Unluckily it was just then that Calhoun came back out of the Billiard Parlor, and right away Morgan started shooting, and Blaisedell drew and shot at Billy and Pony Benner. Billy and Pony started shooting back, but Blaisedell and Morgan had got first draw and shot them down as they had already shot Calhoun.
He, Friendly, kept yelling at Blaisedell that they had not come to make trouble, and trying to stop the shooting. But it was too late. They had killed the others by then, and he could not draw himself for both Blaisedell and Morgan had their six-shooters aimed at him. So he ran for his horse because he could see they were going to shoot him down whatever he did. He heard them arguing behind him which one was going to shoot him. Luckily for him, a lot of people came down Southend Street toward the corral just then, thinking the shooting was over, and the marshal could not backshoot him for all these others to see it.
There had been nothing for him to do but jump his horse and ride for his life. They would have found some way to kill him if he hadn’t.
He thought they would find some way to kill him yet. He had heard that both of them had sworn to do it. He knew they would try to shoot him down in cold blood as they had three fine young fellows with nothing in the world against them except that they had somehow got the marshal of Warlock down on them.
22. MORGAN SEES IT PASS
MORGAN sat at the table in the front corner of the Glass Slipper that was always reserved for Clay and himself. What the Professor had called a “runkus” was in full bloom. The barkeepers were hustling whisky and beer and the conversation along the bar was shrill and reverberating; men called to each other over the heads of those around them, contended for attention, showed hands shaped into six-shooters in illustration, gesticulated with vehemence; in the mirrors behind the bar their eyes were bright and their faces excited. They were hashing over the fight in the Acme Corral. He could hear his own name coupled with Clay’s, and the names of the cowboys, repeated and repeated.
Three men came in together. “Morgan,” each said, in turn, and nodded to him, friendly and respectful. “That was a good piece of shooting, Morgan,” one said. He nodded in reply, and grinned at himself that he should enjoy this. Others came in, and each one had a greeting for him.
“Put two in Calhoun about a finger apart and from clean across the street, I heard,” someone said at the bar. Laughter wrenched at him that he should be a hero to them now. They were jackasses and schoolboys; either they saw that the men who had been killed might have been themselves, which made their own miserable lives more precious and engendered gratitude for the increase of value, or else they imagined themselves doing the shooting — and killing made a fellow quite a man, it made his whisky taste better and gave him a brag with the tommies at the French Palace.
Buck Slavin entered and approached him, with a hand out and his jaw shot out grimly; he was one of the second kind. “Morgan,” Slavin said. “This town ought to thank you and the marshal. I thank you.”
He shook the proffered hand, without rising. “I thank you for thanking me, Buck. But it was nothing.”
“That was fine shooting.”
“I was lucky, Buck,” he said, solemnly, and shot his jaw out too.
Slavin clapped him on the shoulder and swaggered over to the bar. Morgan laughed to himself, as much at himself as at Slavin and the rest. Oh, I am lucky by trade, he thought. More men came in and congratulated him, and he folded his arms on his chest and looked stern, or grinned boyishly, and tried to keep his contempt from showing, the better to enjoy it. Someone sent over a bottle of whisky, which he raised in thanks.
“It will pass,” he said to himself, as he poured a little whisky into his glass. He listened to his name coupled with Clay’s, proud with the old pride of being counted with Clay. But it would pass. All things would pass, even the passing itself. But for once the pleasure and excitement drowned the sourness in him, and he was very pleased that it had worked so well for Clay. They would produce a brass band for Clay if they would send him a bottle of whisky.
“Billy was the wrong man, though.” He heard it, sharp-edged, from the bar. He did not even look to see who had said it, for immediately frozen in his mind’s eye was the deeply etched track that led from Bob Cletus to Pat Cletus, from Pat Cletus to Billy Gannon. But it was all right, he reassured himself, so long as Clay did not see the track, see the wrong man again, see him, Tom Morgan— Yet abruptly his mood was broken. All things passed, he thought, except for that one thing.
There was a sudden hush in the Glass Slipper as Clay came in through the batwing doors. Then there was a chorus of greetings and congratulations, and men crowded around Clay to shake his hand, ask about his shoulder, praise him, curse McQuown for him, offer him drinks. Morgan poured whisky into the other glass and looked at nothing until finally Clay made his way over to him, dropped his hat on the table, and sat down with a long leg propped up on an empty chair. He had put on his coat, which would be a disappointment to those watching in the mirrors. Seeing his blood was something they could have told their grandchildren about.
“How?” he said to Clay.
“How,” Clay said. His face was drawn and tired-looking. He drank his whisky and set his glass down. “Thanks for coming along, Morg.”
“I’d like to have seen you try to stop me.”
His heart pumped sickeningly when Clay said, “I was wrong about that boy.” Then he sighed with relief as Clay continued. “I thought I could back him down.”
“A wild-eyed gunboy trying to be a man.”
“Man enough,” Clay said. He raised a hand toward his shoulder but didn’t touch it.
“McQuown ought to get a better sniper. That one wasn’t much good.”
Clay frowned, and said, in his deep voice, “Looks like it might’ve been McQuown behind it, sure enough. I guess I am going to have to have it out with him after all.”
“You won’t,” Morgan said, and Clay glanced at him questioningly. “You won’t have it out with him. He is not going to play your game when all he has got to do is use his own rules.”
Clay shook his head.
“McQuown is right, too,” Morgan went on. “If you are out to kill a man, kill him. It is war, not a silly game with rules.”
“There are rules, Morg,” Clay said.
“Why?”
“Because of the others — I mean the people not in it.”
“Oh, you have started worrying about the people watching, have you?”
“No,” Clay said. “But it is just so.”
“You are in damned poor shape then against someone that doesn’t think it is so. Or care a damn if it is or not. I say you can’t beat McQuown for he won’t play your rules.”
“Why, Morg, I will beat him either way. I will beat him by playing the rules, if he won’t. Because he will have to pretend there are rules whether he thinks there are or not, just like he had to today. And if he has to pretend, it means he is worrying about the others pretty hard.” The corners of Clay’s lips tilted up. “See if I’m not right,” he said.
Morgan pushed at his glass with a forefinger. He did not know anyone else like Clay who would observe the rules to the end, live or die by them. There were some who would observe them insofar as they were a benefit, and, beyond that, would not, and there were those like McQuown who would make a fraud of the rules. That was the danger, but he did not see that Clay could do anything but ignore it. Clay had to, to be what he was, and Clay was the only man he had ever known, except for himself, who knew exactly what he was. It was the basis of his admiration for Clay. He had never understood their friendship on Clay’s side. He only knew that Clay liked and trusted him, and it was the only thing that had become more precious to him than money, which, at the same time, he had come to realize was worth nothing, for it bought nothing. And so, somewhere along the line, his friendship for Clay had become all there was.