Текст книги "Warlock"

Автор книги: Oakley Hall

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Текущая страница: 35 (всего у книги 40 страниц)

The sergeant sighed and said, “Mick!” One of the troopers raised his carbine and started forward. Someone burst in the door behind him.

It was a miner Gannon didn’t know; he had gnarled, discolored hands and a stubble of beard on his long, young face. He stopped for a moment, panting; then he thrust one of the troopers aside and leaped forward to hit Newman in the face with a long, awkward sweep of his arm. Newman yelled and fell back the length of the room, while the sheriff came to his feet with surprising swiftness and slammed the barrel of his Colt down above the young miner’s ear. The miner crumpled and fell, just as Newman, cursing, regained his balance and pulled the six-shooter from his belt. “Here!” the sergeant bellowed, and there was an outcry from the cell. Gannon jerked his Colt free and stepped toward Newman. The trooper named Mick caught the miner by the collar as he scrambled to his feet, and, with the sheriff’s help, thrust him into the cell with the others.

Newman backed up, staring at Gannon’s Colt. The sheriff came toward Gannon, pushed the gun barrel down with his fat hand, and took the key ring. The sheriff shook his head at him reprovingly. Newman’s nose was bleeding.

“Let’s get on, Mr. Newman,” the sergeant said, and Newman cursed and replaced his own six-shooter in his belt. He stamped on outside, holding a handkerchief to his nose. Gannon leaned against the wall and watched in silence and despair as the sergeant detailed one of the troopers to guard the cell, and, with the others, followed Newman outside. The one who remained stood before the cell door, scowling uneasily. The sheriff put the key ring on the table, and the judge hung it over the neck of the whisky bottle and brooded down at it.

The miners were whispering together in the cell as Gannon returned his Colt to its scabbard. “That was a foolish thing, Jimmy,” he heard the doctor say.

“It was not,” the young miner said shakily. He laughed, shakily. “Sheep up in the livery stable, goats in here. I’ll not be cheated now.”

The doctor said, “I thought you had learned to be careful with those hands.”

“Why, I guess there might be a day when having been in Warlock jail will be a big thing, Doc. There is more than one way to grow a goat’s beard.”

“You young pipsqueak,” old man Heck growled. “We are all goats today.”

“We are cossacks or peasants,” the doctor said, in a strong, clear voice. “How do you like it out there with the cossacks, George Holloway?”

The judge said nothing, and Gannon heard him sigh.

“Have they got Tittle yet, anybody heard?” one of the miners demanded. No one answered him. Another began to sing:

“Good-by, good-by,

Good-by to Warlock, good-by.

Here comes the cavalry, lickety-split,

Here comes MacDonald to give us a fit,

Oh, good-by, good-by,

Good-by, old Warlock, good-by!”

There was laughter. “Hush that up!” the trooper growled. The others immediately began to sing it, and the doctor’s voice was loudest among them.

“Looks like a fiesta down by Miss Jessie’s boarding house,” the sheriff commented, and Gannon joined him in the doorway. There was a huge crowd at the corner of Grant Street, extending out of sight down toward the General Peach.

Then there was a shot. He started out past the sheriff, but Keller grasped his arm tightly. “We’ll just stay here and wait it out, boy,” the sheriff said. “That is cavalry work down there and nothing to do with us. You and me will just sit it out right here, Johnny Gannon.”

61. GENERAL PEACH

I

THE troopers turned into Grant Street at a trot, eight of them, with a sergeant riding ahead beside the ninth horseman, who was Lafe Dawson. Townsmen watched them from the corner of Main Street as the dust slowly settled in their wake. The troopers carried carbines; they wore dark blue shirts, web cartridge belts, and lighter blue trousers. Beneath their flat caps their faces were bronzed, clean-shaven, and expressionless. A bugle sang off toward the west end of town.

The troopers reined to a halt in a semicircle before the porch of the General Peach boardinghouse. The sergeant dismounted, and, on short calipers of legs, started for the steps. He stopped as Miss Jessie Marlow appeared on the porch. He and Lafe Dawson, who had also dismounted, removed their hats.

“Miss Jessie,” Dawson said. “We are sorry to trouble you, but that Tittle is wanted. These fellows have come after him, and—”

“He is not here any more,” Miss Jessie said. She stood very straight before the thick shadow of the doorway, with her brown ringlets shining in the sun, her hands clasped before her.

“Well, now, not to be doubting you, ma’am – but these men have orders to look everywhere for him.”

The sergeant said politely, “Why, you’ll not mind if we look around in there for him, will you, lady?” He had a wizened, dark, Irish face like a dried apple.

“Yes, I mind. There are sick men in here and I will not have your soldiers tramping around disturbing them. You will have to take my word that Tittle is no longer here.”

Dawson muttered to himself. The sergeant scratched his head and said, “Well, we can’t do that, lady, you see,” but he did not move forward.

“Now, see here, Miss Jessie,” Dawson said impatiently. “I am sure he isn’t here if you say so. Except it’s General Peach’s orders we are to round up all the strikers from the Medusa, and I knowthere’s some of them in there. Now you don’t want to interfere with these men trying to do their duty, do you?”

The sergeant signaled with his hand and the troopers dismounted. At the corner of Main the crowd filled the street now, watching silently.

“Will you use force on a woman, Sergeant?” Miss Jessie said.

The sergeant carefully did not look at her as the troopers came forward to join him. Dawson moved toward the steps. Then he stopped, and his hands rose shoulder high as he stared past Miss Jessie. The sergeant and the troopers stared. Blaisedell stood in the shadow just inside the entryway.

“Now, see here, Marshal,” Dawson whispered, as though to himself. He dropped his hands slowly to his sides. The sergeant glanced sideways at him. One of the troopers tilted the muzzle of his carbine up; the man beside him struck it down. There was a rustle of whispering from the townsmen at the corner, and titters. Miss Jessie stood gazing down at Dawson and the troopers, her mouth a pinched, severe line.

The sergeant looked at Dawson with one grizzled eyebrow hooked up interrogatively, and a ghost of a smile.

“Well, let’s leave this for now, Sergeant,” Dawson said, and swung up onto his horse again. The sergeant replaced his cap and waved the troopers back. In silence, they all remounted and rode back up Grant Street the way they had come. The crowd at the corner parted to let them pass through, and, when they had disappeared into Main Street, someone uttered a low, tentative Apache war cry.

Miss Jessie Marlow went back inside the General Peach.

II

The miners stood in silent, stolid groups, in the dining room, in the hall, on the stairs, watching Miss Jessie as she closed the door behind her and put her hand on Blaisedell’s arm.

“God bless you and the marshal for that, Miss Jessie!” Ben Tittle said, leaning on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs.

“Looks like they might be back, though,” another miner said.

Blaisedell and Miss Jessie stood at right angles to each other in curiously stiff attitudes; she facing him with her great eyes wide as though she had seen a vision, her breast rising and falling rapidly with her breathing and her hand nervously fondling the locket that hung around her neck; Blaisedell facing toward the stairs with his bruised face remote and frowning, his round chin set beneath the broad sweep of his fair mustache.

“I guess they are rounding everybody up,” Harris said, in a hushed voice. “I am just as glad I’m not a Medusa man today.”

“Ben!” Miss Jessie said suddenly. “I want your head bandaged over like Stacey’s, and you are to lie down in Stacey’s bed. Stacey will have to go down to one of the houses in Medusa Street; he can walk well enough.” She spoke to Stacey. “You help him. Quickly, now!”

Tittle said, “Miss Jessie, I’ll not have you and Mr. Blaisedell getting in any mess trying to—”

“Hurry!” she snapped. He turned and hobbled painfully back down the hall, Stacey, with his bandaged head, following him. Blaisedell was watching Miss Jessie. The other miners stirred uneasily.

“That was an Orangeman, that sergeant,” O’Brien said from the stairs. “I can smell an Orangeman.”

“Are you going to try to stop them from coming in here, Miss Jessie?” Bardaman asked. But he was looking at Blaisedell.

Jones laughed shrilly. “You surely scared that bunch off, Marshal!”

Blaisedell shook his head a little, and frowned more deeply. Miss Jessie was looking from face to face with her eyes blazing and the little muscles tugging at the corners of her mouth.

A bearded miner ran heavy-footed in through the dining room from the rear of the General Peach. “Miss Jessie! They have caught Doc and old Heck and Frenchy and Tim Daley and some others down at Tim’s house. The deputy’s got them there in the jail now. Boys, they are scouring the whole town! They have got wagons coming in and all the strikers are going to be transported out!”

There was an immediate uproar. It was a time before the bearded miner could make himself heard again “and the general himself’s here, Miss Jessie! They are going to shoot us down if we don’t—”

He stopped abruptly and all the others were silent as Miss Jessie raised a hand. “They will not bother you here,” she said calmly. She looked up at O’Brien, on the stairs. “Will you go up to a front window where you can see them coming? Let us know when you do. The rest of you are to go back to the hospital room.” She stood looking from face to face again until they all started down the hall, shuffling their feet but otherwise silent. Then with a glance at Blaisedell she went into her room, and he followed her.

III

There was a disturbance outside the General Peach, a mutter of voices, a crack of boots on the wooden steps and on the porch. A file of townsmen entered, carrying rifles and shotguns, with six-shooters holstered at their sides or thrust into their belts; their faces were set, their eyes excited – Pike and Paul Skinner, Peter Bacon, Sam Brown, Tim French, Owen Parsons, Hasty, Mosbie, Wheeler, Kennon, Egan, Rolfe, Buchanan, Slator. “Marshal!” Pike Skinner called, and immediately the miners reappeared, crowding silently back down the hallway. The door of Miss Jessie’s room opened and Blaisedell came out. Miss Jessie stood in the doorway behind him.

“Marshal,” the townsmen said, in a scattered greeting, and one or two removed their hats and said, “Miss Jessie.”

“Marshal,” Pike Skinner said. “It has come time for vigilantes, looks like.” His gargoyle’s face was earnest. “Marshal, we don’t know what to do but we heard you did and there is a bunch of us here that will back any play you want to make. And more coming. We’ll not see this thing happen in Warlock.”

“Fight if it comes to that,” Mosbie said.

“Ought to be a few of you jacks to make a fight of it, too,” Hasty said, nodding toward the miners crowded together in the hallway.

“As well as you people!” one of them cried.

“Well, we didn’t all come to make a fight,” Peter Bacon said. A chew of tobacco worked in his brown, wrinkled cheek. “But we will make a decent enough stand, and I guess fight if we have to do it.”

Blaisedell leaned on the door jamb. His intense blue eyes traversed the faces before him. He smiled a little.

Paul Skinner said, “Marshal, it is time folks in this town stood up to things some. You tell us how we’re to do, and we’ll do it.”

“They won’t fire when there’s a town full of us against them,” Kennon said. “It is a pitiful sight; they are stacking miners in my stable there like cordwood.”

Blaisedell still said nothing; Pike Skinner looked at Miss Jessie anxiously.

“We are with you, Marshal,” Sam Brown said, cracking the butt of his rifle down on the floor. “You lead us on and we’ll chase blue breeches right on back to Bright’s. We are with you sink or swim.”

“Or stuck in the mud,” Bacon said, sadly. “Marshal, the sheriff is down here and got Johnny Gannon hobbled. That couldn’t do anything anyway. But we are with you, U.S. Cavalry or not.”

“It is his place,” Miss Jessie said. Their faces all turned toward her. Blaisedell straightened.

Then they were all silent, watching Blaisedell.

All at once he grinned broadly. “Well, boys,” he said. “Maybe we can pull some weight here between us.”

There was a concerted sigh. “Why, now then!” Mosbie said.

“You want us in here or outside, Marshal?” Oscar Thompson asked.

“I’ll make my place on the porch there, if that’s all right with you boys. I don’t mean to take it on for myself, but it looks like if I can’t handle it without going to shooting maybe we all couldn’t.” His face turned grave again. “For if it came to shooting there’d be dead men and too many cavalry for us, and nothing gained in the end.”

“Except by God we fit the sons of bitches!” one of the miners cried in a high, cracked voice.

“You mean to bluff it, Marshal?” Wheeler said worriedly.

Pike Skinner said, “Don’t leave us out of it, Marshal!”

“Marshal,” Sam Brown said. He sounded embarrassed. “Well, Marshal, no offense, but – well, that time those jacks tramped you at the jail. I mean, a bluff’s a bluff, but—”

Blaisedell looked at him coldly. “You asked me how I wanted to do it,” he said. “I am telling you how. I am not going to fire on the U.S. Cavalry, or you either. Do you hear?” He gazed from face to face. “I said I will stand by on the porch here. I’ll ask the rest of you to do some climbing and get up on the roof of the barn, and the other places on down the street.” He grinned again, in a swift flash of teeth. “We will have the U.S. Cavalry surrounded and we’ll see if they don’t bluff.”

Tim French laughed out loud. “Why, if we could call old Espirato up from his grave we could hightail Peach out of here at a run!” The others laughed.

“No shooting!” Blaisedell said sharply. “Now maybe you had better move, boys.”

“Squads left!” Paul Skinner said, and limped toward the door. The others started after him.

“General!” someone called back. “Send up chuck now and then, and we will hold out for a month.” They tramped out, laughing and talking excitedly.

“Let them have their fun,” a miner said bitterly. “They don’t want any help from us.”

“Looks like we are having it from them, though,” Bardaman said. “Marshal, you sure you know what you are doing?”

“No,” Blaisedell said, in a strange voice. “No man ever is.”

“You had better get your six-shooters, Clay,” Miss Jessie said. She said it as though she were the general, after all, and turned back inside her room as Blaisedell started for the stairs. Three miners who stood there glanced at him covertly, each in turn, as he mounted the steps past them.

“I hope MacDonald’s black soul rots in hell,” a miner in the hallway said. “And General Peach with him.”

“Amen.”

“This might be a fine show here today,” the bitter one said. “But we will get shipped further and harder for it.”

“Shut up,” Bardaman said. “It’s a show worth it, isn’t it?”

They were silent again as Blaisedell came back down the stairs. He had taken off his coat, and was bareheaded. The sleeves of his fine linen shirt were gartered on his upper arms, pulling the cuffs free of his wrists. He wore two shell belts, two holstered Colts hung low on his thighs. Their gold handles gleamed in the light as he threw the front door open.

“The best show there is,” Bardaman whispered, to the miner next to him. Miss Jessie came to stand behind Blaisedell in the doorway and they watched the men appear on the rooftops across the street.

There was a yell from upstairs. Boots thumped in the upstairs hall; O’Brien yelled from the top of the stairwell, “Marshal! Here they come! It is the whole damned army!”

IV

The troopers made their way down Grant Street with difficulty through the crowd that had collected. There were more than thirty of them, and with these were MacDonald, on a white horse, and Dawson and Newman from the Medusa. At the head of the troop were a major and a young captain. A still younger lieutenant rode beside Dawson. The crowd jeered and cheered as they came through. MacDonald toppled in his saddle as someone pulled on his leg, and there was a burst of laughter. MacDonald lashed out with his quirt, blindly, for his hat had slipped forward over his eyes. His left arm was folded into a black sling.

“Mister Mac!” someone shouted. “You have got yourself a passel of new foremen!”

There was more laughter. The lieutenant grinned sheepishly, the captain looked angry; the major was glancing up at the men on the rooftops along Grant Street, and their weapons. MacDonald spurred the white horse toward the porch of the General Peach, where Blaisedell stood, with Miss Jessie Marlow behind him in the doorway.

“This is the United States Cavalry, Marshal!” he cried. As soon as he spoke the crowd fell silent. “You interfere at your own peril! Major Standley has orders—”

Blaisedell’s voice boomed out, drowning MacDonald’s. “Can’t be the U.S. Cavalry. They would not ride down here to do your blackhearted work for you, MacDonald. Own up, now, boys; what quartermaster wagon did you rob for those blue shirts?”

There was another roar of catcalls and laughter. The major raised his hand and the troopers halted. He said, not loudly, “Mr. Blaisedell, we are here under orders to arrest all the strikers from the Medusa mine, and we propose to search this house for a man named Tittle. You won’t be fool enough to try to stop us?” He was a plump man with a half-moon of faded blond mustache and eyelashes that looked white in his dark face.

“Why, yes,” Blaisedell said, and laid his hands flat against his holsters. “I am fool enough.”

“We have orders to shoot if we have to, Marshal!”

“Why, I can shoot too, Major!”

There was a shout of approbation from the crowd. It ceased immediately as Blaisedell raised a hand for quiet. He pointed a finger at the major. “You will be first, Major. Then you, MacDonald. Then you, Captain. Then I will take those two they couldn’t find britches to fit,” he said, indicating Dawson and Newman. “And then you, young fellow, if you don’t mind waiting your turn.”

“You won’t get that far!” the captain shouted furiously. He rose in his stirrups. “Major—”

The major motioned to him to be silent and said, “You are now in armed rebellion against the United States government. Do you realize that, sir?”

Blaisedell stood with his arms hanging loosely at his sides, his fair hair gleaming in the sun. Behind and to the right of him Miss Jessie stood straight and proud, with her chin held high.

“Major,” Blaisedell said. “The United States government was got in armed rebellion before either of us was born. And got for one thing by people wanting to keep soldiers from busting through the houses they lived in, if I remember my history books right.”

“ Hear, hear!” someone cried hysterically. The captain swung his horse and spurred it toward the crowd. There was a rising clamor. A number of whores from the Row had gathered on the far side of Main Street and now the shouting had a higher pitch to it, as they added their voices to the rest.

“—a woman behind you so no man can shoot!” MacDonald was heard to cry.

“And a troop of cavalry behind you, Mister Mac!” Hasty called, from the roof of the Feed and Grain Barn.

The major said, “You are held in some respect, Marshal; but no man can bluff the army. I advise you to stand aside before this has gone too far!”

“Bluff?” Blaisedell said grimly. “Why, I advise younot to find out whether it is a bluff or not.”

“ Marshal!” Pike Skinner bellowed, and instantly there was a flat, echoing crack. A trooper’s hat flew off. Blaisedell stood wreathed in smoke, one of his Colts in his hand. In the silence, as the smoke blew apart, he said harshly, “Throw it down, sonny.” The trooper, who had raised his carbine, pitched it from him as though it were red hot. He raised a hand to feel his bare head. MacDonald’s horse was pitching and side-stepping. The captain cursed. The major backed his horse away from the porch. Miss Jessie had disappeared.

The major shouted to make himself heard. He raised a gauntleted hand and the troopers with one movement brought their carbines to the ready. Blaisedell unholstered his other Colt, aimed one at the major, one at MacDonald. Otherwise he did not move, except to glance quickly around as Miss Jessie reappeared. She had a derringer in her hand; another wild shout went up. Some of the troopers lowered their carbines. The major looked frozen with his hand still raised.

“Major, you will go down like Custer!” Pike Skinner shouted. The men on the rooftops had their weapons pointed down on the troopers in the street. Peter Bacon spat tobacco juice onto the cap of a trooper below him.

“You are surrounded, you blue-leg bastards!” Mosbie bellowed enthusiastically. “We will cut hair today, if you fire on those two.”

The major swung his horse around and snapped an order. The lieutenant saluted; with eight of the troopers in line behind him he trotted south down Grant Street, and there dismounted with his men, where they could cover the men on the roofs, some of whom now knelt behind the parapets. The major’s face was shining with sweat.

There was a new disturbance in the crowd packed into Main Street. “Shame!” a woman’s voice cried shrilly. “Shame on the United States Cavalry! Shame, General Peach! Shame—”

“Peach!” someone yelled.

“Here comes the general!”

He appeared at the corner, with another officer behind him. The crowd gave way before him. “Shame!” the shrill voice cried. “Shame! Shame!” General Peach did not appear to notice. He looked huge on his great gray horse; he rode heavily, slumped in the saddle. His white beard lay against his chest, his blouse was unbuttoned, and an unlit cigar jutted from his mouth like the bowsprit of a sailing ship. His great, black, broad-brimmed hat flapped with the motion of the gray’s pace. One side of his hat was pinned to the crown with a silver eagle and there were great yellow eagles on the rear corners of his shabrack. He carried a leather-bound stick in his hand. The townspeople in the street thrust aside, and the gray horse came down the alleyway between them at a slow walk. Behind him rode Colonel Whiteside, a frail, worried-looking man with gray mutton-chop whiskers.

“ Shame!” the voice continued to cry, increasingly hoarse. “Shame, General Peach! Oh, shame! Shame!” There were a few catcalls, a gobbling Apache cry. General Peach did not even move his head.

The captain saluted. The major spurred forward to speak to General Peach, but the general ignored him and the gray horse continued steadily forward, with Whiteside close behind. Peter Bacon spat over the parapet again, while Pike Skinner rose to his feet, with his shotgun over his arm. Blaisedell moved only to replace his six-shooters in their scabbards where one of the golden butt-inserts caught the sun like a flame. Miss Jessie stepped slowly to the far side of the porch, the hand holding the derringer at her side.

General Peach reined to a halt close to the steps of the boarding house that bore his name. He spoke in a huge, hollow, reverberating voice. “A long-haired gunman and a pretty woman with a pretty ankle and a pretty little derringer.”

Having said it, he sat more erectly in the saddle, blinking sleepily. His eyes looked too small for his broad, squat, fleshy face, his mouth was a pinched dark hole in his beard. He raised his leatherbound stick and scratched behind his ear with its tip. His beard blew and his hat flapped in a gust of wind that ruffled Blaisedell’s hair as well.

“All right!” Now there was an edge of anger to the great, blown voice. “You have made your show—” He did not go on, slumping in the saddle again, as though speech had tired him. He sat as though he were waiting for the two on the porch to disappear. There was silence except for the occasional stamp of a hoof or the jingle of harness among the troopers. Blaisedell did not move. Miss Jessie’s face looked drawn.

Colonel Whiteside edged his horse forward until he was almost in a line between the general and Blaisedell. “I’m sorry, Miss Marlow!” he said, in his high voice. “We will have to clear the strikers out of your house.”

“Have you a warrant, sir?” Miss Jessie said.

“We don’t need a warrant, ma’am. We—”

“I say you need a warrant. And I think there can be no warrant for this disgraceful conduct!”

“You stubborn little fool!” MacDonald cried. “This is the military government you are presuming to—”

“Mineowner’s government!” a thick Cornish voice shouted, and there was a roar of mocking laughter.

Someone yelled from the rooftops, “Sound the charge, bugler! It is Bull Run all over again.” General Peach rose in his stirrups and glanced slowly around him, and up at the roofs.

“We have no government here!” Miss Jessie cried. “Each of us has had to learn to defend his own house!”

“Hear, hear!”

“Shame, General Peach! Oh, shameon you!” The clamor began all around. Buck Slavin appeared on the roof of the Feed and Grain Barn. He climbed up on the parapet, waving his arms and shouting for silence.

“When are we going to get a town patent, General?” Slavin shouted. There were cheers. “When do we get a county of our own without the law a day’s ride away?” The cheering and whistling swelled and rose, while Slavin waved his arms again. Colonel Whiteside had swung around in his saddle, but General Peach sat staring stolidly at Blaisedell.

“When are we going to get a town patent, General?” Slavin shouted. There were cheers. “When do we get a county of our own without the law a day’s ride away?” The cheering and whistling swelled and rose, while Slavin waved his arms again. Colonel Whiteside had swung around in his saddle, but General Peach sat staring stolidly at Blaisedell.

“Mineowners’ law!” the man with the Cornish accent bellowed, and MacDonald rose in his stirrups to try to see the offender. There was jeering.

Slavin waved his arms for quiet. “People of Warlock!” he cried. “A motion! A motion! That we call our county Peach County in honor of the general. And Warlock the county seat! All in favor!”

There were groans mingled with cheers. “Medusa County!” someone cried, and the groans drowned the cheers. “Blaisedell County!” and the cheers drowned the groans. General Peach looked around as though he had been waked from sleep. The catcalls and the jeering grew louder and louder, there were rebel yells, Apache war cries. The general waved his gauntlet holding the leather-bound stick high above his head, and there was a sudden hush.

“A county of jackasses run by a murdering gunman and his doxy?” he said, in his huge voice. “Call it Espirato County for all of me!” Then, as there were boos, he shouted, “Standley, clear the damned jackasses out of the street!”

The major spurred his horse toward the crowd with obvious reluctance, the captain more eagerly. The troopers swept into line behind them, and, horses sidling forward, they pushed the townspeople back into Main Street. The Apache cry was taken up now throughout the crowd until the street was filled with turkey gobbling. General Peach sat glowering, chewing on his cigar. Whiteside was whispering to him.

He thrust the colonel aside with a motion of his stick. “Madam!” he roared. “You asked a minute ago if I had a warrant to go through your house. I ask you if you have a warrant to keep such a house!” He stopped, and waited; there was silence again. Then he said, “A disorderly house! A brothel for dirty miners complete with pimp and madam!”

He raised his stick and cut it viciously through the air, so that the gray shied. “Madam, you are a vile disgrace!” he shouted hoarsely. “And your macquereauwith his pistols has killed more decent men than the typhoid. Filth cohabiting with murderous vile filth and prostituting to filth! And time you were stamped out like filth! You are a notorious pair and a public scandal! I will give you and your—”

There was another flat violent crack, and smoke swirled up before Blaisedell again. The general’s raised gauntlet no longer contained the leather-bound stick. The troopers swung their horses around as the major shouted a command; a huge sigh rose from the crowd, an aghast and awed intake of breath that blew out instantly in one great cry of approval and triumph. Colonel Whiteside leaned forward in his stirrups with an arm stretched out toward the general and his mouth wide with some inaudible cry. General Peach snapped his fingers and pointed down, and the colonel dismounted and scampered around the gray to find the stick. The cheering grew louder. The general’s face was dark red.

Whiteside handed him back the stick, and then hurried to remount. The clamor slackened and died. General Peach continued in the same voice, as though he had not been interrupted at all. “—thirty seconds to get off that porch. And exactly one hour to get out of this town!”

Then he sat motionless and silent, slumped and sleepily blinking once more. He did not heed the colonel’s attempts to whisper to him, waving his stick finally as though to brush away a fly. Blaisedell stood facing him with his boots planted apart and his still smoking Colt slanting down in his hand. Slowly he replaced it in its scabbard, and Miss Jessie retreated a little, one hand still gripping the derringer at her side.

Then, all of a sudden, the general sat erect. Laboriously he swung himself out of the saddle. “Sir!” Whiteside whispered. “Sir!” He scrambled from his saddle and tried to intercept the general, who knocked him aside. General Peach tramped through the dust, grunted as he mounted the boardwalk, slapped the leather-bound stick against a black boot. His bootheel struck the first step resoundingly; he mounted the second step.

“Stop right there!” Blaisedell said.

General Peach stopped. He turned, on the step below where Blaisedell stood, to face his troops. He paused there a moment, in the frozen hush, moving his head from side to side as though he were going to speak. Then, with his back to Blaisedell, ponderously, powerfully, but not even swiftly, he swung his arm backhanded, swung the stick in his hand. It struck Blaisedell’s skull with a startling crack. Blaisedell staggered back.