Oakley Hall - Warlock

Pike said, “I’m going out and drink some of the meanness out of me.”

“You stay out of scrapes with jacks, now!” Carl said. “I don’t want anything more to mess with tonight. If I don’t get some rest for my old bones I am going to have to lay right down and die.”

“’Night,” Peter said, rising; he nodded to Carl and Gannon, and he and Pike went outside into the darkness.

Carl went over and kicked at the broken glass on the floor, and inspected the broken latch of the door. “You suppose the Citizens’ Committee’ll pay for fixing these? Place could fall down for all of Keller. All I asked him for here was a new sign, but I guess I am not going to get it unless I pay for it myself.” Blood had scabbed over the long scratch above his right eye, and run and crusted on his cheek. “Bad night,” he said, in a sad voice. “Let’s close up, Johnny.”

Gannon pulled down the lamp and blew out the flame, and followed Carl out. Outside, in the thick dark, the town seemed very still.

“Quiet,” Carl said, and sighed. “I guess I’ll have a whisky before I go home. You, Johnny?”

“I guess not; thanks.” He watched Carl go off along the boardwalk, frail-looking and limping a little, his bootheels cracking unevenly on the planks.

II

Gannon went along past the wood yard to Grant Street and turned down toward Kate’s house. He could see a light burning at the back.

He mounted the two steps, knocked, and waited. He felt for the key in his jeans pocket, and his face prickled; he knocked again. He heard her footsteps inside, and the door was opened a crack.

“It’s me,” he said.

The crack widened and he was aware of her close to him, although he could not see her yet in the darkness. “Oh, it’s my gentleman caller,” she said.

“I just came by to tell you Morgan is all right now.”

“Come in, Deputy,” Kate said. He went inside; Kate was outlined for a moment against the lighted bedroom doorway, but she moved aside to become invisible again. Something thumped on the oilcloth-covered table and he realized that she had had the derringer in her hand.

“Blaisedell?” she said.

“He showed up, but he couldn’t stop them either. It was Miss Jessie got him out. She came in the doctor’s buggy and took him out through the alley. He’s at the General Peach now.”

“Is he?” Kate said, as though she were not interested. She was silent for a long time, and he felt like a prying fool. He turned to go.

“Well, I’ll be going. I just—”

“The angel of Warlock,” Kate said. He couldn’t make out her tone. “Is she Blaisedell’s sweetheart?”

He nodded, and realized that she could not see him nod. But before he could speak, she said, “I’d heard of her before I came here. She is what you hear of when you hear of Warlock. And I’ve seen her on the street. What’s she like?”

“Why, she is a fine woman, Kate. It took some doing what she did tonight.”

“She is a nice woman,” Kate said, in the tone he could not make out.

“She is. She—”

“I hate nice women,” Kate said. It shocked him to hear her. Again he turned to go; he felt strangely angry.

“Anxious to go, Deputy?”

“It’s not that. But I just came by to tell you about Morgan.”

“Did you think I cared what happened to Morgan?”

He licked his lips. He could see her now, standing across the table from him. There was some kind of shawl draped over her shoulders. “Well, I couldn’t help hearing what you was saying to him earlier tonight,” he said. “When you came in the jail. And I thought—”

“Is it any of your business?”

He nodded, and the anger ached in him like the savage ache in his ribs where the miner had kicked him.

“Is it?” Kate said.

“Yes.”

“All right. I saved him like that once.”

“In Grand Fork.”

“He’d killed a man that called him for cheating. That was when he still let himself get caught cheating once in a while. The vigilantes took him to the hotel to hold him till they could hang him. I started a fire and—”

“I understood what he was saying.”

“Did you?” Kate said, in a flat voice. “And you want it your business? If you don’t want it, say so now.” She sounded as though she were warning him. “Maybe you don’t,” she said.

“I want to know.” He leaned on the back of a chair.

“I was Tom Morgan’s girl for four years,” she said. His fingers tightened on the chair back, not to hear her telling him what he had already sensed, but to hear her say it as though it were no different than telling him where she was born, or how old she was, or who her parents were.

“Most of the time he was flush,” she continued. “There were scrapes and sometimes we’d have to run, and sometimes he would bust; but mostly he was flush. He is a real high-roller. He has owned places here and there, the way he does now, but he would always sell out sooner or later and go back to playing against the bank. He did that best. He liked that best. He will get tired of running the Glass Slipper here and sell out and go somewhere else to buck the tiger. That’s all he really wants to do. But he has to have a stake to start.

“After we’d run from Grand Fork we went to Fort James. He didn’t have a dollar — except me.” She laughed a little. Then her voice went flat again as she said, “So he wanted me to make a stake for him. Going back to what I’d been doing when he took me up. Back,” she said, as though he might not have understood.

“I did, and I made him his stake. But I told him I was through with him. I didn’t even see him for a long time — but I should have known I wasn’t through with him. Anyway, Bob Cletus was going to marry me. He had a ranch near Fort James.” Her voice began to shake. “Maybe I did know, for I told Bob he had better tell Morgan. And see if it was — all right.” She stopped then.

“Cletus?” he said. “The one you came out here with?”

“That was his brother. Blaisedell killed Bob in Fort James that day.”

“Oh,” he said.

“So you see,” she said, her voice so low he could hardly hear her. “Did you want to know?”

“Why, yes,” he lied.

He could smell the perfume she wore; she had moved closer to him. She said, “I looked for his brother for a while — Blaisedell shot Bob in Seventy-nine. Then I just happened to run onto Pat in Denver, and I — he came out here with me. And they killed Pat, too.”

He was aware again of the shape of the key in his pocket, and of its weight. He cleared his throat. “You got his brother to come out here with you to try to—”

“Yes,” she broke in, curtly, as though he had been stupid even to ask. Then she said, “I want to see Blaisedell shot down like that. It is all I want.”

He heard the scrape of her slippers and the creak of the floor as she moved again. She halted so close to him that he could have touched her, and he could see the shape of her face and the rounded pits of her eyes. But all at once she said, “No,” and drew back a little. Her voice began to shake once more as she said, “I don’t know. Maybe I only want to see it happen and not — do anything. Maybe it is enough. Maybe I have done too much already. But I would like to know the man who was to do it. Beforehand. I thought it might be you.”

“No,” he said hoarsely.

“After he killed your brother I was almost glad. For I thought there would be reason enough….”

“It won’t be me. I couldn’t anyway.”

“I think you could. But I won’t ask you, Deputy. Are you afraid I am going to ask you?”

“Why him? ” he cried. “I should think it would be Morgan you are after!”