Warlock

by Oakley Hall

  Even Calhoun’s good lives after him, while the evil has been interred with his bones. The fact that he was indisputably trying to shoot down Blaisedell from ambush is glossed over by the claim that he was trying to protect his friend Billy Gannon.

  Poor Billy, too, becomes no longer “Billy-the-kid,” who shot down Deputy Brown in the San Pablo saloon for trying to force a glass of whisky upon him, but has changed into a lad forced into a fight he did not want. He has grown younger after death, and I have heard him spoken of as a mere sixteen, instead of eighteen or nineteen as formerly.

  How the tide of sentiment can swing, and how it has changed in many since the night when a good portion of this town attempted to lynch these same three “innocents,” and only the presence of Blaisedell saved them. Men are wild, not wicked, said Rousseau, who knew not Warlock.

  There is one wicked rumor that sets me in a rage. It has obviously sprung from another that was current here before the Acme Corral fight. This was that it was not the “innocents” who robbed the stage at all, but Morgan in company with unnamed accomplices. Now the accomplices have been named. They were Morgan’s lookout, Murch, and Blaisedell! It seems that the Cowboys became, somehow, advised of this, had definite proof, and came into Warlock to establish their innocence by broadcasting it. Consequently they had to be shot down immediately by Blaisedell and Morgan, so that the truth would not be known.

  Oh, foul! I have not, as a matter of fact, heard it uttered, I have only heard men say they disbelieve it completely. It is said that the original rumor came from Taliaferro, Morgan’s competitor, and a vile blotch of a man. The new one can only come from someone who hates Blaisedell completely and ruthlessly. I suspect McQuown, who must hate Blaisedell thus—as one must hate a man he has tried foully to wrong, and failed.

  February 18, 1881

  Blaisedell will go on trial to determine whether the deaths of Billy Gannon and Pony Benner were acts of murder or of self-defense.[1] If guilty, we of the Citizens’ Committee cannot be punished for our Crime, while Blaisedell can.

  My thoughts are much occupied with Blaisedell now, as, of course, are those of everyone in Warlock. I find myself thinking of him with sadness, because of the canards visited upon him in absentia, that surely will in some degree and over the years stick to his name in the minds of men. Sadness, too, because he is, I am convinced, a good man, a fair, temperate, and reasonable man, a decent man and an honorable one; and, in the end, of course, he must die. Probably he will die by just the sort of foul trickery that was attempted upon his person in the Acme Corral. If not here, elsewhere. He is, after all, a killer; living by the six-shooter, he will no doubt perish by it. Other killers or would-be killers will be moved from time to time to try his mettle or to usurp his fame, and one day, even if he is not removed by treachery, his hand will lack the necessary swiftness.

  It is curious that a man like Blaisedell, no less than outlaws such as Calhoun, Benner, Curley Burne, and McQuown, is referred to as a “Badman.” This describes more a man who is dangerous to meddle with than one murderously inclined, and yet the term has unhappy connotations, and I am more and more displeased to hear it applied to our Marshal.

  Obviously Blaisedell must enjoy his role as angel with a sword or he would not undertake so dangerous a role, but can he endure to be called devil? Surely he will be acquitted and his name cleared in court. There are many men here who would walk to Bright’s City to testify in his behalf, were it necessary.

  February 22, 1881

  The trial is to begin tomorrow. Buck has gone in with the doctor, Morgan, the Skinner brothers, Sam Brown, and a number of others. I did not choose to make the onerous journey into Bright’s City myself since there is nothing except my high opinion of Blaisedell that I could offer the court. Nor do I wish to see our Marshal being questioned before a jury box full of Bright’s City fools. Those of the Citizens’ Committee who went in to attend the trial are to carry another appeal to General Peach that he legalize our situation in Warlock. I wish I had counted how many of these appeals have already been made. Doubtless this will meet the same fate as the others, although some hope is felt that General Peach will be forced to see, because of the trial, the extremes we have been brought to by his neglect. Those who are witnesses have been cautioned to mention this in court whenever possible.

  A prospector has been reported murdered in the Dinosaurs, and in consequence there has been another rash of Apache rumors. It is embittering to think that Peach will no doubt get wind of this and bring the cavalry down to investigate, but will not hear our appeals for law. Not all Apaches are dark-skinned.

  There are also reports of Mexican troops along the border again, probably on watch against rustlers crossing. One of Blaikie’s hands was wounded in an encounter with rustlers, and Deputy Gannon, I hear, has gone down to investigate. I wonder why he did not go up for trial. He roams the streets by night, while Schroeder has kept the jail by day; more morose than ever, cadaverously thin, his eyes like holes burnt in his skull. Poor fellow, he is condemned by some for having attempted to shield a villain of a brother, by others for not having attempted to avenge an heroic one.

  February 25, 1881

  The trial has been put off another week, and the witnesses have returned, grumbling. It appears that Friendly, who was thought to have fled the territory, is in Bright’s City where he will give evidence against Blaisedell. He is a fellow whom anyone but a fool would know on sight as a born liar. Blaisedell is not in jail, but resides at the Jim Bright Hotel and spends his days gambling. There is some talk about his not returning here to await the trial, but I can understand his not wishing to do so.

  [1] It should be noted that the question seems never to have arisen as to whether or not Morgan should have been tried for the death of Calhoun.

  25. GANNON GOES TO A HOUSEWARMING

  I

  FROM the doorway of the jail, Gannon saw her coming across the street from Goodpasture’s corner, her hands lifting her skirts as she waded through the dust, the cord of her reticule twisted around her wrist. Buck Slavin, walking up from the stageyard, tipped his hat and she stopped briefly to talk to him. But then she came on, and it was clear that she was coming to the jail.

  He stepped back inside and sat down on a comer of the table. He had seen her many times in the last few weeks; always she would smile at him and more and more often stop to pass a few moments with him, which moments were always difficult ones, because he could think of nothing to say to her and always he had the feeling, after she had gone on, that he had disappointed her in some way.

  He heard her steps. Then she was framed in the doorway, smiling at him, with the little court-plaster beauty mark very black against her pale face. “Good morning, Deputy.”

  “Good morning, Miss Dollar,” he said, standing quickly upright. She glanced at the empty cell and took a handkerchief from her reticule and daubed at her temples. The bottom of her skirt was white with dust. Still, perspiring and dusty as she was, she was a handsome woman, and, standing before her, incapable of easy conversation, he felt intensely his own awkwardness, his own inadequacy and ugliness.

  “It’s cool in here,” she said, and came a little farther inside.

  “Yes, ma’am. And hot out.”

  “I’ve rented a house.”

  “You are lucky to find a house. Are you—I mean, I guess you are going to stay in Warlock awhile, then.”

  “I’ve been here a month. I guess I am staying.” She was looking at the names scratched in the whitewashed wall. “It’s a pretty fair house,” she went on. “I rented it from a miner. Some boys from the livery stable are bringing my trunks around this afternoon.” She smiled at him with a mechanical tilt of her reddened lips. “I wondered if you would help me move in.”

  “Why—” he said. “Why, I would surely appreciate to help, Miss Dollar. What time would you—”

  “Toward five. I will try a hand at cooking some supper for us.” Then she smiled again, not so mechani
cally. “You don’t have to look worried. I can cook, Deputy.”

  “I am sure!” he protested. “I will surely be pleased to come.”

  Her eyes examined him in that way she had that was both careless and intense, as though she could see right through him, but at the same time as though she were searching for something. He had felt it most intensely when, after Billy’s death, he had met her on the street and she had stopped to say she was sorry about his brother.

  She remained and chatted a little longer, but he became more and more tongue-tied and stupid, as he always did, and finally she left. From the doorway he watched her cross Southend and walk past the loungers in front of the saloons. They did not bother her, he noticed.

  He saw the lead mules of a freighter swinging wide into Main Street from the Welltown road, and he moved back inside the jail to get out of the dust. The mules plodded past, almost invisible in the dust they raised, with Earl Posten trotting alongside the swing team, and Mosbie standing and cracking his long whip from the lead wagon. Carl came in and sailed his hat toward the peg on which the key ring hung.

  “Damn!” Carl said, and went to pick up his hat, where it had fallen. He sat down at the table and said, in a gloomy voice, “I’ve been up at the stable talking to Joe Kennon. You don’t suppose they are going to find against Blaisedell, do you?”

  Gannon shook his head, while Carl guardedly watched his face. “I don’t see how they can, Carl.”

  “Well, I don’t like them putting it off a week like this. Like they think if they keep putting it off there’ll nobody go in to witness for him. By God, if that’s what they think they’re trying to do, I’ll set up camp on the courthouse steps!”

  “Do you think I ought to go in?”

  Carl sat scowling down at his hands. He sighed and said, “No, I guess I don’t know what good it’d do. I don’t know—I have just got the nerves, I guess.”

  Gannon watched a bluefly circle past Carl’s head, to strike and buzz angrily against the window glass. Hoofs clopped by in the street—two of Blaikie’s riders. One waved in to him, and he raised a hand in reply.

  Carl said, “Saw that Kate Dollar woman coming out of here. What did she want?”

  He found himself grinning foolishly. “Well, she wants me to come and help her move her things for her. She has rented herself a house.”

  “You!” Carl said, in an awed voice.

  “Me, sure enough.”

  “You!” Carl said. “By God, a lady-killer underneath all. I never thought it of you.”

  “Well, she said she had picked the handsomest man in town here to help her.”

  “Thought I was,” Carl said. He squinted at Gannon. “Well, I’ll just pass on what my Daddy said to me. ‘Look out for women!’ he said, and I have done it all my life. But not a one went and looked back.” He laughed a little. “Well, now, that’s fine,” he said. “She is a handsome-looking woman. What is she doing out here, did she ever say to you, Johnny?”

  “Looking for me,” he said, and felt himself flush. He grinned at Carl, who snorted.

  “A lady-killer underneath,” Carl said. “Well, if that don’t beat all.”

  II

  At four o’clock Gannon went to the Mexican barber on Medusa Street for a haircut and shave, and, reeking of toilet water, hurried back to his room at Birch’s roominghouse and washed off the stink and put on his best shirt and his store suit. Surveying himself in the shard of mirror over the washstand he thought there had never been a face so ugly, and the suit did not look like anything but what it was, a cheap store-bought, with the jacket pinch-waisted and short and the store creases still in the trousers.

  He took off the suit and put on clean moleskin pants; anyway he was going to help her move her things, not to a soiree. He dusted and oiled his shell belt, put on his new star boots that were too small for him, and spent some time brushing his hat and adjusting it upon his head. Then he limped out. He looked in at the jail, where Carl was poring over a Wild West magazine.

  “In a pure sweat, aren’t you?” Carl said. “I was betting on that store suit of yours, though.”

  “It’s that red-trim house over on Grant Street. If you need me for anything.”

  “I’m too soft-hearted a man to pull you out of there short of McQuown coming in to burn the town down,” Carl said. “Then I guess you’d hear the shooting anyway.”

  Gannon grinned and went on east along Main Street, walking pigeon-toed and wincing in his star boots. He turned into the Lucky Dollar for a glass of whisky, taking a place at the bar where he could watch the thin hands of the Seth Thomas clock.

  He had finished his whisky and was marveling at the incredibly slow movement of the minute hand, when there was a sudden silence in the Lucky Dollar, and then a scuff of bootheels and clink of spurs. In the mirror he saw Abe and Curley entering. They walked past him, unnoticing, and he watched them find a table and seat themselves.

  A barkeeper took them a bottle and two glasses; the hum of conversation was resumed, in a lower, sibilant key. In the mirror Gannon watched Curley whispering to Abe behind his hand, and Abe glancing around him continually with little nervous movements of his head, the lines in his cheeks deeply cut, his face bitter, watchful, and—Gannon thought with a shock—almost fearful.

  When the minute hand stood two minutes away from straight up, Gannon turned to go. He nodded to Abe, who stared back without recognition; he nodded to Curley, who wrinkled his nose a little, as though he had smelled something bad. Gannon went on outside. He did not think there was going to be any trouble. Probably they were on their way into Bright’s City and Abe had felt he had to show himself in Warlock on the way. The red-bearded face with the clawed-looking lines in the cheeks remained in his mind’s eye as he went on east toward Grant Street. He had never thought that he would see Abe McQuown frightened.

  The house Kate Dollar had rented was of tarpaper and wooden battens, with red trim around the door and a single narrow window at the front. The door stood open and he knocked on the red frame and waited, hat in hands. Inside he could see two scuffed leather trunks with curved lids, one with a valise on top of it, the other standing open. In the room were three rawhide straight chairs, a love seat with one corner propped up on some bricks, an oilcloth-covered table beneath the pulley lamp, and, on the wall opposite him, a painting in a chipped gilt frame of a shepherd tending some sheep. The glass over it was cracked.

  Kate Dollar came out of the doorway beyond the trunks. She had on a soiled apron and a white frilled shirt with a high collar. Her black hair was tied up in a scarf, and her face, clean and scrubbed-looking, seemed strangely different until he noticed that the beauty mark was missing. She did not look so tall, either, as she came across the creaking plank floor toward him. “Come in, Deputy,” she said.

  He entered, and she stepped past him to close the door with a slap. “How do you like my house?”

  “It’s a fine house.”

  She looked at him in the almost rude way she had. “I see you didn’t know whether to come dressed for work or supper. There’ll be no supper till there’s some work done. I want you to slide those trunks into the bedroom for me, and then I want these walls washed down. Can you bring yourself to do that kind of work?”

  “If nobody catches me at it.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him, and raised a finger to touch the place where the beauty mark usually was. She smiled a different kind of smile. “I will have something on you, won’t I?”

  She stood aside as he lifted the valise to the table, and slid the larger trunk into the bedroom. In the bedroom was a brass bed and an unpainted crate with dirty muslin curtains covering the front. On the crate, on a purple scarf, was a glass-covered picture of the Virgin. There was a wire stretched across one corner of the room, on which hung the clothes she had been wearing when she had come to the jail.

  When he returned to the living room he could hear her in the kitchen, and a bucket of water and some cactus-fiber wads were o
n the table. He went to work on the tarpaper walls.

  While he scrubbed the walls Kate Dollar worked in the kitchen and the bedroom, occasionally talking to him from whatever room she happened to be in, and once or twice, as she passed him, pointing out places he had missed. He thought it was as pleasant a time as he had ever spent.

  Finished with the front room, he took his bucket into the bedroom. Now the wire in the corner was sagging with clothes. One of the trunks was empty and stood open; there was a mirror in the lid with red roses and blue stars painted around it. The top of the crate had been heaped with her things—a little black book, a silver cross on a beaded chain, a silver-chased box, a derringer, a tinted photograph in a gold frame. The picture of the Virgin stood apart from the clutter. She had a sad, sweet face, full of pity.

  He moved closer to the crate. His hand hesitated, as his eyes had hesitated, to pry into her personal things there. But he picked up the tinted photograph. It showed a man with a reddish walrus mustache—a smiling, well-dressed, plump, handsome, touchy-looking man; at first the face seemed familiar and he thought it must be that of the dead man, Cletus, who had come to Warlock with her. Yet he decided it was not. He heard the slap of Kate Dollar’s slippers in the front room, and guiltily he put the photograph down and moved quickly away from the crate. Through the door he saw her pull down the lamp and light the wick with a paper spill. The room brightened around her, and she turned and smiled at him, but some essential part of the pleasantness had vanished, and he felt uncomfortable in the bedroom with the brass scrolled bed, and her private things.