Epitaph Page 22
“Chicago meat packers are paying premium prices for premium beef,” Mr. Hooker told him. “I’ve got the stock—if I could get better fodder, the beeves’d be worth a good deal more up north.”
“What kind of feed would you buy, sir?” Tom asked.
“Rye. Or alfalfa.” Then, seeing what Tom was driving at, Mr. Hooker told him, “Grow either of those, son, and I’ll take as much as you can bale.”
Frank was unenthusiastic. “Why in hell would we want to work like mules on a crop when plain old grass just grows itself?” He was against it something fierce when Tommy borrowed money from Mr. Hooker to give rye and alfalfa a try. Tom put in eighty acres of each anyway, just to see.
Rye survived, but alfalfa really liked the valley. Tom was able to pay off the loan at the end of 1880 and still had enough left over to make improvements to the farm. Ranchers who’d seen how well Hooker’s stock did on good feed placed orders for the next season. Tom planned to skip the rye and go with alfalfa in ’81.
It was nice to make decisions without having to argue with Frank, though Tom was saddened about their falling-out. Looking back, it seemed a surprise that the brothers’ partnership had lasted as long as it did, for Frank was a real McLaury. Prickly and combative. Ready to go to law over the least little dispute. “I know my rights!” was the McLaury battle cry. You could trace the clan through Irish history just by looking at generation after generation of lawsuits. As far as Tom could see, all they’d ever won in court was hard feelings among their neighbors and bad blood within the family. Nobody but Tommy ever said, “Let it go.” He’d always been the odd man out. A stranger, almost, in his own family.
When Frank announced that he wanted an end to their business association in January, it was kind of a relief. Frank got everything done legally. That was fine with Tom. The farm was his idea anyway, and he preferred a clear title, for he expected to finish 1881 in the black and wanted no cause for future grievance.
After a few weeks alone, Tom realized that he didn’t miss his brother. He wasn’t even sure where Frank was living now. Charleston, maybe. Or with the Clantons. Frank was drawn to companions who would lead him down the wrong path. Tommy couldn’t do anything about that, except worry. It was better not to know.
Tommy liked things quiet, too, and Frank had always got right to talking the moment his eyes opened. It was a wearisome start to the day, especially when Frank had a dream about some floozy. He liked to tell Tommy about such things and show him the stain on his drawers. Which was disgusting. Then he’d nag Tommy about going to a cathouse. “We have earned ourselves some fun!” he’d say.
Tom had tried that a few times, but the girls pawed at him and called him “sweet face” and “handsome.” It was embarrassing, and he couldn’t get any pleasure from what they wanted to do with him. He kept thinking about the awful pictures the pastor back in Iowa had showed all the boys in the congregation when they got to be of age. You could get horrible diseases that would cover you in pustules and make you go crazy.
“Keep yourselves clean for the one true love the Lord has ordained for you,” the preacher told them. “She is out there somewhere, waiting for you.”
Now, at last, Tom McLaury found her: his one true love. Standing in a rocky little square of dirt around a small adobe house, she looked like a lily growing up through a patch of cactus, but she had a shovel leaning against her veranda steps and she was planting a pair of cut-back shrubs with heart-shaped leaves. That’s how Tommy knew she was meant to be a farmer’s wife.
“Those are lilacs, aren’t they,” he said, sitting high up on his buckboard, the wagon bed filled with a month’s supplies.
She straightened and clapped the dirt off her gloves and shaded her eyes with her palm. “My sister sent them. They do well by her door.”
“That’s may be,” he allowed, “but her door isn’t in Arizona, is my guess.”
“You’re right. She lives in Utah.”
“Are you a Mormon then?”
She hesitated. A lot of people hated and feared Mormons, but she didn’t like to lie—he could see that. He wanted her to know that he would never hate or fear her, so he said, “Seems to me, Mormons are uncommonly handsome people. That’s why I thought you might be one. You are the prettiest person I ever saw.” She looked startled and he could feel himself go red. “I— I’m sorry. I’m a farmer. Now that my brother moved out, I don’t hardly talk to anybody but the animals. I forget my manners with people, I guess.” Shut up, he told himself. You sound like Frank, talking so much.
She didn’t seem to take offense. She just turned her head a little, to let the breeze blow a curling strand of straw-colored hair from her face. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
“I’m Tom McLaury, miss.” He rubbed his palm on his trousers and leaned down to offer his hand.
She pulled off her gloves and came closer to take his hand briefly, then stepped back right away. “I’m Louisa Earp,” she said, as if in warning. “Mrs. Morgan Earp.”
“Oh,” Tom said.
This was a sharp disappointment, though it should not have been a surprise. All the women in Arizona were either somebody’s or anybody’s. He wanted to tell her right then that she was with the wrong man, but he remembered his manners just in time. “I am very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Earp.” He glanced at the lilacs. “Might be you could find a place in Tombstone where a lilac could take hold, but that place is not by your door. It’s better to plant something that likes to be where you want something to grow. I could bring some flowers that will do well for you there. If you like.”
Before she answered, her eyes shifted away to someone behind him. He couldn’t be sure of what he saw in her face. Relief, but a little bit of nervousness, too. Tommy turned and saw an older fella. Skinny and a little bent over—a city man, bundled up in the chill.
“Miss Louisa,” he said in a slow southern voice, “is this gentleman disturbin’ you?”
“This is Mr. McLaury, Doc. He is a farmer, and was giving me some gardening advice. Mr. McLaury, this is Doc Holliday. He is a dentist and a friend of the family.”
Neither man recognized the other’s name. Tom didn’t read the papers and hadn’t heard about what happened in the Oriental last year. Thoroughly addled, Doc Holliday had missed all the excitement about the mules. So the sweet-faced farmer from Iowa nodded to the soft-spoken dentist from Georgia, who inclined his head. There was no quarrel between them on that bright blue day in early March, nor would there be when they met again on the cold and blustery afternoon of October 26, 1881: the day John Henry Holliday was going to blow a four-inch hole in Tom McLaury’s chest.
Gathering the reins, Tom put his foot up against the wagon brake, getting ready to release it. “Anyway, I don’t believe lilacs will grow here,” he said, “but I do wish you good luck with them, ma’am.”
CARESS WITH GENTLE WORDS
HOW WAS YOUR WALK TODAY?” LOU ASKED WHEN the farmer had driven off.
“Splendid!” Doc told her with a little flash of pride. “Two miles, without stopping to rest.”
Something in the dentist’s thin, lined face made her eyes go narrow and speculative. “Oh, Doc!” she cried when she realized that she was seeing happiness. “You heard from Kate! Has she agreed? Is she coming to visit?”
The funny thing was, Lou didn’t much like Kate Harony and certainly didn’t think the woman was right for Doc. It wasn’t that Kate was a whore. After knowing Bessie Earp, Lou could not condemn such women out of hand. What Lou found difficult to understand was why a gentle man like John Holliday was drawn to a woman who seemed as crude and harsh as Kate. “I don’t understand it either,” Morgan said once when he and Lou were talking about the couple back in Dodge. “But if she makes Doc happy, that’s good enough for me.” And now it was good enough for Lou, for it was such a welcome change to see Doc’s eyes alight, Lou would have kissed Kate and hugged her neck if the little Hungarian suddenly appeared in Tombstone at that moment.
The dentist unbuttoned his coat, drew a carefully folded telegram from his breast pocket, and handed it to Lou. Smiling, she took it from him, but after she read its brief message, she looked up and frowned at Doc’s sunny mood.
“I know,” he admitted ruefully. “I know . . . But it is progress! At least this time, she sent an answer.”
THAT MORNING IN GLOBE, Arizona, a Western Union telegrapher had received the latest in a long string of wires sent by J. H. Holliday. Ordinarily he maintained a professional attitude toward transmissions he conveyed, but the terse, compressed messages often told of emergencies and sicknesses, deaths and births. Despite his best efforts to remain aloof, a telegrapher could get caught up in an unfolding drama. This was one of those times for the Western Union man in Globe. He had not simply taken an interest in a serialized story. He had taken sides.
There was some confusion at the beginning, for the first of J. H. Holliday’s telegrams were sent to M. K. Harony. No such person lived in Globe; after some inquiries, it was established that the intended recipient was now going by the name of Katie Elder, and that she was proprietress of a boardinghouse populated by a dozen silver miners. Miss Elder was, the telegrapher presumed, the injured party in what seemed to be a lovers’ quarrel, for the first telegram was simply:
I AM SORRY STOP FORGIVE ME STOP
There was no reply.
NO EXCUSES STOP I WAS A FOOL STOP
Again, no reply, and the next few messages were in some kind of foreign language.
ERRARE HUMANUM EST STOP
LA COEUR A SES RAISONS QUE LA RAISON NE CONNAIT STOP
SINE AMOR NIHIL EST VITA STOP
CURA QUID EXPEDIAT PRIUS EST QUAM QUID SIT HONESTUM STOP
Maybe she doesn’t know what any of this means, the telegrapher fretted. The sender went back to English a few days later.
LET ME MAKE IT UP TO YOU STOP
Despite J. H. Holliday’s evident and sustained contrition, Miss Elder did not bend. The telegrapher was increasingly impatient with her intransigence, and he had found this morning’s message particularly poignant.
LET ME LOVE YOU STOP I ASK NOTHING IN RETURN STOP
“If that doesn’t do the job, I don’t know what will,” he muttered, handing the flimsy yellow paper to the messenger and sending him to Miss Elder’s place.
The boy came sprinting back a few minutes later. “She’s coming!” he cried, with something close to alarm in his voice.
Eager to see the goddess who had inspired such devotion, the telegrapher was taken aback when a blond woman entered the office, strode to the counter, grabbed a pencil, and scribbled three words on the reply form. From the persistence of her admirer’s pursuit, he had imagined someone young and beautiful; Miss Elder was nigh onto thirty, thin-lipped and thick-waisted, with a face that failed to charm. He was, nonetheless, struck by a fearsome intelligence blazing in eyes the color of Indian turquoise when she thrust the form through his grate.
“Send that!” she snapped.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, flinching when the office door banged shut behind her. He sighed when he read her message, then dutifully tapped it out.
GO TO HELL STOP
Moments later, a message came back—not from J. H. Holliday but from the Western Union man in Tombstone to his counterpart in Globe: DAMN SHE MUST BE SOMETHING STOP
I GUESS came the reply from Globe, BUT ANGER IS A HORSE THAT WOMAN CAN RIDE FOR DISTANCE.
“SHE’LL COME AROUND,” Lou said, handing Kate’s telegram back to Doc. “Tell her about the piano here. Tell her you’d like to play for her again.”
“You think that would help?”
“Doc,” she assured him, “after that night in Dodge, Kate would have to be made of stone to say no to that.”
Looking doubtful, Doc said, “She won’t back down in front of the Western Union man.”
“Well, then, send a letter!” Lou cried with brisk practicality.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” he wondered, genuinely puzzled.
Because you are a hopeless spendthrift who wanted an immediate answer, she thought. “Because you care so much,” she said, laying a hand on his bony shoulder. “Clean up, and come on back for supper. I hate to eat alone, and Morg’s not due home from Benson until late.”
I WISH I WERE THE WIFE OF A BETTER MAN
I’M SORRY, HONEY,” JOHNNY SAID. “I KNOW I MISSED New Year’s Eve, and now I’m going to miss Valentine’s Day, too, but it’s county business. I can’t help it.”
Josie had been on her best behavior since he’d pounded some sense into her last November. “Duty calls,” she said. “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”
“Hard to tell. I need to find Curly Bill Brocius and settle things down.”
Freshly acquitted of murder, Curly Bill might have preferred the dreamy peace of opium, but folks in Tombstone were still pretty sore about Fred White’s death. Unable to visit Ah-Sing’s hop joint, Bill was making do with liquor—a lot of it. Under its influence, he and his friends were making a good deal of trouble in Charleston and Contention. Deputy Sheriff John Harris Behan’s cordial relations with Bill and the boys were well known; both small towns were asking for his help in dealing with the crime spree.
“As long as I’m down near the border, I’m going to ride over to Bisbee and introduce myself. That copper find has been confirmed,” he said. “The executives are moving in already, getting the new mines started.”
“I understand,” she said. “The papers say electricity is the future. Copper wire is the next big thing.”
“Bigger than gold or silver,” Johnny agreed.
“There’ll be a lot of votes down in Bisbee,” she said, and wished him safe travels when he left later that afternoon.
The trip went well, though it took longer than he’d expected. Curly Bill agreed to quiet things down; no arrests were necessary. Johnny continued on to Bisbee, where he made a good first impression on the movers and shakers in Arizona’s next boomtown. He stopped in at ranches along his route, making sure the voters were happy with his work. All of them promised loyalty in ’82. He was looking forward to telling Josie his good news when he got home.
In his absence, a great deal had changed. As anticipated, the city of Tombstone had been named the seat of government for the newly created Cochise County, though the governor’s appointees had not yet been announced. What Johnny Behan did not expect was to be greeted at his own door by a stout and scowling Mexican woman of middle years, who happened to be cutting up vegetables at the time.
“Who are you? ¿Quién es?” he asked.
“Me llamo María Elena,” this formidable person told him. “The lady, she say you pay me one dollar a day. You owe me eighteen dollar already. I cook. I look after el chico.” With her paring knife pointed at him in emphasis, she made her meaning very clear when she added, “¡No más!”
“Where’s Al?” he asked. “Mi hijo—dónde está?”
This brought a shrug. Reassurance, not indifference.
“Con la lady,” he was told. “He come back later. You eat now.”
ACROSS TOWN, JUST WEST OF SIXTH, the bellboy of a small Tombstone hotel was knocking on a door at the end of a second-floor hall. It was a hesitant and quiet knock, not an insistent pounding or a businesslike rap, for the bellboy had just turned fifteen and he was new to this job, the nuances of which were full of mystery. The hotel was on the border between the vice zone and the nice part of Tombstone; like the hotel itself, the women who lived here were on the edge of being bad. What they did wasn’t illegal, but it wasn’t respectable, either.
The bellboy couldn’t decide what to call this new one. He’d had enough church back in Illinois to know that she wasn’t a good girl, but whore didn’t seem right either. Sometimes she only went to dinner with men, or she just went dancing with them. She didn’t always . . . entertain them in her room.
Was she alone, the bellboy wondered, or was somebody else in there?
He knocked again, a little louder this time. “It’s the bellboy. There’s someone downstairs wants to see you.”
“Tell him to come back at eight.”
“No, ma’am— I mean miss— I mean . . . It’s not that kind of . . . person. It’s that little kid again.”
A silence. The sound of bedsprings creaking. He waited, trying not to imagine what she looked like before she put on her dressing gown.
She came to the door and opened it a crack.
“He’s crying,” the bellboy told her, doing his best not to look . . . down.
She closed her eyes, and lifted her face, and stood very still for a few moments. “Tell him, ‘Sadie says you have to go home.’”
HER ONLY REGRET WAS LEAVING ALBERT. Otherwise, life as a demimondaine suited her admirably, so far. She was Becky Sharp, in Vanity Fair. She was La Traviata—the Lady of the Camellias—except she had no intention of dying tragically at the end of her story. She was certainly not a whore. She just . . . took lovers. Like Sarah Bernhardt.
In her first two weeks, she’d seen a mining executive, a lawyer, and a very sweet geologist. They were grateful and generous. She enjoyed their company and their admiration. She liked the look on their faces when she stepped out from behind her dressing screen and dropped her wrapper. She liked to be seen. She liked sex, too. Not as much as Johnny did—it was a sickness with that man—but enough to enjoy what she was doing.