“Old Heck and Frenchy,” Carl said. “They seemed kind of maddest, all right. You sure you didn’t tell Murch to blow him loose from you?”
There was a crash and splatter of glass and a rock rebounded from the far wall, and came to rest among the shards of glass beneath the broken window. Peter Bacon disappeared out the door, and Gannon ran to look. He could see no one in the darkness, and after a moment Peter returned along the boardwalk, shaking his head. Gannon went back inside, where Carl was cursing and trying to push the broken glass into a pile with the side of his boot.
“Oh, hello, miss,” Peter said from the doorway, and Kate Dollar came in.
“Good evening, Deputy,” Kate said to Carl. “Deputy,” she said to Gannon. She wore a tight jacket, a long, thickly pleated black skirt, and her black hat with the cherries on it. She smiled her harsh, unpleasant smile as Morgan appeared at the cell door again.
“Is that Tom Morgan?” Kate said, and her voice was as unpleasant as the smile. “I heard the miners had him on the run.”
Gannon backed up uncertainly to lean against the wall, and Carl said, “It sure is him, Miss Dollar. And he sure was running. Not much of a lead on the pack, either.”
“You running, Tom?” she said, and laughed.
“Oh, I can run with the best of them,” Morgan said. His voice was as harsh as Kate’s, his face, framed in the thick, hand-smoothed bars, was blank. “I have run before this. There was a place called Grand Fork I ran and got caught.”
“Did they hang you?” Kate asked, and Gannon felt that he was witnessing something he did not want to see, or know.
“Maybe they did,” Morgan said. He frowned with thought. “No, come to remember, a friend I had there set fire to the hotel where those vigilantes had me, and during the whoop-de-do I got out some way. No, I didn’t hang that time.”
“But no friends here?” Kate said.
“Well, now, miss, we made out all right,” Carl said uncomfortably. “Johnny and me didn’t need any help.”
Gannon saw Peter Bacon grimacing painfully as Kate spoke to Morgan again. “But I understand you didn’t kill him yourself, Tom. Was he a good man, Tom? That you had your gunman kill for you?”
“Just a big, stupid mucker, Kate,” Morgan said. “But you probably would have liked him, at that.”
“But what was the matter with Clay?” Kate cried. Now she sounded hysterical, and now, Gannon thought, he must stop this.
He put a hand out toward her and said, “Kate!” just as Morgan said loudly, “What kind of jail is this, where anybody can drift in off the street and bedevil the prisoners?”
“Bedevil!” Kate cried.
Gannon touched her arm. “Now, Miss Dollar,” he said.
“Well, now, yes, miss,” Carl said. “I don’t expect you ought to be in here with a bunch of wild jacks around throwing rocks through the window and all. I guess you had better—”
“I just came down to tell you they are throwing rocks through the windows of the Glass Slipper, too,” Kate said, calmly now. “There are some people trying to stop them, but I don’t know if they will.”
“Durn!” Carl said. “I should’ve thought of that. I’d better go, Johnny.” He took up the shotgun and hurried out. “Come on, Pete!”
Morgan disappeared again and Kate stood facing the cell for a moment longer. Then she bowed her head and turned away. Without looking at Gannon, she said, “Will they try again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t try to save him,” she said in the ugly voice. “Don’t try to do anything for him. He doesn’t want you to, and anybody that ever did has been sorry for it the rest of their lives.” She stopped and he saw that she looked almost ashamed; then her face tightened again, and she swept on out of the jail.
In the cell Morgan was laughing softly.
Gannon went outside to stand beneath the gently creaking sign in the cool night breeze. He could hear shouts and see the dark shapes of men against the whitish dust of the street up before the Glass Slipper.
He heard the sad, suspirant music of a mouth organ. A thin figure was coming toward him.
“Well, howdy, Deputy Bud Gannon.”
“Hello, Curley,” he said. “Did you come in with MacDonald?”
“No, just rode in to watch the fun,” Curley said. “Should have; Mister Mac is giving six dollars a day and expenses. There is going to be a lot of expenses, too, up at the French Palace and around.”
“No, there’s not. They’re not coming in here.”
Curley looked at him with his eyebrows crawling up. He ran his fingers back through his black curls, and took a step back, raising his hands in mock terror. “By God, posted out of town by Bud Gannon! Not me too, Bud? Say it isn’t so!”
Gannon shook his head and tried to grin.
“Whuff!” Curley said. “I was ready to fork it and crawl. Well, I guess I’ll have the French Palace to myself then.” He looked at Gannon sharply, and his clownish expression vanished. “What’re you going to do if some of them come back anyway, Bud?” he said quietly. “Brace a man?”
“They haven’t come back in.”
“Might, though,” Curley said. He pried at a crack in the boardwalk with the toe of his boot. “You know, people don’t take to posting so good. Billy didn’t.”
“I’m not posting anybody,” he said tightly. “We are just not going to have MacDonald and that crew in here chasing miners around.”
“Strikers,” Curley said. “Agitators, what MacDonald said. Bunch of damned, over-paid—”
“Why didn’t you hire out with the rest, then?”
Curley laughed cheerfully. “Well, I just don’t like Mister Mac much, Bud. One of a few I don’t.”
“Including me. Are you down on me too, Curley?”
“Yep,” Curley said.
“All right,” he said, and felt his eyes burning.
Curley sighed and said, “Well, I kind of am and kind of not. I see you think you did right and maybe I see how you could think it honest. But I can’t think that way. How a man is brought up, I guess, and you are a cold one, Johnny Gee.”
“Maybe I am.”
“That was your brother, Bud. The only kin you had.”
Gannon said in a shaky voice, “Most people here think Blaisedell only did what he had to.”
“You think that way, don’t you?” Curley said. His boot toe scuffed at the planks again. “No, I am not all the way down on you, Bud. But I am about the only one. You sure ought to think about putting distance between you and here — when you get a chance.”
“Thanks.”
“Por nada,” Curley said.
A group of men was coming across Southend Street and onto the boardwalk. Gannon heard the crack of the judge’s crutch; with him were Carl, Pike, Peter Bacon, and some others. Carl stopped while the rest went on into the jail.
“You ride in with the Haggins, Curley?” Carl said, in a rasping voice.
“Oh, no!” Curley said. “No, sir, I am separate. I just swore it in blood to your partner here. I’m just having a little chin with Bud about this posting fellows out of town. You boys have come pretty hard against us cowboys, haven’t you?”
“Yeh,” Carl said, in a kind of grunt. “Hard.”
“The Acme Corral for you boys, huh? Big medicine. Run up a score, maybe they’ll make you marshal, Carl, now Blaisedell has quit. Money in it, I hear. Scalp money for—”
“D-don’t you say anything against Blaisedell to me!” Carl said.
Gannon could feel the hate. “Carl,” he said. But Carl didn’t look at him.
“Don’t even say his name to me,” Carl said hoarsely. “You Goddamned picayune rustler.”