Oakley Hall - Warlock

He stared down at his hands. He was going to tell her; it surprised him that he was. It seemed to him that Kate was gathering information not because she was interested in him, but for some purpose of her own that he had no way of deciphering. Yet, he thought, he would tell her, and only waited to get it calm and in proportion in his mind, so that he could tell it correctly.

“It was eight or ten months ago,” he said. “Maybe you’ve heard about it. Some Mexicans that was supposed to have been shot by Apaches in Rattlesnake Canyon. Peach came down with the cavalry. I guess everybody thought it was Apaches.”

“I’ve heard about it. Somebody said it was McQuown’s men dressed like Apaches.”

He nodded, and wet his lips. “We’d rustled more than a thousand head down at Hacienda Puerto,” he said. “But Abe wasn’t along. Abe always ran things like that pretty well, but he wasn’t along that time. He was sick, I guess it was, and Curley and Dad McQuown was running it, but there was nobody so clever as Abe. Anyway, they just about caught us, and Hank Miller was shot dead, and Dad McQuown shot and crippled. We lost all the stock, and they trailed us pretty close all the way.

“We got across the border all right, but then we found out they were coming right on after us. Abe was there by then, for Curley had rode the old man back to San Pablo. So a bunch of us stripped down and smeared ourselves with mud and boxed those Mexicans of Don Ignacio’s in Rattlesnake Canyon. We killed them all. I guess maybe one or two got away down the south end, but all the others. Seventeen of them.”

He picked up his coffee cup; his hand was steady. The coffee was cold, and he set the cup down again.

“That’s when you left?” Kate said; she didn’t sound shocked.

“I had some money and I went up to Rincon and paid a telegrapher to apprentice me. I thought it would be a good trade. But he died and I got laid off. So I came back here.”

It struck him that he had been able to tell her all there was to know about him in a few minutes. He shifted his position in his chair and his scabbarded Colt thumped noisily against the wood. He went on. “I can’t say I didn’t know what Abe aimed to do there in Rattlesnake Canyon. I knew, and I was against it, but everybody else was for it and I was afraid to go against them. I guess because I was afraid they’d think I was yellow. Curley wouldn’t go, though; he wouldn’t do it. There was some others that didn’t like it. I know Chet Haggin didn’t. And Billy was sick — to his stomach, afterwards. But he stuck down there. I guess he figured it out some way inside himself so it was all right, afterwards. But I couldn’t.”

“If you don’t like to see men shot down you are in the wrong business, Deputy,” Kate said.

“No, I’m in the right business. I was wrong when I went up to Rincon — that was just running away. There is only one way to stop men from killing each other like that.”

He looked up to see her black eyes glittering at him. She smiled and it was the smile he did not like. She started to speak, but then she stopped, and her eyes turned toward the door. He heard quiet footsteps on the porch.

He rose as a key rattled in the lock and the door swung inward. A short, fat, clean-shaven miner stood in the doorway, in clean blue shirt and trousers. His hair gleamed with grease.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Benson,” Kate said. “Meet Mr. Gannon, the deputy. Did you want something, Mr. Benson?”

The miner shuffled his feet. He backed up a step, out of the light. “I just come by, miss.”

“I guess you came by to give me the other key,” Kate said. “Just give it to Johnny, will you? He’s been asking for it, but I’d thought there was only one.”

“That’s it,” the miner said. “Remembered I had this other key here and I thought I’d just better bring it by before I went and forgot, the way a man does.”

Gannon stepped toward him, and the miner dropped the heavy key into his hand. The miner watched it all the way as Gannon put it in his pocket.

Kate laughed as he fled, and Gannon closed the door again. He couldn’t look at Kate as he returned to the table.

“He’s sorry he rented it so cheap,” Kate said.

“I guess I’d better talk to him tomorrow.”

“Don’t bother.”

He stood leaning on the back of his chair. “Anytime anybody fusses you, Kate. I mean, there’s some wild ones here and not much on manners. You could let me know.”

“Why, thank you,” she said. She got to her feet. “Are you going now?” she said. Dismissing him, he thought; she had just asked him for supper because of the miner.

“Why, yes, I guess I had better go. It was certainly an enjoyable supper. I surely thank you.”

“I surely thank you,” she said, as though she were mocking him.

He started to put the key down on the table.

“Keep it,” she said, and his hand pulled it back, quickly. It was clear enough, he thought. He tried to grin, but he felt a disappointment that worked deeper and deeper until it was a kind of pain.

He started around the table toward her. But something in her stiff face halted him, a kind of shame that touched the shame he felt and yet was a different thing. And there was something cruel, too, in her face, that repelled him. Uncertainly he turned away.

“Well, good night, Miss Dollar,” he said thickly.

“Good night, Deputy.”

“Good night,” he said again, and took his hat from the hook and opened the door. The blue-black sky was full of stars. There was a wind that seemed cold after the warmth inside.

“Good night,” Kate said again, and he tipped his hat, without looking back, and closed the door behind him.

Walking back toward Main Street he could feel the weight of the key in his pocket. He wondered what she had meant by it, and thought he had been right about it at first. He wondered what had happened inside her that had showed so in her face at the end; he wondered what she was and what she wanted until his mind ached with it.

March 2, 1881

JED ROLFE in on the stage this afternoon, and everyone gathered around him to hear about the first day of the trial. Evidently the delay came about because at the last moment General Peach decided he would hear the case himself, as Military Governor, from which illegal and senile idiocy he was finally dissuaded. General Peach, however, did sit in at the trial and interrupted frequently to the harassment of everyone and the baffled rage of Judge Alcock. Peach is evidently inimical to Blaisedell, for what reason I cannot imagine. My God, surely Blaisedell cannot be found guilty of anything! Yet I must remind myself that anything is possible in the Bright’s City court.

If Blaisedell were to be found guilty I think this town would rise almost to a man and ride into Bright’s City in armed rebellion to free him. Opinion has swung violently back to his behalf in light of this newest report, and his critics are silent. Miss Jessie Marlow in my store this afternoon ostensibly to purchase some ribbon, actually to learn if I had heard anything beyond the news Rolfe had brought. I had not, and could only try to reassure her that Blaisedell would be speedily acquitted. She was sadly pale, ill-looking, and far from her usual cheerful self, but she thanked me for my pitiful offering as though it were of value.

McQuown’s absence from Bright’s City’s courthouse has been remarked upon. He and Burne passed through Warlock on Sunday, and it was presumed they were en route to the trial. But only Burne was there; indeed, he seems to have been the only other San Pabloite other than Luke Friendly to appear. Rolfe said he heard that Burne and Deputy Schroeder exchanged hot words upon the courthouse steps, and would have exchanged more than words had not Sheriff Keller intervened. McQuown is no doubt more frightened that Blaisedell will be acquitted and return, than we are that he will not.