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:
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 the 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.
