Gunman's Rhapsody

by Robert B. Parker

  Virgil nodded.

  “He was down at Hafford’s, too,” Morgan said, “with a rifle. Says he was insulted last night when he wasn’t fixed right. Says he’s heeled now and ready and wants to fight.”

  “Lynch told me the same thing,” Virgil said. “Says Ike’s planning to kill us on sight.”

  “And the sonova bitch been telling people we was supposed to meet him at noon and welshed out on it,” Morgan said. “It ain’t even noon yet.”

  “Five of,” Wyatt said.

  “Seems to me,” Virgil said, “we ought to find him and settle him down a bit.”

  “Maybe we should settle him down for good,” Morgan said. “Ike’s starting to make me awful tired.”

  “We’ll disarm him, arrest him if we can,” Virgil said.

  “I’ll go up to Allen Street,” Wyatt said. “See if I can find him, see what he wants.”

  Morgan and Virgil began to look for Ike along Fremont. Wyatt walked up Fourth Street toward Allen. He could smell snow in the air. He shrugged himself a little deeper inside the mackinaw and put his hands into his coat pockets. Wouldn’t want them stiff with cold if he was going to have to shoot Ike Clanton.

  Behind him Ike came out of the Capitol Saloon. He looked toward Wyatt. Virgil, with Morgan beside him, came around the corner of Fremont and took hold of Ike’s rifle barrel with his left hand. Wyatt turned.

  Virgil said, “Are you hunting for me?”

  “I am, goddamn you, and if I seen you a second sooner you’d be dead.”

  Wyatt began to walk back toward them. Ike went for the six-shooter he wore stuck into his waistband. Virgil hit Ike on the side of his head with the big Colt revolver he was carrying. Ike grunted and sank to his knees. He stayed down for a moment, shaking his head, and then looked up into the barrel of Morgan’s six-shooter. Ike could see that it was cocked.

  “We’re arresting you, Ike, for carrying a concealed weapon,” Virgil said.

  Wyatt was there now, standing beside Morgan. Virgil reached down and took Ike’s revolver and handed both guns to Morgan.

  “You fucking Earps don’t give a man a chance,” Ike said.

  “We didn’t shoot you,” Virgil said.

  Forty

  Recorder’s Court was across the street in one of Dick Gird’s block of buildings. Ike sat on one of the benches holding a handkerchief against the oozing cut on his head.

  “I’m going to go find Judge Wallace,” Virgil said.

  Morgan leaned against the wall holding Ike’s weapons. Wyatt sat on the bench next to Ike, turned so he could face him. The courtroom was crowded, and everyone in it stared at them.

  “I’ll get even for this,” Ike said. “I had something to shoot with, I’d fight you all right now.”

  Morgan smiled and held out a Henry Rifle, muzzle down. Ike stared at it. People around them in the courtroom scattered into the street.

  “I’ll tell you what, Ike,” Morgan said. “I’ll pay your damn fine if you’ll fight us.”

  Ike didn’t move.

  “You thieving sonova bitch,” Wyatt said. “You’ve been threatening our lives, and you know it. I could shoot you right here and be justified.”

  “Fight is my racket,” Ike said. “All I want is four feet of ground.”

  Morgan continued to hold out the rifle. Ike continued not to take it.

  “Okay, how about a six-gun too,” Morgan said and offered Ike the Colt he’d taken from him earlier.

  Ike didn’t move. One of Behan’s deputies, a squat muscular man whom Wyatt didn’t know, stepped in front of Ike.

  “No fuss now,” the deputy said, “I don’t want any fuss.”

  Judge Wallace entered the room in back and walked toward the front. There was a big cast-iron stove near the bench. The judge took off his overcoat and hung it on a hook behind his bench. Then he sat down and looked at Clanton and the Earps. The onlookers, who had scattered when the rifle was offered, trailed back in behind the judge. The people close to the stove took off their coats. It was too hot to wear them on the side that faced the stove, though it was cold without a coat on the side away from the stove. The people farther from the stove kept their coats on.

  “Nor do I want a fuss,” he said. “What are the charges?”

  “Apprehended Ike Clanton carried a concealed weapon on Fremont Street,” Virgil said.

  “Rather vigorously, I would say,” Judge Wallace said, looking at Ike’s bleeding head. “How do you plead?”

  “Guilty, I guess… Your Honor.”

  Judge Wallace nodded.

  “Twenty-five dollars.”

  Ike took money from his pocket and walked toward the judge with it. Wallace shook his head.

  “Not me,” he said, “give it to Mr. Campbell.”

  Ike looked embarrassed and veered to the clerk and handed him the money. The clerk wrote out a receipt and gave it to Ike.

  “Next case,” Judge Wallace said.

  “Where you want to pick up your hardware, Ike?” Virgil said.

  “Anyplace you won’t be hitting my fucking head with your six-gun,” Ike said and walked out of the room.

  Virgil looked at Morgan and shrugged.

  “Drop them off with the bartender,” Virgil said, “over at the Grand.”

  Morgan left. Virgil stood with Wyatt in the courtroom, where the spectators still jostled one another and the cast-iron stove reeked unevenly of heat.

  “This ain’t gonna go away,” Virgil said.

  “No it ain’t.”

  “Ike’s a gasbag,” Virgil said.

  “It ain’t just Ike,” Wyatt said. “The McLaurys are wound up too, and you know that it’s Behan did the winding.”

  “Which means probably that Brocius will be in,” Virgil said.

  “And Johnny Ringo.”

  “Too bad,” Virgil said.

  “Yes, I like him too.”

  “Maybe I should settle this with Behan,” Wyatt said.

  “Behan won’t fight you,” Virgil said. “He’s got Ike and the cowboys to do that.”

  Wyatt didn’t say anything.

  “Besides which, he’s the goddamned sheriff,” Virgil said.

  Still, Wyatt was silent, watching the business of the courtroom slowly proceed.

  “Maybe,” Wyatt said, “we ought to get to it instead of waiting around for one of them to back-shoot us.”

  “I’m the city marshal, Wyatt.”

  “I’m not,” Wyatt said.

  “You shoot somebody down in the street,” Virgil said, “I’m going to have trouble covering that.”

  “My guess is, they ain’t going to give us a choice.”

  “If they don’t,” Virgil said, “they don’t. We’ll play the cards that turn up.”

  Forty-one

  Wyatt was glad to be outside. After the stove-tainted courthouse he liked the cold air, the smell of impending snow. The feel of a storm approaching was about right. He walked up Fourth Street, nodding to Bauer the butcher and another man whose name he did not know. Coming toward him from the corner of Allen was Tom McLaury. McLaury slowed for a moment as if he might turn and go another way. Then he seemed to right himself, and continued toward Wyatt. McLaury had the thumb of his right hand hooked into his belt.

  “What have you boys done to Ike Clanton?” Tom said.

  “Run him in for carrying a concealed weapon,” Wyatt said. “He whistle for you and your brother?”

  “I got a right to be in town,” McLaury said.

  “And I got a right to ask what you’re doing here.”

  Wyatt could feel the cold fire at the center of himself. It sharpened everything for him as it always did. Every pore in McLaury’s face seemed discrete and obvious, his eyelashes individuated.

  Wyatt could smell things sharply and hear things clearly. He was focused microscopically and yet intensely aware of things at the very faint periphery of his vision. He felt solid and quick.

  “You got no reason to talk to me like that, Wyatt
. I’m a friend of yours.”

  “Not if you’re a friend of Ike’s,” Wyatt said. “You here backing Ike?”

  “I never done nothing against you boys,” McLaury said. “But if you’re looking for a fight, I’ll fight.”

  “You heeled?” Wyatt said.

  “Maybe I am,” McLaury said.

  “Then jerk your gun,” Wyatt said.

  With his left hand he slapped McLaury across the face. With his right he pulled the big smooth-handled Colt that he’d once used to face down Clay Allison. McLaury staggered back from the slap, his right hand still fumbling at his belt. Wyatt slammed him across the face with the four-pound revolver and McLaury went down and stayed. Wyatt looked down at him for a moment, then stepped past him carefully and walked on toward Hafford’s Saloon at the corner of Allen Street.

  Wyatt bought a cigar at Hafford’s, and got it lit and burning evenly before he went back outside and stood on the boardwalk in front of the saloon. He was halfway through the cigar when Frank McLaury rode up Allen Street on the other side with Billy Clanton and Major Frink. They dismounted, tied their horses and went into the Grand Hotel.

  The smell of snow was strong. Wyatt took the cigar from his mouth and examined the glowing tip of it, turning it slightly to see that it was burning evenly. Then he put the cigar back in his mouth and leaned his back against the wall of Hafford’s and waited.

  The cigar was an inch shorter when Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton came out of the Grand Hotel, crossed Allen, trailing their horses behind them, and headed down Fourth Street. If they saw Wyatt standing outside of Hafford’s, they gave no sign.

  Wyatt watched them as they went and then tossed the cigar into the street and stepped off behind them. He felt strong and compact. His muscles felt easy. His breathing was easy. The cold desert air filled his lungs. Halfway down Fourth Street, there was a crowd of people outside of Spangenberg’s Gun Shop, maybe a dozen, maybe more. Frank and Billy pushed through the crowd and went in. Wyatt drifted along toward the crowd and several people moved out of his way when he got close. Frank McLaury’s white-stockinged bay horse was on the sidewalk with his head in the door of the gun shop. Past the horse, inside Spangenberg’s, Wyatt could see Ike Clanton, his head still bleeding, Tom McLaury, Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury. Wyatt took his hat off with his left hand and shooed the horse off the sidewalk and into the street. While he did it he kept his eyes on Spangenberg’s door. The four cowboys appeared in the doorway. Billy Clanton had his hand on his gun.

  “I’ll take my horse,” Frank McLaury said, and took hold of the reins with his left hand.

  “You’ll have to keep him off the sidewalk,” Wyatt said.

  McLaury and he looked at each other.

  “Watch toward Allen Street, Frank,” Tom McLaury said.

  Virgil Earp had rounded the corner of Allen and Fourth, his hat pulled low against the cold, carrying a ten-gauge shotgun. He walked slowly toward them and leaned on the wall of a doorway across the street.

  “Bob Hatch said you was down here, Wyatt.”

  “Just clearing this horse off the sidewalk,” Wyatt said.

  “Town ordinance,” Virgil said. “No horses on the sidewalk.”

  Frank backed the horse off the sidewalk and into the street and wrapped the reins around the hitching rail in front of Spangenberg’s. Wyatt stood quietly watching. Virgil stayed where he was in the doorway, the shotgun over his forearm, the double-barrels aimed loosely toward the cowboys. Most of the dozen or so people who had crowded around to see what was going on when Ike had stumbled in there with his head bleeding, had backed away out of any line of fire that might develop. The McLaurys went back into the gun shop. Wyatt could see Billy Clanton feeding shells into his cartridge belt from a box that Frank McLaury was holding. Wyatt turned and walked past McLaury’s horse, across Fourth Street, and joined his brother in the doorway.

  “Guess you’re still covered by that temporary marshal appointment,” Virgil said.

  “Guess so,” Wyatt said.

  “Seen you let crimes like that pass, though,” Virgil said.

  “Horse on the sidewalk. It’s unlawful, unsanitary, and dangerous to the citizenry,” Wyatt said. “Damned horse coulda stepped on somebody’s foot.”

  “You’re pushing this kind of hard,” Virgil said, still staring across the street at the gun shop.

  The wind had picked up, and both men were glad to be sheltered in the doorway. An occasional spat of snow drifted in on the wind.

  “It’s going to happen, Virgil. Might as well move it along.”

  “Might not happen.”

  “It’ll happen,” Wyatt said.

  “You want it to happen,” Virgil said.

  “Hell, it’s about me and Josie,” Wyatt said. “We both know that.”

  “Maybe. But you think Ike knows it, or the McLaurys?”

  “Nope. But Behan knows it.”

  Ike Clanton came out of the gun shop with his brother, and Billy Claiborne and the McLaurys, and walked silently past, without a glance at the Earps, toward Allen Street.

  “Might make less of a mess,” Virgil said as his eyes followed the cowboys, “if you and Johnny settled it between you.”

  “He won’t go against me straight out,” Wyatt said.

  “No,” Virgil said. “He won’t.”

  “So he stirs up the cowboys and hopes they’ll do it for them.”

  “He think you’ll be alone?” Virgil said. “He think you don’t have brothers?”

  Wyatt looked out of the doorway at Fourth Street. Now and then an isolated snowflake drifted past.

  “How about Doc?” Virgil said.

  “Doc will be with us if he feels like fighting.”

  “If he hasn’t got a hangover,” Virgil said.

  “Or maybe if he has,” Wyatt said.

  “If there’s a fight.”

  “There’ll be a fight,” Wyatt said.

  “You want it to come?” Virgil said.

  “Time to lance this boil,” Wyatt said.

  “More than that,” Virgil said.

  “Maybe.”

  Forty-two

  Morgan came out of Hafford’s Saloon and joined his brothers and Doc Holliday in front of Hafford’s, on the corner of Fourth and Allen. The Doc was wearing a long gray coat and carrying a cane.

  “Heard we was going to shoot some cowboys,” Doc said.

  Virgil nodded. “Might have to,” he said.

  “Care to join us?” Morgan said.

  Doc took a nickel-plated revolver from his right-hand coat pocket and pretended to shoot it twice, making soft puffing sounds to indicate the shots.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Doc said. “You ready, Wyatt?”

  Wyatt nodded. He felt himself steadily clarifying, as if some sort of internal telescope were slowly coming into focus. He had the big Colt Peacemaker in his belt. It seemed to be just right there, as if when he took hold of it it became him, part of his hand, an extension of his reach. His collar was turned up, and he felt warm and steady inside the wool mackinaw. He could feel the strength in his muscles. His heartbeat was steady. His legs felt springy. His hands felt soft and comfortable. There were people coming out of Hafford’s, and going into Hafford’s, and walking past on both Allen and Fourth Streets. But they seemed now insubstantial, not invisible, but immaterial as he leaned his back against the wall of the saloon again and waited. It would come; it was like an empty railroad car that had been started on a downgrade, moving persistently faster, becoming always more inevitable. One had only to wait its arrival at the bottom of the grade. Except for the weather, it was the way he’d felt when he faced down Clay Allison in Dodge.

  “Where are they?” Doc said.

  “Dexter’s Corral,” Virgil answered. “Look.”

  The cowboys came out of Dexter’s and crossed the street and entered the O.K. Corral. As they disappeared into the livery area, J. L. Phonic walked up Fourth Street and stopped in front of Virgil. The collar of
his long black coat was turned up against the wind. His smallish townsman’s hat was pulled down hard on his head.

  “You need them, I can deliver ten men with Winchesters right now,” Phonic said.

  “Don’t expect to need them,” Virgil said. “Those boys stay in the O.K. Corral, we won’t bother them.”

  “Why those boys down on Fremont Street right now, near your rooming house, Doc?”

  “Looking for me, probably,” Doc said.

  “They’re heeled,” Virgil said.

  “Sure,” Phonic said.

  “Well, I guess we better go down there and disarm them,” Virgil said.

  He handed the shotgun to Doc.

  “Keep that under your coat, Doc. Don’t want people getting the wrong idea and going off too quick.”

  Doc gave his cane to Virgil and stowed the shotgun, holding it inside his coat with his left hand.

  “Here we go,” Virgil said.

  Things at large were going very fast now, but the small details were getting steadily slower. Everything Wyatt looked at seemed leisurely and somehow stately. The wind had stopped. The movement of his brothers and Doc as they began the walk down Fourth Street was timeless and made no sound. Johnny Behan appeared and spoke to them and was brushed aside. A two-horse hitch moved past them going silently in the opposite direction, moving as if it had wound down, the big draft horses nearly balletic in their slow elegance. He could feel the steady rhythm of his pulse, the easy flow of his blood. There was nothing on the periphery anymore. The buildings along Fourth Street disappeared as he walked, and he felt Virgil and Morgan and Doc to his left. They walked abreast, Wyatt on the far right. He knew there was coldness and the smell of snow. Now and then a random and singular snowflake would drift in front of him. He felt the weight of the six-shooter in his belt. Everything seemed to be happening soundlessly at the bottom of a clear lake. They were at Fremont Street. It had taken no time at all, and yet it had moved more slowly than it seemed possible to move. Wyatt didn’t want it hurried. If Josie were with him here in this crystalline moment there could be no heaven to match it. As it was, he felt as if his life had compacted into a density that no harm could penetrate. He opened his hands wide and let them relax and stretched them again for the sheer physical surge of it. Everything was profoundly intense, nearly magical. Ike was there with Billy Clanton and the McLaurys, clustered in the alley together beside Fly’s. Virgil’s voice came from beyond a vast emptiness. Something about “Throw up your hands…” and then, “Hold on, I don’t mean that…” and then gunfire. His big Army Colt ahead of him, an extension of himself, the hammer thumbed back, bucking slightly as the hammer fell. Around him, barely penetrating his focus, other guns were firing as if at a great distance. Frank is hit, and Billy Clanton, and his brother Morgan. Ike closes with him for a moment. Wyatt tosses him aside. Ike runs. Tom shoots from behind his frightened horse. More shots. Hammer back. Pull the trigger. Again. The bullets seem to surge from his deepest self in a leisurely way. Doc staggers and curses and fires again. Clinging to his horse, firing over him, Frank takes a few steps into Third Street and falls. The horse shies off, his reins trailing, and trots down Third Street. Tom is down in the alley. Billy Clanton is on the ground, his back against the wall of Fly’s, still cocking and firing. Another shot. Billy slumps. Then vast silence. As if time had stopped. Virgil was limping, a bullet through the calf. Morgan was in pain, a bullet in his shoulder. Billy Clanton was dead. Tom McLaury was dead. Frank was dead. In the utter stillness the smell of cordite was thick in the narrow alley. Wyatt still held the gun with its hammer back, moving the gun slowly before him back and forth, scanning the silence. Part of the silence, at one with it, as the occasional snowflake spiraled down, and the clean desert air that filled his lungs began to clarify the gun smoke.