Billy Gannon yelled at them again to go for their guns, but did not start to draw his own yet, and Blaisedell kept moving forward. He thought he might get close enough to buffalo the boy, and then the others might fold. He had seen they had no stomach for it.
Morgan saw the door of the Billiard Parlor flung open, and yelled to Blaisedell. Blaisedell had seen it too, and he stepped sideways as a man with a Winchester showed there. He didn’t know that it was Calhoun till later. The man let fly with the rifle and Morgan fired back, three times. Those were the only times that Morgan fired. The man yelled and fell sprawled out into the corral. Morgan swung around to cover Friendly, in case Friendly thought of going for the rifle in the boot, but he could see that Friendly had lost interest in the whole business.
When Calhoun had fired from the back, Benner had started for his Colt, and Blaisedell drew and fired. Pony went back hard with his hat rolling off, and didn’t move again. Billy Gannon had looked back over his shoulder and seemed to be trying to dodge when the rifle went off. It sounded to Blaisedell as though he yelled, “No! No!” and when Billy turned back to face him he thought that Billy was going to put his hands up. But then Billy changed his mind, or else it had been a trick, and made his move. Blaisedell called his name again, but Billy was too close to count on his missing, and Blaisedell fired just as Billy got his six-gun clear of the holster. Billy spun around and dropped his Colt. His right arm was hanging broken, but he grabbed for his left-hand Colt and got a shot off.
Morgan saw Blaisedell stumble back, and jumped forward to try to get out from behind Blaisedell for a shot at Billy. But then Blaisedell fired again and Billy went down.
Friendly came running and yelling toward them with his hands held up. He caught hold of Blaisedell, crying out that he hadn’t had anything to do with Calhoun being there and hadn’t wanted anything to do with any of it. He was crying like a baby. They had made him come, he said, and he hadn’t had anything to do with robbing the stage.
Blaisedell shook him off and said, “Get to shooting or get out of town!”
Friendly went running back toward the horses, still holding his hands up. Morgan thought he looked like he was going to dive into the horse trough. He could see that Blaisedell had been shot in the shoulder, but it looked no more than a crease. He saw Billy trying to get his six-shooter out, where he had fallen on top of it.
Blaisedell walked over to Billy and took the Colt away just as he pulled it free. Billy said to him, “I could have killed you if they hadn’t done that.” And he said, “I didn’t know they was going to do that. Oh, the dirty sons of b--es!”
Morgan went over to the man who had fallen out the door of the Billiard Parlor and turned him over. He called to Blaisedell that it was Calhoun. Calhoun was already dead, and so was Benner. Friendly took out on his horse and went down Southend Street at a run.
Men were starting to come into the corral now, and Blaisedell called to them to get the doctor.
VI
(From the testimony of Deputy Carl Schroeder.)
Deputy Schroeder was one of the first into the Acme Corral after the shooting stopped. He saw Luke Friendly light out on his horse as though the fiends were after him. Pony Benner was dead just inside the corral gate and Blaisedell was standing by Billy Gannon, who was still alive. Blaisedell handed Schroeder Billy’s Colt, and pointed out another where Billy had dropped it. Blaisedell had been creased on the right shoulder and it was bleeding some.
Billy Gannon was gasping and choking, and Johnny Gannon ran in and knelt beside him. Blaisedell moved off then. Morgan was over toward the back of the corral, where Calhoun was lying dead on a little adobe walkway outside the open side door of Sam Brown’s Billiard Parlor. There was a rifle beside Calhoun. He was shot three times, once through the throat and the other two not a finger apart on the left side of his chest.
Schroeder asked Morgan if Calhoun had tried to ambush them from there, and Morgan said he had, and pushed Calhoun back over on his face with his foot.
Some others came over to look at Calhoun and congratulate Morgan, who moved off. A good lot of others were standing around Blaisedell. Dr. Wagner had shown up and was bending down over Billy Gannon, but anybody could see there wasn’t anything to do.
After a while the doctor went to bind up Blaisedell’s shoulder, and Johnny Gannon laid Billy flat on the ground. Then Gannon went up to Blaisedell, and some seemed to think there was going to be trouble, for they backed away. But Gannon only said to Blaisedell that Billy hadn’t known about Calhoun, and Blaisedell answered that he was sure of it.
Schroeder busied himself asking if anybody had seen Calhoun come in, or hiding in the Billiard Parlor or anything. The Billiard Parlor didn’t open till eleven o’clock, except Sundays, but Sam Brown told him the corral door was open sometimes in the mornings. Nobody had seen Calhoun at all, which didn’t particularly mean anything as far as he, Schroeder, was concerned; because the fact was that Calhoun had been in the Billiard Parlor to try to dry-gulch Blaisedell, and it didn’t have to be proved how he had got in there.
Maybe Billy Gannon and the rest of them hadn’t known about Calhoun being there in the Billiard Parlor; he didn’t see that it made any difference. For it was all McQuown’s doing, any man could tell that.
VII
(From the testimony of Lucas Friendly, cowboy.)
Lucas Friendly had come into town with William Gannon, Thaddeus Benner, and Edward Calhoun, to protest to Marshal Clay Blaisedell that they had been unfairly and illegally posted from Warlock.
They had not come in to make trouble. They had only wanted to reason with the marshal. There had been no cause for posting them out of Warlock, which everybody knew was illegal anyway, except that some people had got down on them and their friends. They had heard that the marshal was a reasonable man, and had felt they could convince him that they had had no part in the stage robbery of which they had been so foully accused, and justly acquitted by a Bright’s City jury. There had been some talk among them on the way up that their entrance into Warlock might be dangerous, but they had felt they had to talk it over with the marshal man to man.
Calhoun’s horse had gone lame just before they reached Warlock, so the rest of them had got into town ahead of him. They told Nate Bush to go for the marshal and ask him to come to the Acme Corral so they could talk. They had not wanted to go abroad in Warlock, fearing trouble with certain townsmen who were unjustly set against them, and edgy toward them.
Calhoun had arrived while Bush was gone. They waited a long time, but the marshal did not appear, so, fearing that Bush had gone astray, Calhoun had gone into the Billiard Parlor to try to find someone there to send for the marshal.
But just then the marshal came down Southend Street. When they saw Morgan with him they knew it looked bad, and he, Lucas Friendly, was sick to see the marshal with that high-roller and both clearly coming after trouble.
Both he and Billy Gannon tried to reason with Blaisedell, but the marshal only shouted at them to go for their guns, and called them foul names.
Billy was a hot-headed boy, and Friendly was afraid that he and Benner would not stand for being called names like that. He had cautioned them to hold steady, while he tried to argue with the marshal some more. But he could see it was no use, and that the marshal and Morgan had murder in their hearts. Morgan began to curse them for being yellow — trying to get them to draw so it would be on them for starting the trouble.