The hostler lowered his gaze and began sliding away. 'Can't say as I do. I got a poor memory for places. Especially places that ain't none of my business.' He pocketed his money and walked off.
Gault jammed a knee in the buckskin's ribs and jerked the cinch down another notch when the startled animal sucked in its gut. With a final curious glance at the retreating hostler, Gault stepped into the stirrup and swung up to the saddle. He reined back toward the feed store where Sheriff Grady Olsen had his office.
The sheriff met him at the doorway. 'I see you got the buckskin all right. That mean you'll soon be pullin' out of our fair city?'
'As soon as I get my .45.'
'That's right,' Olsen smiled blandly. 'You gave your Colt to my deputy, didn't you?'
'He took it.'
The sheriff scratched the stubble on his heavy jaw and assumed a puzzled expression. 'Why would he want to do that?'
Gault experienced a flash of intuition that pointed the way this conversation was going to take. 'Because you told him to take it,' he said coldly. 'Anyhow, that's what he said.'
'Queer,' Olsen said with a note of wonder. 'I never told him to
Gault sensed that it was very unlikely that he would ever see that pistol again. With rising anger he asked, 'Where is your deputy now?'
'Down in the south end of the county seein' about a case of brand splotchin'. I expect him back in three, four days. If he don't run into trouble.'
'I don't care about the deputy, just give me the Colt.'
The big lawman assumed an elaborate air of innocence and Gault decided that Grady Olsen had missed his calling. He was a born actor. 'I'd be proud to hand over your pistol, Gault, if I knowed where it was. But I'm scared we'll have to wait and ask Dub Finley about that.'
That was the way it was going to be. Gault was packed and eager to get away from New Boston, and Olsen knew it.
The sheriff had rightly guessed that Gault would not postpone leaving for another three or four days because of a single Colt revolver.
'Wish I could be more help,' the lawman said blithely. 'If you don't want to wait, I reckon I could express the gun to you. If you tell me where you want it sent.'
Gault gazed at that wide open face and honest eyes and wondered why a respected county sheriff would lie and cheat and connive, all because of one inexpensive hand gun. As he thought about it his early anger began to settle. Curiosity, and a kind of vague unease, took its place. 'Never mind,' he said dryly. 'Might be I'll be passin' through here again sometime.' He turned on his heel and went down the outside stairway.
He climbed up to the saddle and sat there for a moment before reining away from the rack. The sheriff was looking down at him, his big face blank, his hands grasping the railing of the second-floor gallery.
With the innocence of angels, the sheriff smiled down at him. Gault hauled the buckskin away from the rack and pointed the animal up the main street of New Boston, heading north.
Was it his imagination, or did the town actually seem to hold its breath for a moment? A prickling sensation scurried across Gault's scalp. He had the feeling that from behind every window along the street a pair of eyes was watching him. The hostler was standing in front of the livery barn, arms folded across his chest, his eyes fixed on Gault. Gault nodded as he rode past. The hostler turned abruptly and walked into the barn.
When he had put the town behind him and it was no longer in sight, Gault reined off the Gainsville mail road and struck northwest toward the Little Wichita. He had been out of New Boston for a little more than an hour when a disquieting thought came to him. He jerked the Winchester out of the saddle boot and began inspecting it.
It took only a few seconds to discover that the firing pin had been neatly filed away. When or by whom he couldn't say, but he guessed it to be the work of the hostler, or possibly Deputy Dub Finley. Probably while Gault had been digging in the New Boston graveyard.
Not that any of those things mattered now. The thing that mattered was that someone, for reasons of his own, had very quietly and efficiently disarmed him.
It was a pleasant spring day in North Texas. The rolling prairie was sparkling green, the sky a dazzling blue. Cattle, fat and sleek, lazed in the new grass. Along the streams budding cottonwoods and oaks were coming into leaf. The sun was warm, the air so clean that it tasted faintly of flint and steel. All in all, it was a near perfect day for travelers.
Frank Gault did not enjoy it. He was not even aware of the calm beauty that surrounded him.
For the past hour he had suspected that he was being followed; within the past few minutes he had become certain of it. There were two of them at least, maybe three. They lay far back on his backtrail, popping up from behind ridges and knolls, moving when Gault moved, stopping when he stopped. Usually there was only one of them in sight at a time, and never more than two.
Near midafternoon Gault dismounted at a small stream and let the buckskin drink and graze for several minutes. Far to the south, appearing as little more than a speck on the horizon, one of the riders topped a rise and stopped. Could it be the sheriff? Gault didn't think so. Even at that distance, Gault was sure that he would recognize Grady Olsen's slope-shouldered figure if he were to see it.
The deputy, maybe? Gault had met the deputy only once, and the young lawman had not greatly impressed him. It was impossible to tell at that distance.
Whoever they were, they seemed to be playing a waiting game. Waiting and watching. Gault would have given a great deal to know why.
He rebalanced and tied the bulky bedroll behind the saddle and once again pointed the buckskin toward the northwest. The horsebacker on the far horizon moved casually across the green prairie and disappeared in a stand of blackjack. In a few minutes one of the other riders appeared on a wooded knoll, maybe a mile to the east of the first one.
Gault began to experience an ill-defined ache in his gut. At first it occurred to him that the surly proprietor of the New Boston Ritz had poisoned him. Then he recognized it for what it was—a subtle but steadily growing fear. It was not an unfamiliar experience—all cattlemen knew it well. A horse going off a cut bank on a dark night. The suck of quicksand. Stumbling in front of a stampede.
But this was different. It was a quiet but growing thing. The kind of sensation that went with the knowledge that he was unarmed and helpless in a hostile country.
Late that afternoon Gault reached the Little Wichita and prepared to make camp in a grove of rattling cottonwoods. The distant horsebackers were not to be seen, but he had no doubt that they were there. Waiting and watching.
The prairie sun took a long time dying. Gault staked the buckskin in new grass and built his fire. He did not bother to make it small or smokeless—the watchers would see it, however small he made it. Methodically, he inspected the meager camp gear that the hostler had thrown in with the buckskin. A small skillet, a granite coffeepot, a spoon, all wrapped in a faded tarpaulin and a dirty patchwork quilt. In his own warbag he had a small parcel of cornmeal, a piece of dry salt meat and some crushed coffee beans.
He cut off a slab of salt meat and put it in the skillet to cook. He dipped some water into the coffeepot, added the crushed beans and set it beside the skillet. From far upstream he heard the faint rustle of brush. It might have been a deer. Or a wild turkey settling on a cottonwood branch for the night. But he didn't think so.
Gault smiled thinly to himself as the smell of cooking meat spread on the still air. He wondered if the watchers would dare to build fires, or if they would lay back cautiously and make do with cold trail fare that night.
