Warlock

The first sound he heard was a horn blowing a military call. It was faint, but clear and precise in the thin air — as out of place and improbable as though a forest with stream, moss, and ferns had showed itself suddenly in the white dust of the street. He did not move, holding his breath, as though he had mistaken the sound of his breathing for that other sound. After a while it came again, a bugle call signifying what, rallying or commanding what, he did not know. The brassy notes hung in the air after the call had ended. He rose and moved to the doorway. A Mexican woman with a black rebozo over her head came down Southend Street, and Goodpasture’s mozo appeared, broom in hand, to speak to her as she passed, and then turned and leaned on the broom and stared east up Main Street.

He went back inside the jail and sat down again. Once he thought he heard the sound of hoofbeats, but it was faint, and, when he listened for it, inaudible, as though it had only been some kind of ghostly reverberation along his nerves. He began to think he had heard the bugle only in a half-dream, too. Immediately the brassy, shivering call came again, close now, a different call this time, and now when he hurried out the door there were many people up and down the street, all staring east.

Back of the Western Star he could see the cloud of tan dust rising, and he could hear the hoofs clearly as the dust rolled nearer. Preceding it, riders wheeled into Main Street on the road from Bright’s City. There were ten or twelve of them, in dusty blue and forage caps, one with the fork-tailed pe

Pike Ski

He could only shake his head. The main body came slowly down Main Street, to halt before the burnt shell of the Glass Slipper. One of the civilians rode on toward him; it was Sheriff Keller. He reined up and dismounted, heavily, and dropped his reins in the dust. Grunting, he mounted the boardwalk, and with a sideways glance at Ga

“Glad to’ve seen you, hombre,” he said blandly, and made a slight movement with his head.

Pike started to speak, but changed his mind and went out. Down the street someone was yelling in a brass voice that was drowned in another sudden pad of hoofs.

Ga

The sheriff rubbed his coarse-veined red nose. The plating was worn from his sheriff’s star and the brass showed through. “What we forget,” he said slowly, staring at Ga

The hope burst in him more wildly still; but then the sheriff said, “Gent named Willingham. Porphyrion and Western Mining Company, or some such. There is a flock of wagons coming down.”

“Wagons?”

“Wagons for miners to ride in.”

“Miners?” he said, stupidly.

“Over to Welltown to the railroad,” the sheriff said. He sucked on his teeth. “And out,” he said, jerking his thumb east. “Out of the territory. Troublemaking miners,” he said, nodding, pursing his lips, scowling. “Ignorant, agitating, murdering foreigners, and a criminal conspiracy, what the general’s general says. Willingham, that is.” He sighed, then he scowled at Ga

A crutch-tip cracked on the planks. Judge Holloway came in, red-faced and panting. “Oh, it’s you, Keller!” the judge said. “Oh, you have come down to Warlock at last, have you?”

“Uh-huh,” Keller said. “Sit,” he said, vacating the chair grudgingly, and moving his bulk to the other. The judge sat down. His crutch got away from him, and clattered to the floor.

“Will you tell me what damned dirty devilment is going on here, Keller?”

“Run out of Apaches,” the sheriff said. His fat face looked tired and disgruntled. In the street Ga

“Pay what no mind?”

“What are you saying about Apaches, Keller?” the judge said.

“Why, they are all cleaned out, so now it is Cousin Jacks to take out after. New flag; it has got Porphyrion and Western wrote on it. Wagons coming. All those striking ones are going to get hauled up to Welltown and a special train is going to haul them back east somewheres and dump them.”

“MacDonald,” the judge whispered.

“Why, surely, MacDonald. Only he has got his big brother along, name of Willingham. Out from Frisco. Willingham has thrown a scare into old Peach something terrible.”

The judge began to hawk as though he would strangle. The sheriff rose and pounded him on the back. “Son,” he said to Ga

“They can’t do it!” the judge cried. “He is crazy!”

“Didn’t you people down here in Warlock know that? But he can surely do it. Colonel Whiteside was arguing and stamping around, how he couldn’t do it; and Willingham giving it to him he had damned well better. I heard Whiteside telling him Washington’d have his ears for it. But when Peach gets a bee in his bo

Keller took off his hat, ran a hand back over his head, sighed, and said, “Whiteside is a nice old feller for a colonel, and thinks high of Peach too. He says all he wants is for Peach to go out well thought of, which he is near to doing — and this will ruin him for sure. But Peach thinks how Willingham can do him some good in Washington some way, and anyway Willingham is claiming this is armed rebellion against the U.S. down here, and up to Peach to stop it. Why, they are going to round up these jacks like a herd of longhorns and ship them out in cattle cars, and it is a crying shame.” He extended a long, spatulate finger. “But judge,” he said, “and boy: there is nothing to do about it.”

The judge slid the drawer open against his belly and worked his bottle of whisky out of it. He cracked it down on the table before him. He said, “We are overrun with Philistines!”

“Save some of that for me,” the sheriff said. “I rid drag all the way down here.”

Ga

The sheriff took the bottle the judge handed him, and drank. His belly began to shake; he was laughing silently. He handed the bottle back and winked. “Why, I am to clean things out down here,” he said. “You and me, son. Why, we are to fill up one of those wagons ourself. Road agents, rustlers, murderers, and such trash; we are to round up a bagful. Old Peach heard somewhere that things’ve got a little out of hand down here.”