The Last Days of Wolf Garnett (12 page)

Wompler crouched on the lip of the wash. Slowly, Gault began clearing away some of the loose clay. What he had unearthed was not the missing express agent but the brown and white flank of a spotted calf.

Wompler slid into the wash for a closer look. "Well," he said, breaking an uneasy silence, "maybe Shorty wasn't buryin' the express agent after all."

"Why would he go to the trouble of buryin' a calf? When a cow gets itself killed on the prairie, you leave it where it falls. Unless it's diseased, then you bum it."

"That's what a cowman would do. These are farmers— and sometimes there's no explainin' the things a sodbuster will do." The former deputy began kicking dirt back into the hole. "Maybe Esther took the calf as a pet, and couldn't bear to leave it for the buzzards. There's no explainin' women, either."

Gault smiled grimly. "It still doesn't tell me what happened to that express agent."

The two men finished filling the hole and climbed out of the wash. Wompler built himself a smoke and said, "You want to turn around and see if we can find Torgason and the Circle-R branding crew?"

Gault was reluctant to leave the farm, but he could think of no good reason for lingering there; he was no pink-cheeked cowhand looking for excuses to moon over Esther Garnett.

Wompler tramped into the river underbrush where he had tied the horses. In a few minutes he came back leading the animals, and Gault was quick to notice the pinched look of apprehension about the ex-deputy's eyes. "Might be," he said quietly, "we got ourselves some trouble. Somebody's watchin' us. Back there in the brush."

Gault studied the thicket from beneath the brim of his hat. "I don't see anything."

"He's there." Wompler wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "You think it's Shorty Pike? He's already had one try at killin' you; maybe he's lookin' to finish the job."

"Maybe…" Gault took the buckskin's reins and quickly put the animal between himself and the thicket, a common-sense precaution that Harry Wompler had already attended to. They began walking their horses away from the arroyo. Of course, Gault thought bleakly, there's nothin' to keep him from shootin' the horses first, then us.

A voice from the direction of the brush called, "Hold up, Wompler. You too, mister, whoever you are."

Gault grasped the buckskin's bitchain and froze. He shot a look at Wompler and was relieved to see the beginning of that familiar slack-mouthed smile.

"We won't have to go lookin' for Torgason. He's found us."

Gault moved the buckskin aside and watched the tall, sunbrowned man coming out of the thicket. He carried a Winchester saddle rifle in one hand, cocked and ready to fire, as if it had been a Buntline pistol. He looked to be in his middle thirties, lean, tough, all business. He had a wooden, Indianlike face, and Gault got the feeling that it would shatter like overheated flint if he ever tried smiling.

"Good luck you found us," Wompler said easily. "We was about to go lookin' for you."

"Why?" Torgason eased the Winchester's hammer to half cock and cradled the weapon in his arm.

"This here's Frank Gault. He's got kind of a personal interest in the Garnetts. But maybe you better let him tell you about it."

Standing there beside the arroyo, Gault told the Association man everything he knew or suspected. About Martha, and Sewell, and Colly Fay. About getting himself shot by Shorty Pike, on Deputy Finley's orders. About the dreamed thunderstorm that appeared to be neither dream nor storm. About Shorty with the shovel, and the buried calf.

Torgason heard him out without the slightest change in expression. "What makes you think I can help you?"

"An oldtime line rider, name of Yorty, thought you might be the one to talk to."

Torgason studied him disinterestedly. Never a word of sympathy when he heard about Martha. A man of business was Del Torgason, and that business was seeing that the cattlemen of Standard County were kept happy and the county reasonably free of rustlers. "Elbert Yorty," he said bluntly, "is an old fool. I've got no quarrel with the sheriff. My advice, Gault, is go back to where you came from and leave Standard County to look after itself."

Gault smiled thinly. "I get a lot of that kind of advice."

The stock detective shrugged his wide shoulders, a picture of total indifference. "A thunderstorm that's not a thunderstorm. A murder grave that turns out to be a buried calf. Seein' the sheriff and Doc Doolie on the prairie in the dead of night—you ought to know that's when docs and sheriffs do a good part of their business. Diggin' up the New Boston graveyard… It's a wonder Olsen didn't lock you in the calaboose and throw away the key." He turned abruptly from Gault and said, "What's all this got to do with you, Wompler?"

Wompler's smile was as bland as a baby's. "Call it curiosity. Anything that affects the sheriff of Standard County, I take an interest in."

"How do you know the sheriff's affected?"

"I live in hope."

The two wills clashed like a meeting of swords. Gault expected to see Wompler give ground immediately; now he was surprised to see the silent struggle was on even terms. Wompler maintained his slack smile. Torgason's only sign of irritation was a slight narrowing of the eyes. "One of these days," he said flatly, "Olsen's goin' to get enough of you. And that will be the end of Harry Wompler."

"That," the former deputy sighed, "is a chance we all take, when we live in Standard County. Even you, Torgason. By the way," he added, "how'd you come to find us here?"

The detective looked woodenfaced. "A hand from headquarters joined Colton's brandin' crew. He said you and a stranger had been that way, and I decided to see what you was up to." Without warning, he grinned. It was a bizarre expression on that blank, brown face. "I figgered this is where I'd find you. At the Garnetts."

That afternoon Gault and Wompler pulled back from the farm and made camp again on the Little Wichita. From a distance they had scouted the farmyard and fields, without adding anything to their knowledge of the Garnetts. The young cowhand-cotton chopper had pulled out around midday. Shorty Pike had appeared from one of the barns and had gone to work in the vegetable garden near the house. A more peaceful scene would be difficult to imagine.

Shortly after the appearance of the posseman in the vegetable garden, Del Torgason had ridden south toward New Boston.

"Don't be fooled," Wompler warned. "He'll keep his eye on us. For the next few hours, anyway."

Gault scowled. "Why?"

"Because he's suspicious. It's his job."

As it had been Wirt Sewell's job, Gault thought wearily.

The moist, enervating electricity of springtime was in the air. "More rain," Wompler said sourly, eying the western sky. "Best see if we can find somethin' to get under."

The memory of the lanky express agent was still in Gault's mind. "The night I talked to Wirt Sewell, in the Garnett shed, he said he'd been layin' out somewhere. A shelf of some kind, along the riverbank."

"Whereabouts along the bank? It's a long river."

Gault tried to recall the agent's words. "I don't know that he said. But it couldn't have been far from the farm." They stood watching the thunderheads form in the west. Gault sighed wearily. The prospect of a cold soaking was not pleasant to think about. Without further discussion, the two men got saddled, pulled their stakepins and started back upstream.

The shelf was there, a big spearhead of limestone jutting out of the clay bank of the river. They staked the horses downstream and threw their beds beneath the rock roof. Not perfect, but a good deal better than no shelter at all.

Gault went through the futile motions of looking through his grub sack. It was empty. Wompler had never had any grub, only the bottle of whiskey from the Day and Night, and that had been emptied and discarded along the way. In the bottom of his saddle pocket Wompler found a piece of bone-hard jerky that some former New Boston livery customer had left. The two men divided the dried beef and hunkered down with their backs to the riverbank, cutting off small pieces with their pocketknives, working it between their teeth until it was soft enough to swallow.

"Life," the former deputy observed, "would be a good deal pleasanter if we had some coffee." He closed his eyes and dreamed for a moment. "Or whiskey."

The sun had fallen behind the bank of thunderheads. A steely grayness settled on the land, and there was no breath of movement in the air. The hush was so intense that they could hear each other breathing—or imagined that they could. "I'm beginnin' to wish," Wompler said to himself, "that I'd stayed where I was, back at the Day and Night." The reddish water of the Little Wichita shone dully, like sheet metal.

Suddenly the wind scent of ozone was in the air. In the distance there was a rustle of wind, faint but ominous. Wompler hunched his head down between his shoulders and groaned. "Here she comes!"

By common consent they had not built a fire. Without coffee, it hardly seemed worth the trouble. Anyway, they both felt more comfortable behind a cover of darkness. Gault buttoned his windbreaker to the throat, pulled his hat down firmly on his forehead and settled himself for a miserable night.

The first fat raindrop struck the river underbrush like a liquid bullet. Then there was another sound. Gault heard it, listened to it dully. Suddenly, with wrenching pain in his side, he lurched to his feet. "Somebody's after the horses!"

He grabbed the Winchester and jacked a cartridge into the chamber with one motion. Wompler already had his .45 in his hand. For a moment he was as taut as a finely tuned fiddle. Then, just as suddenly, he relaxed. "It's Torgason. I told you he'd be watchin' us."

The stock detective appeared in a stand of gaudy sumac. He bulled his way through the brush and ducked beneath the shelf as the first wave of the storm swept over them. Torgason, his saddle on his left shoulder, his rifle in his hand, stood looking at them with a wooden-faced stare. He eased the saddle to the ground but did not put aside the rifle. "I knowed you'd manage to find a soft place for yourself, Wompler. Don't mind if I set a while, do you?"

Wompler smiled his heatless smile. "Proud to have you. If you brought some coffee."

Thunder broke over their heads and rain fell in shimmering sheets. "Plenty of coffee," the detective told them. "Dry salt meat, and cornmeal, too. Now, if somebody thought to bring in some firewood before the rain started…"

Wompler groaned. Somehow the discomfort of their cold, damp cave was made even less appealing, knowing that hot trail fare was there within easy reach. If they could only have built a fire.

Torgason turned to Gault, and Gault met the detective's chilly stare with one of his own. "Seems like you didn't have much trouble finding us."

"Not much," Torgason rested his rifle on his saddle. "I've been watchin' you since we split up at the Garnett place."

"Would you mind tellin' us what makes us so interestin'?"

Torgason looked as if he might smile, but he didn't. "Wompler here's a suspected cattle rustler—that's always interestin' to a stock detective. And there's some things about you, too, Gault. A stranger lands in New Boston on the day Wolf Garnett's buried, bustin' full of questions that's none of his business. On top of everything else, by your own word, you killed a county official."

"A posseman."

"A paid official. As legal, according to county law, as the sheriff hisself."

"I didn't know you'd took to readin' law," Wompler said dryly.

Torgason ignored him. "You killed him," he said to Gault. "And the sheriff let you go. I find that interestin'."

Gault felt anger rising in his throat, but he choked it down. The old line rider had said that Torgason could help him, and he didn't want to fight with anyone who might be able to do that. Harry Wompler regarded the two with a loose smile and seemed totally undisturbed. "Don't mind Torgason," he said lazily. "He likes to get folks riled. In the hopes they'll spout somethin' he can hang them with later."

More thunder rumbled in the darkness. Beyond the shelf the rain was driving down like silver spikes.

Wompler yawned. "If you boys can stand the loss of my company, I think I'll catch myself some sleep." He untied his roll and threw it on the ground next to the riverbank.

Gault and the detective sat with their backs to the rock, staring out at the storm. "How'd you come to get tied up with Wompler?" Torgason asked when the silence became uncomfortable.

"Same way I heard about you. Yorty told me about him."

"That old man," Torgason said coldly, "has got a big mouth."

For some time the two men crouched in uncomfortable silence. Between gusting attacks of the storm they could hear Wompler snoring. When Torgason finally decided to speak, his tone was controlled and thoughtful. "I've been thinkin'. It must of been on a night like this that you talked to Wirt Sewell."

"Just about. But darker."

"And again when you heard what you thought was a shot."

"That was a dream—about the storm, anyway." Gault studied him cautiously. "Why do you ask?"

"Like Wompler said, it's my job to be suspicious."

For some time they crouched silently, watching the storm. Then Torgason said abruptly, "Tell me again about Colly Fay. The things you found in his saddle pocket."

Gault had already gone over this part of the story, but apparently Torgason was still unsatisfied. Patiently, Gault collected his thoughts and prepared to cover the ground again. "There was the ring, the one I gave to my wife. I told you about that." Torgason, a crouching shadow backlighted by sheet lightning, nodded. Gault went on. "There were six double-eagles, and some other coins. A roll of greenbacks wrapped in oilskin. A silver pocketknife, the kind a city dude might carry for cuttin' cigars. Woman's earrings, set with glassy sparkles. Maybe diamonds. A string of milk-colored beads that might have been pearls."

"Is that all?"

Gault drove his memory back to that bitter moment when he had opened the little buckskin pouch and found the ring. "No, there was a watch."