“What if he kills you?” he said again.

“You keep saying that! You’re trying to scare me. You want me to run from him?”

“Yes,” he said, and Billy snorted. “Billy—” he said, but he knew it was useless even before he said it. “You weren’t at the stage and you shot Ted Phlater in self-defense, but not the way it looked in court. Billy, I can’t see you die a damned fool. I—”

“Don’t you ever say a thing to anybody about any of that,” Billy said coldly. “I am with them, whatever way it happened. That is gone past now. You hear? That’s all I ask of you, Bud.”

That hurt him, as part of the long hurt that Billy had never been able to think much of him. He sat shivering on the edge of the bed, and now, when he didn’t look at his brother, Billy seemed to him already to have become just another name on Blaisedell’s score, and just another mound on Boot Hill marked with one of Dick Maples’ crosses. With horror he looked back to Billy’s moonlit face.

“Billy, I don’t mean it any way and you don’t have to say if you don’t want to, but — do you want to die?”

Billy was silent for a long time. He leaned back and his face was lost in shadow. Then he laughed scornfully, and one of his bootheels thumped on the floor. But his voice was not scornful: “No, I am afraid of dying as any man, I guess, Bud.” He rose abruptly. “Well, I’ll be going. Pony and Luke are camped out in the malapai a way.” He started toward the door, pushing his hat down hard on his head.

“Sleep here if you want. I’m not going to try to argue with you any more. I know you are going to do what you are set on doing.”

“Surely am,” Billy said. He sounded childishly pleased. “No, I’ll go on out there, I guess. Thanks.” At the door he said, “Going to wish me luck?”

Gannon didn’t answer.

“Or Blaisedell?” Billy said.

“Not him because you are my brother. Not you because you are wrong.”

“Thanks.” Billy pulled the door open.

“Wait,” he said, getting to his feet. “Billy — I know if somebody shot me down you would take after them. I guess I had better tell you I won’t do it. Because you are wrong.”

“I don’t expect anything of you,” Billy said, and was gone. He left the door open behind him.

Gannon crossed to the door. He couldn’t see Billy in the darkness of the hallway, but after a moment he heard the slow, stealthy descent of bootheels in the stairwell. He waited in the darkness until the sounds had ceased, and then he closed the door and returned to his cot, where he flung himself down with his face buried in the pillow and grief tearing at his mind like a dagger.

21. THE ACME CORRAL

I

(From the sworn testimony of Nathan Bush, hostler in the Acme Corral, as reprinted in the Bright’s City Star-Democrat.)

NATE BUSH was alone in the Acme Corral when Billy Gannon, Luke Friendly, and Pony Benner rode in. Calhoun wasn’t with them. They had come in up Southend from Medusa Street. It was about nine o’clock in the morning, maybe a little later.

“Go tell Blaisedell we have come in,” Billy Gannon said to him. Billy Gannon was wearing two guns. Pony Benner did some fancy swearing about what they were going to do to Blaisedell and Morgan. Friendly didn’t have anything to say.

When Bush left the corral they were dismounting. He went to find Blaisedell, and met Carl Schroeder and Paul Skinner coming out of the Boston Café. Schroeder told him to go on and tell Blaisedell. Blaisedell was shaving in his room at the General Peach. Bush told him, and the marshal only asked where they were and said he would be along directly, and went on shaving.

Bush went back then, and told some others he met that the cowboys had come in. There was already a good-sized crowd of people collected at the corner of Southend and Main, by Goodpasture’s store.

II

(From the testimony of Deputy Carl Schroeder)

It was a little after nine o’clock when Deputy Schroeder saw the marshal come around the corner from the General Peach. Blaisedell wasn’t wearing a coat and he had on his pair of gold-handled Colts. It was the first time, so far as Schroeder knew, that anybody had seen them in Warlock.

He told Blaisedell that there were three of them, and said he stood ready to help any way he could, but Blaisedell said, “Why, thank you, Deputy, but I guess it is my fight.”

Schroeder wanted to help, but it did not seem strange to him that the marshal did not accept him. He was no gunman, he knew that.

Blaisedell went on up the center of Main Street toward Southend. There were four or five horses tied to the rail along by the Lucky Dollar, and some men there. A few of them called out to Blaisedell as he passed, warning him to watch out and wishing him well. A wind had come up and dust was blowing, which was worrisome. Schroeder didn’t see Morgan till Morgan was out in the street and buckling on his shell belt as he ran after the marshal.

III

(From the testimony of S. W. Brown, proprietor of the Billiard Parlor.)

Sam Brown was standing before the Lucky Dollar with some others when he saw Morgan run out of the Glass Slipper, vault the rail, and, with his vest flapping and buckling his shell belt on, run after Marshal Blaisedell.

The marshal was walking straight up the street toward the corner, and men were calling out to him such things as, “Don’t give those cowboys any break this time, Marshal” and “Watch out for some trick of McQuown’s, now,” “We are holding for you, Blaisedell,” and “Good luck, Marshal!”

The marshal didn’t act like he heard any of it. He didn’t look worried, though. He had on his gold-handled pair everybody had heard about, and they looked fine in the sunshine. His shirt sleeves were gartered up like a bank clerk’s. He was a sight to see, plowing toward the corner of Southend Street. Morgan caught up with him before he got there.

Brown heard Morgan say, “Hey, wait for a man!” Morgan fell into step beside the marshal. He had his shell belt hooked on now, and he was coatless like Blaisedell. Usually Morgan wore a shoulder gun, but it seemed more proper to see him this way, and he and the marshal looked pair enough to go against any three cowboys.

He heard Morgan say, “I am always one for a shooting match.” Blaisedell said, “It is none of your fight, Morg,” and Morgan said, as though he was hurt, “That is a hell of a thing to say to me, Clay!”

They went on up the street to the corner and Morgan was still talking, but by then they were out of Brown’s hearing.

IV

(From the testimony of Oliver Foss, driver for the Warlock Stage Co.)

Oliver Foss was on the corner by Goodpasture’s store, along with Buck Slavin, Pike and Paul Skinner, Goodpasture, Wolters, and some others, when the marshal and Morgan walked up Main Street. There was a wagon coming up Southend, Hap Peters driving a team of mules. Dust was blowing from the team and wagon and there was a dog running and yelping at an offside wheel. Foss called to Hap to hurry it along because the dust was bad and it had better have time to clear before the marshal went down to the Skinner Brothers’ corral.

Foss couldn’t see into the Acme, where Billy Gannon, Pony Benner, and Luke Friendly were supposed to be. He heard Morgan say to the marshal, “Maybe there are only three, or maybe there is a nigger in the woodpile.” Morgan was grinning in that way of his, like he didn’t think much of anybody but Tom Morgan and didn’t mind rubbing it in either. They both stopped when Deputy John Gannon came at a run across from the jail, calling to the marshal.

John Gannon said to the marshal, “Can you give me five minutes to try and get them out?” He didn’t say it like he expected anything to come of it, and a man had to feel sorry for him.