Brian Garfield Read Online Free PDF Page B

hell ain’t going to walk very far on it for a while.”
    Boag untied the bandanna from around his neck and wrung water out of it and tied it around his calf. He’d seen enough battle injuries to know you had to keep it clean and you had to keep quiet until the scabs built up. If you did those things there wasn’t much danger in it.
    He sat and brooded on John B. Wilstach for a while. Finally Frailey said, “Tell you what, I’ll get a stick, scratch a hole for him.”
    â€œThat’s mighty kind.”
    â€œNo. He’s liable to start to stink in the morning. Bring a lot of buzzards down. Draw everybody in Hardyville down here to find out what’s happening. I can’t get far enough on foot if they start a search.”
    Boag lay on his side listening to the river and the bugs. The leg throbbed and he watched Frailey make a trench grave for Wilstach. There was a great deal of dried blood in the palm of Wilstach’s hand where he’d twisted the knife away from Gutierrez. Wilstach didn’t look dead, he looked calm and pleased with himself; a couple of teeth showed where his lips were open a little, and he looked as if that rowdy grin was about to flash.
    Boag said, “Hey.”
    Frailey paused in his labors. “Yeah?”
    â€œMr. Pickett said he knew where he could sell that gold in Mexico.”
    â€œDid he?”
    â€œYou got any idea where in Mexico?”
    â€œNaw. I wasn’t even with them as long as you was.” Frailey started to dig again but then he stopped and straightened up and looked at Boag. “Shit, you ain’t thinking of going after them?”
    â€œThey owe me.”
    Frailey let out a bark of laughter. Then he went back to his digging.
    Boag said, “How much did you have coming?”
    â€œTwenty-five hundred, same as you.”
    â€œThen they owe you too.”
    â€œCoon, when you’ve played enough cards you know when it’s time to take your losses and go look for another card table to swill at.”
    â€œWell maybe.”
    â€œOld Frailey’s just going to move on, give some other place a potshot at me.” Frailey stopped digging and looked up across the river. “California over there. Maybe find me a stake and a card game.”
    Frailey seemed to judge he’d dug deep enough. He threw the stick aside and walked over to Wilstach. Boag said, “If you’re thinking about stripping that dead man you can forget it. He ain’t got nothing on him.”
    â€œI wish he had a hat. I could sure use a hat.” Frailey picked up Wilstach’s bootheels and dragged him over toward the grave. “Boots are a lot too small for you or me.” He rolled the body into the hole and picked up dirt in his cupped hands and gradually Wilstach disappeared from view under the mound of soil.
    Afterward Frailey went down to the river and washed his hands off, took a drink and stood a while looking at the far bank. “California,” he said, and the word barely reached Boag’s ears over the tumble of the river. In the end Frailey said, mostly to himself, “Well my boots are still wet anyway,” and walked out into the river until it was up to his neck.
    The river was about a quarter-mile wide. Boag watched Frailey swim across, the current carrying him ten feet down-stream for every two feet headway he made; he was almost out of sight beyond the bend when he waded up on the far shore, a small figure in the moonlight. He didn’t turn or wave or anything. He just walked up into the bush willows and disappeared.

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    He slid himself down to the river. There was no hurry. He soaked the bandanna to get it as clean as he could and then he had a closer look at the wounds. He picked a few small pieces of grit out of them. They were still-bleeding a little and he made compresses out of ripped pieces of his shirt-tail, washed them and fitted them into the wounds and tied the bandanna around