The Last Days of Wolf Garnett (3 page)

With some effort, Gault pushed himself to his feet. The sheriff asked, "Are you convinced now?"

"Convinced of what?"

"That the dead man is Wolf Garnett?"

"I don't know," Gault said woodenly. "How can you tell?"

They rode the long grade down from the graveyard and reined up in the almost deserted street. "Now," Gault said indifferently, "you've got your duty to do, I guess."

"What duty is that?"

Gault lifted his head and studied the big sheriff for a moment. "From the way you talked up there, I figgered you just couldn't wait to get me to town where you could arrest me for grave-robbing."

The sheriff's smile was stiff and hostile. "That depends on what kind of plans you got. How long you figger to stay with us in New Boston?"

"It would be fine with me if I could leave on the next stage north."

"That won't be till day after tomorrow. You figger you can stay out of trouble till then?"

Gault allowed himself a taut smile. "I intend to work at it, Sheriff." The two men gazed at each other quietly. There didn't seem to be anything else to say, and finally Gault, with a little nod, reined away and rode toward the wagon yard.

So this, he thought emptily, is the way it ends. After almost a year of fury and grief, his only satisfaction was a grave on a barren hillside, a horror that had once been a man.

But had it been Wolf Garnett?

The hostler was not to be found, so Gault stripped the buckskin and turned the animal back into the rent corral. He went to his shack and methodically removed his boots and pants and shirt and stretched out on the rope-strung bunk. It would only be a matter of minutes, he knew, before armies of bedbugs began their inevitable attack—and he was not disappointed.

But not even the swarming insects could hold back those months of blackness that haunted him. When he closed his eyes Martha's face was there before him as he had last seen it, her eyes wide, glittering with terror. A few seconds later the stage had plunged off the mountain road. Gault had not seen his wife alive again.

Martha Henderson Gault, Beloved Wife of Franklin Kearny Gault, Born September 4, 1864, Died March 12, 1885, Rest in Peace.

Rest in peace, Gault thought darkly as the night wore on, for I cannot. A body in an unmarked grave was not enough—he had lost too much to have the debt balanced out so easily.

Before morning came he had made up his mind not to wait for the Thursday stage out of New Boston. At first light of a new day he got his meager gear together and found the hostler.

"Get the buckskin saddled. I'll be pullin' out directly after breakfast."

"If you aim to take the animal out every day you'd do better rentin' by the week."

"I'm not lookin' to rent. If the price is right, I'll buy." He walked off, giving the hostler a chance to settle on a price that would be at least half again what the buckskin was worth—but many months had gone by since Gault had given any thought to practicalities of business.

In the half light of the prairie dawn there was already one eating house open for business.
NEW BOSTON RITZ CAFE
, announced the sign on the flyspecked window, Chili 10¢. Gault walked into a classic Southwest eating house. Six stools at an oilcloth-covered counter. Behind the counter there was an oldtime cowhand, too stove up to ride, who had decided in his later years to take up the art of cooking. The air was hot and heavy with grease.

The cook sidled up the counter, eying Gault narrowly. It was a trait of the New Boston citizen, Gault had noticed, to view any and all strangers with suspicion. "Ain't got the biscuits in yet," the cook announced sourly. "Want some coffee while you wait?"

Gault nodded. "Coffee. And never mind the biscuits. Bring me some flapjacks, three eggs and some bacon."

"Eggs come a dime apiece," the counterman said, as if he had serious doubts as to Gault's ability to pay for them.

"I'll take three," Gault insisted flatly. Then, as the only customer in the New Boston Ritz, he took an end stool and prepared to wait. The cook accepted the order grudgingly and sidled back to his grease-burning stove at the end of the counter. In his younger days, Gault guessed, the Ritz restaurateur had been a bronc buster. He had stayed with the job too long, too many rough rides had shaken his insides loose, which explained his bad disposition and his crablike movements behind the counter.

Gault was adding sugar and stirring his black, gritty coffee, when the figure of Grady Olsen loomed like a thunderhead in the cafe doorway.

"The usual, Andy," Olsen called to the counterman. He took a stool next to Gault and said absently, "The wagon yard man says you're buyin' one of his rent animals. That mean you'll be pullin' out of New Boston ahead of the stager."

"You get yourself up at first light just to ask the wagon yard man what I was up to?"

"Guess maybe I did, at that," Olsen admitted. "After all, you got some mighty queer habits, mister. It ain't every day we get grave-robbers in New Boston."

"You thinkin' about changin' your mind about arrestin' me?"

The sheriff chuckled quietly, adding canned milk and sugar to his coffee. "I ain't changed my mind, long's you behave yourself. But I couldn't help wonderin' why you're in such a big hurry to leave this little town of ours."

"I thought you wanted me to leave."

"And you thought right." The sheriff nodded and noisily sipped his coffee. "But when a man buys a rent horse from a wagon hostler, knowin' he's goin' to get skinned, just to save a few hours' time, well, it strikes me a mite queer. It strikes me you've got mighty little respect for cash money, or you're in a mighty big hurry to get out of New Boston. Am I barkin' up the right tree, Gault, or ain't I?"

The counterman brought Gault's order, slammed it down in front of him and gimped back to his stove. Gault gazed learily at the leathery flapjacks, the watery sugar syrup, the slabs of fat side meat, the puddles of grease already congealing in the cold platter. The eggs, also coated in congealing grease, were cooked to a peculiar bluish color, the whites curled, as if in pain, the yolks as hard as grapeshot. Gault cut into the flapjacks and began to eat. "No," he told the sheriff, "you're barkin' up the right tree. I'm ready enough to leave New Boston."

The sheriff sighed. It might have been a sigh of resignation, or it could have been in anticipation of a hearty breakfast. He folded his heavy arms across his chest and waited patiently until his meal arrived. "Andy's the best cook in Standard County," he said, taking up his knife and fork. He dug into his platter of hardcooked eggs and side meat and sour dough biscuits. "Where you aimin' to go?" he asked after the first rush of eating had taken the edge off his appetite.

"I don't know. Back to the Nations, maybe."

"Goin' back to runnin' cattle?"

" . . Maybe. I haven't thought much about it since…"

"Best forget about that," the sheriff said with as much gentleness as his big voice would allow. "It's a bitter dose to swaller, I reckon, but there's nothin' to be done about it now."

For the first time since their meeting, the sheriff seemed to warm to Gault and talk to him almost as a friend. Gault wondered why. Simply because he had decided to get out of New Boston? Could it really be that important?

Then something occurred to Gault. "Sheriff, about the two pals of Wolf Garnett's, that you mentioned yesterday. The ones that helped identify the body? Where are they now?"

Grady Olsen paused in his eating. Suddenly he wasn't so warm and friendly. "They ain't here. They was over in Sancho County takin' a herd up the Western Trail when they heard that Wolfs body'd been found. So they decided to ride over and have a look and make sure it was actual their old pard. It was."

"Did Wolf Garnett have many old pals like that? Good, law-abidin' gents, I take it, that would make a two day trip cross country just to look at his corpse?"

The sheriff's gray eyes became distant and cold.

Gault said, "It strikes me queer that a lobo like Garnett would have friends that would go to so much trouble to help out the law."

The sheriff mopped up some cold grease with a biscuit and put it in his mouth. "Gault," he said wearily, "are you goin' to give me more trouble?"

"No, but I'd like to talk to those helpful pals of Garnett's."

"Can't be done," Olsen told him with feeling. "They went back to the herd. Must be halfway to Kansas by this time."

"What herd was it?"

"… I don't recollect."

"What were the men's names?"

Olsen speared his last piece of side meat and chewed thoughtfully. "Colly Fay," he said reluctantly. "And Shorty Pike. The Fays and the Pikes used to farm on the Little Wichita, but they moved over to Sancho County a few years back. They was boys together with Wolf Garnett."

"When was that?"

"Five, six years ago."

"A long time," Gault said dryly. "They must have might good memories to be able to identify that body as Wolf Garnett."

The sheriff made a sound under his breath. It might have been a sigh, or a curse. "There was some talk of Colly and Shorty runnin' with Wolf's bunch, up till a year ago. Since that time they've been workin' at honest jobs. I can see what you're thinkin', but there was never any proof that the boys went outlawin' with Wolf. Just talk. Anyhow, the Pikes and the Fays are good, hardworkin' families, and I don't aim to bring them any trouble."

There was another question in Gault's mind, but he decided not to ask it now. He counted out some silver and left it beside his plate. "You pullin' out?" the sheriff asked.

If the hostler doesn't hold me up over the buckskin."

Remember what I told you. It's a sorry business about your wife, but let it drop. Best thing all around, for everybody."

Gault's smile was the strained expression of a man who hadn't tried it in a long while. "I'll think about it." He shoved himself away from the counter and walked out of the eating house.

Gault inspected the buckskin with an experienced eye. The animal was too small for his liking. Good enough to rent to women and children wanting to go out for a leisurely Sunday canter, but too light and spindle-legged for the kind of cross country travel that Gault had in mind. Still, the hoofs were in good shape and the shoes had been expertly fitted. All in all, Gault judged a fair price to be eighty dollars.

The hostler wanted two hundred. Gault pointed out the fragile forelegs and shallow barrel. The hostler cut his figure by twenty dollars and promised to throw in a Navajo saddle pad. Gault raised his figure to one hundred and twenty. The hostler said he'd throw in some camp gear and a bed that had been left by a bankrupt freighter. They settled on one hundred and forty dollars, and the hostler was to throw in the extra gear.

The wagon yard man took his money with little pleasure. Horse trading, to those who practiced it, was much more than simply a way of making a living—it was an art, and this kind of slack bargaining tended to cast the profession in a shoddy light.

"I guess you've lived in these parts a pretty good spell," Gault said casually, as he threw on the saddle and cinched it down.

The hostler looked at him suspiciously. "Long enough, I reckon."

Gault tied on the bedroll and slipped his Winchester in the saddle boot. "Then I guess you know where the Garnett place is."

The hostler lowered his gaze and began sliding away. "Can't say as I do. I got a poor memory for places. Especially places that ain't none of my business." He pocketed his money and walked off.

Gault jammed a knee in the buckskin's ribs and jerked the cinch down another notch when the startled animal sucked in its gut. With a final curious glance at the retreating hostler, Gault stepped into the stirrup and swung up to the saddle. He reined back toward the feed store where Sheriff Grady Olsen had his office.

The sheriff met him at the doorway. "I see you got the buckskin all right. That mean you'll soon be pullin' out of our fair city?"

"As soon as I get my .45."

"That's right," Olsen smiled blandly. "You gave your Colt to my deputy, didn't you?"

"He took it."

The sheriff scratched the stubble on his heavy jaw and assumed a puzzled expression. "Why would he want to do that?"

Gault experienced a flash of intuition that pointed the way this conversation was going to take. "Because you told him to take it," he said coldly. "Anyhow, that's what he said."

"Queer," Olsen said with a note of wonder. "I never told him to
take
the gun. Just to ask you to take it off. Must of been some kind of misunderstandin'." He spread his hands apologetically. "Well, we'll get to the bottom of it when Dub gets back."

Gault sensed that it was very unlikely that he would ever see that pistol again. With rising anger he asked, "Where is your deputy now?"

"Down in the south end of the county seein' about a case of brand splotchin'. I expect him back in three, four days. If he don't run into trouble."

"I don't care about the deputy, just give me the Colt."

The big lawman assumed an elaborate air of innocence and Gault decided that Grady Olsen had missed his calling. He was a born actor. "I'd be proud to hand over your pistol, Gault, if I knowed where it was. But I'm scared we'll have to wait and ask Dub Finley about that."

That was the way it was going to be. Gault was packed and eager to get away from New Boston, and Olsen knew it.

The sheriff had rightly guessed that Gault would not postpone leaving for another three or four days because of a single Colt revolver.

"Wish I could be more help," the lawman said blithely. "If you don't want to wait, I reckon I could express the gun to you. If you tell me where you want it sent."

Gault gazed at that wide open face and honest eyes and wondered why a respected county sheriff would lie and cheat and connive, all because of one inexpensive hand gun. As he thought about it his early anger began to settle. Curiosity, and a kind of vague unease, took its place. "Never mind," he said dryly. "Might be I'll be passin' through here again sometime." He turned on his heel and went down the outside stairway.