“The best show there is,” Bardaman whispered, to the miner next to him. Miss Jessie came to stand behind Blaisedell in the doorway and they watched the men appear on the rooftops across the street.
There was a yell from upstairs. Boots thumped in the upstairs hall; O’Brien yelled from the top of the stairwell, “Marshal! Here they come! It is the whole damned army!”
IV
The troopers made their way down Grant Street with difficulty through the crowd that had collected. There were more than thirty of them, and with these were MacDonald, on a white horse, and Dawson and Newman from the Medusa. At the head of the troop were a major and a young captain. A still younger lieutenant rode beside Dawson. The crowd jeered and cheered as they came through. MacDonald toppled in his saddle as someone pulled on his leg, and there was a burst of laughter. MacDonald lashed out with his quirt, blindly, for his hat had slipped forward over his eyes. His left arm was folded into a black sling.
“Mister Mac!” someone shouted. “You have got yourself a passel of new foremen!”
There was more laughter. The lieutenant grinned sheepishly, the captain looked angry; the major was glancing up at the men on the rooftops along Grant Street, and their weapons. MacDonald spurred the white horse toward the porch of the General Peach, where Blaisedell stood, with Miss Jessie Marlow behind him in the doorway.
“This is the United States Cavalry, Marshal!” he cried. As soon as he spoke the crowd fell silent. “You interfere at your own peril! Major Standley has orders—”
Blaisedell’s voice boomed out, drowning MacDonald’s. “Can’t be the U.S. Cavalry. They would not ride down here to do your blackhearted work for you, MacDonald. Own up, now, boys; what quartermaster wagon did you rob for those blue shirts?”
There was another roar of catcalls and laughter. The major raised his hand and the troopers halted. He said, not loudly, “Mr. Blaisedell, we are here under orders to arrest all the strikers from the Medusa mine, and we propose to search this house for a man named Tittle. You won’t be fool enough to try to stop us?” He was a plump man with a half-moon of faded blond mustache and eyelashes that looked white in his dark face.
“Why, yes,” Blaisedell said, and laid his hands flat against his holsters. “I am fool enough.”
“We have orders to shoot if we have to, Marshal!”
“Why, I can shoot too, Major!”
There was a shout of approbation from the crowd. It ceased immediately as Blaisedell raised a hand for quiet. He pointed a finger at the major. “You will be first, Major. Then you, MacDonald. Then you, Captain. Then I will take those two they couldn’t find britches to fit,” he said, indicating Dawson and Newman. “And then you, young fellow, if you don’t mind waiting your turn.”
“You won’t get that far!” the captain shouted furiously. He rose in his stirrups. “Major—”
The major motioned to him to be silent and said, “You are now in armed rebellion against the United States government. Do you realize that, sir?”
Blaisedell stood with his arms hanging loosely at his sides, his fair hair gleaming in the sun. Behind and to the right of him Miss Jessie stood straight and proud, with her chin held high.
“Major,” Blaisedell said. “The United States government was got in armed rebellion before either of us was born. And got for one thing by people wanting to keep soldiers from busting through the houses they lived in, if I remember my history books right.”
“Hear, hear!” someone cried hysterically. The captain swung his horse and spurred it toward the crowd. There was a rising clamor. A number of whores from the Row had gathered on the far side of Main Street and now the shouting had a higher pitch to it, as they added their voices to the rest.
“—a woman behind you so no man can shoot!” MacDonald was heard to cry.
“And a troop of cavalry behind you, Mister Mac!” Hasty called, from the roof of the Feed and Grain Barn.
The major said, “You are held in some respect, Marshal; but no man can bluff the army. I advise you to stand aside before this has gone too far!”
“Bluff?” Blaisedell said grimly. “Why, I advise you not to find out whether it is a bluff or not.”
“Marshal!” Pike Skinner bellowed, and instantly there was a flat, echoing crack. A trooper’s hat flew off. Blaisedell stood wreathed in smoke, one of his Colts in his hand. In the silence, as the smoke blew apart, he said harshly, “Throw it down, sonny.” The trooper, who had raised his carbine, pitched it from him as though it were red hot. He raised a hand to feel his bare head. MacDonald’s horse was pitching and side-stepping. The captain cursed. The major backed his horse away from the porch. Miss Jessie had disappeared.
The major shouted to make himself heard. He raised a gauntleted hand and the troopers with one movement brought their carbines to the ready. Blaisedell unholstered his other Colt, aimed one at the major, one at MacDonald. Otherwise he did not move, except to glance quickly around as Miss Jessie reappeared. She had a derringer in her hand; another wild shout went up. Some of the troopers lowered their carbines. The major looked frozen with his hand still raised.
“Major, you will go down like Custer!” Pike Skinner shouted. The men on the rooftops had their weapons pointed down on the troopers in the street. Peter Bacon spat tobacco juice onto the cap of a trooper below him.
“You are surrounded, you blue-leg bastards!” Mosbie bellowed enthusiastically. “We will cut hair today, if you fire on those two.”
The major swung his horse around and snapped an order. The lieutenant saluted; with eight of the troopers in line behind him he trotted south down Grant Street, and there dismounted with his men, where they could cover the men on the roofs, some of whom now knelt behind the parapets. The major’s face was shining with sweat.
There was a new disturbance in the crowd packed into Main Street. “Shame!” a woman’s voice cried shrilly. “Shame on the United States Cavalry! Shame, General Peach! Shame—”
“Peach!” someone yelled.
“Here comes the general!”
He appeared at the corner, with another officer behind him. The crowd gave way before him. “Shame!” the shrill voice cried. “Shame! Shame!” General Peach did not appear to notice. He looked huge on his great gray horse; he rode heavily, slumped in the saddle. His white beard lay against his chest, his blouse was unbuttoned, and an unlit cigar jutted from his mouth like the bowsprit of a sailing ship. His great, black, broad-brimmed hat flapped with the motion of the gray’s pace. One side of his hat was pinned to the crown with a silver eagle and there were great yellow eagles on the rear corners of his shabrack. He carried a leather-bound stick in his hand. The townspeople in the street thrust aside, and the gray horse came down the alleyway between them at a slow walk. Behind him rode Colonel Whiteside, a frail, worried-looking man with gray mutton-chop whiskers.
“Shame!” the voice continued to cry, increasingly hoarse. “Shame, General Peach! Oh, shame! Shame!” There were a few catcalls, a gobbling Apache cry. General Peach did not even move his head.
The captain saluted. The major spurred forward to speak to General Peach, but the general ignored him and the gray horse continued steadily forward, with Whiteside close behind. Peter Bacon spat over the parapet again, while Pike Skinner rose to his feet, with his shotgun over his arm. Blaisedell moved only to replace his six-shooters in their scabbards where one of the golden butt-inserts caught the sun like a flame. Miss Jessie stepped slowly to the far side of the porch, the hand holding the derringer at her side.
General Peach reined to a halt close to the steps of the boarding house that bore his name. He spoke in a huge, hollow, reverberating voice. “A long-haired gunman and a pretty woman with a pretty ankle and a pretty little derringer.”