The Last Days of Wolf Garnett

by Clifton Adams

  "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.

  He climbed up to the saddle and sat there for a moment before reining away from the rack. The sheriff was looking down at him, his big face blank, his hands grasping the railing of the second-floor gallery. What's he up to? The question rolled in Gault's mind but found no satisfactory answer. For a moment he was tempted to dismount and buy another revolver—but he had the uneasy feeling that New Boston stores would be out of revolvers that day. Gault turned a last curious glance up at Grady Olsen.

  With the innocence of angels, the sheriff smiled down at him. Gault hauled the buckskin away from the rack and pointed the animal up the main street of New Boston, heading north.

  Was it his imagination, or did the town actually seem to hold its breath for a moment? A prickling sensation scurried across Gault's scalp. He had the feeling that from behind every window along the street a pair of eyes was watching him. The hostler was standing in front of the livery barn, arms folded across his chest, his eyes fixed on Gault. Gault nodded as he rode past. The hostler turned abruptly and walked into the barn.

  When he had put the town behind him and it was no longer in sight, Gault reined off the Gainsville mail road and struck northwest toward the Little Wichita. He had been out of New Boston for a little more than an hour when a disquieting thought came to him. He jerked the Winchester out of the saddle boot and began inspecting it.

  It took only a few seconds to discover that the firing pin had been neatly filed away. When or by whom he couldn't say, but he guessed it to be the work of the hostler, or possibly Deputy Dub Finley. Probably while Gault had been digging in the New Boston graveyard.

  Not that any of those things mattered now. The thing that mattered
was that someone, for reasons of his own, had very quietly and efficiently disarmed him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was a pleasant spring day in North Texas. The rolling prairie was sparkling green, the sky a dazzling blue. Cattle, fat and sleek, lazed in the new grass. Along the streams budding cottonwoods and oaks were coming into leaf. The sun was warm, the air so clean that it tasted faintly of flint and steel. All in all, it was a near perfect day for travelers.

  Frank Gault did not enjoy it. He was not even aware of the calm beauty that surrounded him.

  For the past hour he had suspected that he was being followed; within the past few minutes he had become certain of it. There were two of them at least, maybe three. They lay far back on his backtrail, popping up from behind ridges and knolls, moving when Gault moved, stopping when he stopped. Usually there was only one of them in sight at a time, and never more than two.

  Near midafternoon Gault dismounted at a small stream and let the buckskin drink and graze for several minutes. Far to the south, appearing as little more than a speck on the horizon, one of the riders topped a rise and stopped. Could it be the sheriff? Gault didn't think so. Even at that distance, Gault was sure that he would recognize Grady Olsen's slope-shouldered figure if he were to see it.

  The deputy, maybe? Gault had met the deputy only once, and the young lawman had not greatly impressed him. It was impossible to tell at that distance.

  Whoever they were, they seemed to be playing a waiting game. Waiting and watching. Gault would have given a great deal to know why.

  He rebalanced and tied the bulky bedroll behind the saddle and once again pointed the buckskin toward the northwest. The horsebacker on the far horizon moved casually across the green prairie and disappeared in a stand of blackjack. In a few minutes one of the other riders appeared on a wooded knoll, maybe a mile to the east of the first one.

  Gault began to experience an ill-defined ache in his gut. At first it occurred to him that the surly proprietor of the New Boston Ritz had poisoned him. Then he recognized it for what it was—a subtle but steadily growing fear. It was not an unfamiliar experience—all cattlemen knew it well. A horse going off a cut bank on a dark night. The suck of quicksand. Stumbling in front of a stampede.

  But this was different. It was a quiet but growing thing. The kind of sensation that went with the knowledge that he was unarmed and helpless in a hostile country.

  Late that afternoon Gault reached the Little Wichita and prepared to make camp in a grove of rattling cottonwoods. The distant horsebackers were not to be seen, but he had no doubt that they were there. Waiting and watching.

  The prairie sun took a long time dying. Gault staked the buckskin in new grass and built his fire. He did not bother to make it small or smokeless—the watchers would see it, however small he made it. Methodically, he inspected the meager camp gear that the hostler had thrown in with the buckskin. A small skillet, a granite coffeepot, a spoon, all wrapped in a faded tarpaulin and a dirty patchwork quilt. In his own warbag he had a small parcel of cornmeal, a piece of dry salt meat and some crushed coffee beans.

  He cut off a slab of salt meat and put it in the skillet to cook. He dipped some water into the coffeepot, added the crushed beans and set it beside the skillet. From far upstream he heard the faint rustle of brush. It might have been a deer. Or a wild turkey settling on a cottonwood branch for the night. But he didn't think so.

  Gault smiled thinly to himself as the smell of cooking meat spread on the still air. He wondered if the watchers would dare to build fires, or if they would lay back cautiously and make do with cold trail fare that night.

  The shadows along the river became longer and blacker. Night, with its hundreds of fluttering and scurrying sounds, came to the Little Wichita. The darkness of springtime was chill and damp, but no fires appeared on the prairie. It was small satisfaction knowing that his watchers were hungry and cold—but it was better than no satisfaction at all.

  Gault stirred cornmeal and water into the meat grease and cooked the panbread over glowing embers. He ate in silence, without relish or satisfaction, and then he washed the skillet with sand and water and put it away.

  They must know I'm unarmed, he reasoned to himself. If they wanted to finish me off they could have done it any time. Still, they're not going to all this trouble on a mere whim.

  They were waiting to see what his next move would be. Now that he had reached the Little Wichita, would he cross the stream and head due north toward the Nations, or would he bear to the east and scout the river valley, looking for the Garnett farm?

  If he made for the Nations, that would indicate that he had convinced himself that the body in the grave was actually that of Wolf Garnett and that any further investigation was useless. In which case, Gault speculated, the riders would trail him as far as the Red to satisfy themselves that he was actually making for the Nations. Then they would go back to wherever it was they came from.

  On the other hand, if he struck up the valley of the Little Wichita looking for Wolf Garnett's homeplace, the watchers would likely regard it as a suspicious move.

  And then what? The watchers—or someone—had managed to disarm him. Would they go as far as killing him? It didn't seem reasonable—but he was learning that the world wasn't necessarily a reasonable place. The coldblooded act of whipping a stage team off a mountain road hadn't been reasonable. But it had happened.

  When the fire had burned down Gault threw his bed near a gnarled elm. He lay quietly, gazing blindly through the twisted branches. Was it possible that the men who were following him had been with Wolf Garnett that day?

  For the thousandth time he saw the frightened horses racing off into thin air, and the coach turning slowly, end over end, before crashing on the rocks below.

  He sat up suddenly in a cold sweat. I've got to stop this, he thought grimly. Pretty soon I'll be keening like a Comanche squaw and slashing my arms with knives. He dug into his windbreaker for makings and built a smoke. The sulphur match flared like a muzzle flash when he lit the cigarette.

  He looked back at the dark trees along the river. Not since sundown had there been any sign of the men who were watching him. But they were there. He had no doubt of that. How long do you aim to sit out there, he thought bleakly, without hot grub, without even a smoke?

  Gault snapped his own smoke toward the dying embers. To hell with you, he told them silently. Sooner or later I'll find out who you are. But for right now, to hell with you. He closed his eyes and made a desert of his mind. An April dew settled on his bed with clammy coldness, but he ignored it. He drifted into a state of dreamlessness that passed as sleep. The watchers, wherever they were, remained silent and invisible.

  The morning was chill and damp and heady with the smell of green things growing. Gault stirred himself before first light and rebuilt the fire and put coffee on to boil. He saw to the buckskin and then scouted the upper banks for tracks. But the watchers of the night had kept their distance.

  From somewhere upstream a wild bird beat the air with its wings. The watchers were moving in closer, and they were not being so quiet about it now. Gault gulped his gritty coffee and chewed on leftover panbread that he had cooked the night before.

  He got the buckskin saddled, then rolled his bed and made it fast behind the cantle. He slid the Winchester into the saddle boot without bothering to check it, as he normally would. If his trackers were watching, maybe they would think that he hadn't yet discovered the ruined firing pin.

  Gault climbed up to the saddle. All right, boys, he thought quietly, from here on out you better keep a close watch. Because I ain't right sure myself which way I'm going to take.

  A short distance downstream he put the buckskin over a rock crossing that Comanches and Kiowas had probably used not many years before when they were raiding down from the Territory. Due north was the Big Pasture and the Nations, where Frank Gault was known and respected. Where there were men who would lend him money to get started again, if he we
re to ask for it.

  But he did not head north. He bore east, making for the upper reaches of the Little Wichita. And behind him he could almost hear his trailers shrug resignedly and check the loading of their weapons.

  Around midmorning Gault caught a glimpse of the lead rider. He was a short, blocky man with a blunt, pugnacious look about him. Expertly, he threaded a sturdy little claybank in and out through the stands of cottonwood and oak. They were moving in fast now, not overly concerned with whether or not Gault spotted them.

  A few minutes later Gault raised the fields that he guessed belonged to the Garnetts. There were several acres of cotton in even rows, almost ready for its first thinning and chopping. Set farther back from the river there was a good-sized patch of early corn, young and tender green and languid looking on that mild spring morning. Closer to the house and sheds was what Gault knew to be a vegetable garden, although he couldn't tell at that distance what was planted there.

  The house itself was a half sod, half timber affair, maybe three rooms. A big house, Gault thought immediately; an unusually prosperous looking spread for that particular part of Texas. The rare farm that Gault had chanced across in North Texas usually amounted to no more than a one-room soddy and maybe two or three acres of scratched red clay. The Garnett place included several permanent sheds and outbuildings, some work animals, a wagon, a scattering of chickens and probably a cow for milking. A very prosperous looking layout, Gault thought again with bitterness. Either the Garnetts were exceptionally industrious, or they had received considerable help.

  A rider that Gault had not seen before appeared from a wild plum thicket near the water. He was a stolid, slack-jawed man in his middle years, with coarse features and the impersonal stare of simple-mindedness in his pale eyes. He rode toward Gault with an abstracted grin tugging at the corners of his mouth—but there was nothing simple-minded or unbusinesslike in the way he held a short saddle rifle pointed at Gault's chest.

  "Set easy," the man said placidly. "We don't aim to hurt you. If you behave yourself and mind what we say."