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

didn't go nowhere, they're over at my kitchen eatin' dinner." The woman stood up, nodded briskly and said, "I got some marrow bone broth on the stove. It'll perk you up some."
    "Ma'am," Gault said as she made for the shed door, "just to get somethin' clear in my mind… Are you Wolf Garnett's sister?"
    "Course I am," she said quietly. "Ever'body knows that." Gault closed his eyes and made his mind a blank. The shaft of sunlight moved persistently across his bed of hay and fell once again across his face, but he was too bewildered to notice it, and too tired to move.
     
     
     
    Gault had been awake only a few minutes when he became aware of the tall figure darkening the doorway. Deputy Dub Finley came into the shed, his face scowling and thoughtful, his hairline pointing straight down the slender bridge of his nose. "You're a lucky man, Gault," he said quietly. "You ought to be a gambler. With your luck."
    Gault looked at the deputy's dark countenance and decided that, unpleasant as it was, it was not the face of a man bent on immediate murder. "I guess," he said harshly, "there ain't much sense in askin' if you're goin' to arrest Shorty Pike for shootin' me."
    "Arrest Shorty Pike?" The young lawman was amused. "We seen you clear as day, down in the riverbottom, fixin' to run off two of the Garnett milk cows. We hollered at you, and that's when you started shootin' at us. Shorty fired in self-defense. No two ways about it."
    Gault forced himself to speak without shouting. "What did I use for a gun when I was doin' all this shootin'?"
    "Why your Winchester, of course."
    "Maybe you'd tell me how I could fire a rifle that didn't have a firing pin?"
    The deputy grinned. "There ain't nothin' wrong with that rifle, Gault. I checked it myself. The firin' pin's good as new."
    Gault had no doubt that it
was
new, but there was no way he could prove it. If he wanted to be stubborn and take the matter to court, it would be his word against Finley's. And he didn't have to guess which side the judge would believe. Still, it was a fact that the deputy had tried to kill him.
Would
have killed him, if Esther Garnett hadn't happened along when she had.
    "See what I mean, Gault?" The deputy favored Gault with a one-sided smile. "Maybe next time Miss Garnett won't happen along in time to help you. Luck, they say, has a way of runnin' out."
    "Finley," Gault said wearily, "would you tell me somethin'?"
    "Be proud to," the deputy said dryly. "What is it you want to know?"
    "The sheriff, what I saw of him, didn't strike me as a scalp hunter. What does he aim to do with the bounty money when he collects?"
    This was not the question that Finley had expected, but he shrugged and answered without hesitation. "Why, he'll give it over to Miss Esther. What did you figger he'd do with it?"
    Suddenly Gault was tired of the deputy and tired of talking. Finley hunkered down next to the straw bed, studying Gault with curiosity, as a small boy might have studied a horned toad sleeping in the sun. He felt for makings and meticulously built and lit a cigarette. "Like I say," he said mildly. "You been runnin' in luck. But a smart gambler knows when the cards're startin' to turn on him. What kind of a gambler are you, Gault?"
    "A curious one."
    Finley shook his head sadly. "The worst kind." He finished his smoke and shoved himself to his feet.
    "I take it," Gault said acidly, "that you and the sheriff, and some others, don't want me in Standard County any longer. Might be I'd leave, and save you the trouble of killin' me, if I knowed why it was that you didn't want me here."
    Finley smiled. It was a chilling expression on a humorless face. "Miss Esther ain't had much schoolin', but she's a tolerable good doc. She'll have you up and around inside of two, three days. Your buckskin's in the horse pen on the other side of the shed. My advice is get saddled soon as you're able to ride, and strike for some direction away from Standard County."
    The deputy nodded and