Gunman's Rhapsody

by Robert B. Parker

  Fifty

  It was morning. The early sun shone straight down Allen Street. In Hafford’s, Virgil and Wyatt were drinking coffee. Wyatt had some paper and a short pencil.

  “It’s Stilwell,” Virgil said. “Everybody in town knows it was him. It was pretty surely him I saw heading toward the waterworks the night they shot me.”

  Wyatt wrote down Stilwell’s name.

  “Which means it was Behan,” Wyatt said.

  “Stilwell’s his deputy.”

  Wyatt wrote Behan on the paper.

  “And Pete Spence and Indian Charlie.”

  “That’s the talk.”

  Wyatt wrote those names.

  “McLaury was gone for two days when they shot Morgan,” Wyatt said. “He’s out of it.”

  “Ike?” Virgil said.

  “Nobody thinks so,” Virgil said.

  Wyatt wrote down his name.

  “Put him down anyway, in case I come across him.”

  “Nobody be mad at you for shooting Ike,” Virgil said. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to deal with Curley Bill and Ringo.”

  “I know.”

  “People been coming to see me all night,” Virgil said. “There’s talk they were in on it.”

  “Nothing much happens with the cowboys that Bill and Ringo don’t want to happen. Behan don’t do much that they don’t want done.”

  “I know.”

  “And they’re tight with Stilwell. You bring him down, they’re going to be looking for you.”

  “They’ll be able to find me,” Wyatt said.

  “Stay away from Behan,” Virgil said. “What with you romancing his woman, it’ll look like you murdered him to get her.”

  Wyatt didn’t say anything. His face was expressionless.

  “Besides which, he’s still the sheriff,” Virgil said. “Even Crawley can’t smooth it over if you shoot the sheriff.”

  Wyatt nodded.

  “I won’t drag her into this,” Wyatt said. “I kill anybody, it won’t be over Josie.”

  Virgil nodded as if to himself. He rubbed his good hand over his jaw as though to see if he needed a shave.

  “You know, and I know, that this is about Josie,” Virgil said. “You may have to kill Behan. If you’re too certain you won’t, he may get to kill you.”

  “I won’t have to kill him,” Wyatt said. “Behan’s got no spine for coming at me alone.”

  “He ain’t alone,” Virgil said.

  “He will be,” Wyatt said.

  Virgil stared for a time at his brother.

  “You’re going to kill them all,” Virgil said.

  “All I can find,” Wyatt said.

  “Legal?” Virgil said.

  “No. I am not a lawman now. I’m Morgan Earp’s brother.”

  “And mine,” Virgil said softly.

  Fifty-one

  Morgan’s body went to Benson in the horse-drawn hearse at the head of a funeral procession. The casket was loaded into a boxcar at Benson and taken to Tucson, where it was transferred onto the train to California. James and Bessie, Virgil and Allie would take it from there to their parents’ home in Colton.

  The Earp men were armed. Virgil and James with handguns. Wyatt and Warren with handguns and shotguns. Doc Holliday was with them, and Sherman McMasters and Turkey Creek Jack Johnson. A telegraph clerk at Tucson wired reports of men, searching all incoming trains, striding through the cars with sawed-off shotguns under their coats. Armed men gathered and dispersed near the Tucson Railroad Station. Everyone talked of the Earps coming in with Morgan’s body. Frank Stilwell was there, to meet a deputy sheriff, he said.

  At 6:45 in the evening everybody that was going aboard was on the California train except the Earp party. Doc Holliday and Turkey Creek Jack Johnson boarded the train, walked in opposite directions through the car where the Earps would sit, and posted themselves in the adjacent cars by the doors on either side of the Earp’s car. Doc carried a 10-gauge. Turkey Creek Jack Johnson had a Winchester. Sherman McMasters got on with them and walked through the entire train with a shotgun. At the back he leaned out and yelled “Clear” to Wyatt, who stood with his family.

  James and Bessie, Virgil and Allie climbed up onto the train from whose stack the smoke was already pouring. Wyatt and Warren stood on either side of the train steps with shotguns, then followed them. When the departing Earps were seated, Doc and Turkey Creek Jack stepped down onto the platform on either side of the train and watched in both directions to see that no one else got on.

  “Once the doors close and you’re underway, you’re out of it,” Wyatt said.

  “Sure thing,” Virgil said. “Besides, I can still shoot.”

  “But you can’t reload in anything under an hour,” Warren said.

  “Means I can get the first six,” Virgil said. “If there’s more, James will have to clean up.”

  James smiled. But it was a thin smile. He was brave enough, Wyatt thought, but whatever happened in the war had taken it out of him. He wasn’t a shooter. Still, he’d do what he had to. Wyatt was sure of that.

  “Hell, I’d turn Allie on them,” Wyatt said.

  Allie smiled at him.

  “We ain’t always got along, Wyatt. And I’ve been ready to tell you when I didn’t like what you done.”

  “That’s true,” Wyatt said.

  “But you take care of yourself doing what it is you’re going to do.”

  “I will, Allie.”

  Her eyes were teary.

  “I don’t want to lose you too,” Allie said and stood and put her arms around Wyatt. He patted her back.

  “You too, Warren. You be very damned careful.”

  “It’s the cowboys,” Warren said, “that need to be careful.”

  The conductor stopped in front of Wyatt.

  “Trains all locked down,” he said. “ ’Cept this car. Time to go.”

  Wyatt nodded and looked at his brothers.

  “See you in a little while,” Wyatt said.

  He looked at Virgil. Virgil nodded. He put the Colt in his lap and put out his working hand. Wyatt took it. Then he and Warren left the train and watched as the conductor bolted the door. The engine whistled and the boiler huffed faster. McMasters jumped off the rear of the last car. Turkey Creek Jack Johnson walked back toward him. Warren followed. Doc began to walk along the train toward Wyatt. Across the next set of tracks, near an empty train at rest on its siding, there was a flurry of movement. Two men disappeared behind the train, but the third man stood there and Wyatt saw him.

  “Stilwell,” Wyatt said and began to move toward him. Stilwell ran. Wyatt followed. Suddenly, as he came up against the engine of the silent train, Stilwell stopped and turned. Wyatt was fifteen feet away. He kept coming. Stilwell seemed frozen. At three feet, Wyatt stopped. The shotgun was level with Stilwell’s chest. Both hammers were back.

  Stilwell said, “Morg.”

  And again, “Morg,” and grabbed at the shotgun. Wyatt pulled the trigger, and the right barrel pounded a near-solid cluster of shotgun pellets into Stilwell’s chest. He was probably dead before the second barrel went off. Doc Holliday came up behind Wyatt at a dead run. Wyatt was already reloading the shotgun. Doc looked down at Stilwell’s body and drew his Colt and fired five shots into it. Then he, too, began to reload.

  Behind them, the wheels of the train to California began to turn. The train strained into motion. Wyatt ran alongside it, and as Virgil peered out the now moving window Wyatt held up his right hand with one finger raised. Inside the train Virgil nodded. He understood. Wyatt had gotten one of them. For Morg.

  Fifty-two

  They were back in the Cosmopolitan Hotel the next day. All men now. The women were gone. Wyatt and Doc and Warren. Texas Jack and Turkey Creek Jack and Sherman McMasters. They always had revolvers with them. They always carried long guns. Doc was at a table in the bar drinking whiskey when Wyatt came in. Wyatt leaned his Winchester against the table and sat down.

  “Amaz
ing,” Doc said, “how a few gunshots clear everything up.”

  The barman brought Wyatt coffee.

  “Now it’s all out in the open and aboveboard and right in front,” Doc said. “You against Behan. Earps against cowboys. Republicans against Democrats. The Epitaph against The Nugget. Now everybody wants to look can see what they want to see.”

  Wyatt drank his coffee.

  “You know Behan put Stilwell up to shooting Morgan, and you know it was because Morgan knocked him on his ass when he come bothering Josie. You know he’s in on them stage robberies, Wyatt. You know he’s getting a nice slice of the cattle rustling out of Mexico. You know him and Ringo and Curley Bill are tighter than the valve on a virgin.”

  “Got a copy of the coroner’s report on Morgan,” Wyatt said.

  He was holding the thick, white coffee mug in both hands and staring over the top of it through the saloon doors out at the little stretch of Allen Street that showed under them.

  “Says Stilwell, Spence, Hank Swilling, Indian Charlie, and somebody named Fries are the main suspects for shooting Morgan. Gives Indian Charlie’s real name in there, Florentine Cruz. Never knew Charlie’s name was Florentine Cruz.”

  “We knew the rest pretty much anyway, didn’t we?” Doc said.

  He picked up the whiskey bottle and splashed a little more into his glass.

  “I’m putting together a posse,” Wyatt said. “Heard that Spence and Indian Charlie are out at Spence’s wood camp.”

  The steam from the coffee whispered up past his face.

  “I’ll be in the street on horseback at nine this morning. I’d be pleased if you’d join me.”

  “You promise me I can shoot one of ’em?” Doc said.

  “ ’Less they shoot you first,” Wyatt said.

  Doc drank off the newly poured whiskey. He smiled.

  “No, Wyatt, I’ll shoot one of them unless they kill me first.”

  “Nine o’clock,” Wyatt said. “Be ready to stay out awhile.”

  At nine in the morning Wyatt was there on Allen Street up on the blue roan gelding with the sun at his back. He had a Colt.45 and a.45 Winchester rifle, and a lot of ammunition in the saddlebags. He had a blanket roll tied behind his saddle, and a pack mule on a lead. Warren was up beside him, smaller than Wyatt and dark. Doc was there mounted, as were McMasters and Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, looking too big for the small bay mare he rode. Texas Jack Vermilion had a rifle and a shotgun in saddle scabbards. Vermilion sported a flamboyant mustache.

  Wyatt handed the pack mule lead line to McMasters.

  “You can ride drag for a while, Sherm,” he said.

  As McMasters led the mule to the back of the group, John Behan came up Allen Street. Billy Breakenridge was with him, and Dave Neagle. Wyatt nodded to Neagle.

  “Morning, Dave,” Wyatt said.

  Neagle nodded back at Wyatt.

  “Dave don’t look so comfortable,” Warren murmured. “He scared?”

  “Dave’s never scared,” Wyatt said. “Probably embarrassed at being with Johnny.”

  “You fellas going someplace?” Behan said.

  He was smiling. No one answered him.

  “Anyplace special?” Behan said.

  Breakenridge and Neagle stood on either side of him a few feet from him. Both wore deputy badges. Both wore Colts. Neagle’s eyes moved steadily as he looked at all five of the horsemen.

  “Wyatt, I need to see you,” Behan said.

  No one spoke. Wyatt looked at Behan. His gaze was heavy. It was as if Behan could feel the weight of it. He didn’t move, but he looked like he wished to back up. The silence lengthened awkwardly. Finally Wyatt broke it.

  “About what?” Wyatt said.

  “About killing Frank Stilwell,” Behan said.

  “You are going to see me once too many times, Johnny,” he said.

  Behind Wyatt his party began to spread out. Doc sidled his horse left, Warren right. The pack mule wouldn’t move sideways, so Vermilion stayed with it where he was. But McMasters and Turkey Creek Jack moved wider still so that the Earp party was now in a wedge-shaped phalanx.

  “I will talk with Paul,” Wyatt said. “Next time I’m in Tucson.”

  Behan didn’t say anything. Wyatt made a small clicking noise and tapped the roan with his knee. The roan moved forward and the rest of the horses moved after them. The pack mule had no objection to moving forward and joined the rest of the party as the horses walked on past Behan and his deputies. Wyatt lit a cigar carefully, turning it to get it right, then when it was going as he wanted it. He clicked to the roan again and the horses broke into a trot as they turned onto Third Street and out of sight, as Behan, watching them go, could see them no more.

  “Who’s Paul?” Warren said.

  “Bob Paul. Sheriff in Pima County.”

  “Why’ll you talk to him?”

  “Well,” Wyatt said, “it’s his jurisdiction…”

  Wyatt drew on his cigar and let the smoke out slowly. The horses were eager in the early desert spring, tossing their heads and arching their necks to strain against the reins as the posse moved out of town.

  “And,” Wyatt said, “he’s a real lawman.”

  “Unlike Mr. Behan,” Doc said.

  “He ain’t a real anything,” Warren said.

  At the back, holding the pack mule, McMasters raised his voice.

  “Why don’t we just plug him, Wyatt.”

  “We won’t plug him,” Wyatt said.

  Fifty-three

  They camped that night a few miles north of Tombstone, sleeping close to the fire in the still, cold night.

  “Got the coroner’s report,” Wyatt said to no one in particular. “Says that most likely the people who killed Morgan are Frank Stilwell…”

  “The late Frank Stilwell,” Doc said softly.

  “… Peter Spence, Fries, Swilling and Florentine Cruz.”

  “Cruz?” McMasters said.

  “Indian Charlie,” Johnson said.

  “That’s all,” Doc said.

  “That’s all they named as suspects,” Wyatt said.

  “You know Curley Bill was in it, and Ringo,” Doc said. “And you know that goddamned weasel Behan was behind it.”

  “Don’t know that for sure,” Wyatt said. “But we’ll ride over to Spence’s lumber camp tomorrow. See if somebody there will tell us.”

  “Should we take turns on guard?” Vermilion said.

  “No need,” Wyatt said. “Doc sleeps so light he can hear a rattlesnake yawn.”

  “Can’t tell I’m asleep,” Doc said, “ ’less I dream.”

  He took a pull on a whiskey bottle he had taken from his saddlebag.

  “That help you to stay awake, Doc?” Turkey Creek said.

  “That helps me stay alive,” Doc said and handed the bottle to Johnson, who took a pull and passed it to Vermilion.

  The bottle went around the campfire for a while, skipping Wyatt each time, until one by one, wrapped in their blankets under the infinite sky, close to the fire, they went to sleep and Doc alone sat awake, alone with the bottle.

  In the morning they ate bacon and biscuits, drank coffee-Doc added whiskey to his-and rode east toward the Dragoon Mountains, with their hats tilted forward to keep the sun out of their eyes. The horses picked their way carefully through the low, harsh brush. A hawk cruised soundlessly in the high sky. Doc sipped whiskey from a bottle in his saddlebags. Wyatt knew that Doc hated quiet. He’d start talking soon. Doc talking was something to hear. He talked about guns and dental tools and Catholic theology, and whores, and people he’d shot, and meals he had eaten, and cards he had held, and the nature of man, and why it was best to steam Prairie Chicken before you roasted it.

  As they started up the long gradual rise toward Spence’s wood-cutting operation, Doc said, “Where’s your ladies, Wyatt?”

  “Josie’s in San Francisco,” Wyatt said. “With her father.”

  “How ’bout Mattie?”

  “Gone to my mot
her’s place in California.”

  “Funny thing,” Doc said, “you hadn’t taken up with Josie Marcus, we wouldn’t be out here riding down the people killed Morgan.”

  The horses were blowing as they shuffled up the long grade. There was only the sound of the horses’ hooves, the jangle of harness metal, the creak of saddle leather.

  “Talk about something else, Doc,” Wyatt said.

  Fifty-four

  They reached the top of the long rise and looked down into the valley where Spence’s wood-cutting operation was set up next to a stand of timber.

  “We’ll circle,” Wyatt said, “so we don’t come at them with the sun in our eyes.”

  The horses strung out single file as they moved down the valley side and away from the wood choppers. When they were on the other side Wyatt turned them toward the camp, straight west, so that the sun would be at his back and straight into the eyes of the people in the wood camp. McMasters took his Winchester from the saddle boot and rested it across the pommel. Doc had a shotgun across his saddle.

  There was a Mexican cutting and stacking wood.