by Mark Warren
PROMISED LAND
WYATT EARP:
AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY, BOOK 3
PROMISED LAND
MARK WARREN
FIVE STAR
A part of Gale, a Cengage Company
Copyright © 2019 by Mark Warren
Maps: Copyright © 2019 by Mark Warren.
Five Star Publishing, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Warren, Mark, 1947– author.
Title: Promised land / Mark Warren.
Description: First edition. | Waterville, Maine : Five Star, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company, [2019] | Series: Wyatt Earp: an American odyssey ; book 3
Identifiers: LCCN 2019002605 (print) | ISBN 9781432857271 (hardcover : alk. paper)
eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-5727-1
Subjects: LCSH: Earp, Wyatt, 1848-1929—Fiction. | Peace officers—West (U.S.)—Fiction. | Outlaws—West (U.S.) v Fiction. | Frontier and pioneer life—West (U.S.)—Fiction. | Tombstone (Ariz.)—Fiction. | GSAFD: Western stories. | Biographical fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3623.A86465 P76 2019 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002605
First Edition. First Printing: October 2019
This title is available as an e-book.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-5727-1
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Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 23 22 21 20 19
To Susan,
for letting me read to you forever
“Now, I am just an actor—a mere player—seeking to reproduce the lives of those great gunmen who molded a new country for us to live in and enjoy peace and prosperity. And we have today in America . . . these men with us in the flesh . . . one is Wyatt Earp.”
∼ William S. Hart, as quoted in the New York Morning Telegraph, October 9, 1921
CHAPTER 1
December 1879:Tombstone, A. T.
The Earps’ three-wagon train trundled over the desert sand on the last leg from Tucson to Tombstone. The flat land on both sides of the trail bristled with dry, prickly vegetation—squat mesquite trees, bushy cat’s-claw, and dagger-like leaves of yucca and agave. Tall saguaro cacti stood their ground like lone sentinels stationed strategically out in the brush. These standing giants, the startling rock formations, and the winding arroyos broke up the monotony of the terrain, providing natural mileage markers for the journey. The distant mountains completed a larger view of the Sonora desert.
Wyatt planned to know this route with intimate familiarity as soon as his stage and transport business was up and running. Already he was committing landmarks to memory and taking note of the wash-outs in the road where a coach wheel could mire to the axle.
Having lived in the Arizona Territory for two years, brother Virgil and his wife, Allie, led the caravan in their sturdy Studebaker, with canvas sheeting arched high above their belongings. Their dog, Frank, trotted alongside the four-horse team when he wasn’t sniffing out jackrabbits and ground squirrels. Behind Virgil came James, the oldest brother, who managed his team with his one good arm, while in the back of his sheeted spring wagon his wife, Bessie, instructed her sixteen-year-old daughter, Hattie, in the tedious methods for sewing canvas with a waterproof stitching so that the seams did not leak.
Bessie’s repetitive drills and Hattie’s juvenile complaints joined with the constant jingle of the harnesses and the rumble of the wheels to fill the emptiness around Wyatt and Mattie, who brought up the rear. They had barely spoken since their stop in Benson to water the horses.
It had been an uneventful journey to the southeastern corner of the territory, but now they began to encounter other migrators drifting south from San Manuel and Willcox and west from New Mexico. Just as the Earps were, all were drawn to the possibilities of a new boom town that sat atop a trove of silver. It seemed that each group of travelers had packed in haste, stacking their worldly belongings into every manner of conveyance. Besides covered wagons like Virgil’s, there were freight wagons, modified carriages, and buckboards—some of these pulling flatbed hay trailers or two-wheeled Red River carts lashed to a rear axle. Other than the occasional passenger stage or bullion wagon making a run from Tombstone to the county seat, there was no traffic moving against this flow. Silver was the new siren’s song belting out its promises to a country sinking in an economic depression.
They came from the big cities of the East, from the lake country of Minnesota, from the northern plains, and from the tall timbers of Oregon. Some hailed from Wales, Germany, or Denmark. Their stations in life ranged from banking to hardscrabble farming. The geological riches of Tombstone were like an insatiable flame drawing moths of every stripe.
In spite of their differences, these travelers seemed to share one trait: Wyatt could see the same glimmer of hunger burning in their eyes. Or maybe it was hope. It seemed to set the men on edge, and out of that nervousness they prodded their teams on at an imprudent pace. In the women’s faces he sensed something else. Resignation, perhaps. Or, if not that, the knowledge that they had come to a time and place in their lives where there were no other options.
From the driver’s box of his wagon Wyatt constantly studied the rolling sea of desert scrub around him, so untouched by humans and nearly devoid of wildlife except birds, snakes, and lizards. Taking in the clean winter fragrance of the desert, Wyatt decided the remoteness of this land was to his liking. Despite the constant blow of fine, dun dust that found its way into every crevice of skin and fold of garment, the desert felt like the perfect place for a new start. The landscape was untouched and seemed somehow healing. Even the endless outcrops of beige, orange, and blue rocks seemed to sharpen the air with an antiseptic scent. Everything was new here. And anything new seemed full of promise.
Judging by the number of commercial coaches that had rattled past him since Tucson, Wyatt grudgingly began to accept the U.S. marshal’s information about the stage line business in Tombstone. Wyatt had noted four different business names on the sides of the coaches, and, by the way the drivers had handled their rigs when they passed, he was satisfied that these express companies were staffed with capable men.
It would be hard to give up on his plan to establish his own stage line. For two solid months now, Wyatt had held this idea in his mind and run through the details of operation. He had even sketched a blueprint and penciled a tally of the lumber he would need to build a livery in town. The wagon on which he sat had been purchased for this very enterprise. With the help of a carpenter, he had planned to convert it into a passenger coach with a bullion trap hidden in the floor.
The string of eleven horses following his wagon on a long lead rope had been chosen for this enterprise. Each was stout and well-suited for its d
raft capabilities—all but the long-legged racer, of course. That stud would bring in money on private wagers and formal competitions. No matter his profession, Wyatt knew there would always be the time and the occasion for impromptu side bets as well as organized races.
When the Earps watered their horses at the wells near Contention, the women huddled together at the back of Virgil’s wagon and prepared a light meal of cold biscuits, dried venison, and pole beans preserved in a jar of brine. Allie hauled out a flat-topped trunk, topped it with a faded red blanket, and sat. Without invitation Bessie, Hattie, and Mattie joined her, and there they settled in to eat, each with her back to the others. Frank, the dog, sat in front of Allie, alert for any donations that might be afforded him.
The Earp brothers stood at the tailgate, and, as they picked at the food, they discussed their plans to set up a permanent camp on the outskirts of Tombstone that very night. When finished, Wyatt walked past the stage station into the brush to relieve himself. On returning he moved toward the corral, where a hostler tossed a rope over the head of a cinnamon-maned sorrel gelding. Wyatt propped a boot on the low rail of the fence, slipped his hands into his coat pockets, and studied the animals inside the enclosure.
The remuda was impressive—close to sixty well-muscled horses, all in constant motion in the brisk December air, save the sweat-soaked flanks of six at the water trough. These animals were spent and dusted gray from the trail. Together they siphoned up water through their long muzzles like a row of supplicants come to pray before a holy altar.
When the sorrel balked at being led, the hostler dug into his pocket and then teased the horse with a cupped hand near its nostrils. The big steed lipped his hand once, took a hesitant step forward, licked up the morsels of sweet grain with a thick tongue, and then followed. The man laughed with a quiet growl and smiled at Wyatt.
“Juss like some little spoilt baby awantin’ his candy,” he said, shaking his head.
The man laughed again and walked the horse into the barn. When he returned, he reset the loop on his lariat and threw it over the head of a bay moving along the fence near Wyatt. The bay backed away, walleyed, pulling the rope taut. Digging his heels into the dirt, the hostler sent a quick curling wave up the rope to give it slack, and then he jerked it twice. The bay stood firm but then nickered and surrendered to the same ruse of the cupped hand of sweet grain.
When he returned without the rope, the hostler walked directly to Wyatt and rested an arm on the top rail of the fence. Looking back at the horses, he fingered a pinch of tobacco from a small rolled bag and pushed a wad into his mouth. The man’s whiskered cheek bulged like a swell on a cactus. He offered the bag, but Wyatt shook his head.
“I figure they’ve earn’t a little spoilin’, the way we use ’em up,” the man said and chuckled. Chewing on the tobacco, he seemed to settle in to study the herd in earnest, but right away he turned back to Wyatt, cocked his head to one side, and raised his eyebrows until his forehead wrinkled like a washboard. “Tell you what,” he said, his voice now low and confiding, “winter or not . . . I wouldn’ wanna be haulin’ ’round one o’ these rockin’ sideshows through this damned desert sand with a damned whip snapping at my ass.”
When Wyatt said nothing, the hostler leaned away and spat a brown dollop into the trampled dirt of the corral. When he turned back, his eyes narrowed as he studied Wyatt from boots to hat.
“If you’re awaitin’ on the Kinnear stage into Tombstone, you’d best juss settle in fer a while. Stage busted a axle and broke down just this side out o’ Benson. We juss got word.”
Wyatt nodded back toward the Earp wagons. “Got my own rig.”
The hostler looked past Wyatt and frowned, studying the small train as though appraising the soundness of each wagon for a desert crossing. Wyatt shifted his gaze above the herd. Beyond the corral, the Earp women walked up a low hill into the scrub brush toward a crude privy slapped together with sun-bleached boards and a door hung with baling wire. The small outbuilding was like a desert monument, listing slightly to one side as though paying homage to the constant winds. Bessie led the way with Hattie in hand, jerking the girl forward when she lingered. Allie marched behind them, muttering and fussing with her bonnet. Mattie quietly followed them all, her forearms crossed over her stomach and her head turning from side to side as she inspected the trail.
The hostler spat again and then looked at the side of Wyatt’s face. “That’s a purty string o’ horses tied to that tailgate. Are them yours?”
Wyatt looked at the man and said plainly, “I was thinking I might open up my own stage line.”
The hostler’s face wrinkled like a twisted rag. “In Tombstone?” He stared back at Wyatt, waiting to see if he were supposed to laugh at a man’s joke. When Wyatt’s pale-blue eyes held steady on him, the hostler’s questioning expression hardened, and he began to nod, as though he were now seriously considering such an enterprise.
“Tell you what,” the man said. He spat again, and then he wiped at his whiskered chin with the back of a dirty coat sleeve. “We’re ’bout covered up with stages down here. The two big comp’nies are at war, each one tryin’ to bury t’other.” He pushed back his hat and stared to the southeast in the general direction of Tombstone. “Cain’t rightly see how a new line could survive out here.” He shrugged and gave Wyatt a sheepish grin. “Only so many teats to suck off, you know. I guess you got to get there early to take your place.”
“This ain’t ‘early’?” Wyatt asked.
The horseman laughed and hitched his head with a quick jerk. “Things happ’n purty quick in Tombstone. I reckon a town can grow up too fast fer its own good.” He forked his hands on his hips and tried for a show of kindness in his face. “Tell you what . . . I was you . . . I’d be thinkin’ ’bout another line o’ work.”
When Wyatt nodded, the man turned and again watched the horses in the corral. The hostler seemed embarrassed and said nothing for a time. Finally he twisted around and raised his chin at the Earp train.
“Tell you what . . . you might wanna talk to the station manager. He’d prob’ly buy them horses off you, if you’re of a mind to sell.”
Wyatt looked up the hill and saw Bessie and Hattie making their way back down the trail. At the privy, Mattie now stood alone outside the closed door, her arms still pressed against her belly as though shielding herself from the unknown dangers of this new land. For the hundredth time Wyatt tried to imagine Mattie as a mother to the baby she was carrying. It was a difficult image to piece together. Like trying to arrange plucked flower petals floating on water. But he couldn’t fault Mattie. It was no easier to see himself as a father.
Even before he climbed back into his wagon, Wyatt had accepted the fact that he might have to abandon his plans to start his own express company. Now he began to consider other opportunities. Maybe he would invest in the land itself, hire a crew, and dig up enough ore to interest another buyer. That he knew nothing of mining operations ought not to deter him. Other men foreign to the field had made their fortunes off of bold venturing and the grit to stand by their decisions.
Besides the capital to get started, Wyatt knew that such an enterprise would take some show of confidence . . . and timing. These were tools he had employed as an officer of the law—such intangibles sometimes proving equally as important as his Colt’s or his fists. There was no reason he could not be one of those entrepreneurs who came out on the top of an economic free-for-all like the one going on in Tombstone.
He would have to learn the politics first. He needed to meet the right people and get them to see that he was a man to get things done. And he couldn’t let a few troublesome citizens get in the way of that—people like Billy Smith in Wichita and Bob Wright in Dodge. Now that he wore no badge, there would be no reason to incur enemies as he had in Kansas. He might be able to stow his guns away for good. Like an old pair of boots he had finally outgrown.
With the Earp party under way and Tombstone only hours down the trail,
Wyatt began to feel a little prickle on the back of his neck. It was the same sensation he sometimes experienced at a faro game, when he knew the next card from the box would either make him or break him. Tombstone was a gamble, the biggest for which he had anted up; but, like Virgil and James, he was all in.
Two hours later the three wagons came to a halt. At the head of the procession, Virgil erupted with an uncharacteristic whoop that carried back to his brothers’ wagons.
“That’s it!” Virge yelled, his big booming voice bringing up all eyes to a plateau nestled inside a circle of hills just below the horizon.
From his place at the center of the caravan, James turned to show his crooked grin to Wyatt. “You smell that?” he sang out in his teasing melody. “That there, son, is the sweet aroma of silver.” In the wagon bed, Bessie and Hattie set aside their needlework and peered around the wagon sheets toward the town.
When Wyatt took in the flat on which Tombstone had risen, the same enigma struck him as had greeted him at every other boom town he had entered. How could a place so isolated—in the middle of so much empty space—accommodate a horde of fortune seekers and their families? How could enough food get freighted out here to sustain life? Tombstone was a level anthill of a settlement centered in a wasteland of low hills, hostile scrub, and sharp, angular stone. Only the knowledge of unseen silver below endowed the little rise of land with any sense of luminescence.
Holding up his map to square with the surroundings, Virgil called out to the wagons behind him and pointed north. There in the distance, a long mountain range stretched like a jagged set of teeth risen from a vast, flat plain.
“That there’s the Dragoons. And way off behind ’em . . . the Chiricahuas. That’ll be where most of the timber comes from. Apaches, too.” Virge paused to wink at his wife beside him. When feisty little Allie showed no hint of being amused, Virge swept his arm from west to south. “The Whetstones. The Huachucas. That little bunch there . . . that’s the Mule Mountains. And way off in the haze there . . . that’s old Mexico.” He laughed. “Reckon a man can see ’bout as far as he wants here.”
