The Last Days of Wolf Garnett

or milking stalls. The light that had shocked him awake was a slant of sunlight coming through the poorly chinked wall.

Gault rolled over on the mound of hay, to get the sun out of his eyes, and was immediately sorry for his rashness. An arrow of pain pierced his left side and pinned him to the ground. He was still gasping for breath when a shadow fell across the floor of the shed, and the no-nonsense voice asked, 'Do you feel like eatin' now?'

For several seconds Gault could only stare at her. She moved toward him and stood over him, looking down at him. 'Best not move around too sharp,' she told him unnecessarily. 'There ain't much wrong with you, but might a busted rib where the bullet shied off.'

She said it as though someone got shot every day or so around the place, and it was nothing to get excited about. She pulled up a three-legged milking stool and sat down and looked at him steadily. 'What's the matter with you? Can't you talk?'

'I can talk,' Gault said with some bitterness. 'It's the breathin' that bothers me.'

'That's on account of the bindin' sheet I tied around you. I seen old Doc Doolie do it once to a hand that fell off a horse and busted some ribs.'

'How long have I been here?'

'Two, three hours, all told. Took some time to haul you over here after Shorty shot you. Fool thing for him to do, and I told him so.'

Gault stared at her. Two surprisingly clear eyes peered at him from beneath the hood of her sunbonnet—that was about all he could see of her face. Besides the sunbonnet, she wore the long, shapeless gray gingham dress that all farm women seemed to favor. In the country west of Kansas City there must have been a thousand farm wives just like her, looking almost as if they had been cut from the same pattern. And yet, there was something about this woman. The bluntness and briskness of youth, Gault guessed it was.

'I reckon you better lay back and rest a spell,' she said, after a few moments' consideration. 'Ain't good to get yourself stirred up after bein' shot. That's what my ma always said.'

'Shorty Pike,' Gault said, trying to keep his voice even. 'And the ones that were with him. Did you see which way they went?'

Those clear eyes beneath the sunbonnet hood blinked at him. 'They didn't go nowhere, they're over at my kitchen eatin' dinner.' The woman stood up, nodded briskly and said, 'I got some marrow bone broth on the stove. It'll perk you up some.'

'Ma'am,' Gault said as she made for the shed door, 'just to get somethin' clear in my mind… Are you Wolf Garnett's sister?'

'Course I am,' she said quietly. 'Ever'body knows that.' Gault closed his eyes and made his mind a blank. The shaft of sunlight moved persistently across his bed of hay and fell once again across his face, but he was too bewildered to notice it, and too tired to move.

Gault had been awake only a few minutes when he became aware of the tall figure darkening the doorway. Deputy Dub Finley came into the shed, his face scowling and thoughtful, his hairline pointing straight down the slender bridge of his nose. 'You're a lucky man, Gault,' he said quietly. 'You ought to be a gambler. With your luck.'

Gault looked at the deputy's dark countenance and decided that, unpleasant as it was, it was not the face of a man bent on immediate murder. 'I guess,' he said harshly, 'there ain't much sense in askin' if you're goin' to arrest Shorty Pike for shootin' me.'

'Arrest Shorty Pike?' The young lawman was amused. 'We seen you clear as day, down in the riverbottom, fixin' to run off two of the Garnett milk cows. We hollered at you, and that's when you started shootin' at us. Shorty fired in self-defense. No two ways about it.'

Gault forced himself to speak without shouting. 'What did I use for a gun when I was doin' all this shootin'?'

'Why your Winchester, of course.'

'Maybe you'd tell me how I could fire a rifle that didn't have a firing pin?'

The deputy grinned. 'There ain't nothin' wrong with that rifle, Gault. I checked it myself. The firin' pin's good as new.'

Gault had no doubt that it was new, but there was no way he could prove it. If he wanted to be stubborn and take the matter to court, it would be his word against Finley's. And he didn't have to guess which side the judge would believe. Still, it was a fact that the deputy had tried to kill him. Would have killed him, if Esther Garnett hadn't happened along when she had.

'See what I mean, Gault?' The deputy favored Gault with a one-sided smile. 'Maybe next time Miss Garnett won't happen along in time to help you. Luck, they say, has a way of runnin' out.'

'Finley,' Gault said wearily, 'would you tell me somethin'?'

'Be proud to,' the deputy said dryly. 'What is it you want to know?'

'The sheriff, what I saw of him, didn't strike me as a scalp hunter. What does he aim to do with the bounty money when he collects?'

This was not the question that Finley had expected, but he shrugged and answered without hesitation. 'Why, he'll give it over to Miss Esther. What did you figger he'd do with it?'

Suddenly Gault was tired of the deputy and tired of talking. Finley hunkered down next to the straw bed, studying Gault with curiosity, as a small boy might have studied a horned toad sleeping in the sun. He felt for makings and meticulously built and lit a cigarette. 'Like I say,' he said mildly. 'You been runnin' in luck. But a smart gambler knows when the cards're startin' to turn on him. What kind of a gambler are you, Gault?'

'A curious one.'

Finley shook his head sadly. 'The worst kind.' He finished his smoke and shoved himself to his feet.

'I take it,' Gault said acidly, 'that you and the sheriff, and some others, don't want me in Standard County any longer. Might be I'd leave, and save you the trouble of killin' me, if I knowed why it was that you didn't want me here.'

Finley smiled. It was a chilling expression on a humorless face. 'Miss Esther ain't had much schoolin', but she's a tolerable good doc. She'll have you up and around inside of two, three days. Your buckskin's in the horse pen on the other side of the shed. My advice is get saddled soon as you're able to ride, and strike for some direction away from Standard County.'

The deputy nodded and strode out of the shed. Gault lay for a long while, his mind milling in aimless circles. He saw Shorty Pike and Colly Fay pass in front of the open doorway, heading for the Garnett cornfield with long- handled hoes on their shoulders.

Gunhands hoeing corn. It made a bizarre picture. And it raised bizarre and disturbing thoughts in his mind.

He drifted into a troubled sleep, and when he awoke Esther Garnett was standing over him with a large crock bowl in her hands. 'Deputy Finley said you was in a hurry to get well so's you could start back to your homeplace. You won't be doin' much ridin' for three, four days. And not then, if you don't start eatin'.' She pulled up the milking stool and sat down and handed him the bowl.

'Sorry to put you out,' he said with lingering bitterness. 'I didn't aim to go and get myself shot on your property.'

She ignored his heavy sarcasm. 'Wasn't your fault,' she told him. 'All a misunderstandin'. Deputy Finley and Shorty and Colly thought you was drivin' off my cows.'

There didn't seem to be any point in arguing about it. Gault gazed down at the soup, a rich brown broth swimming with grease and chunks of marrow. The thought of eating any of it caused his stomach to curl. What he wanted was a large glass of whiskey and some rest. More than anything else, a night of dreamless sleep. A night of oblivion in which Martha's terrified eyes did not haunt him.

'Eat,' Esther Garnett said briskly, those clear eyes watching him from beneath the hood of her sunbonnet.

Gault dipped a spoon through the layer of grease and took some of the broth in his mouth. It was as bad as he had feared. After a few spoonfuls he put the bowl aside.

'Come breakfast time,' she told him, 'you'll feel more like eatin'.' Gault lay back on the hay. For some time those clear eyes continued to look at him from beneath the hood of the sunbonnet. Then, in a gesture of mild