There was no sound of hoofs. The night breathed quietly. In the far distance there was the faintest echo of thunder. The land lay as still and cold as a freshly washed corpse. Then, at last, the horses came on at a slow walk, making for the farmhouse, as near as Gault could tell. Cautiously, he returned to a sitting position and pressed his eye to the crack.
Two horses appeared beyond the building that Gault guessed to be the harness shed. Two riders got down, tied up at a corral and for several moments stood talking to Finley. One of the newcomers was a big, slope-shouldered man, heavy in his movements, and Gault recognized him immediately as the sheriff of Standard County, Grady Olsen. The other man was much smaller than Olsen and carried something vaguely round in shape, almost as large as a blanket roll, under one arm. Gault found this second figure slightly familiar but could not place him in his mind.
Leaving their horses, the three men made for the farmhouse in a roundabout way, keeping as much distance as possible between themselves and the shed where Gault was supposed to be sleeping. Gault lost sight of them as they entered the farmhouse. A faint light appeared in one of the farmhouse windows.
Long minutes dragged by. Gault could only guess at the time, but judging from the visible shift of the moon and stars, the three men had been inside the Garnett house for at least two hours. At the end of this time Gault sagged exhausted against the wall of the shed. For a time he tried to make some sense out of what had happened and what he had seen—but too many pieces of the puzzle were missing.
Standard County, he decided, was a puzzling place, and the most puzzling part of it was Sheriff Grady Olsen himself. Although the sheriff accepted scalp money and ran his county with an iron fist, he had been re-elected to office over and over. For his only deputy he had hired a cat-eyed assassin who, in turn, was aided by two gunhands who had once ridden with Wolf Garnett.
And Esther Garnett—where did she fit into the puzzle of Standard County? Why had Olsen and the second horsebacker braved a prairie storm, in the middle of the night, to talk to her? Wearily, Gault closed his eyes.
Exhaustion overtook him and for a time a restless sleep came down on him. When he awoke he noticed that the moon and stars had taken up radically new positions in the steely sky. He must have been asleep for an hour. Maybe longer.
The two horses, he noticed, were no longer tied at the distant corral. There was no movement in the farmyard. No light in the house.
After a time Gault had fallen asleep, but he slept fitfully and was awake again at first light. Esther Garnett appeared in the doorway with a plate of smoked side meat, hard-fried eggs and biscuits.
"Guess you heard the storm last night," she said briskly. "Blowed out one of my window lights in the kitchen."
Gault studied her closely in the harsh light. She was still as lovely and delicately tinted as Dutch china. "I heard some of it," he told her, "but mostly I slept."
Gault couldn't tell whether or not she believed him. "Here," she said, handing him the plate, "commence on this while I fetch you some coffee."
It was on the tip of Gault's tongue to ask about the two night visitors, but at the last moment he bit the question back. He dug half-heartedly into the meat and eggs.
Esther appeared again in the doorway, carrying a blackened coffeepot and a granite cup. "Can't expect a man to have his wits about him," she said, "until he's had his mornin' coffee. That's what my pa always said."
"Where's your pa now?" Gault asked curiously.
"Dead." There was only a slight change in her tone. "Almost four years ago. First Ma, and then Pa. Doc Doolie over at New Boston called it the summer complaint. Anyway…" She sat down on the milking stool and filled Gault's cup from the pot. "Anyway, within about two weeks, me and Wolf was throwed on our own. And Wolf…" She spread her hands and looked at them. "Wolf never was cut out to be a farmer. Claimed his hands just wouldn't fit around a hoe handle. On top of everything else, that was a dry year in Texas. Corn turned poorly and died. Most of the cotton never even sprouted." She paused and looked levelly at Gault. "Mr. Gault, do you see why I'm tellin' you all this?"
"No," Gault confessed, "I guess I don't."
"I know how hard you must feel, about your wife and all. And I guess I know that Wolf done some bad things in his time. But he was my brother, and now he's dead. And I'd give most anything I've got if I could get you to see it how it was, so that you wouldn't hate him so much and would go away and leave us alone."
Gault met those clear eyes for a moment. There didn't seem to be anything he could say. He had no wish to cause more grief for Esther Garnett, but it was highly unlikely that there was anything she could say or do that would cause him to stop hating her brother.
She sighed and gazed into space. "It's not just because of myself that I wish you'd let Wolf rest. It's mostly on your account, Mr. Gault. It's a bad thing for a man to go around with so much hate banked up inside him."
It occurred to Gault that this was a curious thing for her to say, although the thought had crossed his own mind many times. He wondered if someone had put her up to it. And if so, who? And why?
He ate half of the meat and one of the eggs and put the plate aside. She refilled his cup from the thick brew in the pot. The coffee was overroasted and bitter; the beans had been crushed Indian fashion in a limestone mortar and the resulting liquid was gritty enough to set Gault's teeth on edge. For the sake of appearances he drank part of what was in the cup, then built a smoke and lit it.
"Will you be stayin' on in Standard County, Mr. Gault? After you've mended enough to set a saddle?"
He forced a thin smile. "I don't think so. I've had enough of Sheriff Olsen's county to last me a while."
Was there a flicker of alarm in those clear eyes? "What makes you call it 'Sheriff Olsen's county'?"
He sensed that he was on thin ice. "Because he struck me as the kind of man that naturally runs things, I guess."
She nodded thoughtfully and got to her feet. "If there's anything you need, Mr. Gault…"
"There's something you can tell me. I'm curious about the gunhands that follow the deputy around—I'm curious about why they do it."
"Colly and Shorty?" Her tone was incredulous. "They ain't gunhands. Most of the time they work cattle, like most men hereabouts. Right now Deputy Finley's got them on as possemen. That's the deputy's right, in Standard County—hirin' possemen when he feels like he needs them."
Gault let the matter drop. He wasn't satisfied, but he had a feeling that Esther Garnett had said all she was going to say on the matter. "I'm much obliged for the breakfast, Miss Garnett."
"I'll have Shorty kill one of the old hens and cook you some chicken and dumplin's for dinner," she told him. Her eyes were so clear and youthful, and her smile so pleased, that Gault didn't have the heart to tell her that there were few things in the way of food that he detested as much as chicken and dumplings.
The noontime meal of chicken and dumplings arrived as promised. The dumplings were as tough as rawhide; the chicken was remarkable in that it seemed to be all bone and tendon. Gault asked, "Are the deputy and his two possemen still here?"
"Down in the bottom, thinnin' out the cotton."
"Do you work this farm all by yourself?"
She smiled wistfully. "With the help of good men like Shorty and Colly and Deputy Finley."
"Did you know Shorty and Colly when they rode with your brother?"
The smile remained at the corners of her mouth, but those blue eyes were still and thoughtful. "That's just a story folks tell. Shorty and Colly never rode with Wolf. I never saw them before…" She turned her head and blinked rapidly.