“Yah-hoo!” he yelled. “I am the worst man in the West! I am the Black Rattlesnake of Warlock! My mother was a timber wolf and my daddy a mountain lion, and I strangled them both the day I was born!

“Yah-hoo!” he yelled. “I will kill anything that moves, so sit still or die, you sons of bitches; or if you move, crawl! I can spit a man through at fifty yards! I have got lightning in both hands, I comb my hair with wildcats and brush my teeth with barbed wire!” He put a bullet through Taliaferro’s sign. A man dived inside the pharmacy, and he fired behind him; a puff of dust rose from the adobe.

“Who wants to die?” he shouted, walking slowly forward. “I am spoiling for a fight! Come on, you sons of bitches — I eat dead cowboys!”

His throat was dry and hoarse from shouting. But he grinned idiotically at the white faces that stared at him. His shirt back felt soaked with sweat. He fired into the air again, and he fired at the yellow patch over the Billiard Parlor. “Come on out and fight!” he yelled. “I have killed forty-five men, half with one shot, and I am going to run some score today!

“Any friends of McQuown’s here? I will claw them down with Honest Abe! I am the champeen all-time cowboy killer. Any partners of Brunk’s? Come on, you muckering chittle-witted muckers and I will dice your livers for you. Any damned Yankees? No, I can hear them scampering now! Anybody! Come on out, you yellow sons of whores, or I will run this whole town out of itself!”

He raised Dawson’s six-shooter and pulled the trigger again; the hammer snapped down dry. He tossed it and caught it by the barrel, and with a long sweep of his arm slung it through Goodpasture’s window with a smash of glass. He raised his left hand and fired Gannon’s.

“Come on, I say! Where are those brave possemen? Where is that bunch of jailhouse bummers!” He saw several of them, standing with some cowboys along the wall near the Glass Slipper. “Step up, boys! Come out of your holes! No? Where is that mighty deputy then? He has locked himself in his own jail. Isn’t there a man in this town? Any friends of Blaisedell’s then? I will warm up on them. Speak up, boys!”

He fired into the air to liven things again. Left-handed, he shot the panes out of the gunshop window. He flung Gannon’s used-up Colt toward the pharmacy. A man dodged out of the way, and then snapped stiffly to a standstill as though he were standing at attention.

He drew the Banker’s Special from his belt. He laughed and howled, and fired into the air. He saw a movement in the ruin of the Glass Slipper, and he fired and chipped adobe. The dust of the street darkened as the sun went down behind him. The moon was up over the Bucksaws, pale as a cloud. It was time, he thought.

“Yah-hoo!” he screeched. “Where is Clay Blaisedell? Where is that yellow-bellied, hollowed-out, gold-handled, long-haired marshal of Warlock? Whose skirts is he hiding behind? Come on out, Clay Blaisedell! Out of your hole and let’s see the color of your plaster guts!”

He had come up even with the Glass Slipper now, and he saw a movement among the townsmen there; he swung the Banker’s Special and howled with laughter to see one of them dive to the boardwalk. He saw Mosbie’s dark, scarred face twisted with rage. “Come on, Clay,” he whispered. “I am starting to feel like a damned fool!”

He walked on down Main Street, laughing and taunting; he swung toward the Billiard Parlor, and the miners there tumbled back inside. “Yah-hoo!” he screamed, with his voice tearing in his throat. “Every man is afraid of me! Where is Clay Blaisedell! He has posted his last man out of this town! Blaisedell! Come out here and play boys’ games with me, you yellow Yankee hound. Blaisedell!”

Come on, Clay; come on! I am sick to death of this game already! He walked on across Broadway, and saw Dawson jump back inside the door of the hotel. He saw Clay at the next corner.

“Morgan!” Mosbie yelled, and he spun and squeezed the trigger, and saw through the smoke Mosbie slam back against the wall in the shadow under the arcade, his Colt flying free of his hand. And in his deafened ears he heard Clay call, “Morg!”

Clay stood in the street now with his black hat pulled down to conceal his face, his wide brown leather belt slanting across his hips, the sleeves of his white shirt fluttering in the wind; with a wild relief and jubilation Morgan knew that his luck still held, and, as he jammed the burning barrel of the Banker’s Special back into his belt, he knew, with a sudden pride, that he could beat those hands of Clay’s if he wished, and knew he could center-shot that white shirt just beneath the black tie-ends, if he wished. He yelled hoarsely, “I can beat you, Blaisedell! You had better hit it fast!”

He cried out once more, wordlessly, in triumph, as his hand swept up with the Banker’s Special, beating Clay’s hand. Clay’s hat flew off. He heard a cry and it was Kate. “Tom!” Instantly he was flung staggering back with white-hot death impaling him. He squeezed the trigger once more, unaimed, and the sound was lost in a totality of deafening sound; he sought frenziedly to grin as he staggered forward toward the motionless figure that faced him wreathed in smoke. The Banker’s Special was suddenly too heavy. It slipped from his hand. But still he could raise his hand to his breast, slowly up, slowly across and back, while the world blurred into deeper and deeper shadow.

He fell forward into the dust. It received him gently. One arm felt a little cramped and he managed to move it out from under his body. In his eyes there was only dust, which was soft, and strangely wet beneath him. “Tom!” He heard it dimly. “Tom!” He felt a hand upon his back. It caught his shoulder and tried to turn him, Kate’s hand, and he heard Kate sobbing through the swell of a vast singing in his ears. He tried to speak to her, but he choked on blood. The dust pulled him away, and he sank through it gratefully; still he could laugh, but now he could weep as well.

65. THE WAKE AT THE LUCKY DOLLAR

I

MORGAN lay face down in the dust of Main Street. Kate Dollar bent over him, pulling weakly at his shoulder, her harsh, dry sobbing loud in the silence, her white face turning to stare at Blaisedell, and then at the men who lined the boardwalk. Buck Slavin ducked under the tie rail and came out to join her.

Blaisedell retrieved his hat. His face was invisible beneath its brim in the fading light. Kate Dollar rose as Slavin bent down and turned Morgan over. Morgan’s face, caked with white dust, was grinning still. His shirt front was muddy and blood welled through the mud.

“Get your hands off him,” Blaisedell said, and Slavin straightened hurriedly, wiping his hands on his trouser legs. Blaisedell’s face was a mesh of thick, red welts, his eyes were swollen almost closed.

“You weren’t worth it,” Kate Dollar said, not loudly, as Blaisedell bent down and picked up Morgan’s body. He stood for a moment, staring back at her, and then he carried Morgan slowly back up the street toward the Lucky Dollar. He laid him on the boardwalk, ducked under the rail, and, in the silence, picked him up again. He backed through the batwing doors of the Lucky Dollar, gently maneuvering Morgan’s sagging, dusty head past the doors.

Inside, grunting a little now with his burden, Blaisedell moved with heavy steps toward the first faro layout. Men scrambled out of his way, and the dealer and the case keeper retreated. He laid Morgan on the layout amid the chips and counters, and the silver. He straightened Morgan’s legs and folded his hands upon his muddy chest, and he stood for a long time in the intense and crowded silence staring down at Morgan. Then he glanced slowly around at the men who watched him, his eyes slanting from face to face white-rimmed like those of a frightened stallion: toward Skinner, Hasty, French, and Bacon, who stood nearby; toward the miners at the bar; toward the sheriff and Judge Holloway, who sat at a table with a whisky bottle between them, the sheriff staring at nothing in frozen concentration, the judge leaning forward with his forehead resting in his hands. Blaisedell glanced up at the sweaty-faced lookout sitting stiffly with his hands held rigid six inches above the shotgun laid across his chair arms.