Epitaph (50 page)

Ike's little brother, Billy, would laugh at him for looking so confused, but Ringo was kind. Ringo stuck up for Ike.

“They got no right to look at you like you're stupid,” he'd say. “Nobody has that right, Ike. You want respect, Ike? You have to take it. You have to fight for it.”

“Fight for it,” Ike said.

“Leave Ike alone,” Curly Bill would tell Ringo. “He's funning you, Ike.”

Used to be, Ike liked Curly Bill more. Now Ringo was his friend.

“I'm just helping Ike think,” Ringo would say. “He likes it when I help him think, don't you, Ike? You need help thinking.”

“I need help,” Ike would agree. Then he'd have another drink with Ringo.

IT TOOK SOME TIME
for Ike to put all the pieces together in his mind. The first thing to come clear was that he didn't have to go to California after all. I can take care of the girls here, he thought. Or they can get married. They don't have to ask permission. The old man's dead, and he ain't coming back.

I can open a new restaurant, he thought, and that's when he remembered promising to tell Wyatt Earp about where those men
were. Because that was the plan, before the old man got killed. Ike was supposed to find where Bill Leonard, Henry Head, and Jim Crane were and tell Wyatt Earp. Wyatt was going to arrest them. Ike would get $3,600 from Wells Fargo, and Wyatt would get votes when he ran for sheriff next year.

Except before Ike could do that, Bill Leonard and Henry Head got killed by the Hazlett brothers out in Ánimas Valley. The Hazletts could have collected $2,400 from Wells Fargo for doing that because the reward was twelve hundred apiece, dead or alive. But then Johnny Ringo killed the Hazlett boys because they killed Bill and Henry. And then Jim Crane got killed in Skeleton Canyon with the old man.

Now nobody would get the Wells Fargo reward. Not Ike, nor the Hazletts, nor Ringo. Ike thought that was a pity. It was a lot of money and would have been nice to have, even though he didn't have to move to California now.

AT FIRST IKE DIDN'T REMEMBER
anything about Doc Holliday being in on the deal. Then one night when all the boys were sitting around drinking, Frank McLaury started in about how crooked the Earps were and how they were all pimps and their women were all whores, and how they held up that stagecoach themselves. Frank could prove it, too: The Earps blamed Bill Leonard and Henry Head and Jim Crane for the crime.

“It's just like when that goddam army lieutenant blamed Tommy and me for stealing those mules, when Hurst really stole the animals his own self!”

Billy Clanton usually got a laugh out of that because he stole those mules. It always tickled him how Frank was so convinced of his story that he'd tell it to Billy's face and expect to be believed. But Billy Clanton wasn't with Ike that night. He was off in Charleston, whoring with Little Willie Claiborne, who was celebrating his release on bail after shooting Jim Hickey in the face.

Curly Bill was there, and he used to find Frank's notions funny,
too, but Bill didn't laugh much anymore, and that evening, he got all broody about how Wyatt Earp had bent a pistol over his head after that accident with Fred White.

“I bet you any amount of money nobody hit Doc Holliday's head when
he
got arrested for that holdup,” Curly Bill said. “Two men dead, but Holliday can get away with anything 'cause the Earps are always there to protect his bony carcass.”

“Yep,” Ringo agreed, “and now all four of 'em are gonna get away with killing Old Man Clanton.”

Which made everybody stop talking and look at Ringo.

So he told them about how Holliday and the Earps were the ones who killed the old man in Skeleton Canyon. “I saw Holliday gimping around Tombstone myself,” Ringo said. “I asked him, ‘What happened to your leg, Holliday?' And that skinny goddam lunger started bragging! He said, ‘Me and the Earps ran down Old Man Clanton and his boys, and we killed them sonsabitches in Skeleton Canyon.' But, Ike, your daddy pulled out that little pocket gun he carried in his boot. He shot Holliday in the leg. So your old man got a little of his own back before Holliday killed him.”

“Holliday killed him,” Ike said, dazed.

“Yep. And bragged about it.”

“Bragged about it.”

“The Earps'll protect him,” Curly Bill said bitterly.

“They're all in on it,” Frank said.

“They're all in on it,” Ike said.

“They'll never get convicted!” Frank went on. “Earps always have an alibi. Oh, I was with Wyatt. Oh, I was with Doc. Oh, I never did nothing wrong in my whole life . . . And then the goddam liars'll turn around and pin the blame on somebody else.”

“Pin the blame . . .” Ike said.

“Somebody's got to pay,” Ringo said softly. “When one of ours is killed, we gotta make the bastards pay.”

“Make the bastards pay,” Ike said, but even then, he was still thinking, The old man's dead. He ain't never coming back. And I'm glad.

SOMETIMES CURLY BILL WOULD WARN,
“Ringo's playing with you, Ike.”

“I'm just teaching a parrot to talk,” Ringo would say.

“C'mon, Juanito,” Bill would say. “Leave Ike alone.”

Ringo would just wait until Curly Bill wasn't around, and then he'd start in again about that goddam lunger Holliday killing Old Man Clanton.

“I can't think straight,” Ike would protest.

“Well, try thinking crooked then,” Ringo would tell him, with that angel smile of his. “It's in the Bible, Ike. Eye for eye. Tooth for tooth. Life for life.”

“Eye for eye. Tooth for tooth,” Ike said, beginning to squirm.

“If you're tired of being hit, you have to hit back, Ike.”

“Hit back.”

“You want respect, Ike? You have to take it. You have to fight for it.”

“Fight for it.”

“Pull a gun, Ike. You pull a gun, you're on top. Pull a gun and you'll get some respect—just like
that!
” Ringo would say, snapping his fingers.

Ike rubbed his face with both hands. He hadn't shaved in a long time. His beard was getting as bushy as the old man's was.

“One of ours gets killed, we have to kill a few of theirs,” Ringo told him. “That's how you get respect, Ike. You gotta make 'em pay.”

Don't talk back, Ike thought.

“Make 'em pay,” he said.

THEN THERE WAS THE NIGHT
when Ike and Billy were up late, drinking and talking about the old man.

“You recollect that time he told you to get up on the roof, Ike?”

“Jump!” Ike yelled in the old man's voice.

Billy giggled, just like when he was five and saw it happen. “Yeah, he kept telling you, ‘Jump! I'll catch you!'”

“I'll catch you!” Ike remembered.

“So you jumped, and then
bang!
He just stepped back and watched you hit the ground.”

“Don't! Trust! Nobody!” Ike roared, making his voice as fierce as the old man's was.

“You learnt yer lesson yet, boy?” Billy roared, the same way. Then he made his voice humble, like Ike's was that day, even though Ike was twenty-four when it happened and should have been a man. “‘Yes, sir!' you said. ‘Yes, sir, I learnt my lesson!'”

Don't trust nobody.

THE OLD MAN WAS DEAD.
The dread wasn't. The dread was still there. A deep hole waiting—wanting, needing—to be filled.

Ike began to go over the deal with Wyatt in his mind. Ringo couldn't help him think about this. Ringo was being friendly now, but he could be a mean sonofabitch, too. Even Curly Bill was scared of Ringo sometimes.

You can go to California, Wyatt said. You can open another café. Just tell me where Henry Head and Jim Crane and Bill Leonard are. You get the reward, I get the votes, and Holliday gets clear.

Then one night, the hole filled up.
They're all in on it.

Wyatt Earp must've told Doc Holliday. What if Holliday brags on that? And what if Ringo finds out I was gonna sell Henry and Jim and Bill to Wyatt Earp?

He'll kill me, Ike thought. Ringo will kill me, just like he did the Hazlett boys.

I
T DEFIES LOGIC. IT INSULTS COMMON SENSE,” DOC ADMITTED
when he told Josie Marcus his plans. “Kate is selfish and mercenary and impossible to live with, but when she's gone? I miss her like I miss breath. Madness, I suppose. Or plain stupidity.”

“You love her,” Josie said firmly. “Love isn't stupid.”

Eyes narrow, he glanced sideways at the girl, marveling at the lack of cynicism. “That, sugar, is an eminently debatable assertion, but . . . Well, I calculate Kate and I are even now. This will be a fresh start.”

They were going to meet halfway. In Tucson. In mid-October, when the weather was good. They would spend some time alone in a town where no well-meaning friends could question the wisdom of this reconciliation. They would see if they could work things out.

Doc wired ahead to reserve a modest but clean room on the outskirts. I'm not a spendthrift, he meant. Unaware of this, Kate got to town early and booked the best room in the best hotel. I'm not a miser, she meant. I love you, and I wanted to please you. That's what they really meant, though neither could say it aloud.

Instead of arguing, they split the difference: a nice room in a decent hotel just off the central plaza. They were careful with each other at first, but care soon turned to tenderness, and tenderness to that deep satisfaction in each other's company, which they always remembered more clearly than the anger and the fights. In that state of grace, they
began to discuss what was left of Doc's future. We don't have much time, they agreed. Let's make the most of it.

They had no real ties to Arizona, and the territory grew more dangerous by the week. Five Cow Boys had been killed recently. That left at least thirty-five others to raise hell with impunity. Outlaws from Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and California were joining them, for Cochise County was considered the last, best place in the country for men who would not be governed. The Chiricahua Apaches were making trouble again, as well. Why stay in this hellhole? That was what they asked themselves in the quiet of their Tucson bed. Arizona was ferociously hot in the summer, numbingly cold in the winter, and plug-ugly most of the year. All Doc had to show for eighteen months in its climate was another fist-sized hollow deep inside his right lung. Kate was ready for a change as well. Why not just pack up and go?

They settled on the Rockies, for there was reliable research coming out of Switzerland: Whatever caused tuberculosis, the disease seemed to need high concentrations of oxygen to do its worst. Sanatoria in the Swiss mountains were having considerable success with advanced cases of the disease; the higher the altitude, the more efficacious the treatment.

Why pay doctors, Kate asked, if simply spending time in thin air could cure you? She could open another boardinghouse—in Denver, maybe. Doc could do a little gambling, and Kate would look after him. They would live frugally and wait the disease out while the mountains did their work.

THAT WAS THEIR PLAN,
four days before the gunfight.

If anyone had asked, “What about Ike Clanton?” Doc would have answered with a question of his own: “You mean the idiot who told that revoltin' joke about oysters? What about him?”

IKE WAS PANICKING, IS WHAT.

“Ringo knows,” he insisted, pleading with Wyatt to understand
how scared he was. “He looks at me funny! He knows all about it.”

“Keep your voice down!” Wyatt said, his own voice low, for if there was so much as a rumor of him being involved with Ike Clanton, any edge he had over Johnny Behan in the sheriff's election next year would blow away. “Ike,” he said, trying to stay patient, “did you tell Ringo?”

Ike shook his head, eyes wide.

“Well, then, he
can't
know. You and me are the only ones who know. But if you keep talking about it like this, the whole town'll know!”

“The whole town'll know,” Ike repeated, close to tears. “The whole town'll know! And Ringo will kill me!”

Exasperated, Wyatt gripped the man by the arm and steered him deeper into the alley. “Ike, nobody knows. It's over. All three of the men who attacked that stage are dead now. The deal is off! You didn't tell anyone, did you?”

“No!”

“And neither did I,” Wyatt told him. “So nobody else knows!”

“But you told Holliday he was in the clear!”

“No! I didn't, Ike! Holliday don't know.”

“Holliday will tell Ringo and Ringo will kill me!”

It went on like that—round and round and round—until Wyatt was ready to kill Ike himself. “Holliday don't know, and I'll prove it to you,” he said finally. “Go home. Stay out of Tombstone and stay quiet. I can fix this, Ike. Don't worry.”