moments of silence. Olsen was still scanning the creekbottom.
Then Wompler exploded again with suppressed anger. 'What're you waitin' on? Kill him! With Olsen out of the way, Finley'll lose interest in the sport soon enough!'
'Shut up!' Gault said through clinched teeth.
Olsen's head came up, his eyes slitted. He made a slight movement with his right hand and then, completely unexpectedly, he ducked into the brush again and disappeared. Gault could hear Wompler cursing disgustedly, and this time he couldn't blame him. He had had Olsen dead in his sights. A slight pressure on the trigger would have removed the threat. And killed a man.
That was the trouble, Gault thought grimly. He was a cowman, not a killer.
Wompler was hissing again between his teeth. 'Gault! Do you see him?'
Gault was instantly alert. He scanned the area on both sides of the redbud and saw the movement—a very slight one—where Wompler had seen the deputy. 'Yes,' he said. 'All right. Just see if you can be quiet a while.'
He could feel himself sweating. The ground was damp and cold, the air was fresh with springtime, with still an aftertaste of winter in it—but he was sweating. Olsen and the deputy were moving in closer with their crossfire pattern.
Over on Gault's right a clump of green mullein trembled. Was it a vagrant breeze mysteriously channeled across that particular part of the bottom, or was it a rifleman? Gault pushed his hat back and wiped his forehead on his sleeve.
'Gault,' Wompler hissed. 'Did you see that?'
'Be quiet.'
For a time they lay like logs, and the creekbottom was silent. No breeze stirred the leaves on the trees or the weeds on the ground. It was an electric silence that set Gault's scalp to prickling. Then, in the midst of that silence, there was an eruption of sound. In Gault's startled ears it sounded as if a boulder had suddenly fallen out of the sky and was hurtling through the underbrush.
It had been a pebble, probably no larger than a man's thumb. Olsen, or possibly Finley, had thumped it into the brush to distract them. The ruse was as ancient as history's hunt—and it still worked.
It was Wompler, not Gault, who reacted first to the noise. He lurched up in the underbrush, swinging his .45 in a wild arc, firing shot after shot at the harmless undergrowth.
He died almost immediately. Olsen and his deputy fired at almost the same instant. For just a moment Wompler looked over at Gault, appalled to find himself at the center of that deadly pattern of fire. Then thunder rolled down through the bottom, and the former deputy fell back into a stand of weeds.
And that, Gault thought with an eerie bleakness is the end of Harry Wompler. And his frustrated ambitions. And dreams of riches.
This strange mood of disinterest had taken hold of him when he saw the bullets tearing into Wompler, and he was hardly conscious of firing the Winchester until he felt the stock leaping against his shoulder. As in a vaguely remembered dream, he saw the dead face of Deputy Dub Finley passing in front of his sights. Going down slowly, like a ship sinking. Or a tree falling. And that, Gault thought again—still in the grip of that eerie detachment—is the end of Deputy Finley. Pony hide vest, fancy pistols and all.
The numbness lasted only a moment. Wompler was dead and Finley was probably dead, but Olsen was still very much alive. Gault dived for the ground, and knives drove into his wounded side. He tried not to think of the pain. He brought up the picture of a stagecoach going off a mountain road—and the pain was tolerable. He could almost welcome it.
Olsen fired two well-spaced, thoughtful shots into the area where Gault had been, but by that time Gault had scrambled a dozen yards away through the undergrowth. There he crumpled to the damp ground, gasping for breath. He heard the bullets ripping through the weeds. One of the lead slugs struck a rock and went screaming off into the blue-gray afternoon.
For the moment he was helpless. The breath had been knocked out of him; he couldn't even raise his rifle to his shoulder. He did have his covering of tender green leaves, and Olsen still could not be sure whether he was alive or dead. After the two shots, Olsen had again ducked back into the lacy greenery out of sight. The echoing thunder of riflefire slowly died in the bottom. Again an expectant silence settled on the shady undergrowth.
Then Olsen spoke. One quiet, reasonable man speaking to another. 'Gault, this is a lot of foolishness. And damn dangerous foolishness, at that. We can't do one another any good like this; what say we try to strike a bargain?'
Gault started to speak, then realized that that was just what Olsen wanted. It was no bargain that the sheriff wanted; he was hoping that Gault would give his position away. Gault inched his rifle to his shoulder.
'Gault,' Olsen said threateningly, 'you ain't got nothin' to gain by gettin' me sore. Just hold your rifle where I'll know you won't try to shoot me, and we can talk this thing out.'
Gault smiled bitterly and gazed at the wall of weeds over the Winchester's sights. Where was the sheriff's voice coming from? On the upper bank somewhere, beyond the redbud. It was hard to tell, with both of them wrapped in blankets of greenery.
The long silence stretched into minutes. To Gault they seemed like hours. Then the sheriff spoke with a sigh, and for the last time. 'Don't be a fool, Gault. What has happened has happened; there ain't no way you can change a thing.'
Gault said nothing. He hardly dared to breathe. Then, after another long silence, he heard a quiet rustling in the weeds. Olsen was backing out of the creekbottom. He still couldn't be sure whether Gault was alive or dead; but he was pulling out just the same.
From somewhere in that pale green jungle there was the nervous stamping of a horse. After a moment the sound of hoofs faded away to the north. Soon there was no sound at all.
For whatever reason, Grady Olsen had broken off the fight. Long after the sound of Olsen's horse had faded away, Gault lay in the tall weeds, painfully aware of his injured side. He knew in his mind that Wompler was dead, but he told himself that he ought to get up and make sure. Still, he lay there. The bandages had slipped and his side was bleeding again; he could feel the blood moving warm and wet over the point of his hip. Still, he couldn't bring himself to move just yet. There was too much mystery attached to the actions of Grady Olsen. Too many questions yet to be answered.
Automatically, his hands began unbuttoning his windbreaker and shirt and readjusting the bandage, but his mind was on the sheriff. Why had Olsen left the safety of Standard County to venture into Indian country and commit murder? Why had he broken off the fight, knowing that he might be leaving a rifle-armed enemy to dog his backtrail?
Wearily, Gault pushed himself to his knees. 'Wompler?'
The former deputy lay back in green weeds spattered with crimson. His eyes were blind, his ears deaf. Gault turned his gaze toward the upper bank and called uselessly, 'Finley?'
The deputy lay face-down in a stand of dark mullein. First Colly, and now you, Gault thought bleakly. Two men he had killed in almost as many days. It was not a comfortable knowledge to live with. For several moments he stood there, dumbly wondering if there was anything else he could do. There wasn't.
He finished buttoning up his shirt and windbreaker. Then he picked up his hat and brushed it off and started climbing the steep grade away from the water.
When he reached the upper bank he sat on a rotting log and tried to get his bearings. Fort Sill was about a half a day's ride northwest. To the east was the Chickasaw Nation, where a U.S. deputy marshal was headquartered— but too far away to be of any help to Gault. Far to the north was the Cherokee Outlet where more cattlemen were leasing grass—again, too far away.
Night was coming down on the prairie, and the horses were nowhere to be found. Gault made his way to the outer fringe of timber and stumbled on to the north for as long as there was light to see by.
At last he sank beneath the darkly gleaming spread of a liveoak tree. In exhaustion he sat for a long while, his mind a blank. Get some rest, he advised himself, while you can. Tomorrow will look better.
After a long while sleep overtook him. Immediately, Martha was with him. With terror in her eyes. Silently begging him to save her. As the stagecoach went off the mountain road.
Gault awoke, as always, in a bitter sweat. For a moment he was startled to find himself here on the edge of
