by Oakley Hall
“Catch them?” she said finally, setting her cup down in its saucer with a small clatter.
“No, ma’am. At least the posse’s not back yet.”
“Do they catch them here?”
“I expect they might this time. They got off fast.”
She nodded, uninterested. She was a handsome woman, except that her nose was too big. The black cherries on her hat shone overripe with red tints in them in the lamplight.
The waiter wandered over, switching a cloth at the flies and crumbs on the tables he passed.
“Supper,” Gannon said. When the waiter had gone switching away again, he said, “Maybe you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions?”
“All right.”
“Well, I’ll ask your name to start off with.”
“It’s Kate Dollar.”
Her eyes regarded him hostilely, and he hesitated. He had hardly talked to a woman before he had gone to Rincon, and very few there except in the course of his duties. He didn’t know whether to call her Mrs. Dollar or Miss. You said Mrs. to a sporting woman, if you wanted to be polite, but he was uncertain whether this one was or not. It was not that she was better dressed than a whore, for some of them wore finery to put your eye out, but her dress was expensive looking without being flashy and eye-catching, and there was a certain dignity about her. She was young, but her face was wary and there were bitter lines at the corners of her eyes.
“And yours?” she said.
“Gannon,” he said, and added, “John Gannon.”
“Oh,” she said. “One of them was supposed to be your brother.”
He felt his face burn painfully. He looked down quickly and nodded.
“What was it you wanted to ask, besides my name?”
“Why, there seems to be some mix-up, miss. About how many road agents there was. The driver—”
“I saw three of them,” she said. “But there might’ve been four.”
“There was one up on top of the ridge there, you mean? You are sure? I mean—” He stopped.
“I saw a rifle barrel up there clear enough,” she said. “And gun-smoke.” She raised a finger and pressed it to the beauty mark at the corner of her mouth. “When I heard the shot I didn’t know who had fired, because I could see the other two road agents, and it wasn’t either of them. Then I happened to look up at the top of the ridge and saw the smoke. And I saw the rifle barrel pull back out of sight.”
“You didn’t see the man?”
“No.”
The waiter brought a plate of steak, fried potatoes, and beans. He pushed at the potatoes with his fork. His eyes were burning again. Kate Dollar patted at the corners of her mouth with her handkerchief.
“The driver said you got on with this Cletus at Bright’s City.”
“So did that little bank clerk, and the drummer.”
“I heard the drummer say you called him Pat.”
“Maybe I did.”
“You wouldn’t want to say, then?”
“Say what?”
“Whether you’d been coming out here with this Pat Cletus, or what for. Or who he was.”
“What difference does it make?”
“I don’t know,” he said, hopelessly. He forked a mouthful of potatoes, chewed, and tried to swallow; they were at the same time greasy and dry as dust.
“What do you want me to say?” Kate Dollar asked, in a different voice. “That there were only two of them? Because then one might not have been your brother?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “The driver and the shotgun seem pretty sure it was Pony Benner and Calhoun. But the third one could’ve been Friendly. Or— I don’t know,” he said again. “I just thought you might’ve got mixed up—with everything happening so sudden and all. I guess you didn’t.”
“What were you trying to blackguard me into, asking about the man that was killed?”
“I don’t know,” he said dully. “Just—deputies’re supposed to ask questions about a thing. I was just trying to find out what happened,” he said. He put his fork down.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
“I guess not,” he said, and pushed the plate away from him.
Kate Dollar said, “From what I’ve heard, it sounds like nobody gets convicted of anything at the Bright’s City court. Why are you so worried? Because of being deputy?”
“It’s not that. I guess they would probably get off in Bright’s, all right. If they get caught.”
Kate Dollar was frowning a little; she looked at him questioningly.
“Well,” he said, “that’s it, you see, miss. I expect they will get off all right. But then they’ll get posted out of town.”
There was a slow tightening around her mouth. Suddenly her face seemed filled with hate, but the expression was gone so quickly that he could not be sure what he had seen. She said, in a curiously flat voice, “I knew Clay Blaisedell in Fort James.”
“Did you?” he said.
“So you are worried about him posting your brother out of town,” she said. “He is just a boy, I heard somebody say.” He saw that she looked very tired.
“He is eighteen. No, he’s not a boy.” He was embarrassed that he had let the subject of Billy come up. But it was big in him and there was, it seemed, no one else he could speak to like this. He said, “Have you ever seen a gambler in a game of cards and you can tell he knows just where every card is?”
She nodded, as though immediately she had caught his thought; and he went on. “Well, I guess I am like that right now. Cards have been dealt out and they are face down yet, but I know what they are.”
Kate Dollar continued to regard him with her black eyes, her expression one of expectant interest. But now he was confused and jarred by the thought that she was estimating him, and was not interested in Billy at all. He thrust his chair back and got to his feet.
“Well, I didn’t mean to bother you with all that, Miss Dollar. I just came to ask you some things, and I thank you.”
“You are welcome, Deputy.”
Halfway to the lobby he realized he had forgotten his hat, and he had to return for it, apologizing to her again. She did not speak this time, although she smiled a little; he noticed that her eyes looked pink and swollen in her tired face, and he thought, as he started back to the jail to begin the long night’s wait, that the man Cletus must have been more to her than she wanted to admit.
13. MORGAN HAS CALLERS
I
MORGAN had been waiting for her to come all evening, but still he started at the knock on the alley door, which he knew was her knock. He rose and smoothed his hands back along the sides of his head, pulled down the tabs of his vest, buttoned his coat. He slid back the bar and opened the door; at first he could see nothing, and he didn’t speak, waiting for his eyes to accustom themselves to the dark.
She was standing back and a little to one side, where the light did not touch her.
“I’ve told you tommies to quit bothering me,” he said, and made as though to slam the door.
“Tom,” she said, and moved closer. “It’s Kate.”
He was supposed to blow to pieces at the sight of her. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “Now they are following me out from all over.”
“Yes,” Kate said. She sounded disappointed, which pleased him. He moved aside and she entered, tall, all in black; black hat with black cherries on it, black skirt draped in thick folds over her hips, black sacque jacket—with only the white ruffled front of her shirtwaist to relieve it.
She clutched her hands, in black mesh mitts, to her waist, watching him close the door. Her dead white face was controlled, and stiff, but filled with hate.
“Couldn’t you get along without me, Kate?” he asked, and managed to meet her black eyes and grin. But, when she did not answer, against his will he retreated to his desk and took a cheroot from the silver box there, and lit it. “You should have let me know you were coming.”
“Didn’t you know?”
> “I’d’ve had a brass band out.”
“Didn’t you?” she said.
He frowned, as though he’d been struck by a thought. Then he burst out laughing. “I guess you came in on the stage this afternoon,” he said. “Well, you had a little excitement at that, didn’t you?”
“You don’t know who it was that was killed?” Kate said. She was staring at him not quite so intently, and he thought he had got past her. If not, in the end he had only to tell her the truth and she would not believe it, either, from him. She looked very tired, he thought; she looked older than he had remembered, who was not even two years older.
“Somebody said he looked like a high-roller.” He paused, frowned again, grinned again. “Why, was he with you? I thought you had had enough of high-rollers, Kate.”
“It was Bob Cletus’s brother.”
He stared at her as if incredulous. He began to laugh again. He put down his cheroot and laughed and watched her upper lip twitching, with hate of him, or as though she were going to cry. “My God, how you run through those Cletuses!” he said.
She made a humming sound in her throat. She said, in a shaky voice, “You knew I would come, Tom. I told you—I would!”
He turned the laughter off like a tap. He stared back into her black eyes that were glazed with tears now, and said, “If I’d known you were coming out here with some cheap gunman you spaded up somewhere, you’d have never got here either. You damned vulture.”
“Oh, I don’t think you shot him,” Kate said. “I think you hired Clay to do it. The way you did with Bob.”
That was supposed to pin him to the wall. But she could not keep her voice from shaking, and he almost felt sorry for her.
He said, “Or I might’ve just done nothing and let him choose Clay out and commit suicide. The way it was before.”
She turned half away from him, dropping her hands tiredly to her sides. He saw her glance up at the painting over the door. He felt an almost savage relief that she had not got to Fort James with Pat Cletus during the time when he, Morgan, had come on ahead to Warlock, and Clay had remained in Fort James.
“So you went out and hunted up his brother to do Clay down for you. It took you a good while.”
“I couldn’t find him,” Kate said, in a dead voice. “So I gave up. But then I ran onto him.” She stopped, as though there were nothing more to say.
“And all for nothing, too. Well, bad luck, Kate. But maybe there is another brother, or cousins. In Australia or somewhere.”
She shook her head a little. She reminded him of a clock-work figure running down.
“Haven’t you got the fare? Why, there is money I owe you, at that.” He put his hands to his money belt, and saw her face come back to life.
“Would you pay me to go? I hope you would pay a lot, for I won’t go!”
“Come back to me after all?”
He shouldn’t have said it. He saw the revulsion show clearly in her face, and the strain of maintaining the grin that painfully stretched his lips became immense. But he continued. “I have got a nice place out front, and a nice apartment back here. I could set you up in style. You might have to work your trade from time to time if I ran short of cash, but . . .”
She only stared at him.
“Leaving then?” he asked. He had better not underestimate her, he knew, tired as she was now, and shocked. He felt enormously tired himself. He had thought hate did not affect him. He had thought he was used to it.
“No,” she said. “No, I will stay and watch Clay Blaisedell shot down like he shot Bob down.”
“Do it yourself?”
“Are you afraid I would? No, I won’t do that.”
He sat down in his chair, inhaled on his cheroot, blew smoke. “Maybe you can get somebody to go after him here. Like the one you just lost.” His voice rasped in his throat. “There are some that might be hard up enough to try it for a chance to sleep free with a hydrophoby skunk bitch.”
He felt a lift of pleasure to see her face dissolve. But she quickly regained control of it. She only shook her head.
“Why, you have gone soft, Kate.”
“No,” she said, and again he saw how exhausted she was. “No, not soft. I went all over looking for Pat Cletus,” she said, in the dead voice. “I went more than five thousand miles looking for him—different places I had heard he might be. I couldn’t find him so I thought I would give it up. Then a month ago I met him in Denver, and we came out here and he was killed. I don’t know whether you did it or not—except—except I should’ve known he would be killed. Like I should’ve known Bob would be killed if he went to tell you he was going to marry me.”
“I told you once before he didn’t ever come to see me.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. “So that was my fault too. I should have seen you dead before I thought of wanting to marry Bob Cletus. Or we should have run—to Australia. But I killed him when I let him go to you. And killed Pat when I made him come out here. I have had enough of killing.”
He nodded sympathetically, and saw the despair crumple her face again.
“But I will see Clay Blaisedell shot down!” she said. “I will see that, I’ll follow him wherever he goes to see it.” She took a deep breath, and her lips tightened as though she were trying to smile. “I saw him tonight,” she went on. “He looked at me as though he’d seen a ghost, and I thought how fine it would be to be a ghost and haunt and torture somebody who—who”—her voice began to shake again— “who took away the only chance I ever had!” she cried. “Who killed the only decent man I ever knew! And you had Clay shoot him down!” Tears shone suddenly on her cheeks.
“Why, then you should look for somebody to shoot me down.”
“No! Because you don’t care about yourself—I know you that well. But I know you care about Clay. I think I might’ve let it alone if I thought you didn’t care what happened to him. But I will follow him and haunt him. And you.”
“And yourself too, isn’t it?”
“Maybe so,” she said, with a tired lift of her shoulders. “Haunt myself too for not knowing you would always do the foulest thing you could do. To me or anyone.” Her voice rose shrilly, “But I’ll stay here and wait it out, and watch! Whenever you see me you will know I am waiting to see him die like Bob died. Or wherever he is when somebody finally shoots him down, I will be there too. And then I’ll come and laugh at you!”
“We will have a good laugh together, Kate.”
She sobbed. She raised a hand to her eyes and then dropped it, as though she were too proud to hide that she was crying. She was ugly when she cried; he remembered that.
“Come in any time and we will have a good laugh,” he added, pleasantly. She did not answer, moving toward the door. He watched the swing of the thick pleats of her skirt, her hair, blue-black in the light, where it showed beneath her hat. Her white, lined face turned toward him once, and then she was gone and the door slapped shut behind her.
Her scent of lavender water was strong in his nostrils. He was shivering a little, and he stretched, hugely. He had done well enough tonight, he thought; he had given her nothing. He had never given her anything. He saw, indelible in his mind’s eye, her tired, hate-filled face. Once there had been good times.
II
Kate had not been gone ten minutes when Clay came in from the Glass Slipper. Clay took off his hat, brushed his fingers back through his thick, fair hair, and sat down on the other side of the desk. He placed his hat on the desk before him and then moved it a little to one side, as though it were of great importance where it was placed.
“Posse back?” Morgan asked.
Clay shook his head. His eyes were deeply shadowed, his mouth a thin shadow beneath the sweep of his mustache. He had been doing some drinking, from the look of him.
“Whisky, Clay?” Morgan asked, and his hand caught the neck of the decanter as though to strangle it. But Clay shook his head again.
“I’ve just found out something to s
hake a man,” Clay said.
“What’s that?”
“The passenger those road agents shot. I heard his name and I didn’t believe it. But I went over to the carpenter shop for a look.”
“Somebody you knew?” Morgan said, and put the decanter down.
“Knew of. I’d heard Bob Cletus had a brother up in the Dakotas somewhere.”
Denver, he commented to himself. “Cletus?” he said aloud.
“Pat Cletus,” Clay said, looking down at his hat. “This one’s name was Pat Cletus. You would know it was his brother, looking at him.”
Morgan whistled.
“Come after me, I guess,” Clay said.
“I don’t know. Looks like he might just have happened out this way.”
Clay shook his head again, and Morgan leaned back in his chair and hooked his thumbs in his vest pockets. He said easily, “What would you have done?”
“Run.”
“If he’d come after you like you think, I expect he’d’ve followed if you’d run.”
After a time Clay nodded. “Why, yes,” he said. “That’s so, isn’t it?”
“Then it seems like those San Pablo boys that shot him down did you a favor,” Morgan said. He tried to grin, and felt his lips slide dry over his teeth.
“Yes,” Clay said. His elbows on the desk, he made a steeple of his hands and gazed through, as though he were shading his eyes to sight at something a long way off.
“Foolishness!” Morgan said suddenly, savagely. “I don’t know how you managed to settle it in your mind that Bob Cletus wasn’t on the prod for you. You heard he was. It looks to me like you just chose he wasn’t so you could chew yourself forever. Foolishness. God damn it, Clay!”
“What is foolish to one man maybe isn’t to another, every time,” Clay said. “It is different with you. If you lose a stack at your trade you can push out another and win it back. If I lose a stack like that one I can’t.”
“If you lose at your trade they leave your boots on,” Morgan said. He tried to grin, and saw Clay try to grin back. But Clay only shook his head; that wasn’t what he had meant.