Gault's shack was one of several green lumber boxes that had been built against the side of the barn to catch the overflow from the hotel on Saturdays and holidays. And days like today. Gault washed up at the livery pump. His face felt numb as he sloshed it with cold water. His insides felt numb too. And had for a long time.
He went to his shack, which was just big enough to hold the pole-and-rope bunk, and a few clothing pegs on the wall. There was no stove and no provision for one. Well, it was April, and the weather was mild in Texas. And there was an open fireplace next to the pump for guests who wanted to do their own cooking.
Gault sat on the bunk and began emptying the cartridges from the magazine of his Winchester. When the magazine was empty he began cleaning the weapon, swabbing and oiling and polishing until it shone like dark silver. One by one he cleaned the cartridges as meticulously as he had cleaned the rifle. Then he reloaded.
"The way you work on that rifle," a voice said, "a-body would guess you had some important work to put it to."
Gault looked up and quietly studied the man who was watching him through the open doorway. He was young— in his mid-twenties, Gault guessed. He was well rigged-out in California pants, gray flannel shirt and a pony hide vest. A nickel-plated star was fixed to the left side of the vest. So this, Gault reasoned, had to be Dub Finley, Standard County's one and only full-time deputy sheriff. "Did Olsen send you to keep an eye on me?"
Deputy Finley scowled. "Why would Sheriff Olsen want me to do that?" Gault noticed that Finley's thick black hair, which grew low on his forehead, formed a V between his eyes when he scowled. The eyes themselves were dark and wet-looking and without expression.
"I don't know," Gault said mildly. He gave the Winchester's breach a few wipes and put the rifle away. "What do you want?"
"I've had complaints about the pistol you're wearin'. New Boston ain't one of your rowdy trail towns, in case you landed here with that mistaken notion in your head. We're civilized. We got subscription schools, circuit courts, Methodist church, just like towns back East. Folks hereabouts don't feel called on to carry guns."
Gault heard the deputy's spiel out with a certain fascination. "All right," he said obligingly, "I'll take off the .45 and leave it with the hostler until I'm ready to leave."
"When will that be?"
"Hard to say right now. It depends."
Something crossed the deputy's mind and he frowned again. "You just mentioned the sheriff's name. Are you some kind of pal of Grady Olsen's?"
"No," Gault said with a thin smile. "I don't think you could rightly say that."
Finley worried this for a moment and then decided to take it up later with Olsen. He stepped up to the door of the shack and held out his hand. "I'll take that .45 now and leave it with the sheriff."
"I said I'd leave it with the hostler."
"That won't do." The deputy shook his head, and his hairline formed a black arrowhead that pointed straight down his narrow nose.
Gault hesitated for a moment, making no move to remove his cartridge belt. Still, there didn't seem to be much sense in making trouble for himself over the revolver. Like most plainsmen, he had never had much faith in hand guns anyway. He unbuckled the belt and handed the holstered weapon to Finley.
The deputy took it with a cool smile that seemed to imply that he had won some sort of victory. With a curt little nod, he tucked the holstered Colt under his arm and strode away.
The shadows in front of the camp shacks were growing longer and darker. The day was dragging to a close and Gault could sense that the excitement of the day was beginning to pall. The funeral was over if not forgotten. The newspaper reporters, for the most part, had taken the noon stage out of New Boston. Visiting cowmen and farmers were beginning to straggle off in various directions.
It would be a day to remember, for most of them. The day they buried Wolf Garnett. For Frank Gault the day hadn't rightly started yet.
He went to the barn and left his rifle on the rack with his saddle. "I may want to rent a horse later," he told the hostler.
The rawhide little liveryman grinned and nodded his head. "That's what we're in business for." He squinted out at the dusty street. "Crowd's beginnin' to thin out some. I got an end shack now, closer to the pump, if you'd like to make a change."
He was afraid that a good-paying cash customer might move to the more convenient hotel. But it didn't matter to Gault where he stayed or how he lived. A man with a hot coal in his gut doesn't complain about a lumpy mattress. "Whereabouts is the graveyard from here?" he asked suddenly.
"You mean where they planted Wolf Garnett? Off to the north, on the slope there, maybe quarter of a mile. You can see it from the back of the barn."
As Gault was walking out of the barn the hostler called, "There's a smart little buckskin in the rent corral. I can put him back for you, if you want."
Gault hesitated, his gaze resting on a long-handled shovel in one of the feed stalls. "Maybe," he said, "you better do that."
CHAPTER TWO
The night was unseasonably cold for April; the sky glittered with ice-blue stars. Gault put the buckskin up the rocky slope to the north of New Boston. He reined up as he neared the cemetery and sat quietly until he was sure that he was not being followed. For perhaps the thousandth time he reminded himself that it wasn't too late to turn back. There was no doubt now that the dead man was Wolf Garnett; even his sister had identified him. The man he had seen in the Nations had been someone else.
Leave it alone, he told himself. Just go away from here and leave it alone.
He couldn't do it. His anger was too hot, the gall too bitter, the days too empty.
He nudged the buckskin and the cautious little animal began picking its way through the maze of earthen mounds. Gault had no trouble locating the newest grave. The mound was taller than the others, the earth around it scraped raw. There was no marker, no flowers, nothing at all to indicate that beneath that mound of clay lay a man who had once been feared all over Texas.
Slowly, Gault dismounted and staked the buckskin. He took the wagon yard shovel and plunged it into the mound.
It had been a dry winter; the shovel rang as it clashed with the flinty lumps of clay. The work went slowly, but it went steadily, and Gault developed a kind of grim rhythm with the shovel as he cleared away the mound and began work in the cavity of the grave itself.
The work went on and on, and there seemed to be no end to the length and breadth and depth of that dark grave. He worked until his muscles quivered, until rivers of sweat flowed down his face and dripped from the point of his chin, until his shirt was soaked and even his canvas windbreaker was wet. At last he had to stop. He fell against the side of the grave and gasped for breath. And for the first time he looked around him and saw himself standing there, almost shoulder deep in the new grave, and for the first time the question asked itself: Lord, what am I doing!
For one grim moment he thought that he would be sick. He closed his eyes and dragged great gulps of air into his burning lungs. Cold, moist air, smelling of the night and of the grave.
"Feelin' a little sick in your gut, are you, Gault?"
The big voice rolled and boomed with righteous indignation. Startled, Gault fell over his shovel and went to his knees. He wasn't sure whether he had actually heard the voice, or if it had been in his mind. He tilted his head and looked up from the depth of the grave, looked up at the huge figure of Grady Olsen looming against the star-scattered sky.
"Looks like you just ain't goin' to be satisfied any other way." The big sheriffs voice was slightly muffled now, sounding almost as if his jaws had been wired together. "All right, if that's what it takes to please you. Pick up your shovel. Dig."
Using the shovel as a support, Gault pulled himself to his feet. "Sheriff…" His mind was numb. He didn't know what it was that he wanted to say.
"Dig!" Olsen said again, this time with harshness and anger.
Almost without his willing it, Gault took th
e shovel in his hands and plunged it into the red clay. He lifted the shovel slowly while staring up at Olsen's wide, angry face, and dumped the few red clods over his shoulder. Only now did Gault notice the ugly twin muzzles of the sheriffs shotgun. As he dug, lifted, dumped the clay, the muzzles followed him like empty eyes.
Time dragged by. An hour. An eternity. "Careful," Olsen said finally. "You're about deep enough."
Gault had expected the solid feel of wood. But the dead man had been buried at county expense, and Standard County did not believe in squandering money on coffins.
"There," Olsen said at last. It was an angry sound.
The body had been sewn into a piece of castoff tarpaulin. Gault cast a curious glance at the sheriff. "You collected a thousand dollars in bounty. Would it have killed you to put him away in a pine box?"
"No time for that," the sheriff said impatiently. "Slit the tarp and look. Satisfy yourself once and for all. I don't want to have to go through this again."
Gault stood rigid, the shovel in his hands. He couldn't seem to make himself move.
"Have you got a knife?" Olsen asked.
Gault nodded. He felt in his pocket, took out a barlow pocketknife and opened it. For a moment the sheriff disappeared, then he appeared again, cast up against the dark sky. He had a lighted coal oil lantern in his hand. "All right, slit the tarp."
Again Gault's hand moved almost of its own will. He opened a two-foot slash in the tarpaulin. Grady Olsen got down on his knees and lowered the lantern into the grave.
Gault stared down at the horror at his feet. There was nothing there, nothing recognizable as a man.
"Gault, you all right?"
Gault could only stare at the horror. Two weeks in the water. He should have known. "Here," Olsen said. He pulled the lantern out of the grave. "Give me your hand."
Dumbly, Gault lifted his hand and the big sheriff hauled him out of the pit. Gault sat on the clay mound at the edge of the grave. "Are you satisfied now?" the sheriff asked.
He nodded wearily. The sheriff blew out the lantern. "Get your horse, we'll go back to town. I'll send somebody to fill the grave." When Gault didn't move, Olsen nudged him with the shotgun and his voice became harsh. "Nobody made you come up here and dig. And nobody told you it was goin' to be pretty."
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 i
t 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."
The Last Days of Wolf Garnett Page 2
