The Last Days of Wolf Garnett

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Gault had been walking most of the day when he first caught the smell of woodsmoke on the still air. He followed the scent into the heavy undergrowth near the creek. He was within sight of the still blue water, carefully parting a way through a tangle of wild grapevines, when a voice said, "Stand right still, Mr. Gault. Or I'll kill you."

The voice sounded tireder and flatter than he remembered it. Gault took its advice and stood very still, his Winchester held loosely in his right hand.

"Let the rifle go," Esther Garnett said.

With great reluctance, Gault let the rifle fall into a stand of weeds. It was like parting with an old friend—the one friend that could be counted on when friendship was needed. "Is the sheriff with you, Miss Garnett?"

"Don't you mind about the sheriff. Move back a piece from the Winchester." He started to do as he had been ordered, but she spoke again, sharply. "First, drop your pistol belt."

Gault still had not seen her. She had come up behind him in the underbrush, very quietly. He unbuckled the cartridge belt and let drop the pistol that he had taken from Harry Wompler. There was a rustle of brush and Esther Garnett hurried in behind him and gathered up the weapons.

"Now you can turn around."

Gault turned and looked into the muzzle of her cocked .45. "You're a stubborn man, Gault," she said wearily. "Most likely it will get you killed before long." Her cheeks looked hollow; there were dark half-circles of exhaustion beneath her eyes. Thornbrush had torn her clothing in several places, and she was far from clean. Still, there was something about her. Gault could understand how men might do unwise and even dangerous things at her bidding. "Stubborn," she said again, "but not loco, I hope. I don't want to have to kill you." She motioned with the cocked revolver. "Turn around and start walkin'. I'll tell you when you can stop."

Gault moved slowly toward the bank of the creek. After a few minutes she said, "Here," and handed him a saddle canteen that she picked up along the way. "Take this and fill it."

Gault climbed gingerly down the clay bank and pushed the canteen into the still water. She said, "I don't guess you've got any whiskey with you."

Gault looked up, surprised. "No."

"Or medicine? Any kind of medicine?"

He shook his head.

"Have you got any tobacco?"

Gault capped the canteen and slung it over his shoulder. When he reached the top of the bank he handed her his tobacco and papers. She took them quickly and stepped back, never letting the muzzle of the .45 stray from the center of his chest. "They're plain papers," he said dryly. "Not wheatstraw, like the cigarettes we saw back on your sleepin' porch. But maybe they'll do."

She looked blank for a moment. Then, with a sudden coldness in her voice, "Yes sir, I wouldn't be surprised if that stubbornness don't get you killed."

At Esther Garnett's direction, they made their way upstream for several minutes. Gault did not speak. There were questions in his mind—bitter and burning questions—but he did not voice them.

They passed the Garnett mule and two horses staked in the bottom. The smell of woodsmoke was getting stronger. Suddenly they came upon a clearing where there was a crumbling shack of poles and rawhide. And the ruins of a field that might, at one time, have been planted in squash or corn. The field was now grown up in weeds, and the shack was falling down. The Indian who had started this primitive farm had abandoned it long ago. But the shack was not unoccupied; a faint loop of hardwood smoke rose up from the clay chimney.

"Go on in the shack," Esther Garnett said, "and I'll think on what I ought to do with you."

He ducked through the sagging doorway, blinking in the sudden darkness. The only light came from the small fire in the corner fireplace. There was no furniture in the room, but Gault made out two loglike objects on the floor. At first he thought they were rolled beds, one large and one small. Then the small roll cried.

Esther Garnett snapped angrily, "You be quiet, boy! I don't aim to tell you again!"

Gault stared from Esther to the small roll, and back to Esther again. "Who is that boy?"

"The army doc's kid," she said impatiently. "Grady Olsen fetched him here this mornin'. He said it was the only way to get the doc here." She waved the revolver at Gault. "Move over to the corner—there by the door. Set down and stay put—unless you're uncommonly anxious to get yourself shot."

Reluctantly, Gault did as she ordered. None of what she had told him about the boy made any sense. Gault settled himself in the corner of the shack. Slowly, his eyes became accustomed to the gloom. The young boy—he could be no more than six or seven—stared at him in panic. He lay helpless on the floor, to one side of the fireplace, bound hand and foot.

Esther caught Gault's look of disbelief and snapped, "He tried to run off. I couldn't have that."

"Why did Olsen bring him here in the first place?"

She glared at him but didn't bother to answer. Her mood changed suddenly, from irritation to gentleness, as she knelt beside the larger figure. "You all right, Wolf? I had to go after water, and it took some longer'n I figgered on."

Gault froze.

"You warm enough?" she asked gently. "I can build up the fire, if you ain't."

The man murmured something that Gault didn't catch. In the dancing firelight he could see the gaunt, bone-colored face and hot eyes. Was it the face of Wolf Garnett? It was a wasted face, burning with fever. Had he at last come to the end of his nightmare?

Gault heard himself speaking in a voice he hardly recognized. "Who was it they buried as Wolf Garnett, back in the New Boston graveyard?"

Esther glared at him and again refused to answer. When Gault started to get to his feet, she grabbed up the revolver and hissed, "If you want me to kill you!"

Gault hung for a moment, as if suspended on wires. Then, very slowly, he eased himself back into the corner. "It is Wolf, ain't it? It's your brother?"

She ignored him. He—and the young boy, as well—might never have existed, for all they meant to her. Anxiety mingled with tenderness as she spoke quietly to the figure on the floor. "It won't be long now, Wolf. Grady's comin' with the doc. He'll fix you up fine. You wait and see. Look," she exclaimed, "what I brought you! Cigarette makin's. You want me to make one for you now?"

The man with the bone-colored face moved his head and sighed.

With loving care, Esther Garnett shook tobacco into a paper, rolled it awkwardly and licked it into shape. She lit it from an ember in the fireplace, and put it between the man's lips.

"Wolf Garnett?" Gault asked in a constricted voice.

Esther turned on him in a cold fury. "Of course, he's Wolf Garnett! My brother never lived thirty years just to get hisself buried in a New Boston graveyard!"

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.

"Shorty Pike bothers me. The way he died," Gault went on stubbornly. "When me and Torgason and Wompler found the wagon, Shorty was wedged under the box with his head stove in. It wasn't no accident. We found the wagon bow that was used to kill him."

Wolf Garnett sighed. "I'm afraid Shorty Pike was cursed with greed, Mr. Gault. He was bound and determined to get his hands on that army gold. And I guess he would of, too, because me and him was the only ones left that knowed where it was." He closed his eyes, listening to the horsebackers behind the shack. "Tell you the truth, I would of killed Shorty myself, if I'd had the strength. Turned out I needn't of worried about it. Grady Olsen found Shorty addled by the wreck and attended to it hisself."

Gault stared at him. "The sheriff murdered his own posseman?"

Wolf grinned wearily. "Happens all the time, Gault. You'll see."

A figure loomed suddenly in the doorway. Gault turned to see a stocky, plumpish young man in a ridiculous Burnside beard, blinking at the gloom inside the shack. "Timmy?" he said anxiously. "Are you all right?"

The young boy began sobbing. The man stumbled into the room and knelt beside his son and took him in his arms.

"I thought I said we'd have no fires," Sheriff Olsen said angrily, standing in the doorway.

"Wolf was cold," Esther told him defiantly. "Anyhow, who's to see the smoke, way out here on the edge of the prairie?"

"I saw it. More'n a mile away. And the Fort Sill stage road ain't more'n five miles to the north of here." He looked at Gault, obviously disappointed to see that he was still alive. "You die hard," he said grimly. "But I'll fix that." He came on into the shack and dropped a pair of saddlebags on the floor beside Wolf. "How you feelin'?" he asked the injured man.

"All right, I guess." It was barely a whisper. The hot eyes moved about the cabin. "Gettin' a little crowded in here, ain't it?"

"I aim to thin it out before long," Olsen said meaningfully, with a look at Gault. He nudged the doctor with the toe of his boot. "Don't fret over the boy. You do your job good and he'll be fine."

The doctor looked up at Olsen. "Untie my son and let him go. I'll do what you want."

"You'll do what we want, and then we'll bargain," the sheriff told him bluntly.

The doctor set his jaw and turned back to his son.

"Everything's goin' to be all right, Timmy. Try to rest, and don't be afraid. I'll be here with you." Reluctantly, he left his son and turned to his patient.

"This here's Doc Sumpter," Olsen told the room in general. "He's had plenty practice fixin' up busted troopers. Before you know it he's goin' to have Wolf fixed up ready to travel. Ain't that right, Doc?"

Dr. Sumpter placed the back of his hand to Wolf's forehead, then began opening his saddlebags. The sheriff hunkered down next to the fireplace and looked hungrily at Esther Garnett. "How did he get here?" Nodding in Gault's direction.

Esther told him how they had met. "I didn't know what to do with him. So I just kept him here, waitin' for you to come back."

"I told her to kill him," Wolf said with a tired sigh. "But you know how women are."

"Never mind," the sheriff said coldly. "I'll attend to it."

The doctor had frozen in the act of laying out his instruments. Olsen and Wolf were discussing the subject of murder as coolly and disinterestedly as another person might discuss the vagaries of Southwestern weather. It was coming to Sumpter—slowly at first, and then with a rush—that they had no intention of letting him and his son go after he had attended the patient.

"Get on with it, Doc," Olsen said impatiently. "The sooner you get him on his feet the better it'll be for all of us."

The doctor glanced quickly at his small son. "You'd better get the whiskey," he said to Olsen.

"I almost forgot, Wolf. I brought you some whiskey from the doc's own stock." The sheriff smiled coolly, rose to his feet and went to get the whiskey.

Dr. Sumpter unbuttoned Wolfs shirt. "Tell me if this hurts." He applied pressure with his fingers near the center of Wolf's chest. The outlaw screamed. It was a shrill, piercing whisper of a scream that shredded the air like a flight of arrows.

Esther Garnett lurched to her feet and shoved the muzzle of her .45 in the doctor's face. "You do that again I'll kill you!"

The doctor, showing a courage that Gault had not noticed before, glanced at the revolver and said, "It's the only way I can tell how badly he's hurt."

"There must be some other way."

"Possibly." Sumpter shrugged. "But this is my way."

Sheriff Olsen stepped through the doorway carrying a bottle of whiskey. "He's the best doc in these parts, according to Doolie," he told Esther. "Besides that, he's the only doc around. Why don't you go outdoors a while, and I'll call you when he's got Wolf fixed up." He uncorked the bottle. "Here," he told Wolf, "take some of this."

At one time during this brief scene, when there were no guns pointed toward him, Gault had started to push away from the cabin wall. Olsen had met the move with a flinty smile. "Try it," the look seemed to say. "It will be the last move you'll ever make."

Wolf drank some of the whiskey and lay panting shallowly. Olsen spoke to Esther again, gently, "Go outdoors now. I'll see that everything's all right."

She took a deep breath, handed him the revolver and nodded reluctantly. "Here," the doctor said flatly, when she was gone. And he touched another place. "Let me know if it hurts."

The probing and the muffled cries and the cursing went on for a small eternity. Suddenly Wolf gasped and went limp. His hot, dark eyes rolled up in their sockets, and for one savage moment Gault thought he was dead.

"Fainted," the doctor said, looking at Olsen. "It's just as well. There's nothing I can do for him."

Olsen's face became a mask. "He's goin' to die?"

The doctor nodded. "He's bleeding to death inside. No one can help him now." He began replacing his instruments. "Do you want me to inform his wife?"

"His sister," Olsen said absently. His mind was on other things. "I'll tell her, when the time comes. How long has he got?"

"Not long. A few hours at the outside. May I untie my son now?"

"Later." The sheriff had a frustrating problem to solve. If Wolf died now, the secret of the army gold would die with him. Olsen would be a rogue sheriff, dishonored and hunted in his own land. "Can you bring him around so I can talk to him?"

"It would be more humane to leave him the way he is."

"He'll be a long time dead; he can rest then. Bring him around."

The doctor uncorked a small bottle of ammonia salts and held it beneath Wolfs nose. "Listen to me, Wolf," Olsen said with ponderous sincerity. "The doc's got you fixed up now. You're goin' to be fine, but it'll be a day or so before you can travel. So why don't you tell me where to find the gold, and I'll get everything ready…"

Wolf was smiling a cold, thin knife-edge of a smile. "I ain't goin' to make it. Is that the way it is, Doc?"

The doctor folded his arms and looked at him and said nothing.

"I'm tellin' you, Wolf," Olsen said quickly, "you're goin' to be fine. But the quicker I get that gold ready to travel, the quicker we can bee-line it to Mexico."

"You want that gold pretty bad, don't you, Olsen?"

"It ain't for me, it's for Esther. You got to think about her, Wolf. It would be mighty hard on a woman, throwed out on her own, without family or money."

"Family? I'm family, Sheriff. And you just told me I was goin' to be fine."

The sheriff was sweating. Wolf Garnett was about to die, and nobody knew it better than Wolf himself. He was toying with Olsen, enjoying watching him squirm.

The doctor said, "There's nothing more I can do. Let me untie my son."

Olsen's temper boiled over. "You fix up your patient, and the boy gets let go. That was the bargain."

"I told you how it is. I can't work miracles."

"Doc," Wolf told him through clinched teeth, "you better learn. The sheriff wants that gold mighty bad, and he knows he won't get it if I die." The effort of speaking left him breathless. He lay back panting, little rivulets of sweat plowing along his bone-colored face.

The doctor sized up the situation. What at first had been incredible was now a brutal matter of fact. Even if he could save the injured outlaw—which he couldn't—Olsen would still kill him and his son. Alive they would be witnesses, and a rogue sheriff couldn't afford to have witnesses haunting his future. Still, Sumpter reasoned, he might postpone the inevitable if he could make Olsen believe that he was accomplishing something. While there was life there was hope, of sorts. "There is something… I don't know how much use it will be to you…"

Olsen grinned. "I figgered you'd think of somethin'."

The doctor reached into one of his saddlebags and took out a bottle of brownish liquid. "Liquor morphinae citralis. Morphine, citric acid, cochinel, alcohol, and a little distilled water."

Olsen eyed the bottle dubiously. "What does it do?"

"Relieves pain. It also induces a sense of dreamlike well being. The patient, after taking a few teaspoons of Liquor morphinae citralis often says things that he would not say otherwise."

Olsen digested this slowly. "Why didn't you give him a drink out of that bottle when you seen what kind of shape he was in?"

"I believe your friend has a punctured lung, in which case morphine would only aggravate the condition."

The sheriff thought about it, then nodded. "Give him a drink."

"It could kill him."

"He's goin' to die anyhow. Might as well let him go in peace."

They had been talking back and forth across the body of the injured outlaw, as though he were already dead. Dr. Sumpter stared at the big sheriff and swallowed with difficulty. "Medical ethics would not permit me…"

Olsen raised his .45 and aimed it at the doctor's head. "Give him the medicine or I'll kill you."

"Even with the morphine there's no guarantee that he'll tell you what you want to know."

"Give him the medicine, or I'll kill the kid."

The doctor paled. He bent over Wolf and looked into those burning eyes. "You heard?"

"I heard," the outlaw breathed. "It don't make any difference. I don't aim to tell him anything."

"Listen, Wolf," the sheriff said anxiously, "it's on account of Esther, your own sister, that I want that gold."

Wolf grinned faintly. The doctor held the bottle to his lips and he gulped almost half the medicine.

"Give him the rest of it," Olsen said.

"It will kill him."

"Give it to him."

Resignedly, the doctor put the bottle to Wolf's lips again and he gulped until it was empty.

Several minutes passed. The sheriff stirred uneasily. "How long before it takes effect?"

"Not long now."

Wolf's eyes began to glaze. They turned curiously blank, as if an opaque curtain had quietly been drawn over his burning brain. "Wolf," Olsen said impatiently, "can you hear me?"

The outlaw sighed. "I hear."

"You've got to help Esther, Wolf. Think of all your sister's done for you. Tell me where the gold is and I'll see that she never wants for a thing."

"Go to hell, Olsen," the outlaw whispered.

The sheriff flushed. "Don't you care what happens to her?"

Wolf's pale lips twitched in a smile that said plainer than words that his hate for Olsen was stronger than his love for his sister.

"Wolf, listen to me!"

"Goddam you all," the outlaw said faintly but distinctly. It was the last thing he said. He closed his eyes and began gasping for breath. In a fury, Grady Olsen grabbed his shoulders and shook him savagely. But Wolf Garnett was dead.