by John Shirley
“Damn these cards,” Charlie said at last, and folded, mucking his hand into the discards.
The wind hissed over the roof, and rattled the window in its frame. Other than for the wind, the sound of glasses clinking, and murmured conversation, the saloon was unusually quiet. That night the No.10 had no music, its piano player, Thumper Jones, having been shot dead the night before. His noontime funeral had been well-attended, and several women were seen to weep at his graveside.
“Mike,” Wyatt said, “I believe I’ll raise you eight dollars.”
Mike nodded sagely, studying Wyatt’s face. Wyatt Earp was already known for his poker face: it was as expressionless, Bat once said, “as a Kiowa frozen solid in a Norther, right in the middle of horse trading.”
“I don’t believe I’ll let you bluff me, Earp,” Toothless Mike said, and saw the eight dollar bet.
“The mills are coming in soon, and you’ll sell less firewood, Wyatt,” Charlie remarked, putting his whiskey glass down and wiping his mustache with a tatted handkerchief. “They don’t dig a shaft, or use a sluice—they just run the dirt through the cyanide mills, and pull out the dust.”
“I expect I’m about done with this job,” Wyatt said. “I just wanted to fatten my poke up some, and have a look at Deadwood.”
“What you going to do?” Charlie asked, signaling the Russian girl for another drink. The round-faced, flaxen-haired Russian girl spoke almost no English, but she understood hand-signs for drinks and other hand signs not reproducible in polite company. “Thank you, girl, here’s for the drink and four bits for yourself.”
“I’ll sell my wagon, do a little panning,” Wyatt said, “and then I’m for Kansas—and just now I’m going to raise Mike another eight dollars.”
A hand descended on Charlie’s shoulder with an audible slap. Wyatt thought the rather delicate hand a woman’s, till his gaze moved up to the tall man’s Prince Albert frock coat, and the two pearl-handled Navy pistols, turned butt forward; he took in the red silken sash, the pale, broad-brimmed hat, silken string tie; the wavy, flowing, brown-blond tresses, parted in the middle; the thick blond mustache, itself long and flowing. The newcomer had a long nose that seemed to droop at the end, but a face that, overall, was handsome as a stage actor’s although his lips were a trifle thin. The man standing behind Charlie studied Wyatt with affable, gray-blue eyes—eyes that seemed a little cloudy. Wyatt recognized James Butler Hickok. Most people called him Wild Bill.
Wyatt nodded. “Mr. Hickok, good to see you again.”
“I know you from …?” Hickok stepped a little closer and squinted.
“Kansas City,” Wyatt said. “Wyatt Earp. Having some luck in Deadwood, Mr. Hickok?”
“Just got here yesterday, looking for Charlie and the gold, not in that order,” said Hickok. His voice was mild, unassuming. “Charlie, which one of them big old hills around this burg has the gold in ’er?”
“The coldest, steepest, rockiest, furthest one from here, that’d be my guess,” Charlie said, turning to look fondly up at his old friend Hickok.
Hickok laughed.
Mike chuckled and nodded. “You got the right of it, Charlie. Okay, Wyatt, I’ll see you and call for a showdown.”
“Just a miserable two pair, Mike,” Wyatt said, laying out his cards. “Aces and ladies.”
“Coon spoor!” Mike hissed, throwing his cards down. Then he laughed. “You do have the best poker face I ever seen.”
“Well boys,” Hickok asked, “is there a place for me at this table?”
“Pull up a chair, Mr. Hickok,” Wyatt said. Hickok was an older man, in his late thirties, and one Wyatt respected. The ex-Marshal had been one of the best shots in Illinois, as a youth; as a young man he had been a wagon master and a stagecoach driver, then a spy and scout for the Union in the Civil War. He’d fought at the Battle of Pea Ridge and later he had shot Dave McCanles and James Woods in Nebraska; he’d scouted for Custer and the Seventh Cavalry and he’d escorted a passel of federal prisoners with his friend Buffalo Bill Cody. He had scouted too, for Charlie Utter’s wagon train. He had shot Dave Tutt in a street fight, in Springfield, at seventy-five yards—a considerable distance for a pistol shot to the heart—and he’d let Tutt have his shot first too. He’d shot Jeremiah Lanigan and John Kile after they’d knocked him down in a fight and had pulled their pistols on him—he shot them down from the floor. It felt right to call Hickok ‘mister’.
“I wonder, Mr. Earp,” Hickok said, smiling wryly, “if you’d mind trading chairs with me. I like to sit with my back to the wall. It’s a kind of superstition.”
Wyatt would’ve liked that seat too, considering that Johann Burke might return to town, but he nodded and gave Hickok his seat. Hickok had even more enemies than he did.
A clean-shaven man carrying a Sharps rifle came in from the windy night, cussing under his breath; he removed his shabby hat, shaking a haystack of colorless hair free, flicked fine bits of hail from his shoulders, and hocked into a spittoon with unerring expertise. “Why,” said the man, in a strangely high voice, “it’s as cold out there as a …” This sentence was completed in expletive-rich language that was unprecedented in Wyatt’s hearing—and having spent time in brothels, he’d thought he had heard every variation of swearing and cussing. Looking closer, he realized with a shock that this wasn’t a man at all but a woman with a plain, mannish face and a man’s clothing.
Hickok heaved a sigh, on hearing this harridan’s voice and, without turning to her, said, “Hello, Martha Jane.”
Martha “Calamity Jane” Cannary slapped her hat against her hip and crossed the room, bringing a rank smell of wet leather and unwashed clothing and sweat. “Jim …” she said, her piercing voice gone suddenly soft as she laid her dirty fingers onto his shoulder Hickok tolerated the contact, but only just.
“How’s come she calls him Jim?” Mike asked, as Wyatt dealt the pasteboards again.
“It’s his name, you goddamned …” Calamity Jane began, and finished cussing Mike out with an entirely new set of colorful adjectives. “He is James B. Hickok … ‘Wild Bill’ is nothing but the fancy of some hysterical idjit in … where was it, Charlie?”
“Sedalia, I think,” Charlie muttered, looking at his cards. “Story I heard, Jim chased off a lynch mob, and some woman calls out, ‘Good for you, Wild Bill!’ Never understood why she picked ‘Bill’.”
“Sound better’n ‘Wild James’,” Mike remarked, chuckling.
“Truth is, it was my brother that chased off the lynch mob,” Hickok remarked, stroking his mustache smooth. “Bill was a name he was sometimes called and he looked a lot like me—so they called him ‘Mild Bill’ and me ‘Wild Bill’, to keep from mixin’ us up. My brother is a bit more mild mannered, but he can show steel when he needs to. When he stared down them lynchers, a woman said, ‘Ain’t he wild!’ And someone else said, ‘No, that’s his brother.’ And she said, ‘Good for you too, Wild Bill!’ So you see, a man’s history when other folks tell it is a pitiful confusion.”
“I believe,” said Calamity Jane, “I have heard four different versions of that story.”
“Having one version of a story is but a dull thing,” said Hickok, signaling for another drink. Wyatt had noticed that Hickok drank with his left hand only, so that his right was free to go for his gun, regardless of circumstances and company.
Hickok swirled his drink in his glass. “And a pain in the ass that Wild Bill name has been too. Mr. Earp, I hope you never have the misfortune to become famous. They tell lies about you and saddle you with nicknames you don’t want.”
Wyatt Earp shook his head ruefully. “I’ll never be famous. That I’m sure of.”
“Surprised to see you here, already, Jim,” Charlie Utter said, as he waited for the next hand to be dealt. “I thought you was going to bring an expedition, seeing you put those splendorous adverts in the newspaper …”
“So I am,” Hickok said, fanning his cards out in his hand. “This here is by way of s
couting the town. I’ll have an expedition of miners up here in July, or August. I’ll guide them, take a cut, and leave them to their own devices—and in this way I raise money for my dear Agnes.”
Standing behind Hickok, Calamity Jane’s eyes closed, as if in some inner pain, at the mention of Agnes—Hickok’s new wife, a former circus performer—and she signaled the bartender for a bottle of whiskey.
As the game wore on, she sat silently at the empty table beside Hickok’s, her rifle across her lap, muttering unintelligibly to herself and drinking. At last she fell asleep slumped in her chair, snoring with her mouth open. She snored louder than Wyatt’s brother Virgil, and that was loud indeed.
* * *
“Ssss!”
Contemplating a possible straight and the odds against filling it, Wyatt ignored the odd hissing sound coming from behind him.
“Ssssssss—Wyatt!”
“I believe there’s someone not much more’n five foot high hissing at you from the front door, there, Mr. Earp,” said Hickok squinting at his cards. It was near midnight, and the smoke had thinned out in the saloon, as a number of miners had gone off to bed, but Hickok seemed to be having trouble seeing his cards anyway.
“Ssssssssssss!”
Wyatt growled to himself and turned to see Henry poking his head through the door. “He’s probably saving me from making a big mistake,” Wyatt allowed. “I’m out.”
He threw down his hand, picked up his winnings—only three dollars over what he’d started with—and went to the door.
“Wyatt,” Henry said, in a low, urgent voice, “I saw that Joe Hand Burke ride in. He was riding with the fella that tried to sell us a claim. I heard them say they’d been out at the Homestake Mine …”
“Pierce has a piece of that mine. He could be out there himself,” Wyatt said, thinking aloud. “No use in courting trouble in town. It’s late but we’ll go out to the wood camp.”
“Supposin’ he follows us out there?”
“I was sort of hoping he might try …”
The door burst inward and Wyatt stepped aside, allowing a drunk to stagger into the saloon. The drunk stood there blinking in the sudden light, scratching at a louse in his thin beard. He was a stunted man, young, with watery brown eyes, one of them slightly crossed; he had a dirty-face, and a long, ragged duster over his overalls and red flannel shirt. There was a belly-gun sticking awkwardly out of his coat pocket.
“There he is by God!” the drunk whispered, staring at Hickok, breath like the steam out of a still.
Swaying, he clawed at the pistol—it caught in his coat, and then tore it free as he staggered toward Hickok, who was distracted by a close, laughing conversation with the barmaid—he was half-turned from the drunk. Charlie and Mike were staring fixedly at their cards.
Wyatt watched for half an instant, amazed that Hickok didn’t see the danger. Then he drew his own pistol, and stepped up behind the drunk just as the man raised his .36 revolver to point it at Hickok.
“Hey you!” Wyatt said sharply.
The drunk turned to see who was behind him and Wyatt brought the Colt down hard, before the turn was complete. Neatly buffaloed, the man fell like a sack of grain from the back of a wagon, out cold.
“Now who’s this you’re buffaloing, there, Earp?” Charlie Utter asked, looking over with raised eyebrows.
“Trying to save this foolish drunk’s life. He was pointing a gun at Mr. Hickok,” Wyatt explained. But in fact he suspected he’d saved Hickok’s life.
“What’s that you say?” Hickok demanded, getting to his feet. He walked carefully—very carefully—over to the man on the floor and hunkered down to squint at his face. “It’s that son of a bitch Jack McCall. I took his gold dust with three deuces, yesterday. He got himself drunk and decided I cheated him.” He stood up and nodded to Wyatt. “You did well to stop him—I’d have killed him, for certain.”
Wyatt looked at McCall speculatively. There was something about the man’s face—even in unconsciousness, so fixed was the cast of his features—that suggested he wasn’t quite sane. His mouth seemed pulled into a permanent, crooked snarl. “Might be best to post this McCall out of town, when he comes to,” Wyatt suggested. “Give him an escort a ways down the road. He wasn’t coming at you straight on—he’s a back-shooter. I’m heading out anyhow—I could take care of the matter myself, Mr. Hickok.”
Hickok snorted. “Don’t you bother with it, Mr. Earp. When he sobers up, the goose-egg you’ve given him will give him pause enough. I will not show concern over so low a man. He is the worst kind of street rat. Too cowardly to be a real danger to anyone.”
Wyatt shrugged. “Whatever you say. Good night to you, Mr. Hickok. I’m for the hills.”
Hickok gave a slight, courtly bow, touching his hat, to acknowledge that Wyatt had done him a good turn, and went back to his game. He didn’t even bother to take McCall’s gun …
* * *
It was a sunny afternoon, the weather finally allowing it really was springtime, when Wyatt and Henry returned to Deadwood with another load of wood. This time they sold their load to three separate merchants, and for a much lower price. There was a good deal of competition in the lumber business now that the weather was improving.
“You want to carry your share of the money?” Wyatt asked, as they stood outside the livery.
“Sure! I—” Henry broke off and his face went pale, as he stared at something behind Wyatt.
Wyatt let his hand drop to the butt of his six gun.
“That’s it, Earp,” said Johann Burke, behind Wyatt. “Pull it. Or don’t. There’s no law here, and I don’t give a damn.”
Wyatt could tell from the direction of Burke’s voice that he was on his horse. He heard the animal snorting: a sound coming from pretty close by. He heard another sound, then: a chillingly familiar sound that made the hair stiffen on the back of his neck. A pistol cocking.
There were miners and working girls, blinking in the sunshine, gawking from the wooden walks along the buildings, no more than fifty feet away. A yellow-haired woman watched, eyes shaded by her hand. No one moved or spoke or made to interfere. They had the look of people taking in an exciting theatrical event.
“This is funny,” Burke said. “Twice now I caught you from behind. You’re not terribly alert, are you boy.”
“What you mean is, that’s twice you came at me like a coward, Burke,” Wyatt said. “What do you say to facing me?”
“It’s like hunting wild pig,” Burke said. “I don’t care which way it’s facing—this way’ll do.”
Wyatt wondered if he might push Henry clear, at least …
“You on the horse!” came another voice, coming from the boardwalk. “I dislike to see a man shot in the back.”
Wyatt glanced to his right. Wild Bill was pointing his pistol, with studied casualness, at the man behind Wyatt.
Another voice, only as melodious as a crow’s but a blessed sound all the same, came from Wyatt’s left. “You’d best give the notion up, mister.”
Wyatt looked, and confirmed it was Calamity Jane, aiming her Sharps at Burke. Wyatt hadn’t really made her acquaintance. You couldn’t count sitting next to someone while they snored off a drunk. But here she was, backing Hickok’s play.
Knowing Burke was stymied, for the moment, Wyatt turned very slowly, to look up at the gunfighter.
Pointed at Wyatt’s breast now, the gunfighter’s pistol wavered as he looked at Calamity Jane, then at Hickok.
“Hickok, do y’say?” Burke asked, his hoarse voice dripping acid.
“That’d be Marshal Hickok, of Abilene?”
“I held that position, yes indeed,” said Hickok. “That voice of yours—” he added musingly. “—I have a notion I might’ve posted you out of Abilene.”
“If you’d tried to run me out of anywhere,” Burke said. “You wouldn’t be here talking.”
Hickok stiffened with the cold fury that had foreshadowed a number of deaths. “Why you dirty damne
d boasting—”
“Burke!” Wyatt interrupted.
He had noticed that Hickok was squinting at Burke; that he had mentioned recognizing Burke’s voice, not his face. The rumor that the ex-Marshal was losing his eyesight could be true, and Wyatt wanted this stand-off ended before Burke struck on Hickok’s vulnerability and—perhaps underestimating Calamity Jane as a back-up—took a shot at Hickok. It’d be tempting for Burke to enhance his reputation by being the man who’d brought down Wild Bill.
Burke had turned his glare to Wyatt, who continued, “There’s three guns, and any one of them could do for you, Johann Burke. This isn’t the time.”
“That’s Joe Hand Burke?” said Calamity Jane, mostly to herself. “I heard about him, some, and it wasn’t nothing good.”
Burke looked at the three guns; Wyatt’s was still holstered, but Hickok and Jane Cannary were ready to open fire.
Burke grunted, and holstered his six-shooter, shaking his head in a sneering mock of awe. “You’re a man struck by luck, Earp. I’m a bit slower than usual, seeing as I had a bullet dug out of me not long ago. So I won’t push it. But I’ll tell you what, boy, everyone’s lucky streak ends, come the midnight hour. Everyone.”
Burke’s gaze shifted to Henry. He gave him a look that made Wyatt think of a buzzard looking at a sickly calf. Henry shrank back a step.
“Burke, if you want to make a fight with this man,” said Hickok, “you will not do it in Deadwood. There’s us three, and Colorado Charlie’ll come if I give a yell. You will ride out, you damned braggart, and you will not return a-tall whilst I am here.”
Burke took one last look around. Then he gathered up his reins, backed his horse a few steps, and turned to ride away down the street, moving his mount only a little faster than a walk to show a contemptuous unconcern.
