Epitaph

by Mary Doria Russell

  Johnny Behan, by contrast, had awakened full of energy and rarin’ to go on his first day back from Prescott. Josie, who always got a slower start, mumbled, “Johnny, it’s too early,” but he kissed the back of her neck and reached around to cup her breast and snugged in behind her, murmuring, “It’s never too early for some of you, honey!” When he was done, he hopped out of bed and began telling Josie about the deal he planned to make with Wyatt Earp that morning. “It’s going to mean a brilliant future for us, and a good one for Wyatt, and it’ll deliver far better law enforcement to the citizens of southeastern Arizona. All of that, in one clever move,” he crowed. “God, but I do love politics!”

  He shaved and dressed while Josie got pancakes and eggs going on the stove. Albert came out of his room, blinking and still half-asleep, just as Josie was putting breakfast on the table. Johnny ate like he was stoking a furnace, and that’s exactly how he felt: like a man on fire who needed fuel. When he finished his meal, he kissed his thanks to Josie and ruffled Albert’s sleep-mussed hair. “Albert,” he said, “if your daddy pulls this off, you’re going to be the governor’s son someday!”

  That was when, hand on the doorknob, he told Josie that he’d be bringing Wyatt Earp home for lunch if their meeting went well. “Bake something special,” he suggested. “And make sure Marcelita does a nice job on the house today. Wyatt likes things neat and clean. See you later, Mrs. Governor!”

  Spirits soaring, he strode into town, greeting dozens of men, asking after their families or their business dealings, showing that he remembered them, one and all. It was mid-morning before he spotted Wyatt hunched over a cup of coffee in a cheap café, and it was right then and there that Johnny decided that he probably ought to marry Josie before the next election cycle. Know a good thing when you’ve got it, he told himself, for breakfast was still warm in his belly and he was freshly aware of how neglected Wyatt was.

  The little bell above the door rang as he entered the restaurant. Sitting across from Wyatt, he leaned over the table. “I just got back from Prescott, and the rumors are true—”

  Wyatt winced. “Look, I know Doc can be hard to get along with, but he’s—”

  Johnny frowned. “Holliday? Oh! That! Forgot all about it,” he lied. “No! What I wanted to tell you is, the rumors are right. The legislature is going to split Pima County in two, early next year. And it’s because of the sheriff’s office!” He paused to order a cup of coffee, putting a friendly hand on a waitress’s rump while he did so, chuckling when she slapped it away. He watched her walk back to the kitchen before continuing, “This is no reflection on Sheriff Shibell, Wyatt. Charlie’s competent and honest, but everybody knows he’s got an impossible job. Pima County’s bigger than most states back east. Hell, it’s bigger than a lot of European countries! And it’s on the Mexican border, which complicates everything. Capitalists have a lot of places they can put their money, and when Mexico makes a fuss over cattle rustling across the border or when the Associated Press runs a story about a barroom shooting in Tombstone, it makes a bad impression—”

  The waitress set Johnny’s coffee down in front of him, though she stayed on the far side of the table to do it. Johnny winked at her but waited until she left to speak again. “Anyways, the legislature’s going to carve a big chunk of Pima County off and put a new sheriff’s office right here in Tombstone. The idea is, we get a grip on the crime problem and prove Arizona is safe for investors. Make sense?”

  Wyatt nodded. “So?”

  “So the new county’s going to need a new government. But it takes time to organize a regular election. People have to get registered to vote. You need polling places and election officials, and so on. Both parties have to come up with a slate of candidates. All that might take a year or eighteen months, maybe.” Johnny dropped his voice. “Which means the first men to hold county offices will be appointees, right? And Governor Frémont’s a Republican, so he’s probably going to pick Republicans, right? So when it comes time for the new sheriff of the new county to be appointed, your name is going to come up.”

  “Yeah. I figured.”

  “Of course!” Johnny said affably, sitting back in his chair. “You’re a Republican, and you’re highly thought of up in Kansas, but you were a city policeman in Dodge,” he pointed out, careful not to say only a city policeman. “Now, me, I’m a Democrat, and God knows that doesn’t help me in Arizona! But I’ve had experience as sheriff up in Yavapai County, and that may count for something when we’re getting the new county administration going. I’ve still got contacts in the territorial legislature, and from what I heard . . .” Johnny leaned over the table again. “From what I heard, we are both in the running for that appointment. Now, frankly, Wyatt, I think either one of us would be a good choice, but I’ve got a proposal I’d like you to give some consideration.”

  Johnny laid it out for him, and while Wyatt didn’t say yes, he didn’t say no, either. Which was exactly what Johnny had expected.

  “Just think it over,” Johnny urged. “You haven’t eaten yet, have you? Why not come on over to the house for lunch? My little Josie is quite a cook, and my son, Albert, would love to meet you.”

  “I don’t know,” Wyatt said. “I got a tooth kicking up . . .”

  But Johnny wouldn’t take no for an answer and filled Wyatt’s silence with cheerful gossip about men in the legislature as they walked back to the house, smiling broadly when Wyatt said, “Smells good,” for Josie had something wonderful cooking on the stove.

  Inside, everything was neat as a pin, except . . . A wash bucket sat in the middle of the floor and Josie was next to it, scrubbing on her hands and knees, her springy hair all mashed down under a kerchief.

  “Josie, honey,” Johnny asked uneasily, “where’s Marcelita?”

  The girl sat back on her heels. “I fired her.”

  “You fired another one? But— why?”

  “Because clean means clean! It doesn’t mean less dirty. It doesn’t mean scrub until you’re bored. It means clean.” Suddenly she was on her feet, balling up the scrub rag, hurling it at him, snarling about Marcelita, and you could tell she’d been rehearsing her speech all morning. “I never should have come here. There’s dust all over everything, and pigs in the street, and it’s noisy and filthy and it stinks! I found a rat in the flour bin, Johnny. A rat! I’m sick to death of this place and everyone in it. Nobody will even talk to me. Anybody who’s anybody treats me like I’m a whore. And now you come home with your ex-wife’s child—”

  “Ah, Christ! Josie, I told you why he—”

  “I’m not a nanny, John Behan. I’m not some governess who’s paid to look after other women’s children. He belongs with his mother!”

  White-faced, Albert was standing in the corner like a rabbit watching a dog fight: not knowing which way to run and too scared to move.

  “Maybe another time,” Wyatt mumbled, backing out the door.

  “Wyatt! Wait!” Johnny pleaded, but Wyatt never looked back, and that ripped it. “God damn you, Josie, I had him! I was so close to making the deal, and now you pull this stunt! Albert, for Christ’s sake, stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about!”

  “You didn’t even ask me, Johnny! You just show up with this boy and—”

  “Josie, so help me, you say another goddam word—”

  But Josie would never concede. She never quit arguing. Suddenly the manifold pressures of John Harris Behan’s life seemed to concentrate in his fist and . . . Yes, he let her have it. No, he wasn’t proud of that but he gave himself credit for this much, at least: He left the house before he did worse.

  Sprinting down the street, hoping to make things right, he caught up with Wyatt, but before he could say anything, Virgil Earp had come around the corner and told his brother, “We’ve got some stolen army livestock to deal with, Wyatt. There’s a lieutenant in town—”

  “The army can’t be involved with any criminal arrest,” Johnny warned.

  Virgil t
urned to look down at him. All the Earps were big, but Virgil had a couple of inches and probably forty pounds on his brothers. Which gave him eight inches and seventy pounds on Johnny Behan.

  “Yeah. We know, Johnny,” Virg said in that rumbling voice of his. “That’s why Lieutenant Hurst is in Tombstone. He needs a civilian posse.” Virgil turned back to Wyatt. “Hurst’s getting his men something to eat, but figure three o’clock, at Fred White’s office.”

  “You seen Doc?” Wyatt asked.

  “You still ain’t found him?”

  Wyatt shook his head.

  “Well, I’ll keep an eye out,” Virg said. “See you at Fred’s.”

  “Wyatt, please! A word with you?” Johnny asked as Virgil set off. “Look, I’m sorry about what just happened back there. I swear, Josie’s not usually like that. She must be on the rag.”

  Wyatt colored up, mumbled something about his tooth, and walked away.

  “All right then, I’ll let you go,” Johnny called. “See you at three!”

  JACKRABBIT JOHN, THE HOOKERS CALLED HIM. Johnny Behan dropped by for a quick one the way other men might slug back a drink, or smoke a cigarette, or take a deep breath: to get his temper under control. He’d only been gone from home about twenty minutes, but when he walked in the door, Al was alone in the house and told him that Josie was real mad and said she was never coming back, and then Al started to cry because he was sure it was his fault.

  Sighing, Johnny told the boy that wasn’t so, but he left again, hoping to find Josie before she got into trouble downtown. When he finally found her crying in the piano room at the Cosmopolitan, he was more than ready to make peace and walked her home, explaining about how Albert was a little deaf and needed some tenderness. She pouted when he said he was needed at the marshal’s office but brightened up when he promised they’d go out someplace special that night. All that took time, so it was half past three when he got to Marshal White’s office. By then he’d regained some of his morning optimism.

  I can still pull this off, he told himself, certain that he could salvage the deal with Wyatt. This is all going to turn out fine.

  “AFTERNOON, JOHNNY,” Fred White said. “What’s the problem?”

  “Just here to help out, Fred. You must be Lieutenant Hurst.” Johnny offered the trooper his hand. “John Behan. Used to be sheriff up in Yavapai County. Virg, I hope you didn’t wait for me.”

  “No, Johnny,” Virgil Earp rumbled with good-natured sarcasm. “We felt capable of beginning the deliberations without you. Everything all right at home?”

  Behan flushed. “Yeah, well, you know what I’m up against, Virg.”

  Bluff, good-humored, comfortably heavy at thirty-seven, Virgil Earp nodded and shrugged. Virg was a dozen years older than Alvira Sullivan, but he loved that little girl like a bear loves honey, and getting stung was part of the package. Behan’s “wife” was even younger than Allie and apparently more of a handful.

  “The mules?” Wyatt prompted, glancing at Hurst.

  On the face of it, this should have been simple. Six army mules had been stolen from Camp Rucker, fifty miles east of Tombstone. Lieutenant Hurst needed a civilian posse to recover the mules for him, but jurisdiction was a tangle. The livestock had been stolen within Pima County and Wyatt was a Pima County deputy sheriff, so maybe he should form the posse. On the other hand, the mules were federal property and they’d been taken from a fort, which was federal as well, so maybe Virgil took precedence because he was a deputy federal marshal. One thing was sure: Fred White wasn’t involved at all, for a town marshal’s jurisdiction stopped at the town line. And Johnny Behan might have been a lawman a few years ago, but nowadays he was just tending bar at the Grand Hotel, so he had even less to do with the theft than Fred himself, who was simply letting Virgil Earp use his office.

  “Where does Hurst fit?” Wyatt was asking. “They’re his mules.”

  “See, Wyatt, that’s just what I was trying to explain,” Behan said. “The new Posse Comitatus law prohibits any military involvement with civilian law enforcement, so this is going to require some finesse. Now, when I was sheriff up in Yavapai . . .”

  The youngest man in the room at 29, Fred White was inclined to respect his elders, and ordinarily, he did not mind folks loitering in his office. Being a town marshal was mostly a matter of sitting around, waiting for something bad to happen. Gossip, tall tales, and political speculation made idle hours pass pleasantly. But Johnny Behan could talk the paint off a wall, and no matter how loud Fred yawned, nobody seemed inclined to wrap the discussion up. Except Wyatt. He was staring out the office window, his chair tipped back on two legs, and he didn’t seem to be listening at all. Course, it was hard to tell with Wyatt. He never said much, even when he gave a shit.

  Fred drifted off, elbow on the desk, cheek propped on his fist, but he snapped to when he heard Wyatt bring the front legs of his chair down with a thump.

  Virgil was on his feeet now, and both of the Earps were looking out the office window, watching his younger brother Morgan cross the street.

  “Well, fellas,” Virg said, “if we sit here much longer, the thieves are gonna cross them mules into Mexico and then the federales’ll be involved, even if the U.S. Army ain’t. I say we go find the damn animals while there’s daylight, and sort the legalities out later.”

  Hurst said, “Suits me.”

  “I understand how you feel, boys,” Johnny Behan said quickly, “but you can’t play fast and loose with jurisdiction that way. It’s hard enough to get a conviction when you’ve done due diligence.”

  Johnny started in on another story about blown arrests and criminals going free, but the Earps were done listening and headed out the door with Lieutenant Hurst.

  Glad to see the backs of them, Fred yawned again and was about to select the least bad jail bunk for a nap when Morgan Earp stuck his head into the office.

  “Fred, do you know Doc Holliday?”

  “Heard of him. Gambler. Why?”

  “Wyatt’s got a tooth that’s giving him hell, and Doc’s a dentist—”

  “A dentist! I didn’t know that!”

  “Yeah. Good one, too. Anyways, Wyatt’s got a bad tooth and Doc came into town to take care of it, but we haven’t run into him yet. If you see him, let him know we’ll be back in a few days. And, Fred . . . look after him, willya? Doc is a friend of ours.”

  MORGAN LEFT THE OFFICE and joined his brothers outside.

  “You find McMasters?” Virgil asked him quietly.

  Sherman McMasters, he meant. They never said Sherm’s name out loud. McMasters ran with rustlers, but he was an ex–Texas Ranger, playing both ends against the middle. That would likely get him killed one day, but in the meantime, Sherm made a tidy income selling information to lawmen.

  “Old Man Clanton’s youngest boy stole ’em,” Morgan said. “The mules are in Sulphur Springs Valley now. Prolly at the McLaury place.”

  “All right, we’ll try there first. Go home and get your gear,” Virg told his brothers. Then he called, “Hurst! We leave in twenty minutes.”

  HOT THY LOVE, HOT THY HATE

  THE CANTEEN’S FULL,” ALLIE TOLD VIRGIL AS HE packed. “There’s apples, and I made roast beef sandwiches for you and the boys.”

  Wyatt was almost thirty-three and Morg was twenty-nine. Both of them were a good deal older than Alvira Sullivan, but they were still “the boys” to her because that’s what Virg always called them.

  “Thanks, Pickle,” Virgil said. “Nice of you to think of them.”

  “And if I don’t, who will, I’d like to know!”

  Morgan was batching it while his girl, Louisa, was off visiting relatives. Lou was a honey, but Wyatt’s woman . . . Well, Allie felt sorry for Mattie Blaylock but had no illusions about her. Mattie was slovenly and down at the mouth most of the time, and hell would freeze before she lifted a finger for the man who put a roof over her head.

  In the beginning, Allie had blamed Wyatt for Mattie’s cheerlessnes
s, for his silence seemed cold and mean.

  “Why don’t Wyatt ever say nothing?” Allie asked Virgil one time.

  “Well, now, Pickle, I’ll tell you,” Virg had said. “Wyatt’s steady in a fight and he’s got a real way with horses, but he can’t hardly read and he’s ignorant. He’s afraid if he talks, people will find out.”

  Allie wasn’t much for books herself. “Lots of folks can’t read. Don’t stop ’em from talking!”

  “Yeah, well, maybe it oughta,” Virg said, laughing when Allie laid into him with small fists and not entirely comic ferocity.

  Wyatt was all right, Allie had decided after she got to know him. And Morgan was as sweet as men come. She liked the boys’ older brother James, too, but Alvira Sullivan was sure of one thing. She got the pick of the Earp litter.

  Virgil was fitting a box of cartridges into his saddlebag.

  “Don’t mash them sandwiches,” she warned. “How long’ll you be?”

  “We’re pretty sure we know where the mules are. Day or two, if everything goes right.”

  He finished buckling the flap and looked up. Allie was bustling around their little house. Clearing dishes off the table, wrestling bolts of tent canvas into neater stacks, wiping cotton fluff off her sewing machine. She always got extra busy when he had to ride out like this.

  Pickle, he called her, because that’s what she was eating when he first laid eyes on her, up in Iowa. He was driving freight. She was a waitress at a stage stop. Not much bigger than the gherkin she downed in two bites, but damn if she didn’t hoist a heavy tray right up onto her shoulder, carrying half her weight in crockery to the kitchen. He caught her eye and he could tell she liked the looks of him, so he struck up a conversation and learned pretty quick that she was an orphan. Father gone. Mother dead. Sisters and brothers scattered. Sharp-tongued and independent, Allie had shifted for herself since she was twelve. He respected her before he loved her, and he loved her before he finished his lunch that first day.