“Know what you turned into,” Wash Haggin said.
“Chet,” Gannon said. “Maybe you will see that if every man is to think the worst he can think of every other man, then there is going to be no man finally better than that.”
The muscles on Chet Haggin’s jaw stood out, but he did not answer. Wash Haggin said in a flat voice, “You won’t be around to see it get much worse, Bud.”
“George Holloway,” said old McQuown, “I have known you awhile and you me. I tell you it is a shame on you. You have thrown me hard and by a poor trick. You don’t know what it is to lose your son and have it laughed in your face, and the bugger that did it tricked free.”
“It’s not laughed in your face, Ike.”
“Was, and right here. I say he was a good boy and peaceable, and they laugh and scorn me for saying it. He was sitting down there how long with every man to think him yellow for it — because he didn’t want to go against Blaisedell that was marshal here. Not a yellow bone in his poor dead body. Oh, I was as bad as the rest, I’ll say that right out; his own daddy was as bad as the rest, that was every one of them badgering at him to go against Blaisedell. When he knew it wasn’t the thing to do. Knew it better than me, God rest his soul, for I cared too much in my pride about what some coyotes thought of him. Blaisedell pushing on him and pushing on him, that only wanted to be left in peace and to do right, till finally he was pushed too far and his own best friend murdered by that murdering fiend out of hell. And he had to come then, there was nothing else for it.
“And then Blaisedell sends his lick-spittle Judas down to gulch him rather than fight it fair down the street here. But there is no justice to be had. It is bitter, George Holloway, but I will swear something else I didn’t swear before because it would’ve only been laughed to scorn. I swear my boy will go to heaven and that foul devil to hell where he belongs and Bud Gannon along with him.”
“And soon,” Whitby said, in a low voice.
“That’s pled to another judge than me, Ike,” the judge said.
“Already been. Abe is looking down on us from heaven right now, and pitying us for poor miserable mortal men.”
“He’ll be happier before tonight,” Wash Haggin said, looking down at his hands.
Old McQuown lay back on his pallet and gazed up at the ceiling. “What have we come to?” he said quietly. “Every man out here used to be a man and decent, and took care of himself and never had to ask for help, for always there was people to give it without it was asked. Fighting murdering Pache devils and fighting greasers, and real men around, then. Murder done there was kin to take it up and cut down the murdering dog, or friends to take it up. Those days when there was friends still. When a man was free to come in town and laugh and jollify with his friends, and friends could meet in town and enjoy towning it, and there was pleasure then. Drink whisky, and gamble some, and fight it stomp and gouge sometimes when there was differences, but afterwards friends again. No one to say a man no, in those days, and kill him if he didn’t run for cover and shiver in his boots. Life was worth the living of it in those days.”
“And men killed sixteen to the dozen in those days,” the judge said, quietly too. “And not by murdering Apaches, either. Rustling and road-agenting all around and this town treated as though it was a shooting gallery on Saturday nights, for the cowboys’ pleasure. Miners killed like there was a bounty on them, and a harmless barber shot dead because his razor slipped a little. Yes, things were free in those days.”
“Better than these! Maybe men was killed, but killed fair and chance for chance, and not butchered down and backshot. And no man proud enough to raise a hand to stop it!
“But there is some left to raise a hand! There is some of us down valley not eat up with being townfolk and silver-crazy and afraid to breathe. When there is a man killed foul and unrighteous in the sight of God, there will be some to avenge his name. There is some left!”
“Every man’s hand will be against you, Ike,” the judge said. “It is a battle you poor, dumb, ignorant, misled, die-hard fools have fought a million times and never won in the end, and I lost this leg beating you of it once before. Because times change, and will change, and are changing, Ike. If you will let them change like they are bound to do, why, they will change easy. But fight them like you do every time and they will change hard and grind you to dust like a millstone grinding.”
“We’ll see who the grinder is!” old man McQuown cried.
“Blaisedell is who it is, Ike. You pull him down on you hard and harder, and on us too who maybe don’t like what he stands for a whole lot better than you do. But we will have him, or you, and rather him; and you will have him for you will not have law and order.”
“We will not have it when it is Blaisedell,” Chet Haggin said.
“Blaisedell has run his string,” Wash Haggin said grimly.
“Thought he had,” the judge said. “But he hasn’t if you are going to go on taking law and order as set pure against you every time. Ike, where I was a young fellow there was a statue out before the courthouse that was meant to represent justice. She had a sword that didn’t point at nobody, and a blindfold over her eyes, and scales that balanced. Maybe it was different with you Confederates. A good many of you I’ve seen I’ve thought it must’ve been a different statue of her you had down south. One that her sword always poked at you. One with no blindfold on her eyes, so you always thought she was looking straight at you. And her scales tipped against you, every time. For I have never seen such men to take her on and try to fight her.
“And maybe with a fraud like that one you could win. But this here, now, is the United States of America, and it is my statue of justice that stands for here. You can cross swords with her till you die doing it, and you are always going to lose. Because back of her, standing right there behind her — or maybe pretty far back, like here in the territory — there is all the people. All the people, and when you set yourself against her, you are set against every one of us.”
“Get me out of here, boys,” old McQuown said. “It is too close in here. Let’s get out and bury my son, and then tend to our business.”
“Just a minute now!” Pike Skinner said. “I have heard you threatening Johnny Gannon. That is deputy sheriff in this town. I am warning you there are a deal of people watching for you damned rustlers to start trouble.”
“There surely are,” French said. “You count them when you go out of here.”
“Get me outside, boys!” old McQuown cried. “Get me out of here where I can see some decent faces of my own kind, that’s not all crooked and mean-scared and town-yellow.” The Haggin brothers lifted the pallet, and the old man was borne outside through the men standing in the doorway, who respectfully made a passage for him.
48. GANNON TAKES A WALK
GANNON sat with his chair tilted back against the wall and his boot-tips just touching the floor, pushing the oily rag through the barrel of his Colt with the cleaning rod. He forced it through time after time, and held the muzzle to his eye to peer up the dark mirror-shine of the barrel. He tested the action and placed the piece, awkward with his bandaged hand, in its holster, and looked up to see Pike Skinner watching him with an almost ludicrous grimace of anxiety. The judge sat at his table with his face averted and his whisky bottle cradled against his chest.
Gannon tapped the wounded hand once against his thigh, then shot it for the Colt. His hand wrapped the butt gingerly, his forefinger slipping through the trigger guard as he pulled it free, his thumb joint clamping down on the reluctant cock of the hammer spring. He did not raise it, holding it pointed toward the floor.