Warlock

by Oakley Hall

  He shook his head.

  “Yeah, for Blaisedell!” Wash Haggin cried, and everyone began to talk at once until Abe shouted angrily for quiet.

  But Chet went on. “Just one more thing I want to ask him, Abe. Bud, you think Blaisedell isn’t going to choose us out and cut us down one by one unless we go in there against him all together?”

  “He’s got nothing against you. That’d be a thing I’d be bound to stop too, I expect.”

  Chet grinned contemptuously and Wash shouted with laughter. They all laughed.

  Abe leaned his hands on his concho belt and tilted back on his heels. “Like you stopped him from cutting Curley down, Deputy?”

  Gannon felt himself flush painfully. “It was a fair fight, Abe. But you don’t mean to fight him fair. You are going in to—”

  “Why, you are a liar,” Abe broke in. “Fair fight.”

  “There will be no fight. You are not to bring these people in.”

  “Be damned to you!” Walt Harrison said.

  “Stop us, Bud!” Whitby said.

  “I will stop you.”

  “Let me talk to him a minute, Abe,” Jack Cade said, in his grating voice. Cade came forward toward Gannon, his thumbs in his shell belt. Gannon stared back into his hard eyes.

  “You,” Cade said, and paused for a long time. His dirty teeth scraped on his lower lip. “You are,” he said, “a yellow-belly suck-up.” He grinned and hitched at his belt. “You are a pure yellow, pissant, chicken-livered, coyote-bred, no-cojones son of a bitch. I say that’s what you are. I say—”

  Gannon stood listening to the level, grating voice taunting him, mouthing increasing foulness. He was not especially frightened of being forced into a fight, for he did not think it was Abe’s wish. He hardly heard the words, for they did not matter to him, but he realized that they would have to be stopped because where the law was merely a man there had to be some respect for that man or the law did not exist and so his journey down here had been worse than useless. He glanced from face to face around him and his heart sank to see them not merely contemptuous, but pleased and crudely eager. Only Wash Haggin looked a little ashamed, and Joe Lacey embarrassed. Chet had turned his face away. Abe was grinning faintly, watching out of the corners of his eyes.

  The vile words droned on, without meaning. He unhooked the star from his jacket, and reached over to hand it to Chet Haggin. “Hold it,” he said. “I don’t want him to be able to say he killed another deputy.”

  “I’ll say it!” Cade said, triumphantly. “Outside, Deputy!”

  “Here,” Gannon said. “So it will be a fair fight.” He untied the bandanna from around his neck, and rapidly fixed a knot in either end. “You count for us,” he said to Chet. “We will draw on three.” He bit down on one knotted end of the bandanna, and held the other out; he saw immediately that Cade would not do it.

  “I’m no God-damned fool for a handkerchief fight!” Cade said hoarsely.

  It was enough, Gannon thought, and quickly he stuffed the bandanna into his pocket and took his star back. No one spoke.

  It had meant nothing, and yet he hoped he had recovered something in their eyes. But he knew that Abe saw his bluff and the necessity for it, and with dread he realized that in backing Cade down he had challenged Abe himself. Now he wondered if Abe was sure enough of his own authority to let his recovery stand.

  “Man doesn’t have to be a damned fool!” Cade said. “Come on outside and fight decent!”

  “Pure iron,” Abe said. “Why, a man with iron in him like that deserves a medal.” He swung toward the breed. “Where’s the medal, Marko?” The breed looked confused. Abe made a gesture toward his mouth and Marko produced something from his pocket. Abe took it, and, with a swift movement, plucked off Gannon’s hat and dropped a cord around his neck. From it was suspended a mouth organ. “Curley won’t be needing this any more,” Abe said loudly. “How is that for a medal for Bud, boys?”

  He recognized the release of tension in their laughter; what had passed between him and Jack Cade was set at nothing and he was a fool to them again as well as a traitor. He stripped the cord from around his neck and handed the mouth organ back to Abe, and took his hat back. “I think you’d better have it,” he said, and saw Abe’s eyes narrow dangerously.

  “I’ll be going,” he said. “Abe, you have heard me about the Regulators. That’s the word with the bark on it.” It gave him a start to hear Carl’s phrase on his own lips.

  “Abe!” the old man cried. “Are you going to let the son of a bitch walk out like that?”

  “Just a minute,” Abe said. The others leaned forward, attentive and expectant. They were all afraid, Gannon thought suddenly. Maybe they felt, as Chet had said, that Blaisedell would destroy them one by one if they did not destroy him.

  “What right have you to stop us?” Abe said quietly. “When you didn’t stop Blaisedell from killing Curley? Tell me that, Bud. How are you going to tell me I can’t post Blaisedell and kill him if he don’t run, when you didn’t stop him with Curley? That was my friend,” he said, more quietly still.

  “Mine too, by God!” Wash said.

  “He ought to be shot down on Billy’s grave, what he ought,” Dad McQuown said. “Billy was a fine boy, and him nothing.”

  “I am talking about Curley,” Abe said. He waited, his face a bearded, furrowed mask, his eyes hooded. Then he said, “You ought to be riding in with us, Bud.”

  He shook his head.

  “But you swore to it, didn’t you?” Abe went on. “You swore Carl told you he’d done it himself, didn’t you? Or did you crawfish on that?”

  “Not yet,” he said, and instantly he knew that what he had meant as only a passing threat was too much more than that. He heard the whistling suck of Abe’s breath, and saw Abe’s right eye widen while his left remained a slit.

  “What do you think you mean by that?” Abe whispered.

  He didn’t answer right away. But he had not, he thought, come here merely so he could get away without trouble. He had come to tell them they must not come into Warlock as Regulators. He said tiredly, “There is going to be peace and law in Warlock, Abe. Or there is going to be Blaisedell. If you will let be, he will go. He knows he has to go now, for he has been wrong.”

  “Let him go, then.”

  “You will have to let be for him to go. And I will see that you let him be, and Warlock will. I have more ways than deputizing people for stopping you.”

  “I am sure scared of that pack of fat-butt bank clerks he is going to round up in there,” Whitby said. “Whoooo! I—”

  “Shut up!” Abe snapped. He stared at Gannon with his head tipped forward so that his beard brushed his chest, and his green eyes were wild. “What other ways, Bud?”

  “I would crawfish to stop you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” the old man said. “I can’t make out what—”

  “Shut up!” Abe put a hand on top of the stove and leaned on it heavily. “Damn your dirty soul to hell!” he cried. “God damn you, coming down here mealy-mouthing what you are bound to do. I will tell you what you are bound to do! You damned lick-spittle, you will swear here and now to what Carl said to you and what is true!” Abe took a step toward him. “Swear it, damn you!”

  “I guess I’ll not—” he started, and tried to dodge as Abe’s hand swung up against his cheek. He staggered sideways with the blow; his cheek burned maddeningly, and his eyes watered. He heard a murmur of approval from the others, whom, for a moment, he could not see.

  “Swear it! You will swear to the truth or I’ll kill you!”

  He shook his head; he saw the buckskin arm swing again. He did not dodge this time, but only jerked his head back to try to soften the blow. There was pain and the taste of blood in his mouth.

  “Hit him all night,” the old man said.

  “Cut him, Abe!”

  “Say it!” Abe said.

  He shook his head, and swallowed salt blood.

&nbs
p; “Say it!”

  The fist he hadn’t even seen coming this time exploded in his face once more, and he stumbled back in a wild shouting with the room spinning around him. Abruptly the shouting stopped as he caught his balance, and felt in his hand, with horror, the hard rounded shape of the Colt he had drawn. In his clearing eyes he saw Abe McQuown twisted slightly with his right fist down in the uncompleted recovery of the blow. Abe straightened slowly, his chest heaving in the buckskin shirt as he panted, his left hand massaging the knuckles of the right, his eyes glancing from the Colt to Gannon’s face. A grin made sharp indentations in his beard.

  Gannon spat blood. The Colt felt unsupportably heavy in his hand. Abe grinned more widely. “Uh-uh, Bud,” he said, and came a step forward. He came another; his moccasins lisped upon the floor. “Uh-uh, Bud.”

  Abe’s hand snapped down over his hand as sharp and tight as a talon, and wrenched the Colt away. Abe flung it to the floor behind him, and laughed. Abe swung his arm again.

  He hunched his shoulder up to catch the blow. He brought his right hand up to catch the next on his forearm. With a sudden wild elation he swung back, and his fist met hair and bone. Abe staggered back and he jumped in pursuit.

  A foot tripped him. He fell heavily past Abe, who dodged aside. A fist slammed against his back as he caught himself on his hands and tried to scramble up. He cried out in pain as a boot smashed into his ribs, and fell back again. Beneath him he felt the hard shape of his Colt where Abe had dropped it.

  He fumbled it free with his left hand, still trying to rise with his right hand braced on the table beside the buggy seat, dodging aside as Whitby aimed another kick at him, and the men on the buggy seat leaped out of the way. Then he had the Colt free and he swung it desperately to cover Cade, who had drawn. He saw only the long flash of the knife blade in the lamplight.

  He screamed, frozen half up, with his right hand pinned to the table top by a white-hot shaft.

  Whitby kicked the Colt from his left hand.

  “Get up!” Abe panted.

  He struggled to stand, with his shoulder cocked down so that his hand lay flat upon the table. He could hardly see for the sweat pouring into his eyes. Abe was leaning on the shaft of the knife with both hands, not forcing it down but merely holding it there. “Move and I’ll cut it off, Bud,” he said.

  He didn’t move.

  “Geld him, son,” the old man said calmly.

  Now his hand merely felt numb and the faintness began to leave him. Leaning on the knife still, Abe disengaged his right hand, and, with a careful, measured movement, slapped him, not hard.

  “Don’t move, Bud,” Abe said, grinning. The hand slapped his cheek harder. It came again and again, each time harder. The faintness bore down on him again as the knife edge tore his flesh. He felt only the sensation of tearing, rather than the pain. “Don’t move, Bud,” Abe warned, and slapped him. The faintness began to crush him.

  “Swear it for us, Bud!”

  He shook his head. He could feel the blood beneath his hand now, so that it seemed glued to the table as well as nailed there. “Swear it, damn you to hell!” Abe cried, and there was hysteria in his voice.

  “Lever that handle a little, son. Let’s hear him squeak.”

  “This isn’t doing any good, for Christ’s sake, Abe!” Chet Haggin said.

  “Let me take that knife to him!” Cade said.

  Abe pressed downward on the handle, and Gannon closed his eyes. The pressure ceased and he opened them. He could see the shine of spittle at the corners of the mouth in the red beard. He gazed around at the others, dimly pleased that he could stare each one of them down.

  “Hold off, Abe!” Chet said.

  “Swear it, Bud!” Abe whispered. “Or I swear to God I will cut your hand off! I’ll kill you!”

  “You had better kill me if you want to take your Regulators into Warlock,” he said. “For I will stop you otherwise.”

  It was a way out if Abe wanted to take it, and he knew Abe did. Abe turned his face in profile, his long jaw set wolfishly and sweat showing on his cheeks. He looked pale. Wash said quickly, “I would surely like to see him trying to stop us!”

  “I’d like to see that,” Walt Harrison said.

  Abe jerked the knife free, and he gasped as the air got into the wound like another knife. He left his hand on the table to support himself now, as he watched Abe wipe the knife blade on his trouser leg. The old man was muttering.

  “Get that neckerchief out and bind that hand up,” Chet said roughly. “There may be some that like the stink of blood, but damned if I do.”

  “Kind of surprised to see he’s got any in him,” Whitby said.

  Gannon fumbled the cloth from his pocket and tried to bind it around his bleeding hand. Joe Lacey came forward to help him, pulling the bandage tight and tying the ends together.

  “Stop us then,” Abe said, in a cold voice. “We’ll be in tomorrow.”

  “He’ll just ride back and warn Blaisedell out of town, God damn it, son!” Dad McQuown cried. “I say kill him or hold him down here!”

  “Let me settle my account with him, Abe,” Cade said.

  McQuown grinned mockingly. “Well, move along, Bud. Before my mind gets changed.”

  Gannon looked around for his Colt. “Give it to him,” Abe said. “He can’t do anything with it.”

  Walt Harrison handed him the Colt. He took it with his wounded hand. It slipped through his fingers and he caught it by slapping it against his leg. Awkwardly he slid it into his holster. Whitby thrust his hat on his head. He walked slowly through them toward the door. There he turned. Abe was still standing at the table, jabbing the point of his knife into the wood with a kind of listless viciousness.

  “I’ve warned you,” Gannon said. “You are not to come into Warlock like you are set to do.” This time no one laughed.

  He went outside into the buzzing darkness. Carefully he descended the steps. A dog began to bark, and the others joined in a chorus. They would be locked up, he remembered; they always were when men were coming and going at night.

  In the saddle he sat motionless for a time, his eyes closed, his left hand clutching the pommel. One by one, gingerly, he sought to move the fingers of his right hand; his little finger, ring finger, middle finger, trigger finger. He sighed with relief when he realized that nothing had been severed, and swung the reins. Gripping the pommel, sitting stiff, heavy, and unsteady in the saddle, he touched in his spurs and whispered, “Let’s go home, girl.”

  The mare mounted the first ridge in the pale moonlight, went down the draw, up the second ridge—he didn’t look back. A falling star crossed the far flank of the sky, fading, as it fell, to nothing. There was a cold wind. He shivered in it, but drew himself up straighter, released his grip on the pommel, and raised a hand to set his hat on straight. Lowering his hand, he brushed his thumb past the star pinned to his jacket, as though to reassure himself he had not lost it.

  He felt a fury that was pain like a tooth beginning to ache. He said aloud, “I am the law!” The fury mounted in him. They had insulted him, cursed him, threatened him. They had beaten and stabbed him, and deliberated his death. They had presumed to judge him, and, finally, to release him in contempt of his warning. The fury filled him cleanly, at their presumption and their ignorance.

  But how would they know differently? They had never known differently. He had tried to show them courage to make them see. Once, at least, they had known courage and had respected it. Maybe they would simply not respect it in him, or maybe they knew it no longer, knew now only fear and hate and violence. The clean fury drained from him; he had been able to show them nothing. And now he could almost pity Abe McQuown, remembering the desperation he had seen in Abe’s eyes as he leaned upon the knife, Abe fighting and torturing for the Right as though it were something that could be taken by force. For Right had been embodied in Curley’s death, and perhaps Blaisedell was as desperate in his way for Right as McQuown was. But he knew that
Blaisedell would not cold-bloodedly kill for it, would not plot to take it by trick or treachery—not yet.

  He had been riding for an hour or so in the heavier darkness under the cottonwoods along the river when he heard the shot. It was a faint, flat, far-off sound, but unmistakable. There was a silence then in which even the liquid rattle of the river seemed stilled, and then a ragged volley of shots. After another pause there were two more, and, after them, silence again.

  He rode looking back over his shoulder. He could see nothing, hear nothing but the riffling of the river and the wind in the trees, the steady pad of the mare’s hoofs with the occasional crack of shoes against a rock outcrop. Finally he settled himself in the saddle again and into the weary rhythm of the ride back to Warlock, dozing, snapping awake, and dozing again.

  Much later he thought he heard, off to the east, the clatter of fast-moving hoofs, but, coming awake with that unpleasant, harsh grasping at consciousness, he could not be sure. Awake, he did not hear it, and he thought the sound must have been only something he had dreamed.

  46. JOURNALS OF HENRY HOLMES GOODPASTURE

  April 18, 1881

  IN VIEW of the importance of this morning’s Citizens’ Committee meeting, I will set down what happened there in some detail.

  One of Blaikie’s hands arrived last night with the information that a great number of San Pabloites were gathered at the McQuown ranch, and, with this proof of McQuown’s intentions, all the members of the Citizens’ Committee with whom I spoke prior to the meeting were resigned to the conclusion that we were forced to undertake the formation of a Vigilance Committee at last. Obviously Blaisedell could not be expected to face alone this force of Regulators patently assembled to bring about his destruction, or his flight. The parallel with poor Canning’s fate was all too clear, and we would not be shamed again. Some were eager for war, and some were frightened, but almost all seemed firm in their resolve to back Blaisedell to the hilt.

  The meeting was at the bank. All but Taliaferro attended: Dr. Wagner, Slavin, Skinner, Judge Holloway, Hart, Winters, MacDonald, Godbold, Pugh, Rolfe, Petrix, Kennon, Brown, Robinson, Egan, Swartze, Miss Jessie Marlow, and myself. And Clay Blaisedell, not a member, but our instrument.