Oakley Hall - Warlock

The miners were whispering together in the cell as Gannon returned his Colt to its scabbard. “That was a foolish thing, Jimmy,” he heard the doctor say.

“It was not,” the young miner said shakily. He laughed, shakily. “Sheep up in the livery stable, goats in here. I’ll not be cheated now.”

The doctor said, “I thought you had learned to be careful with those hands.”

“Why, I guess there might be a day when having been in Warlock jail will be a big thing, Doc. There is more than one way to grow a goat’s beard.”

“You young pipsqueak,” old man Heck growled. “We are all goats today.”

“We are cossacks or peasants,” the doctor said, in a strong, clear voice. “How do you like it out there with the cossacks, George Holloway?”

The judge said nothing, and Gannon heard him sigh.

“Have they got Tittle yet, anybody heard?” one of the miners demanded. No one answered him. Another began to sing:

“Good-by, good-by,

Good-by to Warlock, good-by.

Here comes the cavalry, lickety-split,

Here comes MacDonald to give us a fit,

Oh, good-by, good-by,

Good-by, old Warlock, good-by!”

There was laughter. “Hush that up!” the trooper growled. The others immediately began to sing it, and the doctor’s voice was loudest among them.

“Looks like a fiesta down by Miss Jessie’s boarding house,” the sheriff commented, and Gannon joined him in the doorway. There was a huge crowd at the corner of Grant Street, extending out of sight down toward the General Peach.

Then there was a shot. He started out past the sheriff, but Keller grasped his arm tightly. “We’ll just stay here and wait it out, boy,” the sheriff said. “That is cavalry work down there and nothing to do with us. You and me will just sit it out right here, Johnny Gannon.”

I

THE troopers turned into Grant Street at a trot, eight of them, with a sergeant riding ahead beside the ninth horseman, who was Lafe Dawson. Townsmen watched them from the corner of Main Street as the dust slowly settled in their wake. The troopers carried carbines; they wore dark blue shirts, web cartridge belts, and lighter blue trousers. Beneath their flat caps their faces were bronzed, clean-shaven, and expressionless. A bugle sang off toward the west end of town.

The troopers reined to a halt in a semicircle before the porch of the General Peach boardinghouse. The sergeant dismounted, and, on short calipers of legs, started for the steps. He stopped as Miss Jessie Marlow appeared on the porch. He and Lafe Dawson, who had also dismounted, removed their hats.

“Miss Jessie,” Dawson said. “We are sorry to trouble you, but that Tittle is wanted. These fellows have come after him, and—”

“He is not here any more,” Miss Jessie said. She stood very straight before the thick shadow of the doorway, with her brown ringlets shining in the sun, her hands clasped before her.

“Well, now, not to be doubting you, ma’am — but these men have orders to look everywhere for him.”

The sergeant said politely, “Why, you’ll not mind if we look around in there for him, will you, lady?” He had a wizened, dark, Irish face like a dried apple.

“Yes, I mind. There are sick men in here and I will not have your soldiers tramping around disturbing them. You will have to take my word that Tittle is no longer here.”

Dawson muttered to himself. The sergeant scratched his head and said, “Well, we can’t do that, lady, you see,” but he did not move forward.

“Now, see here, Miss Jessie,” Dawson said impatiently. “I am sure he isn’t here if you say so. Except it’s General Peach’s orders we are to round up all the strikers from the Medusa, and I know there’s some of them in there. Now you don’t want to interfere with these men trying to do their duty, do you?”

The sergeant signaled with his hand and the troopers dismounted. At the corner of Main the crowd filled the street now, watching silently.

“Will you use force on a woman, Sergeant?” Miss Jessie said.

The sergeant carefully did not look at her as the troopers came forward to join him. Dawson moved toward the steps. Then he stopped, and his hands rose shoulder high as he stared past Miss Jessie. The sergeant and the troopers stared. Blaisedell stood in the shadow just inside the entryway.

“Now, see here, Marshal,” Dawson whispered, as though to himself. He dropped his hands slowly to his sides. The sergeant glanced sideways at him. One of the troopers tilted the muzzle of his carbine up; the man beside him struck it down. There was a rustle of whispering from the townsmen at the corner, and titters. Miss Jessie stood gazing down at Dawson and the troopers, her mouth a pinched, severe line.

The sergeant looked at Dawson with one grizzled eyebrow hooked up interrogatively, and a ghost of a smile.

“Well, let’s leave this for now, Sergeant,” Dawson said, and swung up onto his horse again. The sergeant replaced his cap and waved the troopers back. In silence, they all remounted and rode back up Grant Street the way they had come. The crowd at the corner parted to let them pass through, and, when they had disappeared into Main Street, someone uttered a low, tentative Apache war cry.

Miss Jessie Marlow went back inside the General Peach.

II

The miners stood in silent, stolid groups, in the dining room, in the hall, on the stairs, watching Miss Jessie as she closed the door behind her and put her hand on Blaisedell’s arm.

“God bless you and the marshal for that, Miss Jessie!” Ben Tittle said, leaning on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs.

“Looks like they might be back, though,” another miner said.

Blaisedell and Miss Jessie stood at right angles to each other in curiously stiff attitudes; she facing him with her great eyes wide as though she had seen a vision, her breast rising and falling rapidly with her breathing and her hand nervously fondling the locket that hung around her neck; Blaisedell facing toward the stairs with his bruised face remote and frowning, his round chin set beneath the broad sweep of his fair mustache.

“I guess they are rounding everybody up,” Harris said, in a hushed voice. “I am just as glad I’m not a Medusa man today.”

“Ben!” Miss Jessie said suddenly. “I want your head bandaged over like Stacey’s, and you are to lie down in Stacey’s bed. Stacey will have to go down to one of the houses in Medusa Street; he can walk well enough.” She spoke to Stacey. “You help him. Quickly, now!”

Tittle said, “Miss Jessie, I’ll not have you and Mr. Blaisedell getting in any mess trying to—”

“Hurry!” she snapped. He turned and hobbled painfully back down the hall, Stacey, with his bandaged head, following him. Blaisedell was watching Miss Jessie. The other miners stirred uneasily.

“That was an Orangeman, that sergeant,” O’Brien said from the stairs. “I can smell an Orangeman.”

“Are you going to try to stop them from coming in here, Miss Jessie?” Bardaman asked. But he was looking at Blaisedell.

Jones laughed shrilly. “You surely scared that bunch off, Marshal!”

Blaisedell shook his head a little, and frowned more deeply. Miss Jessie was looking from face to face with her eyes blazing and the little muscles tugging at the corners of her mouth.

A bearded miner ran heavy-footed in through the dining room from the rear of the General Peach. “Miss Jessie! They have caught Doc and old Heck and Frenchy and Tim Daley and some others down at Tim’s house. The deputy’s got them there in the jail now. Boys, they are scouring the whole town! They have got wagons coming in and all the strikers are going to be transported out!”