by Mark Warren
The younger Earps struggled to become part of the unmoving landscape, while Wyatt remained still and content, like an extension of the log, the long barrel of the gun resting atop it as though there were no other purpose in this world than the one at hand. They had seen Wyatt target shoot, and they looked to his steadiness with the weapon as a paradigm of virtue, especially now, as the skill connected to something so practical as meat on the table. Listening to the steadiness in his voice made them feel important . . . something about being an Earp. Unlike the fearful allegiance they owed their father, their regard for Wyatt was more a yearning. They would do anything he asked of them, because in doing it, they believed they might become more like him.
Twilight darkened, and the birdsong tapered to a single meadowlark’s flute notes coming from the field beyond the trees. Then a movement swept through the dimly lighted scene before them—three deer gliding through the trees, ghostlike, silent, their hooves not seeming to touch the ground. Two sleek does followed a stout buck with a proud rack crowning its head.
Wyatt gathered himself to the gun, his movements steady, like the settling of a liquid finding its level. Fitting his hand around the smooth walnut stock, he thumbed back the hammer and slipped his finger around the trigger in one motion. His eye lowered into place behind the sights. Then, sooner than the boys expected, the gun thundered, filling the hollow with smoke and surprise.
The gun’s report lingered in the air as two of the animals bolted, crashing through the underbrush until they were swallowed up by the silence of the trees. But the largest deer lay still in the scuffled leaves, its antlers angling its head in an unnatural pose. Morg and Warren stared with slack faces, the lesson complete.
On the walk home, as a reward for their patience, Wyatt let them work the edge of the fields, giving each brother a chance at smaller game while the other flushed prey from the brush in the gullies. With the shotgun load, Warren missed twice, but Morg brought down a rabbit on the run. Wyatt, his pace only slightly slowed by the heavy buck yoked around his neck, gave a nod of approval but said nothing, knowing that Warren’s festering jealousy could put the boy in a foul mood for days.
Morgan picked up his prize and handed the gun to Warren to try again, and the three brothers continued home. Behind Warren’s back, Wyatt and Morg exchanged a brief look at one another, and in that moment Wyatt knew the passing of time was shaving away at the years that separated them.
CHAPTER 4
* * *
Spring, 1863: Earp farm, Pella, Iowa
In the fading light the three hunters hung the buck from the walnut tree, unaware that a traveler had appeared out of nowhere, standing in the yard as a quiet observer. Wyatt saw him first, then Morgan. Behind the man in the grass lay a duffel, and perched upon it was a wrinkled blue field-cap like the soldiers wore in town. He didn’t speak until all three brothers took notice of him.
“Damn but you boys been growin’ like weeds.”
Warren ran to James and almost jumped on him before he saw the arm slung across his older brother’s midsection by a dirty loop of rag. Morg approached, and the two boys stared at the dark stain on the shoulder of James’s jacket. They stood embarrassed, as though it were a stranger who had arrived with sobering news of the brother who had once wrestled with them in the grass. This messenger smelled of whiskey and appeared to have traveled the dark side of the world.
James chuckled at their speechless state and splayed his hand atop each boy’s head as he ambled past them towards Wyatt. “Looks like you’re the one runnin’ things, little brother,” he said, offering his hand. Wyatt wiped his hands on his trousers. When they shook, James pretended to wince at Wyatt’s grip. “Guess you ain’t nobody’s little brother no more.”
“How bad is it?” Wyatt said, nodding at the bandaged shoulder.
“Oh, I’m only ’bout half-crippled,” he said, tucking his chin into his collarbone, trying to examine his shoulder. “Took a Minié-ball at Frederickstown, but you can still count on being the right hand around here. Damned Rebs seen to it I’d never work a farm again.” He kept a straight face for only a moment. When he laughed, he was the same James they had known before the war but for the whiskey breath. “Prob’ly worse news for you than for me.”
“What about Virgil and Newton?”
“Hell, I ain’t even seen ’em. I doubt Virge’ll be back any time soon after getting the Rysdam girl pregnant. What was it . . . a boy?”
“Her family moved out west somewhere. She went with ’em, so we never heard.”
James quietly laughed. “Damned war made a convenient backdoor for ol’ Virge.”
Wyatt said nothing to that. In truth, though Virgil had been the backbone of the farm, he was not as keenly missed as he might have been. Except by Wyatt. With an exaggerated groan, James stretched his back and took in the expanse of the winter-barren field across the road.
“Pa still slaving you?”
Wyatt followed his gaze. “I reckon so . . . me and Morg and Warren.”
James turned at the dead tone in Wyatt’s voice. “Things all right between you and Pa?”
“We’re all right, I reckon.” Wyatt’s face betrayed nothing.
James adjusted the sling under his arm and put on a skewed smile. “Pa’s got this contrary way of whippin’ you into a man, but then once you get there, he still expects you to follow him around like a young pup.” James pointed to the deer. “Was that there on his list of things for you to do?”
When Wyatt looked back at the deer, Morg and Warren did the same. “Wyatt knocked ’im down clean with one shot,” Warren said. James tousled Warren’s hair.
“I kilt a rabbit,” Morgan said. James jabbed a finger at Morg’s belly, but the boy was too quick.
The kitchen door opened, and Virginia Earp stepped onto the back porch, squeezing a towel to each of her fingers. Behind her the light from the oil lamps outlined the stoop of her once-proud posture. The towel stilled in her hands when her eyes pinched at the number of Earps gathered in the yard. Her plain face drew up, and then her strong jaw went slack at the sight of James smiling at her. Holding the forgotten towel to her breast, she stepped toward him, her gaze stitching back and forth between his face and the sling over his shoulder. A fragile sweetness bloomed in her rough cheeks, and her mouth began to quiver.
“Oh, Lord,” she breathed. “Jimmy.” She hadn’t called him that in years.
James picked up Warren and bounced the boy silly as he ran toward the house. “Hey there, Ma. I reckon they had enough o’ me in the war.”
“Lord in heaven,” she whispered, her words thick and trembling. Then her voice took on its more familiar scolding tone. “Climb down off your brother, Baxter Warren!”
James let the boy down, and the three younger brothers watched as he managed the half embrace that was left to him. Virginia was crying by the time he led her inside. Warren stood wide-eyed, staring at the closed door.
Morgan turned to Wyatt with a twinkle in his eye. “Smells like Pa’s corn liquor, don’t he?” He made a wry smile at the deer. “Maybe James comin’ home will help git us through this night.”
Wyatt stepped past his younger brother and pried his skinning knife from the trunk of the tree. “Let’s you and me finish dressing out this buck,” he said.
It was fully dark when Nicholas returned from town. He smelled the aroma of roasting meat wafting from the kitchen, and by the pale light spreading from the window, he saw the offal glistening beneath the walnut tree, where the skinning and quartering had been done, the rope still crimped into a curl from its recent knot. The unpainted barn mocked him like the smile of a gap-toothed idiot, and he cursed under his breath—a rehearsal for the rage he would unleash inside the house.
Nicholas found Wyatt leaning over the basin, washing his face at the pitcher pump, but before launching into a reprimand, he stopped slack-jawed at the sight of James sitting beside his mother as she cut potatoes at the sideboard. Both mother and son smiled at
him, waiting for a reaction.
“Well, good Lord,” Nicholas said, quickly stiffening himself against any emotion. Stretching his neck up through his starched collar, he coughed up a rough sound deep in his throat and pushed the door shut. “It’s about time they cut you loose. You’re home for good?”
“For good or for bad . . . I reckon that remains to be seen.” James rose to his feet and waited to see if his father would approach him. The elder Earp moved to the cupboard, and from the highest shelf he lifted down a clear jug of mash.
“You still brewin’ up that poison?” James asked, eyeing the spirits. “Don’t these Dutch farmers object to your liquor-making like the folks did in Illinois?”
“It ain’t none o’ their goddamn business,” Nicholas growled. He took down a glass and poured it better than half full. James waited for another glass to be offered, but it was not forthcoming. “I’m the provost marshal for the district,” Nicholas said, tugging at his coat lapel where the showy badge was pinned. “I reckon I can brew any damn thing I please.” He downed the homemade whiskey in two gulps and smacked down the glass on the counter with a sharp rap. When he exhaled, some color came into his face. He poured himself another.
James crossed the floor to the cupboard. “I hear you’re the one gets our boys ready for the war,” he said. He stiffened the thumb of his good hand and stabbed it twice at the center of his chest. “ ’Course, I been there.” His eyes flared with challenge just before he took down a second glass and let it strike the counter in an echo of his father’s gesture. “You want to pour for me?” he said, smiling. He gave no notice of his wound, but it was there for anyone to see.
Still holding the jug, Nicholas appeared to chew on something as he stared at his son. He tilted the jug and poured a half inch. James summed up the meager offering with an airy laugh through his nose, raised the drink to his lips, and threw it back with a toss of his head.
At his mother’s bidding Wyatt stepped past them to the parlor doorway and called for his brothers to wash up. Nicholas still had not acknowledged him. When Morgan and Warren spilled into the kitchen, Wyatt retired to the dining room and stoked the fire in the hearth. Taking the sharpening stone from the mantle he began scraping the carving knife in long, steady strokes.
Talk of the war filled the kitchen, until Virginia carried little Adelia into the dining room and called the family to supper. Nicholas entered last and, avoiding Wyatt’s eyes, took his seat at the head of the table. With the fresh logs crackling in the fireplace, Nicholas gave thanks for their bounty and for James’s safe return, intoning it as though God had finally come to His senses. Then he opened the top button of his shirt and hooked his napkin into the crook of his collar, all the while eyeing the ill-gotten victuals spread before him.
Awaiting the proper signal to eat, Morgan and Warren watched their father prop his elbows on the table. The old man glared at them as though awaiting an explanation. Neither boy dared make a sound. In this tableau of family obeisance, Wyatt forked a slab of roast onto his father’s plate and started on another for his mother.
“How is it you can take off huntin’ when the barn ain’t finished?” Nicholas said, still looking at the two youngest brothers.
Before they could muster an answer, Wyatt spoke up. “Looked like some rain comin’ in, so I told ’em to quit. The three of us went huntin’ instead.” He served the venison to his mother’s plate and nodded toward his brothers. “They got to learn some time how to get it to the table.”
In the silence that followed, the space around the table seemed too small for the coming disagreement. Virginia set a jar of blackberry preserves beside her husband’s plate, the grace of her simple movement like something swimming beneath the still surface of a pond.
“Nicholas,” she said, “we can’t keep eating stewed corn and cornbread. Try to enjoy the meal and be thankful for the meat . . . and for James.”
Nicholas cleared his throat. “I reckon I can allow a day off for huntin’ now and again.” He glared at the meat. “Once a month,” he ordained. He shot Wyatt a warning with his eyes and sniffed loudly, a signal that the affair was settled.
With their faces glowing at this new license to hunt, Morgan and Warren turned in unison to Wyatt. Holding their gazes, he lifted his milk as smoothly as a sacrament raised to the lips of a man certain of his salvation. He drank deeply before setting the glass back down.
“With James back,” Wyatt said, “twice a month seems about right.”
James choked back a whiskey laugh, the bawdy sound no less startling in this room than if the deer had sprung back to life on the platter.
“Nicholas,” Virginia added quickly, “when we go to California, you’ll need these boys to bring in wild game on the trail. Isn’t that right?”
The father glared at Wyatt and set both hands on the table linen, his big fists curled like a pair of gavels. His face had reddened, and his nostrils flared with each wheezing breath.
“You’re thinking you’re too big for me to whip now?” Nicholas challenged.
Wyatt slowly placed his silverware in his plate, the light clink of metal on china as crisp as the cocking of a gun. “No, sir, that ain’t what I was thinking,” he responded, the rough certainty in his voice giving no hint of surrender.
James covered his mouth and rubbed at the patch of unkempt whiskers tapering down his chin, the sound like fingertips on dry paper. Only he had caught the play of words in his brother’s reply. It was as close to humor as Wyatt ever got. Not so much what he’d said as what he hadn’t.
“When we move out west,” Wyatt said, nodding to his younger brothers, “we’ll be ready.”
Nicholas’s face darkened, and his words, when they came, tore from his throat like strips of flesh. “Meanwhile, son . . . there’s work to be done on this farm! I’ll need to sell it for top dollar, and to do that I’ll need a barn that don’t look like a half-patched nightshirt.”
Wyatt’s farm-toughened hands rested loosely on the white tablecloth, the knuckles ridged evenly under his sun-browned skin. “Seems to me, if I’m man enough for that field of corn, I’m man enough to make a decision or two.” There was no impertinence in his voice. He was demonstrating a point of reason.
As the family waited for Nicholas’s reaction, the cherrywood clock in the hallway ticked with painful regularity, as though a half-wit sat in the next room diligently striking together two stones . . . oblivious to the monotony he imposed on the moment. Wyatt sat easily in his chair—the same way he sat a horse, as though he had earned the space he was occupying.
“I count on you to make decisions!” the elder Earp bellowed. “But not against my word!” He slammed both fists, and the plates and silverware rattled as if he had called down the thunder.
In the silence that followed, Virginia folded her arms on the edge of the table and leaned forward into her husband’s view. “Then give them your word, Nicholas.” Her voice was placid and rational, making her request all the more commanding.
“About what, woman!” he shot back, his voice trailing off in a whine.
“If you’re not going to do it,” she explained, “Wyatt needs to teach these two about hunting. And twice a month sounds right to me. How does that sound to you?”
Nicholas turned to the reflection in the windowglass and dragged his lower teeth across his upper lip. Everyone in the room knew that Virginia’s calm could not be trumped. All that was needed was a graceful way for Nicholas to concede the point.
The old man turned to scowl at James. “Anything you want to add to this?”
Amused, James cocked his head. “Just a question.” He hooked his good arm over the back of his chair. “When you went off to the war in Mexico . . . that story you used to tell us ’bout gettin’ kicked by a mule . . . that true?”
Nicholas sniffed. “Caught me right in my Carolina chestnuts.”
James held off a smile. “And wasn’t it right after that when you sired Wyatt?”
Nic
holas looked sharply at James, but seeing the mischief in his eyes, he did not bother to answer.
“Ain’t it mules s’posed to be stubborn and all?” James wondered aloud. He was like an actor on a stage, sharing his private thoughts for the benefit of his audience. He cocked his head. “Reckon you can catch that kind a thing from a mule . . . and maybe pass it on?”
Everyone waited to see if Nicholas would respond to the crude joke. Virginia cupped a hand over his forearm, but Old Nick just sucked at a tooth and rotated his water glass on the tablecloth.
“You can hunt,” he decreed, “but no more’n twice a month.” He sniffed with finality, reached for a platter, and everyone went into motion at once. The sounds of serving spoons tapping on plates carried a blessed momentum that began to put the tension behind them. James buffeted Wyatt’s shoulder with the back of his good hand, but Wyatt only picked up his fork and knife and sawed at a corner of his venison.
“You boys can rise early tomorrow,” Nicholas said. “Get in another two hours on the barn before school. That’ll square things this time.”
Wyatt looked at Morgan and Warren, holding their eyes with his. “Yes, sir,” he said and went about the business of eating his dinner in the same unhurried way in which he did everything.
CHAPTER 5
* * *
Spring, 1864: Oregon Trail from Pella to Omaha City, Nebraska Territory
The next year the Earps set out for the promised land of California, or as James liked to say, “as far west as a man could run from his past and still call himself an American.” With Nicholas as wagon master—for he would take orders from no one—eleven families signed on with the Earp train. Charlie Coplea, a young bachelor neighbor who had unsuccessfully courted three women in the past year, asked to throw in with the Earps. When he walked, his left leg bent backward like a dog’s, but he promised another pair of hands for the work that needed to be done on the trail. Unfamiliar with Nicholas’s rigid demands, he agreed to work as one of the family and, as recompense, take his fill of Virginia’s cooking.
