“Be a nice foot in the door at the Oriental,” James said. “Frank Joyce is an up-and-comer.”
“You know Tyler?” Virgil said.
Wyatt nodded.
“You know his reputation?”
“Gunhand.”
Virgil nodded slowly.
“Wyatt’s a pretty fair gunhand himself,” Morgan said.
“Tyler won’t back off,” Virgil said. “You go against him, you have to mean it.”
“I always mean it,” Wyatt said.
“Quarter interest in a place like the Oriental is worth something,” James said.
“And we can handle Tyler,” Morgan said.
“I think ‘we’ ain’t getting the quarter interest,” Virgil said.
“Oh hell, Virg. You know if one of us is in, all of us are in,” Morgan said.
As he had at the McLaury ranch, Morgan brushed his gunhand up and down his shirtfront, as if drying the tips of his fingers. Trouble’s like a carnival for Morgan, Wyatt thought.
“All of us ain’t always going to be around,” Virgil said. “You ready to go against Tyler alone, Wyatt?”
“Yes.”
“He’s a back shooter,” Virgil said.
“I’ll try to keep him in front of me,” Wyatt said.
“I say he takes the offer,” Jim said.
“Me too,” Morgan said.
“You want to do it, Wyatt?”
“Might as well.”
“Well, then I guess you will. No reason to go against Tyler alone, though, if you don’t have to. He starts trouble, send for me and Morgan.”
Wyatt nodded. His hands rested motionless on the tabletop. His eyes moving, as they always were, taking in the room: whores, pool players, drinkers, cardplayers, the sound of glassware, the clink of pool, the smell of whiskey, the economical, practiced movements of the bartender. He liked the rhythm of saloon life very much.
“You do it, Wyatt,” James said. “It’s why you got brothers.”
Wyatt smiled slowly, almost as if his mind were somewhere else and had just refocused.
“Yes,” he said. “I know.”
Nine
“Wyatt,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”
Wyatt nodded and stepped into the house. The front room was papered in beige with a European landscape the featured motif. Josie Marcus stood behind Behan, and when he saw her, Wyatt took off his hat.
“This is my fiancee, Wyatt, Miss Josephine Marcus.”
“Nice to meet you,” Wyatt said. “I remember seeing you in
Wyatt didn’t say anything. She was aware that his gaze rested on her, and she felt its weight. She noticed at once how tall he was, taller than Johnny, who was regarded as tall, with a hard look of muscle to him, harder than Johnny, and much quieter. Johnny was a talker. This one was not. This one was quiet to his soul, she thought. And, perhaps, quite dangerous.
“Sit down, my friend,” Behan said. “Josie, maybe you could make us some coffee.”
There were four upholstered chairs with wooden arms in the front room. Josie went to the kitchen; Wyatt sat in one of the upholstered chairs. Behan sat in another one. There was a small oak table with claw-and-ball feet between them, and through the front window they could see out onto Third Street.
“Wyatt, why I wanted to talk with you was about the deputy sheriff’s job.”
Wyatt waited. A Wells Fargo stage, the horses lathered from the uphill pull into town, went by on the way to Sandy Bob’s. Morgan sat up front beside the driver, one foot cocked on top of the floor rail, the trail-issue shotgun in his lap.
“Been talking to Charlie Shibell,” Behan said. “Maybe you know this already, but they’re thinking that Pima’s too big to be one county. So they’re going to keep half of it like it is, and make the other half, including Tombstone, into Cochise County.”
“I heard that,” Wyatt said.
“Well, that will mean a new sheriff, and Charlie and I think it should be a Democrat.”
Josie Marcus came back into the front room, carrying a tray with coffee in three blue and white cups. There was also a bowl of sugar and a small pitcher full of condensed milk. She placed the tray down on the table, took a cup of coffee and seated herself on the couch. Behan looked at her, and for a moment seemed about to say something. But he didn’t. Instead he carefully measured three spoonfuls of sugar into his cup and added condensed milk.
“Do you live in town here, Mr. Earp?” Josie said.
“Yes. My brothers and I are building some houses down around the corner on Fremont.”
“Well, how nice,” she said. “We’re neighbors.”
“Josie, Wyatt and I are talking a little business.”
“Oh, Johnny, you’re always talking a little business. I like to know my neighbors. Do you live with your brothers, Mr. Earp?”
“Virgil lives across the street,” Wyatt said. “Morgan and James live on either side.”
“And who lives in your house, Mr. Earp, besides you?”
“Mattie,” Earp said.
Josie Marcus nodded slowly, her great black eyes holding on his, as if what he were saying was more interesting than she could have imagined.
“Your wife,” Josie said.
“More or less.”
“Josie, if you could just stop talking for maybe a minute or so,” Behan said. “I need to ask Wyatt a couple of things.”
Josie smiled.
“Of course,” she said.
Behan sighed.
“So we was thinking, Charlie and I, that we needed a Democrat to be sheriff of Cochise County.”
“So you said.”
“And,” Behan grinned at Wyatt, “we was thinking that it should be me.”
Behan paused for Wyatt to speak. Wyatt didn’t speak, and after a moment, Behan continued.
“Thing is, you being a Republican, and a deputy sheriff and all, it might make it a little hard.”
The room was warm and still. Wyatt could see Josie studying him as she drank coffee off to his left. She was wearing cologne, and he could smell it from where he sat.
“Can’t say as I mind,” Wyatt said to Behan.
“Well, no, ’course not. But if you could find your way clear to resigning in favor of me, it would put me in a nice position to be sheriff when the new county comes.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Well,” and again Behan smiled widely at Wyatt, “I might appoint you under sheriff, if I got appointed.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And if you resigned in favor of me, then Charlie wouldn’t have to fire you.”
Watching him, Josie saw no reaction at all. He sat quietly, holding his coffee cup in both hands. Even when he drank from his coffee cup he was looking at Johnny above the rim. At the same time she knew he was aware of her. She could feel it. His attention was like the heat of a summer afternoon out here. Not emanating from someplace, but all around, enveloping. She liked the feeling.
He sat motionless as if waiting for Johnny to finish. She could see that his silence made Johnny nervous. Many things did. Johnny was a nervous man.
“Charlie said I should tell you that, Wyatt. Nothing personal. Just politics.”
Wyatt drank some coffee and put the cup carefully back in its matching saucer. The cups were decorated in blue with pictures of elegant ladies on a lawn.
“I meant what I said, about you being under sheriff.”
Wyatt stood and turned politely to Josie Marcus.
“Miss Marcus,” he said, “it’s been a pleasure to meet you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Earp, and a pleasure as well to meet you.”
“I hope to see you again,” Wyatt said.
His eyes were empty as he spoke. His face had no expression.
Why does that sound so full of sex? she thought.
“I’m sure you will, Mr. Earp. We’re neighbors, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” Wyatt said. “We are.”
“What you want me to tell Charlie, Wyatt?”
Wyatt turned his gaze slowly onto Behan and held it.
Then he said, “I don’t want you to tell him anything, Johnny.” And he turned and, without haste, left the house.
“Go get my brother,” he said.
“Virg?”
“First one you see,” Wyatt said.
“Is there going to be trouble?” Blonde Marie said.
“Probably,” Wyatt said.
Blonde Marie turned and walked out the front door of the saloon. A blare of sunlight splashed briefly into the saloon as the door opened and swung shut behind her. Wyatt sat quietly behind the faro table, a deck of cards in his hands. Without looking, he cut the cards with one hand and shuffled them and cut them again. He seemed idle. If Tyler saw him, he gave no sign of it. Tyler pushed his way through the miners standing two deep at the bar. He was deliberately rough about it, making no effort to avoid stepping on toes and jostling drinks. Several of the miners looked at him, but no one complained. Tyler ordered whiskey, and when it came he drank it down in a long swallow. Then he turned to a miner next to him, and put his hand flat against the man’s face and shoved. The miner staggered and fell backward, landing on the floor in a half-sitting position, catching the rest of his fall with his hands. He was a smallish man with a thick beard, his shoulders strengthened and bowed by labor underground. He seemed more startled than angry as he sat on the floor.
“Hey,” he said.
The miner could see the gun Tyler was carrying, and it made him careful.
“You were in my way,” Tyler said.
“Hell I was,” the miner said.
He got to his feet. His hands were clenched at his sides.
“You saying to me that I’m a liar?” Tyler said.
“I wasn’t in your way,” the miner said. His eyes kept shifting from Tyler’s face to Tyler’s gun. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“And I say you were,” Tyler said. “And I say you’re in my way right now.”
“In your way for what?”
“You know me?” Tyler said.
“Yeah, I know who you are.”
“Well, I say you better get out of this saloon now, ’fore I get mad,” Tyler said.
“I got a right to be here,” the miner said.
“No,” Tyler said. “You don’t. Not anymore. Go drink someplace else, ’less you want really bad trouble.”
“You got no right to push me,” the miner said.
“Get out of here now,” Tyler said. He let his hand drift downward toward the gun. The miner’s friends began to back away, and stubborn though he was, the miner found himself stepping back.
“I don’t have no gun,” the miner said.
“I do,” Tyler said.
“Afternoon, Mr. Tyler,” Wyatt said.
He was standing just to Tyler’s right and slightly behind him. Tyler wheeled to face him, his shoulders hunching slightly. This was no miner.
“What do you want?” Tyler said.
“Want you to stop causing trouble in my saloon,” Wyatt said. He seemed relaxed. His left hand hung quietly by his side. His right rested lightly on his hip, just forward of his holster.
“Your saloon?”
“Quarter interest.”
“Don’t make you the owner,” Tyler said. “Joyce owns the rest.”
“You’re in my quarter,” Wyatt said.
The room was quiet. A wide circle had formed around the two men, and it was in continuous flux as people kept shifting to get out of the line of fire.
“You don’t mean nothing to me, Earp.”
“I’d like you to leave my saloon,” Wyatt said. “Now.”
“Don’t prod me, Earp.”
“Now,” Wyatt said.
The silence grew tighter. The front door opened and shut. Neither Tyler nor Wyatt looked at it. Someone whispered, “Here’s Virgil.” The whisper seemed to take some of the tension out of Tyler. His shoulders sagged.
“That’s the way you want it, Earp,” he said and turned and started toward the door, where Virgil stood, his eyes adjusting. Tyler bent forward slightly, and his right shoulder tensed. In one smooth gesture Wyatt brought his revolver out from under his coat and hit Tyler across the back of the head with the barrel. Tyler staggered and fell forward, and the gun he’d been pulling spun ahead of him on the wood floor of the saloon. Virgil picked it up. Tyler, on his hands and knees, shook his head trying to clear it, and Wyatt stepped forward and kicked him in the side. Tyler sprawled flat. Wyatt stepped up beside him and put the big Colt against his right temple, finger on the trigger, thumb on the hammer.
“I don’t want to see you in my saloon again, Mr. Tyler. You understand?”
Tyler lay facedown, twisted sideways trying to ease the pain in his side. There was blood seeping through the long black hair at the back of his head. Wyatt banged the muzzle of his revolver against Tyler’s temple.
“You understand?”
“Yes,” Tyler said hoarsely.
“Good,” Wyatt said. “Now get out of my saloon.”
Tyler tried to get up, and collapsed back down to his knees. Virgil stuck Tyler’s Colt in the pocket of his coat and stepped forward and got hold of the back of Tyler’s coat collar, and dragged Tyler to his feet. Wyatt holstered his revolver, then walked past Virgil and opened the front door and held it. The hot light poured in, bringing in with it the strong smell of dust and horses. Virgil half walked, half dragged Tyler into the street. Wyatt closed the door behind them and the room was dim again. He went back to his faro table and examined the layout carefully to make sure it was orderly. At the bar the miners began to talk again. And within moments the surface of saloon life had closed, unruffled, over the incident.
“May I carry that for you?” Wyatt said.
“Yes you may,” Josie said. “And thank you very much, Mr. Earp.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d call me Wyatt.”
“If you’ll call me Josie.”
“Fair swap,” Wyatt said. “How’ve you been enjoying Tombstone, Josie?”
“Well, it certainly is lively, Wyatt.”
They both laughed at the self-conscious exchange of first names.
“Johnny talks about you a lot,” Josie said. “He’s worried about getting to be sheriff.”
“How about you, Josie?”
She laughed.
“I don’t want to be sheriff.”
Wyatt smiled. He looked to her like someone who didn’t smile easily or often, so when the smile came it was valuable.
“Would you like it if Johnny were?”
“Johnny says it’s a good-paying job.”
“I hear it is.”
“Then I guess I would like it if Johnny were sheriff.”