Wompler looked at him blearily. "Nothin' I can think of."
"You ever have any trouble with the outfit, when you was deputy?"
The ex-lawman shook his head. "Nope. What you lookin' for?"
It was a reasonable question, but Gault didn't have a reasonable answer. What was he looking for? Gault only knew that the fire in his gut wouldn't let him rest until something was done. "What I'm lookin' for is not something I can put a finger on. It's a feelin'."
"About the sheriff?"
Gault nodded. "That's part of it."
"Is it true what they're sayin'? That Wolf Garnett killed your wife?"
The former deputy, Gault decided, was more alert than he appeared to be. "It's true." He waited a full minute for Wompler to go on, but the ex-lawman only shrugged and let the matter drop. Gault said, "What's the best way for me to get to the Circle-R? I want to talk to Torgason."
"He's close-mouthed. You won't get much out of him, even if he knowed somethin' to tell." Wompler brightened slightly as a thought occurred to him. "Have you got the money to pay for a rent animal over at the livery corral?"
"I guess so. Why?"
"If there's a chance of puttin' somethin' over on Olsen, I'd like to deal myself in. You pay for the rent animal and I'll ride with you to the Circle-R." Gault hesitated, and Wompler added flatly, "I ain't as useless as I might look. I can use a gun, if I have to."
Gault was vaguely disturbed by the way he said it. "Do you expect to have to?"
"Don't expect nothin' but tricks and slick dealin' when doin' business with Grady Olsen. Will you pay for the horse?"
Wompler was not the kind of man that Gault would have chosen to ride with. But he found himself nodding, reluctantly.
Wompler sighed, smiled crookedly, and with considerable effort pushed himself to his feet. "One more thing," he said, tucking the bottle of liquor under his arm. "You might pay the barkeep for this."
Against his better judgment, Gault paid for the whiskey. They left the Day and Night and walked the short distance to the wagon yard. The exertion left Wompler winded, but his watery eyes had cleared a bit and his speech was not so slurred. "Of course," the former deputy said, "I don't aim to drink this down all at once." He fondly caressed the bottle. "It's just that I've been promisin' myself for a long time that I'd kill Grady Olsen if I ever got the chance. And I might just do it if I was to catch myself completely sober."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Headquarters for the Circle-R was a scattering of sheds and branding pens and corrals, an hour's ride from New Boston. There was no owner's "big house," as the owner rarely visited the place. The manager lived with the hands in a split-pole bunkhouse.
Such a spread was not impressive, but there were a number of them on the plains below the Cap Rock. When well managed they were efficient and productive and made money for the owner who might live as far away as England or Scotland and never get within five thousand miles of his holdings. An aging wrangler appeared from behind a brush-covered shed and met them as they headed for the main buildings. The old man glared at Gault with distrust, but his reaction to Wompler was undisguised anger.
Wompler smiled his meaningless smile and said, "Seth here is Colton's headquarters wrangler and cook. This is Frank Gault, Seth. We're lookin' for Del Torgason."
The old man glared at Wompler and suddenly spat at the ground in disgust. "I don't make it a habit to socialize with cow thieves!"
"Seth," Wompler went on with a disinterested air, "firmly believes that up to a year ago I headed a rustlin' operation here in Standard County. That's what most folks believe, I guess." He spread his hands and smiled benignly down at the old man. "Well, it was never proved, and anyhow it's water over the dam. Just tell us where to find Torgason."
The wrangler jutted his jaw defiantly. "Torgason went out with the boss, Mr. Colton. I don't know where."
Wompler's tone turned menacing. "Mr. Gault here is a beef buyer for the Kiowa-Comanche agency. Mr. Colton won't like it, missin' a big beef sale, just because he's got a stubborn old wrangler on the place."
The old man paled. He knew very well that a missed sale could mean his job. And for men his age even wrangler jobs were next to impossible to come by. "Last I seen of Mr. Colton," he said shakily, "him and two hands and Torgason was headed toward north camp, brandin' strays they missed in the roundup."
"We're much obliged for all your help, Seth," Wompler said with heavy sarcasm. He reined his rented black gelding around the old man and headed north. Gault, after an instant's hesitation, followed on the buckskin.
"Was it necessary," Gault asked angrily, "to scare the old man like that?"
"Yes," Wompler said. "As you'll learn, Gault, it's the only way to get anywheres in Standard County. Fear. It's a little lesson I learned when I was deputyin' for Grady Olsen."
By sundown Gault was tired of the saddle and sick of the company of Harry Wompler. They arrived at the banks of the Little Wichita as the sun was touching the dark green horizon. "We can make camp here," the ex-deputy said. "Or we can make it on to the Circle-R camp in maybe another hour."
Gault's side was aching. "We'll camp here. I've had enough of the saddle for one day." They staked the horses downstream, boiled coffee and ate what was left in Gault's grub sack.
Wompler held one heavy biscuit to the fading light and said, "Don't have to ask where you got these. Esther never was no prize as a cook. Even I would admit that much."
"Did you know Miss Garnett long?"
The ex-deputy smiled his slack smile. "Long enough."
They finished the meal in silence, then Wompler dug the bottle out of his saddlebag and downed a carefully measured ration of whiskey. He put the bottle away without offering it to Gault. A faded army blanket and a yellow slicker known as a "fish" had come with Wompler's rented horse and saddle. He dumped it beneath the budding branches of a cottonwood, then walked up the grade from the river and stood for a while, building and smoking his highly combustible cigarettes, gazing upstream toward the Garnett place.
Gault decided the former lawman was not an easy man to know. In the Day and Night he had been a common drunk. At the Circle-R headquarters he had been ill-tempered and brutal to the old wrangler. Since that time he had shown flashes of sensitivity and the rudiments of education, neither of which were very common in a place like Standard County.
Gault sat beside the dying fire, smoking, trying to keep his mind away from the past. Wondering what he was going to say to the stock detective, Torgason, when he found him. How could Torgason help him? How could anybody help him?
When Wompler came back down the slope and stood beside the fire, Gault said, "Tell me about Torgason."
"Torgason…" Wompler considered his subject. "He's an old hand, good at his job, no nonsense. I don't like him, but he knows his business. And he ain't afraid of Olsen." With a curt nod, Wompler got to his feet and went to his bedroll. Tugging off his boots, he said, "You might not think it, Gault, but I used to be a man of ambition. I read law with old Judge Tabor at Gainsville. I set myself the task of learnin' the law, and then politics, and then…" Gault could not see his face, but he knew that Wompler was smiling that loose-lipped smile of his. "There wasn't no limit to the ambition I had in those days. A year ago I lost more than a job and a woman. I lost the man that used to be Harry Wompler. And I guess I won't be satisfied until I find out where he went."