Oakley Hall - Warlock

“Maybe they will be afraid to tell you,” the judge said.

Blaisedell’s face grew paler, colder; he looked suddenly furious. But he said in a polite voice, “I expect I’ll know when the time comes, Judge,” and abruptly turned and disappeared. His bootheels cracked away to silence outside.

The judge raised his bottle to drain the last of the whisky in it. With a limp arm he reached down to set it beside his chair, and knocked it over with a drunken hand. It rolled noisily until it brought up against the cell door, while the judge leaned forward with his face in his hands and his fingers working and scraping in his hair.

After a long time he rose and clapped his hat on his head, staggering as he fitted the crutch under his arm. Gannon had a glimpse of his face as he swung out the door. Hectically flushed, it was filled with a sagging mixture of pride and shame, dread and grief.

II

It was well after midnight when the posse returned. Gannon stared at the doorway with aching eyes as he heard the tramp of hoofs and shouting. Men began running in the street past the jail, and he felt his heart swell in his chest as though it would smother him. He thrust down hard on the table with his hand, forcing himself to his feet, and went outside.

The street seemed filled solid with horsemen and men on foot milling around the horses. Someone was swinging a lantern to illuminate the faces of the riders — he saw Carl’s face, Peter Bacon’s, Chick Hasty’s; the lantern showed Pony Benner’s scowling, frightened face, and the men in the street howled his name. The pale light revealed Calhoun, and another shout went up. Then Gannon saw Billy sitting straight and hatless in the saddle, with his hands tied behind him.

The lantern swung again to show a riderless horse; but not riderless, he saw, for there was a body tied over the saddle.

“Ted Phlater!” someone said, in a sudden silence.

Immediately a roar went up. “Hang them!” a drunken voice screamed. “Oh, hang the sons of bitches! Hang them, boys!”

“Shut that up!” Carl shouted. Gannon swung off the boardwalk and made his way through the crowd as Carl dismounted. Carl looked into his face and gripped his arm for a moment.

“Got Ted Phlater shot and lost Friendly, damn all,” he said.

Another drunken voice was raised. “Where’s Big Luke, Carl?”

“Where is McQuown? You went and forgot Abe and Curley, boys!”

“They got the barber-killer!”

There was laughter, more shouting. “Hang them, boys! Hang them!” the first voice continued, shrill and mechanical, like a parrot.

“Horse!” Carl called to Peter Bacon. “You and Pike bring them inside.” He started for the jail, and Gannon made his way toward Phlater’s horse, to help Owen Parsons with the body. Men surged and shouted, mocked and joked and threatened as Pony, Calhoun, and Billy were dismounted. The crowd pressed toward the jail now, as the prisoners came up on the boardwalk, where a man held a lantern high as they moved past him.

“Hang them! Hang them!”

Gannon and Parsons lifted Phlater down and tried to make their way to the jail. “Get the God-damned jumping hell out of the way!” Parsons cried hoarsely. “Got any respect for the dead?”

Inside they put Ted Phlater’s stiffening body on the floor at the rear of the jail, and Peter appeared unfolding a blanket, with which he covered it. Pike Skinner was untying Calhoun’s arms; he thrust him roughly into the cell with Billy and Pony, and Carl slammed and locked the door.

Chick Hasty and Tim French came inside with the strongbox from the stage, which they shoved under the table. The hanging lamp swung like a pendulum when one of them brushed against it, and shadows swung more wildly still. The dusty window was crowded with bloated, featureless faces pressed against the glass, and men were pushing in at the door.

“Out of here!” Carl shouted. His face was lined with fatigue and gray with dust. “Isn’t any damned assembly hall. Out of here before I get mad! You!” Pike Skinner swung around and with his arms outstretched forced the men back.

“Hang the murdering sons of bitches!” someone yelled from outside. Pony’s scared face appeared at the cell door, and Calhoun’s lantern-jawed, cadaverous one; Gannon could see Billy’s hand on Calhoun’s shoulder.

“Expect they mean to try something, from the sound of them,” Peter Bacon said calmly.

“No they won’t,” Carl said. He stretched and rubbed his back, and grinned suddenly. “Well, three out of four,” he said. “That is better than one out of two like we made last time, anyhow.”

“You going to want some of us here tonight, Carl?” Parsons said, and Gannon saw that he tilted his grizzled head in his direction. He looked quickly away, to meet Calhoun’s eyes. Calhoun pursed his slack mouth, hawked, and spat.

“Go home and get some sleep,” Carl said, and slumped down in the chair at the table. “We are all right here.”

“I’m staying,” Pike Skinner said.

“Stay then. Chick, you and Pete go get some sleep. We’ll be taking them into Bright’s in the morning.”

There was muttering among the men bunched in the doorway. A muffled shout went up outside. The possemen pushed out the door, spurs clinking and scraping.

When they had gone, Pike Skinner swung the door closed and slid the bar through the iron keepers. The goblin faces still pressed against the window glass. There was another burst of shouting and hurrahing outside. Pike Skinner walked heavily to the rear, let himself fall into the chair there, and stared hostilely at Gannon. At the table Carl sighed and rubbed his knuckles into his eyes.

“Didn’t take you long,” Gannon said.

Carl laughed. “We ran onto them just before they hit the river. Pony and Calhoun, that is. They separated but we rode them down easy. Ted and Pike here kind of flushed Billy out of some trees down there and—”

Pike said abruptly, “It was Billy shot Ted.”

“He was shooting at me,” Billy said, in a harsh voice, from the cell. “What was I supposed to do, sit and let him do it?”

“Carl,” Pony said. “You are not going to let those bastards take us out of here, are you, Carl?”

“Shut your face,” Pike said. “You chicken-livered ugly little son of a bitch.”

“Thought you wanted me to let you go,” Carl said. “Thought you told me I might as well, for a jury up at Bright’s would do it anyhow. Save me trouble, you said.”

“I got something to tell you, Bud Gannon,” Calhoun said. “Come over here so’s I can whisper it.”

“Never mind,” Billy said. “Never mind, Bud.”

Gannon didn’t look toward the cell, leaning against the wall where the names were scratched, and watching within himself the slow turn of the cards, knowing each one as it turned. He stared at the goblin faces at the window and listened to the shouting and muttering outside. It was the only card he had not foreseen.

“You are so God-damn sure you caught your road agents!” Pony yelled.

“Hush!” Carl said.

“Be damned if I do! You got the wrong people! You—”

Carl got up, swung swiftly and hit Pony in the face through the bars. Pony fell backward, cursing.

“Wrong people!” Carl said, rubbing his knuckles. “You just happened to pick up that strongbox where somebody else dropped it, I guess.”

“One wrong, though,” Calhoun said quietly, and laughed; he moved back as Carl raised his fist again. Gannon stared in the cell at Billy and he felt his heart swell and choke him again; he had almost missed another card. Billy just looked back at him, scornfully.

“Listen to those boys yell out there,” Pike said.

Gannon started and Carl reached for the shotgun as there was a knock. Carl motioned to Gannon to unbolt the door. It was the Mexican cook from the Boston Café; he slipped in, carrying a tray covered with a cloth. The men outside set up a steady whooping, and the Mexican looked very frightened as he put the tray down and departed. As Gannon swung the door closed behind him he had a glimpse of the vast, dark mass in the street, and groups of pale, whiskered faces showing here and there by lanternlight. Someone was haranguing them from the tie rail at the corner. He bolted the door again.