Promised Land

by Mark Warren

  “Wyatt,” Hooker said, pointing toward the chestnut mare, “leave that saddle here. I’ve got a man who can build a new pommel for you.” Hooker pulled two cigars from the breast pocket of his coat and pushed one on Wyatt. Then he struck a lucifer and cupped a hand around the flame as Wyatt nursed the tobacco into a steady burn.

  When Wyatt began loosening the cinch on his saddle, Henry Hooker lighted his own cigar and tossed the dead lucifer into the yard. Turning back to the house he spoke in Spanish to the last female hovering in the doorway, and together they walked inside.

  Wyatt perched the saddle and blanket on a fence rail at the side of the farrier’s shop, removed his personals from his bedroll, and walked his horse toward the stream. The scorch of the whiskey had subsided in his belly, and he felt his body beginning to relax as the alcohol spread to his limbs like a dye bleeding into whole cloth.

  The cigar offered a sweet, mellow flavor that Wyatt assumed was standard for a top of the line brand. It seemed that everything about Henry Hooker was high quality: his land, his cattle, the loyalty of his working crew. Even his whiskey and tobacco. There had been a time when Wyatt himself had considered entering the cattle business. In Kansas the prospect had always been an ill-fated one, because the very men he would be compelled to do business with were the same ones that he, as an officer of the law, sometimes slapped over the head with the barrel of his gun.

  Now, in this private world of the Sierra Bonita, he was finally able to comprehend the monetary potential for such an undertaking. Henry Hooker had achieved something out here in the Sulphur Springs valley, and Wyatt took note of it. But he didn’t envy it. Not now. A new occupation had taken over his life, and he was not ready to give it up. Not yet. There were still names on his list. Men he needed to find. Killers who had believed they could take away his brother and then go about their lives as if there were no price to pay for killing an Earp.

  As he approached the creek, Wyatt heard the men talking in low tones; and then, unexpectedly, several of the voices broke into a raucous laughter that carried over the water like the honking of geese. It was the way men used to laugh at Morg when he shared one of the better jokes he liked to unleash on a special occasion.

  “Hey, Wyatt,” Creek Johnson called from the rocky edge of a bathing pool. “You ever see a plucked prairie chicken take his baptismal rites with a shot o’ whiskey?”

  Doc Holliday sat naked as a newborn in the center of the pool, the cold water lapping just below his washboard ribs. Upending his silver flask, Doc downed the contents in three quick gulps and then slapped at the surface to splash water toward the others.

  “Johnson?” Doc drawled. “When you wade out here and lower yourself into the water, we just might have to change your name from ‘Creek’ to ‘Tiny.’ ‘Tiny Johnson’! How’s that sound?”

  Everyone laughed but Wyatt. He led his mare upstream to drink with the other horses. While his companions joked downstream, he looked north to the mountains that capped off the valley. Thinking about Morgan, he wondered how many more men he would have to kill before he could fill the cavernous hole of loss that had opened up at the center of him.

  CHAPTER 22

  March 28, 1882: Sierra Bonita, Graham County, Arizona Territory

  Billy Whelan took his mustang at a walk behind another rider slouching over the withers of a swaybacked bay. As they entered the compound just after dawn, Whelan kept his carbine trained on the back of the stranger. No one else stirred among the buildings.

  “Turn there behind the barn and pull up at the bunkhouse,” Billy ordered.

  The lead rider lost his slump and sat his horse erectly. Following the foreman’s command, he reined up before the bunkhouse and awaited further instructions.

  “Marshal Earp!” Whelan called out. “Could you come out here and identify a man for me?”

  When Wyatt stepped outside, he was shirtless with streaks of shaving soap running down one jaw and the side of his neck. His pistol butt jutted from the waistband of his trousers. He gripped a towel in his left hand. The morning chill seemed not to affect him.

  “Tip,” Wyatt said, greeting the man.

  “Wyatt,” Tipton replied, a little stoic, and at the same time a little irritated.

  Wyatt began rubbing his neck with the towel and looked at the foreman. “This is Dan Tipton, one of my deputies.”

  Tipton turned his head to glower at Whelan. “Same thing I been tellin’ you for the past hour.”

  Unapologetically, Billy Whelan smiled, slipped a Colt’s revolver from the front of his cartridge belt, and made a quick swivel by the trigger guard to offer the gun handle forward. Tipton received the gun unceremoniously and returned it to his holster with an angry thrust. Then, in turn, Whelan returned his new guest’s shotgun and lever-action rifle and watched the interloper stuff the Winchester in its scabbard and loop the shotgun over his pommel, all with the same brusque flair.

  “No offense, mister,” Whelan said agreeably. “Welcome to the Sierra Bonita.” He turned to Wyatt. “Breakfast in an hour. I’ll tell Consuela to set out another plate.”

  As Whelan rode off for the main house, Dan Tipton dismounted and began loosening a set of new tan saddlebags draped over his own worn-out pair. “Brought a thousand dollars from E. B. Gage and some of the businessmen in town.” He hooked the bags over the hitching rail that ran a quarter the length of the building.

  Wyatt lifted the leather bags and slung them over one shoulder. “You look wore out, Tip.”

  Tipton shrugged. “Rode all night. I was purty near to asleep in the saddle when that young blue-eyed buck jumped me.”

  Wyatt almost smiled. “He did the same to us. Just doin’ his job. Hooker has made us welcome here.”

  The two men watched as a rider galloped into the courtyard and dismounted at the house. Billy Whelan came outside to greet him, and the two hands spoke briefly as the new arrival untied his saddlebags and handed them over to the foreman.

  Whelan walked alone across the yard and held out the bags to Wyatt. “Got you some more money and some news,” he said as Wyatt accepted the second delivery. “This here’s from Wells, Fargo. Should be a thousand dollars.”

  Charlie Smith stood in the bunkhouse doorway dressed in gray long johns and boots. The pistol he gripped hung down by his leg. He smiled as Tipton sidled past him with his gear.

  “Well, damn,” Charlie laughed. “Maybe we just ought’a sit tight here and see how many times somebody sends us a thousand dollars.”

  “What’s the news?” Wyatt asked Whelan.

  The foreman pointed south down the long flume of the valley. “Sheriff’s posse is about twelve miles out.” He pursed his lips and let his eyebrows rise with the implications of his report. “Headed straight for us.”

  “How many?” Wyatt said.

  “Seventeen riders,” Billy reported. “Looks like Behan.”

  Wyatt flung the towel over his shoulder, and his mouth tightened to a grim line. “We’ll have to pass on breakfast.”

  The door at the main house slammed, and Hooker marched across the yard in his shirt sleeves. His wet hair was neatly combed back over his hatless head. A fierce determination sharpened the angles of his face. Whelan took a deferential step back as his employer stopped and spread his boots in the sandy dirt.

  “You can make your fight right here, Wyatt. We can hold off an army if we need to. With the men I’ve got working here at the compound right now, we’ll come close to matching Behan’s numbers.”

  Wyatt recognized the heat of battle rising in the cattleman’s face. It was the same tacit contract of loyalty he had received unasked from each of his deputies.

  “I appreciate the offer, Mr. Hooker, but there’s no need for you to get tangled up in this. It could get complicated in the courts for you. Behan would see to that.”

  “Damn Behan, and damn the rabble who ride with him!” Hooker spat. “I’d be siding with a deputy United States marshal.”

  Wyatt shook his
head. “It’ll come to a lot more complicated than that.”

  Hooker’s lips pressed into a thin line. His eyes seemed to burn with a fever.

  “There’s eight of you, Wyatt. Behan’s got more than double that.”

  Wyatt appeared to place no interest in the numbers. “Your man put any names to those faces?”

  Hooker’s mouth curled to a contemptuous smile. “Behan . . . his undersheriff, Woods . . . Ringo . . . and two of the Clantons. As to the others, hell, they could be Lucifer’s in-laws.”

  Wyatt pushed the towel idly around his cheek and neck. He felt his blood start to run hot. He turned to Billy Whelan.

  “Where would you go to make a fight?” Wyatt asked.

  “Reilly Hill,” Whelan replied without hesitation. He pointed west through the bunkhouse. “Three miles out. It’s the first hill you’ll see out there before you reach the Galiuro Mountains. There’s a spring heads up just below the summit. From up top you can see anybody coming for miles around in every direction.”

  Wyatt turned to Tipton, who had returned to the doorway with Smith and Vermillion. McMaster rose up on his toes behind them and then shouldered his way through to hear the conversation.

  “Tip, can you ride a little more this morning before restin’ up?”

  “Hell, I can rest anytime,” Tip replied, “but I’m gonna need something to eat.”

  Henry Hooker swept one hand back toward the hacienda as an invitation. “Wyatt, you’ve got time. Get all of your men over to the house now. We’ll feed you breakfast and pack up some food supplies to take with you.”

  Letting one of the saddlebags slide from his shoulder, Wyatt began to unlace the leather tie on one pouch. “Our horses are not rested. We’ll be needin’ to lease fresh mounts from you, Mr. Hooker.”

  Hooker raised a palm and pushed it toward Wyatt, much the way Wyatt had denied payment on the previous day. “Keep your money, Marshal,” he said sharply. “I’m loaning you eight fast horses and holding yours as collateral.” Looking past Wyatt, Hooker snapped an order. “Billy, get some of the men and cut out the fastest horses in our remuda for these gentlemen.”

  Whelan started for the main bunkhouse at a crisp walk. Hooker pointed through the compound gate.

  “Wyatt, you get your men up there on that hill, and I’ll handle Behan.” Hooker gave a dry, rough laugh. “Maybe I’ll send him off to look for you where the Chiricahuas are holed up at present.” His smile turned sinister. “And don’t think I don’t know.”

  Wyatt flipped the saddlebag over his shoulder and shook his head. “Send him to us,” he said quietly. “Ringo and Ike Clanton are two of the men I need to see.”

  Hooker’s brow lowered over his eyes. “Why don’t we take care of that right here?”

  Wyatt stepped closer to his host and lowered his voice. “I’m not foolin’ myself about going back to run for sheriff in Cochise. There’s been too much bad press about us. When I finish my work here, I reckon I’ll have to leave. For a time, at least. Wells, Fargo is petitioning the governor for a pardon for what I’ve done, but that may take some time.” Wyatt nodded at Hooker. “You’ve got to stay here and fit into things.” He broke eye contact with the cattleman long enough to scan the buildings that comprised the compound. “You’ve got a good thing here. We’re not going to put that at risk.”

  Hooker offered his open hand, and the two men clasped with a show of strength. “I’ll send Behan to you, if that’s what you want,” he said.

  “It’s what I want,” Wyatt assured him.

  Atop Reilly Hill, Vermillion, Johnson, Warren, and Charlie Smith took over the job of laying out fortifications. They hauled rocks and stacked them into a crude wall that partially ringed the small butte. The result was like the crenellated turret of a hastily built castle. Though riddled with gaps, the makeshift breastwork provided a modicum of defense on whatever side attackers chose to approach.

  Perched on a boulder by the spring twenty yards below the crest, Sherm McMaster remained on watch, scouring the valley to the south through a pair of field glasses. In the lee of a boulder, Holliday huddled out of the wind and coughed while Tipton slept inside a bundle of blankets. Wyatt sat on a flat, chunky stone by the picketed horses and drafted a written document that would transfer all his holdings to his sister, Adelia, should events turn against him.

  “They’re here!” McMaster called out.

  Wyatt put away his papers and joined the others at the east edge of the crest. Far off in the south, a cloud of pale-pink dust rose from the bevel of the valley. No one spoke as they watched the progress of their pursuers. Charlie Smith poked a finger at the air as he counted the dark objects clustered at the bottom of the basin.

  “I get seventeen,” Charlie announced. “That’ll be Behan, I reckon.”

  “Hell, yes, that’s Behan.” Doc laughed. “Look at the way the third man back sits his horse. I imagine ol’ bureaucratic Johnny is nursin’ more than a few saddle sores by now.”

  Johnson squinted one eye at Doc. “Your eyes are that good?”

  Doc gave Creek a look. “Hell, there ought to be some part of me that works well enough to brag about.”

  As they stood together monitoring the movement of the Cochise posse toward Hooker’s compound, a knot of horsemen rode out from the ranch, kicking up their own telltale cloud. When the two parties came together, a lull ensued until both groups coalesced into one and started for the compound at a leisurely pace.

  “You reckon they told Behan where we are yet?” Vermillion said, directing his question to no one in particular.

  Johnson grunted deep in his chest and shook his head. Then he sniffed and spat tobacco over the low wall of rocks stacked before him.

  “Them Bonita boys’re prob’ly tryin’ to give us time to dig in up here.”

  The wind leaned on them from the west, molding their coats to their backs and coaxing an array of low hums and soft whistles through the gaps in the stones. Watching the procession below, Wyatt’s men were quiet for the time it took the group on horseback to enter the compound of buildings and disappear from sight.

  “Shouldn’t be long now,” Doc said.

  But they waited for two hours before they saw movement again. Behan’s posse galloped out of the main yard headed straight for Wyatt’s position. Only a hundred yards from the buildings, they slowed and then stopped. As they grouped together, some of the riders milled about idly, allowing their horses to nose around the rocks for grass.

  “What the hell’re they doin’?” Vermillion said, his voice impatient and angry. Everyone looked down the hill at McMaster for a reply. After peering through the glasses for a time, he turned to let them see the frown on his face.

  “They’re turning east . . . away from us!” Mac yelled.

  When no one commented on this unexpected maneuver, Doc sidled next to Wyatt. “What do you think?”

  Keeping his eyes on the retreating party, Wyatt shook his head. “I got no idea.”

  McMaster scampered up the slope on his bowlegs. “Behan prob’ly saw how hot things could get for him on this hill.”

  “He must’a wet himself.” Warren laughed. “Prob’ly needs to ride into Willcox for a change o’ trousers.”

  Creek Johnson snorted. “That sounds about right.” He tapped the butt of his rifle on the ground next to his boot and turned to where Doc and Wyatt stood together. “What do you wanna do, Wyatt? Should we go after ’em?”

  Wyatt squinted off into the distance. Behan’s men appeared to be angling north for the pass leading to Fort Grant.

  “Could be a trick,” Wyatt said quietly. “Let’s give it some more time.”

  Just as twilight tinted the air, Wyatt and his men took their horses at a walk down the slope of the hill. When they reached the floor of the valley, they prodded the horses into an easy gallop and retraced their tracks to the ranch. McMaster spurred his mount up beside Wyatt’s and pointed to the churned-up soil ahead of them.

  “My grandmother co
uld’a tracked us out to that hill! What the hell do you think they’re doin’?”

  Wyatt shook his head. “Keep your eyes open.”

  Inside the compound Hooker stood in the lamp-lit yard with his crew of men, as the Mexican women cleared the last of the plates and silverware from several tables that had been set up in front of the main house. Billy Whelan stood leaning against the blacksmith’s shop, turning his hat in his hands, a crooked smile set on his smooth face.

  When Wyatt reined up in the yard, his men stopped behind him. Hooker walked out to meet him, and Wyatt could see a vestige of anger smoldering in his eyes. The cattleman’s face appeared carved out of oak.

  “Behan is riding with a pack of murderers and thieves,” Hooker reported. “Every last one of them ought to be in the Yuma prison.”

  “Did you tell them where we were?” Wyatt asked.

  Hooker coughed a sharp laugh. “Hell, I walked Behan out past the gate and pointed out the hill.”

  Wyatt frowned. “Where did he go?”

  Hooker spread his coat and forked his hands over the sides of his waistband. The walnut handle of a Colt’s revolver jutted from a trouser pocket.

  “Said he was heading to Fort Grant to hire some trackers,” Hooker said, allowing a little amusement to play in his eyes.

  Wyatt jerked a thumb back toward the gate. “We didn’t hide our tracks. Anybody could have followed the trail we left . . . even Behan.”

  Hooker’s knotted mouth managed a tight smile. “I guess Sheriff Behan didn’t feel up to the task of arresting you.”

  Wyatt’s frown only deepened. He watched the Mexican women take in the last of the tables.

  “But you fed him,” Wyatt said.

  Hooker’s expression remained businesslike. “Just like I fed you and your men. Doesn’t mean I enjoyed it.”