“You have rewrote the laws, have you?” Curley whispered, dangerously. “A man can still talk, I guess.”
“Not to me,” Carl said. “Not here or Bright’s City either. You or any other rustler.”
Gannon took out his Colt and held it pointed down before him. Curley glanced toward him, only his eyes moving in his rigid face. “Better move along, Curley,” Gannon said.
Curley shrugged and sauntered off into the darkness. The sound of the mouth organ drifted back. Carl stood staring after him, rubbing his right hand on his pants leg.
“Schroeder!” the judge shouted from the jail, and Pike Skinner appeared in the doorway: “Come on, Carl!”
“Let’s go in, Carl,” Gannon said.
“Kind of pleasant not to be scared of a man for a change,” Carl said in the hoarse voice. “Sure, let’s go in and get the hearing started.”
33. A BUGGY RIDE
THE strikers from the Medusa and the sympathetic miners from the other mines held their meeting on the vacant ground next to Robinson’s wood yard on Peach Street. Torches made an orange glow there and smoke from the torches overlay the meeting like a milky sheet illuminated from below. There was a steady roar of shouting and clapping as they listened to various of their number harangue them, or broke up into smaller groups to attend half a dozen different speakers at once.
The town had fortified itself against riot. Shopkeepers sat inside their stores with shotguns close to hand. Horses were kept off Main Street. The Glass Slipper was dark, its front windows broken and a frame of timbers nailed up before the batwing doors. Men stood along the arcades listening to the sounds of the miners’ meeting. Inside the Lucky Dollar the gambling layouts were packed and townsmen stood three deep along the bar. Among them were Arnold Mosbie, the freight-line mule skinner, Fred Wheeler, who worked at the Feed and Grain Barn, Nick Grain, the beef butcher, and Oscar Thompson, Kennon’s blacksmith. These four were sharing a bottle of whisky, Mosbie and Wheeler squeezed against a narrow strip of bar, while the others stood behind them.
“Listen to those sons of bitches yell up there!” Mosbie said.
“Think they’re going after Morgan again?” Thompson said, glancing worriedly toward the doors.
“Working themselves up to it?” Wheeler commented. “I’ll bet Carl and Gannon’s wetting their pants.”
“Looks like they might’ve done better not to let out the judge wasn’t holding Morgan for Murch killing that jack,” Thompson said. “Just keeping him in jail for his own good.”
“I heard old Owen wouldn’t go stand by the jail with the rest,” Grain said, reaching past Wheeler for the bottle. “I sure agree with him about Morgan. I don’t hold with miners much, but I’ll whistle when they set out to hang Morgan.” He glanced at the others from beneath his colorless lashes. “Blaisedell is going to let him hang, too. See I’m not right.”
“Sure been scarce today,” Wheeler said, shaking his head.
“What’s wrong with Morgan?” Mosbie asked.
“Well, you heard about him and that little Professor of his, didn’t you?” Grain said. “Morgan wasn’t paying him enough so he was going to go to work for Lew Taliaferro, playing that new piano Lew got for the French Palace. So Morgan had that Murch of his fill Lew’s piano with lime mortar, and the Professor knew about it and was going to tell — you know what happened to him. Looked like he got tramped by a horse out here, but it wasn’t any horse.”
Wheeler snorted. “I heard it,” he said. “I didn’t have to believe it, though.”
Mosbie had turned to face Grain. “That is Lew’s story, Nick,” he said. “And bull piss just like his whisky.”
“Well, it is just hard for a man to like Morgan, Moss,” Thompson said.
Someone near them said, “Whooo, listen to them crazy muckers!”
Mosbie turned to face Thompson. “Listen,” he said. “I have said it, and you have said it too — hooray for Blaisedell for going against those sons of bitches of McQuown’s. He has made McQuown eat it till it comes out of Abe’s ears, and hooray for him, I say. So I say hooray for Morgan too, that is the only man in Warlock that ever helped another out against those backshooting bastards.” He looked back at Grain again, “And I say piss on those that piss on Morgan, for he is a better man than them, whatever he’s supposed to’ve done.”
Grain flushed. “Now, listen, Moss—”
“I’m not through,” Mosbie said. “Now it is funny how all of a sudden McQuown and Curley and them is smelling sweeter and sweeter to people again, I don’t say who, the mealy-mouthed sons of bitches. And all of a sudden it is clear somehow that it is Morgan that’s done everything mean and rotten that ever happened around Warlock, killing piano players and such. And in the whole valley besides, it looks like — riding around dropping off strongboxes to make it look bad for poor, innocent murdering rustlers. It surely is nice for Abe McQuown.”
“Now, see here, Moss,” Grain said. “I don’t hold with McQuown, but—”
“That’s good,” Mosbie said, turning back to the bar again. “I am glad to hear you don’t.”
“They’re coming!” somebody cried. The Lucky Dollar fell abruptly silent. The yelling of the miners was louder.
“Jesus, here they come,” Thompson said, and he and Grain were borne along by the men crowding toward the batwing doors. There was a tramping and a rhythmical shouting now in the street, a burst of singing. The bankers at the layouts were swiftly cashing in the chips. Wheeler tossed his whisky down and looked at Mosbie.
“Want to go watch the hanging, Moss?”
“Hanging, hell,” Mosbie said. “Let’s go watch Blaisedell.” They shouldered their way into the press of men moving toward the doors.
The miners came along Main Street, marching in what must have been ranks when they started, and with a semblance of the martial in their blue shirts and trousers and red sashes. Many of them carried torches or lanterns, and their bearded faces shone sweaty and orange-red in the torchlight. They sang in ponderous unison:
“Oh, my sweetheart’s a burro named Jine!
We work at the old Great Hope mine!
On the dashboard I sit,
And tobacco I spit
All over my sweetheart’s behind!
Good-by, good-by, good-by, Tom Morgan, good-by…”
The singing broke off in a ragged yell. Some tried to continue the tune, while others merely shouted as they went on down Main Street toward the jail, with the dust rising beneath their marching feet and hanging like fog in the darkness. There was a crash of glass as a rock was thrown through Goodpasture’s store window, followed by an outcry of argument and laughter. There were other crashes. Torches were swung from side to side, shedding sparks like Catherine wheels.
“Christ, they will burn the town down!” someone exclaimed, as the men streamed out of the Lucky Dollar in their wake. The street began to fill behind the miners as townsmen came out of the saloons and the Billiard Parlor, and, with the sidewalk loungers, drifted along after the marchers. Outlined against the front of the jail, in the light of the torches, stood a small group of men.
Mosbie and Wheeler crossed Main Street and made their way down to Goodpasture’s corner, where their bootheels grated on broken glass. Goodpasture stood within the darkened store with a shotgun in his hands. “Morgan!” the miners were shouting, all together. “Morgan! Morgan!” They approached the boardwalk before the jail in a broad semicircle, the near end of which moved slowly, the far more rapidly. Carl Schroeder shouted something that was lost in the yelling.