Oakley Hall - Warlock

Abe didn’t even hear him. “I mind dying a damned fool, and I mind dying one for every man to spit on,” he went on. He began to laugh, shrilly. “Pile everything on me! By God, they will have a torchlight parade and fireworks when I am dead! They will carry him around Warlock on their shoulders and make speeches and set off giant powder, for him; that never did a sin in his life. And tramp me in the dust for the dogs to chew on — that never did anything else but!”

The old man gazed at his son in horror, at Curley in shame. There was an iron clamor from Cookie’s triangle, and the dogs began to bark out by the cook shack.

“Well, there is breakfast now,” the old man said in a soothing voice. “You boys’ll feel better after some chuck.”

“Blaisedell don’t stand so high now, Abe,” Curley said. “I heard a thing or two about Blaisedell, and saw a pack of miners tramp over him too.” He told about the miners storming over Blaisedell to try to lynch Morgan. Abe looked barely interested.

“And maybe things’re getting stacked against him some, for a change,” Curley went on. “There is plenty talk it was Morgan stopped that stage, and maybe Blaisedell with him.”

“That’s stupid,” Abe said, but he stood a little straighter.

“And that those boys was killed in the Acme Corral to cover it over.”

“That’s a stupid lie,” Abe said. He grinned a little.

“No, there is something there. Pony and Cal stopped that stage, surely. But you remember Cal and Pony being kind of suspicious back and forth about who it was shot that passenger, and then they finally decided it must’ve been Hutchinson trying to sneak a shot at Cal and the passenger jumped out and got hit instead. But maybe it wasn’t Hutchinson, either.”

Abe was nervously running his fingers through his beard.

“There is something there,” Curley said again. “Taliaferro had some news might interest you, and it is spreading around Warlock pretty good, I hear. There is some whore named Violet at the French Palace that was in Fort James when Morgan and Blaisedell was. And this Kate Dollar woman that Bud Gannon is chasing after now. Lew says this Violet says the Dollar woman was Morgan’s sweetie in Fort James, and she took up with another fellow and Morgan paid Blaisedell money to burn him dead. How a lot of people knew about it in Fort James— Wait a minute, now!” he said, as Abe started to interrupt. “And then this Dollar woman was married to the passenger that got shot on that stage. Now if Pony or Cal didn’t shoot him, who did? Lew likes it it was Morgan — he is down on Morgan something fierce — but there is talk that if Blaisedell hired out to Morgan for that kind of job once, why not twice? There is all kind of things being said around Warlock, Abe.”

“Boys, what is this hen-scratch low gossip you are talking here?” the old man said indignantly.

“Shut up,” Abe said, but he began to grin again.

He had better go, Curley thought. There was more than he had told Abe, but he did not like to hear himself saying all this. Lew Taliaferro was a man he could stand only if the wind was right; and what Taliaferro had told him, part of which he had just repeated to Abe, had made as poor hearing as telling, medicine though it was to Abe.

“So I expect you will be going into Warlock one of these days yourself,” he said, and tried to grin back at Abe’s grin. “There is a time coming. I wish I could go in with you when you go, but you won’t need me, Abe.”

“By God!” the old man whispered.

“I’d sure like to stay to see it,” Curley went on. “But it has come time for me to make tracks. Like you said, people liked old Carl.” He took a deep breath. “I’m telling you things are running the other way, Abe. You have done right, staying down here till they started changing. And it was the smartest thing you ever did, too, telling MacDonald you wouldn’t have nothing to do with his Regulators. Just wait it out. It won’t be long. Abe, Blaisedell is starting to come down like a pile of bricks.”

He felt exhausted watching the life and sharpness coming back into Abe’s face. He had given Abe what he had to give, and he would do it again, but he had lied when he had said he wished he could see the end. He could stomach no more of it.

“Thanks, Curley,” Abe said, softly. “You’ve been a friend.” With a lithe swing of his body he turned to gaze off at the mountains. His face, in profile, looked younger. He said, “Well, you will hear one way or other when the time comes.”

“I’ll drink a bottle of whisky to you, Abe.”

“Do that for me. One way or the other.”

“One way,” Curley said, grinning falsely.

“You have sure bucked him like a dose of kerosene,” the old man said, in a breathless voice. The clanging of the iron triangle sounded again.

“Better eat before you go,” Abe said.

“I’ll grab something and say so long to the boys.”

“What do you want to move on for, Curley?” the old man complained. “How’ll we make out? Have to break in a new hand on that mouth organ of yours.”

“You’ll never get one as good as me.”

“Wait a minute till I get my pants on,” Abe said, and disappeared inside.

Curley took the mouth organ out of his shirt and began to play the old man a tune. “Curley,” Dad McQuown said, scrounging up on one elbow. “Tell me how it was you popped that deputy before you go. Ran him the road-agent spin, did you?”

It was sour music he was making. He wiped the spit from the mouth organ, and put it down on the rail beside him. “No, it wasn’t that,” he said.

“You said—”

“It wasn’t so,” he said. “The whole thing was poor all around. He had the drop on me and I went to give him my Colt’s like a good boy. But he grabbed hold of the barrel—” He stopped, for Abe was standing in the doorway with his hands frozen where he’d been buckling his shell belt on. Abe’s eyes were blazing.

“You always was a God-damned liar, Curley Burne,” the old man said disgustedly, and lay back again.

“You didn’t mean to do it?” Abe whispered, and his face was crafty and cruel as Curley had not seen it since Abe had heard the Hacienda Puerto vaqueros were coming after them through Rattlesnake Canyon.

He shook his head.

“Carl went and did it himself? Pulling on the barrel with your finger on the trigger. Like that?”

“That was it.” The expression on Abe’s face frightened him a little, but then it was gone and Abe bent to attend to buckling his belt on. “It was poor,” Curley said. “It don’t set so good either, but it is done. I kind of thought I’d better not stick around and try and explain it to folks, what with five or six of them getting ready to pop away at me. Well, I guess I’ll go get some breakfast.”

Abe nodded. “I’ll go down and saddle up for you,” he said, in a strange voice. “You send the breed around and I’ll put him on that you rode out here on, and send him on down Rattlesnake Canyon in case they have got somebody following sign. You head for Welltown and I’ll get a herd run over your track.” Abe nodded again, to himself.

“Well, that’s fine of you, Abe.”

“So long, Curley,” the old man said. “You take care of yourself, hear?”

Curley hurried down the steps. “So long, Dad McQuown!” he called back over his shoulder. At the cook shack he shook hands around with the boys who hadn’t gone with MacDonald, and told them to say so long for him to the rest when they got back from Warlock. He sent the breed to Abe, and got some bread and bacon and a canteen of water from Cookie. Hurrying, he went on out to the horse corral, where Abe had saddled a long-legged, big-barreled, steady-standing gray he had not seen before. “He’ll take you in a hurry,” Abe said, and slapped the gray on the shoulder. Curley swung into the saddle, and Abe reached up to wring his hand.