The Lobolito
by Gary Clifton
The grizzled old man rode in the lead on a mule so tuckered a dead-level bet wouldn’t give him another mile. Beneath the codger’s traildust-coated slouch hat, little was visible beyond beard and dirt.
“Whoa, mule.” He reined in the exhausted animal and made no attempt to dismount. He lowered the double-barreled .12-gauge from his left shoulder and snagged it by its crude rope sling on his saddle horn. A burst of dust-hot prairie wind fluttered the brim of his hat, but it stayed aboard his head out of habit.
The filthy man sitting in a chair leaned back against the rough log wall, his features hidden by whiskers and shade from the tin porch roof. He stood slowly. The long-barreled Colt at his waist dangled as he rose. “Ain’t wantin’ no trouble with you, McClain.”
“Well now, that’s damned comfortin’, Wilson. We’d be considerable more interested in a turn at your well and some beans iffin they was any available. Maybe a nibble of grain for our livestock?”
“Beans, McClain? You meanin’ cooked or—?”
“Both,” the old man rasped in his fat-man’s wheeze. “We’ve been eatin’ rabbit on the spit for six days. Too much rabbit can give us that cursed rabbit fever. Least that’s whut I hear on the trail.”
Wilson, fixated on the second rider, said, “Too much rabbit ain’t good, I heard too.”
This other rider, behind old man McClain, was a slender, buckskin-clad figure mounted without a saddle on a spotted pinto pony. She slid to the ground, moccasins landing cat-soft in the dust. She stood quietly, holding the pony’s rope halter. A fur pouch hung around her neck. Prominent at the clasp was what appeared to be a pair of wolf ears.
The man on the porch slouched against a post. “McClain, is that the same squaw you been totin’ behind you for years? She ’pears afflicted with consumption or maybe been starved. She can’t outweigh a tomcat.”
“Woman died of the fever last winter up in Nebraska, Wilson. This ’un I bought off French fur traders two summers ago over on the Canadian.”
“Can she talk?”
“Not often. Name’s Aponi. Means ‘beautiful’ in Comanche.”
“How old?” Wilson’s leer was pure lust.
“Around twelve, maybe thirteen.” The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Leave her be.”
“Jes’ tryin’ to be sociable, McClain. Like I said, don’t want no trouble. Get on down and come on up here outta that sun. Tell your squaw water’s y’alls for the takin’. Well’s out back.”
Aponi glanced up at the old man as he dropped heavily off the mule. She led both animals around the side of the small trading post.
Wilson watched her intently as she disappeared around a corner. “McClain, twenty pounds of red beans gonna cost ya’ thirty-five cents.” I got some cooked up on the stove inside. A bowl for each of ya, plus a shot of whiskey gonna be another nickel. Ain’t got no grain, but summer heat ain’t sullied that patch of grass out back. But hey, man, an hour with your squaw and I make it thirty cents for the sack o’ beans... Toss in the other free... Even make it two whiskeys.”
The old man stopped at the bottom of the stoop and brushed back his shoulder pouch, showing a Colt thrust in his waistband. “Bunch o’ years put you deaf, Wilson. She ain’t fer sale.”
Wilson stood on the porch’s edge, his right hand resting on his hip, inches above the holstered Colt. “McClain, like I said when y’all rode up, ain’t wantin’ no trouble... Even if an old coot like yourself might not be as hard to shade as you once was.”
The old man put one moccasin on the step. “Gamblin’ on who you thinkin’ you can shade is damned dumb bidness. Best left in your mouth an’ no further.”
Wilson wilted. “Aw hell, ol’ podner, just funnin’. I saw you gun them two gamblers up at Fort Sumner. I hear you ain’t no U.S. Deputy Marshall no more. Long time between visitors hereabouts. Step on up and I’ll stand for that first whiskey. Does your Injun crave some drinkin’?”
“I’d be takin’ that whiskey. The girl will drink water... An’ you ain’t my podner.”
Aponi came soundlessly from the rear. She looked at the old man, nodded, then squatted in the dust beneath a mesquite bush. Her glance told him she’d not overwatered the animals and had hobbled both in the pasture.
Wilson eyed the girl curiously. “Whut’s her pouch? Looks like maybe wolf parts, McClain.”
McClain sagged heavily in a porch chair. “Them Frenchies told me her mama was killed by a pack of starving wolves but, for some reason, they left the child alive. I didn’t believe them, but they swore them damned ears was stuck by blood to the little Aponi’s carryin’ board. They was so fussed up by the situation, they kept them ears sewed to her wolfskin carryin’ pouch.”
“Stuck to a papoose? Horse crap, McClain.”
“Only repeatin’ what I heard, Wilson. You ain’t suggestin’ I’m lyin’?”
“No, no, hell, no.” Wilson’s voice was edged with fear.
“Them Frenchies swore the kid had some spiritual connection to wolves. Someway, they said, the pouch and ears was a symbol of sisterhood and it bein’ by her cradle had some significance. Them Frenchmen... can’t unnerstan’ half what they say. None of ‘em talk American worth a flip. I don’t believe it myself, but if you wanna get her blade in your guts just stroll on out there and try takin’ that pouch away from her. She calls that thing ‘Lobolito.’”
“Little Wolf?”
The old man nodded. “And leave it alone.”
* * *
The old man and Aponi finished their meager ration of cold beans and the sip of watered whiskey for McClain. Aponi lugged the sacked beans to the rear to tie behind her blanket saddle, still never uttering a word. Then she returned to her spot beneath the mesquite bush.
“Say, McClain, due to your patronizin’ my place, I’d be willing to let the pair of you sleep in that shed outback. We got wolves hereabouts and a passel of coyotes. Inside sleepin’ is plenty safer this time a’ year.”
“A thanks for the offer, Wilson, but they’s a couple hours daylight left, and we gonna start on toward Ft. Belknap this afternoon. I got a fair stand of racoon pelts and four diamondback rattler skins worth a penny down thataway. They say them Yankees up north use rattlers’ hides to make belts. Damned strange.”
Aponi led their animals around and watched while McClain heaved his bulk into the mule’s saddle. She hopped on her pinto. Wilson leered at the buckskin, taut across her backside as she mounted. At that, the two headed southeast.
McClain, wary of perils of the trail, had not intended to travel into darkness. After an hour, he ordered they hold up and make camp for the night by a trickling creek in a secluded draw below the chilly night wind. Aponi set about boiling a batch of beans for supper and consumption the next day.
Age gnaws at all men. Vigilance is a hard companion to satisfy when an old man is exhausted and sleepy. McClain would not suspect that Wilson’s interest in Aponi had brought him along as an uninvited guest.
* * *
The young cavalry lieutenant surveyed the scene then turned to the stagecoach. “Driver, run this by us once more please, sir.”
“We was makin’ the regular run to Belknap, then a passenger from St. Louis spotted trouble with some fancy bee-noculars he was carryin’. Swung over and found this. God a’mighty. Took my passengers on to Belknap and the base commander sent your patrol out.”
The lieutenant turned to a graying, husky sergeant. “Sergeant, what’s your assessment here?”
“Well, sir, since we came by way of Wilson’s Trading Post and found his mare saddled, standing by the well, half-dead of thirst and slashed on one flank by what appears to be a wolf bite, ya’ gotta figure somehow, Wilson was here at the scene.”
The lieutenant stared at him intently.
“Then, sir, the killer, probably Wilson, brained the old man, then somebody planted that bone-handled knife you see in the ripped-up body in Wilson’s chest. At some point, a pack of wolves attacked. Notice, Lieutenant, the old man’s body shows only the wound where he was murdered and no damage by wolves or anything else. I’d wager that mutilated mass there is Wilson’s body only. Wolves don’t seem to have attacked anyone or anything else, ’ceptin’ o’ course the wound on Wilson’s horse. That could have happened when Wilson fled and the wolves dragged him out of his saddle.”
“Wilson murdered McClain... Why?”
“Hard to say, sir. Mingled in this gore seems to be some raccoon pelts. Wilson has a long criminal record, including rape of a woman down at Belknap five years past. Shoulda hanged him then. Maybe killed the old man for some furs?”
“Any idea of how many people were involved?”
“Humans... Hard to say. But they’s tracks of three animals here. Wilson’s horse and two other critters. See here, sir,” he pointed. “The smaller, more round tracks were made by a mule. There’s tracks of a larger horse; not a mule, but unshod in the Indian way.” He looked up at the lieutenant.
“What do you make of that?”
“Well sir, there ain’t no horse part remaining here. Someway, it seems another person was here, wearing moccasins.” He pointed at the ground. “Tracks indicate all three animals fled. Wilson’s to where we found her at the trading post. Musta been whoever was wearin’ the moccasins rode one animal — I’d guess it would be the unshod horse — leading the mule.
“Sergeant, take five men and follow those tracks.”
“Sir, Corporal Johnson just sent a trooper back with word those tracks disappear beyond that rise. He was embarrassed to say, but he swears the horse trail has been obliterated for miles by wolves running through it. However, sir, Corporal Johnson also said they’d found a mule, uninjured, grazing beside the wolf trail. No sign of that unshod horse. Possible sir, the mule and unshod horse fled on their own and there was no third person here.”
“No third person, Sergeant? Then who stabbed Wilson?”
“Good point, sir.”
The lieutenant wiped his forehead with a bandana. “Man, they said back at West Point, the west was wild and unsettled. Without a trail, we’ll never find anyone else involved here. The report on this is going to be a nightmare. Bury what remains we can identify as human here, then mount the men up, Sergeant. We’re going back to Belknap. Bring the mule. Maybe it can help with identification of this old man.”
Copyright © 2023 by Gary Clifton
