Territory

 TERRITORY 

Tor Books by Emma Bull

Finder

Territory

War for the Oaks

Freedom and Necessity
(with Steven Brust)

 TERRITORY 

Emma Bull

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

TERRITORY

Copyright © 2007 by Emma Bull

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bull, Emma, 1954–

Territory / Emma Bull.—1st ed.

p. cm.

“A Tor book.”

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-85735-6 (acid-free paper)

ISBN-10: 0-312-85735-7 (acid-free paper)

1.  Earp, Wyatt, 1848-1929—Fiction.   2.  Holliday, John Henry, 1851-1887—Fiction.   3.  Ringo, John—Fiction.   4.  United States marshals—Fiction.   5.  Outlaws—Fiction.   6.  Tombstone (Ariz.)—Fiction.   7.  Supernatural—Fiction.   8.  Frontier and pioneer life—Arizona—Fiction.   I.  Title.

PS3552.U423T47   2007

813'.54—dc22

2007009534

First Edition: July 2007

Printed in the United States of America

0   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

This book is dedicated to Joan Shetterly,
patron saint,
and to Bob Shetterly,
who probably still wants a cowboy book.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to Steven K. Z. Brust, who is, without doubt, your huckleberry;
John M. Ford, for handing me a copy of Paula Mitchell Marks’s
And Die in the West;
Bob Boze Bell and the staff and contributing writers of
True West
magazine, who believe that history doesn’t stand still; Paula Vitaris, for making sure I read Frank Manley’s “Barefoot on the Barfoot Trail”; Lefty at G. F. Spangenberg’s Pioneer Gun Shop, for answers to strange ammo inquiries; all the fine western history writers on all sides of the Earp-Clanton question and the Matter of Tombstone; the people of Tombstone, Arizona, particularly the staff of Old West Books on Allen Street; the Single Action Shooting Society and the Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association, whose members gave me a glimpse of what it might have been like; the Carolina Belles and the Cats of Belle Alley, for helping me immerse myself in the more decorative aspects of the late nineteenth century; the Lively Arts History Association, ditto; Cat Eldridge and the gang at
Green Man Review,
for making sure I didn’t run out of soundtrack; the Reverend Rod Richards, who had the right epigram; Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner, and Terri Windling, for sanctuary in the desert; Valerie Smith, for being all agent-y; Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who let me buck the tiger until I won; and of course, Will Shetterly, who makes almost all things possible.

Uncommon thanks are overdue to Dr. Donald Drake, Dr. Robert Chandler, Arlene Nieves and her staff, and Robin DeRose and the gang at The Hand Center, for restoration of the author. They make me glad I live in the twenty-first century. I’m grateful also to Betsy Stemple, Geri Sullivan, and Lorraine Garland, for kindness that knows no century.

ON THE HORSE TAMING
DEPICTED IN THIS BOOK

John Solomon Rarey’s techniques for gentling and training horses were
revolutionary in their day, far more humane and successful than the methods they replaced. They’ve been replaced in their turn by modern trainers’ understanding of horse psychology, which has led to better, safer training for both horse and rider. Like so many attitudes in a historical novel, the horse handling described here is a curiosity of the past. Don’t try this at home; there are better ways to get the job done.

If you ever read this tale, you will likely ask yourself more questions than I should care to answer …. I might go on for long to justify one point and own another indefensible; it is more honest to confess at once how little I am touched by the desire of accuracy. This is no furniture for the scholar’s library, but a book for the winter evening schoolroom when the tasks are over ….

—Robert Louis Stevenson, from the dedication to
Kidnapped

Nothing changes more constantly than the past; for the past that influences our lives does not consist of what actually happened, but of what [we] believed happened.

—Gerald W. Johnson

A society in crisis teaches itself to congeal into one story only, and sees reality through very narrow glasses. But there is never only one story.

—Amos Oz

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