Warlock

It is said that the prosecution was pursued with less than diligence. It is also said that judge and jury were bribed, and that the courtroom was crowded with McQuown’s men brandishing six-shooters and muttering threats. Along the way my credulity begins to fail, amongst all this evidence of perfidy, but the fact remains that the three men have been freed. They rode through here yesterday on their way back to San Pablo. They encountered a sullen and most unfriendly Warlock, and had sense enough not to linger here in their triumph.

I think next time it may be very difficult to discourage a lynching party from its objective.

Still, certain good has come out of the affair. Public opinion, as it did when our poor barber was killed and Deputy Ca

The Citizens’ Committee has not met yet. We are not in a hurry to face the situation, and feel it best to move slowly. The question foremost in everyone’s mind is, of course, whether or not Blaisedell should be called upon to post the “i

As to the wholesale posting, you may hear it being argued on every hand, but with qualifications almost as numerous as the arguers. I think some of us are obsessed with the pleasure and presumption of dictating Life & Death.

There are also some who seem to be having grave second thoughts about the whole system of posting. Will Hart, I notice, is begi

I must face the fact, of course, that Public Opinion is not so unanimous as I would like to think. There are issues at stake, but as too often happens, we are apt to look to men as symbols rather than to the issues themselves. There are two sides here; one is Blaisedell, the other McQuown. So, alas, have the people chosen to see it. Blaisedell is, at the moment, the favored one by far; the profanum vulgus is solidly for him, and, as evinced by the lynch mob (which, curiously, Blaisedell had a large hand in putting down), against McQuown and the “i

Still, McQuown retains some of his adherents. Grain, the beef butcher, who, I am sure, buys stolen beef from McQuown, remains loyal to him. Ranchers, such as Blaikie, Quaintance, and Burbage, view the outlaw as a necessary evil, point out that their problems would be greatly increased without the presence of a controlling hand, and in any case are apt to view Blaisedell, possibly because he is a townsman and an agent of townsmen, with suspicion.

I do not think the Citizens’ Committee intends to do more than post the three road agents (or more probably four, including Friendly) out of town, but that remains to be seen. There is some talk of posting at the same time a chronic malcontent and agitator among the miners, but I feel this would confuse the present issue. I presume a meeting will be called by this week’s end, at the latest.

February 2, 1881

I am sorry for Deputy Ga

February 3, 1881

A despicable rumor is being circulated, to the effect that the Cowboys are truly i

Morgan is certainly roundly hated here, with good reason and bad. I might venture to say that unanimity of opinion comes closest to obtaining in Warlock as regards dislike of him. Personally, I think I would choose him over his competitor, Taliaferro, and I am sure that Taliaferro relieves his customers of their earnings no less rapidly or crookedly than Morgan. Yet Morgan does it with a completely unconcealed disdain of his victims and their ma

Like others of prominence here Morgan has been the object of many foul, and, I am sure, untrue tales. Unlike others, he seems pleased and flattered by this attention (I suppose this furnishes further evidence to him in support of his opinions of his fellow man), and has even sometimes hinted that the most incredible accusations of him may be true.

Because of all this, however, Blaisedell, in his fast friendship with Morgan, is rendered most vulnerable. I hope Morgan does not become the Marshal’s Achilles’ heel.

18. THE DOCTOR ARRANGES MATTERS

THE doctor hurried panting up the steps of the General Peach and into the thicker darkness of the entryway. He rapped on Jessie’s door; his knuckles stung. “Jessie!”

He heard her steps. Her face appeared, pale with the light on it, framed in curls. “What’s the matter, David?” she said as she opened the door wider for him. He moved in past her. A book lay open on the table, a blue ribbon across the page for a bookmark. “What’s the matter?” she said again.

“They have instructed him to post five men out,” he said, and sat down abruptly in the chair beside the door. He held up his hand, spread-fingered, and watched it shake with the sickening rage in him. “Be