by Mark Warren
“Wants me to be his undersheriff.”
Losing all signs of mirth, Virgil frowned. “How’s that gonna work?”
“Wants me to pull out of the sheriff’s race.” Wyatt looked at Virgil, and for several seconds neither man spoke. Wyatt reached over the countertop and secured the faro box on a shelf under the bar. Then he did the same with the tray of chips. “Says he’s already got the deal sewn up.”
Virgil scowled. “The hell he says.”
Wyatt slipped the tally book into the inside pocket of his coat, and, when he caught the owner’s eyes, he pointed to the till. Then the two brothers walked out the door and stood together at the corner looking west on Allen Street. The night air was invigorating, and the noisy, lighted saloons gave the town a sense of economic momentum.
After a time Wyatt said, “You know what ‘imperturbable’ means?”
Virgil frowned at the cross-hatched pattern of wheel ruts in the dusty street. Then he turned to Wyatt.
“I got no idea.”
CHAPTER 8
Winter 1880–81:Tombstone and Charleston, A. T.
At noon the next day Wyatt carried his breakfast plate to the sideboard, thanked Louisa, and poured himself more coffee. Morgan sat at the table reading the newspaper. Warren stood before the framed portrait of the elder Earps hanging in the hallway, using the reflection in the glass to knot his string tie.
“So Curly Bill goes free,” Morg said, backhanding the paper with a slap. “Explain that one to me.”
Wyatt walked to the window and sipped his coffee. “Even Fred White said it was an accident. Said he shouldn’t have jerked on Brocius’s gun like he did. Told his family that before he died.”
“You hear how Bill celebrated his release?” Morgan laughed.
Wyatt nodded.
“Well, I ain’t,” Warren spoke up. “What happened?”
Morgan slouched back in his chair to tell the story. “Lou, you might wanna close your ears for this.”
Louisa frowned, and at the same time her eyes narrowed to a shy smile.
“Well, it appears that Curly Bill and his boys drank the saloons dry in Charleston the other night. Once they figured they were drunk enough, they busted into the dancehall where there was some kind o’ social event goin’ on. They locked the door and commenced to force everybody to strip down and dance naked as a flock o’ plucked chickens.”
Warren whooped a single high-pitched note. “I would’a liked to a’ seen that!”
Morgan studied Wyatt’s face and dropped his boyish smile. “Ain’t much law in Charleston,” Morg said, using his big-brother voice for Warren’s sake. “I reckon that’ll change when you get to be sheriff, Wyatt.”
“Undersheriff,” Wyatt corrected.
Morg’s face closed down. Even Warren went still.
“You made the deal with Behan?” Morg probed.
Wyatt continued to stare out the window, his eyes fixed on Virgil’s house across the road. “I had someone from Wells, Fargo look into it for me. Behan wasn’t lyin’. It’s a sure thing for him.” Wyatt turned his head to drive home his point. “Least now, bein’ undersheriff’s a sure thing for me.”
Morgan’s eyes searched Wyatt’s face. “But it’s under sheriff, Wyatt . . . under Behan!”
“For a while. Next time it’ll be an election, and I can beat ’im. Being undersheriff will give me a chance to show people how I operate at a higher level.” He waited for his brothers to grasp his logic, but Morgan only carried his frown to Warren.
Wyatt turned back to the windowglass, leaned to look across the yard, and set his cup on the sideboard. “Somebody untie the gelding?”
Warren moved to the window. “He ain’t out under the cottonwood?”
Wyatt put on his heavy coat and stepped out the door to walk a circle around the house. By the time he walked out onto Fremont Street, Morgan and Warren came from the porch, buttoning their coats and checking the ground for tracks.
“Must’ve wandered off,” Warren said.
Morgan made a grunt deep in his chest. “Or somebody wandered ’im off for us.”
“Somebody needs to go out to the Huachucas today about those water rights,” Wyatt said. “I’m the one who knows where the claim is. Would you boys ask around about my horse?”
Morgan frowned. “Maybe you ought not go out there alone, Wyatt. Long’s we’re sharin’ this territory with the Apaches.”
Warren squared himself to Wyatt. “I’ll go with you, Wyatt.” He lifted his chin as though trying to stand taller. “Maybe we can kill us some Indians.”
Seeing the fever building in his youngest brother’s face, Wyatt spoke quietly. “Doc’ll go with me. You boys know my horse. I’d be obliged if you could handle that end for me.”
At dusk, having located the spring and marked it on a map, Wyatt and Doc were four miles out from Tombstone when a lone rider came up behind them at a fast trot. Sherman McMaster pulled up next to Wyatt and matched his speed until Wyatt reined up. Doc coughed through a long racking fit, and the three sat their horses until Doc could get down several swigs from his flask.
McMaster took off his hat and propped it on his pommel. Then he pursed his lips and looked directly at Wyatt. “Can I talk to you?” he said. “In private?”
Doc took another drink, slowly screwed down the cap, and urged his horse forward at a walk. McMaster returned his hat to his head and lowered his voice.
“You missing a bay gelding?”
“Was when I left home this mornin’.”
McMaster jerked a thumb back down the road toward the crossing on the San Pedro. “Might find that horse in Charleston ’bout now. Might find Billy Clanton sittin’ on it.” He pursed his lips again, this time conveying his doubts. “Says he found it loose out in the scrub.” Wyatt looked at him sharply. “Oh,” Mc-Master chuckled, “he knows whose horse it is, all right.”
The two men sat their horses for a time. Doc waited fifty feet ahead and stared at the stars just beginning to twinkle in the fading light.
“That all?” Wyatt asked McMaster.
McMaster nodded. “That’s all I know.”
When Wyatt said no more, McMaster leaned and reined his horse off the road, weaving his way through a prickly maze of cat’s-claw and cactus. Wyatt walked his horse to Doc.
“Ride with me to Charleston. One of the Clantons has my horse, and I aim to get it back.”
Doc looked off in the direction where McMaster had gone. “Isn’t that one of the reprobates who rides with Curly Bill?”
“I’d appreciate you keepin’ this to yourself,” Wyatt said and tilted his head in the direction McMaster had ridden. “He done me a favor. Right now I just want to go get that horse.”
Darkness had settled over Charleston as they rode unnoticed down the main thoroughfare. The town had a rawer feel than Tombstone. More remote, untouched by social amenities, and less confined by the strictures of the law. They moved slowly through the side streets, checking the stables, until across from Ayer’s saloon they found the bay in a stall at an unlighted livery. Perched on its back was a high-cantled saddle with a rifle stuffed into a tooled scabbard.
“Doc, keep an eye out here. I’m going to find a sheriff’s deputy.”
“Hell, let’s just take the damned thing. It is yours, isn’t it?”
“It’s in his possession. We’re not on friendly ground here. And I ain’t the law yet.”
In a half hour Wyatt found Doc in the alleyway next to the livery corral. Doc was fending off the night chill with the burn of alcohol from his flask.
“Where the hell’d you go?” Doc quipped. “To the Bureau of Horses in Washington?”
“I talked to a deputy. Then I sent a wire to Tombstone. One of my brothers is comin’ with papers on the horse.”
Doc lowered the flask and looked past Wyatt toward the saloon. “Well, he’d do well to hurry. That looks like some Clantons right there.”
Wyatt turned to see three men silhouetted by the
window of the bar as they walked diagonally across the street for the stable. Wyatt bent at the waist and scissored through the corral fence to follow them through the livery entrance. Doc brought up the rear.
The gelding nickered when the loutish Cow-boy began rummaging through his saddlebags. Even when the three men noticed Wyatt’s dark figure standing behind the horse, their manner remained familiar and relaxed.
Billy Clanton yawned. “When I get back to the ranch, I’m gonna sleep for two days.”
“You’ll prob’ly need to,” Wyatt said. “You got a long walk ahead o’ you.”
Billy squinted and moved closer, his drunken haze trying to burn out of him. “What the fuck do you want?” The other two Cow-boys turned from their horses and stood very still.
A revolver double-clicked to full cock as the acid tone in Doc’s voice broke the silence. “If any of you degenerates are anxious to meet the devil, then please do jerk your pistol.”
“I found this horse,” Billy snapped. “Figure the shit-brain who let it go didn’t care to hold on to it.” He wavered, trying to put a foot into the stirrup while the horse was still in the stall. Wyatt grabbed the heavyset boy by his collar and jerked so hard, Clanton fell back against the stall divider.
“Goddamn you,” a squat curly-headed man snarled. “That’s my kid brother.”
Wyatt turned to face him, and the man stopped suddenly. “Then why ain’t you taught him about stealin’ another man’s horse?”
Doc laughed. “That’s probably exactly what he did teach ’im. Right, Ike?”
Ike Clanton turned on Holliday. “You talk big holding a gun, you puny bastard.”
Doc pressed the cocked revolver into Ike’s belly. “I do, don’t I. See, one of the advantages of holdin’ a gun is talkin’ big. You, on the other hand, talk big all the time and everybody knows it’s about as meaningful as the air you squeeze out your ass.”
Billy Clanton stood up to his full height. “I’m gonna stomp you into the dirt, Earp.”
Wyatt’s gun appeared in a slow, steady movement. Ike and Billy went still as mannequins in a store window. The third man edged toward the street one step but then decided to freeze.
“We’re gonna sit tight for my papers on this horse. After that, you can try some of that stompin’, if you’re still of a mind.”
Ike Clanton spat. “You can’t prove a damn thing on how that horse come into our possession.”
“Maybe not,” Wyatt said, “but I can prove he’s mine.”
In an hour Warren arrived with the local deputy sheriff, McDowell, who hung a lighted lantern on the gatepost and ordered all the men into its pale nimbus of light. McDowell sorted through the papers and walked around the horse, touching the identifying marks as listed.
“Looks like the right horse.” He turned to Billy. “You got papers?”
“Hell, no! I found this horse wanderin’ out in the mesquite!”
McDowell handed the papers back to Wyatt. “You pressing charges?”
“Hell,” Billy growled, and then he smirked. “He ought’a be thankin’ us for findin’ the damn flea bag.”
Wyatt unhitched Billy Clanton’s saddle and let it and the saddle blanket fall into the street. Billy bulled his way in, bumping Wyatt as he bent for the saddle. Wyatt casually turned the horse in a half circle until the young Clanton was caught inside all four legs. Ike and the third Cow-boy backed away quickly as the gelding nickered nervously, tensed, and stutter-stepped. Clanton fell and cried out like a child when a hoof stamped down on his fingers.
Crowding Wyatt, Ike fumed, his breath so offensive that Wyatt put a hand on the older Clanton’s chest and moved him back. Ike tried to resist but lost his footing.
“You don’t push us Clantons!” he screeched. “You hear me?”
Doc laughed. “I believe he just did, Ike.”
The deputy stepped between them and faced Ike. “You boys simmer down now. Let’s ever’body get off the street.”
Billy Clanton got to his feet, picked up his saddle and blanket, and angrily swung the rig over the top rail of the corral fence. Then he turned and extended an arm to point at Wyatt.
“I ain’t afraid of you, Earp.”
Doc laughed again and shook his head in thespian regret. “You’ll learn the foolishness of that soon enough.”
“I ain’t afraid of you neither, you little skinny bag o’ pus.”
Doc’s eyes lost all their philosophical wit. “If that was my horse,” he said, “you’d be dead right now. Now get the fuck out of my sight.”
Herded by the deputy, the Cow-boys shuffled toward the middle of the street. Billy Clanton swiped at the deputy’s hand and turned so that he was walking backward to glare at Doc and Wyatt.
“If you got any more horses need findin’,” Billy called out, “let me know!”
McDowell prodded the boy on. Grumbling and scuffing their boots in the street, the trio of Cow-boys strode toward the saloon, with Billy turning every few steps to glower.
“Why’d you let ’im off, Wyatt?” Warren whispered. “You should’a locked ’im up! Or shot ’im! Hell, I would have!”
Wyatt removed Clanton’s bridle and slung it into the fence. Then, using a length of rope from his saddlebags on the mare, he fashioned a hackamore.
“Wyatt?” Warren pressed.
Wyatt fitted the rope snugly over the gelding’s long muzzle and did not look at his brother. “I aim to be sheriff of Cochise County,” he said so quietly he might have been talking to the horse. “Won’t help me to be shootin’ anybody or wastin’ time in court over somethin’ that will never get sorted out.” He turned his head to Warren, driving home his point with the ice in his eyes. “This here was just a moment in time with a few Cow-boys who will eventually dig their own graves. Being sheriff can set me up for a long time to come. You understand that?”
Warren spat to one side and stared at his brother. “Morg says you used to crack a man’s head if he looked at you wrong.”
Wyatt walked the gelding by a lead rope to his mare and tied the free end behind the cantle of his saddle. “Things are different here in this country, Warren,” he said. “We got to live with these people. They don’t go back to Texas at the end of summer like they did in Kansas.”
Warren frowned and checked Doc’s face, but Doc only offered a quizzical smile. “Shit,” Warren said, “I’d’a just killed ’im.”
Wyatt studied his brother for a moment and then turned to Doc. “Who was the third man with the Clantons?”
“Frank Stilwell,” Doc said, pronouncing the name as if he were recalling a gum disease. “If anybody in that crowd needs killing, it’s him.”
Wyatt booted into his stirrup and mounted. “Do me a favor, Doc, and don’t point out everybody who you think needs killing. My brother seems to put some stock into your considerations.”
“Well, hell,” Doc huffed, “somebody ought to.”
CHAPTER 9
Winter, early 1881: Tombstone, A. T.
Two weeks into the New Year, at midday, Wyatt knocked on the locked door of the Wells, Fargo office and waited. After the shade was opened a crack, the lock clicked, and Marsh Williams swung open the door, a pistol in his hand. Wyatt went inside and watched Williams peek out past the shade and then lock the door.
The warmth of the room was welcoming, the aroma of the agent’s humidor rich and exotic. Without a word of greeting, Williams sat back down on the bench near the wood heater, laid his pistol next to him, and continued to stack money from the safe into a strongbox.
“Let me finish this, Wyatt,” Williams mumbled without looking up. “Eighty, ninety, a hun’erd. That’s thirteen.” He tongued the point of a pencil and wrote down a figure in his ledger.
Wyatt eyed the stacked and banded bills inside the strongbox. If Williams was a man with sticky fingers, he certainly had the opportunity to short the company. He waited until the agent closed his book.
“Now, what can I do for you, Wyatt?”
> “My brother, James . . . his stepdaughter is gettin’ married to a machinist who opened a foundry on one of our mine properties. I wanna put in a word for him with Wells, Fargo. He can make most anything you need out o’ metal.” Wyatt pointed to the strongbox. “Buckles, locks, and such.”
Before Williams could reply, his head came up at the clatter of hooves in the street, and his hands dropped protectively to the money. He rose, hurriedly crossed to the door, parted the shades, and peered out.
“Ain’t that your racehorse?” Williams said, his voice rising with the question.
Wyatt unlocked the door and stepped outside to see his double-mounted Thoroughbred sliding to a halt in front of Hatch’s billiard parlor. Virgil lowered a slight young man from the horse’s rump, and then he himself dismounted. The horse was lathered and breathing hard, its long legs rippled with swollen veins and its flanks dark and wet with perspiration. Morgan walked out of Hatch’s, followed by Fred Dodge, and then Doc Holliday.
“Where’s Wyatt?” Virgil bellowed to the trio on the boardwalk.
“Right here,” Wyatt called out. Only then did he recognize Virgil’s passenger—a feckless gambler who regularly lost money playing faro at the Oriental.
Virgil handed the reins to Morgan, clamped a hand on the boy’s upper arm, and walked him to where Wyatt stood. “There’s a mob on the way from Charleston to get at this’n,” Virgil explained. “The constable, McKelvey, was haulin’ ’im here to Tombstone in a wagon. That’s when I run into ’em.” Virgil pulled the prisoner closer, and the boy bobbled like a puppet. “Apparently he’s kilt the manager at Gird’s smelter.”
Squirming in Virgil’s grip, the accused boy licked his lips and looked beseechingly at Wyatt. “It was self-defense, Mr. Earp. He come at me with a knife.”
Wyatt looked west down the street toward the Charleston Road. “How far back are they?”
Virgil wiped at his cold nose with his coat sleeve and shook his head. “Last I saw of ’em was about two miles back. We outran ’em easy on the racer, even ridin’ double.” He nodded toward the Wells, Fargo office. “We’ll need a place to hole up till we can handle the crowd.”
