Oakley Hall - Warlock

“I was just telling Abe, here,” Dechine said, “how people has got down on Blaisedell in Warlock there, over murdering those poor boys.”

“One of them’s not Carl,” Curley said. “I don’t know what’s got into Carl. Used to be a man could get along with him.”

“You have trouble with Schroeder?” the old man said eagerly.

“We went and scratched some. He is taking lawing pretty hard.”

“He is one of those thinks Blaisedell is probably Jesus Christ there,” Dechine said. “I’ve been telling Abe they are not all like that, though.”

Still Abe didn’t move, didn’t speak. Curley took out his mouth organ, then put it back. He didn’t know what had happened to everybody but it had begun to seem to him more and more that it was time to move on. Everything was nasty now, except when he was off by himself. Dad McQuown scraped his nerves like a rasp, and it was poor to see a man scared loose from himself, which was the case with Abe, who was the best friend he had ever had. He had got Abe to come as far as Warlock with him on his way up to Bright’s City, and Abe hadn’t said as much as two words the whole time and had acted as though he were madder at him, Curley, than at anybody else. He had stayed in the Lucky Dollar about an hour and then headed on back without an aye, yes, or no, except to say Warlock turned his stomach now. Everything had turned bad because of Blaisedell sitting in Warlock like a poison spider in its dirty web.

“Where’s Luke?” Abe asked.

“Well, he decided he’d go over toward Rincon and see what the country’s like there. Said he was tired of the territory.”

Abe made a sound that was a fair try at a laugh. The old man yelled, “Hollow pure yellow son of a bitch!” He began fretting and cursing to himself, and scratching viciously at his legs. They itched all the time now, he said.

“Well, now,” Dechine said. “I didn’t get up to the trial there, but I heard Blaisedell had himself an awful hard time up there.” His little red eyes sought Curley’s. “Isn’t that right, Curley?”

“Joy to see it. I wished you’d been there, Abe.”

Abe said nothing.

“Well, I mean,” Dechine said. “What I come by to tell you, Abe. I was talking to Tom Morgan, kind of talking around it to him there, and he sounded like Blaisedell wasn’t going to stand for being pissed on up there at Bright’s like he was. Sounded like he thought Blaisedell might move on.”

“He won’t move on,” Abe said. “He’s got work to do still.” Curley watched him stretch, and knew it was a fraud. “Killing to do yet,” Abe said.

Curley averted his eyes to see Dechine scowling down at his knees, and the old man grimacing horribly.

Dechine said, “There is this new woman up in Warlock. Kate Dollar her name is, and high-toned as that madam they used to have at the French Palace there. Won’t have anything to do with anybody, but I see her passing the time there with Johnny Gannon the other day. Never thought of him much as being a long-boy, before.”

“Hope she gives him the dirty con,” the old man said. “Any son of a bitch that would stand by and see his brother burnt down by that hog butcher.”

“Dog killer,” Abe said, in that way he had, as though he were talking to no one. “He will come back because he didn’t get all the dogs killed yet.”

“I swear!” Dad McQuown cried. “It makes a man want to puke to hear a son of mine talk like you do!”

Abe didn’t even appear to hear. Dechine was studying his knees some more.

“Son, what’s got into you?” the old man said. “I never heard such fool talk.”

Curley heard snarling beneath the porch. One of the dogs dashed off around the corner; it was the big black bitch, with the little feisty brown one after her. Abe stirred a little, and moved his shoulders in his grease-stained buckskin shirt.

“Why, they make you out a dog,” Abe said. “Run everything onto you. Then they put the dog killer after you and it crosses out everything. I see how it works,” he said, nodding like that, to himself.

Curley said, “Maybe they will take it far enough back so they can make out it was you all the time, instead of Apaches out here.”

Abe looked at him with his green marbles of eyes. “Do you think you are joking, Curley? They could do it if they tried. Because time was when every foul thing any man did it was Paches did it. And so old Peach came dog-killing down and cleaned them out. And so start all over clean. It is like a woman every month. Now it’s Abe McQuown is the dog and Blaisedell dog killer so they can start clean again. I see how it works.”

“ Jesus! ” the old man said.

“Watch I’m not right, Daddy,” Abe said. “They have piled all the foul on me now. Then they will bleed it out and start clean. A man’d been educated he could follow it all the way back through history, I expect. How it’s worked just like that. You can’t blame them. Can’t blame Blaisedell even.”

“ Jesus Christ! ” Dad McQuown said. Curley looked at Dechine and shook his head a little, and Dechine found a place on the back of his hand that needed studying more than his knees.

Curley said, “Abe, I guess I never knew a man with as many friends as you. And talking this crazy stuff.”

Abe blinked and stared off at the mountains. After a long time he said, “You think I have gone yellow. But I’m not scared. I just feel like one of those calves in the Bible that’s going to get its throat cut by a bunch of wild Jews set on it. Only those calves never knew what was happening to them.”

“Holy Jesus Christ, son!” the old man yelled. “You have been chewing on the wrong weed. Son—”

But Abe continued, not even raising his voice. “Can’t blame Blaisedell even. He is just doing what all the rest want. He is just the one with the knife to do the cutting.”

Dechine said, “I never heard about Blaisedell being any shakes with a knife.”

Abe’s eyes glittered with anger as he glared at Dechine. But he did not speak, and Curley sighed to see him.

“Son,” the old man said. “Now listen here, son. Why, God-damned right it looks like Blaisedell is itching to kill you. But the thing you have to do is kill him first.”

“He’ll kill me if he gets a chance,” Abe said. “I’d be a fool to give him the chance.”

Curley said slowly, “Blaikie would surely like to buy this spread, Abe.” He met Abe’s eyes that blazed at him, sorrier for Abe than he had ever been for anyone else; Abe’s eyes wavered away from his, and he was sorry for that, too.

“Do you think I would run out like Luke?” Abe said hoarsely.

“What’re you going to do, Abe?” Dechine asked.

“Only one thing for a man to do,” Dad McQuown said, “that’s being chased out of his own country.”

“Wait it out,” Abe said.

“Why, son, there’s them that fought your fight for you moldering on Boot Hill in Warlock! Why, if I was anything but half a man myself I’d—”

“You’re not,” Abe snapped.

Curley said, “I’ve been thinking of moving on myself, Abe.”

“Run then.”

“I wouldn’t look at it I was running. Things have gone bad here, is all. I wouldn’t look at it that you was running either.”

“I don’t run,” Abe said. He shook his head, his face in shadow beneath his hatbrim, the sun red-gold in his beard.

“Or fight,” the old man said contemptuously. “Or anything.”

“Wait it out, that’s the best thing, Abe,” Dechine said. Curley saw Abe’s face twist again, as though with pain, and Curley stood up a little straighter, where he leaned against the rail. He could feel the strangled violence in Abe and he was afraid that if Dechine said one more stupid thing Abe would jump him.