Territory (32 page)

Mildred stood for a moment on Freemont, shading her eyes and admiring Schieffelin Hall. It was finished on the outside, a mighty barn of adobe bricks fronted with a fine big porch. Piles of buckets and sacks and lumber on that porch and the men carrying tools in and out showed that the inside work was still under way.

“Millie!” a woman’s voice called, and Mildred stopped. Allie Earp was hurrying down Fremont toward her, waving. Behind her came another woman—or a girl, really. She was taller than Allie, but almost everyone over the age of twelve was.

“Millie, it’s out,” Allie said between breaths as she came up. She handed Mildred a folded newspaper.

Gallagher’s Illustrated Weekly.
The engraving under the banner stretched from one margin to the other, and showed a raging flood of longhorn cattle under a full moon, with two riders at their head. Their horses were wild-eyed, foam flying from their open mouths. One rider, a man in fringed buckskin and a noble moustache, reached for the reeling rider of the other horse, a lady in a riding habit. She was hatless, and her light hair, in improbable quantities, streamed behind her like the storm clouds that boiled around the printed moon.

A New Tale of Thrilling Frontier Adventure, Never Before Available in Any Form! STAMPEDE AT MIDNIGHT!
And below the title, in lovely large, bold type,
By M. E. Benjamin.

Mildred unfolded the paper and stared at the columns of type. They had indents and capital letters, quotation marks and italics: all the authority of print. Had Dickens looked at his first typeset story this way? Had he, too, felt as if it was no longer entirely his, like a child married and moved away? She felt a mad desire to read the thing from beginning to end, right away, even though she knew every word in it.

“Lucia isn’t blond,” she said, entirely at random.

“Oh, it’s just the moonlight,” Allie scolded happily. “Besides, it shows better in the picture this way.
Now
can I tell Mattie and Lou?”

“What if they don’t like it?” Suddenly it seemed possible that no one would like it. The editor had, but editors were human and fallible.

“Tell you what—I’ll let ’em read it, and ask ’em what they think. When they say it’s about the finest story they ever read, I’ll tell ’em who wrote it.”

“Oh, Allie,” Mildred said, and realized she hadn’t much to say beyond that. But Allie grinned at her, as if she understood the feeling behind the lack of words.

The young woman still stood just behind Allie, watching the two of them with her head a little to one side and her eyes wide. Allie laughed. “Oh, Lord, you’d think I didn’t have manners at all! This is Hattie Earp, Jim and Bessie’s girl. Hattie, I expect you’ve worked out that this is Mrs. Benjamin.”

Hattie took Mildred’s offered hand. Her blue eyes met Mildred’s and then dropped, and her face turned pink. “Pleased to meet you,” she murmured.

My, but the child was pretty. She had wheat-colored hair that sprang out of its pins and curled around her temples. Her face was still soft and rounded, with a snubbed nose and a sweet, small mouth. She had a straight back and shoulders, and curves that were womanly without being opulent. Her rust-red calico dress was plain, but that only added to her air of maiden modesty.

“Delighted,” Mildred said.

“I never met an authoress before,” Hattie breathed.

“Allie, you didn’t tell her, did you?”

“It just popped out when I saw the story.” Allie nodded at the paper in Mildred’s hands. “Hattie’s staying with Virge and me while Jim and Bessie are off in California, so how could I keep it secret?”

Mildred smiled at Hattie, who looked a little nervous. “I don’t know that you can say you’ve met an authoress even now. Maybe you ought to wait and see if they take another story from me.”

“They will,” Allie said with a brisk nod.

Mildred heard the tramp of a man’s boots behind her and stepped away from the street to let him pass. When he came abreast of them, she saw it was Tom McLaury.

“Good morning, Mr. McLaury.”

He smiled at her and her companions—she had to admit, she’d never seen a man smile sweeter than Tom McLaury—and touched his hat brim. “Mighty hot. I was hoping for a little more spring.”

“Do you know these ladies? This is Mrs. Virgil Earp, and this is Miss Hattie Earp.”

He swept off his hat and shook Allie’s hand. When he turned to Hattie, the girl seemed to have forgotten the existence of her hands, and was staring at Tom, her lips parted. “Miss Earp,” he said, and the smile faded as he looked at her.

Oh, dear,
Mildred thought.

She could ask Tom for his escort to the
Nugget
office, thereby giving him unwarranted encouragement but keeping him out of trouble. Or she could suggest that he escort the Earp ladies, which would allow Hattie to encourage him. But what good could come of encouraging one of the McLaury brothers to buzz around Wyatt Earp’s niece? She’d best distract him.

But the moment for action was lost. Hattie smiled shyly, and Tom took her belatedly offered hand. Hattie asked, in a voice that sounded as if she’d been running, “Are you a rancher, Mr. McLaury?”

“My brother and I raise cattle. May I carry that for you, Miss Earp?” Tom nodded at the string bag on Hattie’s arm.

Mildred exchanged glances with Allie. Allie made a little sour face. “We’re not going so far that we can’t carry our odds and ends,” Allie told him briskly. “Nice to meet you, Mr. McLaury. Hattie, we’d best hurry if we want to finish before Lou comes. Millie, I’ll talk to you later.” She waggled the copy of
Gallagher’s.

“Please do,” Mildred called after her as Allie hurried Hattie down the street. Hattie, Mildred was impressed to see, didn’t look back over her shoulder.

“Do you know the Earps much?” Tom asked.

“I know most of the Earp women pretty well. I just met Miss Earp.”

“She seems like a nice girl.”

“Tom,” Mildred said, “Wyatt Earp is her uncle.”

“Uncles don’t have much say-so in who a girl meets.”

“You know better. Earp has two older brothers, but he’s still the head of the clan. He won’t stand for it.”

Tom raised his chin and said coolly, “I haven’t given him anything to stand for. I’ve got no quarrel with the Earp family.”

Mildred sighed. “I hope not.”

Doc considered his cards with satisfaction. He had a pair of kings, and a few other things that could prove useful, depending how the draw went. And he had a good sense, now, of the four men he was playing poker with. He didn’t know them, couldn’t remember their names. But he knew their play. That was enough.

He preferred to play in the card room downstairs in the Grand Hotel during his nights off. It seemed as if everyone who came to the Oriental of an evening felt obliged to prove he was Doc’s friend by buying him a drink and inquiring into his business. The Grand’s barroom was cramped and dark, but people let you alone. It wasn’t the sort of place one passed through just to see who was there; the smart lobby with its aura of respectability made the real loungers think twice before they sauntered through it to get to the saloon.

He laid down his bet and discarded the three of clubs. The dealer slid him another card. He didn’t reach for it until all the men at the table had got theirs. Then he tucked it in his hand. A reward for his patience and good nature: a third king. Now all he had to do was make the other players bet their wages away.

A hand fell on his shoulder. A surge of anger shot through him, so strong that he was surprised when he realized habit had kept it off his face.

“I am otherwise engaged, Wyatt.”

“How’d you know it was me?”

“Because anyone else would know that if he laid a hand on me, I’d cut it off.”

“I want a word with you.”

“You’ll have to wait until I’m done.”

A moment of silence behind him. Then Wyatt said, “Finish the hand.”

That was Wyatt in a nutshell; he’d do as you asked, if he could make it sound like his idea. Doc played the hand out, but the fun had gone out of it. Even when the red-haired man across the table slapped his chips down on the felt as if he were squashing a spider, so Doc knew he was bluffing, it was an empty triumph.

He won the hand, and made a display of pulling out his watch and consulting it. Light caught the engraved initials on the inside of the case, as if to remind him who was waiting. He snorted and snapped it closed.

“Gentlemen,” he said as he rose, with a general nod to the table.

No one protested; there was no “Leaving already?” or “You can’t go while you’re winning!” They seemed to expect when Wyatt said “hop,” he’d hop. He dusted off his coat front, turned to Wyatt, and said in a voice that would carry to all the cardplayers, “All right, Wyatt, let’s go pull your fat out of the fire.” Petty, but he felt better.

Doc cashed out, and Wyatt led the way through the lobby and out to Allen
Street. There were plenty of people on the street; between them, Doc and Wyatt must have nodded to a dozen or more acquaintances. Wyatt turned east and Doc followed, and eventually the evening strollers thinned. As they crossed Seventh a big Sonoran jackrabbit shot out from under a building, nearly under their feet, and dashed across the street.

“I know what it means when a black cat crosses your path, but what does a bunny signify?” Doc asked.

“It means it’s too damned hot and dry, and he’s looking for water.”

“There is no poetry in your soul, Wyatt.”

“That’s because I don’t have one. Listen, I’ve been talking to Ike Clanton.”

“No wonder you were desperate for my conversation.”

“Someone saw Jim Crane in town.”

Doc said, “People have also seen the Virgin Mary and the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.” What he thought wasn’t words; more a cold place in his vitals, and the conflicting urges to save Morgan and to beat him senseless.

Wyatt ignored him. “Clanton claims to know where Head, Crane, and Leonard are holed up.”

Doc stopped walking. “That’s a mighty big stick he has.”

“He’s got no notion of it. I told him I wanted to bring ’em in to win votes in the election for sheriff. Said I’d divide the Wells Fargo reward money with him.”

“And he suggested you go straight to hell.”

Wyatt’s teeth showed under his moustache, white in the gloom. “You know me better than that.”

“You’re telling me that Ike Clanton split on his dear friends just to keep you happy?”

“Clanton can see which side of the bread the butter’s on. Though he did ask me not to say where I found out.” Wyatt lifted his head as if to study the deep blue of the sky above the rooftops. “If Ike does as I told him, it should roll a few rocks out of the road.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Wyatt shrugged. “No harm done to us. But Ike’s got no cause to doubt me. He’ll play.”

Doc considered the implications. The Clantons raised beef down on the San Pedro near Charleston, and raised hell everywhere else. Old Man Clanton had almost certainly built his herd on other men’s cattle, like many a more successful and respected rancher. But unlike his predecessors he was still skimming stock, and giving corral room to fellows who did the same. His oldest boy, Finn, was no better or worse than most. But Ike ran his mouth and didn’t back it with anything. And Billy followed the likes of John Ringo
around like a pup, too much of a fool to be a sensible coward in the mold of his brother Ike.

Taken together, they were an unchancy family. “If you’re seen to have the Clantons parading behind you, you can whistle for those votes for sheriff.”

“Now didn’t I just say Ike swore me to secrecy?” Wyatt was smiling widely now. “And when I get Virgil set proper, he’ll be able to put me where I need to be.”

That was Wyatt talking to himself; Doc had no idea what he meant. It fanned a small, resentful flame in him. “If you really want to win that election, you ought to cut the disreputable members of your acquaintance. Meaning me.”

“Isn’t that the point of finding Crane and his boys? So folks will know you ain’t a road agent, too?”

He was still smiling, leaning against a sapling tree that had somehow survived the wholesale clearance of the lot it stood on. Overhead the stars blinked through the smoke and dust from the workings. Doc felt them singing to him, muted through the haze; he knew what they said, but it did him no good. “Dear heaven, Wyatt, I am not Ike Clanton, nor any other idiot of your acquaintance. I am aware that you can either clear me or protect Morgan, and I know which you’ll choose.”