by Mark Warren
“Who the hell’re you!” the man growled. He stood in the bottom half of his union suit with the top hanging off his backside at half-mast. His belly was rounded and hard, his chest and arms matted with dark, curly hair. His arms were flaccid but thick as hitching rails.
“Your time is up. You can leave on your own, or I can help you. Which’ll it be?”
The burly man gave Wyatt an expression of incredulity. “You can go fuck your—”
Wyatt’s fist caught the man in the mouth mid-speech, sending him stumbling backward to sit on the bed. A stream of blood poured from his burst lip. As the hairy man bowed his head to probe the damage done, Wyatt grabbed a handful of hair and a knot of drawers at his lower back and heaved him clear out the window.
By the time Wyatt had joined James in the yard the hairy outcast had recovered from the fall enough to sit up. Craning his neck, he outstretched an arm, trying to assess the damage to an elbow.
James stood to one side, the Colt’s revolver gripped firmly in his good hand. Wide-eyed, Bessie peered at Wyatt from around her husband’s shoulder. From the open window, boots, clothes, and a hat began to rain down onto the side yard. They all turned to see the whore, Kate, leaning on the windowsill, half her naked body exposed to the world. When she let loose a string of profanity, James chuckled and waved her back inside with the pistol.
Sally came up from the avenue in a stiff-legged trot. Behind her a tall, lean man walked in a long stride that made the leather of his pistol scabbard squeak with a steady rhythm. On his shirt a silver badge flashed in the morning light. When Sally stopped at the corner of the house and wrapped her arms around herself, Hattie ran from the front porch and attached to her. The deputy stepped beside James, splayed his hands on his hips, and contemplated the scene.
The disgruntled customer pushed to his feet and squirmed into the top of his union suit, all the while his eyes fixed on Wyatt. “Think I don’t know how to use a goddamned door?” he growled.
“Maybe so, Harvey,” James said, “but you might not know when to use it.”
“Charge dat ape double,” Kate called from the window. “I haff to wash deez sheets two times. He smell like da foul end uff a goat.”
The man straightened and took a step toward Wyatt. “You sonovabitch. I was half asleep. I got a mind to take some o’ that cock out o’ your walk.”
“You’d best be on your way,” Wyatt said.
The man leveled a finger at James. “I paid for a night with that Hungarian she-devil.”
James wagged the pistol barrel like a scolding finger. “You paid for a poke, Harvey. This ain’t your hotel.” He bobbed the gun toward the house. “We got other customers to service.”
Then, with a dexterity that belied the man’s bulk, Black turned and took a wild swing at Wyatt’s head. But Wyatt was not standing where he had been. Off balance, the man attempted to redirect his blow, stumbled, and stretched his arms forward to catch himself. Stepping in quickly, Wyatt felled him with a hard-knuckled blow just behind the ear. Black lay dazed for a moment, staring at the pool of blood and saliva in the dirt that drooled from his open mouth. Pushing himself up, he managed to sit and seemed to accept his situation as the natural course of events that had started his day.
The deputy laughed quietly as he stepped forward to stand before the disgruntled customer. “Mornin’, Mr. Black.” Then he turned his head to James. “Any complaints here from either party?”
James put on a mischievous grin. “We were just trying out my new customer emergency exit . . . in the event of a fire.”
The deputy cocked his head toward the ousted customer. “How’s that workin’ out, Mr. Black?”
Black looked up at the window, where the smirking whore still leaned on the frame. Then, inflating his cheeks, he spewed a stream of air through his swollen lips and pushed himself to his feet. After picking up his clothes and boots, he stuffed his hat on his head and limped toward the street.
Cairns turned to Wyatt. “You’re the brother?” He extended a hand, and Wyatt accepted.
“He’s one of ’em,” James said. “This here’s Wyatt.”
“Jimmy Cairns,” the deputy said and nodded in the direction that Black had gone. “Looks like you might save me some trips down here in the future. You here for long?”
“Don’t know for sure.” Wyatt kept his eyes on Cairns but spoke for James’s benefit. “But I don’t aim to work as an enforcer. Might like to try something else.”
“Ever do police work?”
“Some.”
“Where ’bouts?”
Wyatt hesitated only a moment. “Missouri. I was constable there.”
“And Ellsworth,” James butted in. “You hear about that? He wore a badge less than an hour and put it over on Ben Thompson and his crowd.”
Cairns paused a moment, pushed his lower lip forward, and studied Wyatt. “We got us a marshal likes to hire on temporary help when the situation calls for it. Think that might interest you?”
“Might,” Wyatt said. “Only I reckon I’ll be anglin’ for something more permanent.”
“Well . . .” Cairns leaned and spat a dollop of tobacco into the dirt. “Truth is, ’tween the permanent and the temporary, you’d have the better end of the stick . . . leastwise when the cattle comes in.”
“How’s that?” Wyatt said.
Cairns spat again. “There’s three of us deputies and the assistant marshal. We’re the ones got to toe the mark, treat the drovers like they was our damn sisters.” He shook his head. “That don’t work, Marshal Smith calls up the specials on standby, encourages them to crack some heads. Then, to keep the drovers from grumbling too much, he can dismiss the specials like it’s a favor to the Texas boys . . . ’til there’s need for ’em again.”
“Pay any good?” Wyatt asked.
As James began herding the women back to the front porch, Cairns turned and hitched his head for Wyatt to follow. “Two dollars a day,” the deputy said as he ambled toward the street. “Supply your own artillery. Ammunition, too. You work five minutes as a special, you get the full day’s pay.” Cairns grinned. “Hell, I gotta work the whole damn day to make that.” He shrugged. “Bonus on arrests. Every court fine you get on the books puts money in your pocket.” The deputy smiled with the hint of a sneer. “Best part’ll be watchin’ you crack some skulls.” He lost the smile and spat again. “I’m ’bout half-tired of coddling them damn Texas boys.” He raised his eyebrows to Wyatt. “So . . . want me to tell Smith ’bout you?”
Wyatt looked down Douglas Avenue. It was a town big enough to suggest a number of possibilities, but until he narrowed those down, he would need to earn some money. A job with the marshal’s office might give him both visibility and respectability in the community.
“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “Tell him.”
CHAPTER 2
Late spring, 1874: Wichita, Kansas
Two days after the first longhorns came in from Texas, Jimmy Cairns banged on Wyatt’s door at the Sedgwick House and told him to get dressed and down to the bridge. “Consider yourself a special deputy for the day,” Cairns said, turning to leave.
“What’s going on?” Wyatt said, stopping him in the hall.
“You hear ’bout that nigger manhandled two Texans yesterday for badgerin’ his wife? Well, they just shot him dead while he was carryin’ mud up a ladder for a bricklayer. Some of those boys held a gun on Marshal Smith while the shooters hoofed it across to Delano. Smith’s pullin’ together ever’ good man he can find. We’re meetin’ down at the bridge near your brother’s place.”
Wyatt dressed, checked the loads on his new revolver, and hurried to the livery to saddle the chestnut mare. As he rode up to the crowd at the river, he was surprised to see Cairns and the others on foot bunched at the end of the bridge.
“Where’re your horses?” Wyatt asked.
Cairns spat tobacco over the handrail and stepped away from the others. “Smith wants us to stand guard here,” he muttered, h
is tone full of embarrassment. He looked away and shook his head. “ ’Case the Texans make a run at us,” he added wryly and turned back to Wyatt to show his disgust for the plan.
Still sitting his horse, Wyatt scanned the crowd of armed men milling about on the road. “Where’s Smith?”
“Last time I saw him,” said a short, compactly built man carrying a carbine, “he was in his office writing up a report.” His voice hummed with sarcasm.
Wyatt checked Cairns for confirmation. “Sounds ’bout right,” the deputy said and spat again.
The shorter man approached Wyatt. “Earp? I’m John Behrens.” He pointed to a blue-black gelding tethered to the bridge post. “Looks like you and me are the only ones serious about a man gettin’ killed around here . . . nigger or not.”
Wyatt looked across the river. “Those boys got no reason to come back over here.”
“Hell, no,” Behrens huffed. “I think I’ll just go home and write me up a report or something.” He walked to his horse.
Jimmy Cairns chewed aggressively on his wad of tobacco and glared across the river. Wyatt stared across the quiet glide of the current a few moments, then wheeled his horse around and returned to his hotel.
Over the next few weeks the drovers took every opportunity to mock the police over their useless display at the bridge. Wyatt, glad not to be wearing a badge that would advertise him as one of the do-nothings, concentrated on taking the Texans’ money in the gambling halls. When he wasn’t sitting in on a poker game, he watched the faro dealer’s layout to learn the fine points of that game. With the use of a box to hold the cards hidden, there were new opportunities for a skilled player to turn the odds in his favor. No one was going to teach him these tricks, Wyatt knew. A man learned them on his own, or simply became a member of the fleeced flock.
On the day he went to pick up his two dollars for showing up at the bridge, Wyatt stepped into the marshal’s office and leaned against a wall while a short, bug-eyed man with heavily pomaded hair and a suit too warm for the afternoon lectured Marshal Billy Smith.
“It’s a seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar piano, Marshal. The second payment was due last month. I’ve gone down there three times and each time been turned back at gunpoint. Now I’m calling on you to either collect or foreclose. These papers are clear.”
Smith showed soft features, as if he had never pulled a day’s work that broke a sweat. His cheeks were rosy like a woman’s. Leaning back in his chair, he tried to look serious without losing the practiced smile that seemed a permanent feature of his face.
“Mr. Chandler, if Ida doesn’t have the money, all I can do is put her in jail. And as I’m not set up to accommodate a female, that would involve the added expense, puttin’ her up at the hotel, see? If she’s sitting in a hotel room, well . . . her business is going to slack off, and that won’t help your problem much.”
“Meanwhile my piano is sitting down there . . . unpaid for . . . and every time I go after it, one of the drunken patrons bangs on the keys with his pistol, while the rest threaten to kill me.”
Tilting his head to one side, Smith let his smile widen. “Aw, they’re just poking some fun at you, Mr. Chandler. We have to go a little easy on our visitors, you know.” Smith, now occupied with the button on one of his shirt cuffs, would not meet the collector’s eyes. Then he sat forward and began sorting through papers as though the interview had ended. “I’ll talk to Ida, and we’ll see if we can get some o’ that money for you before too long. Just tell the folks in Kansas City it’s early in the season. The city’s income is just starting to roll in.”
Welcoming a new order of business, Smith turned to Wyatt. “You’re Earp, I believe.”
Wyatt pushed away from the wall. “Come for my pay.”
Smith held the same pleasant expression he had just used with the collector, patient and self-satisfied, as though it was impossible to tell him something he did not already know. Smith leaned forward to extend his hand over the desk, and Wyatt took it.
“Billy Smith,” the marshal said melodically. There was a proper turn to his words that, with a trace of English accent, reminded Wyatt of Ben Thompson. His grip was weak and the hand itself soft as a child’s. Wyatt could find nothing of grit in the man. His eyes were like the open windows of an empty house, and the smile just part of the trim work.
The collector spun away with a peevish hiss of air and paced to the window. The marshal settled back into his chair and kept his eyes on a pencil that he tapped on the desk.
“I hear you didn’t stay any too long at the bridge,” he said through his fixed smile. “If you want to draw pay, you’re going to have to do more than just make an appearance.”
“Wasn’t any reason to wait on something that wasn’t going to happen,” Wyatt said.
Smith shook his head at the pencil. “ ’Fraid you got to do better than that.”
“I was prepared to. Cairns said we weren’t going into Delano. Your orders.”
Smith glanced at Wyatt, opened a drawer, and dropped in the pencil. “Can’t go starting a war with the Texans over a dead nigger.”
“And now you’re paying for it,” Wyatt said, allowing an edge to his voice.
Smith looked up again, then he sniffed as if he hadn’t heard the censure in Wyatt’s voice.
Wyatt nodded toward Chandler. “How ’bout we start turning that around right now, and I go get this man’s piano.”
The collector perked up and approached the desk. “Marshal, if I go back without either the payment or the piano, I can assure you the state attorney general will have to get involved.”
“We want to help you, Mr. Chandler; it’s the ways and the means by which we do it that we have to live with here.”
“I’ll be the means,” Wyatt said. “I’ll need four men for lifting.”
Smith stared out the window and pursed his lips. “I don’t have four men to give you.” He arched his eyebrows and smiled as if that were the end of the conversation.
“Then give me Cairns, and I’ll choose the others. Am I a special?”
Smith fingered his smooth chin. “These other men,” he said, “they’ll have to come out of your pay.” He studied Wyatt to see how this part of the verbal contract affected the proposal. Wyatt made no response. “And no gunplay,” Smith ordered.
“Give me a badge. I want it official.” Wyatt turned to Chandler. “You’re going to need a wagon.”
With his new Colt’s “peacemaker” stuffed into his waistband, Wyatt walked into Ida May’s brothel, followed by John Behrens, Jimmy Cairns, and two local men from the stockyards. Cairns and Behrens each carried a holstered revolver.
Five Texas cowmen sat at a table, their clothes rumpled but new. At the intrusion, they turned idly from their card game and watched the officers file into the room. Two others drank with a curly-haired woman on a long bench, no more impressed by the officers than a third man, who slept on the floor.
Wyatt crossed the room wordlessly, leaned his back into the bar, and hooked his right thumb in his waistband next to his revolver. At his nod, the four men he had brought with him walked over to the piano and squared off at the corners. One of the drovers, sensing the coming of trouble, called for Ida May, who flounced out of an adjoining room and stopped cold, frowning at the men gripping her piano.
“What in hell d’you think you’re doing?” she barked. Her outraged face turned quickly to a wagon that rattled to a stop outside the door. There the collecting agent sat next to a driver and, frowning, peered back at her.
“Ida,” Wyatt said, keeping his eyes on the men at the table. “Pay up now or the piano goes.”
She marched toward the piano but stopped when Wyatt stepped in her way. Standing stiffly, she stared into Wyatt’s eyes as her face reddened a shade beneath the powder caked on her cheeks.
“I paid two hundred and fifty dollars for that claptrap box of noise,” she yelled, her voice high-pitched and grating like the grind of unoiled machinery.
&
nbsp; “Yes,” Wyatt said, “and you were due to pay that again last month.” Without taking his eyes off Ida, he raised his voice. “Take it out, boys.”
The two yard-hands crouched but hesitated when Cairns and Behrens remained upright. With a hand on the butt of his holstered gun, John Behrens faced the Texans at the table, while Cairns turned to the two on the bench. Ida tried to maneuver around Wyatt, but he took her by the arm and swung her around.
“You interfere, Ida, I’ll have to arrest you.”
Her face turned savage now, and she tried to jerk free. “Get your fucking hand off me, you pious sonova—!”
Wyatt sat Ida on the bench. “I reckon these Texas boys here are the reason you got the piano in the first place.”
Ida looked at the customers clustered around the room. All the men in the card game held hard looks on their faces, their hands motionless on the tabletop.
Wyatt nodded toward the stalled poker game. “Probably got enough money right there on the table to pay for your music,” he said.
One rangy Texan opened his mouth to speak but said nothing.
“Were you about to offer to pay?” Wyatt said and stepped behind the man. “Take off your hat.”
As the surly Texan twisted around to glare at him, Wyatt knocked the hat off his head. It fell with a light chink as it tumbled a stack of coins on the table. The Texan tried to stand, but Wyatt kicked the chair into the back of his knees and pushed him back down.
“Pass the hat around till there’s two hundred and fifty in it,” Wyatt said. Every Texan’s face went to stone. When no one made a move to comply, Wyatt spoke in the same even voice. “Make it five hundred. I don’t want to have to come down here and go through this again.”
“Easy to push when you got a gun,” said the man holding his hat.
Wyatt stepped to the man’s side. “Like how you run the collection man outta here?” Wyatt, his eyes now hard with challenge, pulled the Colt’s from his waist and tossed it to Cairns, who almost dropped the gun, as surprised as he was.