“I don’t mean to take up preaching,” he said. “But I guess if I have changed it’s because I’ve seen there has got to be law. It seems like you were always quicker and smarter to see a thing than I was. Can’t you see it, Billy?”
“I can see this much,” Billy said, in a contemptuous voice. “Who your law is for. Petrix at the bank and Goodpasture’s store, and Buck’s God-damned stages and Kennon’s livery stable and all.”
“Not just them. It is decent people running things, not rustlers and road agents and hardcase killers.”
“Blaisedell isn’t a hardcase killer? I heard he killed ten men in Fort James. Ten!”
“You can hear anything you want to hear. But there is something I saw, and got a hammer pin through my hand to prove it. Jack would have shot him in the back if I hadn’t stopped it.”
“Oh, I know Jack is a son of a bitch,” Billy said. “Everybody knows that.”
“Do you think Abe didn’t put him to it?”
“Abe didn’t have anything to do with it! God damn it, Bud, there is not another man but my own brother I’d let say a thing like that about Abe! Damn, you are wrong! Damn, I don’t know how you turned so fast. You have got so damned holier-than-anybody because of us rustling a few old mossy-horns they never get around to rounding up even, they have got so many down at Hacienda Puerto. And a few sons-of-bitching greasers killed.” Billy’s voice ceased abruptly.
“Did they get to be sons-of-bitching greasers when they came after their stock, Billy? And got shot down by a bunch dressed like Apaches — and worse than Apaches. Is that when they got to be sons of bitches?”
Billy didn’t answer, and Gannon leaned against the wall too, and looked up at the cold stars, shivering in the wind that had come up. A newspaper rolled slow and ghostly across the street and flattened itself against the wall beyond Billy.
Billy said in a low voice, “Listen, Bud, you don’t want to get Abe thinking you have gone over to Blaisedell’s side against him.”
“Why not?” he said quickly.
“Well, you couldn’t blame Abe for being down on somebody that’s trying to throw him!”
Billy would not see, he knew. There had never been any use arguing with Billy. He laughed a little and said, “I was thinking how Daddy told me once I was to watch out for you. But I guess it got so you had to watch out for me — with Jack anyhow. That wasn’t the only time I thought he’d drink my blood, but for you.”
He reached over and slapped Billy’s shoulder, awkwardly, and Billy punched him in the ribs. “That son of a bitch. I hate that dirty, cold-hearted, mean son of a bitch. I’d drink his blood, but it would probably poison a toad.” He went on in a rush. “Christ, Bud, Christ, how things get muckered up! Why, here we are— I mean, there is never going to be any real trouble between you and me, is there, Bud? It seems like we had trouble enough when I was a pup.”
“I guess we didn’t have enough,” he said, and tried to laugh again. Billy’s fist punched into his ribs again; then Billy stepped away from him, to stand flat and faceless against the lights up the street.
“Well, see you, damn it all, Bud.”
“See you, Billy,” he said wearily.
Billy backed up another step. He seemed about to speak again, but he did not, and turned and walked up Southend toward the Row.
Gannon did not watch him go, but moved slowly over toward the boardwalk that ran along before the saloons and gambling houses. It was time he took a turn around Warlock. Carl did not leave the jail much on Saturday nights.
10. MORGAN DOUBLES HIS BETS
I
STRIPPED to the waist, Morgan was leaning over the basin with his face close to the mirror and the razor sliding smoothly over his cheek, when there was a knock on the alley door.
“Who is that?”
“It’s Phin Jiggs, Morgan. Ed sent me down from Bright’s.”
He dropped the razor into the soapy water, went around the desk to the alley door, and slid the bolt back. Jiggs, who did odd jobs for Ed Hamilton who had been Morgan’s partner for a time in Texas and now had a place in Bright’s City, slipped inside, caked with dust from head to foot except for the part of his face his bandanna had covered. His eyes were muddy around inflamed whites, and there were sweat-tracks on his forehead and cheeks. He swiped at his face with his neckerchief.
“Ed said you might be pleased to know there is a woman named Kate Dollar coming down here.”
He stared at Jiggs. At least he was pleased to know she was coming.
“She put her name down as Mrs. Cletus at the Jim Bright Hotel there,” Jiggs said. “But Ed said to tell you it was Kate Dollar, all right.”
“Mrs. Cletus?” he said, and felt stupid as he watched Jiggs nod. He turned uncertainly and went back to the basin, where he fished the razor out of the water. Mrs. Cletus. “Did you see her?” he asked, and stared at his face in the mirror.
“I saw her. Tall woman. Black hair and eyes and a fair-sized nose. About as tall as you, I’d say.”
He nodded and raised the razor to his cheek again. Mrs. Cletus. Pleased. “She is on the stage now,” Jiggs said. The stage would come in a little after four; Jiggs had ridden through the Bucksaws, instead of going around them as the stage had to do.
“Anybody with her?” he asked casually.
“I guess it is this Cletus she was down as Missus of.”
He contemplated the razor with which he might have removed an ear to hear that, while Jiggs continued. “He is a big feller. Heavy-set with a kind of chewed-up looking face. They was down as Mr. and Mrs. Pat Cletus at the hotel there, Ed said to tell you.”
Morgan sighed, and his mind began to function again. It was no ghost; she had found kin of some kind, a brother maybe. God damn you, Kate, he thought, without anger. He should have known she would not let it alone. In the mirror he saw Jiggs staring up at the painting over the door.
“Handsome woman,” Jiggs said. It was not clear whether he was talking about the nude in the painting, or Kate.
“How many on the stage?”
“There’s four of them. Her and him and a drummer, and the little sawed-off from the bank down here.”
Money in the box then, he thought. He finished shaving, rinsed the lather from his face, and toweled it dry. He slipped his money belt up where he could get to it and drew out a hundred dollars in greenbacks, which he gave to Jiggs.
“Oh, my!” Jiggs said, in awe.
“Forget about the whole thing and tell Ed thanks. Going right back?”
“Well, I—”
“Surely, I guess you might as well. You know Basine’s place, out on the north end of town? Tell him to give you a fresh horse. He’ll be there still if you hurry.”
Jiggs stuffed the money down into his jeans pocket. “Well, thanks, Morgan! Ed said you’d be pleased to hear it.”
“Pleased,” he said. When Jiggs had gone he put on his shirt, whistling softly to himself. He opened the door; the Glass Slipper was empty still, and a barkeep was dispiritedly sweeping Saturday night’s clutter along in front of the bar.
“Go find Murch,” he called, and went back to his desk and poured himself a larger portion of whisky than usual. He raised it before him, squinting up at the painting of the woman over the tilted flat plane of the liquor. “Here’s to you, Kate,” he whispered. “Did you find one after all that had the guts to come after him? You damned bitch,” he said, and drained the glass. Then he remembered that Calhoun and Benner, Friendly and Billy Gannon had been in town last night, and he laughed out loud at this continuing evidence of his luck.