Warlock

by Oakley Hall

  At last Peach’s eyes fixed themselves upon me with an enraged and defiant glare, and he cried, “Has headquarters sent out some more damned politicians to try to run my brigade for me, sir?”

  I stammered that we were a deputation from Warlock with urgent business for his attention, to which he retorted even more forcibly that I was to tell them that the damned devil had hidden himself in the Sierra Madre and he could do nothing unless he was given permission to cross the border in pursuit. “Nothing, damn his red eyes!” he cried, while Will, Buck, and I tried to explain where we were from and something of our mission. Finally either some sense broke through or we were mistaken for still other emissaries, for all of a sudden we were swept into the inner temple beyond Whiteside’s desk.

  It is a great room with westward-looking windows, crowded with the mementos of his career: an umbrella stand in which are tattered banners, bullet-torn regimental colors, a pair of confederate standards; on the wall a large painting of the Battle of the Snake River Crossing, with Peach leading his men through Lame Deer’s painted ranks and the teepees beyond them; on the wall also a varnished plaque on which was the scalp of some vanquished foe, with long, dusty braids; and there were quivers of arrows, moth-eaten war bonnets, Apache shields, war clubs, peace pipes, and framed photographs of Peach shaking hands with various chieftains. Upon his desk was the leather-wrapped stick he often carries, which is supposed to be the shaft of an arrow that almost killed him. The whole room seems a dusty and unkempt museum, or perhaps it is only a facsimile of his mind—a vacant space, inhabited by heroic memories.

  Peach seated himself behind his desk, swept off his hat and flung it over the inkstand, stripped off his gauntlets again, transfixed us with his glittering, pale eyes, and said that he sympathized with our position, but that he could only fight a defensive campaign until those damned, do-nothing politicians in Washington decided to put it up to the Mexican government, and that there was no way, at present, he could go after the “murdering red rascal.”

  I was, I remember, terrified lest Buck or Will blurt out that Espirato is presumably dead, and any threat from his renegades extremely improbable. They did not, however, and stood as stupefied as I, while Peach arose and paced the floor in an agitated manner. His actions are a series of mechanical and fustian gestures, each one anticipated by a slight pause, as though, inside him, gears and levers prepare the proper muscles for their roles—almost you can hear the whirr of the aged and imperfect clockwork. Then he will toss his head as though flinging back from his eyes the mane of white hair he no longer possesses (he is quite bald except for a matted ruff that gives his head the broad, flattened look of a badger’s), fold his arms with massive dignity, and stare down his nose; or fling himself into his chair with a crash that seems sure to smash it, or rise out of it with labored gruntings. He paces the floor with his hands locked behind his back like a man in a prison cell, or stands glaring at nothing with his great boots spread splay-footed apart and a hand held Bonaparte-like within his blouse, or strokes his beard with the expression of one giving birth to an infinitely cunning stratagem. Now, I find, I am able to sort out these various poses and attitudes one by one; yet, at the time, accompanied by the steely glare of his small, bright, mad eyes, there was a kind of majesty about them.

  But it is a variety of dumb-show. The words that accompany these postures and gestures have no relation to them. The mildest words may be set to the most violent gesticulation, and conversely. His speech, gushing from the rusted pipes within him, is of the most monumental and dreadful nonsense.

  From time to time poor Whiteside appeared at the door, to be waved away with irritable condescension. At least, when I was able to get a word in edgewise, I sought to tell the General of the plight of Warlock. He let me speak, flinging himself down in his chair again and studying me the while with his bearded chin propped upon his fist, and on his face an expression of terrible dismay, as though I were relaying to him news of some dreadful defeat and rout. But presently his attention wavered, and his eyes began to flicker confusedly around the room—and I to falter in my speech as the impression grew stronger that not a word of what I said was understood, and, moreover, if it had been, would be of no more import to him than reports of injustices among the sparrows to a Zeus brooding over Troy. Buck was of no assistance, paralyzed into dumbness, and Will has confessed that all his energies were taken with stifling a fit of giggles which had smitten him as though he were a schoolboy in church.

  I was reduced, in the end, to stammering like a schoolboy myself. Peach made interjection only once. He reared back in his chair, frowning at something I said, took up his hat from the inkwell and cast it to the floor, snatched up a pen and scribbled furiously upon a piece of paper, and stared down at what he had written with an awesome concentration. Then he threw down the pen also, and muttered, “By God, if they come around that way, Miller and half a company could—”

  It finished me. Buck gave me a wild, desperate glance. Will had already turned to go, and I retreated also, uttering apologies, statements that perhaps we should return another time, etc., that must have sounded as eccentric and irrational as what we had heard from him. But he spoke calmly behind us, saying, “Warlock,” as though my explanations had won through at last.

  He was standing behind his desk now, glowering at us from under the white bushes of his eyebrows with eyes that looked sane at last, “Tell him he is getting too big for his boots,” he said. “Tell the scoundrel I am governor here. Tell—” he said, and once again confusion showed in his eyes and he was lost. But still he made an effort to recover his train of thought. He slapped a hand down on his desk and said we were to tell Whiteside we were to have fresh mounts and the best Indian Scouts he could furnish us!

  We left the room. Before Whiteside’s desk there was still the clutter of aides and orderlies. Whiteside, writing busily, took no notice whatever of our exit, and we had nothing to say to him, nor to John Gannon, whom we met outside the courthouse and who seemed anxious to ingratiate himself with us. We ignored his overtures and walked back to the hotel more in awe than in black depression. “Mad as a hatter,” was all Buck could say, and it has seemed to me an understatement of shattering proportions.

  We determined to send our telegrams to Washington, as we had been directed to do, all else failing. The wording had been set down, and we engaged ourselves in copying them out, and, further, in making up a statement in the form of a letter which Askew had offered to print for us, to be sent by mail to follow our telegrams, expanding upon our grievances. Whereupon Whiteside burst in on us (for we had made our threats to him before we had seen the General), seized a copy of the telegram, read it, and burst out with the most astonishing threats against us should we send them. He said he would hale us into military court and prosecute us to the full extent of his power, which he hinted was substantial; he said further that he would have us arrested immediately, that he would have the telegraph office closed down, etc. We were in no mood to be frightened, however, and said we knew perfectly well he could not arrest us, and that, if the telegraph office was closed to us, we would travel on to Rincon to send our telegrams.

  Threats failing, he turned to pleading; his motivation was plain, and, indeed, he stated it. Obviously he is insanely loyal to his insane chief. The General is old, he said; a famous man, a great man, but failing now, obviously dying. Could we not see that he was a dying man? Could we not wait a little while? Will said that it looked to him as though Peach might live forever, and that we would not, Warlock remaining in its present state. Whiteside is not much impressed with the importance of Warlock or its inhabitants, but sought our sympathy and strove desperately not to offend us. He turned to procrastination. Give him a little time; a month or six weeks. General Peach was failing rapidly, he could see it day by day. The General had certain prejudices against Warlock, but if we gave him, Whiteside, six weeks, he would see that the necessary orders were given for the issuance of a town patent, and, indeed,
the establishment of another county with Warlock, of course, the county seat (here I saw Buck’s eyes light up). He would do his utmost to bring the General to these dispositions, but, that failing, would forge the General’s name as he has evidently already done on various minor administrative documents.

  I think we were all moved with pity for Whiteside. At any rate we promised to wait six weeks, after which, if he failed us, we would bombard Washington with letters and telegrams detailing All. Whiteside thanked us most gratefully, and retired, and we drank a bottle of whisky together, most grim and depressed, wondering how many men we might have condemned to death in this delay and subjection of the public good to one man’s already engorged reputation. And I found myself wondering what we might be doing to Blaisedell’s reputation, which is precious to us, by making this concession to Peach’s, which is not.

  We could comfort ourselves only in the hope, and I pray it is a legitimate one, that we had more to gain by enlisting Whiteside’s aid than by offending him, and that, though our telegrams could easily become lost among bureaucratic desks and wastebaskets, unsent they became a spur to hasten Whiteside to action.

  Will and Buck have gone off to their own rooms, to their own dreams or nightmares. Bright’s City is gay tonight outside my window. I can feel strongly a difference in the atmosphere here, the presence of order and of the knowledge of, and trust in, order. Is it too much to hope that Warlock will be like this one day? Or will our mines play out and our town dissolve to an abandoned ruin before it has even come to peace?

  We will return to Warlock, I am afraid, despite Whiteside’s promises, with heavy hearts and guilty ones, and with little appetite for the explanations we will have to give our fellows.

  42. MORGAN IS DEALT OUT

  SITTING on the bed in his room in the hotel, Morgan unfolded the piece of stiff paper with steady fingers. He glanced up once at the frightened face of Dechine, in from San Pablo, and then held the paper under the lamp. The words were printed in large, carefully shaped letters:

  3-7-77

  CLAY BLAISEDELL

  FOR THE FOUL MURDER

  OF WILLIAM GANNON

  AND CHARLES BURNE

  3-7-77

  BY THE HAND OF

  ABRAHAM MCQUOWN

  CHIEF OF REGULATORS

  “What am I going to do, Tom?” Dechine whined. “Jesus, what am I going to do?”

  Morgan refolded the paper carefully. Then, holding it with his thumb and forefinger at one end, snapped it open again with a loud pop. Dechine flinched.

  “How many have you got?”

  “Ten of them,” Dechine said. He rubbed his red nose. “Jesus! Three or four of them I’m supposed to post up somewheres—by the stage depot there, and by the Lucky Dollar and Goodpasture’s store. The rest’s for him, and you, and Buck, and some others—I got a list here.” He made motions toward a vest pocket. “I am supposed to see he gets one, for sure. Jesus, what am I going to do, Tom?”

  Morgan studied the paper again. It was neatly done. He felt a kind of admiration for McQuown, that he had listed only Billy Gannon and Curley Burne. McQuown had known the cards that were high in Warlock; they were higher still with Clay, though McQuown could not have known that. McQuown had been smart enough not to overload a thing. Well, Clay, what do we do now? he said to himself.

  Dechine’s voice rattled in his ears. “I was going to chuck them off somewheres and just make tracks. Give him one! Then I thought I’d bring them up here for you to see, Tom. I—”

  “Who spelled them out like this for McQuown?”

  “Joe Lacey. He can write good. Jesus, Tom! What am I going to do?”

  “Like you were told. If you don’t, Joe Lacey will just have to run up another batch.”

  “Oh, no! I am getting right on out of the territory. I know God-damn well I’m not going to give one of these to Blaisedell.” Dechine’s shoulders were hunched as though he were afraid someone was standing behind him; gingerly he placed the stack of papers on top of Morgan’s bureau. “I told Abe straight out that I wasn’t going to do it, but there’s no talking to him. He has got a look on him like he’s been chewing peyote berry. So I thought I’d just make like I was going to, and get scarce fast and far. I know I—”

  “When are they coming in?”

  “Not right away, I don’t expect. There was everybody there drinking and jawing when I left, but they was laughing there how they would let Warlock stew awhile. I guess not right off. They are all coming, though; that bunch the Haggins rounded up for MacDonald, and all Abe’s people this time. The old man even—they are going to bring him in the wagon to see the sport. You should have heard the old son of a bitch! But not me, no sir! Tom, I am not going to post up those damned things!”

  “Put them out. If you don’t they’ll just have to send somebody else to do it.” He folded the paper again. His hands remained steady, but there was a taste of copper in his mouth as he wondered what Clay would do. But there was no way of stopping these, or others like them, from showing up.

  “I don’t know whether I am scareder of Blaisedell or Abe, which,” Dechine went on. “Abe is on the prod for a caution!” He hesitated and licked his lips, his eyes flickering. “Well, I guess I ought to tell you, Tom. They almost put you down there too. But Abe said not. They was thinking of putting you and Blaisedell down for killing that Cletus—”

  “Who?” Morgan said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Well, he was that passenger that got killed that time Pony and Cal shot up the Bright’s City stage there. Abe was trying to figure on some way to make like you and Blaisedell did it, or just him. But finally Abe decided this was all he’d put there. I tell you he has gone crazy wild down there, and it’s not just over Curley either. Jesus, Tom, I will be glad to get out of this country. This country has went to hell. I’ll say this straight out, Tom, even knowing Blaisedell is a friend to you. And even if I have known Abe and liked him too. There’s times I’ve hoped to God they would come to it and burn each other dead so a man could get his breath out here again!”

  Dechine jammed his hat on his head, and said, “I wonder if you couldn’t give me a little stake, Tom?”

  “Why, surely. How much do you owe me—five or six hundred? Take that.”

  “Tom, I—” Dechine swung around to face the door as footsteps sounded, on the stairs, in the corridor. There was a knock.

  “Tom?” Clay said.

  “Come on in,” Morgan said, and grinned at Dechine.

  Dechine backed into the corner and took off his hat and began wrenching it between his hands. Clay glanced toward him as he entered.

  Morgan handed Clay the piece of paper.

  “I was nothing to do with it, Marshal!” Dechine cried. “They would have cold-cocked me there if I didn’t bring these in! But I brought them straight to Tom here!”

  “I thought you were in a hurry to get moving, Dechine.”

  Dechine made a sound like a leaky pump. He edged toward the door, nodding ingratiatingly; he went down the stairs at a heavy-footed run.

  Clay stood reading the paper for what seemed a very long time. Finally he said, “The old vigilante sign. Three feet wide by seven long, by seventy-seven inches deep.” And then he said, “Chief of Regulators.” He folded the paper carefully.

  “They are all coming in,” Morgan said. “Those that were Regulators for MacDonald and more besides.”

  “Fair enough,” Clay said.

  “What are you going to do?” Morgan said evenly. “Run for it?”

  “Not for McQuown.”

  “What are you going to do?” he repeated, not so evenly. “Lie down and die?”

  “Not for McQuown,” Clay said. Suddenly he grinned. He looked like a boy when he grinned like that, and he said, “Have you got any whisky, Morg?”

  “Have,” Morgan said. He got it and poured two glasses. “How?” he said, and chuckled with excitement.

  “How,” Clay said, nodding, and they drank together.

&
nbsp; “Remember that time in Fort James when Hynes and that bunch got the drop on you?”

  “Well enough,” Clay said. He sat down, taking off his hat and dropping it on the floor beside him. His fair hair looked gold in the lamplight. “I swear, Morg, you were a sight coming out through those batwing doors. It looked like you had about six arms going like a windmill and a gun in every hand. I thought they would tramp each other to pieces getting out of there, and you and me yelling and shooting up the air behind them.”

  Clay sounded excited, and reenforced his own excitement; he had never felt so pleased, or proud. But then Clay looked down at his lap, and frowned as he said, in a different voice, “There was some good times in Fort James.”

  “Well, it looks like you will need some help again this time.”

  He saw Clay’s hand tighten around the glass of whisky he had not finished. “No,” Clay said. “I won’t need help, Morg.”

  Morgan swung away to face the window. The full moon hung in it like a jack-o’-lantern. All the pocks showed on the round, gold, blind face. He felt as though he could not get his breath as he stood there, following through Clay’s thoughts, trying to understand Clay’s judgment. It seemed a judgment on him, and it was something he had never known Clay to do before.

  His voice sounded very flat when he spoke. “Clay, do you think it is just McQuown coming in? It is all San Pablo.”

  “It is between McQuown and me.”

  “Surely. The rest will faint at the sight of those gold-handles.”

  He heard the paper rustle behind him. “I won’t need help this time, Morg,” Clay said.

  Damned fool, he thought, not even angrily; damned fool. But there was no use in calling Clay a damned fool, no use arguing. He saw what he must do. He had told Kate he would not throw Clay down, but he must throw him down this time.