Promised Land

by Mark Warren

  “We’ll make our money,” he said, “but not that way.”

  Bessie propped her chin in her hand and stared at the fire. Quietly, she grunted a final complaint, but she said no more.

  Virgil checked the burn of his cigar. “Well,” he began, trying to bring some warmth to the family discussion, “the federal marshal—Dake—I reckon he’ll have something for me before too long.”

  Bessie sat up straight again, but the harsh edge in her voice was gone. “That ain’t like you, and you know it, Virgil . . . waiting around for something to come to you.”

  Now Allie bristled. “Some things have got to be waited on, Bessie!”

  Bessie rolled her eyes, and then she looked from one face to the other, finally settling on Wyatt. “There’s a hellava lot of people here planning to live off a one-armed bartender.” She had spoken with a guarded sharpness and continued to hold her glare on Wyatt. “What are all those fancy-dancy people gonna think of that?”

  Wyatt wanted to walk outside just to breathe the desert air for a while without someone to argue everything he had to say. He laid a dry stick of ocotillo in the fire, and it caught immediately, the flames licking through the woven latticework of wood along its entire length. It burned through the holes like a row of candles, until it blackened like tar and collapsed in the flames.

  “Bessie,” James said, capping the whiskey bottle, “if you knew my brother better, you’d know it’s his own opinion of himself he knows to give a damn about.” James held a hard look on her, and finally she relaxed, tilting her face into her hands, wearily rubbing the heels of her palms into her eyes.

  “I’ll be bringing in some money,” Wyatt said. “I’ve got hold of a half-interest in a faro table at the Oriental. And I’ve got somethin’ else in the works.”

  Bessie took the bottle from James. “Well, do we get to know what that is?” She unscrewed the cap and then hesitated as she waited for an answer.

  Wyatt looked at his family, sorting the brothers from the wives, trying to understand why the women could not see the future that waited for them if they played their hands right.

  “We all got to pitch in,” Virgil said. “I figure the sewin’ is a good idea.”

  The room went quiet again, Virgil’s words hanging in the air like an invitation for absolution. Bessie turned a frowning face toward Virgil, but, before she could speak, Allie shooed the dog off her lap and stood.

  “Well, hang it all,” Allie huffed, “we didn’t haul that sewin’ machine out here for nothin’, now did we?” She moved behind Virgil and laid her small hands on his shoulders. The dog followed and sat, its ears perked up, its dark eyes dedicated to Virgil.

  Virge quietly laughed, reached to his shoulder, and patted the back of Allie’s hand. “Startin’ to sound like a family around here,” he said and winked at Wyatt.

  Mattie lay very still as Wyatt slipped into his side of their pallet. Their shared warmth had become a strained but practical commodity for the winter nights of the high desert. They listened to the distant laughter from saloons drift to them from the edge of town, the wind pushing the sounds their way like a flock of crazed birds cackling somewhere far out in the night.

  “Wyatt?” Mattie whispered. “What work is it you’re considering . . . besides the gambling?”

  Wyatt stared up at the spaced timbers in the ceiling. He knew where this conversation would go. Weary of argument, he considered turning on his side and saying “good night,” but then he thought it best to get this over with.

  “Wells, Fargo,” he said simply. When Mattie said nothing, he added, “They’ve offered me a job guarding their shipments.”

  Mattie’s head turned on the pillow. “That’s like your law jobs, Wyatt. You said you were done with that.”

  “It’s something I know how to do, Mattie. It’ll bring in some money.”

  She propped up on an elbow. “It’s like Bessie said to Virgil . . . you’re settling for something, Wyatt.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. “You can do better than that, Wyatt. Don’t settle.” When she backed away and was quiet again, he heard her swallow as if to bolster her courage. “Let me get a job, Wyatt. I can probably—”

  His head turned to her so quickly that the words locked in her throat. “I don’t want you going into town.”

  When she made no reply, he lay back and closed his eyes. The room was so quiet now that he could have been alone there in the darkness. Then he heard her head slowly settle back on the pillow. She lay very still for several heartbeats, and he knew that she was trying not to cry.

  “Why?” she asked quietly, the misery in her voice like a pin pricking his skin.

  Wyatt took a deep breath and eased it out. “Mattie, there’s people here who know you too well . . . from Kansas.”

  He expected her to ask more, but finally she turned her back to him, retreating into the place where she could feed her own suffering. Opening his eyes he stared at the low ceiling and tried to clear his mind of what she had said.

  Don’t settle.

  The words crept through his head like a worm burrowing into his memory. This night brought back to him a Mexican girl’s prophecy. Words spoken to him in a peach orchard in California. He could hear Valenzuela Cos’s beguiling voice as clearly as if she were here in the room with him.

  We all have wishes. But in the end we must settle for what we have.

  She had been talking about living in a house made of mud. And a moon that mimicked the color of that mud. The “adobe moon,” she had called it.

  Wyatt’s hand touched the floor and felt the rough texture of the woven straw mat. Each of the wives had purchased one from a Mexican peddler for the three bedrooms. Wyatt clasped his hands over his belly and frowned in the dark. This mat was the only thing separating him from the dirt. Truth be told, he was surrounded on all sides by mud. Staring into the dark, he tried to see past all this for a glimpse of salvation. Not just for him. For all his brothers. And their wives.

  This is temporary, Wyatt told himself.

  He closed his eyes again to concentrate on what was coming. One day he would look back on this beginning as a necessary inconvenience to get a foothold in this silver-rich country. In the quiet of the room, as he smelled the mix of dirt and straw of the crude abode, something scuttled across the floor near the stool where he had undressed. He reminded himself to check his boots for scorpions in the morning.

  You will settle for what you have, Valenzuela Cos had said. The adobe moon is a better one than no moon at all.

  Wyatt wondered if that damned moon was hanging up there now in the Arizona sky. “To hell with it,” he whispered to himself and turned on his side to make the mirror image with Mattie that had become their nightly habit.

  CHAPTER 3

  Spring, summer 1880: Tombstone, A.T.; McLaury Ranch, Babacomari River, Pima County

  When brother Morgan arrived from Montana with his quick humor and exaggerated tales of his law enforcement work in that country, the conjoined families could not help but climb a little out of the dark mood their clashing personalities had been brewing. The younger brother looked so much like Wyatt now that people no longer confused Virgil for Wyatt . . . only Morgan.

  In spring, when the brothers realized their first returns on the mining claims, James moved his family into a house on Fremont and bought out the small sampling room inside Vogan’s, which he now advertised as a cut above the average saloon. By doing so, he planned to serve a higher class of clientele in order to fulfill the Earps’ aspirations as men of respected standing in the village.

  Wyatt hired a carpenter named John Vermillion, an accomplished woodworker with a mane of dark hair flowing down his back to his shoulder blades. Under Vermillion’s supervision, the first of the Earp cottages was framed up. The improved spirits of Allie showed not so much in what she said as what she didn’t say. Only Mattie was unfazed by the new optimism. To her, this desert town was little more than a taunting sideshow outside the w
indow of her prison.

  Soon after they had moved into the new house, Wyatt came home from the Oriental in the pre-dawn hours and found Mattie sitting on the porch, wrapped in a light shawl, waiting. Her chin was tucked angrily into her chest as her fragile eyes looked off toward the distant lights on Fremont Street.

  Wyatt checked his pocket watch by the light of the stars and stepped up on the porch to stand before her. “It’s after four. What are you doin’ up?”

  Her dour face came up enough to nod toward the town. “I’m two blocks from the commercial district, but I might as well be in a mineshaft.” Her eyes rolled up in their pinched sockets to stare at him. “Wyatt, the most I see of you is the back of your head in the mornings. And if you’re on the Tucson route for Wells, Fargo, you’re gone for three days at a time. When you are here, you’re asleep. I tiptoe around, and I feel something winding up inside me.” A fierce glow hardened her eyes, and a bitter smile tightened her lips. “Is this what it’s like to go mad, Wyatt?” She asked this with a boldness that seemed unnatural to her fearful ways.

  “Mattie, this isn’t the time. There’re people asleep inside.”

  “Not the time?” She coughed up a rough laugh. “When is there time, Wyatt?”

  He took off his hat and tapped it against his leg, as he watched her stare scornfully into the night. “This is part of my work, Mattie. Gambling is what I do when I’m not a shotgun messenger. It’s what brings the money in.”

  The door opened, and Virgil stood there dressed in his black suit. “Wyatt?”

  When Wyatt did not respond, Mattie stood and pushed through the door past Virgil. Both brothers watched through the open doorway as she strode down the hall and disappeared into the bedroom. When the door of Wyatt’s bedroom closed with a sound of finality, Virgil stepped outside and eased the front door shut.

  Wyatt slapped his leg with the hat a little harder and looked up Fremont Street at the glow of light spreading above the saloon district. “I might start stayin’ in town with Morg . . . at least when I’m late coming in like this.”

  “With Morg?” Virgil laughed. “He’s already got Fred Dodge with him living in that little shack.” Virge stepped to the edge of the porch and allowed another chuckle. “Morg’s having the time of his life. Drinking, gambling, shooting pool.”

  Wyatt nodded. “He’s at the Oriental with me most every night . . . learnin’ to deal faro.”

  Virgil laughed again and sat in the chair where Mattie had been. “Hell, all Morg wants is to be like you.”

  Wyatt gave Virgil a look, and the older brother shrugged. They were quiet for a time, both looking up at the brilliant array of stars arched over the skies of southern Arizona. A warm breeze whipped up dust and rattled the dry, spiny leaves of the yucca in the yard.

  “I’m puttin’ together a federal posse,” Virgil said. “Some mules got stole from Camp Rucker. I could use you.”

  Wyatt’s eyes sharpened, and Virgil went on.

  “I’ll go down and see can I find the Wells, Fargo man, Williams. He usually gambles down at the Alhambra. He might come along. And Morg, too. We’ll pull out at dawn.”

  “Is that gonna be enough men?”

  Virgil tilted his head to one side. “We’ll have a lieutenant and a few soldiers, but it’s you boys I’ll be countin’ on.” They were quiet again—one of those moments when the bond of being brothers tightened around them. Wyatt walked to the door, opened it, and looked into the house. It was all dark save the faint strip of flickering light showing through the crack under his bedroom door.

  “I’ll try’n get a coupl’a hours of sleep,” he said, his voice flat, lifeless. “I’ll be ready at dawn.”

  Virgil stood and held the door for his brother. Chuckling deep in his chest, he growled to Wyatt’s back.

  “Good luck.”

  Mattie had lighted a candle. In the semi-dark of the room she sat on the edge of the bed and faced the wall, her spine slumped and her face pressed into the palms of her hands. She didn’t turn when Wyatt closed the door . . . nor when he crossed the room to the clothes cabinet. After he hung up his coat, he moved to the bed and sat to pull off his boots. He paired them on the wood floor and then remained sitting in the quiet. For a time they sat like this, back to back, unmoving, their silence like a screaming match.

  Finally, Mattie straightened. When she spoke, her small voice came off the wall like a sound from another room.

  “I’m not married to you, Wyatt. I’m married to this little cigar box of a house . . . or whatever other place we happen to be living in.”

  Wyatt stood, laid out his money on the new bureau, and weighted it down with his revolver. He paused for a moment, leaned on stiffened arms against the bureau, and turned his head to look at Mattie’s despair. Taking in a deep breath, Wyatt eased the air out and pushed himself away from the furniture. Then he walked to the open window and put his back to the glass panes to stand in front of her.

  “Mattie,” he said as gently as he could, “we ain’t married at all.”

  She looked up from her cupped hands, her eyes raw and red and now hurt. Surprising him, she laughed.

  “Well, whose shirts have I been cleaning and starching and ironing for God knows how long?”

  He had started unbuttoning his shirt, but now he stopped and allowed a frown to show on his face. On the floor next to her were two empty bottles.

  “You’ve been drinking.”

  “Yes,” she hissed. “I’ve been drinking. Is that all right with you?”

  He sat down on the bed next to her. She had tied back the curtain to let in some air. Catty-cornered across the road he could see the silhouette of the other Earp house being framed up.

  “There’s no baby, is there, Mattie?”

  He thought she was practicing her cynical laugh again until he heard the sniffs that broke between the jolts in her body. She fell sideways onto the pillow and began to cry without restraint.

  “Can’t you even take me out to dinner?” she said, her voice mewling like a cat’s.

  The dark shapes in the scrub outside were indistinguishable. When Wyatt closed his eyes, his thoughts fared no better, his mind as barren as the land. No words came to him.

  “Do you love me, Wyatt? I mean . . . in any way at all?”

  The silence that followed seemed to stretch all the way to the Dragoons. In the quiet he chose his words carefully.

  “I care enough about you to provide for you. I brought you here, didn’t I?”

  “Wyatt,” she breathed heavily, as though he had no idea what he had said. She rose up on an elbow. “What’s ‘here’? Look at this house.” She turned to examine the room as though she would see it for him. “This is my world, Wyatt.” She flung an arm outward toward town. “That’s your world out there . . . Tombstone . . . the whole territory of Arizona.”

  “I’m just trying to get ahead, Mattie. I figure if I benefit by it, so do you.”

  She stared blindly out the window and pushed a hand through her tangled hair. Her lack of response seemed more lethargy than acquiescence.

  “When the time is right,” he said, “I’m thinking on running for office.”

  Still propped on an elbow, she pivoted her head to him. “And so you have to hide me?”

  “Mattie, you were a whore. That ain’t gonna help me get votes.”

  She sat up and used a voice he had never heard from her. “It used to help you. Why aren’t you the whore? What’s the difference who’s paying or who’s getting paid?”

  His face closed down on her questions. “Mattie, there was never any exchange of—”

  “It doesn’t matter, Wyatt!” she interrupted. “You’ve been with whores. It’s the same thing.” She raised her chin toward the door. “When you go run for your office, why don’t you tell everybody that you were a whore? It’s not fair.”

  He looked out at the blackness of the desert and thought about all the whorehouses he had frequented. He had never considered his part in
whoring the same as the woman’s. Maybe it was. And maybe it wasn’t fair. But it was the way it was. He had a hold of something in Tombstone, and he wasn’t letting go. He could feel it starting to gather like a force that would deliver him from every failed aspiration of his past. If he could get elected to the sheriff’s office, he would have everything he had struggled for: money, standing in the community, and the respect of any man, be that man a preacher, a businessman, or an outlaw. For all that, he could tolerate a life in the desert . . . for a time, anyway.

  “Mattie, do you want to leave?” he said quietly. “I can give you money.”

  Her mouth tightened into a quivering seam. “Can’t you just love me?”

  Wyatt saw the glow first appear on the new leaves of the tall cottonwood in the vacant lot. The light gathered upon itself, pushing the dark out of the sky, leaving a hazy nimbus on the horizon. Finally, the sharp edge of the sickle moon pierced through the stark black foliage of the tree. It was like a curved blade of heated metal. Rising, the moon assembled into its double-pointed crescent, blood-tinted, like the tail feathers of a red hawk when it sailed across the sun.

  He turned to Mattie, to explain to her that he and his brothers had sunk everything into the silver buried in this land. No matter how the money might come—whether by uncovering a rich ore or by dealing over a faro layout or taking a sheriff’s share of collected taxes—Wyatt knew it was his time. He’d been prying at this door for too long. Here in Tombstone a thin possibility could turn into a fortune overnight.

  But he said nothing. Mattie had buried her face into her pillow and begun to sob. Her ghostly fists gripped the sheets with a fierceness that told him there would be no more words this night.

  He stood, walked to the bureau, and checked his watch again. With only a few hours left before he would ride out, he stripped off the rest of his clothes. Mattie’s crying had stopped by the time he climbed into the bed. Her whiskey-scented breath had already taken on the long steady rhythm of a deep sleep. Shutting himself out from every complaint she had registered, he closed his eyes. He would be no good to Virgil if he didn’t get some rest.