by Mark Warren
The room was noisy, and the smell of whiskey and cigar smoke hung in the air like a thick fog. Jaunty music from a two-man band on piano and banjo could barely be heard over the storm of male voices. The last of the Texas drovers stood two deep at the bar, each man jawing away at some story that he told or retold for whoever would listen. Every man was dressed in the bright colors of new purchases at the local stores, giving the saloon a festive appearance. Wyatt’s black coat and white shirt set him apart from everyone else in the front room.
Weaving through the tables to the back room, where the gamblers and the soiled doves plied their respective professions, Wyatt was acutely aware of his lack of a gun and a badge. There were men in the room whose skulls he had cracked just a season past. He walked toward Mattie in the back of the room, where she sat motionless on a bench, her back against the wall. Looking straight ahead, she seemed to be in a trance as a broad-chested man with freckles groped her breasts. Then the man’s black, curly hair lowered beneath her chin and remained there—like a dog eating his meal. Mattie closed her eyes, and the skin around her temples tightened to a fan of creases.
Wyatt stood near the faro table, listening to the dealer take bets. The subtle sounds of the game provided a satisfying rhythm to his ear: the click of chips, the flip of cards from the box, the announcement of a winner by the dealer, and the groans of the losers. The game was routine, the house winning most of the time, but the patrons continued to lay down chips on the pasteboard, banking on the change of luck that every man felt was his due after a steady run of losses.
Wyatt quickened his pace when the dark-haired Texan jerked Mattie from the bench and led her through the crowd toward the cribs in back. It was bad timing, he knew, but his momentum was set. He moved to the back curtain ahead of them and waited for her. The man with her was laughing and paid Wyatt no heed, but Mattie’s dulled eyes found him, her brow squeezing down like cracked porcelain and her shoulders slumping as though she were surrendering her last hold on a shred of dignity. When she stopped walking, the drunken Texan lost his grip and stumbled through the curtain alone.
“I’d like to talk to you, Mattie,” Wyatt said quietly.
The Texan emerged from the curtain with an impish grin aimed at Mattie. When she would not look at him, he spun to see what had her attention. A big smile spread across his face.
“She’s all paid for, preacher! Services to be rendered soon as I can unbutton my britches.”
Wyatt would not look the man in the face, but in his peripheral vision he could see the freckles on the Texan’s cheeks coalesce darkly against the white flash of his teeth.
“You ain’t gotta do this, Mattie,” Wyatt said, his voice a low hum in the din of the room.
Her eyelids drooped, hooding her eyes. “Maybe I do,” she said. Her voice lacked any melody or timing, as though she were reading words off the floor.
“You’re damned right she do. Come on, Sally.” The man grabbed her arm and jerked but came to a halt when Wyatt gripped his wrist. The Texan’s eyes brightened with a sudden fury, and he stuck his face into Wyatt’s. “Get your fuckin’ hand off me, you sonovabitch!” Along with the whiskey breath came warm specks of saliva that sprinkled Wyatt’s face like cinders. With a violent recoil the drunken cowboy jerked free, lost his balance for a step, and recovered.
“We need to talk, Mattie,” Wyatt said. “Give his money back and come outside with me.”
The Texan stepped forward until his chest swelled against Wyatt’s side. “Listen, pimp! I ain’t payin’ another goddamn cent, and she ain’t backin’ out. Look at me, goddamn you!”
For the first time, Wyatt turned his attention to the Texan. The man’s eyes were livid, and his breathing came in ragged hisses through his teeth.
“She’s done whorin’,” Wyatt said, keeping his voice low but clear. “Find another woman.” He turned back to Mattie. “I inquired about a job for you at the millinery on the north side. Legitimate. You’d be working as a seamstress.”
“The hell you say, Mar-shal Earp!” The woman’s voice came from behind him, putting Wyatt in an awkward position between two adversaries. The curly-haired man glared at Wyatt and reached blindly to grab Mattie’s dress by the low-cut front, tugging her forward. In the same moment fingernails raked down the back of Wyatt’s neck, and his shirt collar snapped against his throat.
Spinning, Wyatt swiped at the offending arm and found himself facing Frankie Bell. Big and muscular and reeking of a cloying perfume, she glared at him, her teeth bared and her eyes—the most feminine part of her—white hot with indignation. Nearby patrons turned to watch the confrontation, and the back of the room went quiet, becoming an unexpected and impromptu stage.
“Keep your self-righteous prick away from my girls, ’less you goddamned pay for it like ever’body else.”
Wyatt’s face flushed. The music continued from the front of the room, but the whoring area in back remained painfully quiet.
“Mattie,” Wyatt ordered quietly, “throw down the man’s money and walk outside with me.”
Frankie Bell propped her fists on her ample hips and burst out laughing. “Mattie!” she roared. “Who the hell is ‘Mattie’?”
As Wyatt waited for her answer, Mattie crumpled to the floor, weeping soundlessly. The freckled drover pulled at her to get her on her feet, but she remained crumpled and helpless. Frankie Bell clawed at Wyatt’s shoulder to spin him.
“Don’t you turn away from me when I’m talking to you! If you can’t handle things at home, you can—”
Wyatt slapped Frankie across the face, and the heavy-set madam stumbled backward, almost falling. He let the motion spin him around to face the Texan, who stiffened in a wary crouch. Now the music stopped, and the patrons in the front of the saloon shuffled closer to see the conflict.
“Hold on!”
The big booming voice filled the saloon with the desired effect to freeze every man present. Bat Masterson shouldered through the crowd and stepped between Wyatt and Frankie Bell. With his right hand resting on the butt of his holstered Colt’s, Bat faced the freckled Texan and extended his left arm to point at him.
“Step back, Curly Bill!” Bat ordered, the blue of his eyes gone ice cold.
Masterson’s expression and the badge on his shirt provided a palpable weight that eased the tension in the room. The man named “Curly Bill” straightened from his fighting stance, but Frankie Bell tried to shoulder around Bat to get at Wyatt.
“Back off, Frankie,” Bat warned over his shoulder. “You’re all right. Just got a little pat on the cheek, so just you settle down.” Bat turned to Wyatt, and in a lower voice he said, “Easy now, Wyatt.”
“I want this sonovabitch arrested,” Frankie Bell snarled. She bulled her way around Masterson to thrust a painted fingertip at Wyatt’s face. “Everybody here saw this sonovabitch hit me.”
When Bat continued to block her way, Frankie swung her fist against the undersheriff’s arm to get his attention. Bat slowly turned to fully face her, and his eyes went as flat as two dull coins.
“Unless you want to get slapped a bit more, you’d best keep your hands to yourself.”
She heaved all her weight against him, but Bat didn’t give an inch. In the same motion he drew his pistol and wrapped her up in a bear hug, his walking cane still gripped in his hand.
“Wyatt,” Bat said, “you and me and Frankie are going over to the jail.” Bat looked pointedly at the man named Curly Bill. “The rest of you, settle down, and go about your business. Drink the place dry, and use up the women. Let’s just don’t all kill each other, all right?”
Some of the customers chuckled, and conversations began to pile up one upon the other. Bat raised his chin to the musicians, and the festivities recommenced with a lively melody.
Wyatt knelt to Mattie and started to whisper to her, but she surprised him with a hoarse scream that tore from her throat. It was like the baying of a wounded animal.
“You can’t just leave for eight months and exp
ect to come back to a wife!” The music stopped again, and every voice quieted, rendering a silence more fragile than before. In this damning quiet, Mattie glared at Wyatt through a thick lens of tears.
Slowly, Wyatt stood. He didn’t need to look at anyone in the room to know that everyone was watching him. Curly Bill smiled, cocked his head, and let his head bounce once with a private laugh.
“Well, hell, preacher,” he said and froze midway through an expansive shrug. “I didn’t know she was your wife.” He turned at the waist to grin at the men behind him, as though he had finally found some measure of humor in the situation. When he turned back to Wyatt, he squinted with a pretense of curiosity. “Say, preacher . . . if she is your wife . . . then what in hell is she doin’ in—”
The ice in Wyatt’s eyes cut off the man’s words. “This ain’t between you and me,” he said in a low raspy voice that only the ones up front could hear. “But you could get it there real quick.”
This time when Curly Bill laughed, there was a hollow ring to it. Wyatt turned and made his way for the front door, the crowd parting for him as he crossed the saloon floor. When the music started up again, he felt it play to his back, mocking him like a chorus of crows badgering a hawk.
He spent a night in the city jail and paid a one-dollar fine to Frankie Bell’s twenty. The next morning he started for Texas with no grander goal in mind than to be moving . . . anywhere. If he didn’t see Kansas again . . . or Mattie . . . it was reason enough to call it a fresh start at something.
CHAPTER 16
Fall and winter 1877–1878: Ft. Griffin, Texas
The land lay flat as a skillet, the distance from horizon to horizon giving Texas a sense of unending space. The blue canvas of the winter sky dominated the colorless monotony of the southern plains, but even the sky was forfeit to the harshness of the unyielding sun. It had swung toward its southerly winter arc, and Wyatt rode into its glare in a grueling face-off. After sweating through the day, he wrapped up against the unforgiving cold of the prairie night and then the next morning repeated the cycle again.
On a cold afternoon after the New Year he rode into Fort Griffin. The civilian encampment that had spread from the adobe-built military post was now expanding into rows of wooden buildings, laid out in the formal grid of a proper town. Every other construction was a saloon, and, judging by its lighted interior and swell of music, the moneymaker was The Cattle Exchange.
Wyatt stabled his horse, secured a room, and ate a steak dinner before wandering into the Exchange. The main room, lavishly furnished, rivaled any of the plush watering holes of Dodge. A long cherrywood bar stood before matching cupboards of shelves filled with gleaming glassware. The smells and sounds of the establishment were reminiscent of the peak of the cattle season in Kansas, the difference being that here the ranch hands looked more at home in their everyday work clothes rather than the fanciful array of gaudy colors purchased at the end of a cattle drive.
Working his way through the crowd, Wyatt heard a heartfelt tenor laugh that jostled his memory. Behind the bar stood John Shanssey, the Irish boxer who had trained Wyatt in the art of fisticuffs in the Wyoming rail camps. Capping a bottle Shanssey held court with a trio of smiling customers, who drank up his story along with his liquor.
Hat in hand, Wyatt approached the bar, where he waited for the Irishman to serve him. Shanssey broke from his conversation and, with a few words of perfunctory introduction, set down a clean shot glass before Wyatt. Then when his eyes fixed on Wyatt, Shanssey’s big square face lit up like a lantern.
“Saints above,” he purred in what remained of his native brogue. “Wyatt Earp.” Shanssey thrust a big open hand across the bar. The retired boxer’s grip recalled the intense workouts the two had shared in their days with the railroad. Whatever Shanssey might have lost in fighting skills, he was still every bit the friendly gentleman he had been a decade past. He appeared genuinely delighted to see his former protégé.
“John,” Wyatt said. “Good to see you.” Wyatt glanced at the inventory of bottles lined up on the shelves. Never had he seen such an array of brands. “You the owner here?”
Shanssey leaned forward and stacked his meaty forearms on the bar. “That I am, Wyatt,” he said, pushing a grin to one side of his face, his eyes sparkling with pride. Sliding the glass aside, Shanssey laced his thick fingers together.
Wyatt nodded toward the crowded room. “How is it, running a saloon business?”
Shanssey dipped his head to one side. “Profitable. It keeps me a bit busier than I might want to be, keeping up the inventory, and keeping a lid on these Texas boys. But hell’s bells, Wyatt, drinking and gambling are as constant as the prairie wind. Always will be, I suppose.” He pushed his wide chin toward Wyatt. “I’ve heard your name a time or two.” He lifted both eyebrows and inhaled deeply. “Can’t say it was flattering to you, boyo, not coming from these Texas cow hands. Working with the law up in Kansas now, are you?”
Wyatt shook his head and leaned in closer. “Workin’ for the A.T. and S.F. Railroad. I’m looking for some men who held up one of their express cars a few months back. Who might I talk to about that?”
Shanssey pursed his lips and surveyed the room. “Well . . . I don’t know how much talk you’ll get out of them, but there’s some boys from over at the Clear Fork of the Brazos. They drink here most every Saturday night.” He pointed across the room. “Set up a game right there. If there’s anybody up to no good in north Texas, they’ll likely know about it.”
Wyatt eyed the back tables. “Poker or faro?”
Shanssey waggled his head. “Poker for the most part. Faro is popular with some, but to most of these Texans, it’s a Yankee conspiracy.”
Wyatt turned back to the bar. “Might be a good idea to forget my name for a while, John.”
Shanssey gave Wyatt a hard look. “Done.” Then he fixed his attention over Wyatt’s left shoulder at the back corner of the room. “Now that one there . . . the thin dandy with the washed-out face . . . he seems to get along with those Clear Fork boys. Plays with them pretty regularly, I’d say.”
Wyatt looked into the long mirror above the cupboard. At a table of four, the sallow man was easy to pick out—lean and dapper in a gray suit with black trim, his back to the wall as he considered his hand of cards. When the man’s head came up, Wyatt saw a mix of desperation and spite in his eyes, the same conflict of emotions he had discerned in whores he had known who were worn out from their profession.
“He’s an odd one,” Shanssey mumbled, “a Southerner . . . name of ‘Holliday.’ ” The Irishman poured water from a carafe into the shot glass and slid it toward Wyatt. “He’ll treat you like a brother one minute and then threaten to cut your tongue out in the next. And he probably knows how to do it. They say he’s a doctor.”
Shanssey pivoted his head to acknowledge two customers at the other end of the bar. When he turned back to Wyatt, the barman straightened and lightly slapped the polished counter-top with his big hands.
“Anything else, sir?”
When Wyatt shook his head, Shanssey winked and pushed away to walk the length of the bar and take new orders. Wyatt sipped from the glass and observed Holliday for a time in the mirror’s reflection.
The pallid gambler’s delicate appearance seemed a veneer, Wyatt thought. Like a thin rime of ice apt to melt from a fire within. The men sitting in on Holliday’s game appeared cautious and uneasy; their quietness seeming to create a palpable tension at the table. Wyatt set down the glass, left a coin on the bar, and walked out of the saloon. He would talk to this Holliday, he knew, but the timing was not right just now.
On the evening of the following day he joined three men in the only game in progress in the Exchange. Shanssey had glanced his way upon his entering but offered no gesture of recognition. For an hour, Wyatt placed unremarkable bets and won enough hands to stay in the game. He offered nothing about himself other than his intent to play poker, and—as was the tacit protocol of the frontie
r—no one inquired about his name, his past, where he’d come from, or his destination.
At ten o’clock Holliday strolled in, sporting a bone-handled cane in one hand and a small, rouged-up woman on his other arm. On this night, he wore a fawn-brown suit and vest and a crimson cravat neatly folded into his white blouse. The woman flaunted a plum-colored gown worthy of a stage show.
“Fifty dollars,” Wyatt said, loud enough to be heard by the new arrivals. Holliday stopped and leaned both hands on the cane to watch the action. Wyatt lighted a cigar and waited as the men seated at his table stared warily at the proffered bet. When Wyatt’s gaze came up again to Holliday, he recognized the woman staring a hole through him—the Hungarian whore from James’s brothel in Wichita. The hellcat. Kate.
“Too rich for my blood,” said the man to Wyatt’s left. He tossed his cards into the dead-wood and picked up his hat off the floor. “I’m done.” Two others folded their hands but remained in the game, leaving one to meet Wyatt’s raise. When Wyatt lost the hand, Holliday tipped his hat and made a small bow to the table at large.
“May I round out your table, gentlemen?” Holliday offered, his voice purring with a courtly Southern lilt. His smile was a decidedly comfortable smirk. When his woman slunk off to the bar, he tapped his way to the vacated seat and settled in. By appearance alone, his presence added a sense of formality to the game. His movements seemed fluid and practiced, like an actor on a stage. His hands appeared as soft as a woman’s. Only his eyes told the truth, and those eyes seemed to say: Tread lightly; nothing is what it seems.
Holliday proved to be a man of contradictions—displaying in equal measures a calculated aloofness and a personable charm that often overstepped the boundaries of familiarity when it snapped to vicious insult. Then, just as quickly, he might voice a self-deprecating assessment of his own foibles with the cards. His drawl was educated, but he took every opportunity to curse. Passing this man on the street, Wyatt might have thought him a refined traveler who had stepped off a train at the wrong destination, but, to hear him speak so carelessly with strangers, Holliday was, by Wyatt’s estimation, trouble in the making.