by Oakley Hall
“My goodness, I am feeling the heat these days, Doc!” she said, fanning her flushed face with her hand.
“It is natural that you should, Myra.”
She flushed still more, prettily. Jessie thanked her, and thanked the other ladies, whom he could not see from where he stood. Disparate types though they were, they were beginning to form a women’s organization, now dedicating their energies to the welfare of the strikers. He had heard Mrs. Maples indignantly informing Myra Egan that Kate Dollar had offered to help them; a club existed as soon as there was someone to be excluded.
Jessie closed the door and went to stand listlessly by the table. “It is very tiring,” she said.
“I don’t expect it will need to be done much longer.”
She shrugged. He knew she did not really care, yet it was what she had chosen for her role and she would fulfill that role to the limit of her strength, and probably better than someone who cared more. She bent her head as she leafed through the pages of a little book of poems on the table. The nape of her neck under the curls was white, downed with fair hair, and heartbreakingly thin.
He heard the sound of boots mounting the porch. “Jessie!” a voice called.
She moved to the door and opened it.
“The hogs are all fed, I see.” It was MacDonald’s voice, and the doctor went to join her in the doorway. “How long are you going to go on feeding this herd?”
“As long as they are hungry,” Jessie said. MacDonald stood facing her, his derby hat in his hand. His pale, small-featured face was savage. With him was one of his foremen, Lafe Dawson, with a shotgun over his arm.
“Well, they are going to stay hungry as long as you are going to feed them,” MacDonald said. “Why should they work when they can line up at your trough for every meal? You may think you are being quite the little angel of mercy, but let me tell—”
“Maybe you had better not talk so loud, Mr. MacDonald,” Dawson said, rolling his eyes toward the stairs.
“I will talk as loudly as I wish! I am talking to you, too, Wagner. You are doing them a disservice. You are going to regret this; and they are.”
“There are no Regulators any more, Charlie,” the doctor said. It pleased him to see how frightened MacDonald was behind his mask of anger.
“I have heard from the company,” MacDonald said. “They are backing me completely—completely! There is no pressure upon me to settle this strike, whatever lying rumors have been circulated to the contrary.”
“Then why are you threatening us, Charlie?” Jessie said; she said it calmly and without guile, only as though she were puzzled.
“For your own good!” MacDonald tried to smile, and failed. “I have come to tell you that I have heard from Mr. Willingham. Mr. Arthur Willingham.” He folded his arms, as though in triumph. “Mr. Willingham is in Bright’s City today, to confer with General Peach. You may know that Mr. Willingham, besides being president of the Porphyrion and Western Mining Company, has very important connections in Washington. I think that General Peach will not ignore what is going on down here any longer. If these men do not go back to work immediately, or if there is any more trouble down here whatsoever, you can be sure we will have martial law down here in every sense of the word, and a Mexican crew will then be brought in to work the Medusa. That,” MacDonald said, “was my communication from Mr. Willingham.” He waited, as though for some attempt at rebuttal.
Tittle and Fitzsimmons had appeared at the head of the hallway, and Dawson shifted his shotgun around to point at them.
“Have you had orders to settle the strike, Charlie?” Jessie asked.
“Are you calling me a liar?” MacDonald cried. “I tell you that Mr. Willingham is backing me one hundred per cent! The mining companies cannot allow a pack of ignorant, filthy foreigners to dictate to them how stopes are to be constructed, and what wages are to be paid!” MacDonald advanced a step, pointing a finger at the doctor as though it were a weapon. “Committees interfering with the work, and all the rest of this asininity you have put into their heads, Wagner. I see well enough that your committees are to be the Miners’ Union in fact. It was you—the two of you! Well, I will not be blackguarded by a pack of strong-backed louts, nor by a couple of conspiring—criminally conspiring!—busybodies! I swear to you that I will fight this until they come creeping back begging for work!”
“Charlie,” the doctor said. “I swear to you that I will do my best to see that they do not!”
MacDonald bared his teeth in the facsimile of a smile again, as though he had cunningly extracted a confession. “Remember that, Dawson,” he said. “When General Peach comes down here we will have things to tell him about Doctor David Wagner. And about this house. A disorderly house,” he said, and Jessie gasped.
“Watch your tongue, MacDonald!” the doctor cried. Dawson was grimacing horribly; Tittle started forward and Dawson swung the shotgun toward him again.
“I said a disorderly house!” MacDonald said. “A damnable mare’s nest of criminal conspiracy against the mining companies. Conspiracy to commit arson! And murder, for all I know!” He stopped, panting, his eyes flickering insanely; and then he cried, “And a disorderly house in more ways than that! This house and you are a scandal to this town, Jessie. I can ruin you!”
“Shut up!” Tittle screamed. Fitzsimmons was trying to hold him, and Dawson nervously threatened him with the shotgun. “Shut up! You lying, dirty dog!” Tittle screamed, in a mechanical voice.
“That’s enough, Ben,” Jessie said.
“Shoot that man if he tries to attack me!” MacDonald said to his foreman, but Tittle had quieted.
Dawson was motioning toward the stairs. “Mr. MacDonald, you had better hush!”
MacDonald sneered. “And do not think I am frightened of your adulterous scandal of a marshal, either! You may be sure he will be—”
“Charlie, I will kill you myself!” the doctor cried. He could feel his heart pounding dangerously in his chest as he started forward. Dawson turned the shotgun toward him. Tittle’s eyes were glaring from his contorted face, as insane as MacDonald’s; as murderous, he thought suddenly, as his own face must look. Jessie put a hand on his arm and he halted.
“Charlie—” Jessie said. She spoke in a clear, loud voice, and her tone was condescending; she might have been speaking to an obstreperous boarder. “Charlie, you must be terribly afraid of losing your position. To speak to me like this.”
MacDonald made a shrill sound. “The miners’ angel!” he cried. “The gunman’s whore, is better; and her eunuch!”
Tittle cried out, and Dawson clutched MacDonald’s arm. MacDonald glanced frantically from face to face. “You—have been warned,” he said, in a voice so hoarse his words were barely understandable. He backed away, then swung around, and, with Dawson close to his heels, hurried outside.
The doctor stared at Tittle’s wild eyes in his gaunt, bony face. Tittle’s mouth hung half open and he did not struggle now, in Fitszsimmons’ grasp. He looked as though he were in agony as he glanced at Jessie, wordlessly; abruptly he hobbled away down the hall.
Jessie turned back into her room. The doctor had thought she would be shattered, but her face was only a little pink. He wanted to cry out to her to deny it, swear to him that it was not true. He knew that she could not deny it, for, although she had lied that once to Blaisedell, she would not lie to him. The gunman’s whore, and her eunuch; he stood staring at her and in his mind’s eye saw his heart swelling and stretching until he thought he must faint with it. Motionless, hardly breathing, he waited for the tight pain to recede.
“He was very frightened, Jessie,” he said, surprised at the calmness of his voice, “or he would not have spoken as he did.”
“Yes,” Jessie said, nodding, her face pink still. “Charlie was very foolish to say those things.”
In the hall he heard the uneven crack of Tittle’s footsteps return and break into a run. With a steady, anguished grunting Tittle hurried outside; the doct
or stepped out into the entryway just as Fitzsimmons came down the hall.
Then in the street he heard the shots, and the cry, and the answering deeper blast of Dawson’s shotgun. “Why didn’t you stop him?” he cried, as he ran for the door.
“He got away from me, Doc,” Fitzsimmons said blandly, behind him.
52. GANNON BACKS OFF
GANNON had just come back from lunch at the Boston Café when he heard the shots—four of them in rapid succession, and the harsh cough of what sounded like a shotgun. He went out of the jail at a run, vaulted the tie rail, and ran down the street. The hot wind plucked at his hat. Morgan sat in his rocking chair on the veranda of the hotel, and, beyond, figures milled in the haze of heat and dust.
As he approached he saw that two men were supporting a third, while a fourth with a shotgun stood in the middle of the intersection facing into Grant Street. Men were running along with him on the boardwalk. He saw Pike Skinner join the group around the wounded man, and Ralph Egan come out of the Feed and Grain Barn.
It was Lafe Dawson, one of MacDonald’s foremen, pointing the shotgun toward a group of miners on the comer of Grant Street. Oscar Thompson and Fred Wheeler set the wounded man down on the hotel steps. Blood spurted from his arm as Wheeler released it, and Wheeler quickly stripped off his belt and cinched it around the arm. The man was white with dust, as though he had been rolled in flour. As Gannon ran up someone tossed a hard-hat onto the boardwalk, where it thumped and rolled erratically.
“MacDonald, for Christ’s sake!” Egan said.
MacDonald wiped his left hand over his dusty forehead, and turned his head with a reluctant movement to look at his arm. “Deputy!” he cried, in a stifled voice, as he saw Gannon. His mouth hung open and his lower lip was pulled down to show pale gums; his breath was so rapid it sounded as though he were whistling. He stared at Gannon with terrified eyes.
“Somebody’d better run for the doctor,” Gannon said.
“Doc took the other one back to Miss Jessie’s,” Wheeler said. “He’ll be along.”
“What other one?”
“Murder!” MacDonald shouted explosively.
“Who the hell shot him?” Sam Brown demanded.
Lafe Dawson was backing toward them, still holding the shotgun pointed at the miners. Pike Skinner said, “Who was it, Lafe?”
“It was that crippled one that works for Miss Jessie,” Dawson said shakily. “He was popping away from out of range. I couldn’t—”
“Oh, you hit him,” Oscar Thompson said.
“Tittle?” Gannon said.
“They put him to it!” MacDonald said. His tongue appeared to mop limply at his lips. “I know they put him to it!”
“Here comes Doc now,” Wheeler said, and Gannon glanced around to see the doctor hurrying toward them from Grant Street. There was a good-sized crowd now, and more miners had collected. He saw Blaisedell’s back as Blaisedell walked away toward the General Peach.
Men moved aside to let the doctor through. His face was as white as MacDonald’s. “This is your work, Wagner!” MacDonald cried, and his eyes rolled toward Gannon again. “He is responsible, Gannon! He put him to it!”
“Hush now,” the doctor said. He put down his bag and bent to look at the wound in MacDonald’s upper arm.
“Get him away from me! Lafe!”
“You had better wait until I’ve dressed this arm, hadn’t you?” the doctor said, straightening. “Or would it serve you better if you bled to death?”
MacDonald swayed faintly, and Thompson caught his shoulder.
From the hotel porch Morgan’s voice was raised tauntingly. “You muckers over there! How come you send a cripple to do a mob’s work?”
“You are going to open your flap one too many times yet, Morgan!” a rough voice retorted.
“Is that you, Brunk?” Morgan called, and laughed.
“Brunk’s not here. He is keeping company with McQuown and they will hang you yet!”
The doctor said, “Can a couple of you bring him over to the Assay Office?”
“Surely, Doc,” Thompson said, and he and Wheeler picked up MacDonald in a cradle-carry. The crowd parted as they carried MacDonald off down the street, with Lafe Dawson and the doctor following them.
Gannon saw Pike Skinner looking at him worriedly. Then, in the silence, he felt all the eyes on him. With an effort he kept himself from glancing down toward the General Peach, where Tittle was, where Blaisedell had gone. He heard whispering, and heard Blaisedell’s name. Peter Bacon, chewing upon a toothpick, was watching him with an expression of elaborate unconcern. Someone said, loud in the silence, “Never heard a man make such a fuss over getting shot.”
Gannon took a long breath, and, as though he were preparing to dive into very deep, cold, dark waters, slowly turned toward the corner of Grant Street. He started forward and heard the sudden stir of whispering around him. He walked steadily on and the miners on the corner parted before him; there were more before the General Peach, and these also moved silently aside for him. A curtain twitched in the window of Miss Jessie’s room, where Carl had died.
The door opened before he reached it, and Miss Jessie confronted him. She wore one of her white schoolgirl’s blouses and a black neckerchief, a black skirt. In her face was superiority and dislike, determination and contempt. Behind her, in the dimness of the entryway, he could sense, rather than see, Blaisedell standing.
“Yes, Deputy?” Miss Jessie said.
“I’ve come for Tittle, Miss Jessie.”
She merely shook her head at him, and the brown ringlets slid like live things along the sides of her head.
“He has shot and hurt MacDonald. I will have to take him up to jail for the judge to hear him.”
“He is hurt himself. I will not let him be taken anywhere.”
Gannon could see Blaisedell now, standing far back beside the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. “I guess I will have to see him, then, Miss Jessie.”
“Will you force my house?” she said, very quietly, and she caught hold of the edge of the door as though to slam it in his face.
“Leave him in her custody, Deputy,” Blaisedell said, in his deep voice. “He’ll not be leaving here.”
Gannon tapped his hat against his leg. This was not right, he thought; it did not matter that this was Miss Jessie Marlow, and Blaisedell behind her; it did not matter that it was MacDonald who was hurt, or that it was the crippled fellow who worked for Miss Jessie that had shot him. With growing anger he gazed back into Miss Jessie’s contemptuous face. But he wished it had not happened this way.
Someone called his name. The judge came hurrying through the miners on the boardwalk, his crutch flying out and his body lurching so that he looked as though he would fall at every step. The judge waved a hand at him, and, panting, made his way up onto the porch. His hat had slipped forward over one eye. “Miss Jessie Marlow!” he panted. “The prisoner is released on your recognizance. Is that all right with you, ma’am? Fine!” he said, without waiting for an answer. He turned his sweating red face to Gannon. “Fine!” he said, more loudly, as though it were a command. “Now you help me down these steps, Deputy, before I break my neck!”
The judge swung around and tottered; Gannon caught his arm. “Come on!” the judge whispered. Gannon helped him down the stairs, and immediately the judge set out back along the boardwalk with his lurching, pounding gait. The miners stared at them expressionlessly as they passed.
They turned up Main Street under the arcade. “Come on, you damned fool!” the judge said. When they were alone and out of earshot of the men in the street he slowed his pace a little, panting again. “You will leave well enough alone!” he said savagely. “Or I will take this crutch and club you senseless—which you already are. Son, any kind of a damned fool ought to know not to snatch at gnats when there’s camels to be swallowed still!”
“I know what I have to snatch at. What am I supposed to do, let any wild mucker that wants to shoot at M
acDonald just because nobody likes MacDonald?”
“Right now you are going to.”
“You damned old fraud!”
“I am,” the judge said. “I have admitted it a hundred times. It is a time for fraud and not for bullheadedness. Son, I didn’t ever think it of you. Did MacDonald make a complaint against him?”
“Not yet.”
“You will anyhow wait till he does. And what will you do then? Tittle has got a load of buckshot in him; will you haul him to jail regardless?”
“She wouldn’t let me see him even,” Gannon said. His rage was running out, but it did not change anything. He had stood in the street where MacDonald had been shot and felt the eyes upon him, and had known they thought to a man that he would not go after Tittle because of Blaisedell. He would not let it matter what they thought of him, John Gannon, but it was time that it mattered what they thought of the deputy sheriff in Warlock.
“Son,” the judge said, almost gently. “Have you been watching Blaisedell these days? I thought you saw things. He will step back so you can come forward, and God bless him for it. But he is not going to step back because you have come forward. Don’t you even think of trying to push on him.”
“I was trying to arrest a man that assaulted another with a deadly weapon in this town I am deputy in.”
“Son, son,” the judge said, in a tired voice. “It is like hearing myself talk when I was young and thought there was nothing but two ways about a thing. Do you know what I learned in the war besides that a minie ball can take a leg off? I learned it is better to swing around a flank than charge straight up a hill.”
“Judge,” he said. “I am going to stand up or I’m not. If I did not go there after Tittle I backed down in every man’s eyes. And it was not just me that backed down.”
“There is a time when a man does best to back down,” the judge said, and evaded his eyes.