Epitaph

by Mary Doria Russell

  He feared what he might do. Cry, maybe. Or kill someone.

  He began to drink again.

  JESUS DID NOT SAVE HIM THIS TIME. It was a chance remark, just something he overheard one morning. He was hungover, standing midway between a bar and a café in some little town, trying to decide which would make him feel less bad: strong coffee or a morning shot of rye. Two ladies passed by, giving wide berth to the gaunt, unshaven saddle bum he’d become. He overheard only a few words: “My sister’s living in San Francisco.”

  San Francisco.

  So much had happened. So much time had passed. He had no reason to believe that Josie was waiting for him. She was probably married now, a beautiful girl like that.

  He was mean to her after Virg was almost killed. He felt more remorse about that than about anything he’d done since. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry for being so mean, but with Morgan gone, there wasn’t anyone to write letters for him. You could just say the message to a Western Union clerk, but you needed an address. All he knew was that her family was in San Francisco.

  It was someplace to go. It was a direction.

  She’d probably tell him to go to hell, but even that was a destination.

  HE SOLD DICK NAYLOR to a gangly stable boy who admired the horse and promised not to hit him. The kid was all excited about the notion of racing Dick in quarter-mile contests and had $7.15 saved up. The transaction yielded a five-dollar profit on the $2.15 Wyatt had paid for the horse back in Dodge.

  Which made Dick Naylor just about the only investment that had ever paid off for Wyatt Earp.

  He sold his saddle, too, and cleared enough for train fare to San Francisco with a little left over for a room above a bar near the depot. He went to a barber and got himself cleaned up. Then he started visiting banks, asking the managers, “Do you know a banker named Marcus?”

  The city was bigger than he’d expected, with a lot more banks. He was all but broke and about to give up when he was told, “Well, sir, I know a Henry Marcus, but he’s a baker, not a banker.”

  No, he thought, that must be a different man. Then, suddenly, it all made sense. How good she was in the kitchen. The cakes and crullers and cream puffs. The doughnuts and cookies.

  He got directions to the Marcus bakery. It wasn’t far. He only meant to peek in the window. He figured he’d come back in the morning with a fresh shave and a clean shirt so he’d look more respectable when he went inside to ask Mr. Marcus if he had a daughter named Josephine.

  Then he saw Higgs, asleep in the pale San Francisco sun, out in front of the store. He went down on one knee to pat the dog, who woke up and jumped on him and licked his face, wriggling and whining with joy, the way dogs do when they recognize someone who’s been missing for an hour, or a day. Or a couple of years.

  “Well, well,” he heard Josie say. “Hello, stranger.”

  She was standing in the doorway wearing an apron, her springy hair bundled into a kerchief. Not a girl anymore. Filled out more.

  Still kneeling by the dog, he didn’t know what to say except “I’m sorry.”

  “Good,” she said, and he could see she was still pretty mad at him.

  Behind her, a fat little man in his fifties flipped the bakery’s sign from OPEN to CLOSED. Upstairs, a stocky older woman with a German accent was hollering from a second-floor window: “Come up already! It’s almost Shabbos!”

  “My parents,” Josie said.

  Her father stepped out and her mother trundled down the stairs to stand at their daughter’s side. Wyatt pulled off his hat and bore their scrutiny wordlessly.

  “That him, Sadie?” her father asked.

  Sadie. Her secret name. The name you called her if you loved her.

  “Yes, Papa,” she answered, eyes steady on Wyatt’s. “That’s him.”

  “So, Mr. Wyatt Earp,” her mother said judiciously, “are you a Christian?”

  “Mutti!” Josie cried.

  “I’m just asking!” her mother said with a shrug.

  “It’s all right,” Wyatt said. “I was, ma’am. Not anymore.”

  This information was taken in and considered.

  “You’re too thin,” Mrs. Marcus informed him. “Come upstairs for supper.”

  JOSIE’S SISTER, HATTIE, ARRIVED just before sunset with her husband, Emil. Their baby, Edna, was passed around and cooed over. “Look at this child!” Mr. Marcus cried. “Soft and sweet as challah!”

  Wyatt was introduced. Eyebrows rose, for his name and reputation were known to them. Even so, they welcomed him and no one remarked upon the presence of a notorious vigilante at the table.

  Josie’s brother, Nathan, got there last, just before the wineglasses were filled. “Count on Nate to be on time for the booze,” Hattie said dryly, and you could see that Nathan was a drinker, but Wyatt was in no position to feel superior about that. Or anything else.

  There were candles and foreign prayers. There was bickering and joshing. There was a loaf of braided bread—soft and sweet as a baby girl. Brisket. Roasted carrots and parsnips. Potatoes in some kind of pudding. It was the first good meal he’d had in almost three years, and every time the surface of his plate began to show between the piles of food, Mrs. Marcus would reach over and add another serving.

  “Eat!” she’d say. “You’re too thin! Eat!”

  For dessert, there were lemon tarts and sponge cake and molasses cookies.

  “Mr. Earp, you sure you don’t want a little something more?” Mrs. Marcus asked.

  “Ma’am,” he said, “I couldn’t eat another bite,” but he was looking at Josie—at Sadie—when he said that. And he was thinking, Yes. Yes, I do. I want more.

  The baby got fussy. Emil said, “Ah! It must be time for the Exodus!”

  Wyatt thought that was pretty clever, but everybody else had heard the joke before and rolled their eyes. There was a flurry of kisses and hugs, more doting over the baby, and good-byes. Wyatt had moved toward the door with the others, but he lingered a few moments longer, until he and Josie were alone.

  “Suppose . . .” he began. “Suppose we went for a walk with Higgs.”

  “Oh, Wyatt.” She sighed. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  THE DOG RAN AHEAD. They watched him sniff, and mark corners, and briefly chase a rat, circling back to check on them before ambling off to explore a pile of garbage. They didn’t speak at first. They just strolled side by side through tatters of fog that occasionally broke apart, letting moonlight through to the street.

  “You read about it, I guess,” Wyatt said finally. “In the papers.”

  “I didn’t believe any of it. Newspapers always lie.”

  He turned so she could see his face, for he wanted no misunderstanding between them. “I am not a good man. I wanted to be. I wanted to be better than— Better than I turned out to be. I have done things . . .” He looked away but made himself say it plainly. “I have taken lives. Some of them deserved it, but . . . maybe not all of them.”

  She waited. He said no more, and they began to walk again.

  “I got rid of a baby,” she told him.

  He stopped and looked at her, startled.

  She met his eyes. “It wasn’t Johnny’s. It was later. When I was working.”

  “I don’t want children,” he said. “It has to stop with me.”

  The anger. The violence.

  They walked again, and she took his hand.

  “I was wondering,” he said after a time. “I was wondering if I could call you Sadie.”

  I love you, he meant. I always have.

  WHO IN FUTURE WILL SPEAK WELL OF YOU?

  IF YOU WANT A STORYBOOK ENDING, stop—now—and remember them in that tender moment. Be content to know that they embarked on a series of adventures throughout the West and that they stayed together through thick and thin for forty-five years.

  But know this as well: If their story ended here, no one would remember them at all.

  Where a tale begins and where it ends matte
rs. Who tells the story, and why . . . That makes all the difference.

  WALKING IN RUIN’S TRAIL

  PILE UP YOUR RICHES AND YOUR LUXURY

  THE TRUTH? HE WAS DAMAGED. SHE WAS DIFFICULT. Tombstone would dog them wherever they went, no matter what new dream they chased.

  Silver, gold, real estate, oil, gas. Another boom, another bust. There was always another place to try their luck, but even when things were going well, Wyatt could get restless and irritable. Drinking more, talking less.

  She’d ask, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he’d snap.

  Maybe he’d run into somebody from the old days who wanted to talk about Arizona. Maybe a reporter from the local newspaper had come at him with a notebook and pencil, asking a bunch of questions about the gunfight. Soon—a week or month later—he’d be lying on his back, staring at the ceiling or the stars.

  “Suppose . . .” he’d begin. “Suppose we try Utah next.”

  Or Idaho, or Colorado, or Texas.

  And they’d move on.

  JUST ONCE IN THEIR TRAVELS, it was Sadie who ran into an old friend. They were passing through Leadville and had stayed overnight in a modest hotel. In the morning, Wyatt walked right past an elderly gentleman sitting in the corner of the lobby, but Sadie thought there was something familiar about him and turned back to take a second look. Intent on going to the front desk to pay their bill, Wyatt didn’t realize she’d left his side until he heard Sadie call, “Wyatt! Look who’s here!”

  “Doc?” Wyatt said, coming closer. “Is that you?”

  “What’s left . . . of me. Still on the sunny . . . side of the grass.”

  The crooked smile was the same as always. The hollow-eyed, fleshless face looked like a Mexican death’s-head with a neatly trimmed mustache.

  John Henry Holliday was thirty-five. He looked sixty.

  Wyatt offered his hand. Doc would not take it. Before Wyatt could bristle, he explained, “Forgive me. I must keep my distance. We know now. The disease is contagious.” He paused, breathless, chest laboring. “I am pleased,” he continued, “to see you are both well.” He looked away. A long, wordless stare. “I never meant to harm anyone,” he whispered, but his voice was stronger when he asked, “Miss Louisa?”

  “She’s got bad rheumatism,” Wyatt told him, “but she’s getting married again. Fella name of Peters. Kate?”

  “Well. Last I heard. We have not spoken in some time. My fault.” That crooked smile again. “I don’t believe I shall mind bein’ dead. Gettin’ there has been a trial.” He sat a while, catching his breath. “I heard that Mattie Blaylock is gone.”

  “Laudanum,” Wyatt said.

  “Poor soul,” Doc murmured.

  “Virgil is doing well,” Sadie told him, changing the subject. She never liked to think about Mattie. “Allie is fine, too. So is James.”

  “Bessie’s dead,” Wyatt said.

  “It wasn’t tuberculosis,” Sadie said quickly. “She had tumors.”

  “So I recall. Please, give James my condolences.” Looking at Wyatt, Doc asked, “You ever go back to Arizona?”

  Wyatt shook his head. You were right about the pardons, he meant. They cut me loose.

  “I was arrested,” Doc told him without rancor. “Colorado tried to extradite me. Bat Masterson pulled some strings. He was very kind. I would not have thought it of him. But he was very kind.”

  Wyatt glanced at the lobby clock. “I’m sorry, Doc. We got a train to catch.”

  “Of course,” Doc said. “I am going up to Glenwood, myself. The sulfur springs are believed helpful for my condition.”

  Sadie stood, leaning over to kiss him on both thin cheeks before he could protest or pull away. “Well, now. Aren’t you the sweetest thing!” he said, with something of his old charm. “Take good care of each other, y’hear?”

  Wyatt offered his hand again. This time Doc took it.

  Even then, a few months before he died, his grip was surprisingly strong.

  THEY MOVED ON, and kept on moving.

  Emil and Hattie backed a series of saloons and hotels in mining towns, but Wyatt’s big break came when he heard that the Santa Fe Railway was about to begin service from Los Angeles to San Diego.

  “Suppose . . .” he said. “Suppose we try California?”

  Sadie liked the idea of living on the coast again. Wyatt had built up enough capital to look his father in the eye. So they moved to San Diego, and for once in his life, Wyatt Earp got into something big right from the start. When the rumored railway arrived, the town exploded, filling up with entrepreneurs and shipping magnates, lawyers and bankers, thugs and criminals, musicians and writers, gamblers and whores.

  San Diego never slept in the heedless, restless years that would be remembered as the Gay Nineties. There was ragtime in the dance halls, vaudeville in the theaters, band concerts every night. Everywhere you looked, something exciting was happening.

  Wyatt Earp rode that town, thriving on the action and distraction. With forty thousand people looking for rental houses, you could charge sixty dollars a month for a shabby little shack, but the real money was downtown. He plowed cash into lots along the streetcar lines and sold them a year later for ten times what he’d paid. At the city’s peak, he was grossing $7,000 a week: turning real estate deals by day, running high-stakes faro games in fancy saloons by night.

  He wasn’t concerned when Sadie took to gambling to fill the long hours he spent managing his many businesses. She was an idiot about games—indifferent to odds, ignorant of strategy—but she was having fun and he didn’t count the cost. Admittedly, she sometimes seemed a little blue. When he noticed, he’d take her dancing or they’d go to see a show. And she brightened up considerably when Wyatt won a racehorse on a bet, for Sadie liked the track as much as Wyatt did. He’d always dreamed of breeding horses and with money rolling in from his real estate holdings and the gambling halls, he could afford to invest in good bloodlines. She loved the beautiful animals he bought, the gorgeous silks, the betting and the screaming excitement of the races themselves. Together, they traveled the western race circuit—Santa Rosa, Santa Anita, and Santa Ana; Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, and Cincinnati—staying in glamorous hotels and eating at fine restaurants. It was fun for Sadie to rub shoulders with high society and there was always an illicit thrill when she was introduced as Mrs. Earp to some big shot. Miss Josephine Marcus, she’d think with a secret smile, now starring in the role of Wyatt Earp’s wife!

  The costumes her role required were splendid. Elaborate broad-brimmed hats; elegant wasp-waisted dresses with immense leg-of-mutton sleeves; bustles and high-buttoned shoes. When their horses lost, there was always tomorrow; when they won, Wyatt would buy her lavish jewelry. A ruby bracelet. A diamond brooch. An emerald ring.

  But never a plain gold band.

  Of course, she never asked for one. She had her pride.

  For all anybody knew, she and Wyatt were married, though that didn’t stop other women from throwing themselves at the famously dangerous Wyatt Earp. Tall and straight in tailor-made suits, he was broad-shouldered and square-jawed, with a silent aura of physical confidence few modern males could match. By the 1890s, the Wild West had become something you paid admission to see at Buffalo Bill’s show, but Wyatt Earp was the real deal. Men were impressed, but women were enthralled. They’d watch him demurely through their lashes or stare at him with frank curiosity. Sadie knew exactly what they were thinking, for she had once thought it herself.

  My, my, my . . . what would that be like in bed?

  I taught him everything he knows, she’d think bitterly, and it maddened her to imagine other women enjoying the benefits of her tutelage.

  “I love him, Doc, but he’s not the same man!” That’s what she said back in Leadville when she and Doc had those few minutes alone. “What happened after I left Arizona? He used to be so . . .” So shy, she thought. So awkward. Capable of blushing, for heaven’s sake! “So upright,” she said. “So
—so—”

  “So Methodist?” Doc suggested.

  “Yes! But he drinks now, Doc, and he . . . well, he does things. And he doesn’t seem to care about—about what others think.” About what I think, she meant.

  Doc fell silent for a time, trying to decide how much to say. In the end, he simply took her hand. “Try to remember him as he was, sugar. Try to remember the man Morgan looked up to.”

  Now Doc was dead and here she was—five years later—living with someone she hardly recognized. She hated his drinking. She hated the endless wheeling and dealing. She hated being shut out of his life. Most of all, she hated the other women.

  Oh, she could have taken lovers. She was still beautiful. She still had admirers in those days. Rich men, important men. But she didn’t want them. She wanted Wyatt. And she wanted him to want her, only her.

  He’d given her fair warning. “I am not a good man,” he’d said, and he meant it, but she’d thought he was just being modest, or Methodist, or something.

  He’s only human, she would tell herself when he disappeared for an hour and came back smelling of someone else’s perfume.

  Then she’d hit the roulette table, blow two grand, and make him pay her debts.

  “IT WASN’T JUST SAN DIEGANS,” a journalist wrote later. “The whole world experienced a sort of money insanity in those days. Any financial scheme that merely promised a return drew international crowds of eager gamblers who liked to call themselves investors.”

  The first sign that the fun was over came when a few downtown properties were offered at a small discount to their initial asking price. Within a week, the real estate market shifted from “Grab it now, before the price goes up!” to “Wait a little while. It’ll go down more.”

  Property values dropped, and kept on dropping. Being mortgaged to the hilt seemed to make sense during the boom, but now everybody owed more on their property than it was worth. Buildings recently bought for a hundred thousand dollars couldn’t scare up ten grand. New construction stalled. Ambitious projects were abandoned, half-finished. Why put up another lavish home or impressive office block when so many others already sat empty?