“You just listen to me,” the judge said. “I am going to sum things up now, and I will have quiet in here to do it. Now, here is Johnny Gannon to swear one thing, and four to swear against him — and more outside that’ll do the same, I guess. But—”
“Damned right they’ll swear the same!” Wash Haggin cried.
“—but as I said before, it doesn’t signify. So now I’ll take up things brought in against Johnny Gannon. First how he and Blaisedell planned to kill Abe McQuown in a conspiracy. Dismissed. No evidence whatsoever, except everybody’s supposed to know it’s so.
“Then there is that Johnny Gannon went down there and tried to pick a fight with Abe McQuown spang in front of fifteen or so of his friends and kin, drew on him, and all that. I just can’t believe it. No man with a speck of sense would do such a thing. Say he killed Abe like that, it’d been pure suicide in front of all those. It doesn’t stand to reason and I just don’t believe it is so.”
“He did it!” old McQuown shouted.
“Hush. Now the next thing, that he got stabbed through the hand somehow and went out swearing he would get even for it — that sounds reasonable, and I might believe it. And he might have said that he and Blaisedell was going to get even, knowing the people he was talking to was edgy about Blaisedell.
“But this don’t get him to killing Abe McQuown, which is what is primary here. Whitby, and you, Ike, swear you saw him and it was Gannon. Only Whitby went and changed his mind a little — and I will admit I tried to fuddle him saying that about Blaisedell, who was in town that night for all to see, whatever rumors have got started about him. But now it turns out Whitby didn’t see quite so clear as he first made out, and now it turns out that the killer had a neckerchief over his face, as would be natural. Only the neckerchief got forgot about, first time you told it. So now it looks to me that since Whitby thinks it might be nice if it was Blaisedell after all, it must be he didn’t really see who it was, Gannon and Blaisedell not being two that look much alike. And so I figure that if Whitby didn’t see who it was at all, then nobody did, and I think you people have accused Johnny Gannon wrong and I think you know it!”
He slapped his hand down on the table top with a report like a revolver shot. “Dismissed!” he said. “I say there is no evidence Johnny Gannon did it what-so-ever that would stand up in proper court, and I just don’t believe it!”
Old McQuown spat on the floor. Whitby, red-faced still, laughed harshly, and Wash Haggin stared hard at Gannon.
“Hearing’s adjourned,” Judge Holloway said hastily. He took off his spectacles and put them, the derringer, and the Bible away in the drawer. “So now you can tell me what you think of me without offending the court, Ike.”
Old McQuown glared around the jail with eyes full of tears and hate. “My son is killed,” he said. “My son is backshot before my eyes, and not a man anywhere to do anything about it.”
“There is plenty to do something, Cousin Ike,” Wash Haggin said.
“I guess that is my place, Dad McQuown,” Gannon said suddenly. “I will be trying to find out who did it.”
Old McQuown grunted as though in pain. He didn’t look at the deputy. “I reckon you won’t be doing anything if there is a man anywhere,” he said. He looked back at the judge. “Come here after justice, George Holloway, even knowing you was a Yankee.”
“Ike,” the judge said gently. “You said you’d accept what I decided. Are you going to crawfish now?”
“I am! Because I see my son shot down and the cowardly bugger that did it walk free!”
“How many walked free because your son and his people went up to Bright’s City and perjured them off?” the judge said.
“I trusted you, George Holloway,” the old man said, shaking his head. “And you have tricked and thrown us down today, and mocked an old man with his son dead. I come in here against my inclination, and these boys too. I thought soon or late we was going to have to face up to a change in things, but I see it is dog eat dog like always, and justice only what you make yourself.”
“Bud,” Wash Haggin said to Gannon. “A man could say you did Curley a disservice swearing what turned him loose for Blaisedell to kill. The judge did you a disfavor the same just now, Bud. You are a dead man.”
Kate Dollar sat up very stiffly. All eyes turned on Gannon.
“Wash,” Gannon said. “You have known me — what did I ever do you’d think I’d do a thing like this?”
“Know what you turned into,” Wash Haggin said.
“Chet,” Gannon said. “Maybe you will see that if every man is to think the worst he can think of every other man, then there is going to be no man finally better than that.”
The muscles on Chet Haggin’s jaw stood out, but he did not answer. Wash Haggin said in a flat voice, “You won’t be around to see it get much worse, Bud.”
“George Holloway,” said old McQuown, “I have known you awhile and you me. I tell you it is a shame on you. You have thrown me hard and by a poor trick. You don’t know what it is to lose your son and have it laughed in your face, and the bugger that did it tricked free.”
“It’s not laughed in your face, Ike.”
“Was, and right here. I say he was a good boy and peaceable, and they laugh and scorn me for saying it. He was sitting down there how long with every man to think him yellow for it — because he didn’t want to go against Blaisedell that was marshal here. Not a yellow bone in his poor dead body. Oh, I was as bad as the rest, I’ll say that right out; his own daddy was as bad as the rest, that was every one of them badgering at him to go against Blaisedell. When he knew it wasn’t the thing to do. Knew it better than me, God rest his soul, for I cared too much in my pride about what some coyotes thought of him. Blaisedell pushing on him and pushing on him, that only wanted to be left in peace and to do right, till finally he was pushed too far and his own best friend murdered by that murdering fiend out of hell. And he had to come then, there was nothing else for it.
“And then Blaisedell sends his lick-spittle Judas down to gulch him rather than fight it fair down the street here. But there is no justice to be had. It is bitter, George Holloway, but I will swear something else I didn’t swear before because it would’ve only been laughed to scorn. I swear my boy will go to heaven and that foul devil to hell where he belongs and Bud Gannon along with him.”
“And soon,” Whitby said, in a low voice.
“That’s pled to another judge than me, Ike,” the judge said.
“Already been. Abe is looking down on us from heaven right now, and pitying us for poor miserable mortal men.”
“He’ll be happier before tonight,” Wash Haggin said, looking down at his hands.
Old McQuown lay back on his pallet and gazed up at the ceiling. “What have we come to?” he said quietly. “Every man out here used to be a man and decent, and took care of himself and never had to ask for help, for always there was people to give it without it was asked. Fighting murdering Pache devils and fighting greasers, and real men around, then. Murder done there was kin to take it up and cut down the murdering dog, or friends to take it up. Those days when there was friends still. When a man was free to come in town and laugh and jollify with his friends, and friends could meet in town and enjoy towning it, and there was pleasure then. Drink whisky, and gamble some, and fight it stomp and gouge sometimes when there was differences, but afterwards friends again. No one to say a man no, in those days, and kill him if he didn’t run for cover and shiver in his boots. Life was worth the living of it in those days.”
“And men killed sixteen to the dozen in those days,” the judge said, quietly too. “And not by murdering Apaches, either. Rustling and road-agenting all around and this town treated as though it was a shooting gallery on Saturday nights, for the cowboys’ pleasure. Miners killed like there was a bounty on them, and a harmless barber shot dead because his razor slipped a little. Yes, things were free in those days.”