Epitaph

by Mary Doria Russell

  At the time, however, Ike Clanton, Pete Spence, and Apache Hank Swilling were taking no more chances. Maybe Wyatt Earp was dead but if he wasn’t, the risk of a trial seemed preferable to his revenge. They turned themselves in to the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office. They were allowed to keep their guns so they could defend themselves, if Wyatt and his posse rushed the jail.

  THE EARP VENDETTA RIDE. That’s what the newspapers were calling it now, one hundred and six hours after Morgan Earp was killed.

  Few of those hours had been spent resting. As Wyatt and his men fell back toward a sheltered site with a high, broad view of the surroundings, no one was at his best.

  Silent, Wyatt veered between embarrassment and outrage. He’d loosened his gun belt while they were working their way over that last mountain. After the first shots were fired, he dismounted but the belt slipped down around his knees and there he was, trying to pull the belt up while bullets whizzed around him and Dick Naylor squealed and plunged. Finally he got the belt up and got his shotgun from the scabbard and went after Curly Bill alone, furious that Sherm McMasters had abandoned him, that Doc was too sick to fight, and that Jack Johnson too busy taking care of the dentist to be any help.

  Riding double behind Doc Holliday on Duchess now, Jack Vermillion was inconsolable about the horse that had been shot out from under him and kept vowing revenge for the animal’s death. Sherm McMasters knew the others were thinking maybe he was playing both sides against the middle, that maybe he’d led them straight into a pack of Cow Boys. So he was loudly defending himself and kept talking about how he had no idea Curly Bill would be at the springs, and how his horse had panicked and run from the gunfire, and anyway it was crazy not to head for cover, and Jack Vermillion would’ve done the same damn thing if he hadn’t been pinned under his horse.

  Sherm kept it up while they were making camp, and Wyatt finally got hot, snarling abuse at Sherm for not sticking and at Creek Johnson, too, because he should’ve been up front, not playing nursemaid to Doc, who was coughing and didn’t have the breath to holler, and pulled his pistol for the first time, and fired a shot into the ground to make them all shut up. Which they did.

  “Wyatt, calm down,” Doc said softly. “Where are you hit?”

  It was only then that the others saw that Wyatt’s duster was shredded. There were bullet holes everywhere they looked, and it seemed impossible that he was not shot to pieces. Astonished that he’d survived to berate them, they sat him down on a rock and pulled the coat off him to look for blood, and found none.

  “My left leg feels strange down by the foot,” he told them—quiet by then, almost dazed. So they pulled his boot off and his pants leg up and found nothing there, either. Almost two dozen bullets had come close enough to cut his clothes, but there wasn’t a scratch on him.

  “God a’mighty,” Doc whispered. Fighting tears of relief and fatigue, he sank onto the rock next to Wyatt and showed them all what he had just noticed: The heel of Wyatt’s boot had been shot off.

  “Wyatt,” he said, “Achilles himself would have envied your luck.”

  THEY WERE FUGITIVES NOW, wanted for capital crimes in Pima and Cochise Counties. Their horses were stumbling. The food was gone. Everyone was wet and cold, for spring in the high desert can show you four seasons in a single day. A soft and pleasant breeze at dawn. Heat that threatens to bake you crisp before noon. A wave of cold that pours in from the north at midday, bringing hail and torrential rain in the afternoon. Snow at sunset.

  Doc Holliday was close to collapse. The others weren’t far from it, so they took a chance and stopped at the Percy brothers’ ranch, which was big enough to attract rustlers but too small to support the kind of private army Henry Hooker paid to protect his cattle. The loss of even one steer was significant to them, and dead rustlers were unlikely to inspire much sympathy.

  “I’m glad to see you alive,” James Percy said. “We heard Curly Bill killed you.”

  “Other way around,” Wyatt said. “Can you put us up for the night? I can’t pay you.”

  “You’re doing God’s work,” Hugh Percy said, but his brother James added, “Not everyone sees it that way. Behan has a forty-man looking for you. It’s packed with Cow Boys wearing badges.”

  “Best if you leave before daylight,” Hugh said.

  “Can you lend us a horse? Jack Vermillion’s animal was killed.”

  There was a long pause. The brothers looked at each other and then their eyes slid away.

  “It’s all right,” Wyatt said. “I understand.”

  James, who was practical, took care of the horses and fixed the men a hot meal. Hugh, who was tender-hearted, gave Doc Holliday his bed for the night. The dentist needed help undressing. When Hugh saw the state of those fleshless thighs and their huge burst blisters, he doctored them as best he could. Returning to the front room, Hugh said, “He’s in real bad shape.”

  “I told him not to come,” Wyatt snapped.

  AT THREE THE NEXT MORNING, he dragged Sherm and the two Jacks out of the Percy hayloft. They saddled up, but when Wyatt made no move to get Doc, Jack Vermillion went inside the Percy house to find him.

  “I can’t,” Doc mumbled. “Leave me.”

  If you’re caught, they’ll hang you, Jack thought, but he’d gotten to know Doc since the big fire in Tombstone and understood the man’s sense of honor. “If you’re caught,” Jack said, “the Percys will pay.”

  Doc held up a hand. Jack got him to his feet.

  LATER THAT DAY, a pair of prospectors noticed five men on four horses. The prospectors had been out in the mesquite so long, they had no idea who these visitors were, nor did they care. Posse? Outlaws? Either. Both. Didn’t matter.

  With the hospitality of the open range, they shared a frugal meal with the riders and took special note of a sick man, who thanked them for their kindness.

  I WILL BE CALLED COWARD AND A MAN OF NO WORTH

  THE COW BOYS’ FIRST REACTION TO FRANK STILWELL’S death was not to ride out in search of retribution. There was a hell of a lot of liquor at Frank’s saloon that needed to be disposed of first, so Johnny Behan knew where to find the posse he needed.

  “I have warrants for the arrest of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Texas Jack Vermillion, Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, and Sherman McMasters,” he announced.

  The reaction to the last name was everything he expected.

  McMasters is with them? That sonofabitch!

  I never trusted him!

  I swear, there was always something about that bastard . . .

  “These five men are wanted in Pima County for the murder of Frank Stilwell and in Cochise County for killing Florentino Cruz,” Johnny continued. “There is now word of four more killings. Curly Bill Brocius. Johnny Barnes. Pink Truly. Al Arnold.”

  He waited again for the shouts and curses to slow before he said, “I am going after those responsible, and I am looking for deputies.”

  “Well, now,” Johnny Ringo said, “you’ve come a long way to find them. Why didn’t you get your men up in Tombstone, Sheriff?”

  “The politics of the situation are complicated,” Behan began.

  Ringo’s chuckle got tangled up with a cough. He tossed back a shot, cleared his throat, and said, “Politics, from the Latin. Poly, meaning ‘many.’ Ticks, meaning ‘bloodsucking little bastards.’”

  “Tombstone is for the Earps,” Behan continued. “Wells Fargo is backing Wyatt. So are the mining interests and the Cattleman’s Association. And I will get no help from Bob Paul. He holds a grudge against Precinct Twenty-seven.” He paused to let the laughter die down. “But I hold warrants for the arrest of the Earp gang, and I will do my duty.”

  “Three cheers for Sheriff Behan,” Ringo cried.

  But if Ringo was drunk and amused, Behan himself was serious, and even the Cow Boys sobered at what he said next. “What happened to Virgil and Morgan Earp was criminal. What happened to Frank Stilwell and Florentino Cruz was barbaric. I need men who’ll stick in a fi
ght with vicious killers. The job pays five dollars a day. Who’s with me?”

  John Ringo was the first on his feet. Swaying slightly, smiling through the chest pain. The worst man in a room full of villains and happy to prove it.

  “Swear me in,” he cried with a kind of heedless joy, for he knew precisely what he was facing if he lived much longer. “Swear us all in, Sheriff!”

  MOUNTAINS, RAVINES, DESERT, SCRUB, STONE, CACTUS. Bad weather, worse food. Days in the saddle, nights on the ground. By early April, the Behan posse had traced the Earp party to Summit Station. Fearing that the fugitives had boarded a passing train and escaped, Sheriff Behan questioned the depot agent, who became exceedingly cooperative while glancing repeatedly at Johnny Ringo and the dregs of the Cow Boys who now rode with him.

  “No, sir, they didn’t get on the train,” the agent said. “They passed through here, but they were headed for Henry Hooker’s spread. One of them’s sick, and their mounts are in bad shape. You can catch ’em if you hurry.”

  Johnny Behan closed his eyes and tried to think. He was nearing forty. City life had softened him. His men were saddle-hardened and many of them were young, but they, too, were whipped.

  “Take care of the horses,” he told them. “Get a meal at the station café. We’ll rest here overnight.”

  Sinking into a café chair, John Harris Behan put his elbows on the table and his face in his hands, looking up only to order coffee and beef stew. If anyone had asked what was going through his mind, Johnny would have told the plain truth. He was sitting there, wishing—truly, sincerely, fervently wishing—that the governor had appointed Wyatt Earp sheriff last year.

  The irony was not lost on him. He had, after all, cajoled and maneuvered, brokered deals and worked hard to get where he was today: bone-weary and long past filthy. Frustrated, angry, and powerless. Even if he brought the Earp riders in, what good would it do? The Arizona justice system was corrupt, top to bottom, and all but impotent. Between allies and alibis, nobody was ever convicted of a serious crime.

  A shadow fell over the table in front of him. He expected to see the cook delivering the stew, but it was Johnny Ringo.

  “Now what?” Behan asked.

  Almost shivering with delight, Ringo dropped a copy of the Epitaph in front of the sheriff. “Looks like a couple of the boys in Charleston have been busy.”

  God, but Ringo was strange. He was always drunk when he was in town, but he’d remained stone-sober during this ride, relishing the sheer preposterous absurdity of murderers chasing after murderers, and every damn one of them wearing a badge.

  “Read the letter to the editor, too,” Ringo urged. “You’ll love that.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Johnny whispered, seeing the headline.

  Two men had walked into the office of the Tombstone Mill and Mining Company, announced that they were avenging Curly Bill, and shot Judge Bryant Peel’s son through the heart. One of the assailants was killed in a shoot-out later that day. So was Deputy John Gillespie. Deputies Jack Young and Billy Breakenridge were wounded as well. The second killer, Zwing Hunt, had been taken into custody.

  Stunned by the news, Johnny Behan tried to tally the dead. Ten men killed in the past ten days? And the letter to the editor was even more numbing, for it was from the murder victim’s father—Judge Peel himself—and it was an open endorsement of vigilantism.

  Perhaps I am not in a condition to express a clear, deliberate opinion, but I would say to the good citizens of Cochise County that there are cutthroats among you whom you will never convict in court. You must choose: Either combine to protect yourselves and wipe them out, or give the country up to them and be murdered one at a time. Expect no help from the Sheriff of this county, who has long shown himself a friend of the outlaws, and who is even now riding in their company, having legitimized their crimes with badges.

  Ten men dead, and who did the judge single out for condemnation? Not his son’s killers and certainly not Wyatt Earp, whose personal vendetta made a mockery of the badge he wore while leaving bullet-riddled bodies strewn across the territory. Oh, no. Not them! John Behan was to blame.

  It was enough to drive a man to despair.

  ROCKEFELLER, CARNEGIE, ASTOR, FISK, Gould, Mellon, Schwab, Vanderbilt, Hearst, Armour. Robber barons. That’s what their enemies called men like Henry Hooker. Industrialists, they called themselves. Self-made men who scaled up operations, pushed down wages, undercut the competition, and amassed unprecedented fortunes by imposing order and stability on the chaotic free markets in oil, steel, banking, shipping, railroads, mining, and meatpacking.

  Deeply religious, many of them. Frugal, hardworking men who saw in their success and prosperity evidence that they were among God’s elect. Protestants, Johnny Behan noted, to a man.

  When the Cochise County posse arrived at Henry Hooker’s door, they’d already been on his land for two long days. The Sierra Bonita Ranch was nearly the size of Luxembourg: eight hundred square miles of fine grassland, straddling two vast Arizona counties. A fortified adobe castle sat in the shadow of Mount Graham, where rivers and creeks converged. Half a dozen barracks dotted the perimeter of the ranch, shelter for men paid to protect Hooker’s property from anyone—red, brown, or white—who attempted to steal from their employer.

  Long aware of the posse’s approach, Henry Clay Hooker now waited on his veranda for their arrival. Compact, still strongly built at fifty-four, he wore a full but neatly trimmed gray beard that put you in mind of Ulysses Grant. And if you were wise, Johnny Behan reminded himself, you’d remember that General Grant, too, was a small and unimpressive man who was nonetheless a formidable opponent.

  “Mr. Hooker,” he began, without dismounting, “we have tracked a party of fugitives to your land. I have warrants for the arrest of Wyatt Earp, John Holliday, Sherman McMasters—”

  Hooker did not descend the stairs, remaining eye level with the filthy, unshaven sheriff of Cochise County. “You’re out of your jurisdiction, Behan. This is Graham County, not Cochise. Your warrants are no good here.”

  “Are those men on your land, sir?”

  “I don’t know,” Hooker lied comfortably. “And if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Mr. Hooker, the men I’m chasing are outlaws—”

  “I know Wyatt Earp, Behan. If he’s an outlaw, then damn the laws. Damn you. And damn your posse.”

  He was staring at Ringo when he said that. Ringo stared back, eyes glittering when he muttered, “Arrogant sonofabitch.”

  That was when Hooker’s foreman showed himself and the Winchester rifle he had aimed at Ringo’s chest. “It’s bad manners to ride into a gentleman’s yard and call him names,” the foreman said. “More talk like that, and you won’t need to find Wyatt Earp to get a fight. You can get one here, right now.”

  As the foreman spoke, the rest of Hooker’s men were emerging from the barn, the bunkhouse, the cookhouse, the blacksmith’s shop, the dairy.

  “A nice bunch of fellas you ride with, Sheriff,” Hooker remarked when the odds were visibly even. “Deputy Cutthroat. Deputy Horse Thief. Deputy Drunkard.”

  Johnny Behan took off his hat, wiped his face with his neckerchief, and stared at the mountains beyond the ranch house. He thought about saying, “I’m only doing my job.” He considered asking, “Who else could I get for this posse?” If he was to have any future in Cochise County, he would have to swing public opinion again, to convince people that the Earp rampage was not a lawman’s noble crusade against criminals who would never be brought to justice any other way. But on April 14, 1882, it came down to this: He was just too damn tired to argue with Henry Hooker.

  “We need a meal and rest for ourselves and our horses, sir. Will you do me that courtesy?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Hooker said coolly. “You can even come inside. Your posse can eat in the barn with the other animals.”

  LATER THAT YEAR, Johnny Behan would make one last halfhearted attempt to arrest Wyatt Earp, but as he
sat down at Henry Hooker’s table, he already suspected there was no point. And he was right.

  In the autumn of ’82, he would be denied his party’s nomination for sheriff of Cochise County. He would never win another election, but in years to come, governors and presidents would appoint him to a variety of offices. Before dying of syphilis in 1912, John Harris Behan would live a long and useful life of public service in places as far flung as Tampa, Florida, and Peking, China.

  Even so, his reputation would never fully recover from his years in Tombstone. He would always be remembered as the man who was bested—in love and war—by Wyatt Earp.

  THIS IS THE POISON OF DEEP GRIEF

  COME BACK FROM THE BATTLE AND THE DREAD AFFRAY

  ELIZABETH HOOKER AND HER DAUGHTER-IN-LAW Forrestine were used to saddle-weary visitors, and their hospitality was renowned throughout the territory. When the Earp party arrived at Sierra Bonita, they were all in bad shape, but one man was barely conscious. Indeed, if Jack Vermillion hadn’t been there to lean on during those last few hours of riding, John Henry Holliday would have quietly slipped off Duchess and made a sincere attempt to die in the darkness.

  While Forrestine oversaw meals for the men who were still on their feet, her tubby little mother-in-law took the sick man in hand, supplying a warm bath, fresh dressings for the sores on his legs, and a soft, clean bed. Twenty hours later, when Doc awoke at last, the little boy who’d been told to watch over him scrambled up and ran for his grandmother. Presently, the lady herself appeared in the bedroom door.

  With reflexive courtesy, Doc tried to get up.

  “Don’t be silly,” Mrs. Hooker said. “We don’t stand on ceremony here, and you shouldn’t try to stand at all.”

  “Where’s Wyatt?” he croaked.

  “They’re all up on that ridge.” She opened the curtains to show him Mount Graham, which was covered in wildflowers and glowing in the late afternoon light. “I expect they’ll be down in time for supper. You missed the excitement! The sheriff was here looking for you,” she told him, tidying the room. “My Henry was all for shooting it out with Behan and his cronies, but Wyatt didn’t want us mixed up with his troubles. He took his boys up the mountain last night. Henry and our hands ran Behan off.”