Not ten yards away Olsen was thrashing about in a fury. When he stopped at last, panting for breath, he was almost chest-deep in the sucking mud. Esther Garnett appeared on the far bank and looked down at them coldly, unconcernedly. Gault started to speak, but knew instinctively that his voice would be shrill with panic. He made himself pause and take a deep breath, and then he said quietly, 'The rock crossing upstream from the shelf is solid. You can cross there with no trouble. When you get on this side, look for a tree with grapevines in it.' He pointed. 'Over there. It'll take a little time, but we can still get out of here. With the help of those vines.'
She looked down at them and didn't move. A chill went up Gault's spine. He made himself stay calm and move as little as possible. 'Ma'am,' he said hoarsely, 'without help we're not goin' to last much longer. What do you want me to do, beg?'
'That wouldn't do no good,' Olsen said quietly. 'That no-account brother of hers is dead—she don't give a damn about anything now.'
She looked at Olsen with an icy smile. 'I had it in mind to get Wolf buried just as soon as I could. But I think I'll stay here a while and watch you sink in that mud.'
Olsen threw his head back and shouted a word that made her blanch. But she quickly took control of herself. 'You said the army doc would fix Wolf up,' she accused him. 'It was a lie. You just wanted the gold. Well, you won't get the gold now, Grady. Nor the bounty money that you put in for, for killin' that drifter. Go on and sink in the mud; you got it comin' to you!'
Dr. Sumpter appeared beside Esther and stared at them with wide eyes. 'What is it?'
'Quicksand,' Gault told him quickly. 'We're goin' to need your help gettin' out of here.'
'What can I do?'
'Take the rock crossing just upstream from the shelf. When you get to this bank, pull down some of those grapevines, just behind us, where we went off the bank.'
'What can I do about Timmy?'
Gault felt himself sink another inch. 'Bring him with you. The crossin's safe.'
'I'll be there as soon as I can.'
The doctor disappeared, and Gault turned to the sheriff, sinking a little deeper. 'We're done for,' Olsen grinned savagely. 'Both of us. It'll take that doc till sundown to figger out a way of gettin' them grapevines out of the tree. If he don't turn gutless and decide to forget the whole thing.' He looked up at Esther Garnett. The mud was less than three inches from his chin. 'It's a shame,' he said ruefully, 'that things had to work out the way they did.'
She looked at him coldly. Suddenly she spat.
The sheriff grinned crookedly, then seemed to lose interest in her. The shallow, slick water was touching his jutting chin. 'Don't stir about any more'n you have to,' Gault told him. 'But keep your hands free. For grabbin' the vine when Sumpter comes.'
Olsen turned his head and looked at Gault with a weary grin. 'You don't understand me, Gault. I was finished the minute I decided to throw in with the Garnetts. I guess I knowed it at the time…' He sank another inch. 'But a man gets tired tryin' to live on a sheriff's pay. He wants somethin' better. A pretty woman. And, for once in his life, all the money he can spend.' The water had reached his mouth. He tilted his head back to keep from swallowing it. 'There was a time when I seen myself as a lucky man. Boss of the county. Lots of folks that looked up to me—or maybe they was just scared of me. I don't know now. But I do know that it was the cowmen—the men with money—that everybody respected. Well, sir…' He spat some water out of his mouth. 'Well, sir, one day it come over me like a fever. It seemed like I couldn't live another day scrimpin' along on a lawman's pay.' He laughed, then ended by coughing on the muddy water. 'Anyway,' he went on, 'you come a long way and waited a long time to find out some things, and it seems like you ought to know. One day Esther came to me with a proposition. I was to get a share of the gold, and her as well, if I'd help her get Wolf to a proper doctor and then out of the country. Funny, ain't it… ?'
Several minutes later, when Sumpter appeared on the bank with a length of tough green grapevine in his hand, Gault's head was the only one in sight.
It was two hours later that Gault made himself stop shaking. He scraped off the mud, then rinsed himself off at the rock crossing. He dried himself beside a fire on the creekbank. And finally he was able to think about Olsen without having his insides go cold, and he knew that the worst was over.
The doctor looked at him in a professional way. 'You've been through a lot, Mr. Gault. But after a good sleep you'll be a different man.'
'I'm a different man already,' Gault said to himself, 'from the one that landed in New Boston that day not so long ago.' He picked up his mud-stained hat and brushed it on his sleeve and put it on his head. 'The sleep will have to wait, Doc. I've got another patient for you; stock detective by the name of Torgason. I think maybe he'd appreciate it if we got to him before the sun went down.'
