Gunman's Rhapsody

by Robert B. Parker

  “That stallion’ll run away from anything in Arizona,” Wyatt said. “ ’Less, a ’course, he stops to kill it.”

  “Just got to step careful when you come up on him,” Virgil said.

  The mob was beginning to move down the street toward them when they reached Vronan’s. There were several townspeople bowling, and the bar was crowded.

  “Might be a fight here pretty quick,” Virgil said loudly. “You don’t want to be in it, you might head out now.”

  Behind the bar, Jim Earp said, “Don’t worry about the tabs, drinks on the house.”

  The building emptied at once.

  “Vronan going to like that?” Wyatt said.

  “No,” James said.

  Wyatt went to the front door and stood leaning on the left jamb, looking up the street, the shotgun hanging against his right leg. James took a big Navy Colt from under the bar. He held it in his left hand in a way that said he was right-handed.

  “Can’t do much at a distance anymore,” he said to Virgil. “But up close I can still do damage.”

  “Got a lynch mob after this child,” Virgil said. “Ben Sippy’s on the way with Morgan and some others. Got a back door?”

  “Yes, but Vronan keeps it locked, don’t want anybody sneaking in and rolling a couple of strings.”

  “Okay. Sit with Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce. I’ll go out front with Wyatt and wait for Morgan.”

  Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce was sniffling. He had come to view Virgil as his only safety.

  “I want to go with you,” he said.

  “No you don’t,” Virgil said. “I’m going out and stare down the miners.”

  “Your brother can do that.”

  “Probably can,” Virgil said. “But I’m going to help him.”

  Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce started to cry again.

  “This here is my brother, James,” Virgil said. “You stay with him.”

  The miners were gathered in the street outside the bowling alley. Behind them, across the street, was a larger group of townspeople watching. Virgil stood on the other side of the doorway from Wyatt and leaned his back on the wall with the butt of the shotgun resting on his hip, the barrels pointing toward the sky. Both men looked straight at the miners.

  One of the miners said, “We want the murderous little bastard, Virgil.”

  He was a squat man, with a sparse beard.

  Virgil shook his head.

  “You better give him to us, Virgil, or we’ll, by God, take him.”

  Virgil shook his head again, and Wyatt brought the shotgun up and aimed it quite carefully at the miner.

  “I’ll shoot him, Virgil,” Wyatt said. “Who you going to kill?”

  Virgil scanned the miners slowly without answering.

  From the back of the mob someone yelled, “You can’t kill us all.”

  Virgil let the muzzle of the shotgun drop so that it leveled at the miners.

  “Might,” Virgil said.

  “How many people you think you can hit?” Wyatt said, staring at the group of miners. His voice was loud enough to be heard across the street. “You let fly both barrels at this distance?”

  “Always wondered,” Virgil said.

  The miners were silent for a moment. They knew who the Earps were. Several of the men had rifles. But the mob was different from the men who made it up. The mob was edgy and full of repressed movement.

  “We ain’t going to let him go, Virgil.”

  It was the squat miner again. Virgil said nothing. He cocked both hammers on the shotgun. The sound crackled through the tension.

  “This the day you want to die?” Wyatt said.

  Without looking, Wyatt could feel his brother James in the doorway. James couldn’t shoot much since he got crippled up in the war. But he had the big Navy Colt, and at this range he could do damage.

  Ben Sippy, the city marshal, rounded the corner at Fifth Street with Johnny Behan, the deputy sheriff. Both of them had Winchesters. Both of them were on foot. Behind them was a group of deputized saloon men on horseback. Driving a light spring wagon was Morgan. His revolver was on the seat beside him.

  “All right, you men,” Sippy shouted, “clear the street.”

  Morgan drove the wagon directly at the gathered miners, who gave way as the two-horse team passed through. The deputies fanned out across Allen Street on their horses directly between the miners and Vronan’s.

  “Why’nt you bring the prisoner out, Virgil,” Sippy said as he reached the doorway where the Earps were standing.

  Still looking straight at the miners, now partly shielded by the horsemen, Virgil leaned his head back in through the doorway and said, “Send him on out, James.”

  James Earp half pushed, half led Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce out of Vronan’s bowling alley.

  “Get in the wagon, son,” Sippy said.

  Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce looked at Virgil, his eyes red and swollen. Virgil nodded and jerked his head at the wagon. Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce hung back.

  “Get up there, boy,” Virgil said, “beside my brother.”

  Morgan picked up his revolver and stuck it into his belt, and Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce climbed up on the wagon and sat beside him. Standing in front of the mounted deputies, Sippy spoke to the miners.

  “Deputy Morgan Earp and the other deputies are going to take this boy down to Benson and get on a train with him and take him to Tucson, where he will be tried for the murder of W. P. Schneider.”

  “Save a lot of trouble, Ben, we just hang him here,” the squat miner said in a conversational tone.

  “Trouble ain’t the issue,” Sippy said. “I want all you men to go back to whatever you was doing before you almost made a bunch of damn fools out of yourselves.”

  “Hell, Ben,” one of the miners shouted, “I was up at Nosey Kate Lowe’s.”

  “Well, we know what you was doing, don’t we?” Sippy answered, and the miners laughed.

  Morgan clucked at the team, and the wagon began to move. With the deputized gunmen riding on either side of it, the wagon picked up speed as it went down Allen Street. It turned right at Fourth Street and disappeared. Many of the miners watched it and then when it was gone began to drift away from in front of Vronan’s. The onlookers went back into the saloons, and after a time the street was empty. Virgil eased the hammers down on the shotgun and looked at his brother. Wyatt was still staring after the last miner, the shotgun still leveled.

  “Well, that’s over,” Virgil said.

  Wyatt looked startled, then he took a deep breath and let it out and slowly lowered the shotgun. He eased the hammers off cock. James spoke from the doorway.

  “Vronan can afford a couple more on the house, I figure.”

  “Whiskey sounds right,” Virgil said.

  James said, “You want coffee, Wyatt?”

  “Coffee’d be good.”

  And the three brothers went in and stood together at the dimly lit bar in the empty bowling alley and drank and didn’t say much.

  CHRONICLE

  In New York City, James Garfield is shot and badly wounded by Charles Guiteau. The President dies of his wounds in September… In New Mexico, William Bonney is shot to death by Pat Garrett… In Canada, Sitting Bull surrenders… The Boston Symphony Orchestra performs its first concert… In Germany the first electric tramway begins operations… in Boston Walt Whitman’s publisher withdraws “Leaves of Grass,” after widespread charges that the poem is indecent.

  * * *

  PARNELL PROMISES IRELAND HELP FROM AMERICA

  Dublin , October 25-

  Mr. Parnell and Mr. O’Connor were entertained at a banquet in Galway today. Mr. Parnell, in speaking, said if Irishmen would call upon their brothers in America for help and would show they had a fair chance for success they would have America’s trained and organized assistance in breaking the yoke now encircling them.

  * * *

  AN OPEN REVOLT AGAINST THE WHITES AT NATAL

  The Most Horrible Atrocities Committed
by the Natives.

  London , October 26-

  Later advices from Cape Town confirm the alarming news received yesterday, announcing that other tribes have joined the Basutos in open revolt against the colonial government. The natives beyond Pieter Maritsberg, the capital of Natal, situated fifty miles from Port Natal, have made an attack on the white residents and such natives as remain faithful to the Cape government, burning buildings, pillaging, and outraging women. The most horrible atrocities are reported, and the insurgents are complete masters of the situation. The colonial authorities are in need of immediate assistance, and unless reinforcements can reach them at once, the situation of the little handful of men commanded by Colonel Clark is considered absolutely hopeless. A later dispatch sent by the Union Steamships Company’s Durban agent states that all communication between Durban and the Cape colony has been cut off, the Basutos having cut the wire.

  * * *

  LYDIA E. PINKHAM’S VEGETABLE COMPOUND

  A Positive Cure

  For All Female Complaints

  This preparation, as the name signifies, consists of vegetable properties that are harmless to the most delicate invalid… it will cure entirely the worst form of Falling of the Uterus, Leucorrhoea, Irregular and Painful menstruation, all Ovarian Troubles, Inflammation and Ulceration, Floodings, all Displacements and the consequent spinal weakness, and is especially adapted to the Change of Life. It will dissolve and expel tumors from the uterus in an early stage of development. The tendency to Cancerous Humors there is checked very speedily by its use.

  In fact, it has proved to be the greatest and best remedy that has ever been discovered. It permeates every portion of the system, and gives new life and vigor. It removes faintness, flatulency, destroys all craving for stimulants, and relieves weakness of the stomach.

  It cures Bloating, Headaches, Nervous Prostration, General Debility, Sleeplessness, Depression and Indigestion. That feeling of bearing down, causing pain, weight and backache, is permanently cured by its use. It will at all times and under all circumstances, act in harmony with the law that governs the female system.

  For kidney complaints of either sex this compound is unsurpassed.

  * * *

  EPPS COCOA

  By a thorough knowledge of the natural laws which govern the operations of digestion and nutrition, and by careful application of the fine properties of well-selected Cocoa, Mr. Epps has provided our breakfast tables with a delicately flavored beverage which may save us many heavy doctors bills…

  James Epps & Co.

  London , Eng.

  Seventeen

  It was early March. Wyatt was dealing faro in the Oriental and drinking coffee and watching the room. He wasn’t looking for John Tyler. John Tyler had never come back into the Oriental, and Wyatt heard he had moved on. Wyatt was just watching the room, as he watched every room he was ever in. He looked at everything around him and had for as long as he could remember. He could see farther than most men, and even as a child he was aware of what was happening behind him, as much as he was of what went on in front. He saw Josie Marcus the moment she came into the saloon.

  She stood a moment, until her eyes adjusted, then she looked around the room and saw Wyatt and smiled and started over.

  “Game’s closed, gentlemen,” Wyatt said.

  He paid off the winners, collected from the losers and was on his feet by the time Josie reached him. She had on a very pleasant cologne.

  “Here you are,” Josie said.

  The room was half full in the afternoon, and lively. The noise didn’t abate, but a lot of the men and all of the whores paused to look at Josie Marcus.

  “Hello, Josie.”

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt your game.”

  “You can interrupt anytime,” he said. “Don’t see anyone like you in here very often.”

  “A lady?” she said. “Like me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Oh hell, Wyatt, I used to work in places like this.”

  “I thought your daddy had money.”

  “He does.”

  Josie sat in one of the chairs vacated when the card game closed.

  “So how come you were working in saloons?”

  “May I have a drink?” Josie said.

  Wyatt looked at her silently for a moment, then signaled to one of the bartenders.

  “I’d like some whiskey,” Josie said when the bartender came over. “With water.”

  The bartender looked at her, and then at Wyatt. Wyatt nodded, and the bartender went and got it.

  “Am I shocking you?” Josie said to Wyatt after the bartender had left.

  “You’re interesting me,” Wyatt said. “How come you worked in saloons?”

  “Same reason I was an actress,” she said.

  “Which was?”

  “I thought it might be fun,” she said.

  “And?”

  “And it was for a little while.”

  “Then Behan came along?” Wyatt said.

  “Yes. And I thought he might be fun.”

  “And?”

  “And,” Josie said, “he was for a little while.”

  She looked straight into his face when she said it. And had a swallow of whiskey and drank some water behind it. Wyatt sipped his coffee, holding the cup in both hands, looking at her over the cup. Then he smiled. She had never seen him smile. Though he was always polite, he was always reserved, and the smile was startling. When he smiled, all of him smiled. His mouth, his eyes, his whole face. He was so of a piece, she thought, that his whole person seemed to express him.

  “Now you’ve come along,” Josie said.

  “You think I might be fun?” Wyatt said.

  “I think you might be a lot of fun,” Josie said.

  They looked at each other in silence. Josie drank a little more whiskey. She knew who he was. She knew he was dangerous. She could see what Clay Allison had seen. What is it? She had thought about it since she’d met him. He was different from other men she had known. Different from Behan. Maybe it wasn’t something. Maybe what she was seeing was the absence of something, like looking at the dark.

  “Behan’s up to Tucson till Thursday,” Josie said. “Now that he’s the new sheriff, he’s up there a lot.”

  “Johnny always liked the political stuff,” Wyatt said.

  Josie kept studying Wyatt’s face.

  “I hate to eat alone,” she said.

  Wyatt drank the rest of his coffee and put the cup down slowly. She loved how precise he was. How even his smallest gesture seemed perfectly controlled.

  “I’d be pleased to buy you dinner at the Russ House,” Wyatt said.

  “I accept,” she said. “But first I’d like another whiskey.”

  Wyatt nodded at the bartender, and he brought her another drink. Wyatt had more coffee. The only effect the whiskey seemed to have on her was to heighten the color in her cheeks. Her big dark eyes remained clear and challenging. Her speech still sounded what he always assumed to be upper class. She met the glances of people in the Oriental straight on. She drank the whiskey, Wyatt thought, without pretense. She didn’t act like it was too strong, the way many women did when given whiskey. She didn’t sip it like tea, and she didn’t gulp it like a drunken miner. She took a swallow, chased it with water. She wasn’t thinking about it. And it didn’t appear to be anything she needed. It was just something she chose to do while talking with him. Her clothes were good. He couldn’t tell why, but he knew they were. Too good for Behan’s income. Her father, probably. Like the house. Behan’s luck had been good.

  They ate chicken fricassee at the Russ House and afterward they walked through the town. The March evening had not yet settled, but the sun was gone and there was a bluish cast to the light.

  “I like Tombstone at this time of day,” Josie said. “It looks nicer than it is.”

  “I like it early in the morning,” Wyatt said. “Before people are on the street.”

  Josie lau
ghed.

  “I’ve never seen it then,” she said.

  “Not an early bird?”

  “No,” she said, “a night owl.”

  They walked up Fifth Street, past the Vizina mine. The streets were busy.

  “Johnny never wants me to walk around town. Not even with him. Says it’s undignified.”

  “Probably is,” Wyatt said.

  “Probably,” Josie said.

  Past the Palace Lodging House across the street, an alley ran up to Sixth Street.

  “Curley Bill killed Fred White down there,” Wyatt said. “Other end of the alley.”

  “I heard he was acquitted,” Josie said.

  “Fred said it was an accident, ’fore he died.”

  “Wasn’t it just about cowboys being noisy on the street?”

  “Yes.”

  At Allen Street they stopped by Meyers clothing store. Across the street the Crystal Palace stood on one corner and the Oriental on the other.

  “Luke Short killed Charlie Storms right there last month,” Wyatt said.

  “Why?”

  “Charlie was drunk,” Wyatt said. “Pushed Luke into it.”

  “Did you know them?”

  “Sure,” Wyatt said. “Knew Luke back in Dodge.”

  “Is he a good fighting man?”

  “You don’t want to jerk on Luke Short,” Wyatt said.

  “Would you?”

  Wyatt smiled.

  “I’d get my brothers,” Wyatt said. “Outnumber him.”

  “But you’re not afraid of him, are you?”

  Wyatt looked startled.

  “No,” he said. “ ’Course not.”

  Josie smiled to herself.

  “People die for so little in Tombstone,” she said.

  “Not just Tombstone,” Wyatt said.

  They stood quietly on the corner for a time watching the miners and cowboys moving in and out of the saloons. Light and sound splashed into the street when the saloon doors opened. There were saddle horses in the street, but very little wheeled traffic.