by Mark Warren
Wyatt studied the man’s weathered face. “Ringo and Clanton?”
“They were with him. And a pig’s sty of companions. I’ll wager most of those saddle tramps have stolen cattle from me.”
Wyatt looked over the tops of the buildings to the mountains rising in the northeast. Behan would be climbing up to the pass by now. With him were two or more of the men on Wyatt’s list.
“Makes no sense,” Wyatt mumbled.
A deep laugh scraped up from Hooker’s throat. “No . . . not to a lawman. But it makes perfect sense if we’re talking about a spineless politician like Behan.” Hooker pointed at a small table standing alone in the courtyard, separated by ten yards from where the long line of tables had linked together in front of the hacienda. “Behan and his undersheriff claimed they really had no association with the boys riding with them . . . that they were simply a necessary evil if they hoped to bring in the Earp party.” Hooker turned to the smithy’s shed where Whelan still stood. “Billy!” Hooker called and waved his foreman over.
Billy Whelan swung his hat to his head, leisurely pushed off from the rock wall, and ambled toward the parley in the courtyard.
“Show them your new jewelry, Billy,” Hooker suggested.
Whelan removed his hat and handed it up to Wyatt. Doc edged his horse forward and the other posse men coaxed their mounts closer. In the sparse lamp light Wyatt inspected a glittery pin stuck into the hat band and then looked up, waiting for an explanation.
“S’posed to be a diamond,” the foreman said. “Worth at least a hun’erd dollars, so says Sheriff Be-hind. He’s the one give it to me.” He flashed a grin and nodded at the pin. “I reckon that’s s’posed to shut me up ’bout what happened here.”
Doc took the hat from Wyatt. After holding it close to his eye he broke into a dry laugh that segued into a series of coughs.
“It’s a diamond, all right,” Doc said, getting his breath. He raised the hat for the others to see. Then he leaned to return the hat to Whelan. “And what’s the big secret about what happened here?”
Billy slapped the hat to his head and pursed his lips. Then he looked down at his boots as though sorting out the words. Finally he propped his hands on his hips, grinned, and looked back at Wyatt.
“I reckon it’s that Behan ain’t no more in charge of that crowd than a meal worm bedded down with rattlesnakes.” His grin widened to a smile that showed a row of crooked teeth. “We might’a embarrassed the sheriff a little.” Billy popped the brim of his hat with a flick of his forefinger. “ ’Bout a hun’erd dollars worth, I’d say.”
When Whelan offered no more, Hooker slipped his hands into his coat pockets, hooking his thumbs on the outside. “Ike Clanton tried to get pushy. Called me ‘a son of a bitch’ for harboring fugitives from the law.” He hissed a laugh through his teeth and removed a hand from his coat to pat the pistol stuffed in his pocket. “I didn’t have this at the time,” he said and cocked his head toward his foreman. “Billy stuck his carbine in Clanton’s ribs, levered a round into the chamber, and demanded a retraction.” Hooker’s eyes took on an amused slant when he looked at Whelan. “How did you put it, Billy?”
Billy Whelan lost his smile. “You don’t come into a gentleman’s yard for a meal and call ’im a sonovabitch. I told him to skin it back.”
Doc laughed. “And I’ll bet his tail went between his legs as he provided a prompt apology.”
Whelan snorted. “Looked ’bout like he’d swallowed his spoon. Didn’t have much to say after that.”
“Ike could out-crow a rooster with his tail feathers on fire,” Doc said, grinning broadly as he paused, “. . . until the shooting commences.”
Hooker stepped closer to Wyatt and lowered his voice. “Behan doesn’t want to catch you, Wyatt. He just wants to appear as if he’s looking for you. He’s more interested in the travel expenses he’s piling up. But he’d love to take credit for your capture if he can. He’s hoping the army can do that for him.”
Warren removed his hat and slapped it across his thigh. “We got three posses on our tail. Now we got the army looking for us, too?”
Hooker shook his head. “I wouldn’t worry about that. Colonel Biddle owes me a favor. Even before Behan’s crowd finished eating, I dispatched a man to the fort to apprise the colonel of the situation.” Hooker stepped into the center of the half ring of horsemen. “Climb down and relax, gentlemen. You are welcome here for as long as you’d like to stay. We’ll have a meal ready for you in ten minutes.”
Wyatt and Doc sat their horses as the other posse members dismounted and walked their horses to the livery. Hooker moved closer to Wyatt.
“Wyatt, those men with Behan are claiming that Curly Bill is still alive.”
Wyatt showed no reaction. He said nothing.
Doc laughed. “Unless someone has figured out how to put a man back together after he’s been cut in half with a shotgun, I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Hooker nodded and smiled. “The newspapers in Tombstone are having a war of words over it. The Nugget has offered a hundred dollars to anyone who can prove Curly Bill is dead. The Epitaph put up two thousand if Brocius will make a personal appearance.”
Wyatt twisted in the saddle to look over Hooker’s outbuildings. “My men could use some sleep. Is your bunkhouse still available?”
Hooker offered his hand. “Long as you’d like, Wyatt.”
Wyatt met the man’s grip and shook. “Thank you, Henry.”
Hooker and his foreman walked across the yard toward the hacienda, leaving Wyatt and Doc the only two in the yard under the spreading cottonwood.
“Doesn’t sound like Ringo,” Wyatt said, “riding away from us like that.” He lifted his gaze to the mountains. “He might want me as much as I want him.”
Doc followed his gaze. “You think we could catch them, Wyatt?”
Wyatt shook his head. “Only nine miles to the fort. Maybe after they leave there.”
“They’ll head for Willcox,” Doc surmised. “I suspect Ringo would be low on whiskey about now.”
“Good,” Wyatt said. “I’d like to kill him when he’s sober.”
When Doc started into a coughing spell, Wyatt turned and watched his friend’s eyes glaze over with the sheen of involuntary tears. He waited until Doc stuffed his handkerchief back into the inside pocket of his coat.
“We’ll rest up here a while, Doc. Long as you need.”
Doc produced an impish frown. “And miss all the fun?” He reined his horse around for the stables. “I’ll tell the boys to be ready to pull out after we eat.”
CHAPTER 23
Late March 1882: Graham County, Arizona Territory
The gibbous moon lighted the trail through the mountains. On their original mounts, the eight men in the Earp posse traveled without speaking over the Stockton Pass down into Sycamore Wash and its well-known watering hole on the west side of the San Simon Valley. They made camp in a grove of oaks a quarter mile from the spring, with McMaster and Johnson taking up look-out positions nearer the watering hole.
Just before dawn Wyatt heard horses at the low end of the grove. Thinking it to be one his watchmen, he rolled out of his blankets and pulled on his boots. Charlie Smith was already gathering sticks to lay over the few red coals glowing in the shallow fire pit. Everyone else was asleep.
Wyatt buckled on his gun belts, picked up his shotgun, and walked out into the dark to wait for any incoming message from his scouts, but the leisurely sound of horses’ hooves seemed to be heading south, passing their camp to the east. He stopped and listened for a voice, but there was none.
Then Charlie called out from the clearing in a raspy whisper. “That you, Wyatt?”
Wyatt quickly looked back to quiet the man but said nothing. Behind Smith on the far side of the pit, Warren kicked out of his bedroll and sat screwing the heels of his hands into sleepy eyes.
“What the hell’re you screechin’ at, Charlie?” Warren said gruffly.
Gunfire ex
ploded from the trees below. Wyatt leveled the shotgun barrels at the muzzle flashes out in the dark and fired off both rounds, the big ten gauge booms filling the oak grove like a double clap of thunder. The wrenching scream of a horse filled the dark with an eerie sound—like the blare of a rusty horn. A man’s voice cried out in pain, that followed by a string of muffled profanities.
All of Wyatt’s men were returning fire now, each gunman crouched behind a chosen tree and making a stand in his stockinged feet. They emptied their rifles and then snapped off a flurry of shots with their revolvers. The fighting intensified for a quarter of a minute until the fusillade from the camp seemed to overpower the ambushers. Soon the staccato clack of hooves on rocks marked a hasty departure by the attackers. Wyatt could hear their escape all the way down into the open sandy grassland at the valley’s bottom.
“I’m hit, goddamnit!” Warren yelled.
When Wyatt got to him, Warren was furious, doubled up on his blankets, holding the front of his thigh, and gritting his teeth. The whites of his eyes glowed moon-bright against his dark irises.
“The sonzabitches shot me before I could get out of my damned bed,” Warren hissed.
Dan Tipton knelt over the youngest Earp and inspected the wound. “Sit still, dammit, so I can see how bad it is!”
“I already know how bad it is!” Warren shot back. “It’s like a damned sledgehammer tried to take off my leg!”
Wyatt knelt to his brother and gripped his shoulder firmly. “Let him have a look, Warren.”
Tipton struck a lucifer and leaned low. When he looked up at Wyatt, Tip shook his head.
“He’s losin’ a lot o’ blood. We’re gonna need a doctor.”
Warren sat up and tried to stand, but Wyatt took a strong grip on both of his shoulders and lowered him back to the blankets. Then Doc Holliday was there, trying to allay the boy’s fears so that he would stay down.
“Who the hell was it?” Warren demanded. “Was it Behan?”
“Don’t know,” Wyatt said. “Sounded like four or five riders.” He looked at Tipton. “Tear up that cleaner blanket into strips, and let’s get this wound tied off.”
Warren cursed profusely as Doc and Tipton tried to stop the bleeding. Wyatt cautioned for quiet until he heard horses hurrying in from the north. Picking up his shotgun, he reloaded, cocked the hammers, and waited. There was enough light now to recognize McMaster’s paint mare breaking into the grove. Then, behind McMaster, Creek Johnson’s broad silhouette atop his stout roan stud emerged from the trees.
“What the hell happened?” Mac called out. “We heard shots.” He swung down from the paint even before it had come to a stop. Johnson reined up and frowned down at the men wrapping Warren’s leg.
“Somebody opened up on us from down the slope,” Charlie volunteered. “Wyatt’s little brother here is the only one got hit. I might’a shot one of ’em, but, hell, I know Wyatt hit somebody . . . and a horse, too. I ain’t never heard a animal scream like that in my life.”
“They came out of the north,” Wyatt said and looked pointedly at McMaster and Johnson.
Mac scowled and puffed out his chest. “Didn’ nobody get past us. We were at the springs the whole night. Whoever it was must’a skirted us to the east.”
“Wyatt,” Charlie said, “I think they prob’ly stumbled on us. Else they would’a come in on foot and picked us off proper while we slept.”
McMaster spat and looked around the grove. “Might’a been some of Ringo’s boys quittin’ on Behan . . . now that they know he ain’t really wantin’ to face us.”
“Could’ve been Ringo and Ike,” Charlie said. “Maybe a few others.”
“We could go after ’em, Wyatt,” Johnson offered.
Wyatt looked down the hill where the ambuscade had erupted like an unexpected string of fireworks. The thought of John Ringo and Ike Clanton firing at them from the dark made his blood run hot.
“We’re going to Fort Grant,” he said simply. “There’ll be a surgeon there.” He turned and looked each man in the eye. No one questioned his decision. He knelt beside Warren again and gripped the boy’s arm. “Can you ride?”
Warren cleared his throat roughly and spat to one side. “Hell, yeah, I can ride. Let’s go after those bastards, Wyatt.”
Wyatt shook his brother gently as though pulling him from a dream. “We’re going to the fort, Warren, so get chasin’ out of your head.”
Wyatt stood and shivered once. He had not noticed the cold of the morning until now. Pulling on his shirt and vest, he began working the buttons with numbed fingers.
“Let’s saddle up,” he said, loud enough for all to hear. “Mac, Creek . . . can you get my brother mounted on his horse?”
Everyone went into motion with no thought of building a fire or preparing breakfast. Vermillion took his dapple gray at a walk down the slope and studied the tracks at the edge of the clearing. Wyatt walked to his bedroll and gathered his belongings. When he carried his saddle to his mare, Doc was there, tightening the cinch on his own mount.
“You made the right decision, Wyatt. There’s plenty of time to get Ringo and Clanton. I just hope nobody else shoots Ike before we can settle with him.” Doc huffed an airy laugh through his nose. “God knows there must be plenty of men who would jump at the opportunity.”
One-handedly, Wyatt threw his saddle blanket over the mare’s back and straightened it. Then he swung up the saddle and rocked it by the new pommel that had been fitted to the post. It was a wider horn than that to which he was accustomed—a cow-man’s tool for turning loops on a lariat. Flipping the stirrup over the bow of the saddle, he began running the cinch strap through the double rings beneath the fender.
“I won’t lose another brother,” he said, his voice quiet but determined. He let the stirrup fall, toed into it, and mounted.
“I know,” Doc said. “Getting Ringo isn’t worth that . . . and certainly not Ike.” Doc pulled himself up into the saddle and met Wyatt’s eyes. “I’ll ride beside Warren and keep an eye on him.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Wyatt said and coaxed his horse forward to where Vermillion sat his horse and waited.
“Dead horse down there, Wyatt,” Vermillion reported and raised his arm to point downhill into the trees. “Shot through the lungs, looks like. And there was plenty of blood on the saddle and all over the withers. I figure the rider was gut shot. Found this down there, too . . . ’bout ten yards away from the horse . . . next to a rock streaked in blood.” From under his coat Vermillion produced an old Remington revolver converted for self-contained cartridges. “We must’a hit a couple o’ those bastards, sure as hell.”
“Any identifying marks on the horse or saddle?”
Vermillion shook his head. “Prob’ly rented from a livery. That’s standard for a posse, ain’t it?” When Wyatt did not answer he added, “Blanket and slicker but no saddle bags. Somebody must’a took ’em.”
Wyatt pursed his lips and nodded toward the Remington. “What about the pistol? You recognize it?”
“Don’ know, Wyatt. I showed it to Mac and Creek.” He shook his head again.
“Could it have been Ringo’s gun . . . or Clanton’s?”
“Mac said it wasn’t Ringo’s. Don’t know about Clanton.”
For a time Wyatt stared downhill into the trees. Finally he nodded.
“Let’s move out,” he said and led the way northwest back over the mountains.
At Fort Grant the surgeon removed the bullet from Warren’s leg and confined him to a hospital bed. Wyatt sat with his brother until the administered laudanum ushered Warren into a deep sleep of utter stillness. Even the boy’s breathing was shallow—so much so that Wyatt had to lean in close several times to be assured that Warren had not slipped away from blood loss.
“That’s the laudanum,” the orderly explained. “It’s why we get so many slackers come in for headache and dysentery and gout and whatever else they can dream up. These soldiers gamble so much in the barracks at night, they
think they should be admitted to the hospital to catch up on their sleep.” The soldier dressed in white chuckled. “Can’t say I blame ’em. You can drift off on some pretty tall clouds on a spoonful of that stuff.” He nodded at the bottle on the bedside table, the same kind of brown glass container that had been Mattie’s bosom companion for most of her time in Tombstone.
Wyatt stood quietly and looked down at his brother. Such a peaceful countenance was a rarity for the Earp who was sometimes referred to as “the tiger” by the other posse men. Warren always put on a show, Wyatt knew, trying to live up to his older brothers. It made him rash and unpredictable. One day it was probably going to get him killed, unless he could be persuaded into a line of work that carried a minimum of liabilities.
Wyatt thought of Morgan lying on the sofa in Bob Hatch’s card room. After a grueling hour of suffering, Morg’s face had relaxed into this same visage of complete surrender. Sending his body to his parents in California had been a cruel errand of necessity. To have repeated this with Warren might have broken the elder Earps.
“Where can I find a notary public?” Wyatt asked the orderly.
The soldier laid a blanket over Warren and then stared out the window at the growing dark. He narrowed his eyes and ran his tongue along the inside of a cheek.
“Sutler over at the fort store. He can stamp something for you.”
Wyatt picked up his hat off the bed behind him.
“Oh . . . Marshal Earp,” the soldier said, turning quickly from the window. “The colonel is providing a meal for your men in the officers’ mess. Said to tell you to join ’em when you’re ready.”
After attending to his documents and posting them through the fort’s mail service, Wyatt walked the long line of buildings fronting the parade grounds until he found the mess hall. Upon entering he was met by the unexpected memory of his mother’s cooking on the farm in Iowa. The air in the big room was thick with the richness of savory meat and cooked vegetables. His men were gathered in the back of the room under a carved wooden plaque that reserved the area for officers. With the hour so late, the rest of the tables were unoccupied, but Wyatt could hear the cooks banging pans in the kitchen, the sound like a thinly disguised complaint for an unexpected late meal duty. The room was warm from a combined source of heat: a stove burned wood in the main hall, and it was bolstered by the ovens in the back.
