A Dusty Tires Short Story

By Dusty Tires

“Let’s lift our hearts up/Let’s let our hair down/Rangers at midnight cleaning out all of the town…”  — Crack the Sky, 1976

The two men’s snowshoes made soft crunching noises in the icy snow as they made their way across a snowfield to a line of pine trees glistening in the moonlight.

Orrin Hart, the one in the lead, wore moosehide leggings and a fur-trimmed sealskin coat. His mittened hands held a scoped Winchester .30-.30 repeating rifle. On his belt was a holstered Colt .45 revolver and a sheathed Bowie knife. He was muscular, dark, brooding, and bearded.

The other man, Lt. William Neall, wore the trim red uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police under his heavy woolen overcoat. He carried a carbine and had a Smith & Wesson .38 on his shiny black leather belt. In his backpack he also carried a number of items including a large-bore pistol used to shoot emergency flares. He was lean, fair, clear-eyed, smooth-shaven, and a few years younger than his companion.

The two men had been tracking their quarry, who was a certain man wanted for the murder of a constable in the district, for two days and as many nights. They had nearly captured him in a mining camp they had followed him from earlier that day.

Now they were hungry, thirsty, cold, and bone tired. But they had tracks to follow in the crusty snow, and they knew they were closing in.

“He’s gotta be more tired than we are, Lieutenant,” Hart said, pointing to the tracks in the snow at their feet. “He’s not wearin’ snowshoes and he took off in a hurry. His footsteps are gettin’ closer together. He’s up here close by.”

The Mountie put a hand on his companion’s shoulder. “Let’s rest here a minute in this pine grove,” he said. “Unlike you, I can’t march for miles on an empty stomach. I need a drink and a bite to eat.”

They swallowed tepid coffee and chewed dried beef and hardtack for a few moments. Hart peered through binoculars and moved the lenses slowly along the shadowed horizon.

“If I was waitin’ to ambush two trackers, I’d do it up there,” he said. Hart pointed to a rocky bluff that rose above the tree line.

“Do you think he’s watching us now?” asked Neall.

“Probably. But he’s gotta be exhausted.” Hart turned toward Neall. “I knew I was a damn fool for lettin’ you talk me into this wild goose chase.”

“That and the 500 dollars in reward money,” Neall reminded him. That was quite a sum in February 1911.

“Well, you got a point there.” Hart was an American from Montana, a place not unlike Alberta, where they were tonight, except the Canadian province was closer to the Arctic Circle and was that much colder. Neall was a native-born Canadian from Peterborough, Ontario.

The man they were following, a miner named Hico Kepler, had shot the constable in the leg during an argument over a card game in Fort McLeod. It hadn’t been meant as a killing shot, since the game was friendly.

Unfortunately, the bullet had struck an artery and the constable had bled to death. The RCMP had begun procedures to arrest Kepler but he had run like a rabbit before he could be captured. The deceased was a lawman so they were compelled to hunt Kepler down. They had been following the escapee west on horseback for two days and a night as he attempted to work his way into the Rockies. They were now approaching the foothills known as the Porcupine Hills.

The pair had left their horses at a mining camp, since deep snow crusted over by ice had made it difficult for horses to get through. Hart continued to peer through the binoculars and then handed the glasses to Lt. Neall. “Follow them tracks in the snow up ahead and tell me what you see.”

Neall studied for a full minute, straining to see details in the pale moonlight. “It looks like another set of tracks joining his.”

“You win the prize. We’ll see when we get closer, but I’m goin’ to hazard a guess that it’s not one set of tracks, but many. Wolves,” he said, emphasizing the last word with a grimace that made Neall shudder.

They finished their scant meal, checked their weapons, and began walking through the icy snow again.

Hart and Neall paused where the new tracks met the human ones. As Hart had figured, the tracks were made by wolves — at least six of them, he judged.

The wolves’ tracks trailed alongside the man’s footprints, then meandered on into the woods on a parallel course.

“Remember, he’s got a pistol,” Neall said.

“He may need it before we find him,” Hart replied.

Another mile went by and they ascended the bluff above the pine trees. Hart stopped and looked through the binoculars again. The trail continued down the bluff’s other side into a rocky area with sparse stands of pine.

“He’s been really slowin’ down. I wonder if he realizes the wolves are onto him,” Hart said.

Suddenly a gunshot echoed through the night air, then another. The two men hunched down initially, then started out again, quickening their pace. Another shot rang out, closer this time. They heard yelps and growls that set the hair on the backs of their necks on end.

“Hey, Hico!” Hart yelled. “We’re right behind ya! We’ll help! Don’t shoot!”

They heard a man’s strangled cry. Another two shots rang out in quick succession. “Help! Help me! H—aaaah!”

They arrived at the scene within 10 minutes. They approached slowly and warily with rifles at the ready. Then they saw that Kepler’s body lay unmoving atop an outcrop of rock, surrounded by what appeared to be hundreds of wolf tracks that churned bloody snow all around him. His pistol lay in the snow next to him. The nearby bodies of three wolves lay silent as well.

Neall knelt next to the man and struck a match to see him better. His neck was torn open, and the snow around his last-stand rock was red with blood. Neall looked at Hart and shook his head grimly, then removed his backpack, taking out a 3A Special Kodak folding camera to record the fatal scene in the moonlight.

Hart studied the tracks that radiated from the killing site. He stood and looked closely in all directions for a few minutes before he spoke.

“Hurry up with those photographs. We need to start back to where we came from pronto. Those wolves probably didn’t take too kindly to their meal being interrupted. They’ll start trailing us unless they can find an easier meal,” he said.

“I’m almost done,” Neall replied.

Hart then began cutting some sturdy pine boughs to make a makeshift travois. When Neall was finished with the camera work, he helped tie Kepler’s body to the travois with ropes from their packs.

Then Hart put the handles of the travois over his shoulders and began towing the burden, and they started back down the trail they had just made to get to the site.

They came down from the rocky bluff and back into more heavily forested country. All too soon, they heard the wolves’ howls.

“Wolves are smart and social critters,” Hart said. “That howling means, ‘Meat on two legs traveling east, come with us for supper,’ or something like that.”

Neall grunted and kept up a steady pace leading Hart. He looked continually left, forward and right as he strode, trying to focus on any hidden dangers.

Both men knew that they were a good 12 miles from the mining company camp they had started from. The camp was merely a rustic scattering of a few log cabins, a company office building, a mess hall, shower house, and several equipment barns. But it offered shelter, heat, food and drink, and social contact with fellow humans. It also provided the only gravel road from this backcountry that led to the nearest good-sized town, Fort McLeod.

“If we can maintain three miles an hour, that puts us four hours from the camp,” said Hart.

They both knew they needed to maintain a steady pace. There was no point in trying to hurry. A fall with an injury could end up being fatal in wolf country, especially with temperatures below zero. The wolves could easily outpace any rate they could muster.

“We’ll go as far as we can without exhausting ourselves, then stop to rest. We’ll need to start a fire quick-like when the time comes to stop. One man starts the fire, the other stands ready to shoot,” Hart said between labored breaths.

“What if we start to see them closing in while we’re on the trail?”

“Fire a pistol shot. One round.”

After a while, they switched the travois burden from Hart to Neall and labored on. The wolves’ cries were getting louder and closer.

They had traveled about 6 miles when Neall’s snowshoe struck a felled log. He dropped the travois and tumbled heavily into the snow. His left ankle wrenched with a stabbing pain.

“You all right?” Hart asked.

“Ankle,” Neall said through gritted teeth.

“Can you put any weight on it? Try standin’ up.”

Neall stood shakily and began pushing off with his snowshoes. He gave out an anguished cry when he tried to move with the injured ankle.

“It may be broken,” he said.

Hart looked around. “We’re wolf bait if we stay here too long. They’ll surround us. Understand?”

Neall nodded.

“Get on the travois.”

“But you…”

“Get on. Here’s my knife. Put it on your belt. Keep your pistol handy. And get out that flare gun you packed.”

Hart struggled at first to drag the added weight behind him, but once he got going, he developed a steady gait, admittedly slower than before. He didn’t want to think what would happen if he had to stop before he was ready.

The next hour was grim and quiet, just Hart’s labored breathing and the sound of snow crunching below his snowshoes. The terrain was relatively flat, no wind blew, and the moon drew lower and lower in the early morning sky.

At a point where he reckoned they were about 2 miles from camp, he told Neall, “Fire a shot.” Neall fired into the darkness, and in the sudden flash of light he was horrified to see more than a dozen dark forms suddenly jump and run back to a safer following distance.

“How many?”

“At least 12 that I could see,” Neall said.

“How far behind us?”

“About 40 or 50 feet.”

Hart knew that when the wolves got within striking distance they would attack. They were getting close to that now.

“Can you get some tinder and kindling ready to start a fire while we’re moving? We’re gonna need to make a stand. Get out that flare gun, too.”

“Got it.”

Neall pulled out a leather pouch containing matches and some cotton fluff from his pack and stuffed it in a coat pocket. As they moved, he grabbed at pine branches as they passed trees, soon gathering a couple handfuls of them. Setting these in his lap, he then pulled larger, dead branches from trees they passed.

“I’m ready,” he said.

“Fire a shot from your pistol,” Hart said. He did, and again wolves scattered, but they didn’t retreat as far away this time.

The pair stopped next to a felled tree. “Now quick, make your fire here,” Hart said, pointing to a clear spot a few feet out from the tree. He pulled out his rifle.

The match struck, sparks flew, and a fire came to life. In a minute it was blazing. Neall scrambled to feed it with larger fuel from around the tree.

In the blaze of firelight they could see the wolves’ eyes upon them. “Aim carefully,” Hart said. “Make every shot a kill.”

Both men fired their rifles at the shadowy figures. Howls, snarls and whimpers followed. Neall saw a wolf lunging toward him. He fired, and another shadowy figure came out of the gunsmoke. He fired again.

After only a few seconds, Hart’s hand gripped his shoulder. “Stop. More wood on the fire! Quick!”

He did so, while Hart’s rifle reported twice again. “How many did you get?” Hart asked.

“Two for sure, maybe three.”

“I got five. But they will come at us again. Keep that fire up!”

The wolves seemed to have retreated back out of view into the woods.

“Do we move?” Neall asked.

“Yeah. Can you gather some more tinder and kindling?”

“Sure.”

“Make sure you have that flare gun ready, too.”

They swiftly began moving again, kicking over the fire. Neall grabbed a burning branch as they left.

Neall fired his pistol again as he saw a wolf getting too bold. But he failed to see another dark form that lunged in from his left flank. It snarled and snapped at him. He swung the flaming branch at the wolf in a shower of sparks and it retreated a bit.

Two more came in close from behind. Neall threw the branch and fired his pistol wildly, and after one shot realized the chamber was empty. He felt sharp teeth clamping onto his injured ankle. He pulled Hart’s huge Bowie knife from his sheath and slashed at the wolf repeatedly.

The jaws slackened their grip but two more wolves dove into the fray. Neall sheathed the knife and pulled out the flare gun, firing it directly into the wolves at his legs. The flare exploded in a fireball of red and white heat, searing his own pants, coat and hair as it caused sheer havoc among the wolves. The wolves were now yelping with pain as they tried to get away from the flare’s white-hot heat.

Neall could feel the heat through the layers of his clothing and hurriedly brushed away burning embers. They slowly gained ground from the injured and confused wolves.

Hart continued pulling his burden. “You OK?” he asked.

“I’m OK,” Neall panted. “For now.”

Another half hour, with wolves still following them at a safer distance, put them at the outskirts of the camp, Hart judged. He could smell wood smoke. The sky was turning a dim gray. But the wolves still trailed them.

Suddenly the remains of the wolfpack disappeared into the woods. “They seem to be turning back,” Neall said.

“Maybe they smell humans in large numbers,” Hart said. “Dawn is comin’, too.” Then he saw the real reason the wolves had hightailed it. A huge brown grizzly bear was standing near their trail ahead of them, shaking his head from side to side.

Hart was surprised but didn’t stop. He veered off to the left and kept right on going past the equally surprised bear. Neall aimed his flare gun on the beast as they passed but held his fire.

Ten minutes later, Hart staggered into camp with his burden. The sun was barely up, and men were starting to emerge from cabins to go to the latrines and mess hall, then go to work.

Several of the workers stopped, then came over to Hart, Neall and the deceased Kepler.

“Lend a hand,” said one miner, a Scotsman. “These boys are nearly played oot.”

A while later, after eating a breakfast of corn meal pancakes, maple syrup and fried bacon, the pair sat drinking steaming black coffee in front of a wood stove in the mine superintendent’s cabin. Hart smoked a cigar and Neall rolled a cigarette. The mining company’s doctor was splinting his injured ankle.

They had told the mine superintendent their story. After they were finished, the Norwegian-born man took a puff from his pipe and shook his head.

“You vas lucky, dat’s for sure,” he said, pointing at them with his pipe. “So ya fired a flare gun inta all dem wolves! That were a smart move fer sure. I wish I’d been dere to see dat! But how did ye get past de ol’ bear, eh?”

Hart shook his head. “That ol’ bear must have just come out of his den early from hibernation. Mebbe all our noise woke him up. I figger he might not have been awake enough just yet to do us any harm.”

The old miner slapped his knee and howled with laughter. “So a scout and a Mountie were saved from a pack of ravenous wolves by a sleepy ol’ teddy bear!”

Hart grinned and winked at Neall. “I’m just glad that ol’ teddy bear wasn’t awake enough to get grouchy yet.”

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