by Oakley Hall
If Blaisedell were to be found guilty I think this town would rise almost to a man and ride into Bright’s City in armed rebellion to free him. Opinion has swung violently back to his behalf in light of this newest report, and his critics are silent. Miss Jessie Marlow in my store this afternoon ostensibly to purchase some ribbon, actually to learn if I had heard anything beyond the news Rolfe had brought. I had not, and could only try to reassure her that Blaisedell would be speedily acquitted. She was sadly pale, ill-looking, and far from her usual cheerful self, but she thanked me for my pitiful offering as though it were of value.
McQuown’s absence from Bright’s City’s courthouse has been remarked upon. He and Burne passed through Warlock on Sunday, and it was presumed they were en route to the trial. But only Burne was there; indeed, he seems to have been the only other San Pabloite other than Luke Friendly to appear. Rolfe said he heard that Burne and Deputy Schroeder exchanged hot words upon the courthouse steps, and would have exchanged more than words had not Sheriff Keller intervened. McQuown is no doubt more frightened that Blaisedell will be acquitted and return, than we are that he will not.
March 4, 1881
Buck Slavin, the doctor, Schroeder, et al. back. The jury is deliberating. They had waited over a day after the jury had left the box, but it was still out. They seem certain Blaisedell will be acquitted, and that the jury’s delay is only to enjoy as many meals upon the county as possible. Still, I notice that they seem worried that Luke Friendly’s outrageous lies may have told heavily against Blaisedell. Buck is bitter about the prosecuting attorney, Pierce, and that Judge Alcock did not cut him short more often than he did.
Evidently Pierce sought to inflame the jury with Billy Gannon’s youth, with the fact that less than a month ago the three Cowboys had been declared innocent in the same court, and with Blaisedell’s “murderous presumption” in setting aside the court’s decision and declaring himself “Judge and Executioner.” Buck says that the same rumor we have had here—that Morgan and Blaisedell were actually the road agents themselves, and murdered the “innocents” in an effort both to silence and permanently affix the blame on them—has been sown in Bright’s City, and, although not much believed there (Bright’s City has not seen as much of McQuown as we have, but they have seen enough) had evidently been heard by Pierce, and it was Pierce’s hints and implications along these lines that Buck felt Judge Alcock should have dealt with more firmly. As all agree that Friendly was a poor witness against Blaisedell, so do they agree that Morgan was the best witness in Blaisedell’s behalf; that he was cool and convincing, and gave as good as he got from Pierce, several times calling forth peals of laughter from the courtroom at the prosecutor’s expense.
From all I have heard I am glad I did not attend the trial. Poor Blaisedell; I pity him what he has gone through. Yet it was at his own instigation, and I am certain no charges would have been brought against him had he not wished it. Buck says, however, that he has been most calm throughout, and apparently took no umbrage at Pierce’s blackguardly accusations.
“What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.”
March 5, 1881
Blaisedell was acquitted yesterday. Peter Bacon arrived this morning with the news, having ridden all night. I sent a note around immediately to Miss Jessie, expressing my pleasure at hearing it, but there was no reply other than her verbal thanks to my mozo.
Now that Blaisedell is free and absolved, I am neither pleased nor relieved. The blackguardly statements with which Pierce harangued the jury, the jury’s inexcusable delay, Friendly’s damnable lies about what happened in the Acme Corral, and General Peach’s actions throughout [1]—how must these have affected him? He must have gone to court wishing absolution, and received only a poor, grudging, and besmudged verdict in his behalf. The official verdict, however, will not affect the verdict here, and I think in days to come there will be bad blood between Warlock men and Bright’s City men. Although I will say that the Bright’s City paper has treated Blaisedell with great respect in its columns and especially in its editorials, and I will congratulate Editor Jim Askew on these when next I see him.
I find myself deeply emotionally subscribed to all this. It seems to me that I, and all of us here, have a stake and an investment in the Marshal. He has produced, and, looking back, I see that he did from the beginning produce, an intense division for or against him. But Clay Blaisedell is not the rock upon which we are divided, he is only a symptom. We do not break so simply as some think into the two camps of townsmen and Cowboys. We break into the camps of those wildly inclined, and those soberly, those irresponsible and those responsible, those peace-loving and those outlaw and riotous by nature; further, into the camps of respect, and of fear—I mean for oneself, and for all decent things besides. These are the poles between which we vibrate, and Blaisedell has only emphasized the distance between them. It is too simple perhaps to say that those who fear themselves and fear their fellow men, fear and hate Blaisedell, while those who respect themselves, and Man, respect him. Yet I hold that this is true in a broad sense.
For the arguments continue, what happened in the Acme Corral compounded by the Bright’s City court and those who spoke there. I feel strongly that not merely I, but everyone here, sees himself affected personally by all this, and that, somehow, the truth or falsity of the whole affair reflects through and upon each of us. Fine points are argued as heatedly as the whole—how many shots, how many paces, who was stationed in exactly what position, and so on ad infinitum. So must the schoolmen have argued in their day, in their own saloons, the number of angels who could dance on the head of a pin.
[1] General Peach evidently, upon one occasion, shouted down the judge to say that Blaisedell should properly have been tried by a military tribunal, and that he, General Peach, would have had him shot. Why the military governor was not declared in contempt of court for his interference is perhaps understandable, and references to his peculiar actions, most delicately handled, are contained in the Bright’s City Star-Democrat’s reports of the trial.
27. CURLEY BURNE AND THE DOG KILLER
CURLEY rode in from the river on his way back to San Pablo from Bright’s City, blowing on his mouth organ. The music was pleasant to his ears in the silence around him, and the sun was pleasant upon his back as the gelding Dick plodded over the bare brown ridges and down the grassy draws. The Dinosaurs towered to the southwest with the sun on their slopes like honey, and from the elevation of the ridges he could see the irregular line of cottonwoods marking the river’s course toward Rattlesnake Canyon.
His cheerful mood vanished as he saw the chimney of the long-gone old house, and the windmill on the pump house. He was not bringing good news from Bright’s City.
Finally he came in sight of the ranch house, low to the ground and weathered gray as a horned toad; and now he could see the bunk-house, cook shack, horse corral—the porch of the ranch house. There were two figures seated there.
Going down the last slope Dick quickened his pace expectantly. Curley dropped the mouth organ back inside his shirt, flicked Dick with his spurs, and went down toward the house at a run, bending low in the saddle with his hat flying off and its cord cutting against his throat. He drew up with a yell before the porch, dismounted in a whirl of dust and barking dogs, and went up the steps. The other man he had seen was Dechine, Abe’s neighbor to the south, dropped in to pay a call. Dad McQuown was lying on a cot in the sun.
Abe sat staring at the mountains with his hat tipped forward to shade his face, scratching a thumb through his beard. He was leaning back with his boots crossed up on the porch rail.
Curley said, “Well, howdy, Dechine. How’s it?”
“Fine-a-lee,” Dechine said, fanning dust away with his hat. He was a short, pot-bellied fellow with little reddened
eyes and a nose like half a red pear stuck to his face.
The old man propped himself up on one elbow. “Well, what happened, Curley? They set him loose?”
“They did,” he said. Abe sat there silently, staring off at the Dinosaurs with the long creases in his cheeks like scars. All the starch had gone out of him since the boys had got killed in the Acme Corral; sometimes he acted as though there were nothing left in him at all.
The old man spat tobacco juice in a puddle beside his pallet, swiped at his little red mouth, and said, “Buggers.”
“I was just telling Abe, here,” Dechine said, “how people has got down on Blaisedell in Warlock there, over murdering those poor boys.”
“One of them’s not Carl,” Curley said. “I don’t know what’s got into Carl. Used to be a man could get along with him.”
“You have trouble with Schroeder?” the old man said eagerly.
“We went and scratched some. He is taking lawing pretty hard.”
“He is one of those thinks Blaisedell is probably Jesus Christ there,” Dechine said. “I’ve been telling Abe they are not all like that, though.”
Still Abe didn’t move, didn’t speak. Curley took out his mouth organ, then put it back. He didn’t know what had happened to everybody but it had begun to seem to him more and more that it was time to move on. Everything was nasty now, except when he was off by himself. Dad McQuown scraped his nerves like a rasp, and it was poor to see a man scared loose from himself, which was the case with Abe, who was the best friend he had ever had. He had got Abe to come as far as Warlock with him on his way up to Bright’s City, and Abe hadn’t said as much as two words the whole time and had acted as though he were madder at him, Curley, than at anybody else. He had stayed in the Lucky Dollar about an hour and then headed on back without an aye, yes, or no, except to say Warlock turned his stomach now. Everything had turned bad because of Blaisedell sitting in Warlock like a poison spider in its dirty web.
“Where’s Luke?” Abe asked.
“Well, he decided he’d go over toward Rincon and see what the country’s like there. Said he was tired of the territory.”
Abe made a sound that was a fair try at a laugh. The old man yelled, “Hollow pure yellow son of a bitch!” He began fretting and cursing to himself, and scratching viciously at his legs. They itched all the time now, he said.
“Well, now,” Dechine said. “I didn’t get up to the trial there, but I heard Blaisedell had himself an awful hard time up there.” His little red eyes sought Curley’s. “Isn’t that right, Curley?”
“Joy to see it. I wished you’d been there, Abe.”
Abe said nothing.
“Well, I mean,” Dechine said. “What I come by to tell you, Abe. I was talking to Tom Morgan, kind of talking around it to him there, and he sounded like Blaisedell wasn’t going to stand for being pissed on up there at Bright’s like he was. Sounded like he thought Blaisedell might move on.”
“He won’t move on,” Abe said. “He’s got work to do still.” Curley watched him stretch, and knew it was a fraud. “Killing to do yet,” Abe said.
Curley averted his eyes to see Dechine scowling down at his knees, and the old man grimacing horribly.
Dechine said, “There is this new woman up in Warlock. Kate Dollar her name is, and high-toned as that madam they used to have at the French Palace there. Won’t have anything to do with anybody, but I see her passing the time there with Johnny Gannon the other day. Never thought of him much as being a long-boy, before.”
“Hope she gives him the dirty con,” the old man said. “Any son of a bitch that would stand by and see his brother burnt down by that hog butcher.”
“Dog killer,” Abe said, in that way he had, as though he were talking to no one. “He will come back because he didn’t get all the dogs killed yet.”
“I swear!” Dad McQuown cried. “It makes a man want to puke to hear a son of mine talk like you do!”
Abe didn’t even appear to hear. Dechine was studying his knees some more.
“Son, what’s got into you?” the old man said. “I never heard such fool talk.”
Curley heard snarling beneath the porch. One of the dogs dashed off around the corner; it was the big black bitch, with the little feisty brown one after her. Abe stirred a little, and moved his shoulders in his grease-stained buckskin shirt.
“Why, they make you out a dog,” Abe said. “Run everything onto you. Then they put the dog killer after you and it crosses out everything. I see how it works,” he said, nodding like that, to himself.
Curley said, “Maybe they will take it far enough back so they can make out it was you all the time, instead of Apaches out here.”
Abe looked at him with his green marbles of eyes. “Do you think you are joking, Curley? They could do it if they tried. Because time was when every foul thing any man did it was Paches did it. And so old Peach came dog-killing down and cleaned them out. And so start all over clean. It is like a woman every month. Now it’s Abe McQuown is the dog and Blaisedell dog killer so they can start clean again. I see how it works.”
“Jesus!” the old man said.
“Watch I’m not right, Daddy,” Abe said. “They have piled all the foul on me now. Then they will bleed it out and start clean. A man’d been educated he could follow it all the way back through history, I expect. How it’s worked just like that. You can’t blame them. Can’t blame Blaisedell even.”
“Jesus Christ!” Dad McQuown said. Curley looked at Dechine and shook his head a little, and Dechine found a place on the back of his hand that needed studying more than his knees.
Curley said, “Abe, I guess I never knew a man with as many friends as you. And talking this crazy stuff.”
Abe blinked and stared off at the mountains. After a long time he said, “You think I have gone yellow. But I’m not scared. I just feel like one of those calves in the Bible that’s going to get its throat cut by a bunch of wild Jews set on it. Only those calves never knew what was happening to them.”
“Holy Jesus Christ, son!” the old man yelled. “You have been chewing on the wrong weed. Son—”
But Abe continued, not even raising his voice. “Can’t blame Blaisedell even. He is just doing what all the rest want. He is just the one with the knife to do the cutting.”
Dechine said, “I never heard about Blaisedell being any shakes with a knife.”
Abe’s eyes glittered with anger as he glared at Dechine. But he did not speak, and Curley sighed to see him.
“Son,” the old man said. “Now listen here, son. Why, God-damned right it looks like Blaisedell is itching to kill you. But the thing you have to do is kill him first.”
“He’ll kill me if he gets a chance,” Abe said. “I’d be a fool to give him the chance.”
Curley said slowly, “Blaikie would surely like to buy this spread, Abe.” He met Abe’s eyes that blazed at him, sorrier for Abe than he had ever been for anyone else; Abe’s eyes wavered away from his, and he was sorry for that, too.
“Do you think I would run out like Luke?” Abe said hoarsely.
“What’re you going to do, Abe?” Dechine asked.
“Only one thing for a man to do,” Dad McQuown said, “that’s being chased out of his own country.”
“Wait it out,” Abe said.
“Why, son, there’s them that fought your fight for you moldering on Boot Hill in Warlock! Why, if I was anything but half a man myself I’d—”
“You’re not,” Abe snapped.
Curley said, “I’ve been thinking of moving on myself, Abe.”
“Run then.”
“I wouldn’t look at it I was running. Things have gone bad here, is all. I wouldn’t look at it that you was running either.”
“I don’t run,” Abe said. He shook his head, his face in shadow beneath his hatbrim, the sun red-gold in his beard.
“Or fight,” the old man said contemptuously. “Or anything.”
“Wait it out, that’s the
best thing, Abe,” Dechine said. Curley saw Abe’s face twist again, as though with pain, and Curley stood up a little straighter, where he leaned against the rail. He could feel the strangled violence in Abe and he was afraid that if Dechine said one more stupid thing Abe would jump him.
But Abe only shrugged and said, “Can’t go against what everybody thinks of you.” Then, after a time, he said, “Can’t run and I can’t go against him. He is fast. He is faster than anybody in the country. He’s— He’d—”
He stopped, staring, and Curley turned to see the brown dog trotting around the corner of the house, his dark-spotted tongue lolling from his mouth. Abe leaned back stiffly. His hand flicked down, and up; his Colt crashed with a spit of fire and smoke and the dog was knocked rolling in the dirt with about a half a yelp. The Colt crashed and spat again and again, and with each shot the brown, bloody, dusty body was pushed farther away as though it were being jerked along on the end of a rope.
“Like that!” Abe whispered, as the gunsmoke blew away around him. He holstered his Colt. “Like that,” he said again.
28. JOURNALS OF HENRY HOLMES GOODPASTURE
March 12, 1881
I HAD thought this affair of only local importance. It did not occur to me that it had spread beyond the territory. I was surprised to read a long account of it in a San Antonio paper which someone brought here, and now I have come into possession of a magazine called the Western Gazette. This so-called journal combines cheapjack writing with smudged print upon coarse paper, and is devoted almost entirely to an affair vaguely resembling, and called, “The Battle in the Acme Corral.” It is a strange experience to read an account such as this, where an occurrence one is closely acquainted with is transformed into something wild, woolly, and improbable, with only the names true, and not all of them by any means. There is a crude illustration upon the cover, depicting a huge St. George of a man whose six-shooter is almost as long as a sword, confronting a host of sombreroed dragons. The execrably written text might be the more infuriating if Blaisedell were held to be the villain of the piece, but possibly nothing could be more intolerable than the fulsome praise, the impossible prowess and nobility, and the heroic speeches that make the gorge rise. The author listed nine dead, of whom Morgan was credited with three. It is fantastic to think of people reading, and believing, this vile fiction, which is solemnly presented as Truth. Buck says there were a number of newspapermen at the trial, however, some of whom had come from great distances to attend it. Presumably Warlock will now go down in History as the site of “The Battle in the Acme Corral,” as well as of the Medusa Mine. Blood is as stirring to the human imagination as silver.