The Last Days of Wolf Garnett (15 page)

It was Wompler who saw the wagon first. The three men reined up sharply and studied it for some time without speaking.

The driver, apparently, had lost control of the wagon before it had ever reached the rock crossing. It had skidded off the near bank, plunging off the shoulder of sand and landing in one of the shallow channels on the Texas side of the river. There it lay now, on its side, the bows shattered, the dirty white sheet trailing in the reddish water. Several yards from the wagon a broken wheel was partially imbedded in the sand. There was no team.

"Like Gault says," Wompler said excitedly, "that gold's heavy stuff. She couldn't of took it with her. It must still be in the wagon."

"We don't know there was ever any gold in the wagon," Gault reminded him.

But Wompler was already spurring his horse down the sandy embankment. The former lawman swung out of his saddle and clambered into the half-submerged wagon box. After a moment his head appeared over the sideboards. "Everything's a mess in here. Get a loop on this wagon box and pull it right-side up, then we'll see where we stand."

Obediently, Torgason and Gault tied onto the submerged bow brackets, then backed their horses in the shallow water and pulled the wagon upright. Wompler scrambled back inside and began tearing away what remained of the canvas sheet.

Esther Garnett's prized china dishes lay shattered in the bottom of the wagon. A bundle of clothing had broken open and odds and ends of female attire floated on the dirty water. What appeared to be a bedroll was wedged in mud beneath the driver's seat. If there had ever been any gold in the wagon, it was not there now.

Wompler stared at the waste of useless articles floating in the wagon box. His face was crumpled in disappointment, and for one uneasy moment Gault thought he might break into tears. "There ain't nothin' here!" he exploded. He grabbed up an unbroken plate and smashed it against the sideboards. "No gold! Nothin' at all!"

Torgason put his sturdy claybank into deeper water and slowly circled the wagon. He leaned over in the saddle, looking intently at something beneath the front wheels. "Not quite nothin'," he said without expression. "Here's Shorty Pike."

The stock detective eased the claybank against the front of the wagon box and rocked it gently in the shallow water. The body of the stocky posseman came to the surface, floating face up, the wide eyes staring unblinkingly at the blue spring sky.

Wompler made a whistling sound as he sucked in his breath. He stared over the side of the wagon. "Has he been shot?"

"Can't tell," Torgason said matter of factly. He shook out his loop and expertly caught one of the corpse's feet and dragged it onto the sandy beach. With cool competence, the detective got down, turned the body over and examined it. "He wasn't shot," he said at last. "He didn't need it." He pointed to the saucerlike dent in the back of Shorty's head. "Pitched out when the wagon went off the bank. Hit a rock, maybe. Whatever it was, he never knowed what hit him." With a faintly surprisingly show of delicacy, he closed the dead man's eyes.

Wompler's eyes widened in alarm. "Maybe somethin' happened to Esther, too."

"Maybe the sheriff and his deputy," Gault offered.

Torgason nodded but made no comment. They put their horses across the river and picked up some tracks on the north bank. "But whose tracks are they?" Wompler asked. "Esther, or Olsen and Finley?"

Gault rode up to the crest of sandhills that lined the north bank of the Red. "What're you lookin' for?" Wompler wanted to know.

"The mule that was in the traces with Shorty's animal. It don't make sense that she'd hang onto that mule when she had a perfectly good saddle horse to ride."

Wompler had a bright idea. "Maybe that's what happened to the gold. She packed it on the mule."

Torgason regarded him with contempt. In the back of Gault's mind he heard the two men bickering angrily, but his thoughts were somewhere else. He rode along the collar of the sandhills and picked up more tracks, but again it was impossible to say whose they were.

Lord, Gault thought wearily, I feel like I've been traveling half a lifetime. Without sleep or rest. Sometimes he almost forgot why he was doing it. There were even times when the face of Wolf Garnett became mingled with other faces in his memory. "It's because I'm tired, Martha," he said aloud. "It ain't that I'm forgetting. It ain't that I've got any notion of lettin' it rest—you can depend on that." He looked up to see Torgason and Wompler staring at him strangely.

They pressed on to the north, following what may or may not have been trail left by Esther Garnett.

They were in Comanche country now, somewhere below the west branch of Cashe Creek which, in places, was more of a river than the Red. They crossed one of the many small streams that fingered out from the west branch. They were now in a country of gentle green hills and valleys, country that would one day be rich farmland but was now leased pasture.

Suddenly Wompler came up in his stirrups and said, "What's that?" He pointed to a small piece of broken ground in the valley below. The crooked rows of poorly planted corn could only mean that the Quaker Indian agents had converted a Comanche to farming.

Gault told them that it was an Indian farm, and Torgason said quickly, "You used to run cattle in this country. Talk to the Indian, ask if he's seen anything of a white woman horsebackin' it this way."

Gault shrugged. "If I remember any Comanche."

The Indian's name was Watch Horses and he was a Quahada Comanche which, according to white horse soldiers, made him one of the best light cavalryman in the world. But not any more. His people were beaten, scattered, and there was defeat in his dark Indian eyes as he leaned on his hoe and looked up at Gault.

With the aid of sign and a few words of Comanche, Gault asked if a woman horsebacker had passed this way.

Watch Horses said that his wife had gone to the Indian agency that morning to trade some skins. "No," Gault corrected himself. "
To'savit
. White woman."

Watch Horses considered for a moment. It was possible, he said at last, that a white woman had passed this way. But he had not seen her.

"Did he see Olsen and Finley?" Torgason asked.

Gault relayed the question, and Watch Horses shrugged. Yes, two white men passed this way not long ago, heading north. But nowdays Indianland was overrun with white cowmen; the Quahada had not paid them any particular attention.

"Let's go," Wompler said impatiently. "It was Olsen and Finley. I can feel it in my bones."

This time they did not bother with tracks, they struck due north, in the direction indicated by the old Comanche. There was an electric urgency in the air. For Torgason and Wompler it was the prospect of sudden riches. For Gault it was something more insidious; there were times when he thought it was madness. A man
must
be loco, he told himself, to spend the best part of a year chasing after ghosts… But then he would see that stagecoach going off the mountain road, and Martha's eyes wide with terror. Loco or not, he could not stop now.

They topped one of those many grassy hillocks that punctuated the flat prairie between the Wichitas and the Red. Torgason, riding a little ahead of the others, raised one hand. With a nod he indicated a distant stream, a small creek clearly defined by the lacy green of budding timber. "A little to the right of the tallest cottonwood. Tell me what you see."

Squinting, Gault and Wompler leaned forward in their saddles. Gault shook his head. "I don't see anything." Wompler grunted, indicating that he didn't either.

Torgason scratched the bristling beard on his chin. "Maybe it was nothin'. A flash of light. Sunlight hittin' a piece of mica, maybe."

"Or gunsteel?" Gault asked.

"… We'll see."

They spread out as they started down the slope to the creek, spacing themselves out, making the target less tempting. They moved to within two hundred yards of the cottonwood—easy rifle range. Still there was nothing to be seen.

Gault turned in his saddle to look at the detective. Torgason was again scratching his chin in an unconscious show of concern. He made pushing motions with his hands, telling Gault and Wompler that they would approach the cottonwood from different directions. It was then that Torgason's horse fell.

Gault heard the animal grunt—then he heard the report of the rifle. The sturdy claybank stumbled, tossed its head in a moment of wildness, and pitched to the near side. Torgason was grabbing for his own rifle and trying to free his right foot from the stirrup when the horse crashed on top of him.

Acting on his cowman's instinct, Gault ignored for the moment the danger from the creekbank. He grabbed his Winchester, dumped out of the saddle and raced to Torgason's aid. Wompler obeying his own instincts, ignored Torgason and spurred to the bottom of the slope, which put him below the rifleman's line of sight.

"Don't be a fool!" Torgason grated. "My leg's busted. I can't move. Get away from this hilltop before that rifleman finishes both of us."

The distant rifle barked twice, as if in anger. Gault dived for the ground as the two bullets seared the air over his head. Using the dead horse as a breastworks, Gault said, "I'll try to get the weight off of you. When you're clear, haul yourself back out of the way."

The rifle barked again; this time the bullet slammed into the dead horse with a sickening thud. Gault got his shoulder beneath the cantle of the saddle and lifted with all his strength. Grunting with pain, Torgason pulled himself up to a sitting position, freed his foot from the stirrup and crawled back from the dead animal.

The detective lay on the springy sod, panting shallowly, great beads of sweat on his forehead. "What happened to Wompler?" he asked at last.

"Spurred to the bottom of the slope where the rifleman can't see him."

Torgason smiled grimly. "He ain't as big a fool as I thought." He panted some more and wiped his forehead. "I don't reckon you got a look at whoever's doin' the shootin?"

"They're hid back in the timber along the creekbank." A bullet plowed into the ground alongside the dead horse. "It must be the sheriff." Gault eased his head over the edge of the saddle and saw Wompler waving to him from the bottom of the slope. "Wompler's signalin'. I better see what he wants."

"And get yourself shot for your trouble?"

"I think he wants us to split up and see if we can get the creekbank in a crossfire."

"Listen to Wompler and he'll get you killed." The detective sighed and lay back and stared up at the dazzling sky. "On the other hand, if Olsen aims to finish us, he'll finish us. It don't matter much what we do."

Gault considered for a moment. "From what I seen of Olsen, he didn't strike me as a murderer."

"Gold makes men do funny things," Torgason said softly, still looking at the sky. "Gold and woman."

Gault snaked his arm around the claybank's shoulder and eased the saddle rifle out of the boot. He checked it quickly and put it in Torgason's hands. "Stay down out of sight. I'll come back soon's I can."

Before Torgason could speak, Gault lunged to his feet and began zigzagging down the grassy slope.

Wompler was waiting at the bottom, grinning his slack grin. "You're faster'n you look." Then he nodded toward the distant creek. "How does it look from the top of the hill?"

"Quiet. Maybe they pulled out."

"Or waitin' for us to come in closer so they can finish us off." Wompler made a wry face. "I sure would hate to blunder out there and get myself killed—with all that gold somewheres, just waitin' for us to come along and pick it up." Then, thoughtfully, "You game to circle around this knoll and see if we can find them?"

"And if we do find them?"

"We kill them," Wompler said matter of factly. He mounted his rented gelding, rode down the shallow valley to where Gault's buckskin was grazing. With an expert flip of his loop, he caught the buckskin and brought it back.

"What do you mean," Gault asked, taking the reins, "we kill them?"

Wompler looked surprised that anyone would be stupid enough to ask such a question. "Two fewer ways we'll have to divide up the gold, when we find it."

"And what about Esther Garnett? Do we kill her, too?" Wompler's expression turned wooden. "Esther Garnett's my business, Gault. You remember that and we'll get along fine."

Gault rode cautiously south along the shallow depression between the two knolls; Wompler headed north. When a distance of several hundred yards separated them, they bore in toward the tall cottonwood where the riflefire had come from. All in all, it had taken the best part of an hour to get into position. The rifleman was gone.

They explored the area around the cottonwood. "Three horses, I make it," Wompler said, studying the tracks. "Shorty's chestnut, most likely, that Esther's ridin'. And Olsen's and Finley's animals." He straightened up, scowling. "And some barefoot tracks that probably belong to the Garnett mule. Wonder what they're draggin' that mule around for?"

Gault had discovered something that he found more interesting than the tracks of mules and horses. Beneath the cottonwood he carefully collected a half dozen burnt-out stubs of brownpaper cigarettes, and several broken sulphur matches. The last time he had seen this kind of litter it had been on the floor of Esther Garnett's sleeping porch.

"They're in a hurry," Wompler said unhappily. "Olsen's a careful worker—ordinarily he'd of set a trap for us and then laid back and wait for us to walk into it. But this is no ordinary time. He's in a hurry to get to that gold."

"We still don't know there is any gold. All we've got to go on is that watch that I found on Colly Fay."

"That's enough for me."

Gault closed his fist around the cigarette stubs. At the moment they were more important to him than all the gold in the world. "Before we do anything, we'll have to go back and see about Torgason."

"Not me," Wompler said firmly. "I can smell that gold; I'm not goin' to let it get away from me now."