There was a general gasp as it was realized that Blaisedell meant to stand alone, or perhaps only with Morgan, against the San Pabloites. A storm of exclamations and protests broke out, to which Blaisedell did not even attempt to reply, while Petrix exercised his gavel violently.
It was at this moment that Gannon made his entrance. He was freshly shaven, his hair neatly combed, but his upper lip was bruised and swollen and his face was drawn with exhaustion. I noticed that his right hand was bound up in a white cloth. He said, in a truculent tone, that there would be no Vigilantes in Warlock.
We were all as shocked at the arrogance of his first words as we had been at the implication of Blaisedell’s last ones. I had the impression, however, that Gannon had been steeling and rehearsing himself to his statement for some time, and was prepared, too, for a violent response to it. When there was none he seemed suddenly timid in our august presence.
In a more reasonable voice he said that he was sorry to butt in upon us, but that he had heard the Citizens’ Committee intended to form a Vigilante Troop, and he had come to inform us that there would be none of that in Warlock.
Jed Rolfe asked him if those had been his orders from McQuown.
Gannon replied without heat that he did not take orders from McQuown. Neither did he take them from the Citizens’ Committee. He had just come back from San Pablo, he said, whence he had ridden to tell McQuown there would be no Regulators. He was now telling us there would be no Vigilantes either. I felt a certain respect for the fellow then, thinking that he must not have pleased McQuown any more than he was pleasing us.
Skinner sneered that he would bet Gannon had scared McQuown out of his foolishness, and it was certainly nice that Warlock, and Blaisedell, had nothing to worry about. At this Gannon looked childishly angered and hurt. He said, however, that if McQuown did come in he would deputize whoever was needed to meet him, and reiterated his statement that there were to be no Vigilantes. I noticed that he studiously avoided Blaisedell’s eye.
Joe Kennon cried out that no one trusted Gannon enough to be deputized by him, to which Gannon replied that whoever he deputized would be deputized or go to Bright’s City to explain why not to the court. This exchange was followed by other angry statements, until Blaisedell interceded to say that it was his part to make a play against McQuown and whoever came in with him. “It is against me,” he said. “So it is me against them, Deputy.”
He spoke in a firm voice, and Gannon blanched noticeably. He stood still not facing Blaisedell, with his bandaged hand upon the counter and his forehead creased with what must have been painful thought. To our surprise he shook his head with determination.
“If it was just you against McQuown, I would keep out, Marshal,” he said. “I can’t when it is the whole bunch coming in and calling themselves Regulators.”
“Yes, you can,” Blaisedell said. It did not seem to me he said it particularly threateningly, but he drew himself up to his full height as he looked down at the Deputy.
Gannon, however, stood his ground. He said in an emotional voice, “I have told McQuown he is not to come in here with those people. I told him I will stop him if he does. I mean to stop them.”
With that he swung around to depart, and, although we waited breathlessly for Blaisedell’s reply, he made none. It was the Judge who broke the silence. “Hear! Hear!” he cried, in obnoxious triumph. His voice was drowned in the ensuing outcry, and Gannon was verbally flayed, drawn and quartered, and otherwise disposed of.
In the end, however, nothing was done about the Vigilance Committee.
April 19, 1881
I will confess that for a time I subscribed to a higher opinion of our Deputy than I had previously held. That was yesterday. Today the mercury of my esteem has sunk quite out of sight, for Gannon, in claiming he would stop McQuown from coming into Warlock, has perpetrated one of the most monstrous, grotesque, and completely senseless frauds of which I have ever heard.
Gannon is, in short, accused of murder. McQuown will not bring his Regulators into Warlock because he is dead, shot in the back, and Gannon is named by a host of witnesses as his murderer.
The Regulators have, indeed, arrived, but not in that role. They are pall-bearers, and Abraham McQuown is their charge. The story I have from Joe Lacey, who swears he was witness to it all.
As he informed the Citizens’ Committee yesterday, Gannon had ridden down to San Pablo the night before. He accosted the Regulators, who were gathered at McQuown’s, with the same brusquerie he showed the Citizens’ Committee at the bank. Hot words passed, and shortly, Lacey claims, Gannon drew his six-shooter on McQuown. Here I become a little dubious as to whether I am hearing the whole story, since drawing upon McQuown in the bosom of his friends sounds an act of incredible asininity. Be that as it may, McQuown then closed and tussled with Gannon, and, defending himself, stabbed Gannon through the hand, which accounts for the bandage we saw yesterday. Gannon was then allowed to depart, which he did ungraciously, calling back that he and Blaisedell would “get even.”
Lacey claims he thought Gannon might still be skulking about, for the dogs, which were locked up, had started barking when he first left the ranch house and were never entirely quiet thereafter, as though sensing a sinister presence. About an hour later the door was flung open and Gannon fired upon McQuown, who was standing with his back to the door, killing him instantly. He then fled, but not before he was recognized by old Ike McQuown, Whitby, and several others.
All crowded outside to fire after him in his flight, but pursuit was impossible, for he had unhitched the horses and these were stampeded by the shooting. By the time the mounts were recovered it was clearly useless to try to follow him, and some were afraid that Gannon had been accompanied by a whole party of murderers from Warlock, and that he desired to be pursued so that he could lead the Cowboys into an ambush. There is no doubt in Lacey’s mind that Gannon was the assassin, for, although he did not see him himself, a number of others did.
The funeral party arrived not two hours ago. It was well known that the Regulators were coming, since they could be seen a long way off from the rim. Gannon had deputized, without the difficulty some had foreseen, more than twenty good men, whom he had stationed up and down Main Street and on the rooftops. He rode out alone to meet the Regulators and their funeral wagon as they came up the rim. I have not heard what transpired there, and am surprised they did not shoot him down on the spot, but he immediately returned to the jail and surrendered himself to Judge Holloway. He is to have a hearing shortly and will have another chance to appear and swear before the judge, this time not as a witness but as a defendant; Ike McQuown being plaintiff, a curious role for him.
This turn of events has staggered us all.
47. DAD MCQUOWN
JUDGE HOLLOWAY poked right and left with his crutch to clear a path for himself through the jail doorway. “Out of my way! Out of my way, damn you, boys!”
Inside, he glanced worriedly at Gannon, who leaned against the cell door looking listless, exhausted, and profoundly dejected. The judge glared around at Skinner, Bacon, Mosbie, and the others inside the jail. “Turn that table around for me,” he said.
It was done and the judge sat down with his back to the door. His crutch fell with a clatter as he moved his chair, and, grunting, opened the drawer against his belly and took out his Bible, derringer, and spectacles. There was a continual mutter of talk from the men crowded into the doorway.