by Oakley Hall
Gannon started on down toward the Assay Office, where there was another knot of men watching him come. The Judge crutched along beside him, grunting with the effort. Gannon knocked on the door of the doctor’s office. It opened a crack and Dawson’s scared face appeared. “What do you want?”
“I want to see MacDonald.” Past Dawson he could see the doctor washing his hands in a crockery bowl. The doctor shook his head.
“Not now, Deputy. He’s resting now. He has lost some blood.”
“I want to see him as soon as he is able,” he said, and Dawson nodded and closed the door. As he started on back to the jail Pike Skinner caught up with him and caught his arm, and he heard the crack of the judge’s crutch behind him.
“Johnny, for Christ’s sake!” Pike whispered. “Are you trying to get Blaisedell in a brace?”
“He has caught pride like a dose,” the judge said.
Gannon swung around to face them. “It is not so, Judge,” he said thickly.
“Listen!” Pike whispered. “Do you know what MacDonald did, Johnny? Went in the General Peach there and called Miss Jessie a whore to her face, and it a whorehouse! Johnny, any man’d done what that crippled one did. MacDonald is lucky Blaisedell wasn’t there!”
Gannon looked from Pike’s face to the judge’s. His mind felt as though it would burst. It did not signify, he told himself. He walked slowly away from them, past Goodpasture’s store, and across Main Street to the jail. He sat down heavily in the chair behind the table and stared at the sunlight that came through the door. Nothing was ever clear, everything was incredibly difficult, complex, and suspect; there was no right way. He sat in miserable loneliness contemplating himself and his deputyship. It was a long time before he heard footsteps on the boardwalk outside, and he supposed that it was Dawson coming.
Pike Skinner came inside, grinning. “MacDonald has skedaddled,” he said. “Dawson went and got his buggy and brought it around just now, and they have lit out on the Bright’s City road.” He grinned more widely. “The judge said you might be pleased to hear it.”
He didn’t answer, and Pike’s face stiffened. “What are you going to do, Johnny?”
He shook his head; relief made him feel giddy. “Why, nothing I guess. I guess there is nothing to do.”
53. AT THE GENERAL PEACH
I
UPSTAIRS in the General Peach a group of miners had collected in old man Heck’s room. Heck was standing; his skinny neck stuck out as he spoke. “If there is any trouble we will stand behind Blaisedell,” he said. “That’s what we have to do, every man jack of us. He said to me there wasn’t going to be any trouble and no reason looking for any, and how the deputy’d just left Ben in Miss Jessie’s custody. But I notice Miss Jessie didn’t look so sure. I told him we would stand right behind him all the way. It is something we got now.”
“That deputy’s gone and got too big for his britches,” Bull Johnson said.
“Jimmy said MacDonald called Miss Jessie a whore,” Frenchy Martin said.
They all looked at Fitzsimmons, who stood before the door. He placed one disfigured hand in the other and nodded.
“Why, God damn him!” Bull Johnson said, with awe in his voice. “He did? Did you hear him, Jimmy?”
Fitszsimmons told them what he and Ben Tittle had heard MacDonald say to Miss Jessie and the doctor.
“Dirty God-damned buggering rotten son of a bitch!” Bardaman cried. Patch added his curses, and each man cursed MacDonald in turn, formally, as though it were a kind of ritual.
“We should’ve burnt the Medusa long since!” old man Heck said. “And run MacDonald right out of the territory.”
“It’s not too late,” Bull Johnson said. “There’s matches still.”
“Is Ben hurt bad, Jimmy?” Patch asked.
They all looked to Fitzsimmons again. “He has got some shot in him. In his legs mostly.” Fitzsimmons looked as though he could hardly restrain a smile.
“I’ll break Lafe Dawson in half!” Bull Johnson said.
Fitzsimmons laughed, then, and said, “Do you know what is funny? MacDonald thinks he is way ahead of us now.”
“How’s that, Jimmy?” Daley asked.
“Why, because Ben shot him. He thinks he can hold it up to everybody now how we are a bunch of wild men.”
“What’s so funny about that?”
“I believe,” Bull Johnson said, squinting at Fitzsimmons. “I do believe that sonny-boy here is going to lecture the grownups again, and going around the barn to do it.”
Fitzsimmons flushed. “Well, MacDonald does, and he is wrong. You fellows should have seen him downstairs. Miss Jessie asked him to his face if he’d got orders to settle, and you should have heard him yell. He yelled too much,” he said, and grinned. “I would just make a bet he had got orders to settle, and he is scared to death we can sit him out. But now he thinks he is way ahead of us, on account of getting shot. Do you know the best thing that could happen to us? If Ben got taken to the judge and heard. And better yet if he got sent up to Bright’s City to court. We would be the worst kind of tom-fools to try to stop them from taking him out of here. Because then it would come out in court what MacDonald said to Miss Jessie. Threatening her like he did, and calling her what he did. You see?”
“I see we ought to cut his balls for him,” Bardaman said uncertainly.
Fitzsimmons shook his head and leaned easily against the door. “No, for if we just tread soft for a while he has ruined himself for good. There’ll be others to cut his balls for us when this gets out. And if it came to trial at Bright’s! I expect Mister Mac might hear more from Willingham. People think high of Miss Jessie, and not just here. MacDonald is gone out in the bucket if we just play it right. If we can just last it out.”
“I think maybe Jimmy is talking sense,” Bardaman said.
“Good sense,” Daley added quietly.
“By God, maybe we are not plowed under yet!” Patch cried.
Frenchy Martin leaned forward. “You think we might pull it off yet, eh, Jimmy?”
“I know so.”
“What about the union, Jimmy?” Bardaman said. He leaned forward too. Old man Heck was scowling a little, and Bull Johnson gnawed on a knuckle, but he was watching Jimmy Fitzsimmons too. They all watched him, waiting to hear what he had to say, and he smiled triumphantly from face to face, and began to speak.
II
In the hospital room, Ben Tittle lay on his cot like a bas-relief figure beneath the bedclothes. The whisky bottle the doctor had left was on the floor beside him. When Miss Jessie and Blaisedell appeared Tittle raised his head and grinned, showing crooked yellow teeth. The flesh on his bony face was an unhealthy, tender-looking white. “They going to hang me, Miss Jessie?” he said.
“No, they are not going to hang you, Ben,” Miss Jessie said. She came forward to sit on the edge of his cot, while the marshal remained in the doorway.
“Why, heck, and I was just in the mood for a hanging, too,” Tittle said. “Hello, Mr. Blaisedell.” The drunken grin looked pasted to his face. He said in a quieter voice, “Mister Mac cashed in yet?”
“Nobody’s heard,” Blaisedell said.
“You are to quiet down, Ben,” Miss Jessie said. “You have been drinking too much of that whisky. The doctor left it to stop the pain.”
“What did you want to take a shot at MacDonald for, fellow?” Blaisedell asked gravely. “That didn’t do anybody any good.”
The pasted smile disappeared. Tittle pouted. “Well, I know what is owed around here, Mr. Blaisedell. Even if no other ungrateful mutts don’t. I can pay my debts as well as any man.”
Blaisedell frowned. Miss Jessie, however, patted Tittle’s hand, and he seemed relieved. He lay back on his pillow with the smile returning.
“Why, I don’t like to make trouble for nobody, Marshal,” he said. “Excepting for a man who would talk to a lady like that. Said dirty things,” he said, and his voice fell with embarrassment. Then his voice grated as
he said, “I hope he goes out painful, if I get lawed for it or not.”
“Said what things?” Blaisedell said.
“He threatened me, Clay,” Miss Jessie said quickly. “For feeding them here.”
“I know that. Said what dirty things, fellow?”
Cords drew tight in Tittle’s neck as he raised his head again. “Why, I guess—I guess I knew it was your place, Marshal,” he said. “But it come on me so, you see. But I guess you would have got him square, and finished him.” He looked pleadingly at Miss Jessie. “Did I do wrong, ma’am?”
She patted his hand. “No, Ben.”
“I did it for you. The only thing I ever found to show—” He stopped, and drew a deep breath and said, angrily now, “For all of us! And if I hang for it that is fine too, and little enough.”
“We won’t let them hang you, Ben,” Miss Jessie said. She gazed at Blaisedell with her great eyes. Blaisedell moved aside as footsteps hurried down the hall and the doctor appeared. His gray, crop-bearded face was grim.
“MacDonald?” Blaisedell asked.
“He is all right,” the doctor said. He stood frowning down at Tittle. “As a matter of fact he has left for Bright’s City. Ben, you have not done the Medusa strikers much good today.”
Ben Tittle laughed shrilly. “I run him out!”
“Maybe you did,” the doctor said, but he shook his head at Miss Jessie, and strain showed suddenly in her face. “Well, I will give you a little laudanum, Ben,” the doctor said. “And start picking the lead out of your hide.” He put his bag down and rummaged through it. “Jessie, you had better leave.”
Miss Jessie rose quickly. She went over to join Blaisedell, and took his arm as Tittle cried happily, “Go ahead and dig, Doc. A man can stand a lot to know that he has run Mister Mac out of Warlock!”
54. MORGAN MAKES A BARGAIN
MORGAN sat in his chair in his room at the hotel, reading the magazine by the late sunlight that came in the window. From time to time he chuckled, and frequently he turned back to the cover where, on the cheap gray paper, there was a crude woodcut of a face that was meant to be his face. Beneath it was the inscription: The Black Rattlesnake of Warlock.
It was a narrow, dark face with Chinese-slanted eyes, a drooping mustache, and lank black hair combed like a bartender’s. There was a wart high on the right cheek, close to the nose. Maybe it was only an ink smear, he thought, and brought the face closer to his eyes; it was a wart. He raised a hand to touch his own mustache, his own hair, his his own cheek where the wart was shown. “Why, you devil!” he said, with awed hilarity. “The Black Rattlesnake of Warlock!” He whooped and beat his hand on his thigh.
He skipped rapidly through the account of the Acme Corral shooting again, grinning, shaking his head. “Well, that will teach them to stand around with their backs to the Black Rattlesnake,” he said. There was a knock, and he rose and stuffed the magazine under his pillow. “Who’s that?”
“It’s Kate, Tom.”
He stretched and yawned, and went to open the door. Kate came in. She closed the door behind her and he nodded approvingly. “Dangerous,” he said. “Dangerous for anybody to know you are creeping in to see Tom Morgan. That’s a handsome bonnet, Kate.”
“Are you going?” she asked abruptly. Her eyes were very black in her white face, her jaw seemed set crookedly.
“Why, one of these days,” he said. “When I get through bleeding Taliaferro. I will have the price of the Glass Slipper back from him before long.”
“Where are you going?”
“North, or east. I might go west, though, or south. Or up, or down.”
She seated herself on the edge of the bed. She said, “I know you killed McQuown.”
“Do you? Well, you don’t miss much, do you, Kate?”
“You did it so they would blame the deputy for it.”
“Here! I don’t give a damn about—”
“I know you did!” she said. She bit her lip, breathing deeply. “But it went wrong. People know you did it and they are saying Blaisedell sent you. It is so wonderful when some dirty thing you do goes wrong.”
He sat down again, and propped his boots up on the bed beside her. “I know I am everything bad that’s ever happened in this town. I’ve just been reading about it. Look under the pillow there.”
She felt under the pillow as though there might be a rattlesnake there, which, in fact, there was. She looked at the picture on the cover without interest. After a moment she let the magazine drop to the floor.
“I’m famous, Kate!” he went on. “I’m probably the evilest man in the West.” He felt his finger touch his cheek, where the picture had showed the wart. “Women will use me to scare their babies with.”
“I know you killed McQuown,” Kate said. “You did it for Clay, too, didn’t you?”
“I forget why I did it, Kate. Sometimes I just can’t keep track of why I do things.” He took out a cheroot and scratched a match. He blew smoke between them and regarded her through the smoke as she slowly inclined her face down away from his eyes, to stare at her clasped hands in her lap.
“Tom,” she said. “I will ask you to do something for me for once.”
“What do you want? The Glass Slipper for you and Buck and Taliaferro to turn into a dance hall? It is in pretty poor shape.”
“No, I don’t want anything to do with a dance hall. I want you to do something for me. I am asking you a favor, Tom.”
“Ask it.”
She spoke rapidly now, and her voice sounded frail and thin. “You’ve heard about this afternoon. I don’t know what happened exactly but—but all of a sudden everybody seems to know there is going to be trouble between the deputy and Clay.”
He leaned back and blew more smoke between them.
“Not only that,” Kate went on. “But there is talk you killed McQuown. Whether you did or not, there is talk.”
“You are back on that again.”
“Because I think—I think he has an idea you did it. He—”
“Who?”
“The deputy! I think he thinks you did it. I think he will be after you about it. Tom, don’t you see that sets him against Clay again?” He watched her eyes begin to redden, and her nose. He took the cigar from his mouth and examined it. “I am not going to let Clay Blaisedell kill him!” Kate continued. Now she sounded as though she had a cold in her head.
“Another Bob Cletus,” he said. “Well, I am nothing to do with it this time, Kate.”
“You can stop Clay.” Her eyes glistened with tears, and the tears made little tracks in the powder on her cheeks.
“Why, Kate, you have gone and got yourself in love with that ugly clodhopping farmer of a deputy. Again. What do you want to do, marry him and raise a brood?”
She didn’t answer.
“Why, you pitiful old whore,” he said, and it twisted within him like a big wrench forcing a rusty bolt.
“There is no word for you!” she whispered.
“Black rattlesnake?” he suggested. “Evilest man in the West?” He stopped; he did not know why he should suddenly feel so angry at her.
“Tom,” she begged. “You could ask Clay the way I am asking you. How would it hurt you to do something for me? Make Clay go with you.”
“He has got Miss Jessie Marlow to hold him. And she won’t go; she is prime angel here.”
“You could do something!”
“I might make a bargain with you.”
“What?”
“Since your deputy is the only one that matters. If you went with me I might be able to do something.”
He saw her close her eyes.
“I know you would like to marry up with a famous hardcase-killer, now that your deputy has got to be one. Like Miss Angel Marlow with Clay. But I have got to come out of it with something, so you and me is the bargain. Why, you would be a mistress to the evilest man in the West and famous in your own right. We will go around in sideshows and charge admission to see the worst
old horrors there are, make a fortune at it. We’d make a pair.”
She did not speak, and he went on. “If I can figure some way to get Clay out of line toward killing your deputy, this is. I might as well set it all out for you to agree to, or not. For instance, things might get bad from time to time so that we needed a stake. It would be up to you to apply yourself to your line of work and make us one. Now and then.”
“Yes,” Kate whispered.
His voice hurt in his throat; his grin hurt his face. “Well, and you would be party to my evil schemes. Murder people together, you and me. Rob stages. Corrupt innocent people to our evil ways—all that sort of thing.”
She did not speak, but she was looking up at him. He rose to stand before her, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Why, Kate,” he said shakily. “You act like you don’t believe what I’m saying.”
She shook her head a little.
“You have gone and got yourself in terrible shape over that deputy, haven’t you? Pretty decent, is he, Kate?”
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
He took his hand from her shoulder. He felt as though he had been poisoned. “Not to me?” he said viciously. “Pretty good in your bed, is he? That lean, hungry-looking kind.”
Slowly, silently, she bent her head still farther until all he could see was the top of her hat. “Tell me what you want, Tom.”
“We’ll make our bargain right here and now, then. You are sitting in the right place.”
Sour laughter coiled and wrenched inside him as he watched one of her hands rise to her throat. It fumbled at the top cut-steel button of her dress. The button came open and her hand dropped to the second one. Her shoulders were shaking. “Oh, stop it,” he said. “I don’t want you.”
He stooped and picked up the magazine, where she had dropped it. He rolled it and slapped it hard against his leg as he sat down in the chair again. Kate had not moved. Her hand fumbled at the top button again; then she folded her hands in her lap.
“You have touched my black heart,” he said. When he released his grip on the magazine it sprang open, but he did not want to see the picture again and he brushed it off onto the floor. He touched the place on his cheek. It occurred to him that he was making a mannerism of this, and it seemed strange that it should be like the one of Kate’s he knew so well.