Epitaph Page 9

  “But it pays,” Wyatt pointed out.

  “Yes, indeed. It surely does.” Behan dropped his voice. “Did you know Sheriff Shibell is pulling in upwards of twenty thousand a year?”

  That was news—and by the sound of Johnny Behan’s grim laughter, the look on Wyatt’s face must have shown it. Of course, Wyatt knew Charlie Shibell was making a good buck but . . . twenty grand?

  Until that very moment, Wyatt had thought he himself was doing well. He was getting three times his salary as a Dodge City policeman. His house wasn’t much, but he owned it outright. He could feed and stable Dick Naylor and Roxana and their colt Reuben. He was banking faro games, and that was a steady stream of money, too, but . . . twenty grand a year!

  Across the table, Johnny Behan had fallen silent. With the patience of a Missouri fisherman, he simply watched Wyatt Earp think about that big round number. Then he flicked the line just a bit. Twitching the bait.

  “What are you making, Wyatt?” he asked. “Five hundred a month? I don’t call that fair! Do you?” He waited until Wyatt’s eyes met his. “Now, if I get the appointment, I’m prepared to make you—”

  “No deals,” Wyatt snapped.

  “—an offer,” Johnny continued, unruffled. “If Governor Frémont appoints me sheriff of the new county, we’ll split the responsibilities and the income. Fifty-fifty.”

  Wyatt frowned and looked at Behan sideways.

  Then he swam back, still drawn toward that nice big number.

  “Now, then, if you get the appointment,” Johnny went on, “you could appoint me undersheriff, and we could still split the responsibilities, just the way I figured. You can pay me whatever you think is fair. I won’t hold you to fifty-fifty.”

  “I don’t know,” Wyatt said cautiously, but he was thinking that even half was ten grand a year.

  And that was when John Harris Behan set the hook, for he had learned something important from his father, that ex-seminarian from Kildare: To understand a man, you must identify his besetting sin. Wyatt coveted the wealth of the men who owned things and ran things, but what he truly craved was the deference accorded to those men. It was not greed or envy that drove him. It was pride.

  “It’s not just money, is it, Wyatt. It’s freedom. It’s a future. It’s respect,” Johnny said in a low, tight voice. “I’ve seen how those big shots look right through you. They pass you on the street and don’t even say hello. Uppity sonsabitches walk around town like they own the place, but if anything happens? Who do they come running to? Whose help do they want then, eh, Wyatt?”

  “You got that straight enough,” Wyatt muttered.

  “I’ll be honest with you, Wyatt. I am an ambitious man. I see the sheriff’s office as a stepping stone to bigger things. I want to show Washington that I can work with Democrats and Republicans, and that there are federal appointments I might be worthy of. Now, then . . . what does all this mean for you?”

  Wyatt waited, and the Missouri fisherman readied the net.

  “It means,” Johnny said, “that no matter which of us Governor Frémont appoints, we can work together for the first twelve to eighteen months. I’ll teach you what I know, and then I hope to move on to bigger things. And that leaves you free to run for sheriff unopposed in 1882.”

  Wyatt frowned. “I don’t know . . . If I’m appointed, I’d probably go with Virg or Morgan for undersheriff. I have to look out for my brothers.”

  “I understand, Wyatt. I come from a big family myself,” Behan said easily, letting the line play out a bit. “But my offer stands. I believe we’d make a good team that could serve the county well. And I believe both of us would benefit in the long run. Just think it over.” He smiled then and sat up straight. “You haven’t eaten yet, have you? Why not come on over to the house for lunch? My little Josie is quite a cook, and my son, Albert, would love to meet you.”

  WYATT WAS STILL THINKING IT OVER on the way back to Tombstone from the McLaury place. Truth be told, he hadn’t understood how much went into sheriffing until Johnny Behan explained it. Assessing property values. Dealing with appeals and lawyers. It probably made sense to learn that part of the job from Johnny. In the meantime, he’d still make a real good buck as undersheriff.

  He’d keep the little house on the edge of Tombstone, he decided, but maybe rent it out and buy something nicer in the good part of town. And he could invest some cash in the mining claims he’d won from idiots who’d put their properties on the faro table. Silver didn’t lie around waiting to be panned out of a riverbed. It had to be extracted from the ore. That required a lot of equipment and men who knew how to run it . . .

  Prolly oughta sell off the mines, he decided as he rode. Use the cash to buy a spread right here in Sulphur Springs Valley.

  The land east of Tombstone was green, with streams and lakes. Best grazing in Arizona, everybody said. He’d always wanted to own a horse farm. Most of the racehorses down here were thoroughbreds. He could buy breeding stock right here. Build on what Dick Naylor and Roxana and Reuben had in them . . .

  He could use some experience, he guessed. And he liked what Behan said about the two of them showing how Democrats and Republicans could work together. “It’s up to our generation, Wyatt. Men who fought in the war—they’ll never lay down those old grudges. We don’t have those memories, and it’s our responsibility to make the nation whole again.”

  By the time he and his brothers got back to Tombstone, he’d pretty much decided to throw in with Behan. Even so, he told himself it might be better to wait a couple of days before he said yes to Johnny. Could be he wasn’t seeing everything he should. Because that molar was killing him. He hadn’t slept well in weeks. He was stupid with fatigue, but Doc was in town now. The tooth would be out soon and he’d finally get some good rest.

  A stable boy came over to take the horses off their hands when they dismounted at Dexter’s. The kid was new. Wyatt shook his head when the boy reached for Dick Naylor’s lead.

  “I take care of him,” he told the kid. “He bites.”

  He was unsaddling Dick when Fred White came jogging over and started talking to Morgan. There was something apologetic about “I was at the office when it happened.” Morg was frowning, but Wyatt finished brushing Dick down and then called to the kid, “You can feed and water him. Go easy on the grain.”

  He was carrying his saddle to the racks, trying to decide if he’d go see Doc Holliday about the tooth right away or try to get some sleep first, when he heard Morgan give a shout of dismay.

  Hell, it’s always something, Wyatt thought, but he was not prepared for what he heard next.

  “He’s dead?” Morg cried. “Doc is dead?”

  FEW WORDS, BUT VERY CLEAR

  A MOMENT LATER, FRED WHITE WAS LOOKING AT three Earps standing shoulder to shoulder to shoulder. All of them tall, all of them broad, all of them fair-haired and mustachioed. All of them staring at him like it was his fault somehow.

  “What happened?” Virg wanted to know, his voice low and wary.

  “Who did it?” Wyatt demanded.

  “Was he sick again?” Morgan asked. “Coughing blood?”

  “Calm down and let me finish! First I heard, somebody was yelling about how Doc Holliday just got killed over at the Oriental. He’s gonna be all right, but Milt Joyce clobbered him pretty good.”

  Morg slumped in relief. “Jesus, Fred!”

  “It’s not all good news,” Fred warned. “When Holliday came to, he pulled a pistol out and emptied it inside the saloon. He hit Milt, and a bartender, too.”

  “Christ,” Virg sighed. “How bad?”

  “Milt’s hand is a mess. They might have to amputate. And his bartender’s gonna be lame. Lost the big toe on one foot. They both pressed charges. Assault with a deadly weapon.”

  “Shit,” Morgan whispered. “That’s prison.”

  “So Doc’s under arrest?” Virg asked.

  “No, he was in court already this morning. Told the judge he couldn’t remember a
thing about it, and I gotta be honest, he looked kinda lost, like he didn’t understand what anybody was saying. Morg said he was a friend of yours, so I got him a lawyer, and he told the judge that Doc was only exercising his First Amendment rights when Milt assaulted him. Milt had seventy pounds on him, which the judge could see for himself, and Doc wasn’t in full possession of his faculties when he fired the gun. They bargained down to guilty of simple assault. Doc got off with a fine and court costs.”

  Virgil was rubbing his eyes. “Start over. Why did Milt hit Doc in the first place?”

  “I was down at the office, remember, but from what I heard, Doc went into the Oriental and asked Milt Joyce about getting a game going. Johnny Tyler and a bunch of them California fellas was in there, and Tyler comes up and says that the Slopers run gambling in the Oriental, and easterners like Doc ain’t welcome—”

  Wyatt bristled, but Morgan put a hand on his arm.

  “So, Tyler and Holliday get into it pretty quick. You know Tyler—he’s a blowhard. But from what I hear, Holliday’s got quite a mouth, too.”

  “I swear,” Virgil muttered, “that man is like one of them yappy little Mexican mutts with no idea how small it is. He’s gonna get himself killed one of these days.”

  “Yeah, well, he came pretty close this time,” Fred said. “He tore into Johnny Tyler, and the Slopers all made a move on him, so Milt tells ’em to take it outside. Tyler and his boys left, but Holliday didn’t see as how he done anything wrong. And, hell, it woulda been five to one outside. I don’t guess Holliday was in a hurry to get jumped. So he starts mouthing off at Milt, and you know Milt—he don’t take no lip. Picked Holliday up off his feet and threw him into the street.”

  Morgan put his hands over his eyes.

  “Yeah,” Fred said grimly. “Holliday comes charging back inside and he’s madder’n hell, and that’s when Milt buffaloed him. Holliday went down like he was killed. Head laid open, blood all over. Somebody went to get me, but in the meantime, Holliday comes to and starts shooting. When I got there, Milt and Parker was both bleeding, and I made the arrest.”

  “Where’s Doc now?” Morgan asked, but what Wyatt wanted to know was “Where’s Tyler?” And that was when Fred White decided it was a good time to roll a cigarette and think things through. The fact was, Fred wasn’t entirely sure what to make of Wyatt Earp. Wyatt didn’t drink and he went to church a lot, too, but everybody knew he had damn near beat a shopkeeper to death up there in Dodge City. And while Fred wouldn’t have shed a tear if somebody took the starch out of that swaggering sonofabitch Johnny Tyler, the notion of arresting Wyatt for felonious assault afterward did not hold much appeal. So, as he lit up, Fred looked to Virgil, who met his eyes and inclined his head ever so slightly in Morgan’s direction.

  Pretending he hadn’t heard Wyatt’s question, Fred answered Morgan’s. “He’s over at the Cosmopolitan. He threw up a couple of times and I didn’t want it stinking up the jail, so I took him back to his hotel room and told him to stay put. One eye’s all swole shut and Doc Goodfellow says he’s got a concannon or some damn thing like that, but he’ll be all right.”

  THE HOTEL ROOM WAS DARKENED. The curtains were closed. He had pulled a pillow over his head, but the persistent banging on the door was shattering.

  “Kate?” he called. “Please! The door!”

  There was no answer. He lifted his head to look for her. The nausea got worse. Heart pounding, he recognized an impulse to get a gun. He was scared, but why stayed just beyond his reach. After a few moments, he’d forgotten what he wanted to find.

  “Doc? It’s Morgan! Open up! Wyatt’s here, and Virgil, too. Doc? Doc!”

  He drew back the bed linens and sat up, trying not to cough. Or vomit. Morgan hollered again, which reminded him that he meant to go to the door. “I must look a sight,” he said when opened it and saw the Earps’ shock. “I fear I am not properly dressed for visitors.”

  Questions, then. Too loud. Too fast. Too many.

  “My apologies,” he said. “I do not seem to have my wits about me. I believe this must be the worst headache I have ever had.”

  Wyatt left. Virgil went after him. Morgan seemed torn between staying there and following his brothers.

  What’s that all about? Doc wondered briefly. Then the fog rolled back in and his curiosity dissipated. He wanted to lie down and go back to sleep, but he could hear his mother’s voice. Now, sugar, it is very kind of the gentleman to come and visit you. With a mighty effort, he concentrated on his guest’s face and attempted to make conversation.

  “Well, now, Morgan,” he said. “What brings you to Tucson?”

  “SOME MEN NEVER LOOK ANGRY, but they never forget a slight.”

  That’s what Mayor Dog Kelley once told Wyatt Earp back in Dodge City, but the warning did not stick, for Wyatt Earp was a man without guile and could not imagine it in others. He did not anger easily or often. When he did, there was no subterfuge, no nurturing of grudges, no waiting for the right moment to strike back.

  Within fifteen minutes of leaving Doc Holliday’s room, Wyatt had located Johnny Tyler, flung him against a wall, and uttered a single short sentence making it plain to Tyler and the rest of the Slopers that they would be unwise to venture back inside the Oriental Saloon. Ever again.

  As intended, word got around: Anyone who laid a hand on Doc Holliday would answer to Wyatt Earp. Among those to whom Wyatt gave notice of this directly was the owner of the Oriental, Milton Edward Joyce.

  Milt was back in his saloon by then, wearing a fresh white apron. His old one had been discarded, so badly stained with blood that it was no longer fit for use, not even as a rag. Some of that blood had splashed off Doc Holliday’s head. A little of it came from the bartender’s toe, though his bleeding mostly leaked into his shoe and onto the floor as he hopped around the room, yelling. By far, the greatest portion of the blood that soaked the apron was Milt’s own.

  His torn and broken hand now throbbed beneath yards of bandaging. A constant ache reached high into his arm. He was still light-headed. Dr. Henry Matthews had strongly urged bed rest, but Milt preferred the distraction of activity and with his bartender laid up, he couldn’t afford to take time off from the business. He had overhead to support and demanding customers to keep. The Oriental stayed open day and night, no matter what.

  The days when you could thump a mug of beer on a bar and call it done were long gone. Modern drinkers expected ornate mirrors, sparkling crystal, gleaming mahogany, and polished brass. They wanted a free lunch, too, or billiards, or music. Or all three. A free lunch wasn’t just food. It was a kitchen and a cook and a waiter; it was dishes that got broken and cutlery that was stolen. Billiards meant an expensive table and cue sticks that idiots broke over one another’s heads. Music meant a fiddler, or a piano and somebody who could play it, and if your man was any good at all, other saloons would try to hire him away, so you had to pay the bastard well.

  All that added red ink to the ledgers, but when Milt Joyce sold his San Francisco place in ’79 and traveled down to Tombstone, he was determined to build a saloon so elegant it would attract and hold the classiest clientele in a boomtown that was supplying the New Orleans Mint with all the silver it could use. He commissioned a beautifully carved, white-gilt bar and twenty-eight gas-burning chandeliers to light his place like a palace. He purchased a heavy walnut billiard table, ivory balls, and walnut cues with a matching rack. He paid top dollar for a corner lot at Fifth and Allen because it had the best view in town. He freighted in plate glass for the windows so his customers could look southward over their drinks and rest their eyes on wave after wave of rolling silver-stuffed hills or gaze at the lumber-rich Huachuca Mountains, lovely and lucrative in the distance.

  There was no beer on tap at the Oriental, for Milt Joyce did not cater to filthy miners from Cornwall or Pennsylvania, no matter how well-paid they were. The Oriental served imported whiskeys, brandies, and cordials in cut glass. He didn’t just plunk a jar of pickled eggs
on the bar and call it lunch, either. The Oriental had oysters, crabs, and shrimp, packed in ice and delivered daily, with hours to spare before the seafood went off. The overhead was staggering, and there was only one way to get ahead of the game, so he brought in another source of steady income: gambling. To set the tone high, he walled off a club room at the back of his building and covered its floor with a Brussels carpet so beautiful that even a drunken lawyer would hesitate to spit on it. There were poker tables, a faro layout, and a roulette wheel, but Milt added upholstered chairs to each corner, and sold fine cigars, and provided newspapers and magazines as well, so his customers might tarry an hour or two longer, sipping an expensive cognac as they read.

  He’d begun to turn a decent profit when the California Slopers showed up. They favored the Oriental because Milt was from San Francisco, and he appreciated their business at first, but it wasn’t long before the Slopers were more trouble than they were worth. Foul-mouthed and loud, they were poor losers who chased out all the high-class play. Within weeks, he was losing business to the Crystal Palace, across the street.

  To keep the troublemakers in check, Milt brought in a minority partner with a reputation for keeping the peace in such establishments: Wyatt Earp, late of Dodge City, Kansas.

  Wyatt Earp, who got 25 percent of the club room’s take for his services.

  Wyatt Earp, who had not been in the Oriental last night and who was therefore unavailable to prevent or defuse an altercation between Johnny Tyler and Doc Holliday.

  Wyatt Earp, who nevertheless had the unmitigated gall to dress down Milton Edward Joyce in his own saloon for cold-cocking an obnoxious, belligerent, consumptive sonofabitch who happened to be a friend of Wyatt’s.

  Already today, Milt had put up with being joshed about how lucky he was to have escaped slaughter by the notorious Doc Holliday, who was said to be a lightning-fast and deadly accurate gunman.