Oakley Hall - Warlock

“What the devil is this?” the judge cried.

Gannon began to shake with rage; for they had thought he would be glad of an excuse, and Kate had begged it and Buck furnished it. Kate stood there staring at him with her hands clutched together at her waist.

He started forward. “Get out of my way, Buck Slavin!”

Buck thrust the shotgun muzzle at him. “You will just camp in that cell awhile, Deputy!”

Gannon caught hold of the muzzle with both hands and shoved it back so that the butt slammed into Buck’s groin. Buck yelled with pain and Gannon wrenched the shotgun away and reversed it. Buck was bent over with his hands to his crotch.

“ You march in there!” he said hoarsely. He grasped Buck’s shoulder and propelled him into the cell, locked the door, and tossed the key ring onto the peg. He leaned the shotgun against the wall. He didn’t look at Kate. The hoofs and the squealing wagon wheel sounded more loudly in the street.

“Now see here, Gannon!” Buck said in an agonized voice.

“Shut up!”

“Oh, you are brave!” Kate cried. “Oh, you will show the world you are as brave as Blaisedell, won’t you? I thought you had more sense than the rest behind that ugly, beak-nosed face. But go ahead and die! ”

“That was a fool trick, Buck!” the judge said. “Interfering with an officer in the performance of his duty. And you ought to be jailed with him, ma’am, only it wouldn’t be decent!”

“Shut up, you drunken old fraud!” Kate said. Her eyes caught Gannon’s at last, and he saw that she had come to save him, almost as she had once saved Morgan; he felt awed and strangely ashamed for her, and for himself. He started out.

“We’ll send flowers,” Buck said.

“Why?” Kate whispered, as Gannon passed her. “ Why? ”

“Because if a deputy can’t walk around this town when he wants, then nobody can.”

Outside, the sun was warm and painfully bright in his eyes as he gazed up at the new sign hanging motionless above his head. The sound of the wagon had ceased. He remembered to compose his face into the mask of wooden fearlessness, that was the proper mask, before he turned to the east.

The wagon had stopped before the gunshop in the central block. The San Pablo men had dismounted and there was a cluster of them around the wagon, and a few were entering the Lucky Dollar. Faces turned toward him. Some of the men, who had been moving toward the saloon, stopped, others moved quickly away from the wagon; they glanced his way and then across Main Street.

Blaisedell was there, he saw, standing coatless under the shadow of the arcade before the Billiard Parlor, one booted foot braced up on the tie rail; it was where he often stood to survey Main Street. His sleeves were gartered up on his long arms, a dark leather shell belt rode his hips. He stood as motionless as one of the posts that supported the roof of the arcade. Farther down were Mosbie and Tim French, and, on the comer of Broadway, Peter Bacon, with a Winchester over his arm. Pike Skinner stood before Goodpasture’s store, and in a group in Southend Street were Wheeler, Thompson, Hasty, and little Pusey, Petrix’s clerk, with a shotgun. His throat tightened as he saw them watching him; Peter, who was no gunman; Mosbie, who had railed at him most violently over Curley Burne; Pike, who he had begun to think was his sworn enemy, until today; Blaisedell, who had wanted to make this his own play; and a bank clerk, after all.

He started forward down the boardwalk. He flexed his shoulders a little to relieve the tight strain there. He stretched his wounded, aching, sweating hand to try to loosen it. His skin prickled. He wondered, suddenly, that he had no plan. But he had only to walk the streets of Warlock as a deputy must do, as was his duty and his right.

He crossed Southend Street with the Warlock dust itching on his face and teasing in his nostrils. Wash Haggin was standing spread-legged in the center of the boardwalk before the Lucky Dollar, facing him.

Old man McQuown was still in the wagon, beneath a shade rigged from a serape draped over four sticks. There was no one else in view on this side of the street.

“Dad McQuown,” he said, in greeting, to the wild eyes that stared at him over the plank side of the wagon. He halted and said, “I will do my best to find out who did it, Dad McQuown.”

He started on, and now Wash’s face was fixed in his eyes, Wash’s hat pushed back a little to show a dark sweep of hair across his forehead, Wash’s face set in a wooden expression that must be a reflection of his own face. Wash instead of Jack Cade because Wash was kin to Abe, he thought. He had a glimpse of Chet Haggin’s face above the batwing doors of the Lucky Dollar, and Cade, and Whitby and Hennessey shadowy behind them.

“I’ll trouble you to let me by, Wash,” he said.

Wash’s eyes widened a little as he spoke, and he felt a thrill of triumph as Wash sidled a step closer to the tie rail. There was the scuffing of his boots, then an enormous silence that now contained a kind of ticking in it, as of a huge and distant clock. He saw Wash’s face twist as he passed him and walked steadily on. Now the prickling of his skin was centered in the small of his back and the nape of his neck. Peter Bacon, across the street, was holding the Winchester higher; Morgan sat in his rocking chair on the veranda of the Western Star. He could see Blaisedell, too, now, as he came past wagon and team.

“Bud!” Wash cried, behind him.

He halted. The ticking seemed closer and louder. He turned. Wash was facing him again, crouching, his hand hovering. Wash cried shrilly, “Go for your gun, you murdering son of a bitch!”

“I won’t unless you make me, Wash.”

“Go for it, you murdering backshooting—”

“Kill him!” Dad McQuown screamed.

Wash’s hand dove down. Someone yelled; instantly there was a chorus of warning yells. They echoed in his ears as he twisted around in profile and his wounded hand slammed down on his own Colt; much too slow, he thought, and saw Wash’s gun barrel come up, and the smoke. Gannon stumbled a step forward as though someone had pushed him from behind, and his own Colt jarred in his hand. He was deafened then, but he saw Wash fall, hazed in gunsmoke. Wash fell on his back. He tried to roll over, his arm flopped helplessly across his body, and his six-shooter dropped to the planks. He shuddered once, and then lay still.

Gannon glanced at the doors of the Lucky Dollar; the faces there had disappeared. Then he had a glimpse of the long gleam of the rifle barrel leveled over the side of the wagon. He jumped back, just as a man vaulted into the wagon. It was Blaisedell, and old McQuown screamed as Blaisedell kicked out as though he were killing a snake — and kicked again and the rifle dropped over the edge of the wagon to the boardwalk.

He could see the old man’s fist beating against Blaisedell’s leg as Blaisedell stood in the wagon, facing the doors of the Lucky Dollar. No one appeared there for a moment, and Gannon started back to where Wash lay. But then Chet Haggin came out and knelt down beside his brother’s body, and Gannon turned away. The old man had stopped screaming.

He walked on down toward the corner. After a moment he remembered the Colt in his hand, and replaced it in its holster. There was the same silence as before, but it buzzed in his shocked ears. His hand felt hot and sticky, and, looking down, he saw blood leaking dark red from beneath the bandage. At the corner he turned and crossed Main Street, and mounted the boardwalk on the far side in the shadow. Peter didn’t look at him, standing stiffly with the rifle in his white-clenched hands. Tim’s eyes slid sideways toward him and Tim nodded once. He heard Mosbie whistle between his teeth. Blaisedell had returned to this side of the street, and leaned against a post, watching the wagon. Now Gannon could hear the old man’s pitiable cursing and sobbing, and he could see Chet still bent over Wash.