Oakley Hall - Warlock

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!”

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.