Oakley Hall - Warlock

“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 MacDonald 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.”