The Last Days of Wolf Garnett

The man with the feverish face rolled his head and looked disinterestedly at Gault. 'He ain't nobody to fret about,' Esther assured him. 'A cowman, used to be. Name of Gault. You recollect anybody like that?'

Wolf Garnett's feverish gaze passed wearily over Gault's face. '… No.' It wasn't much more than a whisper.

Gault sat like stone. This was the man that had killed Martha. The thought was a live coal in his brain. He had searched for months and traveled hundreds of miles, driven by the thought of this moment. Yet, he did not move.

When the cigarette burned down, Esther took it out of her brother's mouth. 'You want another one, Wolf?'

He shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment, as if gathering his strength. Then he looked at Gault. 'What's he doin' here?'

Esther frowned, and then said thoughtfully, 'I ain't right sure. I think maybe he's loco, kind of. He claims you killed his wife.'

Wolf Garnett did not look surprised or even very interested. 'When was this?'

'Nearly a year ago, I think. Shorty Pike was tellin' me. You and some of the boys held up a stagecoach she was in—the coach went off a high road and she was killed.'

Wolf Garnett closed his eyes again and mentally plodded back through a year of violence. 'I recollect,' he said wearily. 'So he's been huntin' me all this time, has he?' The thin lips twitched in what might have been a smile. 'Kill him.'

In the sudden quiet of the shack the crackling woodfire sounded like pistol shots in Gault's ears. Esther Garnett said slowly, 'I don't hardly think I can do it, Wolf. I mean, as long as he just sets there, not makin' a fuss or anything…'

'Kill him now and you won't have to worry about it later,' Wolf advised her. Then, in a tone of utter exhaustion, 'But don't let it fret you. Just watch him. Olsen will attend to him when he gets back… Lord,' he sighed, 'I hurt.'

'Grady said he'd bring back some whiskey, if he could find some.'

Wolf Garnett stared at Gault with hot, impersonal eyes. 'Is he by hisself? There wasn't nobody with him?'

'There wasn't nobody with him, Wolf. Try to get some rest. I'll watch after things till Grady gets here with the doc.'

Esther watched Gault over the sights of the cocked revolver. From time to time the boy would whimper. Wolf had closed his eyes again and appeared to be sleeping. When Gault was sure that his rage was under control and that he was capable of speaking calmly, he said, 'Who was it they buried under your brother's name, back in New Boston?'

She glared at him. 'He wasn't nobody, just a drifter.'

'Did Olsen find him dead, like he claimed, or did he kill him?'

Her hesitation was all the answer he needed. '… What difference does it make now? He's dead and buried.'

'Why? What would turn a man like Olsen into a rogue lawman?'

She smiled coldly. 'There are some men, Mr. Gault, that claim I ain't too hard to look at. Me and the sheriff are goin' to get married after… all this is over.' Then her chilly smiled turned icy. 'But I don't flatter myself that he's done all he's done just on account of me.'

'The gold.'

She blinked, faintly surprised. 'You know about that?'

'The watch that Colly Fay had on him when he died. Wompler and Torgason recognized it from my description.'

She shrugged with one shoulder. 'Now you know everything.' She mentally signed his death warrant.

Gault sat very still, looking into the muzzle of the .45. 'How bad is your brother hurt?'

She glanced affectionately at that hot, dry face. 'I don't know for sure. His horse went off a cut bank one night and fell on him. That was almost a month ago. Shorty and Colly brought him to the farm to mend.' She shook her head dumbly. 'But he wouldn't mend. And there wasn't nothin' I could do for him. Doc Doolie says he's all busted up inside and there wasn't nothin' he could do for him either. But there's a army doc at Fort Sill that Grady says can fix Wolf up fine. That's where he is now, gone after the doc.'

Now Gault understood what the young boy was doing there. He was the doctor's son and they were holding him hostage.

Esther saw the look on his face and said defensively, 'We never aimed to hurt the boy; we'll let him go as soon as his pa gets Wolf fixed up.'

Gault looked deep into the girl's cool eyes. She refused to believe that her brother was dying; her faith in the miraculous power of an unknown army doctor was calm and unshakable. She believed that the boy would go unharmed and that everything would somehow work out fine. Grady Olsen would engineer their escape out of the country, they would take the gold with them and they would live like nabobs somewhere in that huge land below the Bravo.

'You say that Colly and Shorty brought your brother to the farm,' Gault said. 'And Olsen says they were workin' as honest drovers at the time.'

She smiled faintly. 'Grady figgered it sounded better that way.'

Gault said patiently, 'Do you actually believe that Olsen can steal a boy from an army post like Fort Sill, and then steal the post doctor, and get away with it?'

'Grady wants me a whole lot,' she said complacently. 'And he wants that gold, too. Whatever needs to be done, Grady will do it.'

The night wore on. The boy slept fitfully, waking from time to time in fits of terror. Esther Garnett coolly ignored him and kept her unblinking gaze on Gault. Once Gault said, 'You've told me what Olsen hopes to gain out of this. But what about the others.'

'The others?' She looked puzzled. 'Shorty and Colly knowed about the gold. That's what they was after. And Deputy Finley…' She smiled an icy smile of recollection. 'I'm afraid Deputy Finley had the notion I'd put Grady Olsen off, once we was all safe in Mexico, and marry him.'

'I thought maybe it was somethin' like that,' Gault said with a grim smile of his own.

Wolf Garnett lay like a dead man, and from time to time his sister would bathe his forehead with a damp rag—but in one hand she always kept the revolver, and the muzzle never strayed more than an inch or two from Gault's chest.

At last the iron-hard light of dawn sifted down on the derelict shack. Outside, there was a waking and stirring of small things that lived near the water. A raucous bluejay shattered the stillness with its chattering. Then, in the distance they heard the sound of horses.

Esther touched her brother's shoulder and said excitedly, 'It's Grady; he's comin' with the doc!'

Wolf opened his feverish eyes and looked at his sister. 'Is there any of that tobacco left?'

Watching Gault, Esther placed the cocked revolver in her lap and rolled the cigarette. Wolf smoked in silence, and it seemed to Gault that his face looked even drier and deader than it had the night before. To relieve the oppressive silence, Gault said, 'I don't understand why you're goin' to all this trouble because of a doctor. There was Doc Doolie in New Boston—he was lookin' after your brother, wasn't he?'

Esther's eyes narrowed angrily. 'Doolie ain't fit to doctor a sick mule. He admitted hisself there wasn't nothin' he could do to help Wolf.'

'Still, Doolie was a doctor and a respected citizen of the county. Why would he involve himself with an outlaw like Wolf Garnett?'

Esther answered his question with a shrug and a sneer. 'The doc does what the sheriff tells him. Like everybody else in Standard County.'

The horsebackers were going around to the back of the shack. Gault mopped a fine bead of sweat from his forehead and looked at the man who had killed Martha. 'There's one more thing that bothers me.'

Wolf Garnett chuckled dryly. 'I bet. You got a right curious turn of mind, Mr. Gault.'

'I warned him it was apt to get him killed,' Esther said, and her brother smiled.