Cemetery Jones 5

by William R. Cox

  Wyatt grinned then. “Well, maybe it is, at that. All right, Doc. You want a piece of the fun, don’t you?”

  Virg said disapprovingly, “Only a fool or a madman would think of it as fun.”

  Wyatt said, “Reckon Doc’s probably a little of both. Isn’t that so, Doc?”

  “No doubt.” Doc was not offended. Wyatt was probably the only man alive who could insult him cheerfully and with impunity.

  Morg said, “Do we take the fight to them, or wait for ’em here and let ’em come to us?”

  Wyatt said, “We go down there. Too many people around here. Don’t want anybody wandering into the line of fire.”

  Virg said, “That’s a consideration those cowboys wouldn’t give folks.”

  They resumed walking—toward the OK Corral. Wyatt and Virg were gesturing to people on both sides of the street to get out of the way, behind cover. People saw, and understood. Doc was aware of the silence with which the street emptied of human presences, until no one was left along the entire two-block stretch other than the four marching gamblers.

  Up ahead Doc saw Sheriff John Behan talking very fast. In response, after a moment’s thought, Frank McLowery reluctantly handed his rifle to Behan, who made a show of jacking all the cartridges out of it. When the rifle was empty, Behan reversed it in his grip so that it was pointed backward. Then, leaving the five Clanton-McLowery men near the entrance to the corral, the sheriff hurried forward.

  The Earps marched on. Doc came with them.

  As they walked along Fourth Street, in line with Bauer’s Butcher Shop, Sheriff Behan came up and stopped in front of them. He displayed the empty rifle. “It’s all right, boys. As you can see, I’ve disarmed them. Let’s keep the peace now.”

  Doc said, with a snort, “Five men. One rifle.”

  “You disputing my word, Doc?”

  “I am, yeah,” said Doc, with contempt.

  Behan evaded Doc’s angry stare.

  Virg said, “It’s them, not us, disturbing the peace today, Sheriff. Tell you what. You arrest your friends there and put ’em in the calabozo to cool off overnight, and maybe that’ll cut the fuse on this situation.”

  Behan looked over his shoulder at the five cowboys bunched outside the corral. “Nope,” he muttered, “I guess not, Virg. They ain’t in a mood to take that kind of suggestion. Not from you, not from me. Not from anybody, I reckon.”

  Doc saw the glint of metal at Billy Clanton’s waist. He flashed a glance at Wyatt, and saw that Wyatt had caught it, too.

  So had Virg. He said to the sheriff, “In that case, I believe it’s my duty as a peace officer to go on down there and see if you really did disarm all five of those boys. They look armed to me.”

  Behan’s nerves made him jump. “Listen—I order you not to go any farther.”

  The four of them were already in motion. When Behan saw they were paying him no attention, he ran sideways into the alley. The last Doc saw of him, the sheriff was going into C.S. Fly’s photographic studio, which had a high window overlooking the street and the OK Corral.

  Doc muttered, “Next time I see that bastard I believe I’ll cut out his yellow gizzard and eat it for supper.”

  Then he smiled a tight little smile and whistled softly beneath his mustache.

  Virg, walking beside him, said, “Here, Doc, you take this,” and handed him the shotgun.

  Doc accepted it without comment. He discarded his cane and carried the shotgun by its muzzle, nearly dragging the butt stock on the ground; it was too heavy for him, but he wasn’t ready to admit it.

  Virg swept his coattails back, exposing two .45 Colt revolvers holstered at his waist.

  The five-man cowboy crew was ranged along the street near the OK Corral. Billy Claiborne was farthest back, then Ike and Billy Clanton, Frank and Tom McLowery. They all faced forward. Frank stood near his saddled horse. Everybody was afoot.

  The chill breeze tickled Doc’s ear. As the distance closed, Doc could see plainly that all five men wore at least one six-gun apiece. Claiborne had two of them.

  Morgan Earp snorted. “Disarmed, hell.”

  Doc felt lousy this afternoon. He coughed, and had to lean on the shotgun, using it in lieu of his cane. If the damn thing went off now it would blow a hole through his hand. He didn’t care. He was probably going to get dead in the next five minutes anyway. About time, too. Couldn’t stand any more of the coughing, the weakness, the goddamn pain.

  Might as well go out in glory, fighting alongside the only friend he had in the world.

  He looked across at Wyatt, whose stony leonine face was thrust forward forthrightly. In spite of the circumstances, Wyatt didn’t look contentious or pugnacious. He just looked ready.

  Doc whistled very softly. He knew he was off-key. It didn’t matter. The tune was “Dixie.”

  Wyatt, in the lead, called a halt. They were within easy speaking distance of the five cowboys now—easy six-gun range. Twenty-five feet, maybe thirty; no more.

  No one spoke. There was a scent of cook smoke on the air, perhaps coming from Nellie Cashman’s always busy kitchen. The light breeze stirred a whorl of dust on the street between the two groups of men. It was a dry breeze that carried a chill on it, and no sound at all. It was as if the entire town, fifteen thousand strong, was holding its breath.

  All except Doc Holliday. He stood beside the three Earp brothers, a head shorter than they, coughing miserably.

  Virgil Earp spoke in a hard, strong voice. “You men are under arrest now. Throw down your guns.”

  “Arrest,” Ike Clanton snarled. “What the hell for?”

  Wyatt drawled, “Disturbin’ the peace. Uttering public threats against the peace and safety of an officer of the law. And carrying firearms within the town limits. Will that do, or do you want more?”

  “You are under arrest,” Virg said again, distinctly. “Now drop the guns or try to use them. Your choice.”

  Frank McLowery grunted and grabbed for his gun. It snagged in his holster. Wyatt Earp responded by dragging out his right-hand .45; it was Wyatt who fired the first shot, though he had not been the first to draw—just the fastest.

  Wyatt’s bullet caught Frank just above the belt buckle. Caught him in the act of drawing. Frank fell back and went down, gut-shot; but his gun came out and he commenced shooting even as he fell.

  All hell broke loose then.

  Tom McLowery grabbed his gun and jumped behind Frank’s horse. He fired a shot over the top of the saddle. Doc saw the tail of Morg’s coat flap whipped back by the bullet; simultaneously Morg was firing his revolver. The bullet made a hole in young Billy Clanton’s gun hand. It wasn’t fancy shooting, Doc thought, it was a fluke. The bullet hadn’t been aimed at the gun hand; it had been aimed for the torso—the widest and easiest target, and the most sensible.

  Doc was well back in the street and couldn’t get a shot without risking a hit on one of the Earps. He fumed and hobbled around to seek a better position.

  It all happened very fast. Doc was aware of every instant of it, every little motion; his eyes took in everything at once, while he lifted the shotgun and sought out a target—any target that wasn’t named Earp.

  Billy Clanton, stunned but game, staggered and threw the gun from his shattered right hand into his unhurt left hand.

  Then skinny Billy Claiborne—he who called himself “Billy the Kid” and threw wild boasts all over the Territory—did what the original Billy the Kid probably would do in the same situation: He tossed one wild shot at Virgil, missed, and lit out, running like blazes for the dubious safety of Sheriff Behan’s protection in Fly’s photographic studio.

  Amazingly, Ike Clanton ran straight up to Wyatt. With an astonishing coolness under fire, Wyatt did not shoot, even when Ike grabbed him by the arm and hung on, begging in a high shrill voice: “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! I ain’t shootin!”

  Wyatt threw the coward away from him and gritted, “The fight’s commenced, Ike. Get to fightin’ or get the hell out
.”

  Ike got the hell out. Inspired by Billy Claiborne’s flight, Ike also headed into Fly’s.

  All this occurred in the periphery of Doc’s vision while Doc swung the shotgun menacingly from side to side. Frustrated by the speed with which everyone was moving, he still didn’t have a clear target. Tom McLowery, firing from behind the horse, had made one shot good—he’d nailed Morgan Earp in the left shoulder, high up. Morg was on the ground, knocked down by the tremendous stopping power of the high-speed .45 caliber slug, but he was still shooting.

  Billy Clanton, who had shifted his gun to his left hand, was drawing a bead on Wyatt when Morg jerked around and put a slug in the young killer’s chest, while Virg simultaneously shot Billy in the lower ribs. Both bullets hit young Billy hard.

  Dying, Billy fired once more. The bullet struck Virg in the leg, knocking it out from under him, knocking him down.

  Wyatt spun around, lifting his revolver toward Billy, who worked up on his knees and tried to lift his gun, gasping, “Please God! Just one more shot!” But then he fell back without ever gaining the strength to ear back the hammer of his gun.

  Doc stepped to one side, shifting his aim. Tom McLowery was shooting at Wyatt from behind the horse. Wyatt returned fire. One of his bullets creased the horse and it bolted, leaving Tom suddenly in the open.

  Doc whooped. At last he had a target. He let Tom have one barrel from the shotgun.

  The recoil nearly knocked Doc off his feet. The explosive noise deafened him.

  At the same time, Wyatt shot Tom in the head. As Tom was falling, Doc gave him the other shotgun load for good measure.

  When Tom McLowery hit the ground he was plainly dead.

  Doc dropped Virg’s shotgun and hauled out his shiny nickel-plated pepperbox revolver.

  Frank McLowery, earlier wounded, had gotten to his feet and was running toward the corral gate, shooting at Doc. Holliday nonchalantly let him have it, one barrel after another. Wyatt and Morg were shooting, too; it was hard to tell whose bullets did the job, but quite a few connected, striking dust from Frank’s clothes.

  Miraculously Frank stayed on his feet, stumbling ten feet further before he fell.

  Wyatt, guns in both hands, dropped to a crouch and swiveled quickly from side to side. Doc moved forward to cover the three downed cowboys with his pepperbox while Wyatt straightened up, leveling both revolvers in the direction of Fly’s studio in case the cowards inside should change their minds and get back into the fight.

  But silence settled.

  It had taken some thirty seconds. No more. Three men were wounded: Morg’s shoulder was punctured, crippled; Virg had a slug in his leg that would give him a limp for a long time; and Doc realized belatedly that his own side had been creased by a nick from a passing bullet.

  Wyatt was unharmed, as were the two who had fled without fighting—Billy “the Kid” Claiborne, and Ike Clanton.

  And three were dead: Billy Clanton, youngest of the clan, and both McLowery brothers.

  Each side had fired seventeen shots.

  Doc Holliday bent over in a fit of tubercular coughing. The battle of the OK Corral was over.

  Ten

  Sam Jones and Luke Short moved downslope carefully and silently from the high rocks where they had kept vigil on the siege for the past several hours.

  Daylight was draining slowly out of the sky.

  It was biting cold at this elevation. Sam wished he’d brought a heavy coat.

  He touched Luke’s sleeve. Both men froze while they watched one of the scruffy cowboys come back toward them through the boulder flats below.

  Had they been spotted by the cowboy?

  No, the stranger seemed unaware they were above him. The cowboy slipped down into the hollow to relieve Phin Clanton as horse holder with the outlaws’ herd of saddled ponies. Then the cowboy took over the picket line.

  Sam and Luke watched Phin move up closer to the action, dodging from rock to rock.

  Sam aimed his rifle but held his fire. He glanced at Luke and saw the same thought in Luke’s bleak eyes. One shot would give their position away to the outlaws. They couldn’t take that risk yet, not until Pacheco and his people were in immediate danger of their lives. It was more important for Sam and Luke to get lower into the canyon, within rifle range of the band of cowboys who ringed the little copse of trees.

  So, continuing their own careful descent, they allowed Phin to keep moving forward unmolested. Finally Sam and Luke saw him settle down in a position within easy rifle range of the oasis of trees that sheltered Pacheco and the little band of beleaguered Chiricahua Apaches.

  Phin took aim and triggered off a shot, shifted his aim and fired again. Sam heard his whoop of laughter, rising thin on the mountain air.

  Continuing to shoot for fun and sport, Phin raked the grove of trees with bullets until his Winchester’s magazine was empty. Then he settled back to reload.

  There was no answering fire from the oasis. From the paucity of return fire during the past hour it had become obvious that the Indians were perilously short of ammunition.

  Any minute now the cowboys would decide to rush the oasis.

  That was when it would be time for Sam and Luke to lend a hand. Regardless of the odds.

  The cowboys were scattered all around the canyon, pretty well forted up in the rocks. Their rifles spoke at irregular intervals. A foolish waste of ammunition, in Sam’s opinion. The Indians in the trees most certainly were dug in behind cover and couldn’t be hit by anything except a chance ricochet.

  It would be difficult for Luke and Sam to get a bead on more than one or two of those cowboys. Two or three shots and the rest of them would fade instantly into the rocks; they would no longer be targets, but attackers.

  The chances were poor, Sam realized; they had to contend with at least a dozen cowboys out there. The moment Sam and Luke revealed their positions, the cowboys would swing toward them. It would be twelve against two, unless young Pacheco’s handful of infirm Apache women, old-timers, and kids should be able to cross the barren flats alive and lend a hand.

  Several of the cowboys fired a few rifle shots. Their muzzle flashes were bright against the dim light.

  A rifle spoke once from the trees and Sam heard an outcry from the rocks to his left.

  He caught a glimpse of Luke Short’s grin. The outcry meant an Indian in the trees, using a muzzle flash for a target, had hit one of the cowboys. Maybe hadn’t killed him, but hit him bad enough to make him yell.

  Somebody in those trees had a good marksman’s eye. Pacheco?

  Just then something else drew Sam’s interest. He pointed down canyon to the right. Luke’s attention whipped that way.

  In the fading light Sam was certain of only one thing at first.

  It was definitely a small bunch of cattle, just inside the mouth of the gorge.

  Sam couldn’t fathom what the animals were doing there.

  Other shadows were moving through the rocky defiles of the lower canyon. Sam flicked his eyes from side to side, to catch the obscure movements in the edges of his vision.

  Finally, satisfied, he touched Luke’s arm and whispered close to his ear:

  “Apaches.”

  Luke nodded. His lips soundlessly formed a question:

  Victorio?

  Most likely have to be, Sam thought. He nodded and pointed toward a promontory not far to their right. It was a few yards higher than their present position, and would be a good vantage point from which to get a better look.

  The two men moved, rifles in their fists, cautiously placing each boot and scurrying without sound.

  Over to their left, Phin Clanton fired three or four more bullets into the trees. The rifle from the oasis answered with a single shot. It whacked into a rock and whined off into the twilight.

  Phin’s hat crown dropped out of sight, suggesting that the bullet had come close enough to scare him.

  Sam reached the side of the promontory and slid around the back of it. L
uke was right behind him. They moved forward in the deep shadow of the overhanging slab of rock.

  There was a narrow shelf here. Sam slid his boots along it, feeling carefully for treacherous shale, but the rock was sound. He put his weight on it and moved forward.

  By peering over a natural parapet of stone, they had an unobstructed vista of the canyon from top to bottom. It was perhaps a quarter-mile wide and a half-mile long, nothing but great boulders except for the single stand of cottonwood trees out on the flats.

  Down in the lower pitch, two shadowy figures flitted soundlessly from rock to rock.

  As they drew closer, Sam was able to see that they were Apache warriors, sure enough. Headbands, breechclouts. They dodged barefoot through the rocks, keeping wide apart from each other and making good speed until they drew close enough to the action to see what was happening in the upper canyon.

  The cowboys, unaware of the approach of the warriors, kept up their rifle fire against the oasis, firing at desultory intervals. Occasionally a rifle would answer from the trees, shooting back at a muzzle flame.

  The two barefoot warriors watched for four or five minutes. Then Sam saw them turn around and retrace their paths toward the mouth of the canyon. There, the ten or twelve steers were still wandering around, seemingly unattended. A group of mounted Apaches soon appeared, and the two barefoot warriors jumped aboard horses that were held for them.

  Sam and Luke exchanged glances. Now it made sense. The two warriors had been advance scouts, sent ahead to find out what the shooting was all about. Now they were reporting back to the main party.

  A few minutes later, in lowering dusk, Sam saw the entire war party dismount. Two braves took the riderless horses back out of sight around the bend.

  The rest advanced on foot.

  Sam caught the tilt of Luke’s lopsided grin. He understood the irony without any need for talk.

  It looked as if the ambushers were about to become the ambushed.

  The warriors came up fast, running silently in the dim shadows of the boulders.

  Abruptly the amusement went out of Sam’s eyes. He leaned close to whisper in a voice meant to reach no further than Luke’s ear: