Earnshaw had been acquitted by a jury of supposedly good men and true in Bright’s City. I suppose there is no reason to damn the jurors, who were bound to abide by the evidence; and ten witnesses had ridden in from San Pablo to swear that Nat Earnshaw was seen by all of them in San Pablo on the day that the prosecution claimed he had tried to rob the Bright’s City stage, and that he had been mistakenly apprehended by the posse while innocently riding into Warlock. It was not stated why he sought to flee the posse with his accomplice, who was not named.
Unfortunately, no one on the stage could identify Earnshaw as one of the bandits, for both had been masked, and the only witnesses for the prosecution were Schroeder and the possemen, whose evidence that they had followed the tracks of Earnshaw’s horse from the scene of the assault upon the stage to the point of capture, was not given as much credence as that of the San Pablo hardcases, whose threatening demeanor was no doubt more effective than their verbal testimony.
The Citizens’ Committee met upon the subject of Earnshaw, and discussed posting him with a considerable lack of resolution. Blaisedell spoke to the effect that if we ever intended to post anyone, Earnshaw was a good place to begin. Upon which we entrusted our consciences to the Marshal’s capable hands. There was no dissent, although Miss Jessie was not present, nor Judge Holloway, who, I am sure, would have loudly damned the illegality of our action. Luckily the judge had drunk himself into insensibility that day, and was not heard from for several days thereafter.
We would have heard from him had Blaisedell been forced to ventilate Earnshaw, I am sure. He can be as nettlesome as various of the wild-eyed Jewish prophets must have been to their rulers. But thank God the fatal day when we must look at each other and try to shrug off some stubborn fellow’s death as being only his own doing, is put off a little longer.
[1] The Sister Fan and Pig’s Eye were already at this time having difficulty disposing of the water encountered at the lower levels.
[2] Proprietor of the Feed and Grain Barn.
9. GANNON CALLS THE TURN
IT HAD turned chilly with the sun gone down and some quality in the atmosphere did not hold the dust, so that the air was clear and sweet now as Gannon walked back from supper at the Boston Café. The stars were already showing in the soft, violet darkness that shaded off to a pale yellow above the peaks of the Dinosaurs, where the sun had disappeared. Men lounged in groups along the boardwalk in the central block, leaning against the saloon fronts or seated on the tie rail, where a number of horses were tied. They talked in quiet voices and here and there among them was the orange glow of a cheroot or a match flame — wool-hatted miners, and cowboys in flannel shirts and shell belts, striped pants or jeans, and star boots, with the shadows cast by their sombreros making of their faces only pale ovals. They fell silent as Gannon passed. No one spoke to him, or spoke at all; there was only the stamp and snort of a horse at the rail, the hollow clumping of his bootheels.
He walked through the thin stripes of light thrown out by the louvre doors of the Glass Slipper. Other groups of men fell silent before him. Unwillingly he felt his steps hasten a little, his wrist brushed against the butt of his Colt, and his stomach twisted with its own cold colic. He glanced down to see a little light glitter on the star pinned to his vest.
It was quiet tonight, he told himself calmly, quiet for a Saturday night; the concentrated jumble of sound from the Lucky Dollar faded behind him.
When he descended into Southend Street dust prickled in his nostrils. To his right were the brightly lit houses of the Row; to his left, across Main Street, the second-story window above Good-pasture’s darkened store was a dim yellow rectangle. Light from the jail spread out across the planks of the boardwalk, beneath the hanging sign.
Carl sat alone at the table, one hand on the shotgun. “Seen the marshal?” he asked.
“I expect he’s in at the Glass Slipper.”
“Pony and Calhoun and Friendly’s in town,” Carl said. He leaned back in his chair, stiffly. “See them?”
“No.”
“And your brother,” Carl said.
Gannon went over and sat down in the chair beside the cell door. The key was in the lock and he withdrew it, and hung the ring on the peg above his head.
“They are in the Lucky Dollar, I heard,” Carl said. He chewed on the end of his mustache; he stretched. “Well,” he said, in a shaky voice. “He handled the whole bunch at once, I don’t know why he can’t four of them.”
“I expect he can,” Gannon said. At least Cade was not in, he thought, and despised himself.
“I don’t know,” Carl said, rubbing a hand over his face. “Seems like I face up to it every night as soon as I close my eyes. But damn if I can—” He shook his head, and said, “When you see a real man it surely shames you for what you are, don’t it?”
“Meaning Blaisedell?”
“Meaning Blaisedell. You know, I had got to thinking that if I didn’t go up against McQuown sometime I would know I was dirt. But maybe that’s wrong. Maybe he is the one — I don’t know, maybe I mean big enough or clean enough or something — to do it. My God damn how I have chewed myself to ribbons over that bunch. But maybe McQuown is Blaisedell’s by rights.”
Gannon said nothing. It seemed to him that hate was a disease, and that he did not know a man who didn’t have it, turned inward or outward. He had felt the hate when he had walked along Main Street tonight, hate for him because he was suspected of being friendly with McQuown; he wondered if McQuown, in San Pablo, could not feel the hate all the more. Maybe McQuown had gotten used to it long ago. Carl hated both McQuown and his own self, and that was the worst kind, the pitiful kind.
“Dirt,” Carl said. “Me”—he laughed breathlessly—“that thought I was the finest thing to walk the earth when I put this star on here. Not because of Bill Canning exactly, either,” he said. “But because I was ashamed of every damned man in Warlock. And hating that red-bearded son of a bitch so much. And Curley.”
Gannon looked down to examine the little scar in the fold of flesh stretched between his thumb and forefinger. It had healed quickly. “Why, Carl, I believe you have the Saturday night jim-jams!”
“Something awful,” Carl said, laughing and stretching again. “Well, I have never seen one yet that didn’t pass on by come Sunday morning. And a damned comfort when they do.”
After a long time Carl spoke again. “Had a delegation from the Citizens’ Committee come to call this afternoon. Buck and Will Hart.”
“What did they want?”
“Wanted some action about all this road-agenting. I told them there’d been some starch took out of us running any more posses, since Keller hadn’t got pay sent down yet for those boys that run the last one for me. It turned out they had a proposition, which was the Citizens’ Committee guaranteeing posse pay.”
“That will make things easier,” Gannon said. “It is good to know we can jump if we get another clear shot.”
“It is,” Carl said. He leaned back in his chair again. “I told them it was fine and public-spirited and all, but Buck is hard to get along with sometimes. We got along better when I rode shotgun for him; he was always afraid I was going to quit. We had some words.”
Gannon saw that Carl had flushed; Carl avoided his eyes, and he thought that Carl and Buck Slavin might have had words over him.
“Well, I told him if he didn’t like the way I did my job he could hang this star on himself and welcome,” Carl went on. “I told him and Will to look at those names over there,” he said, nodding toward the scratchings in the whitewash. He glanced toward Gannon now, and his deep-set eyes looked very hot. “Like I have to every time I turn around in here. See if they could count a man on there didn’t turn in his star and run, or get shot out from behind it. And I told them they wouldn’t see me run. I might not maybe go out on the prod for Curley Burne or any of them, but I won’t ever run. Made a damned fool of myself,” he said, flushing more darkly.