Authors: Harry N. MacLean
"It's all right," he replied nonchalantly.
The big Silverado swung left and slipped easily into the space. Ken and Trena got out, leaving the windows up, and walked into the tavern. The place was empty except for Red Smith behind the bar, a woman and her baby sitting at a table, and a couple of kids playing a video game. Ken stood at the north end of the bar, near the door, and ordered a Budweiser, a pack of Camels, and some Rolaids. Trena stood beside him and ordered a Pepsi.
The men in the Legion Hall were discussing the details of their plan to keep track of McElroy when Frankie Aldrich slipped in the front door, walked over to Pete Ward, and began whispering in Pete's ear. Frankie had pumped gas at the Sumy station for eight years. Before that, he had pumped gas across the street at Birt Johnson's for twenty years. This morning, Frankie had been left alone at the station while the owners attended the meeting. Standing in the doorway at the station, he had watched the Silverado pull into town and park in front of the D & G. After Ken and Trena had gone into the tavern, Frankie had hurried across the street to the Legion Hall.
Pete Ward listened intently to Frankie, then turned to the crowd and said, "Well, McElroy's down at the pool hall right now."
Silence filled the room, and everyone froze.
Then somebody said, "Let's go and have a beer."
Steve Peter felt that they had no choice. They had just reached an agreement to watch McElroy, and now he had driven into town. If they did anything other than go down to the tavern and watch him, not a man there could have looked another in the eye. Ken McElroy would have run the biggest bluff in his life, and the town would have been his.
Men began shuffling out the door of the Legion Hall, talking casually as they left. No one seemed to be in a hurry to start down the hill. More than one man was wondering, Is this a smart thing to do? Are we going down there looking for trouble? Is he going to remember each one of our faces when it's over?
Outside the Legion Hall, eight or nine men split off from the main body and, instead of heading down the hill, crossed the street to the corner in front of Sumy's gas station, where they would have an unobstructed view of whatever happened.
Some people recall Sheriff Estes standing by the door when Frankie came in. They said he walked out with the rest of the men, but as they headed down the hill, he got into his 1978 Mercury and left town, swinging a block north to avoid the Silverado and the men filing down the street. Others swear that Estes left the hall five or ten minutes before Frankie arrived. (In either version, several lawmen later shook their heads over Estes' leaving town when fifty frustrated men were gathered to decide what to do about Ken McElroy.)
As the men headed down the hill, it was clear to Steve Peter that they had agreed to watch McElroy and try to keep track of him for the next ten days, and nothing more. But he also sensed that something violent was bound to happen, if not in the next hour, then in the next day, or the day after that.
When Ken Herner left the meeting, he walked directly across the street and returned to work. As he entered the bank, he felt good; they had a plan, a solution to their problem. The sheriff was going to seek approval to deputize the men into a rural posse. But Herner sensed that the plan might not work, that somebody could end up getting killed. McElroy would be roaming the gravel roads one night, and he would pass somebody's checkpoint, and that person would get scared or nervous about what McElroy was going to do, or McElroy would see him and stop and challenge him; things would go haywire, and someone would get shot.
Red Smith had come to work a little early that day because a beer delivery was due around 9:30 am After the delivery man had come and gone, Red cleaned up the bar, straightened the tables, and prepared for the day. When Ken and Trena came in a little after 10, Red served them, then came out from behind the bar and joined the kids playing the video game by the front door.
Minutes later, Del Clement walked in the door and said, "You better get behind the bar. There's going to be a bunch in here."
Red flipped on the air conditioner and went behind the bar. A few seconds later, the door swung open and two or three men came in and walked to the center of the bar. Soon, the place was full of men, most of them standing at the bar ordering pop or beer. Several of them, Red knew, had never been in the tavern before in their lives. Red moved in circles from the cooler to the bar, trying to keep track of the money. Most of the men took their beer to the tables or stood along the wall, talking and joking as if everything were normal. A few men stood near the bar, staring openly at McElroy, making sure that he got the message. Pete Ward, at the far end of the bar, glared unflinchingly at his adversary. McElroy acted as he usually did, staring at someone for a second or two, smoking a cigarette, drinking his beer, turning occasionally to say a few words in a low voice to Trena.
Steve Peter was one of the last ones in the door, and he noticed that many of the men seemed to be looking away from McElroy. When Gary Walker came in, the only empty spot at the bar was the stool right next to McElroy. Gary had half intended to tell McElroy to "get off our ass," but as he ambled over to the stool, he "ran out of guts." From the tension in the room, he almost expected some sort of confrontation then and there. He was nervous as hell. He ordered a beer, and McElroy turned to him and said casually, "Boy, this place is really filling up in here." "Yeah," said Gary. "It sure is."
"Maybe they're going to have a crap game," said McElroy. "Yeah, could be."
"Say, are you the guy who sells trailers?" asked McElroy. "Yeah, it's me."
"I thought it was your brother." "No, it's me."
"Do you still have the blue trailer for sale?" "No, I sold that one."
A few weeks earlier, McElroy had told Gary that one day he would come into Skidmore and start shooting and see how many people he could take with him before he went down. Now Gary felt that McElroy was marking him, letting him know he would be remembered when the time came.
As brief as the conversation was, the encounter became the main event in the crowded room. The talk died down as people turned to catch a glimpse of Gary and McElroy and perhaps to pick up a word or two. Some people found it strange that Gary was being friendly with McElroy. To
Gary, the explanation was simple: he ended up in a conversation with McElroy because the stool next to him happened to be the only space at the bar.
As Trena looked around the tavern, she saw fifty or sixty men, many of whom she recognized. There were Sumys, Kenneys, Barretts, Browns, and three of the Clement brothers-Royce, Scott, and Del. She watched as Del and Red passed out cups of beer to the men; they seemed to be giving it away free, as if they were celebrating something. Everybody was talking, but only one man talked to Ken. Although no one said anything to her, and she didn't hear any threats or see any weapons, she was frightened. Ken had drunk about half of his beer when Trena heard the Silverado's horn honk.
She looked at Ken, but he didn't say anything. Finally, he said, "Well, we'd better go."
He ordered a six-pack of beer to go, paid with a $5 bill, put the Rolaids and the Camels in the sack with the beer, and stood up.
Outside, a nine-year-old girl with light brown hair and a pretty smile had escaped the watchful eye of her grandmother and was dawdling in the drive between the tavern and the rear of the grocery store. The girl heard the rear door of the tavern close and looked over to see a young man with a rifle in his hands. When he saw her, he stopped, then told her she better go on home. She went home and told her grandmother about the man with the gun, and her grandmother admonished her not to tell anyone else.
Inside the tavern, McElroy turned and walked toward the front door, holding the paper sack in his right hand. As he and Trena reached the door, a few men began to stir.
"Get out of town and stay out of town."
"And don't come back, goddamn it!"
The comments didn't reach Trena's ears, and if Ken heard them, he didn't react.
Cheryl had not moved from her window at the B & B, and her heart began to pound when the screen door swung open and the bulky form of Ken McElroy appeared on the sidewalk. She watched intently as he walked to the driver's side of the Silverado and got in.
When Ken and Trena began moving toward the door, Steve Peter realized that he and the others would have to follow them out. A watch committee was supposed to watch, and wouldn't it look stupid if all the watchmen sat in the bar while McElroy roamed the streets. Chairs scraped and men moved toward the door. Steve was the fourth or fifth person out after Trena, and he walked over to the front fender of the vehicle next to the Silverado, on the side closest to Trena's door. Most of the other men flowed up the hill in the same direction. The men at Sumy's station stood silently and watched the others collect on the sidewalk to the west of the Silverado.
If you kick and torment a nice dog long enough, if you're mean enough to him, one day when he's cornered, he'll turn and fight. Perhaps that is what happened in Skidmore that morning. The men had acted rationally and logically in adopting a plan that committed them to play by the rules. But in fact, they had turned to fight. They turned, most likely, when word of the continuance came, and they headed for the Legion Hall instead of going home. Or perhaps when they heard McElroy had come to town and was in the tavern. If three men didn't know in their guts that the town had turned, they would never have gone for their guns.
At some point between the moment Frankie brought word that McElroy was in town and the moment that McElroy left the tavern, the three men moved off by themselves for a brief conversation. After learning the day before that the hearing had been postponed, they had talked about what might have to be done. They had agreed that with McElroy running around loose for another ten days, nobody would be safe. Sounds of idling pickup engines would be the sounds of fear, and men riding tractors with their rifles beside them would watch the roads for the Silverado and worry about what was happening at home. The time had come to kill or be killed.
Maybe he would pull a gun on them, and they could act in self-defense, but they couldn't count on that. Each had brought a weapon: One had a shotgun, another a .30-30, and the third a .22. They would wait until he came out of the tavern. Two of them would stand across the street by their trucks, and the third would wait in the drive behind the tavern and the store. The blood rushed to their heads, then spread out to their hands and feet, cooling them down in the late morning heat.
McElroy sat calmly in the Silverado, ignoring the group of men on the sidewalk to his right. He reached into the sack, pulled out the pack of Camels, tore it open, and extracted a cigarette. He stuck it in his mouth, but before lighting it, he started the engine. His yellow Bic lighter lay on the seat beside him, and he reached over to pick it up as he glanced at the men on the sidewalk. His motions were slow and deliberate.
When Trena got in the pickup, she noticed that men were still coming out of the tavern. Most of those inside, except Red Smith, came out. Many of them turned west up the hill, and several stood on the edge of the sidewalk and the street, between the Silverado and the car parked next to it. All the men were staring in their direction. She turned to Ken.
"What're they staring for?" she asked.
"I don't know," he replied.
Steve Peter and a few others moved closer to the rear of the Silverado on Trena's side. She noticed Peter's hands moving in the air. She rolled down the window to see if he wanted something, but no words were spoken. Then she saw a solitary figure walking toward her from the side or the front of the tavern. She recognized Del Clement in his jeans, cowboy hat, and cowboy boots. Because Del was the only person moving, she turned her head and watched him as he crossed the street behind her. He walked to the cab of a dark red Ford pickup parked up the street a little way. He opened the door, reached inside, and pulled out a .30-30. Then he walked to the back of the Ford, closer to the Silverado. She saw him pull the lever down, snap it back up, raise the rifle to his right shoulder, and sight down the barrel.
"They've got guns!" she cried.
Ken didn't move.
Trena watched as Del squeezed the trigger, then she heard the crack of the shot and the sound of the rear window blowing apart. She turned to look at Ken and saw a huge hole in his cheek and the shattered rear window. She turned back to look at Del and saw his finger pull the trigger again and heard the explosion of a second shot. She looked at Ken and saw that he had been hit a second time.
"Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!" Trena screamed. "Please stop shooting him!"
Someone jerked her door open, and a man yelled, "Get down, or they'll shoot you, too." A big man pulled her out of the truck onto the ground, and then another man, whom she knew but didn't recognize, grabbed her and hustled her up the street to the bank. As she went up the sidewalk, still screaming, she looked up and saw two women watching from a window in the bank. A few men noticed the spreading wetness on the inner thighs of her jeans.