Joe Cherry headed the reform movement. 211 He had a bunch of sheep up in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, Cherry had, but was in town frequent and always bunked at Hart’s store––him and Hart having knowed each other back East and being great friends. That made him take a ’special interest in the matter; and when he come a-riding in about an hour after things was over––likely he’d a-fixed Santa Fé himself if he’d been there when it happened––he got right up on his ear. He said he meant to square accounts for Bill’s shooting, and he reckoned telegraph-poling Charley was about what was needed to square ’em; and he said it was a good time, with that for a starter, for rounding-up and firing all the toughs there was in town. The rest of us allowed Cherry’s notions was reasonable, and it was seen there’d better be no fooling over ’em; and so we went straight on and had a meeting, with Cherry chairman, and fixed up a Committee––and the Committee begun business by corralling Santa Fé, and then set to work and made out a list of them that was to be fired.
There was about a dozen of ’em in the list; 212 and they was told––the notice being posted at the deepo––they had twenty-four hours to get out in; and it was added that them that wasn’t out in twenty-four hours would find ’emselves landed on the dumps for keeps. A few of ’em kicked a little––saying it was a free country, and they guessed they’d a right to be where they’d a mind to. But when the Committee said back it just was a free country, and one of the freest things in it was telegraph-poles––as Santa Fé Charley was going to find out for certain, and as them that was ordered to get up and get and didn’t would find out along with him––even the kickingest of ’em seen they’d better just shut their heads and andy along.
It wasn’t till the Committee come to tackle the Sage-Brush Hen there was any trouble––and then they found their drills was against quartz! Two or three of Charley’s worst shootings was charged to the Hen, she being ’special friends with him; and just because she was such a good-natured obliging sort of a woman, always wanting to please everybody, she was at the roots of half the fights that 213 started in––so there’d come to be what was called the Hen’s Lot out in the cemetery on the mesa, as I’ve mentioned before. The Committee put her in their list because they knowed for a fact there was bound to be ructions in Palomitas as long as she stayed there; and so they found ’emselves in a deepish hole when she said plump Palomitas suited her, and she didn’t mean to be fired. The Hen knowed as well as they did she had a cinch on ’em. If they didn’t like her staying, she said, they could yank her up to the next telegraph-pole to Charley’s––and then she asked ’em, kind of cool and cutting, if they didn’t think hanging a lady would give a nice name to the town!
The Committee was in session in the waiting-room at the deepo while the Hen was doing her talking, and Santa Fé––with handcuffs on, and tied to the express messenger’s safe––was in the express office, with the door open between. Everybody seen the Hen was right, and hanging her would be ungentlemanly, and nobody seemed to know what they’d better do. While they was all 214 setting still and thinking, Santa Fé spoke up from the express office––saying he had the reputation of the town at heart as much as anybody, and to make a real clean-up the Hen ought to quit along with the others, and if they’d let him have five minutes private talk with her he’d fix things so she’d go.
The Committee didn’t much believe Santa Fé could deliver the goods; but they seen it would be a way out for ’em if he did––and so they agreed him and the Hen should have their talk. To make it private, he was took out and hitched fast to a freight-car laying on the siding back of the deepo––the Committee standing around in easy shooting distance, but far enough off not to hear nothing, with their Winchesters handy in case the Hen took it into her head to cut the rope and give him a chance to get away. She didn’t––and she and Santa Fé talked to each other mighty serious for a while; and then they begun to snicker a little; and they ended up in a rousing laugh.
Charley sung out they’d finished, and the 215 Committee closed in and unhitched him, and took him back to the express office and hitched him to the safe again––where he was to stay till hanging-time, with members of the Committee taking turns keeping him quiet with their guns. He said he was much obliged to ’em, and the Hen had agreed to quit––and everybody was pleased all round.
“I don’t like not being here when Charley gets his medicine,” the Hen said, “him and me being such good friends; but he says it would only worry him having me in the audience, and so I’ve promised him I’ll light out”––and she kept her word, and got away for Denver by that night’s train. Her going took a real load off the Committee’s mind.
Some of the other fired ones went off on the same train. The rest took Hill’s coach across to Santa Fé––and made no trouble, Hill said, except they held the coach for two hours at Pojuaque while all hands got drunk at old man Bouquet’s. Hill said all the rest of the way they was yelling, and firing off their guns, and raising hell generally––that was the way Hill put it––but they didn’t do no real harm.