The Last Days of Wolf Garnett

by Clifton Adams

  Torgason regarded him with contempt. In the back of Gault's mind he heard the two men bickering angrily, but his thoughts were somewhere else. He rode along the collar of the sandhills and picked up more tracks, but again it was impossible to say whose they were.

  Lord, Gault thought wearily, I feel like I've been traveling half a lifetime. Without sleep or rest. Sometimes he almost forgot why he was doing it. There were even times when the face of Wolf Garnett became mingled with other faces in his memory. "It's because I'm tired, Martha," he said aloud. "It ain't that I'm forgetting. It ain't that I've got any notion of lettin' it rest—you can depend on that." He looked up to see Torgason and Wompler staring at him strangely.

  They pressed on to the north, following what may or may not have been trail left by Esther Garnett.

  They were in Comanche country now, somewhere below the west branch of Cashe Creek which, in places, was more of a river than the Red. They crossed one of the many small streams that fingered out from the west branch. They were now in a country of gentle green hills and valleys, country that would one day be rich farmland but was now leased pasture.

  Suddenly Wompler came up in his stirrups and said, "What's that?" He pointed to a small piece of broken ground in the valley below. The crooked rows of poorly planted corn could only mean that the Quaker Indian agents had converted a Comanche to farming.

  Gault told them that it was an Indian farm, and Torgason said quickly, "You used to run cattle in this country. Talk to the Indian, ask if he's seen anything of a white woman horsebackin' it this way."

  Gault shrugged. "If I remember any Comanche."

  The Indian's name was Watch Horses and he was a Quahada Comanche which, according to white horse soldiers, made him one of the best light cavalryman in the world. But not any more. His people were beaten, scattered, and there was defeat in his dark Indian eyes as he leaned on his hoe and looked up at Gault.

  With the aid of sign and a few words of Comanche, Gault asked if a woman horsebacker had passed this way.

  Watch Horses said that his wife had gone to the Indian agency that morning to trade some skins. "No," Gault corrected himself. "To'savit. White woman."

  Watch Horses considered for a moment. It was possible, he said at last, that a white woman had passed this way. But he had not seen her.

  "Did he see Olsen and Finley?" Torgason asked.

  Gault relayed the question, and Watch Horses shrugged. Yes, two white men passed this way not long ago, heading north. But nowdays Indianland was overrun with white cowmen; the Quahada had not paid them any particular attention.

  "Let's go," Wompler said impatiently. "It was Olsen and Finley. I can feel it in my bones."

  This time they did not bother with tracks, they struck due north, in the direction indicated by the old Comanche. There was an electric urgency in the air. For Torgason and Wompler it was the prospect of sudden riches. For Gault it was something more insidious; there were times when he thought it was madness. A man must be loco, he told himself, to spend the best part of a year chasing after ghosts… But then he would see that stagecoach going off the mountain road, and Martha's eyes wide with terror. Loco or not, he could not stop now.

  They topped one of those many grassy hillocks that punctuated the flat prairie between the Wichitas and the Red. Torgason, riding a little ahead of the others, raised one hand. With a nod he indicated a distant stream, a small creek clearly defined by the lacy green of budding timber. "A little to the right of the tallest cottonwood. Tell me what you see."

  Squinting, Gault and Wompler leaned forward in their saddles. Gault shook his head. "I don't see anything." Wompler grunted, indicating that he didn't either.

  Torgason scratched the bristling beard on his chin. "Maybe it was nothin'. A flash of light. Sunlight hittin' a piece of mica, maybe."

  "Or gunsteel?" Gault asked.

  "… We'll see."

  They spread out as they started down the slope to the creek, spacing themselves out, making the target less tempting. They moved to within two hundred yards of the cottonwood—easy rifle range. Still there was nothing to be seen.

  Gault turned in his saddle to look at the detective. Torgason was again scratching his chin in an unconscious show of concern. He made pushing motions with his hands, telling Gault and Wompler that they would approach the cottonwood from different directions. It was then that Torgason's horse fell.

  Gault heard the animal grunt—then he heard the report of the rifle. The sturdy claybank stumbled, tossed its head in a moment of wildness, and pitched to the near side. Torgason was grabbing for his own rifle and trying to free his right foot from the stirrup when the horse crashed on top of him.

  Acting on his cowman's instinct, Gault ignored for the moment the danger from the creekbank. He grabbed his Winchester, dumped out of the saddle and raced to Torgason's aid. Wompler obeying his own instincts, ignored Torgason and spurred to the bottom of the slope, which put him below the rifleman's line of sight.

  "Don't be a fool!" Torgason grated. "My leg's busted. I can't move. Get away from this hilltop before that rifleman finishes both of us."

  The distant rifle barked twice, as if in anger. Gault dived for the ground as the two bullets seared the air over his head. Using the dead horse as a breastworks, Gault said, "I'll try to get the weight off of you. When you're clear, haul yourself back out of the way."

  The rifle barked again; this time the bullet slammed into the dead horse with a sickening thud. Gault got his shoulder beneath the cantle of the saddle and lifted with all his strength. Grunting with pain, Torgason pulled himself up to a sitting position, freed his foot from the stirrup and crawled back from the dead animal.

  The detective lay on the springy sod, panting shallowly, great beads of sweat on his forehead. "What happened to Wompler?" he asked at last.

  "Spurred to the bottom of the slope where the rifleman can't see him."

  Torgason smiled grimly. "He ain't as big a fool as I thought." He panted some more and wiped his forehead. "I don't reckon you got a look at whoever's doin' the shootin?"

  "They're hid back in the timber along the creekbank." A bullet plowed into the ground alongside the dead horse. "It must be the sheriff." Gault eased his head over the edge of the saddle and saw Wompler waving to him from the bottom of the slope. "Wompler's signalin'. I better see what he wants."

  "And get yourself shot for your trouble?"

  "I think he wants us to split up and see if we can get the creekbank in a crossfire."

  "Listen to Wompler and he'll get you killed." The detective sighed and lay back and stared up at the dazzling sky. "On the other hand, if Olsen aims to finish us, he'll finish us. It don't matter much what we do."

  Gault considered for a moment. "From what I seen of Olsen, he didn't strike me as a murderer."

  "Gold makes men do funny things," Torgason said softly, still looking at the sky. "Gold and woman."

  Gault snaked his arm around the claybank's shoulder and eased the saddle rifle out of the boot. He checked it quickly and put it in Torgason's hands. "Stay down out of sight. I'll come back soon's I can."

  Before Torgason could speak, Gault lunged to his feet and began zigzagging down the grassy slope.

  Wompler was waiting at the bottom, grinning his slack grin. "You're faster'n you look." Then he nodded toward the distant creek. "How does it look from the top of the hill?"

  "Quiet. Maybe they pulled out."

  "Or waitin' for us to come in closer so they can finish us off." Wompler made a wry face. "I sure would hate to blunder out there and get myself killed—with all that gold somewheres, just waitin' for us to come along and pick it up." Then, thoughtfully, "You game to circle around this knoll and see if we can find them?"

  "And if we do find them?"

  "We kill them," Wompler said matter of factly. He mounted his rented gelding, rode down the shallow valley to where Gault's buckskin was grazing. With an expert flip of his loop, he caught the buckskin and brought it
back.

  "What do you mean," Gault asked, taking the reins, "we kill them?"

  Wompler looked surprised that anyone would be stupid enough to ask such a question. "Two fewer ways we'll have to divide up the gold, when we find it."

  "And what about Esther Garnett? Do we kill her, too?" Wompler's expression turned wooden. "Esther Garnett's my business, Gault. You remember that and we'll get along fine."

  Gault rode cautiously south along the shallow depression between the two knolls; Wompler headed north. When a distance of several hundred yards separated them, they bore in toward the tall cottonwood where the riflefire had come from. All in all, it had taken the best part of an hour to get into position. The rifleman was gone.

  They explored the area around the cottonwood. "Three horses, I make it," Wompler said, studying the tracks. "Shorty's chestnut, most likely, that Esther's ridin'. And Olsen's and Finley's animals." He straightened up, scowling. "And some barefoot tracks that probably belong to the Garnett mule. Wonder what they're draggin' that mule around for?"

  Gault had discovered something that he found more interesting than the tracks of mules and horses. Beneath the cottonwood he carefully collected a half dozen burnt-out stubs of brownpaper cigarettes, and several broken sulphur matches. The last time he had seen this kind of litter it had been on the floor of Esther Garnett's sleeping porch.

  "They're in a hurry," Wompler said unhappily. "Olsen's a careful worker—ordinarily he'd of set a trap for us and then laid back and wait for us to walk into it. But this is no ordinary time. He's in a hurry to get to that gold."

  "We still don't know there is any gold. All we've got to go on is that watch that I found on Colly Fay."

  "That's enough for me."

  Gault closed his fist around the cigarette stubs. At the moment they were more important to him than all the gold in the world. "Before we do anything, we'll have to go back and see about Torgason."

  "Not me," Wompler said firmly. "I can smell that gold; I'm not goin' to let it get away from me now."

  CHAPTER TEN

  Torgason lay exactly as he had the last time Gault had seen him. "No sign of the rifleman," Gault told him. "There's some tracks down by the cottonwood—three horses, maybe a mule. And these." He dug the cigarette stubs out of his pocket and showed them to Torgason.

  The stock detective studied them with a weak grin. "I know what you're thinkin', but it's loco. Wolf Garnett's back at the New Boston graveyard."

  "Somebody's back there. Identified as Wolf Garnett by Wolf's sister and two old pals. But I'd still like to see the man who smoked these cigarettes and bunked on Esther Garnett's sleepin' porch." He hesitated a moment, then asked, "Can you help me, Torgason?"

  Torgason laughed silently. "I didn't think you came back all this way just to help a busted-up range detective. You and Wompler have got a sickness, Gault. But I'll make a bargain with you. Fix up my leg best you can, leave me a full canteen and promise to send me some help first chance you get—and I'll tell you what I know. It ain't much."

  Gault nodded. "It's a bargain. Is the body in New Boston Wolf Garnett?"

  "Far as I know. But I can't prove it." He closed his eyes and let his thoughts move through curtains of pain. "… Still, there's somethin' queer goin' on. It ain't like Esther Garnett to just pick up and quit that farm. She'd have to have good reason to do a thing like that."

  "The gold?"

  Torgason bared his teeth in what might have been a grim smile. "The longer I lay here, the less I think there's any gold. It was a fever in our brains—mine and Wompler's anyhow." He sighed to himself and tried to move his shattered leg.

  Gault showed his disappointment. "Is that all you've got to tell me?"

  "One more thing. When that farm wagon went into the river and Shorty Pike got his head busted, it was no accident. Oh, Shorty was pitched off the wagon seat, all right, and was throwed into the water. But he never hit no rock. That wasn't what caved in his head."

  Gault squinted. "What did?"

  "A piece of one of the bows that was holdin' up the wagon sheet. I found it wedged under the wagon box when I found the body. One end of the bow was bloody and it just fit the dent in Shorty's head."

  "In the fall he could have been thrown against the bow; it could still have been an accident."

  Torgason was shaking his head. "That broken piece of bow had been pulled out of the bracket, held by the busted end and swung with considerable strength."

  Gault quietly considered the story and, for the moment, accepted it. "Why didn't you mention this at the time?"

  "I work for the Association, and anything I find out is Association business. Anyhow, at the time I was still thinkin' about the gold. I figgered Esther Garnett seen her chance to get a bigger part for herself, so she yanked out that oak bow and smashed Shorty's head while he was in the water. It looked like she was doin' all of us a favor by gettin' Shorty out of the way… But since that time I've been layin' here thinkin'."

  "Thinkin' what?"

  "I've decided she didn't do it."

  Gault stared at him.

  "That she didn't do it," Torgason repeated. "The sheet was up; we don't know who was in the wagon besides her and Shorty." He watched the look of understanding come over Gault's face. "You've got me doin' it now," the detective said dryly. "Everywhere I look I'm beginnin' to see Wolf Garnett. Of course," he added quickly, "that's not the only way it could of happened."

  Woodenfaced, Gault waited.

  "It might just be that Wompler's suspicions about the sheriff are right. He could have caught up with the wagon as it went into the river and finished Shorty off hisself."

  "Why would Olsen kill his posseman?"

  "Maybe he was makin' it one less way to divide up the gold. You'd have to ask the sheriff about that."

  It was late that afternoon when Gault overtook Wompler on the upper reaches of Cashe Creek. The former deputy's eyes were glittering with excitement, "I picked up their tracks almost an hour ago. They're up there somewheres…" He pointed toward the heavy timber that bordered the creek. "I've been figgerin' it out while you was away. The place where the gold escort was robbed ain't more than half a day from here. They must of hid the gold here along the creek somewheres, figgerin' to come back for it when some of the excitement wore off. That's what they're doin' now—goin' after that gold!"

  Never a question about Torgason. Wompler's one thought was of the gold.

  They were dismounted, leading their horses through the heavy underbrush, when the attack came. It hit with a fury that for a moment left them stunned. Within the close confines of the creekbottom the roaring of rifles was almost deafening. Bullets ripped through the weeds and brush like a slashing rain. One lead slug snatched the hat from Wompler's head and hurled it over the bank into the water. Another bullet nicked Gault's buckskin; the animal reared in panic, jerked its rein free and disappeared into the brush. But not before Gault had hauled his Winchester out of the saddle boot.

  Wompler was shouting something, but the sense of what he was saying did not penetrate Gault's consciousness. He threw himself to the ground, scrambled to a thicket of sumac and fired at puffs of gunsmoke on the upper bank. He ducked again into the thicket and crawled upstream on his hands and knees. There was no sign of Wompler, but he saw the black gelding racing ahead of them and disappearing in the timber.

  Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the firing stopped. Gault lay in what he hoped was a covered position, listening to the almost silent rustle of new leaves and, from some unseen place nearby, the furious cursing of Harry Wompler.

  After a moment Gault called quietly, "Wompler, are you all right?"

  "Fine and dandy," Wompler said in a cold rage. "There's a bullet hole in my leg, I lost my hat, and my horse ran off with my rifle."

  "How bad are you hurt?"

  "I'm still alive, but maybe not for long." Then, grudgingly, "Not bad, I guess."

  It was hard to believe that either of them was still alive. Ap
parently, the rifleman on the upper bank had decided that they were dead, or at least out of action. From beyond a gaudy thicket of redbud, Gault heard someone say, "They're done for. Nobody could of lived through a crossfire like that."

  Gault recognized the voice immediately; it belonged to young Deputy Finley. Then, from some unseen position to the right of the redbud, Sheriff Grady Olsen said flatly, "The horses lived through it." After a meaningful pause, he added, "We'll work our way down toward the water. Shoot anything that moves."

  The sheriff of Standard County had declared himself. He was a murderer. He had sent an ambush, the single aim being to kill Wompler and Gault. It was not easy for Gault to believe—but it was a fact, harsh and ugly, and it was not likely to go away.

  Slowly, like a bull buffalo rising up in a mud wallow, Grady Olsen rose up in a stand of pale green weeds. His rifle was to his shoulder, the muzzle moving snakelike, back and forth, searching the creekbottom for the enemy. Until now Gault had not thought of himself as the sheriff's enemy. Antagonist, perhaps. Or opponent, in this dangerous game that they were playing. But it was no game now.

  Not any more. Gault, gazing fixedly up through a curtain of underbrush, could see that rifle muzzle, like one-eyed Death, searching the creekbottom for him.

  Moving with great care, Gault began actuating the lever of the Winchester and then realized that the hammer was already cocked and a cartridge in the barrel. Cautiously, planning the move inch by inch in advance, he brought the weapon to his shoulder.

  From his hiding place, Wompler spoke anxiously, "Do you see him, Gault?"

  "Yes." Not much more than a whisper.

  "He's out of short-gun range. Have you got your rifle?"

  "Yes. Be quiet now."

  Apparently Olsen had not seen Gault's gunsmoke. Or, if he had seen it, he didn't know whether it was Gault or Wompler. For that matter, there was no reason for the sheriff to know that Torgason was out of action, unless he had been watching their backtrail. A dead horse didn't necessarily mean a dead rider.