Oakley Hall - Warlock

Gannon shook his head. He met Jack Cade’s eyes and nodded. He nodded to the others. “Joe,” he said. “Chet. Wash. Pecos. Quint. Dad McQuown.” He knew them better than he knew anyone in Warlock, he thought; he had known them to get drunk with, work with, rustle with, play cards with. He had fought and whipped Walt Harrison, fought and been whipped by Whitby, had had for his special friends Chet and Wash Haggin, for his enemy Jack Cade; with his brother Billy, and perhaps with all of them, he had hero-worshiped Curley Burne and held Abe McQuown in awe. With all of these except the new ones he did not know, he had killed Mexicans in Rattlesnake Canyon.

Now, he knew, every one of them was contemptuous of him, and more than Jack Cade hated him.

“Where is that big old shotgun, Bud?” Wash said, and laughed.

“Where’s Billy, Bud?” someone said, behind him.

Dad McQuown said, “It is kind of bad manners coming in here with that star hanging on you, Bud Gannon.”

“Whisky, Bud?” Abe said.

“Thanks,” he said, and shook his head.

“Didn’t come to drink? Nor talk either? Just come to stand there tongue-tied?”

Mitchell strummed on the guitar, and Joe Lacey glanced at it and then significantly back at Gannon. “Always favored a mouth organ myself,” he said. Jack Cade folded his arms and grinned, and Abe grinned too, his teeth showing in his red beard.

“Nothing to say, Bud?”

“Are these your Regulators?”

Abe nodded curtly. “Regulators.”

“You are all coming into Warlock?”

“Planned to,” Abe said. He raised an eyebrow. “Why? Any objection, Deputy?”

Gannon nodded, and watched the color rise in Abe’s cheeks.

“Why, you pissant son of a bitch!” Cade cried.

“Rip that star off him, boys!” the old man said.

“Are we posted out already, Bud?” Wash said, in a mock whining voice. Cade continued to curse.

“If there’s names to be called I’ll call them,” Abe said, and Cade stopped. “Objection, Bud?” he said, grinning again. “Are we posted?”

“Nobody’s posted. But no wild bunch calling themselves Regulators is coming in to make trouble, Abe. Not so long as I’ve got power to deputize every man in Warlock against them.”

“That’s the way it is?” Abe said, in a level voice. “That way, Bud?”

Gannon nodded, and there was a rising muttering around him.

“But I can come alone, you mean?” Abe said. “Surely, that would be fine, with Blaisedell and Morgan and half a dozen other gun-slinging pimps to burn me down. No; not likely. I am coming in with some friends to back my play, is all. Like he has got them to back his.” Abe rubbed a hand over his bearded chin. “I am going to kill him for murdering your brother, Bud,” he said, more quietly. “And kill him for murdering Curley down.” His voice began to shake. “What the hell do you mean?” he cried. “Coming down on my place and telling me I’m not to go in there?”

Gannon stood very stiffly facing Abe McQuown, and said, “I say you are not to come, Abe.”

“You damned snot pup!” the old man yelled.

“Run and hide, Abe,” Whitby said. “Look out! Bud is getting mad!”

“You know the trouble with you, Bud?” Abe said easily. “You are so yellow of him you can’t bear it for everybody not to be yellow of him too. It makes you look too bad if they aren’t. Shot down Billy and all you did was lick his boots for him. Shot down Curley,” he said, his voice rising. “After you had swore Curley didn’t go to kill Carl. And what’d you do, that’d sworn to it? Licked his boots some more. You are a fine deputy.”

Abe took a step toward him. “A whole town-full of them like you. Your hats shy off in the wind when he blows a breath. You can’t call yourself men so you can’t let anybody else be one either. But there won’t be a man left anywhere unless somebody kills that black foul devil out of hell! You damned—”

“You are not bringing a bunch of Regulators into Warlock, Abe,” he said, raising his voice over Abe’s. “I came down to warn you I will have to deputize every man jack in Warlock against you.”

“You have sure turned hard against us, Bud,” Chet Haggin said.

“I’m deputy, Chet. There’s things I’m bound to do.”

“For Blaisedell,” Chet said.

He shook his head.

“Yeah, for Blaisedell!” Wash Haggin cried, and everyone began to talk at once until Abe shouted angrily for quiet.

But Chet went on. “Just one more thing I want to ask him, Abe. Bud, you think Blaisedell isn’t going to choose us out and cut us down one by one unless we go in there against him all together?”

“He’s got nothing against you. That’d be a thing I’d be bound to stop too, I expect.”

Chet grinned contemptuously and Wash shouted with laughter. They all laughed.

Abe leaned his hands on his concho belt and tilted back on his heels. “Like you stopped him from cutting Curley down, Deputy?”

Gannon felt himself flush painfully. “It was a fair fight, Abe. But you don’t mean to fight him fair. You are going in to—”

“Why, you are a liar,” Abe broke in. “Fair fight.”

“There will be no fight. You are not to bring these people in.”

“Be damned to you!” Walt Harrison said.

“Stop us, Bud!” Whitby said.

“I will stop you.”

“Let me talk to him a minute, Abe,” Jack Cade said, in his grating voice. Cade came forward toward Gannon, his thumbs in his shell belt. Gannon stared back into his hard eyes.

“ You ,” Cade said, and paused for a long time. His dirty teeth scraped on his lower lip. “You are,” he said, “a yellow-belly suck-up.” He grinned and hitched at his belt. “You are a pure yellow, pissant, chicken-livered, coyote-bred, no- cojones son of a bitch. I say that’s what you are. I say—”

Gannon stood listening to the level, grating voice taunting him, mouthing increasing foulness. He was not especially frightened of being forced into a fight, for he did not think it was Abe’s wish. He hardly heard the words, for they did not matter to him, but he realized that they would have to be stopped because where the law was merely a man there had to be some respect for that man or the law did not exist and so his journey down here had been worse than useless. He glanced from face to face around him and his heart sank to see them not merely contemptuous, but pleased and crudely eager. Only Wash Haggin looked a little ashamed, and Joe Lacey embarrassed. Chet had turned his face away. Abe was grinning faintly, watching out of the corners of his eyes.

The vile words droned on, without meaning. He unhooked the star from his jacket, and reached over to hand it to Chet Haggin. “Hold it,” he said. “I don’t want him to be able to say he killed another deputy.”

“I’ll say it!” Cade said, triumphantly. “Outside, Deputy!”

“Here,” Gannon said. “So it will be a fair fight.” He untied the bandanna from around his neck, and rapidly fixed a knot in either end. “You count for us,” he said to Chet. “We will draw on three.” He bit down on one knotted end of the bandanna, and held the other out; he saw immediately that Cade would not do it.

“I’m no God-damned fool for a handkerchief fight!” Cade said hoarsely.

It was enough, Gannon thought, and quickly he stuffed the bandanna into his pocket and took his star back. No one spoke.

It had meant nothing, and yet he hoped he had recovered something in their eyes. But he knew that Abe saw his bluff and the necessity for it, and with dread he realized that in backing Cade down he had challenged Abe himself. Now he wondered if Abe was sure enough of his own authority to let his recovery stand.