Category: Western Publisher: Lulu
Type: Fiction
Pages: 215
Copyright: Jan 10,2005
ISBN-13: 9780557061952
Action packed old time western about a man trying to keep what is his. He takes care of the problems and ends up raising horses with his wife and family of children. Two of the children are rescued Indians.
Old time western and action packed about life in the late 1800. A man trying to do right in life that just wanted to be alone. Unable to get along with other people he became a wolf hunter by a twist of faith. He found his true love thou from a tragedy in her life.
Deputy Sheriff, Cowboy, Wolfer, and then back to a Deputy U.S. Marshal he made a full circle. Lem Dew had been saving his money for years to start a horse ranch in the Yellow Stone Country to have it stolen from him. On the same day he found a massacred party of men with the only survivor a woman that had been with the party. The female’s in his life. His survival in the plains of Kansas while tracking the outlaws who kidnapped his true love.
Excerpt
This seemed like a good place to rest up for a day or two. There was good grass for the horse, water in the creek, plenty of firewood lying around, plenty of shade for lying in, and a cool breeze blowing through here. Lem had done a lot of riding looking for work just to find out there was none around. It was coming on dark and he just brought his horse into camp when off in the distance he could hear what sounded like thunder.
The rumbling didn’t stop as thunder usually does. It kept getting louder as the time when by until he could see the dust and a few of the cattle in the lead. Stampede was his only thought and Lem was getting hold of his saddle when he saw the cattle turning towards the gypsum hills. Lem knew they weren’t coming his way and would probably end up at Taylor Basin. The hills would keep them from scattering a lot and cause the cattle to circle and mill around to a stop.
Settling down by the saddle, he was going to enjoy a cup of coffee. When he saw the riders, coming his way riding like the devil was after them. When they saw Lem, they started shooting in his direction and Lem didn’t like that at all.
Getting to his horse, Lem pulled his head around and picked up a front leg. The horse knew on that command of down the he would lie on his side until Lem pulled on his bridle and said up. It had taken several years of training him while he was living at Eagles place. Eagle had been like a father or older brother to me. His teaching of tracking, hunting, and training horses Lem learned with an open mind that absorbed everything Eagle told him.
By the time the horse had laid down, Lem had his Henry rifle up and it was talking very serious business to the men on horse back. When the rifle hit on an empty chamber, the men who were still in the saddle were turning and running their horses hard to get out of his rifle range. There were three riders coming from the same direction as the others had came from except they stopped out of range of his rifle.
In a few minutes, one of the riders tied a white sack on his rifle and the cowboys came forward with their horses at a walk. Reloading his rifle, Lem was holding it in his left hand, and had drawn his pistol out of its holster. When the cowboys got to within fifty feet of Lem, they stopped. One of them said, “I’m Tully Dodson the owner of the cattle that was stampeded. We aren’t after you but are after the ones lying out there on the prairie or the ones that rode off from here.”
“I’m here resting up and them men came at me shooting. It kind of upset me so I decided to return the favor to them.”
“What are you doing out here anyway?”
“Looking for some place to work and make some money to live on.” Lem replied as he lowered the rifle.
“Will you work for thirty a month and found?”
“Yep, sure would.”
“Grab your gear and start helping to gather our cattle.”
“I’ll start with the horses over there and what weapons them men have. Your best bet on the cattle is headed due east to a natural basin and you’ll have cattle there and all the way back to where you started from.”
“Take your gear and horses due northwest to where our chuck wagon is and gather any cattle in between here and the wagon. If any of the crew is at camp bring them over to that basin you told us about.” He turned to the man on his left while saying, “Go catch one of the horse for his is done been killed.” Tully told them.
Lem reached over getting the horses reins and pulling on them while say up Jumbo, up. The horse got to his feet and he started shaking the dust off of him. “Tully, no need for that because Jumbo is just fine.”
“That’s a well-trained horse. Did you train him?”
“Yep,” Lem answered while reaching for his saddle.
Lem got Jumbo saddled and his gear load. Then rode out and caught up the four horses of the men that had been shooting at me. Coming back to where the men lay, he searched each man taking their money, guns and knifes. Then he headed northwest to find the chuck wagon. That was Lem’s start of herding cattle and moving north. Then after several jobs punching cows to building line camps and moving from outfit to outfit, he was now a wolfer.
Now Lem’s hell was cold and while it numbed the body, the mind couldn’t shake the loneliness that stayed beside him as some damnable ghost rider. The years, the hell, turned him into something strange. Lem drifted from job to job, moving north to Nebraska. He tried herding and punching cattle with the other hands, but there was something about it that made me edgy. Lem knew him self and wasn’t cowhand material, but gone along, mostly for the money and a place to sleep.
Gradually the other hands drifted away from him. However, it wasn’t his fault. I’m what I’m a maverick type of person a hundred-fifty pounds of solid muscle man, standing five foot ten inches and slender as a lean panther. Kind of dark skinned from his Mother being half Osage Indian and his father was a red hair Scottish man.
Lem never got into any fights with the others, but never participated in any of their constant practical joking, either. The ramrod, a short, stocky fellow with a beard that looked like a growth of grizzly fur, had come up to me one night after supper.
“Lem,” the ramrod said, “You aren’t happy here for I can tell just from looking at you. The other boys, they aren’t happy with you around, either. I’m not going to fire you, though, because you’re a good worker and you always hold up your end. I’m going to put you on a different job though, Lem something I think you might be good at the job I need done. You’re going to be a wolfer.” Lem thought back on that foreman’s order almost four years ago. The old beard face had known what he was doing. The job suited him for he was good at it.
After the buffalo disappeared from the big slaughter, the timber wolves moved on, away from the buffalo trails, looking for other game. The cattle that the wolves went after wasn’t game at all, but a distant cousin of the buffalo, cattle the only way Lem liked them was fried with potatoes and onions.
Lem never heard the word before the foreman had given him the job and now he was one of the best in the territory, good in fact, that many people didn’t know his real name they simply called him Wolfer. As far as people were concerned, though Lem hadn’t seen any for a month, and it seemed unlikely he would see any for at least that long in the future with this big blizzard. The snows had blown in from the north, choking the prairie and making narrow trails treacherous with slippery white film.
Professional Reviews
Finally I found another one of Will Welton’s books.
While stationed in the military in Germany I found the Early Times of the White Bear Clan in the recreation room. It being late at night, and not much to do in between my rounds a CQ, I picked the book up and read it. After some time I came across the book about Spoofs Treasure and enjoyed reading that one also which he wrote. These were published in England. When I came across some of his novels at Lulu.com, I found he had incorporated Spoof s Treasure in the novel about Treasures in Indian Territory of Oklahoma and enjoyed the other stories.
This novel is outstanding as usual for the author told the stories as my grand father told them to me.
Best book in my store as a western of the old west.
Ariana's
Book Exchange
1625 Darby Drive Florence, Alabama.
I have had the privlage to read several of the westerns by the author Will Welton and I think this book is one of the best. Althought I have read others of his books that are just as good.
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