Oakley Hall - Warlock

“Yes,” Kate said. She sounded disappointed, which pleased him. He moved aside and she entered, tall, all in black; black hat with black cherries on it, black skirt draped in thick folds over her hips, black sacque jacket — with only the white ruffled front of her shirtwaist to relieve it.

She clutched her hands, in black mesh mitts, to her waist, watching him close the door. Her dead white face was controlled, and stiff, but filled with hate.

“Couldn’t you get along without me, Kate?” he asked, and managed to meet her black eyes and grin. But, when she did not answer, against his will he retreated to his desk and took a cheroot from the silver box there, and lit it. “You should have let me know you were coming.”

“Didn’t you know?”

“I’d’ve had a brass band out.”

“Didn’t you?” she said.

He frowned, as though he’d been struck by a thought. Then he burst out laughing. “I guess you came in on the stage this afternoon,” he said. “Well, you had a little excitement at that, didn’t you?”

“You don’t know who it was that was killed?” Kate said. She was staring at him not quite so intently, and he thought he had got past her. If not, in the end he had only to tell her the truth and she would not believe it, either, from him. She looked very tired, he thought; she looked older than he had remembered, who was not even two years older.

“Somebody said he looked like a high-roller.” He paused, frowned again, grinned again. “Why, was he with you? I thought you had had enough of high-rollers, Kate.”

“It was Bob Cletus’s brother.”

He stared at her as if incredulous. He began to laugh again. He put down his cheroot and laughed and watched her upper lip twitching, with hate of him, or as though she were going to cry. “My God, how you run through those Cletuses!” he said.

She made a humming sound in her throat. She said, in a shaky voice, “You knew I would come, Tom. I told you — I would!”

He turned the laughter off like a tap. He stared back into her black eyes that were glazed with tears now, and said, “If I’d known you were coming out here with some cheap gunman you spaded up somewhere, you’d have never got here either. You damned vulture.”

“Oh, I don’t think you shot him,” Kate said. “I think you hired Clay to do it. The way you did with Bob.”

That was supposed to pin him to the wall. But she could not keep her voice from shaking, and he almost felt sorry for her.

He said, “Or I might’ve just done nothing and let him choose Clay out and commit suicide. The way it was before.”

She turned half away from him, dropping her hands tiredly to her sides. He saw her glance up at the painting over the door. He felt an almost savage relief that she had not got to Fort James with Pat Cletus during the time when he, Morgan, had come on ahead to Warlock, and Clay had remained in Fort James.

“So you went out and hunted up his brother to do Clay down for you. It took you a good while.”

“I couldn’t find him,” Kate said, in a dead voice. “So I gave up. But then I ran onto him.” She stopped, as though there were nothing more to say.

“And all for nothing, too. Well, bad luck, Kate. But maybe there is another brother, or cousins. In Australia or somewhere.”

She shook her head a little. She reminded him of a clock-work figure running down.

“Haven’t you got the fare? Why, there is money I owe you, at that.” He put his hands to his money belt, and saw her face come back to life.

“Would you pay me to go? I hope you would pay a lot, for I won’t go!”

“Come back to me after all?”

He shouldn’t have said it. He saw the revulsion show clearly in her face, and the strain of maintaining the grin that painfully stretched his lips became immense. But he continued. “I have got a nice place out front, and a nice apartment back here. I could set you up in style. You might have to work your trade from time to time if I ran short of cash, but…”

She only stared at him.

“Leaving then?” he asked. He had better not underestimate her, he knew, tired as she was now, and shocked. He felt enormously tired himself. He had thought hate did not affect him. He had thought he was used to it.

“No,” she said. “No, I will stay and watch Clay Blaisedell shot down like he shot Bob down.”

“Do it yourself?”

“Are you afraid I would? No, I won’t do that.”

He sat down in his chair, inhaled on his cheroot, blew smoke. “Maybe you can get somebody to go after him here. Like the one you just lost.” His voice rasped in his throat. “There are some that might be hard up enough to try it for a chance to sleep free with a hydrophoby skunk bitch.”

He felt a lift of pleasure to see her face dissolve. But she quickly regained control of it. She only shook her head.

“Why, you have gone soft, Kate.”

“No,” she said, and again he saw how exhausted she was. “No, not soft. I went all over looking for Pat Cletus,” she said, in the dead voice. “I went more than five thousand miles looking for him — different places I had heard he might be. I couldn’t find him so I thought I would give it up. Then a month ago I met him in Denver, and we came out here and he was killed. I don’t know whether you did it or not — except — except I should’ve known he would be killed. Like I should’ve known Bob would be killed if he went to tell you he was going to marry me.”

“I told you once before he didn’t ever come to see me.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. “So that was my fault too. I should have seen you dead before I thought of wanting to marry Bob Cletus. Or we should have run — to Australia. But I killed him when I let him go to you. And killed Pat when I made him come out here. I have had enough of killing.”

He nodded sympathetically, and saw the despair crumple her face again.

“But I will see Clay Blaisedell shot down!” she said. “I will see that, I’ll follow him wherever he goes to see it.” She took a deep breath, and her lips tightened as though she were trying to smile. “I saw him tonight,” she went on. “He looked at me as though he’d seen a ghost, and I thought how fine it would be to be a ghost and haunt and torture somebody who — who”—her voice began to shake again— “who took away the only chance I ever had!” she cried. “Who killed the only decent man I ever knew! And you had Clay shoot him down!” Tears shone suddenly on her cheeks.

“Why, then you should look for somebody to shoot me down.”

“No! Because you don’t care about yourself — I know you that well. But I know you care about Clay. I think I might’ve let it alone if I thought you didn’t care what happened to him. But I will follow him and haunt him. And you.”

“And yourself too, isn’t it?”

“Maybe so,” she said, with a tired lift of her shoulders. “Haunt myself too for not knowing you would always do the foulest thing you could do. To me or anyone.” Her voice rose shrilly, “But I’ll stay here and wait it out, and watch! Whenever you see me you will know I am waiting to see him die like Bob died. Or wherever he is when somebody finally shoots him down, I will be there too. And then I’ll come and laugh at you!”

“We will have a good laugh together, Kate.”

She sobbed. She raised a hand to her eyes and then dropped it, as though she were too proud to hide that she was crying. She was ugly when she cried; he remembered that.

“Come in any time and we will have a good laugh,” he added, pleasantly. She did not answer, moving toward the door. He watched the swing of the thick pleats of her skirt, her hair, blue-black in the light, where it showed beneath her hat. Her white, lined face turned toward him once, and then she was gone and the door slapped shut behind her.