Then Blaisedell said, “I remember when I killed a man the way you did the other day. And it was clear and had to be done, though I went home afterwards and puked my insides out. The way you did.” His voice sounded removed and musing, and, after another pause he went on again. “But there was a lesson I learned. It is that a man can’t ever be careful enough. Even careful as a person can be is not enough. For there will be a man you don’t want to come against you, and that shouldn’t, but all the same he will—”

He stopped and shook his head a little, and Gannon thought he had been speaking of Curley Burne.

Blaisedell said, “I knew a man once who said it was all foolishness — that if you want to kill a man, why, kill him. Shoot him down from behind in the dark if you want to kill him. But don’t make a game with rules out of it.”

This time it was Morgan; it hit Gannon like a picture slapped across his sight and then drawn back into focus so he could study it: Morgan standing masked in the doorway in the dark, and Abe McQuown with his back turned.

“But he doesn’t understand,” Blaisedell said. “It is not that at all, for you don’t want to kill a man. It is only the rules that matter. It is holding strict to the rules that counts.”

Blaisedell let his chair down suddenly, and the legs cracked upon the floor; he leaned forward with his face intent and strained, and Gannon felt the full force of his eyes. “Hold to them like you are walking on eggs,” he said. “So you know yourself you have played it fair and as best you could. As right as you could. Like you did with Haggin. I admired that, Deputy, for you did just what it was put on you to do, and did it well.”

Then the muscles along the edges of his jaw tightened. “So it was all clear for you,” he said, with the bitter edge to his voice again. “But there are things to watch for. Watch yourself, I mean. Don’t be too fast. I have been too fast two times in different ways, and it is why I asked you about Cade. For after the first time, there are people out after you, and you know it and worry it, unless you are not the worrying kind. So then, you think, if you don’t get drawn first and them killed first — do you see what I mean?”

Gannon nodded. He was being instructed, he knew, and this was a very precious thing to Blaisedell. He felt embarrassed as he had been once when his father had tried to instruct him about women. And he saw that Blaisedell was embarrassed, as his father had been.

“Well, I came in to try to tell you a couple of things, Deputy,” he said, in a different tone. “And a long time getting to it. A little thing I noticed watching you draw, for one.”

“What was that, Marshal?”

“Well, you lose a little time and your aim, too, flapping your hand out when you pull your piece free. I would put in a little practice bringing it up straight. Down straight with your hand, up straight with your piece. I saw you flapped your hand out a little, and though you center-shot him clean, you lost time. He lost aim. He flapped out so far he didn’t get the barrel back in line, was the reason he missed you.”

“I’ll remember. I hadn’t thought of that, Marshal.” He waited, tensely.

Blaisedell frowned. “The other thing,” he said. “It is something you ought to know, but I don’t know quite — Well, it is just something you have got to tell yourself every time. It is a kind of pride a man has to have, and it has got to be genuine. Has to. You will see when another man hasn’t got it. I mean, when a man thinks maybe you are faster and better than him, he is already through. You can see that, and those times you don’t have to hurry a shot, for he will more than likely miss. Like Curley missed,” he said, in a flat voice. “I knew he would miss.

“But it is more than that,” he said, frowning more deeply. “I don’t — I—”

“More than just that you are faster,” Gannon said.

Blaisedell looked relieved. “That’s it. It is just that you are better. A man has to be proud, but he has to have the reason to be proud to hold him. Genuine, like I said.” Blaisedell grinned fleetingly. “I guess you will understand me. It is a close thing out there, you and the other. But I mean it is like two parts of something are fighting it out inside — before there is ever a Colt’s pulled. Inside you. And you have to know that you are the part that has to win. I mean know it.”

“Yes,” Gannon said, for he saw that.

“There is no play-acting with yourself,” Blaisedell said. He got quickly to his feet, and stretched, and put on his hat and patted it. “Why, just some things I thought I could pass along, Deputy,” he said.

“Thank you, Marshal.” He rose too.

“Have you figured who killed McQuown yet?”

“There are a lot of people who could have done it.”

Blaisedell nodded gravely. Then he said, “Maybe you would have a whisky with me?”

“Why, yes, Marshal — I would like to.” He took up his own hat, and stood turning it in his hands. He had a feeling that Blaisedell knew exactly what he was going to say. “I’ve been wondering what Morgan is going to do, with the Glass Slipper burnt down.”

“I guess he is thinking of moving along,” Blaisedell said. “There is nothing to hold him here, with his place burned. He is one that likes a change.”

“Well, maybe it is better.”

Blaisedell’s eyes were cold as deep ice, and his voice was cold. “Maybe it is,” he said, and moved on outside.

Gannon took a deep breath and followed Blaisedell, who waited on the boardwalk. They started down toward the Lucky Dollar together, in silence. They had almost reached the corner when he realized that he was walking on Blaisedell’s right, when the gunman always walked to the right in order to keep his gun hand free; and then he knew that Blaisedell had chosen to have it that way.

50. JOURNALS OF HENRY HOLMES GOODPASTURE

May 14, 1881

MCQUOWN’s death, which would have been wildly celebrated here a few months ago, has set upon us a pall that is mitigated only in part by the pride we have felt in the emergence of a home-grown hero. The means of his death, for one thing — cowardly murder — and, for another, the meaninglessness of it. There should have been some meaning, some lesson, some sense of triumph. There was none.

Moreover, in the past weeks, it has been brought home to us that perhaps his champions were in part right, and that it was McQuown, who, although himself a rustler, kept order among the outlaws down valley, and confined their depredations to certain channels. He was not called the Red Fox for nothing. Control was necessary, organization brings control; therefore McQuown.

There has been a rash of petty rustling, and both the Redgold and Welltown stages were stopped by road agents within the last week alone. Blaikie has lost over a hundred head of stock, and one of his hands was wounded, not dangerously, by a crew of thieves he encountered. Burbage is incensed; McQuown was at least a man of honor, says he, indignantly. I, however, refuse to join in the general sainting of the outlaw. The border seems to be very tightly watched now, both by elements of the Mexican Army and Don Ignacio’s own vaqueros — it is said that he has declared war upon the rustlers who have harried him for so long, and will deal ruthlessly with any he can catch. Perhaps, in view of the border situation, McQuown died at the right time, or else, like those who have survived him, he might have had to turn to robbing his neighbors.

Gannon, resting on his laurels, has done nothing whatever since he dispatched Wash Haggin. Kennon does not like him, says he is a born coward and main-chancer, and only had the courage to fight Haggin because he knew Blaisedell would protect him. Buck Slavin defends him, but is losing patience. The judge, however, points out that Gannon is helpless to deal with a series of small and scattered raids in a hostile countryside, for he would have to be in constant motion with a posse increasingly difficult to assemble. The judge says that the situation will be alleviated only when backing is received from Sheriff Keller, and this will take place when outrage or notoriety have forced that worthy, or the General, to action. Perhaps Whiteside is seeing that wheels are being turned even now in our behalf; I doubt it to the bottom of my soul.