Oakley Hall - Warlock

Despairing, consequently, of aid from above, savaged beyond patience by McQuown and his San Pablo crew, some of us of the Citizens’ Committee have decided that we must put it strongly in meeting tonight that our only solution is to hire a Peace Officer on a commercial basis. This is common enough practice, and there are a number of renowned gunmen available for such positions if the pay is high enough. They are hired by groups such as we are, or by town councils in luckier and more legitimate localities, and paid either a monthly fee or on a bounty system.

Something must be done, and there is no one to do it but the Citizens’ Committee. It will be seen tonight whether the determined among us outnumber the timid. I think not a man of us has not been badly frightened by Canning’s flight, and fear can engender its own determination.

August 26, 1880

At last, it seems, Something Has Been Done. The meeting last night was quiet and brief; we were of one mind, except for Judge Holloway. We have sent for a man, a Marshal, and have obliged ourselves to open our pocketbooks in order to offer him a very large sum of money monthly. He is Clay Blaisedell, at present Marshal in Fort James. I know little of his deeds, except that it was he who shot the Texas badman, Big Ben Nicholson, and that his name at present is renowned — names such as his flash up meteor-like from time to time, attaching to themselves all manner of wild tales of courage and prowess.

We have made him a peerless offer, for what we hope will be a peerless man. Such, at least, is our prospective Marshal’s reputation, that he was one of the five famous law officers to whom Caleb Bane, the writer, recently presented braces of gold-handled Colt’s Frontier Models, as being most eminent in their field, and so, no doubt, most lucrative to Bane as a chronicler of deeds of derring-do. A fine act of gratitude on Bane’s part, certainly, although it is cynically rumored that he asked for their own many-notched pacifiers in return, and from the sale of these to collectors of such grim mementoes realized a very tidy profit on the transaction.

So Clay Blaisedell has been sent for — not to be Marshal of Warlock, for there is no such place, and no such position, legally; but to be Marshal acting for the Citizens’ Committee of an official limbo.[4] This is our third, and most presumptuous, action as the government-by-default of this place — the local government “on acceptance,” a term Judge Holloway often uses to refer to himself as a judge, who has no legal status either. Our first act was to build Warlock’s little jail by subscription among ourselves, in the hope that the presence of such a structure might have a steadying influence upon the populace. It has had no such effect, although it has proved useful on at least two occasions as a fortress in which deputies were able to seek refuge from murderously-inclined miscreants. Our second was to purchase a pumping wagon, and to guarantee a part of the salary of Peter Bacon as jointly the driver of Kennon’s water wagon and as Fireman in Chief. Taxes are no less painful under another guise.

I write with levity of what have been serious decisions for small men to make, but I am elated and hopeful, and the members of the Citizens’ Committee, if I am representative, feel a great pride in having overcome our fears of offending the Cowboys, and our natural reluctance to part with any of the profits we extract from them, from the miners, and from each other, and at last having made an attempt to hire ourselves a Man. It will be the luck of the camp to have its savior ventilated by road agents en route, and arrive here boots before hardware.

He is to be hired, as we said last night, to enforce Law & Order in Warlock. He is actually to be hired, as no one said aloud, against the San Pabloites. What one man is to do against the legion of wild Cowboys of McQuown’s kin or persuasion, we have, of course, asked ourselves. The question being unanswerable, like sensible men we have stopped asking it. We do not demand Law & Order so much as Peace & Safety, and a town in which men can go about their affairs without the fear of being shot down by an errant bullet from a gun battle no concern of theirs, or of incurring in a trifling manner the murderous dislike of some drunken Cowboy. Warlock’s Marshal will have to be a Warlock indeed.[5]

It is not known when Blaisedell will arrive here, if he accepts our offer, which we are certain he will. At any rate we pray he will. He is our hope now. I think we must have, in him, not so much a man of pure, daredevil courage, but a man who can impart courage to this town, which is, in the end, no more than the sum of every one of us.

September 1, 1880

Evidently Canning managed to pass on some of his limited portion. Carl Schroeder, who was, I understand, Canning’s closest friend, has given up his position as shotgun messenger for Buck Slavin’s stage line, to undertake the post of deputy here at one-third the pay. He is a fool. God protect such fools, for we will not.

September 8, 1880

Blaisedell has accepted our offer! He will be here in about six weeks. This delay is unfortunate, but presumably Fort James must be possessed of a suitable substitute before he departs. On the other hand, McQuown and his gang are reported in Mexico on a rustling expedition, so Warlock may still be inhabited when our new Marshal arrives.

September 21, 1880

A gambler named Morgan has arrived, and purchased the Glass Slipper from Bill Hake, who has departed for California. The new proprietor of Warlock’s oldest gambling and drinking establishment has brought with him two attendants; a huge, wall-eyed fellow who serves as lookout and general factotum; and a tiny, bright, birdlike man of whose function I was uncertain until it developed that Morgan had imported for his shabby and run-down establishment (besides a fine chandelier, which much enhances the interior of the Glass Slipper), a piano, and the Little Man is its “professor.” It is Warlock’s first such instrument, and the music issuing from the saloon is a wonder and joy to Warlock, and a despair to Taliaferro and the Lucky Dollar. It is rumored that Taliaferro will now bring in a piano himself, either for the Lucky Dollar or the French Palace on the Row, to meet the competition.

Morgan is a handsome, prematurely gray fellow, of a sardonic aspect and reserved nature. His deportment, as a newcomer, has been subject to much comment, and his manner with his customers seems bad business practice, in a place where men are apt to be friends or enemies. But his “professor’s” music remains much admired.

October 11, 1880

McQuown and several of his comrades have been back in town twice now — not including Benner, the barber-killer. They have been very much on their good behavior, as though ashamed of their last excesses here, and aware of the hostile attitude toward them that now generally obtains. Or else McQuown may be aware that we have hired a Nemesis.

[1] The Citizens’ Committee at this time consisted of the following members: Dr. Wagner, Miss Jessie Marlow, Judge Holloway, Goodpasture (the General Store), Petrix (Warlock and Western Bank), Slavin (the Warlock Stage Co.), Pike Skinner (the Acme Corral), Hart, Winters (Hart and Winters Gunshop), MacDonald, Godbold (superintendents, respectively, of the Medusa and Sister Fan mines), Egan (the Feed and Grain Barn), Brown (the Billiard Parlor), Pugh (Western Star Hotel), Kennon (Kennon’s Livery Stable), Rolfe (Frontier Fast Freight), Swartze (the Boston Café), Robinson (lumber yard, carpenter shop, and Bowen’s Sawmill), Hake (the Glass Slipper), and Taliaferro (owner of the Lucky Dollar and the French Palace).

[2] Sheriff Keller of Bright’s County.

[3] General G. O. Peach, the military governor in Bright’s City.