The vile words droned on, without meaning. He unhooked the star from his jacket, and reached over to hand it to Chet Haggin. “Hold it,” he said. “I don’t want him to be able to say he killed another deputy.”
“I’ll say it!” Cade said, triumphantly. “Outside, Deputy!”
“Here,” Gannon said. “So it will be a fair fight.” He untied the bandanna from around his neck, and rapidly fixed a knot in either end. “You count for us,” he said to Chet. “We will draw on three.” He bit down on one knotted end of the bandanna, and held the other out; he saw immediately that Cade would not do it.
“I’m no God-damned fool for a handkerchief fight!” Cade said hoarsely.
It was enough, Gannon thought, and quickly he stuffed the bandanna into his pocket and took his star back. No one spoke.
It had meant nothing, and yet he hoped he had recovered something in their eyes. But he knew that Abe saw his bluff and the necessity for it, and with dread he realized that in backing Cade down he had challenged Abe himself. Now he wondered if Abe was sure enough of his own authority to let his recovery stand.
“Man doesn’t have to be a damned fool!” Cade said. “Come on outside and fight decent!”
“Pure iron,” Abe said. “Why, a man with iron in him like that deserves a medal.” He swung toward the breed. “Where’s the medal, Marko?” The breed looked confused. Abe made a gesture toward his mouth and Marko produced something from his pocket. Abe took it, and, with a swift movement, plucked off Gannon’s hat and dropped a cord around his neck. From it was suspended a mouth organ. “Curley won’t be needing this any more,” Abe said loudly. “How is that for a medal for Bud, boys?”
He recognized the release of tension in their laughter; what had passed between him and Jack Cade was set at nothing and he was a fool to them again as well as a traitor. He stripped the cord from around his neck and handed the mouth organ back to Abe, and took his hat back. “I think you’d better have it,” he said, and saw Abe’s eyes narrow dangerously.
“I’ll be going,” he said. “Abe, you have heard me about the Regulators. That’s the word with the bark on it.” It gave him a start to hear Carl’s phrase on his own lips.
“Abe!” the old man cried. “Are you going to let the son of a bitch walk out like that?”
“Just a minute,” Abe said. The others leaned forward, attentive and expectant. They were all afraid, Gannon thought suddenly. Maybe they felt, as Chet had said, that Blaisedell would destroy them one by one if they did not destroy him.
“What right have you to stop us?” Abe said quietly. “When you didn’t stop Blaisedell from killing Curley? Tell me that, Bud. How are you going to tell me I can’t post Blaisedell and kill him if he don’t run, when you didn’t stop him with Curley? That was my friend,” he said, more quietly still.
“Mine too, by God!” Wash said.
“He ought to be shot down on Billy’s grave, what he ought,” Dad McQuown said. “Billy was a fine boy, and him nothing.”
“I am talking about Curley,” Abe said. He waited, his face a bearded, furrowed mask, his eyes hooded. Then he said, “You ought to be riding in with us, Bud.”
He shook his head.
“But you swore to it, didn’t you?” Abe went on. “You swore Carl told you he’d done it himself, didn’t you? Or did you crawfish on that?”
“Not yet,” he said, and instantly he knew that what he had meant as only a passing threat was too much more than that. He heard the whistling suck of Abe’s breath, and saw Abe’s right eye widen while his left remained a slit.
“What do you think you mean by that?” Abe whispered.
He didn’t answer right away. But he had not, he thought, come here merely so he could get away without trouble. He had come to tell them they must not come into Warlock as Regulators. He said tiredly, “There is going to be peace and law in Warlock, Abe. Or there is going to be Blaisedell. If you will let be, he will go. He knows he has to go now, for he has been wrong.”
“Let him go, then.”
“You will have to let be for him to go. And I will see that you let him be, and Warlock will. I have more ways than deputizing people for stopping you.”
“I am sure scared of that pack of fat-butt bank clerks he is going to round up in there,” Whitby said. “Whoooo! I—”
“Shut up!” Abe snapped. He stared at Gannon with his head tipped forward so that his beard brushed his chest, and his green eyes were wild. “What other ways, Bud?”
“I would crawfish to stop you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” the old man said. “I can’t make out what—”
“Shut up!” Abe put a hand on top of the stove and leaned on it heavily. “Damn your dirty soul to hell!” he cried. “God damn you, coming down here mealy-mouthing what you are bound to do. I will tell you what you are bound to do! You damned lick-spittle, you will swear here and now to what Carl said to you and what is true!” Abe took a step toward him. “Swear it, damn you!”
“I guess I’ll not—” he started, and tried to dodge as Abe’s hand swung up against his cheek. He staggered sideways with the blow; his cheek burned maddeningly, and his eyes watered. He heard a murmur of approval from the others, whom, for a moment, he could not see.
“Swear it! You will swear to the truth or I’ll kill you!”
He shook his head; he saw the buckskin arm swing again. He did not dodge this time, but only jerked his head back to try to soften the blow. There was pain and the taste of blood in his mouth.
“Hit him all night,” the old man said.
“Cut him, Abe!”
“Say it!” Abe said.
He shook his head, and swallowed salt blood.
“Say it!”
The fist he hadn’t even seen coming this time exploded in his face once more, and he stumbled back in a wild shouting with the room spinning around him. Abruptly the shouting stopped as he caught his balance, and felt in his hand, with horror, the hard rounded shape of the Colt he had drawn. In his clearing eyes he saw Abe McQuown twisted slightly with his right fist down in the uncompleted recovery of the blow. Abe straightened slowly, his chest heaving in the buckskin shirt as he panted, his left hand massaging the knuckles of the right, his eyes glancing from the Colt to Gannon’s face. A grin made sharp indentations in his beard.
Gannon spat blood. The Colt felt unsupportably heavy in his hand. Abe grinned more widely. “Uh-uh, Bud,” he said, and came a step forward. He came another; his moccasins lisped upon the floor. “Uh-uh, Bud.”
Abe’s hand snapped down over his hand as sharp and tight as a talon, and wrenched the Colt away. Abe flung it to the floor behind him, and laughed. Abe swung his arm again.
He hunched his shoulder up to catch the blow. He brought his right hand up to catch the next on his forearm. With a sudden wild elation he swung back, and his fist met hair and bone. Abe staggered back and he jumped in pursuit.
A foot tripped him. He fell heavily past Abe, who dodged aside. A fist slammed against his back as he caught himself on his hands and tried to scramble up. He cried out in pain as a boot smashed into his ribs, and fell back again. Beneath him he felt the hard shape of his Colt where Abe had dropped it.
He fumbled it free with his left hand, still trying to rise with his right hand braced on the table beside the buggy seat, dodging aside as Whitby aimed another kick at him, and the men on the buggy seat leaped out of the way. Then he had the Colt free and he swung it desperately to cover Cade, who had drawn. He saw only the long flash of the knife blade in the lamplight.