The Last Days of Wolf Garnett by Clifton Adams Read Free Book Online

for breath, he tried to push himself erect. The toe of a dusty boot planted itself in his chest and pushed him back on the damp earth.
    Deputy Dub Finley moved in to stand up against the shimmering backdrop of blue sky. From Gault's position, he looked as tall as a mountain. He had drawn his .45 and was holding it in his right hand, thoughtfully tapping the muzzle in the palm of his left hand while he gazed unblinkingly down at Gault.
    As if from a great distance, Gault heard Shorty Pike say, "Somebody comin'."
    Then the picture became confused. The sky turned dark. The figure of Deputy Finley loomed huge and tilted at a sickening angle. Gault closed his eyes in an effort to keep the sky from spinning. From a void he heard voices and echoes of voices. Some were angry and excited. Others cool and dangerous. Gault didn't open his eyes to see where the voices were coming from. At the moment it didn't seem to matter. In spite of his efforts, the world began to spin. Darkness came down on him like the lid of a coffin.
     

CHAPTER FOUR
    "Here," a voice was saying, "you better take some of this." It was a calm, no-nonsense feminine voice.
    Gault heard the voice but did not respond to it. He let himself float, like an aimless raft on a sluggish river, in a shadow world that was neither sleep nor consciousness. After a while—he didn't know how long—the owner of the voice went away.
    He drifted, without thinking or feeling. At last a shaft of dazzling light struck his eyes and shocked him awake. Squinting, he saw that he was on a bed of loose hay, in a small building that seemed to be a shed of some kind—a feed shed or a small barn. There was a half loft above, and two pole cubicles below which might have been feeding or milking stalls. The light that had shocked him awake was a slant of sunlight coming through the poorly chinked wall.
    Gault rolled over on the mound of hay, to get the sun out of his eyes, and was immediately sorry for his rashness. An arrow of pain pierced his left side and pinned him to the ground. He was still gasping for breath when a shadow fell across the floor of the shed, and the no-nonsense voice asked, "Do you feel like eatin' now?"
    For several seconds Gault could only stare at her. She moved toward him and stood over him, looking down at him. "Best not move around too sharp," she told him unnecessarily. "There ain't much wrong with you, but might a busted rib where the bullet shied off."
    She said it as though someone got shot every day or so around the place, and it was nothing to get excited about. She pulled up a three-legged milking stool and sat down and looked at him steadily. "What's the matter with you? Can't you talk?"
    "I can talk," Gault said with some bitterness. "It's the breathin' that bothers me."
    "That's on account of the bindin' sheet I tied around you. I seen old Doc Doolie do it once to a hand that fell off a horse and busted some ribs."
    "How long have I been here?"
    "Two, three hours, all told. Took some time to haul you over here after Shorty shot you. Fool thing for him to do, and I told him so."
    Gault stared at her. Two surprisingly clear eyes peered at him from beneath the hood of her sunbonnet—that was about all he could see of her face. Besides the sunbonnet, she wore the long, shapeless gray gingham dress that all farm women seemed to favor. In the country west of Kansas City there must have been a thousand farm wives just like her, looking almost as if they had been cut from the same pattern. And yet, there was something about this woman. The bluntness and briskness of youth, Gault guessed it was.
    "I reckon you better lay back and rest a spell," she said, after a few moments' consideration. "Ain't good to get yourself stirred up after bein' shot. That's what my ma always said."
    "Shorty Pike," Gault said, trying to keep his voice even. "And the ones that were with him. Did you see which way they went?"
    Those clear eyes beneath the sunbonnet hood blinked at him. "They