“Decent to me.”
“Do you know who will kill him? Someone like Abe McQuown, or some kid after score like Billy. No, not even that. It will be some backshooter, like Calhoun. Or Cade. It will be somebody like Jack Cade, somebody worse than you think he is even. Somebody all bad. Don’t you see?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters! Don’t you see he is a man for men to look up to? There are not many good ones like that, and it will be an all bad one that will kill him, and then the bad one looked up to for it. Don’t you see that?”
“Maybe not a bad one,” Kate said. She sounded almost indifferent. “Maybe a better one. Someone like you, I mean.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I think it is so.”
“That’s foolishness, Kate!”
“Why, then it is none of your business after all,” she said. There was an edge of anger to her voice, and as she went on it was more and more angry, and filled with hate. “You look up to him, don’t you?” she said. “You should know how men look up to him, since you do yourself. Because he is so fine. He is quick on the draw — does that make him fine? He has killed I don’t even know any more how many men — does that make him fine? He is a hired killer! Morgan hired him to kill a man and Fort James hired him to kill men, and Warlock has. It must be fine and brave and manly to be a hired killer, but you can’t expect a woman to understand why men will worship him like a saint because he—”
“Stop it!”
“All right, I will stop it. And you get out of here. You are not a man. Not the man I want.”
“More man than you are woman, I guess, Miss Dollar.” He spoke in anger; instantly he was sorry. “I am sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t go to say a thing like that. I’ll ask you to forgive me, Kate.”
But she didn’t speak, and he could feel the hate. It was as though he were in a cage with an animal. He turned and moved toward the door.
He heard a shot. It came from the direction of Main Street, and there was a yell, and a chorus of yells. But still he did not leave. “Kate—” he said.
“Maybe they have killed him for me,” Kate said, viciously, and he went outside. He ran down toward the corner of Main Street with his ribs aching and the scabbarded Colt slapping against his leg.
It was some time before he could find out what had happened; no one seemed to know. Someone said that Blaisedell had shot Curley Burne, who had been taken dying to the General Peach; another thought that some of the Regulators had come in and scared up a Medusa miner. He crossed the street finally, to another group of men before the Billiard Parlor. Hutchinson, Foss, and Kennon were there.
“Carl got shot,” Foss told him. “It was Curley.”
“Dirty hound!” Kennon said, in a cracked voice.
“Where is he?”
“Forked a horse and lit out running,” someone said. “There is a bunch going to take out after him. They’re down at—”
“No—Carl!” he said.
“They took him over to the General Peach,” Hutchinson said. “He was bleeding bad.”
As Gannon ran back down Main Street, Kennon shouted after him, “You had better start getting a posse together, Gannon!”
There was another bunch before the General Peach, and a number of horses. “It’s Gannon,” someone said. “Here comes Johnny Gannon.” He made his way through them and up the steps, where Miss Jessie’s man Tittle barred his way with a Winchester.
“Listen, nobody else comes—”
He shouldered past, and Tittle stumbled back clumsily, banging his rifle butt against the door. “Where is he?” Gannon panted, starting back toward the hospital room. Then he saw Pike Skinner and Mosbie through Miss Jessie’s open door. Buck Slavin was there, and Sam Brown and Fred Wheeler. Morgan leaned on the foot of the bed, with the doctor beside him, and Blaisedell stood apart. Miss Jessie was sitting beside the bed, where Carl was.
“Well, hello, Johnny,” Carl said, in a breathless voice. He looked like a scared, white-faced boy with a pasted-on, graying mustache. Gannon hadn’t realized how gray Carl was. He moved over to kneel beside the bed, next to Miss Jessie’s chair. Carl wet his lips and carefully turned his head toward him.
“You will have to deputy alone awhile, Johnny.”
“Sure,” he panted. “Surely, Carl. We’ll make out.”
Behind him Pike Skinner said roughly, “We will help him till you are up and around again, Carl.”
Carl grinned thinly; he turned his head a little farther toward Gannon, and winked. “Sure,” he whispered. “There is some good boys to help. They have been rallying round. You’ll be all right, Johnny.”
“Hush, now, Carl,” Miss Jessie said, and patted his hand. She wore the high-necked, frilled blouse with the black necktie she had worn when she had come to the jail, and she smelled cleanly of sachet and starched linen. “You mustn’t talk so much, Carl,” she said.
“it’s all right,” the doctor said, in his clipped, curt voice.
“I have always been a talker, ma’am,” Carl said. “It is hard to quit being one now.”
Leaning on the brass foot of the bed in a clean shirt and trousers, his cigar bobbing in the corner of his mouth as he spoke, Morgan said gently, “A man needs a little rest after fighting those wild-eyed jacks off my neck half the night.”
Carl grinned again. Behind Morgan, Blaisedell stood with his arms folded over his chest, and only his blue eyes alive in his cold, bruised and scraped face. There was a tramp of hoofs outside the window, and Gannon could hear the men talking there. “Let’s get moving,” one said. “Where’s Gannon. He going to weasel on this?”
“What happened?” Gannon said quickly, to Carl.
“Just stupid,” Carl said, in an embarrassed voice. “Curley and me had some more words. That was there by the Billiard Parlor and I kind of surprised myself and him too getting drawed before he did.” He laughed shakily. “Durned if I didn’t! Well, I kind of cooled off, seeing I’d got the drop; so I thought I’d camp him in jail for the night. So I called for his piece—” His voice trailed off.
“Curley went to let him take it and then spun it on him,” Mosbie said. “I saw him do it, and a good lot of others standing there saw it. Run the road-agent spin on him, by God — pardon me, Miss Jessie. I should have chose him myself, I just about did earlier.”
“We’ll see he is caught, Carl,” Buck Slavin said solemnly.
Gannon saw a little cluster of bluish veins at Carl’s temple, and the slow beat of blood in them. He had never seen those veins there before. The flesh of Carl’s face looked as though it had been waxed.
“Better get a posse riding, Johnny,” Pike said. “There is a good lot gathered outside already.”
“Not much use till morning,” Carl said. “If I was doing it I’d wait. Nobody could follow sign till light.”
Miss Jessie patted Carl’s hand. Her hand was white and small beneath the long cuff of her sleeve, the nails cut shorter than Kate’s. Carl’s brows knit together beneath the long, crusted scratch on his forehead, and Carl’s eyes took on an inward expression.
“Feels like something’s broke loose again, Doc,” Carl said easily. “I don’t want to bleed up Miss Jessie’s nice bed.”
“It will stop,” the doctor said.
“Let’s go on outside,” Pike whispered, and he left the room, followed by Buck, Wheeler, Mosbie, and Sam Brown.
Gannon could hear more horses in the street now. He saw Carl’s eyes close and he quickly looked up at the doctor, who had on his nightshirt beneath his rusty black suit. The doctor shook his head.