Oakley Hall - Warlock

“Never mind it, Morg,” Blaisedell said. He started up the stairs, and Morgan grasped his arm again and helped him upward, grunting with the effort and glancing back over his shoulder once at Brunk. The two men disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell, laboring and bumping against the railing.

“Frank,” Jessie said. Slowly Brunk turned, his scar of a mouth strained wide, his fists clenched at his sides. “You are to get out of my house.”

“Miss Jessie, can’t you see—”

“Get out of my house!” Jessie said. Her fingers left the doctor’s arm; he heard her go back into her room. Brunk stood gazing after her with dumb pain on his face.

“You had better leave, Frank,” the doctor said, with difficulty. He knew now that he was not the only man who had been jealous of Clay Blaisedell. He followed Jessie into her room, and heard, behind him, Brunk’s slow departing footsteps; above him, shuffling ones.

Jessie was staring up at the ceiling with round eyes. “Are they saying things like that about him?” she whispered.

“I suppose there are a few that—”

“Frank said it,” she broke in. “Oh, the fools! Oh—” She put her hands to her face. “Oh, they are!” she whispered through her hands. “It is Morgan’s fault! It is because of Morgan! Isn’t it, David?”

“I suppose in a way it is,” he said, nodding. He could not say more, and he was sorry now for Brunk, who had tried to.

“It is!” Jessie said, and he heard Morgan coming back down the stairs.

Morgan stopped and looked in the doorway, taking off his hat. His figure was slim and youthful, and his face, too, seemed young, except for his prematurely gray hair, which looked like polished pewter in the light. Slanting hoods of flesh at the corners of his eyes gave his face a half-humorous, half-contemptuous expression.

“I am sorry to bring him home in a state like this, Miss Marlow,” he said, with a mock humility. “But he would come. And sorry for the fuss with the jack.”

The doctor said, “You will have to excuse Brunk, Morgan. Stacey is a friend of his.”

“Stacey?” Morgan said, with a lift of his eyebrows.

“Whose teeth you kicked in, at your place. That was a cruel thing.”

“Was it?” Morgan said, politely.

“Mr. Morgan,” Jessie said in a stiff voice. “Possibly you could tell me what’s the matter with him. I mean, what has happened to him since he came back to Warlock.”

“What’s happened to him is for the best,” Morgan said. “Though I don’t expect you will agree with me.”

“What do you mean?” Jessie said.

Morgan smiled thinly, and said, with the polite and infuriating contempt, “Well, Miss Marlow, he is a man with some good in him. I don’t much like to see him broken down under things. He is better off out of marshaling.”

“Dealing faro in a saloon!” Jessie cried. The doctor was shocked at the venom in her voice, but Morgan only grinned again.

“Or anything. But that’s handy and pays well. Good night, Miss Marlow. Good night, Doc.”

“Just a moment, please!” Jessie said. “You didn’t want him to come back here, did you, Mr. Morgan?”

“It is hard to argue with him sometimes.”

“You don’t like me, do you?”

Morgan put his tongue in his cheek and cocked his head a little. “Why, ma’am, I am very respectful of you, like everybody else here in town.” He made as though to leave again, but seemed to change his mind. “Well, let me put it this way, Miss Marlow. I am suspicious by nature. I know what sporting women are after, which is money. But I am never quite sure what nice women are after. No offense meant, Miss Marlow.”

Again he started to leave, and again Jessie said, “Just a moment, please!” The doctor could hear her ragged breathing. She said to Morgan, “You said you didn’t like seeing him broken down under things.”

Morgan inclined his head, warily.

“So how you must hate yourself, Mr. Morgan!”

Morgan’s face looked for an instant as it had when he had confronted Brunk; then it was composed again, like a door being shut, and he bowed once again, silently, and took his leave.

Jessie put her hand down on the checkerboard and with a quick motion swept the checkers off onto the floor. “I hate him!” she whispered. “No one can blame me for hating him!” She raised her face toward the ceiling. He saw it soften and she whispered something inaudible — that must, he thought, have been addressed to Blaisedell, who had come back to her.

She seemed to become aware of him again; she smiled, and it lit her whole face. “Oh, good night, David,” she said. “Thank you for playing checkers with me.”

It was a dismissal, he knew, not merely for this evening, but of a companion with whom she had passed the time while she waited for Blaisedell to return. He nodded and said, “Good night, Jessie,” and backed out the door. She came after him, to close it, the opening narrowing into a thin slice of lamplight that framed her face. The door shut with a gentle sound.

He went up the steps to his room, and sat down on his bed. He felt as though he were smothering in the thick darkness. He felt old, and drained of all emotion except loneliness. Through the window he could see the bright stars and a narrow shaving of moon, and from here he could hear the sounds of laughter and drinking from the saloons on Main Street. He rose and fumbled on the table for the bowl of spills and matches. He lit the lamp, the darkness paled around him; he stood with his hands on the edge of the table, staring into the bright mystery of the flame. He had taken the bottle of laudanum from his bag when there was a soft knock.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Jimmy, Doc. Can I come in a minute?”

“All right,” he said.

“You’ll have to open the door for me, I guess.”

He put down the bottle and went to open the door. Young Fitzsimmons came in, carrying his bandaged hands before him as though they were parcels. He had dark wavy hair and thick eyebrows that met over the bridge of his nose. His long, young face was grave.

“Some things bothering, Doc.”

“Worried about those hands, Jimmy? Here, let me cut the bandages off and have a look.” The boy’s hands had been burned so terribly he had told him he might lose them. But miraculously they were healing, although it would be a long time yet.

“No, it’s not that,” Fitzsimmons said. He held out his hands and grinned at them. “They are coming fine — they don’t stink like they used to, do they?” He sat down on the end of the bed and his face turned grave again. “No, it’s I am kind of worried about Frank, Doc.”

“Are you?” he said, without interest.

“My daddy was a miner,” Fitzsimmons said. “And his before him and on back. I know about mines, and I know what you can do and can’t do when there is trouble with the company. They had troubles back in the old country my grandaddy used to tell about. I know one thing you don’t do is fire a stope.”

“Are they talking about that?”

“Plenty. They won’t listen to me because I am only twenty, but I know rock-drilling better than most of them, and union and company too. I know you don’t wreck a mine; because there may be trouble, but there is always a time when trouble is over for a while.”

“I know, Jimmy,” he said. He watched the boy’s brows knit up; they looked like black caterpillars. The boy shook his head and sighed, then held up his bandaged hands again.

“It’s been kind of good for me to be this way awhile, Doc,” he said. “It is fine to be quick with your hands, and hell not to be able to even button your fly or open a door the way I can’t. But it makes you understand, too, how you can be too quick with them. Now I have got to think every time before I reach out for anything. That’s a caution these others would be better off with.”