when they first came here an' she was a just a little kid. Of course, she's still not very big. Pretty, though. She's certainly grown up pretty."
"Yeah. Cuter'n a calico kitten an' twict as ready to scratch an' claw a man." Jess said sourly.
"What's the matter, Jess? Don't you like a gal with a little fire?"
"Sure I do. Just not a whole dadgum kitchen stove of it."
"Acted kind of mad, did she?" Slim bit the inside of his lip to keep from laughing out loud.
"I don't think she was actin'."
It was shortly after breakfast a few days later when Jess started up into the hills to look for some strayed stock. His trail led him along Benford Creek, riotously full with recent snowmelt and sparkling in the early summer sunlight. He was letting his horse pick its way through the brush and had just reached into his pocket for the makings when he heard another rider approaching. He slewed in the saddle to check.
Kate Ferguson was coming down the opposite bank on a buckskin cowpony. She had a carbine in one hand and was examining the ground as she rode along. One of her favorite cats had died a gruesome and bloody death early that morning, not a stone's throw from the Ferguson house, and she had been following the murderer's paw prints for the past two hours with vengeance on her mind.
A flicker of movement in an alder clump about fifty yards ahead of the girl caught Jess' eye, and he glimpsed the crouching form of a timber wolf about the same time his horse scented the beast and bugled in fear. He slapped leather and yelled a warning, spurring forward and trying to get a shot off as his horse fell and dumped him into four feet of ice-cold water. He thought he saw a dark streak bolting past and heard two sharp cracks. Then the creek covered his head and he swallowed involuntarily and dropped his six-gun.
The cold hit his chest like a mule kick. He clawed his way to the surface, coughing up water, lost his footing on the smooth stones of the creek bed and went under again. He could feel the horse thrashing around beside him and a stirrup iron caught him on the side of the head. He made a blind grab towards the saddle, got his hands around the horn, and then he was being dragged up and out of the stream. When his knees hit dry ground he let go and dropped to all fours. He spat out the last of the freezing water and looked up.
The half-pint piece of sass was holding his reins, and her boots and the bottom of her skirt were wet where she'd ridden into the creek to lead his horse out. She still carried the carbine and the set of her mouth looked as though she was trying not to grin.
"Is that you, Mr. Harper?" she asked sweetly, when she saw that he was in a condition to hear her. "You dang near spoiled my shot when you hollered."
He saw the body of the wolf stretched out in the grass and felt the failure of his would-be rescue sear his soul like a red-hot branding iron. Here had been the chance to show her – he wasn't sure just what, but doggone it, he would have shown her, anyway – and a slippery creek bank and a tangle-footed cayuse had robbed him of his moment. The taste of defeat lay like ashes in his mouth.
"You know," she remarked. "I always thought the whole point to ridin' was to keep the horse between you an' the ground. I reckon I've been mistook all these years. Does your head hurt? You're bleedin'."
"I'm fine," he said quietly. He got to his feet and covered the distance to the wolf's body in a few quick strides. "Aw…poor ol' boy!"
He stooped and patted the still form.
"What?" Kate asked sharply.
"Of course you didn't know, Miss Kate. I sure don't blame you, but I tried – I really tried – to warn you in time to keep you from shootin' Blackie." He spoke with just a hint of gentlemanly reproof.
"Shootin' who?"
"This here wolf – why, he's one o' Andy Sherman's pets. You know that boy's got hisself a reg'lar menagerie over to the ranch. He raised this one from a cub. Poor Andy! This is just about goin' to break his heart."
The girl's eyes glistened and she dropped her lashes over them. "I'm real sorry," she said contritely. "But he was so big an' it looked like he was goin' to charge me – "
"I bet he thought you had somethin' for him to eat. Andy taught him to jump like that after table scraps. Darn fool kid! He might 'a knowed Blackie would scare the wrong person someday." He shook his head and sighed.
"I could've shot you! You tried to ride right between us," she said, in shocked amazement. "You was goin' to risk your life for Andy's pet. Oh, Mr. Harper – that was so brave of you – "
A warm feeling spread through his chest, almost enough to make him forget his sodden clothes. She was looking at him as though he deserved a medal. "I'm real fond o' animals," he admitted modestly.
Kate kneed her pony up beside him and extended one small, gauntleted hand. "Can you ever forgive me? I'm only a girl, and I was so scared. I'm awful sorry! I don't know how I'm goin' to face Andy."
Jess took her hand and held it for a little longer than strictly necessary; just to let her know there were no hard feelings. "Don't let's talk about it no more, Miss Kate. I reckon he was enough to frighten anybody. I'll explain it to Andy."
The girl bent closer and her voice was soft with tender sympathy. "Are you sure? I would hate to have to tell somebody that one of their pets got killed. An' how wonderful of you to try an' save him! I don't know many men would've done that."
He basked in the glow of her admiration. "It weren't nothin'. You look kinder upset, Miss Kate – would…would you like me to take you home?"
Later that day Kate rode up to the Sherman ranch, after first making sure that Jess was nowhere in sight. Slim lifted her down from the saddle and draped one arm over her shoulders. He used to pull her pigtails, back in the old days when she was all knees and elbows and had a kid's crush on him, and she still allowed him a small degree of brotherly familiarity.
"I got a favor to ask you, Slim," she confided.
"Whatever you want, Kate," he grinned down at her. "Within reason, that is."
"That new hand of yours – name of Harper?"
Slim nodded, warily. "What's he done now?"
"Tried to buffalo me is all," she reassured him. "I guess he ain't been around long enough to know about ol' Croppy. You remember that black lobo wolf with the one ear missin' that's been killin' our calves for the last four, five years?"
Slim remembered.
"Well, I got him this morning over by Benford Creek. That Harper, he was there too but I shot first. Oh, I c'd see he was mad as fire! Then he fed me a load of moonshine about me makin' a mistake an' it bein' a pet of Andy's." Her dark eyes crinkled at the corners and she chuckled softly.
"I reckon he was tryin' to get even for getting' the jump on him an'…an' a few other things. So I played along. He actually thinks I believed him. He even thinks I agreed to go to the dance with him next Saturday on account of I feel so bad about killin' Andy's wolf. So don't you put him wise, Slim." She warned him.
"You fixin' to bag another wolf?" he teased her.
"C'mon, I'm just goin' to wing him a little. Promise you won't tell?"
Slim promised. He reflected that it wasn't fair; Kate was only a slip of a girl, and Jess Harper was trouble in spades, wild as summer lightning and ornery as a grizzly bear.
The poor boy didn't stand a chance.