Epitaph

by Mary Doria Russell

  While he was in town, he took the opportunity to see what all this H.M.S. Pinafore fuss was about, and by the end of the first act, he had his eye on a couple of girls in the chorus. When he found out the Markham troupe would be coming to Tombstone at the end of their Arizona tour, he leveraged good looks and good tailoring with good humor to get backstage, where he introduced himself to the manager.

  “John Behan,” he told Randolph Murray, “and I must warn you at the outset that I am a member of that most loathed and feared breed of man: the Irish politician.” The actor smiled, so Johnny followed that disarming confession with a few recommendations about Tombstone’s best hotels, nicest restaurants, and finest stores, along with a hint or two about where to find the prettiest and most accommodating girls, while letting slip—subtly, of course—that he himself was a mover and a shaker in southern Arizona’s exciting new boomtown.

  “Just mention my name,” Johnny urged, an inherited Dublin lilt adding interest to Missouri’s more prosaic tones. “The proprietors will do their very best to make you feel that Tombstone has treated you well, sir. And if you decide to stay at the Grand Hotel, I’d be happy to arrange for an accommodation on the fees. The owner is a friend of mine.”

  “How very kind,” Randolph murmured. He was aware that he was being worked but didn’t mind, for it was useful to develop a connection with a local businessman before the troupe arrived in a town. He was also enjoying Johnny’s ingratiating performance, for actors and politicians are members of allied professions and often impress one another. “Mr. Behan, we’re having a little celebration this evening for Miss Markham’s birthday . . .” He dropped his voice before adding, “Though no one would think of mentioning the passing of the years within the Glorious Pauline’s hearing.”

  “A slip of a girl,” Johnny agreed solemnly. “Hardly out of ringlets.”

  “Precisely! Perhaps you would care to join us?”

  “Well, now, that’s real friendly of you, sir. It’ll be my pleasure—sometime after midnight, I expect!” Johnny said with a wink.

  Randolph smiled back indulgently. They were men of the world, after all.

  WHEN YOU’RE ONE OF FOURTEEN CHILDREN, you learn to make an impression fast if you want to be noticed at all. Number three in the Behan brood, John Harris Behan did indeed crave notice, but he and his sisters and brothers had all been sternly taught the perils of getting above themselves. Take momentary pleasure in a small triumph and you’d hear, “There’s joy in the spring but sadness in the fall.” Brag and you’d be warned, “There’s a spoon you’ll sup sorrow with yet.”

  It was better to be discovered than to push yourself forward, so at dinner with the Markham troupe that first evening in Prescott, Johnny listened to the theater stories with quiet appreciation, merely tossing a witty aside into the conversation now and then. Asked a question, he responded with self-deprecating remarks calculated to arouse curiosity. It was only after dessert that he let himself be persuaded to tell the troupe about his frontier adventures.

  “Well, I did serve as sheriff of Yavapai County for a couple of years,” he admitted, pausing for murmurs of approbation around the table. “That was a lively sort of job, but nothing compared to the time I spent as a representative in the territorial legislature. In Arizona, Republicans and Democrats fight like Kilkenny cats—till there’s nothing left but the yowl.” He waited for the chuckles to subside. “Now, I’m a Democrat myself,” he continued, “but I reckoned there had to be a few things we could all agree on. Better roads—” Enthusiastic affirmation. “Education . . .” Insincere murmurs of concurrence. “Keeping the Apaches in check.” Shudders, all around. “Everyone thought I was crazy to try to work with the Republicans, so I played to my strengths,” he said with a cocky grin. “Got a bill passed for the humane care and treatment of the insane!” He allowed only a moment before he smothered his smile, almost, and said, “Obviously a madman’s self-interest.” Which got a laugh from everyone except the girl who was sitting across the table and a few seats down.

  Of course, he’d been working hard to remain becomingly modest, but damn if she didn’t seem to be ignoring him on purpose. He himself was finding it impossible not to stare at her. What role did she play in the production, he wondered, and why didn’t I notice her before? She wasn’t conventionally pretty, but she was slim and lively with vivid features and extraordinary dark curls that sprang out around her face, but only grazed her shoulders. He’d never seen a woman with hair so short. It suited her, he decided.

  Just then, she raised her eyes and met his own for a moment.

  “I see you’ve noticed Jo Marcus,” Miss Markham murmured, leaning close and placing a hand on his thigh. “She dances as Tommy Tucker. The cabin boy?” When his eyes grew round, the Glorious Pauline added, “Yes, she’s a wonder, our little Josie. So . . . athletic!”

  Before she could say more, Randolph Murray interrupted to ask about Geronimo. Yes, Johnny confirmed, Apache raids were a constant threat. They were serious trouble when they occurred, and he told three stories to illustrate the point. Admittedly, he might have played the danger up a bit, for the Apaches were cunning about international politics, living quietly on Arizona reservations while raising merry hell on the Mexican side. Given American attitudes toward greasers, the Indians were welcome to steal livestock in Sonora as long as things stayed peaceful north of the border. Still, why not give the theater folks a thrill? It was just having a little fun. Telling a few stretchers to make the actresses flutter. Sure enough, one of them—though not Jo Marcus—insisted that the gallant Mr. Behan keep her “safe” that night in Prescott. The next morning, the troupe left for Phoenix. Johnny cut overland and waited just north of town. Staying out of sight, he whooped like an Apache and fired off his pistols before riding over the ridge: a one-man cavalry, ready to take credit for saving the girls from a fate worse than death.

  His little pantomime worked like a charm on everyone except the Marcus girl. Aloof, she watched him with a small cool smile. Like she knew that he was picturing the way she looked in boy’s clothing.

  He shadowed the Markham troupe for miles, attending every performance as the show moved south toward Tombstone. He was going that way anyhow, of course, and tried to match the girl’s teasing indifference, but he wanted her and bad. Why? he asked himself, and he had no answer except that it was his nature. From the time he was twelve, in any company, he had always ranked the girls: which he’d have first, then second, then third. The world was filled with desirable women. Hell, nearly all of them were desirable! Plump or thin, white or black or brown, young or experienced. Most could be had for a kind word, or a sweet gesture, or a silver dollar. But not this one. Not Jo Marcus.

  It wasn’t until they got to Benson that he finally broke through and the funny thing was, he’d quit trying by then. They were just passing the time, hiding from the heat in the shadow of the livery stable, trading stories about their families while they waited for fresh horses to be harnessed for the final push into Tombstone.

  Her father was a banker, she told him. Her mother was a society lady, active in the community, doing charity work. Theater was just a lark, she said breezily. She loved to dance but expected she’d return to San Francisco and settle down once she’d gotten a craving for adventure out of her system.

  “My mother thought you could burn in hell for dancing,” he said.

  She blinked. “That’s absurd. Anyway, Jews don’t believe in hell.”

  His father would have told her, “You’ll believe in hell right enough when you get there, missy!” but Johnny said, “I don’t believe I ever met a Jew.”

  “You have now,” she said. “Why would anybody think dancing is a sin?”

  “Dancing is the devil’s snare,” he told her sternly, pulling a long and serious face. “You can’t dance without going to a dance hall. You can’t go to a dance hall without drinking. You can’t drink without sinning.”

  His mother’s folks were teetotal Missour
i Baptists who considered fancy meals and store-bought clothes a sinful extravagance but owned slaves who cooked and sewed and cleaned. His father was a Kildare Catholic. “An ex-seminarian, no less, who saw no harm in a drop of whiskey of an evening,” Johnny said, briefly mimicking his father’s brogue. “Being a drinker was bad enough, but my dad was an abolitionist, too. That was real trouble in Missouri back then.”

  To her Baptist parents’ enduring dismay, young Miss Harris defied them to marry the mick. Fourteen children attested to the couple’s passionate love, but the Mason-Dixon Line ran through the middle of the Behan home: a domestic armory packed to the rafters with explosive politics, with a lit fuse concealed in every corner. And it wasn’t just slavery or drinking Mr. and Mrs. Behan fought over.

  “Christ, but I hated Sundays,” Johnny said, bitterness and Ireland creeping into his voice. “No matter where you went to church, you were a heretic for one parent or t’other. And you came home to more strife over the beef—roasted versus corned, y’see. Then there was the potato battle! Mashed with milk and butter or plain boiled? They even argued about how to thank heaven for the food they fought over.”

  When the larger war broke out, in 1861, John Harris Behan was just nineteen. “Which side did you join?” Josie asked, and she seemed genuinely interested in his dilemma, so he was honest with her. He’d had his fill of rancor. Rather than enlist in either of the armies that were making Missouri a bleeding battlefield, he lit out for California, and he’d done his level best to get along with people ever since.

  “I can find common ground with anyone,” he told her, and he meant it, though the country was more divided after the war than before it. “There’s always a way to make a deal work. Just see to it that everybody gets something and nobody gets everything.”

  The stage teams were hitched to the wagons by then. Randolph Murray was herding everyone into the coaches, and Johnny helped Josie climb up. He never quite understood what finally brought her around. Whatever the reason, she kept hold of his hand after she settled onto the bench. Then she leaned over and kissed him full on the mouth.

  Right there. In front of everyone.

  Damn, but she was something! Wire-thin, with an energy that seemed almost . . . What? He had no words for her. Electric, maybe? A glowing face, vivid with mischief, as though she were daring him—

  She wants it, he realized. He could see it in her. The excitement. The hunger. He sounded courteous, but he could feel his blood rising when he asked if he might visit her in Tombstone that evening after the performance.

  “Maybe,” she allowed, eyes sparkling. “If no one more interesting takes my fancy.”

  When he came to her room that night, she pulled him inside, shut the door, and met his need with a bright eagerness undimmed by holy virgins and the threat of everlasting torment. Ten minutes later, stunned and breathless, John Harris Behan truly believed that a lifetime of searching had ended.

  At last, he thought. A girl who could go toe to toe with him. A girl who could match him, day and night, and round for round.

  SEVENTY-TWO HOURS LATER, the glorious Pauline Markham was quietly gleeful as she informed the rather grumpy Randolph Murray that rosy little Josie had resigned from the troupe in order to move in with the dashing Mr. Behan.

  Her delicious news was greeted with disappointing aplomb, for it had been anticipated. During the balance of their Tombstone engagement, Mr. Murray informed her, the part of Tommy Tucker the Cabin Boy would be played by the lovely Miss May Bell, a chorus girl who had been consolingly eager to step into all of Miss Marcus’s roles.

  A week later, the Markham troupe concluded its triumphant Arizona tour and set out for the Pacific coast to do a series of return engagements in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara. By that time, everyone in Tombstone was talking about H.M.S. Pinafore, excepting only Wyatt Earp.

  Wyatt never talked much, but even he had gone to see the operetta twice. Early in the run.

  A MAN OF MANY WORDS

  THERE WOULD COME A DAY WHEN FOLKS WOULD find it ironic that Johnny himself made such a special point of making sure his “wife” met Wyatt Earp, but it would be a long while before that day came.

  In the beginning, Johnny had a grand time of it, squiring his exotic Jewish beauty around town, introducing “Mrs. Behan” with a wink and a cocky grin. He savored the envy of other men, and Josie, too, enjoyed the admiration of every male in Tombstone. Even so, when Johnny first called out, “Wyatt! Come and meet the missus!” she had to stifle a sigh.

  Johnny possessed that most fundamental of political skills: the ability to recall potential constituents by the thousands. Josie herself had given up trying to keep the names straight and found the men they belonged to nearly indistinguishable. This Wyatt person was in his middle thirties, she judged. Tall and notably well-built, though she was almost too tired to care. After several months of matching Johnny Behan—day and night, round for round—she understood why Irish girls entered the convent. Johnny’s thirteen brothers and sisters meant that his mother had been pregnant for ten and a half years. It was a calculation that filled Josie with awe and horror, and renewed her gratitude for the existence of the French letter.

  “Johnny, I’ve already met this one,” she murmured as Wyatt crossed the street.

  “No, honey, you’re thinking of Morgan Earp. He’s the Wells Fargo guard,” Johnny reminded her quickly. “Wyatt’s his older brother. Earps are thick on the ground in Tombstone! James is the oldest. He owns a tavern near Chinatown. Virgil’s the deputy federal marshal. There’s three years between Morgan and Wyatt, but they could be twins. You’ll see.”

  The resemblance was striking. The same handsome well-cut features, the same fair hair, the same broad shoulders, but this brother was thinner in the face and his clothes hung on him badly. Feet dragging, he looked as worn out as Josie felt, but it wasn’t until they were close enough to shake hands that she noticed what made him so different from his cheerful younger brother Morgan: those joyless blue eyes.

  “Wyatt, I’d like you to meet Mrs. Behan. Josie, honey, this is Deputy Sheriff Wyatt Earp. He made quite a name for himself as a peace officer in Dodge City!”

  The deputy looked embarrassed and mumbled something about being pleased to meet her. She smiled prettily and returned the pleasantry. Her new role wasn’t much of a speaking part. She just had to stand at Johnny’s side while he made small talk about the upcoming county-wide election. Usually these conversations went on at some length, but this man hardly spoke at all and Josie gathered that Deputy Earp had just arrived back in town after transporting a prisoner to the Pima County sheriff’s office up in Tucson.

  “Johnny, dear,” she said, “I think Deputy Earp must be very tired. We should let him go.”

  Johnny put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward him in mute approval. “You’re right, honey. How’s Mrs. Earp, Wyatt?” Johnny asked, his voice soft with sympathy.

  The deputy’s eyes slid away. “Haven’t been home yet.”

  “Well, you go on then, but I’ve got something important I’d like to discuss with you, Wyatt. I have to go up to Prescott this week. When I get back, I’d like to meet with you and talk a few things over.”

  Wyatt shrugged an assent, knuckled his hat to Josie, and trudged off.

  “Be nice to him, honey,” Johnny said. “We need to befriend that man.”

  “What’s wrong with his wife?”

  “Well . . . let’s just say I’m a lucky man.”

  “Why are we going to Prescott?”

  “It’ll just be me going, honey. I’ve got some business to take care of up there,” Johnny said vaguely, for no politician enjoys delivering unwelcome news, and he still hadn’t mentioned his first wife, let alone the flagrant cheating that had led Victoria to divorce him. Nor had he said anything about having a son, much less the fact that Albert would be coming back to live with Johnny and Josie in Tombstone. “It’s a long hard trip, and Geronimo is acting up again,”
he told Josie. “You’re safer here, honey. I’ll be back in a few days.”

  It didn’t occur to her to ask for more details. Thank God, was all she thought at the time. I’ll finally get some sleep.

  WHICH WAS EXACTLY what Dr. J. H. Holliday was thinking when he arrived in Tombstone a week later, after far too much time in John Behan’s garrulous company.

  Sitting on the uncushioned bench of a badly sprung stagecoach was like being beaten with a plank. Being talked at by the voluble Mr. Behan hour after hour had added to the strain. When the dentist finally climbed out of the stagecoach in Tombstone, he made no attempt to find Morgan Earp or his brother Wyatt. Instead, he went directly to the Cosmopolitan Hotel, checked in, and gave Mr. Bilicke exceedingly clear instructions: He was not to be disturbed—by anyone, for any reason—unless the building caught fire. And then only if the flames came within twenty feet of his room.

  Exhausted, the dentist slept through his first twelve hours in Tombstone, while Johnny Behan was busy explaining to Josie why he’d waited so long to tell her about the first Mrs. Behan and why he’d failed to mention that his son, Albert, would be living with them from now on. So it must have been another passenger on the coach who started the rumor about what happened between Doc Holliday and Johnny Behan during their shared journey.

  Soon, juicy gossip about their brief stagecoach argument over the Anti-Chinese League was circulating. By the time the Earps heard the story, it ended with Doc pulling a knife on Johnny Behan and threatening to gut Albert if Johnny said another word. Knowing Doc, they figured he’d called Behan an ignorant Missouri jackass and told him to keep a civil tongue in his head, but given Doc’s reputation, it wouldn’t be long before somebody claimed he’d seen Holliday shoot Johnny Behan six times before eating Albert raw in the horrified presence of two Catholic nuns and a sweet little girl named Nancy.

  Wyatt and Morgan searched all over town that night, hoping to find Doc before he got into more trouble. Morgan even asked about him at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, but Al Bilicke was scared of what Holliday would do to him if Morgan woke the gambler up and swore Doc wasn’t there. Which meant that Wyatt was still making do with oil of clove for his toothache and felt like hell the next morning.