by Mark Warren
“Better go with him, Mac,” Wyatt said to McMaster. “Tipton, too.”
Wyatt started down the hall. Inside his room, he undressed and slipped into the bed beside Mattie’s lifeless shape, but he didn’t sleep. For almost an hour he listened to rain tap on the window and thought about the message he had received from Goodrich. Quickly, he threw back the covers, got up, and dressed for the weather. Within minutes he closed the door on Mattie’s soft snore and left the hotel.
When the play let out, Wyatt was standing under the awning of the post office, watching the crowd spill out into the rainstorm. Thunder rumbled across the sky, and men ran for carriages while the women clustered under umbrellas near the brightly lighted door. As Morgan, Doc, and McMaster crossed the intersection, Wyatt stepped out into the rain and met them in the street.
“You should’a come,” Morgan yelled over the rain spattering the ground. “Even better the second time around.”
Taking his brother’s elbow, Wyatt said, “Let’s get back to the hotel.”
Morg pulled his arm free and laughed. “Are you motherhennin’ me?”
Doc coughed into his fist. “Can we have this conversation under a roof somewhere—preferably one with a liquor license?”
“Got a billiards match over at Hatch’s,” Morgan announced. “Tip is already over there warming up the table. Come on down with me, Wyatt, and watch me take Bob Hatch’s money. Just one game.”
Holliday touched the brim of his hat, and a string of water dribbled before his face. “I’ll leave you gentlemen to your game then, as I have one of my own lined up at the Alhambra.”
At Hatch’s parlor, several men had gathered to watch the match. Dan Tipton took up a post just inside the front door. McMaster stood beside the entrance to the card room.
“Come on into the lion’s den, Morg,” Bob Hatch said, raising a steaming mug of coffee. “I hope you’re soakin’ wet, ’cause I’m all warmed up and ready to crack your balls.”
Morgan winced and clutched his privates. Wyatt hung his wet slicker on a rack by the door and took a chair against the wall near the billiards table. He lighted a cigar and tilted the chair back on its rear legs. The room quieted as Hatch lined up to make the break.
The precision click of the balls was rhythmic and musical. The players’ concentration seemed magnified by the muted patter of rain on the roof. Wyatt liked watching his brother’s face transcend under the rigors of the game. It was the same expression he used when sighting over a gun or pointing out a track in the dirt. For Wyatt, it was a brief glimpse into a mirror. Then, as suddenly as Morgan had been gripped by his inner discipline, he broke the spell by smiling and moving to a new position around the table. It was a dance. Morg loved this game.
As Hatch leaned in for a shot, the rear door exploded in a shower of glass and wood splinters. Another shot followed immediately, and a board cracked above Wyatt’s head. Morgan pitched forward onto the floor, and Wyatt rolled out of the chair to crouch over his brother, his gun trained on the back of the parlor. Tipton and McMaster broke open the shattered door and charged outside into the storm, hatless and with pistols cocked. A gust of wind invaded the room, and the sound of the rain droned and rattled in the back alley. At the front of the table a bystander cried out and hobbled backward to a chair, where he clutched his bleeding leg.
Wyatt could only look at Morgan, just healed from the goring wound of October . . . and now ruined again. “Help me get him in the other room,” Wyatt called to Hatch.
When they tried to get him on his feet, Morg cried out with a voice that twisted Wyatt’s gut into a knot. It was a wretched and desperate sound Wyatt hardly recognized as his brother’s, and it was this ungodly shriek, even more than the blood painting Morg’s blouse, that announced the severity of the wound. Immediately he and Hatch lowered him back to the floor.
“Don’t stand me up!” Morgan gasped. “I can’t take it.” His face was drained of all color.
Four men carried him horizontally into the card room and lowered him to the sofa, each man hardening himself against the grimace on Morgan’s face. Wyatt dropped to one knee and gripped his brother’s hand as Morg struggled to swallow between labored breaths. McMaster came into the room, his hair plastered to his skull, clothes soaked and heavy. When Wyatt looked at him, the former Cow-boy shook his head and holstered his gun. Taking in Morgan’s bloodied body, Mac’s eyes went dead with the unspoken severity of the wound.
“Hurts like hell,” Morgan whispered, his words squeezed from his chest. “Someone set my legs out straight.”
Everyone was quiet as Wyatt’s voice emerged, hollow and helpless. “They are straight, Morg.”
Thirty minutes later, when Doc Goodfellow gave up on his horrific probing with a forceps, he eased Morgan’s drugged body back to the sofa. Turning to Wyatt, he said nothing. His grim expression was sufficient to deliver the news. Two other doctors arrived, stamping the rain from their shoes, but after seeing the copious blood and the expression on Goodfellow’s face, they gathered around the man who had taken a bullet in the leg.
Looking up into the ceiling, Morgan wet his lips. “Wyatt,” he breathed, “looks like Lou was right. I should’a gone with her.”
When Wyatt said nothing, Morg raised his chin slightly and tried to form another word, the movement costing him a bolt of pain that seemed to run the length of him. With a fierce grip on Wyatt’s hand he shut his eyes as his face contorted in a garish show of teeth.
Wyatt leaned close to listen, and Morgan’s warm breath—when he spoke again—moved across Wyatt’s face like death itself. “Find the ones did this,” Morg whispered. “And kill ’em.” And then, unaccountably, Morgan seemed to relax. His voice became steady. “They can’t touch you, Wyatt. They’re empty inside . . . hollow . . . without a soul. They ain’t got what you got.” Morg’s grip tightened as he tried to pull himself closer. “Kill ’em and then get out, Wyatt. Get away from this goddamn place.”
Wyatt waited to hear more, but Morgan lowered himself back to the sofa. When he seemed settled, his breathing scraped in and then out, the sound wet and clotted. Morg swallowed with an effort, and then his breath eased out as gently as a child in sleep. His hand went limp.
Dr. Goodfellow leaned in close to Morg and then looked at Wyatt. “He’s gone,” he whispered. He held his gaze on the side of Wyatt’s face, but Wyatt said nothing. Wyatt could only stare at the peaceful expression on his dead brother’s face. The doctor stood and began wiping his hands on a clean white towel he unfolded from his bag. By the time he had finished, the towel appeared more red than white.
Picking up his bag, Goodfellow hesitated. “I’m sorry, Wyatt.” When Wyatt still did not respond, Goodfellow hitched his medical bag under his arm and pointed into the billiards room. “I’ll just go see about this other man, Wyatt . . . see if the other doctors need my help.”
After a few seconds Wyatt nodded once, but he could not take his attention from Morgan. Goodfellow moved away to the next room, stepping quietly like a man leaving early from a church service.
The rain drummed the roof. The other men in the room were motionless and seemingly uncertain, as though waiting for something they knew could never arrive. The quiet in the entire saloon was absolute but for the rain and the low voice of the doctors as they administered to the leg wound of their patient. When Wyatt walked out of the card room and into the billiards parlor, every eye fixed on him, but he crossed the room without speaking to anyone.
At the front window he watched a gutter spout water into the slick mire of Allen Street. Watching the rain, he felt the ethic of his career as a lawman begin to wash away—vague images of right and wrong . . . useless definitions of the law. There was no law in this territory. Not with night-stalkers who shot men in the back. And smirking confederates who lied against God on the witness stand in a courtroom.
Quietly, under his breath, he spoke the names of every man for whom he held a warrant, and some he did not, certain the men who had
killed Morgan were on that list. When he had locked those names in memory, he heard the judge’s voice clearly in his head, putting the final terms on the contract that he was now brokering: Leave your prisoners out in the brush, Wyatt. Let the coyotes deliberate over them.
CHAPTER 19
March 19–20, 1882: Contention and Tucson train depots; back to Tombstone
Under the guard of six gunmen on horseback, Wyatt and James transported Morgan’s casket by wagon to the nearest train depot at Contention. From there James would accompany the corpse to Tucson to connect with the train to California, where Morgan’s wife would join the elder Earps in burying their son. Returning to Tombstone, Wyatt readied Virgil and Allie for the same trip on the day following, as Bessie had agreed to stay behind to help prepare Mattie for a later journey.
In late afternoon when Wyatt returned to his room at the hotel, he found McMaster and Tipton standing in the hallway, one on each side of Virgil’s door. The three men nodded to one another. Then McMaster shook his head at Wyatt’s unasked question.
“No trouble,” Mac said. But he glanced tentatively down the hall, where Bessie stood at the south window, a bottle of whiskey clutched in one hand as she stared out the glass at the town. “ ’Cept maybe—” It was all McMaster was willing to say.
When Bessie turned and saw Wyatt, she tried to smile, but her mouth curled with a scowl. Glancing at the door to Wyatt’s room, she just shook her head and then pivoted back to the window. Unscrewing the bottle cap, she took a swig and said something into the glass he could not make out.
When Wyatt entered the room he found the shades drawn and Mattie lying in bed with her curled back to the door. He walked around the bed and found her staring at the wall, her unkempt hair pinned up on her head in a failed attempt at propriety. Wyatt knew this had been Bessie’s effort. Two brown glass bottles sat on the bed table, one empty, the other half full. When he spoke her name, Mattie still did not move. Wyatt opened the window shade and stood staring out over the roofs of the business district.
“You don’t have to pretend, Wyatt,” Mattie said in her lifeless monotone. “I know you won’t come for me once you ship me off to California.” Her words ran together in the fog of her drug-induced lethargy.
He turned and waited for her to look at him, but she was as settled as a corpse. “Won’t do you any good to stay in Arizona, Mattie. There’s nothing here for you. You need to start new somewhere and get your feet underneath you.”
Her attempt to laugh was little more than a stir of air through her nostrils. “So I’m supposed to go off to the Earps.” She turned her head enough to show him the bitterness in her smile. “Will they teach me to be strong like you, Wyatt?”
When he reached and picked up one of the brown bottles, he watched her eyes go desperate. “Lou will be there, Mattie.”
“Is that where life is waiting for me, Wyatt? I get to start over there among all those Earps?”
Wyatt raised the bottle between them. “This is no kind of life, Mattie.”
She sat up and snatched the bottle from him, the speed of her reaction surprising him. “It’s the life I got!” she spat and twisted around, trying to turn her back to him. But she only surrendered to gravity as she returned to her recumbent position.
Wyatt watched her body sag into a listless heap, and he did his best to dredge up a final measure of pity. “You can find something better, Mattie, but you’ll have to want it. Nobody can do it for you.”
Clutching the bottle, she glared at the wall as though she could see right through it to condemn all of Arizona to the violent death it deserved. With nothing more to say, she uncorked the laudanum, took a draw, and lay back in the sheets with the open bottle still in her hand. By the time her eyes closed, Wyatt felt as though he were the only one in the room.
At the Contention station, as Warren stayed with Virgil and Allie in the passenger car, Doc Holliday, McMaster, and Creek Johnson climbed onto the loading platform and spread out along the depot. Wyatt walked to the telegraph office to wire Bob Paul and there found a telegram waiting for him. When he returned, his party gathered to hear him read directly from the paper.
“Ike Clanton and Stilwell are at the Tucson depot watching the loading and unloading of trains.”
When he looked up at his three companions, he watched each man’s mood transform. Every one of them had been a friend to Morgan. But now whatever grief they had carried internally was supplanted by purpose and deliberation.
“We’re going on to Tucson with Virge,” Wyatt instructed. “Once he gets away from there, won’t be any more stops until Yuma.”
The engine built steam, and the whistle sounded, followed by the conductor’s call to board. “When we pull in there,” Wyatt warned, “keep your eyes open.” The line of cars began its slow, labored turn of wheels on the iron rails. “And when we get off there, I want all of us to stick close to Virgil.”
Without a word, the four gunmen stepped up onto the moving train. Wyatt was last to board. Standing alone on the coupling platform, he watched the distance grow between the small depot and himself. If he had been a praying man, he would have asked God to keep Clanton and Stilwell in Tucson until he could get there. Instead, he hardened himself to the task before him, believing those cowards would wait for him only because he willed it so.
When the train pulled into the Tucson train yard, darkness had begun to settle in over the complex of buildings and the sprawl of side tracks. Lights spilled out from the depot windows, and new gaslights provided a scattering of halos along the sidewalks and around the establishments beyond the terminal. With shotgun in hand, Creek Johnson stepped off the moving passenger car and stationed himself at the near end of the boarding platform. McMaster took the other end. Wyatt and Doc checked the depot, leaving Warren to guard Virgil and Allie.
When they had gathered back inside Virgil’s car, they decided to eat while they waited for the connection to California. It was a short walk from the station to the nearest restaurant, but they covered the distance with shotguns at the ready, speaking only when necessary.
Inside the dining room, while Allie pressed a handkerchief to her eyes and retired to the privy, Virgil took Wyatt aside to the hat and coat rack. When Warren followed, Virgil put a hand on the youngest Earp’s shoulder.
“Warren, go tell Mac and the boys to sit at the other table. I want them between Allie and the front entrance.” Warren turned around to survey the set-up of the dining tables. Virgil squeezed his shoulder and gently shook him once. “I want you facing that goddamned back door. If we have trouble, that’s where it will come from.”
Warren nodded eagerly and started for his post, only to stop when Wyatt spoke his name. “Before you open up on somebody, be damned sure o’ what you’re shootin’ at.”
Putting on a sulk, Warren marched off stiffly. After watching the youngest Earp oversee seating arrangements, Virgil turned to Wyatt, lifted both eyebrows, and inhaled a deep breath that whistled through his nose. Virgil let the breath ease out and began shrugging his coat from the sling that supported his crippled arm.
“Allie all right?” Wyatt asked.
Virgil pursed his lips and shrugged his head to one side. “It ain’t just about Morg. We had to leave Frank.”
Wyatt frowned.
“Our dog,” Virgil explained. “Left ’im with that Mexican girl who sold us produce from her cart.” Turning to put his back to Wyatt, Virge spoke over his shoulder. “Help me with this, will you?” After surrendering his overcoat, he readjusted his sling and studied Wyatt’s face. “What are you aimin’ to do once we’re gone, Wyatt?”
“Head back to Tombstone. Bessie said it will take a few days before Mattie can travel with her.”
“I mean after that?”
Wyatt hung up Virgil’s coat and then produced a folded paper from his pocket. He opened it on the bar and ironed it flat with the palm of his hand.
“This is the coroner’s preliminary report on the men who ki
lled Morgan,” he said. “Pete Spence, Frank Stilwell, a German named Bode, and a couple o’ half-breeds—Swilling and Indian Charlie.”
“Who supplied the names?” Virgil asked.
“Spence’s wife.”
Virgil pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. “Who’s this Bode?”
Wyatt shook his head. “Don’t know. I hear he hauls wood for Spence’s sawmill.” He nodded toward Virgil’s crippled arm. “I figure Ike Clanton, Stilwell, and Curly Bill for you. And Ringo is in this somewhere.”
Virgil clenched his massive jaws. “I reckon most of those boys have lit out by now. But with your federal badge, you can go all the way to hell and back, if you need to.”
Wyatt showed no expression, but his voice seemed to come from a hollow place inside him. “Don’t need a badge to do what I’m gonna do, Virge.”
Virgil watched his brother for a time and then turned to appraise the gunmen seated at their assigned tables, their chairs all turned toward the front door. Warren had taken his post facing the rear door, his hand gripping a revolver lying at the center of his place setting. All in all, there was more weaponry reflecting light from the oil lamps than from the flatware on the tables.
“These boys here,” Virgil said quietly, “keep ’em close to you, you hear?”
Wyatt nodded. “They’re making five dollars a day plus meals and livery rentals. Ammunition, too. Dake has promised us more money.” He looked over his shoulder at his posse. “I reckon they’ll stick.”
Virgil’s face compressed with a curious smile. “You think they’re doing this for the wages?” He coughed a modest laugh, leaned in, and softened his deep voice. “Hell, Wyatt, these men will walk through fire for you.” Again Virgil looked over the posse men, his eyes finally lingering on the youngest Earp. “But you’d better look out for Warren, much as you can.” He raised an eyebrow. “Even if he don’t wanna be looked out for.”