Gunman's Rhapsody

by Robert B. Parker

  The wine was making her impatient.

  “It’s what I’m trying to do,” Wyatt said. “I’m trying to still be a lawman. I’m trying to find out who did what they did, and then I’m going to try and arrest them.”

  “And if they try to kill you again?”

  “They’ll try,” Wyatt said.

  “Kill them first,” Josie said.

  Wyatt put his hand over hers.

  “Aren’t you fierce,” he said.

  “I don’t care anymore about anything else. Kill everyone. I don’t want you hurt.”

  “What I need from you is to go visit your father,” Wyatt said.

  “I told you before, I won’t leave you.”

  “You’re not leaving me,” Wyatt said. “You’re leaving me free to do what I need to do without worrying about you.”

  “Johnny wouldn’t hurt me,” Josie said.

  “I don’t think he would,” Wyatt said. “But Johnny’s got something rolling downhill that he can’t stop. I want you safe.”

  “And where do you think it will end?” Josie said.

  “People got to go to jail,” Wyatt said. “And some got to be shot, I expect.”

  “And it’s harder for you if I’m here?”

  “I love you,” Wyatt said. “I will always love you. But, yes, it will be easier if I know you’re safe.”

  “Then I’ll go. I’ll pack tonight and go tomorrow.”

  They were silent, most of the pigeon pie uneaten on their plates.

  “How’s Virgil?” Josie said finally.

  “He’ll be all right,” Wyatt said. “He’s full of morphine now. Virgil’s tough. And Allie’s with him.”

  “Allie doesn’t like me,” Josie said.

  “No,” Wyatt said. “She doesn’t like me much either. But she likes Virgil.”

  Josie drank a little more claret.

  “And how are you?” Josie said.

  “Nobody shot me,” Wyatt said.

  “I know that Virgil was as much like a father as he was a brother.”

  “He’s not that much older than me,” Wyatt said.

  “I know.”

  “But you’re right,” Wyatt said. “He’s always been the one. Maybe I’m closer to Morgan, for just playing cards and talking. But it’s always been Virgil. He’s the one counted. We always cared what Virgil thought. Always wanted to do things the way Virgil did them. It’s probably why me and Morg are gunhands, ’cause Virgil was a gunhand. Hell, now Warren ’s a gunhand.”

  “And Virgil?”

  “Now he’s not a gunhand anymore. I mean he can still shoot. He’s got his right hand. But a man can only use one arm isn’t the same in a fight. Hell, he’d have trouble reloading, according to Goodfellow.”

  “So he can’t take care of things anymore.”

  “No.”

  “And now you are the one,” Josie said.

  “I guess.”

  Wyatt drank the rest of his coffee. Josie finished her wine.

  “You want to come to my place?” Josie said. “And help me pack?”

  “Yes,” Wyatt said. “But you can pack later.”

  Josie smiled at him.

  “Of course I can,” she said.

  Forty-seven

  It was mid-March and the desert spring was already beginning to ornament the scrub around Tombstone. The window was open and the hopeful smell of it drifted into Virgil’s room at the Cosmopolitan, where Wyatt and Virgil sat together. Virgil was shaved and dressed. His white shirt was freshly laundered, though he wore no collar. His face was indoor pale. The white cloth sling on his left arm was freshly laundered too. On the table near his right hand was a big single action Colt with walnut grips. They were drinking coffee.

  “You miss Josie?” Virgil said.

  “I do.”

  “Mattie’s been talking to Allie. She thinks maybe she’s won you back,” Virgil said.

  “She’s got no reason to think that,” Wyatt said. “I haven’t been near her.”

  “Women think things,” Virgil said.

  They both drank coffee.

  “Crawley Dake refused to accept that resignation letter,” Wyatt said.

  “I told you he would,” Virgil said. “Why’d you write it, anyway?”

  “Tired,” Wyatt said. “Tired of listening to all that horseshit in The Nugget. A little tired of guns, of my brother getting shot. A little tired of all the politics and bad-mouthing, and court appearances. Tired of Tombstone, maybe. Thinking maybe I should move along.”

  “I’m a little tired of your brother getting shot too,” Virgil said.

  “Well, I’m not going nowhere until we clean that up, deputy marshal or not.”

  “Making any progress?”

  “Not a lot to show for three months’ posse work,” Wyatt said.

  “You got Ike in jail.”

  “I do. But he won’t cooperate. He denies having anything to do with shooting you, and he goddamned insists that he don’t know who did. I even tried telling him we could make a deal.”

  “Bygones be bygones?”

  “Something like that.”

  “He say anything about giving me back my left arm?” Virgil said.

  Wyatt smiled slightly.

  “Didn’t say I meant it ’bout bygones.”

  Virgil smiled too.

  “But he didn’t bite.”

  “No,” Wyatt said. “Fact is, he’s swearing out a warrant on us for killing Billy and the McLaurys.”

  “He’s wasting his time,” Virgil said.

  “And ours.”

  “Which may be the point. You keep showing up in court, you ain’t out chasing down the cowboys.”

  “Tom Fitch’ll do most of the appearing in court for us.”

  Virgil drank some coffee.

  “Still, Ike’s an irritating little bastard,” Virgil said.

  “Probably Behan’s idea on the warrant,” Wyatt said. “Keeps the cowboys stirred up. Ringo’s in town, and Curley Bill and Frank Stilwell.”

  “I thought you had John Ringo for holding up the stage.”

  “Driver wouldn’t identify him.”

  “Scared of Ringo?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can’t blame him that much, I guess.”

  Virgil leaned back a little in his chair. Wyatt noticed that he seemed to move without pain.

  “Allie,” Virgil shouted. “We need some more coffee.”

  Virgil’s wife came in from the parlor with a big enamel coffeepot and poured some for both of them. She bent over and kissed Virgil on the top of the head and went out.

  “Seems to like you better than she likes me,” Wyatt said.

  “That’s a fact,” Virgil said.

  “Fact she don’t like me much at all.”

  “No,” Virgil said, “she don’t.”

  “Ever since Josie.”

  “Yep. Feels bad for Mattie.”

  “Hell, Virg, she don’t even like Mattie.”

  “She likes her better now that she’s a woman scorned.”

  “She blame me for you getting shot?” Wyatt said.

  “Yes.”

  “I guess she’s got the right. It goes back to me taking Josie from Behan.”

  “Everything goes back to something,” Virgil said. “What matters here, whatever Allie feels, is that our names are Earp. You and me and Morgan and Warren and James. We are brothers. We are made of the same stuff. That’s what we go back to.”

  “I know.”

  “You want Josie. I want Josie. Morg wants Josie. James and Warren want Josie. People don’t like it, they don’t like us. You do something. We do it with you. Brothers. The Earp brothers.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t never think anything else is true,” Virgil said. “That’s who we are. That’s what we got. It’s what we always had. Before the women came. Before any of us ever shot a gun. If I got shot on account of something you did, it’s because that’s what I’m supposed to do. Don’t matte
r if Allie likes it. She loves me. I love her. But that don’t matter either. Blood, Wyatt. Flesh and blood.”

  Wyatt stared at his brother. In his life it was probably the longest uninterrupted set of sentences Virgil had ever spoken. He spoke softly, without heat, almost as if he were thinking aloud. Allie came in as he finished.

  “You need anything else, Virgil?” she said.

  “No,” Virgil said.

  He put his right arm around her waist.

  “I got everything I need,” Virgil said.

  Forty-eight

  As they came out of the theater, Wyatt took the Colt.45 he had under his coat and put it in the side pocket of his slicker.

  Morgan saw the transfer.

  “You thinking there might be trouble, Wyatt?” Morgan said.

  “There’s talk,” Wyatt said. “Goodrich thinks there might be trouble.”

  “Well, hell, Wyatt,” Morgan said. “It’s Saturday night. There’s supposed to be trouble.”

  “Just don’t button your gun up so tight you can’t get it out quick,” Wyatt said.

  Morgan laughed, and they stepped into the street. With his left hand, Wyatt yanked his hat down hard over his forehead. Driven by a wind from the south, the cold spring rain came hard and straight at them as he and Morgan walked up Fourth Street toward Allen. Sherman McMasters and Dan Tipton walked a step behind them.

  “Stolen Kisses,” Morgan said happily. “Goddamn!”

  “Pretty good show,” Wyatt said.

  “Maybe I’ll see it again tomorrow,” Morgan said. “How long’s it running.”

  “Through the twentieth of March,” McMasters said.

  He spoke loudly, forcing his voice through the wind and rain.

  “What’s today?” Morgan said.

  “Eighteenth,” Wyatt said. “You got till Monday.”

  They turned left at Allen. The rain was just as hard, but the wind was diverted some by the buildings now as they walked east on Allen.

  “How about a little whiskey,” Morgan said. “And some pool.”

  “How about a lot of whiskey and some pool,” McMasters said.

  “Sounds even better,” Morgan said, and they turned in at Campbell and Hatch’s Saloon. In the back where the pool tables were, McMasters and Tipton concentrated on whiskey. Wyatt drank coffee and watched while Morgan, his drink sitting on the edge of the table, played his second game with Robert Hatch, who owned the place. Some of the other drinkers had gathered to watch. The back door had a four-pane glass window. The bottom two were painted over, the top two clear. The wind rattled the door and the rain spattered hard against the glass, showing in thick, short streams as it ran down the clear glass. But the window was tight. The stove was working full out. George Berry, standing near it, had steam coming off of his wet mackinaw. The room was warm.

  Hatch left the six ball teetering at the edge of the far corner pocket. Morgan smiled.

  “Tough shot, Bob,” Morgan said. “What a shame.”

  He leaned over the table behind the cue ball, sighting the shot.

  “Six in the corner,” he said.

  One of the windowpanes exploded and Morgan sprawled across the table. Near the stove Berry staggered as the same bullet took him in the thigh. Morgan gasped. Wyatt had his Colt half out when a second shot drove into the wall above his head. Wyatt lunged to the pool table beside Morgan and threw himself partly over him. The Colt was all the way out now, and he stared into the wet wind that surged in through the shattered glass. McMasters yanked the door open, and he and Hatch rushed out into the rain.

  “Get Goodfellow,” Wyatt yelled. “Goddammit, get Goodfellow.”

  By the time Goodfellow got there, Morgan had been moved to the couch in Hatch’s card room. Goodfellow knelt beside him and looked. He put a hand on Morgan’s shoulder and stood up. Goodfellow didn’t say anything. Wyatt didn’t ask anything. They both knew what there was to know. Another doctor arrived to examine George Berry’s leg. Slowed by its passage through Morgan, the bullet had barely lodged in Berry ’s thigh. The doctor took it out with an extractor and bandaged the wound. Wyatt crouched beside his brother; Morgan was breathing badly. He didn’t try to talk. He knew what Wyatt knew. They had both seen too many men shot dead to be fooled this time. Virgil and Allie came in. James and Bessie arrived. Wyatt stayed with his head next to Morgan’s. Once Morgan whispered to him. Wyatt nodded and whispered back and then everyone was quiet.

  “Are my legs out straight?” Morgan said softly.

  “Yes.”

  No one said anything else. Allie and Bessie cried softly.

  And Morgan died.

  CHRONICLE

  FOR VIOLATING THE NEUTRALITY LAWS

  Philadelphia, October 26-

  Captain A. C. Rand and Mate, Thomas Pender, of the steamer Tropic, who were convicted in the United States

  District Court of violating the neutrality laws by furnishing arms and ammunition to insurgents in Haiti, were today sentenced by Judge Butler to one year’s imprisonment each and to pay a fine of $500 and the cost of the prosecution.

  * * *

  HALLER ONE OF QUANTRELL’S BORDER HEROES

  Denver , Oct. 26-

  The killing of his wife, Alice Haller, by Johnston Haller, and the wounding of the man Morris, who had won the affections of Alice, has brought to light a story which began in a border romance and has ended in disgrace to two and sorrow to a third. Haller was a member of the Quantrell crowd, and a knight of the road when Jesse and Frank James were looked upon with a sort of mock heroism. He was a fearless devil, and in the saddle he was handsome as Murat. He was in some of the bloodiest engagements that blighted the West. He went with Quantrell, when that daring horseman swooped down upon Lawrence, Kan. and left the bloodstains of its best people on the blackened ruins of their homes. He was also a trusted courier of the James boys…

  * * *

  A LEGACY FOR A COLORED WOMAN

  New York , October 26-

  The following letter was received at police headquarters today, dated Powhatan, VA, October 23, 1883: “A colored woman named Flora Baker left Richmond some years ago to seek employment as a domestic servant. She had a couple of children whom she took with her. She is probably in New York City, or in Brooklyn. A legacy has been left by her old master, W. W. Wooldridge, and if you can find her, I will compensate you handsomely.” It is signed W. Pope Dubary.

  * * *

  CARRIED AWAY BY ANGELS

  Baltimore , October 26-

  Mrs. David Moses, the fat bride weighing 517 pounds, on exhibition here, and recently married in New York, was found dead in bed this morning. She had been in it for two weeks, and not been on exhibition since last Tuesday. She was born in Detroit in 1866 and had been before the public for about a year. She had gained sixty-seven pounds in the past seven months. She was to have appeared in Philadelphia next Monday at a museum whose curiosity hall is in the fourth story of the building. As she could not walk up three flights, the manager was putting up a derrick for purposes of hoisting her.

  * * *

  BASE BALL GROUNDS,

  Friday Oct. 27th

  Bostons vs. Dr. Pope’s Picked Nine.

  * * *

  GLOBE THEATER-EXTRA

  Mr. Jon Stetson has the honor to announce the engagement of Mr. Edwin Booth under the management of Messrs. Brooks & Dickson, commencing Monday, Nov. 5 in the following repertoire.

  Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 5 and 6- RICHELIEU . Wednesday, Nov. 7-MACBETH. Thursday and Friday, Nov. 8 and 9-KING LEAR. Saturday Matinee, Nov. 10- RICHELIEU.

  * * *

  The young man void of understanding may be depended upon to fall into the ditch of debauchery without much pushing, and the gilded youth will seek out white sepulchers without other urging than their own fondness for folly, but the stranger must be enticed into the snares of the strange woman by cunning wiles. Not long ago Lillie DeLacy found it advisable to move out of a street at the South End, where the neighbors objected to he
r nocturnal festivities, and open a new establishment on Eliot St. In order to get the place upon a paying basis she sent cards through the mails to such persons who seemed most likely to accept invitations to call upon a strange woman, but these cards did not all fall into the hands of strangers from the country. The police got hold of some of them and detectives called at the house to investigate. The result was Lillie’s arraignment in court for keeping a house of ill-fame, but as the only evidence was her own admission to the detectives, which was not legally sufficient, she was discharged. It is very wrong in Lillie to carry on such a business, without doubt, but there are grounds for suspecting that several other persons in this city are engaged in similar pursuits and are never interfered with by virtuous administrators of the law.

  Forty-nine

  A half hour after Morgan Earp died, Doc Holliday, in a black hat and no slicker, with half a quart of whiskey in him, and the bottle in his left hand, started to look for Johnny Behan.

  “It was him killed Morgan, him and Will McLaury,” Doc said. “I don’t know they pulled the trigger, but they done it, either way.”

  With the rain coming hard and the wind pushing at him, he walked up Allen Street armed with a Colt.45 on his hip and a Smith & Wesson hammerless.32 in a shoulder rig. Every door he came to he opened. If a door was locked he would kick it in, and curse the people whom he often rousted out of bed. In the saloons even the nastiest or drunkest of the patrons had nothing to say to him. His eyes were bottomless, his face was ashen. His clothing was soaked and his face was wet. Occasionally he stopped to pull at the whiskey bottle. When it was empty he threw it against the side of a saloon and watched it shatter. Then he went into the gaslight and reeking stove heat and took a nearly full bottle off the bar and drank some and scanned the room.

  “Johnny Behan,” he shouted. “Behan, you back-shooting son of a bitch.”

  Behan was not in the room. No one said anything. Doc rushed out, his Colt hanging loosely in his right hand, his left with a new bottle of whiskey. He didn’t pay for the whiskey. No one asked him to. He continued up Allen past Sixth Street and started kicking in doors in the cribs where the whores were. Behan wasn’t there. Neither was Will McLaury. Doc turned toward Toughnut Street where the miners lived. Again he banged on doors and pushed in past whoever answered. All night he rambled through Tombstone in the harsh rain with his gun in his hand, drinking, looking for Behan. Near dawn he stood in the middle of Fremont Street in front of the San Jose Rooming House and turned his face up to the downpour and screamed, “Behan,” at the black sky. Then he stumbled back down Fremont to Fourth Street and up Fourth into the face of the storm toward the Cosmopolitan Hotel. In the lobby he tossed the partly drunk whiskey bottle onto the lobby floor. The remaining whiskey spilled silently onto the carpet as Doc climbed the stairs to his room and went in and fell facedown on his bed, where he lay motionless, the Colt in his hand, his clothes soaked with rainwater, and cried.