When Bush left the corral they were dismounting. He went to find Blaisedell, and met Carl Schroeder and Paul Skinner coming out of the Boston Café. Schroeder told him to go on and tell Blaisedell. Blaisedell was shaving in his room at the General Peach. Bush told him, and the marshal only asked where they were and said he would be along directly, and went on shaving.
Bush went back then, and told some others he met that the cowboys had come in. There was already a good-sized crowd of people collected at the corner of Southend and Main, by Goodpasture’s store.
II
(From the testimony of Deputy Carl Schroeder)
It was a little after nine o’clock when Deputy Schroeder saw the marshal come around the corner from the General Peach. Blaisedell wasn’t wearing a coat and he had on his pair of gold-handled Colts. It was the first time, so far as Schroeder knew, that anybody had seen them in Warlock.
He told Blaisedell that there were three of them, and said he stood ready to help any way he could, but Blaisedell said, “Why, thank you, Deputy, but I guess it is my fight.”
Schroeder wanted to help, but it did not seem strange to him that the marshal did not accept him. He was no gunman, he knew that.
Blaisedell went on up the center of Main Street toward Southend. There were four or five horses tied to the rail along by the Lucky Dollar, and some men there. A few of them called out to Blaisedell as he passed, warning him to watch out and wishing him well. A wind had come up and dust was blowing, which was worrisome. Schroeder didn’t see Morgan till Morgan was out in the street and buckling on his shell belt as he ran after the marshal.
III
(From the testimony of S. W. Brown, proprietor of the Billiard Parlor.)
Sam Brown was standing before the Lucky Dollar with some others when he saw Morgan run out of the Glass Slipper, vault the rail, and, with his vest flapping and buckling his shell belt on, run after Marshal Blaisedell.
The marshal was walking straight up the street toward the corner, and men were calling out to him such things as, “Don’t give those cowboys any break this time, Marshal” and “Watch out for some trick of McQuown’s, now,” “We are holding for you, Blaisedell,” and “Good luck, Marshal!”
The marshal didn’t act like he heard any of it. He didn’t look worried, though. He had on his gold-handled pair everybody had heard about, and they looked fine in the sunshine. His shirt sleeves were gartered up like a bank clerk’s. He was a sight to see, plowing toward the corner of Southend Street. Morgan caught up with him before he got there.
Brown heard Morgan say, “Hey, wait for a man!” Morgan fell into step beside the marshal. He had his shell belt hooked on now, and he was coatless like Blaisedell. Usually Morgan wore a shoulder gun, but it seemed more proper to see him this way, and he and the marshal looked pair enough to go against any three cowboys.
He heard Morgan say, “I am always one for a shooting match.” Blaisedell said, “It is none of your fight, Morg,” and Morgan said, as though he was hurt, “That is a hell of a thing to say to me, Clay!”
They went on up the street to the corner and Morgan was still talking, but by then they were out of Brown’s hearing.
IV
(From the testimony of Oliver Foss, driver for the Warlock Stage Co.)
Oliver Foss was on the corner by Goodpasture’s store, along with Buck Slavin, Pike and Paul Skinner, Goodpasture, Wolters, and some others, when the marshal and Morgan walked up Main Street. There was a wagon coming up Southend, Hap Peters driving a team of mules. Dust was blowing from the team and wagon and there was a dog running and yelping at an offside wheel. Foss called to Hap to hurry it along because the dust was bad and it had better have time to clear before the marshal went down to the Skinner Brothers’ corral.
Foss couldn’t see into the Acme, where Billy Gannon, Pony Benner, and Luke Friendly were supposed to be. He heard Morgan say to the marshal, “Maybe there are only three, or maybe there is a nigger in the woodpile.” Morgan was grinning in that way of his, like he didn’t think much of anybody but Tom Morgan and didn’t mind rubbing it in either. They both stopped when Deputy John Gannon came at a run across from the jail, calling to the marshal.
John Gannon said to the marshal, “Can you give me five minutes to try and get them out?” He didn’t say it like he expected anything to come of it, and a man had to feel sorry for him.
Blaisedell said he had warned the road agents they weren’t to come into Warlock any more, but he didn’t move on right away and it sounded to Foss as though he were willing to listen to reason. Gannon said, “Marshal, give me five minutes and I will go down there and—” He didn’t finish saying what he would do; he talked in fits and starts, and he looked like he was chewing on something that had got gummed in his mouth. A man had to feel sorry for him. Finally he said to the marshal how he might disarm them, but by then his voice had got so low you could hardly hear it.
Blaisedell asked him if he thought he could disarm them but John Gannon didn’t answer, and Morgan nudged the marshal with his elbow. Then Gannon looked about to say something more, but he never did, and the marshal and Morgan went on down Southend Street, past the old, bowed-out corral fence there. Morgan walked spread out from the marshal a little, so when they came up even with the corral gate he and the marshal were about ten feet apart; and Morgan went on a few steps after the marshal had turned toward the corral gate, so he was a little behind and maybe ten or fifteen feet beyond the marshal when the two of them stood facing into the Acme.
It was a little while yet before the shooting started.
V
(From the testimony of Clay Blaisedell and of Thomas Morgan.)
When Clay Blaisedell and Thomas Morgan faced the gate of the Acme Corral, halfway across the street from it, they both saw Luke Friendly first. He stood on the south side of the corral about twenty feet inside. There were three horses tied behind him, and the one nearest him had a rifle in the boot on the near side. Friendly was bent forward so he looked smaller than he really was, and had his hands held out at his waist for a fast draw. Crouched like that, with his hands like that, he looked to be backing away, though he didn’t move. He looked to both Blaisedell and Morgan as though he didn’t much want a fight, now that he had stopped to think about it.
Billy Gannon stood in the center and Pony Benner on the north side, close by the gate. Billy Gannon was wearing two guns, Benner one. They were both outlined against the wall of the Billiard Parlor at the back of the corral. Dust was blowing straight out of the corral in gusts of wind, but both Blaisedell and Morgan noticed that a door to the Billiard Parlor there stood a little way open.
Blaisedell considered Billy Gannon to be the leader, though Benner might be the more dangerous one. Friendly was not much to worry about unless he went for the rifle in the saddle boot. Blaisedell called to Billy Gannon by name and said, “You don’t have to fight me, Billy.”
Billy didn’t answer. They could hear Benner cursing to himself. Morgan saw Friendly look toward the door to the Billiard Parlor and he said to Blaisedell behind his hand, “I will hold on that door. Don’t you worry about it.”
Blaisedell tried to talk to Billy Gannon again. “You don’t have to fight me, Billy. You and your partners just mount up and ride out.”
Billy said, “Go for your guns, you son of a b—!”
Blaisedell started moving forward then. He still thought the road agents might be backed out. This time he spoke to Benner. “Don’t make us kill you, boys. Clear on out of here.”