Alan blushed and found himself speechless.
*
Alan stared in the mirror and rubbed a palm over his scruffy jaw. He hoped Sally liked beards because he did not know how to use the straight-edge razor that lay beside the wash basin. Even the smallest paper cuts tended to turn septic in hell; he dreaded the nicks and outright cuts he could give himself if he attempted shaving with that sharp blade. There were bound to be barbershops around, but he wasn’t sure he trusted them either. That old adage about being paranoid … it applied in spades to hell – everything was out to get him. Or at least make sure he was as miserable as possible.
But then, there was Sally. Meeting her wasn’t miserable. Quite the contrary. It was the best thing that had happened to him since arriving in hell. They’d had dinner together last night in the Unlucky Strike Hotel’s restaurant, a relatively safe place to be when unruly drunks started their nightly fighting. New Bodie’s streets, bursting with gunshots as rapid as firecrackers, sounded like a Chinese New Year celebration. He dreaded the thought of venturing out there. Anything that moved outside seemed fair game. Sally blithely ignored the whole thing, her attention fixed solely on him. And, he found himself increasingly charmed by her.
They had talked about inconsequentials, just two people discovering each other. It felt almost normal. More than that, he’d been happy, and that worried Alan immensely. Hell liked to wait until you relaxed before it smacked you down again. Nothing that felt good could last down here.
Could it?
His mind chewed over the possible consequences of his newfound happiness as he left himself unshaven and hurried downstairs to meet Sally in the hotel lobby.
“I found the perfect place for you to set up shop,” she said, arms snaking through his to lead him outside. The heat sucked all the energy right out of him, but she bounced along at his side unfazed. She was wearing a deep green dress today, that made her blonde hair seem even blonder. “It’s right beside the opera house,” she said. “A lovely building with real windows. Furnished even! With a room upstairs, so you can live there too and get out of this hotel.”
He didn’t tell her he liked the hotel. Even in hell, there was something comforting about having your bed made up for you and meals available right downstairs. So the bedbugs bit and the towels reeked of mildew. But it was expensive, and the cash Masterson had loaned him would barely cover a week’s lodgings there. He was going to have to find work fast, and a cheaper place might let him stretch that money a bit longer. And he had Sally to wine and dine, too.
They sauntered down the boardwalk, and Alan jumped every time a gun went off or a hell-horse cantered down the middle of the dusty street. Sally paid no attention, but he found himself distracted by everything, both by the newness of it and the worry that something was going to shoot him or run him down. Somehow, crossing through rush-hour traffic in New Hell seemed less threatening than simply walking among the snorting, revolting hell mounts.
Alan drew up abruptly. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?” Sally asked.
Dead Hat Joe was coming straight for him, his gorilla-like gait standing out amid his posse of flunkies.
“Quick!” Alan steered Sally down the nearest alley.
“Alan –”
“Don’t argue!”
Decaying brick and mortar walls rose on either side, funneling them through smelly, dark shadows toward the brightness of the next street. They came out, and Alan glanced over his shoulder. No one had followed, and he sighed.
“There he is,” Dead Hat Joe’s wheezy voice called out.
Alan turned to see the miner swing around the corner of the building, retinue in tow. He closed his eyes for a moment, contemplated running, and discarded the notion. Joe and his boys were armed. Alan wasn’t that eager to find out what getting shot felt like. He tightened his arm around Sally, wondering how he could protect her.
The big man stopped a few feet away, his henchmen a fan of ugly support behind him. “You sure do scurry like a broken-tailed rat.”
“The only rat around here is you,” Alan said.
“Oooh!” Dead Hat Joe flailed his arms in mock terror. “Lookee here, boys, he can talk for hisself!”
“That’s right, and if you dare lay a hand on me, I’ll file charges against you with the marshal.”
Dead Hat Joe laughed and spat into the street. “When I’m done with you, there won’t be anything left for the Undertaker to put back together, let alone to ‘file charges.’”
Alan licked dry lips, then steeled himself. “Masterson was right, you haven’t got any brains.”
Dead Hat Joe’s eyes narrowed and he moved forward, fists clenching.
“Dead Hat Joe,” Sally interrupted crossly, and Alan couldn’t prevent her from stomping forward to get in Joe’s face. He watched her nervously, but she didn’t seem afraid at all. “You go take your fun somewheres else. I’m a-courtin’!”
Joe’s guffaw was incredulous. “With this mail-order cowboy?”
“Stop it!”
“Or what? You’ll sing?”
Her mouth dropped open in outrage.
He leered at her. “I once heard me a screech owl sing prettier,” he said, “when I shot it.”
“Caterwauling banshee!” one of his minions added.
“Why you –” Sally lunged forward, snatching for Joe’s own gun.
Appalled, Alan jumped forward and grabbed her around the waist just as the miner shoved her away from him.
She yelled, “You let me go! I’m gonna kill that loud-mouthed, claim-jumping, lying son of a bitch –”
“Sally!” Alan said, shocked.
Dead Hat Joe laughed, with a wet coughing sound. “Why don’tcha just get behind the little songbird and let her do your fighting for you, saphead?”
“I’m an attorney,” Alan said stiffly. What did this guy know anyway? How hard would it be to scare him off? Besides, what did he have to lose? “Do you know what that means?”
“I know law ain’t got no place here.”
Alan forced a confident laugh. “That’s what you think, buddy. Why do you think I’m here, in this bloody town of yours? Do I look like I belong here? Oh no, I’ve been sent down here specifically. The status quo here is being challenged. And with you caught in flagrante delicto like this, with witnesses no less –” Alan gestured dramatically to Sally and Joe’s own men as he threw out any old phrase he could think of “– the onus probandi is on you, and if you think any judge is going to think twice about sentencing you to hang, well, the new modus operandi is going to be swift and speedy, res ipsa loquitur!”
“You make less sense ’n a drunk Indian,” Dead Hat Joe muttered, but his brow had furrowed in what Alan took to be some semblance of caution.
“I suggest,” Alan said stiffly, “you let us pass because the legal consequences to you would be dire.”
“This law stuff ain’t got no bearing –”
“Surely, you’ve heard of Thomas Frank?” Alan didn’t wait for an answer, just plunged on with his fiction. “He was a colonel in the U.S. Army. He won the Battle of Sandy Bottom, by infiltrating the enemy’s side so skillfully they never knew he was there. Well, he’s been in New Bodie for two months already, checking the lay of the land for me, and let me tell you, his reports …” Alan trailed off as he realized Dead Hat Joe had taken two steps back and drawn himself up into a more respectful stance. But Joe wasn’t looking at him. He was looking over Alan’s shoulder.
Alan spun and found himself face to face with Wyatt Earp.
“That true?” Earp asked him, one eyebrow raised slightly as he waited for an answer.
Alan opened his mouth to say yes, but he flinched under the implacable blue gaze and shut his mouth again without saying a word. Wyatt’s expression changed to a grimace of distaste. “Haven’t learned, have you?”
Alan’s shoulders sagged.
Wyatt shook his head, tipped his hat ever so slightly to Dead Hat Joe, and walked on.
As soon as the former lawman rounded the corner, Joe’s sneer returned, and he swaggered forward. “So, you was lying to me, Mister Attorney? Is that what I’m hearing? You made all that up?” His fingers balled, and he raised one brawny fist. Sally squeaked and hopped sideways out of the way.
Alan threw up his arms to shield himself, but it made no difference.
*
Alan groaned and tried to sit up. A firm grip pushed him down just as bruised stomach muscles screamed in protest. “Sally?” His jaw was stiff and ached so fiercely he thought it might never move properly again. He ran his tongue gently over his teeth, but there were no gaps.
“About that gun,” Masterson’s voice said. “Change your mind?”
Alan groaned again and opened his eyes. No Sally. He was back in his hotel room. Masterson sat on the bed beside him. The ruddy glow of an oil lamp cast somber shadows in the corners of the dark room. He’d been unconscious for a few hours then.
“Shoot first and never miss. It was true when I was alive, and it’s even more true down here,” Masterson said.
“That bastard did nothing – nothing! – to stop that bully from trying to kill me!”
Mildly, Masterson asked, “Which bastard might that be?”
“That no-good friend of yours. Wyatt Earp. He walked away. Just walked away.”
Masterson cleared his throat.
“What?”
“Son, you need to stop maligning your friends and start using that over-educated head of yours.”
“Wyatt’s no friend of mine.” Alan struggled to sit up.
“You’re not dead, are you?”
“What?”
“Dead Hat Joe’s not in the habit of accepting insults of any variety. He leaves a trail of dead bodies all over New Bodie. Now, you’re not dead. Why is that, do you suppose?”
Alan opened his mouth, closed it again.
“That’s right,” Masterson said, encouragingly.
“He didn’t walk away?”
“Wyatt never walked away from a fight in his life, and he certainly never left an innocent to fall to unnecessary harm. What kind of man do you think he is?”
“But…”
“He let you get hit a few times. Served you right. Did it hurt as badly as the Undertaker’s table?”
Alan winced. “No!”
“Then what are you complaining about?” He frowned and peered more closely at Alan. “You growing that beard on purpose?”
“I don’t know how to shave with that damned real razor.”
“So, learn. You sure do seem to have something mighty powerful against trying new things.”
“I might cut myself.”
Masterson laughed loudly. “Son, you got the shit beat out of you not six hours ago. Guess what? You survived. You think any little nick you give yourself is gonna compare with the pain of a beating? You seem to forget you’re in hell. This whole place is here to hurt you. The sooner you embrace that, the sooner you’ll stop pussyfooting around and start living again.”
“‘Living?’ You’re joking, right?”
Masterson seemed to hold his breath a moment, then expel it in a gust. “I just might have to beat some sense into you myself. What part of ‘for all eternity’ didn’t you get? Wake up! Why do you think all those power struggles are going on all over New Hell? Because this is our new life, and if you don’t step up to the plate and make something of it for yourself, then you truly are damned.”
Alan swung his legs off the bed and sat up.
Masterson softened his tone. “What do you feel for Sally?” Alan looked up sharply and Masterson grinned at him. “Because you sure moon around like a lovesick calf whenever you get in sight of her.”
He couldn’t deny it.
“So, if you can still fall in love, what’s that if not life? Isn’t that worth fighting for? And besides,” Masterson added. “you got yourself the best part of it right now. All the bloom and spring of a new, untried infatuation, where everything’s still a discovery and nothing’s a disappointment. Yet. It’ll wear off quickly enough, and you already know consummating your affection ain’t gonna give you a good goddamn; but right now, right here, for this brief moment in your eternal damnation, it’s gonna be as good as anything you had back when you were alive.”
It was true, though Alan was loath to admit it. His own thoughts on happiness from just that morning flitted accusingly through his memory. He probed at his jaw, fingering the extent of the bruising. He hurt. Face, stomach, ribs – but Masterson was right about that too. It wasn’t anything like the pain of a visit to the Undertaker.
Masterson got to his feet. “So, come on, get up. Let’s head over to Josie’s for a drink and a card game.”
“Why would Wyatt want to play cards with me?” He knew he still sounded resentful, but he couldn’t help it.
“Son, he doesn’t want you lawyering for him, but that’s a whole sight different from winning your money from you.”
“I don’t know how to play.”
Genuine anger flashed on Masterson’s face. “There seems to be a damned awful lot you don’t know how to do.”
Alan flared. “I know how to be a lawyer, a good one.”
“Which is why you need to lie in court to win?”
The anger twisted to despair, and Alan sagged back against the pillows. “It’s my torment.”
“You lost me.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe it does.”
“Back … I got out of law school with a few stars in my eyes. All those big wonderful words – truth, justice, honor, honesty, integrity. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to help people find justice through the law. The law was their ally, the law was designed to protect them … It didn’t take me long to find out how wrong I was. Honesty didn’t win cases. Truth didn’t win cases. I’d lay the truth right out there for a judge and jury, only to be destroyed by a dishonest lawyer who used lies to weave a more convincing story, to make me and my client into fools because … Look, here comes the defendant, sworn to tell the truth on a holy bible, in tears on the stand, fabricating a fraudulent story, whole cloth, that would prevail on technicalities. Everything I believed in could be undone by clever coaching and manipulation because no one else believed that the truth belonged in the courtroom. We weren’t playing by the same rules. It wasn’t justice they wanted. It was winning.
“Oh, sometimes, truth still won out, but I watched and I learned, and one day, I tried lying myself. I won that case. I won it while, inside, I hated myself. I died a little that day. And each case thereafter.”
Alan sighed. “Well, it carried down here. I was told upon my arrival that as long as I lied in court, never told the truth, I’d win my cases. But every time I did so, I’d lose a little bit more of my soul. One of these days there’ll be nothing left, and then…” Alan pointed up at the ceiling, where above the roof the brilliance of Paradise would be shining. “That will be out of my reach forever.”
Masterson kept quiet, and Alan was grateful. He didn’t want sympathy or more advice. He stood and paced, fighting against the nausea caused by his movement. After a moment, he continued, “You know what happens to the attorney when you lose a case down here? You suffer the same punishment as your client. The sentences I’ve seen handed down ….” Alan shuddered. “I don’t want … I couldn’t bear a worse fate than what I already have. So … I lie in court.”
“And your soul whittles away.”
Alan nodded miserably. “I figured that,” he pointed up again, “was so far out of my reach, I wasn’t giving up much.”
Masterson shook his head. “You’re a bigger goddamn fool than some of those poor cowpokes outside. You’re throwing away the only thing that’s still yours. Come on, get your boots on. We’re going out. I’ll tell you a story about Wyatt while you get ready.
“You heard of Curley Bill Brocious? Damned dangerous man, one of the worst in those days. Caused a heap of trouble in rea
l life, still causing trouble down here. You probably know what grief he caused Wyatt and his brothers after the whole O.K. Corral incident, from the motion pictures, right?” Masterson grinned at Alan. “Anyway, one night before any of that happened, he got rowdier than usual, and the marshal in Tombstone tried to arrest him. The marshal pulled Brocious’ gun out of the holster to disarm him, it went off, and the bullet caught the marshal square. He died shortly thereafter. Wyatt was involved, saw the whole thing. He told me he believed the shooting was an accident. Wyatt got Brocious out of Tombstone and up to Tucson before he could be lynched. When it came time for the murder trial, Wyatt told the truth about what had happened, and Brocious got off. Case was ruled an accidental homicide.
“Brocious was as bad as they came, and Wyatt knew it. A lot of men, they’d have lied on the stand on general principles and gotten that bastard convicted and hung and made the territory a lot safer place for everyone. It would have been justifiable as a public service, really. Not Wyatt. He believed Curley Bill wasn’t guilty of the murder charge he was on trial for, and that was what mattered. But that’s Wyatt. His honesty got repaid with treachery and murder, but one time I asked him, if he’d known what was going to happen in the months to come after Brocious got off, if he’d have changed his mind about what he said in court.”
“He said no,” Alan murmured.
Masterson let the silence grow, then asked, “Now, you coming?”
“No,” Alan said suddenly, remembering. “I can’t. What time is it? The opera’s got to be starting soon! I promised Sally.” He reached for his boots before Masterson could roll his eyes again.
*
To his surprise, the opera house was packed. Not even standing-room-only remained. From the stories Masterson and Sally had told him, he figured most of the attendees weren’t actually there for the music, but for the excitement and rowdy brawl that was sure to break out instead. He peered in over the sea of heads, then gave up and backed out of the theater, turning instead toward the stage entrance. She would be disappointed that he hadn’t gotten there in time to get a place in the audience, but there would be plenty of other performances. Besides, Masterson’s parting refrain still echoed through his mind: you haven’t heard her sing yet. Maybe he could keep it that way.
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