The Last Woman Standing (22 page)

“And three men are dead and buried, three friends of mine, and all of them brothers. Calm yourself. All this yelling will get you nowhere. What next: tears? This is a negotiation. What would you be willing to yield? Judge Spicer is currently overseeing the preliminary proceeding. Considering the prosecution’s dominance, and my role as witness, a murder trial will ensue. I will be called to testify again. I cannot afford to risk my reputation, but perhaps I can be less emphatic. Perhaps I can drop a few salient points of evidence. Maybe only a few bullets discharged before we entered Fly’s. Out of court, I can no longer offer you marriage—fidelity is not my forte—though I will honor you in my way, first in my heart.”

“What guarantees would I have?” I asked, worn out and outmatched, and deeply saddened that I’d opened my heart to this man. Still, I could see the charm, still, the intelligence, but where was his sense of right and wrong?

“Tell me your alternatives. How else can you save Wyatt? I am your sole leverage.” He was now clearly blocking my path to the front door. “Let’s seal the deal. You will not regret it, Josie. Our times together will be as sweet as ever. Remember when we first met and we would head out behind the barn for kissing lessons? I am hungry for more. We have had good times, Josie, you cannot deny that. We have tasted Champagne and, now, the tax money is flowing. There will be a future for us. Albert misses your company. It would be a matter of moments to bring you back under our roof. Who would blame you?”

“I would,” I said. “Wyatt would.”

I saw myself through Wyatt’s eyes—posing in red, eyelashes inked, and offering myself up to his rival. Repulsed, I rallied. This was a deal with the devil, and I would not make it. To cheat on Wyatt would annihilate our love. I had vowed fidelity. I realized, perhaps too late, that even if I embraced Johnny to rescue Wyatt, our love would be compromised. As Wyatt knew, there was right and there was wrong. This was all wrong.

The front door flew open, and Ike Clanton entered without pausing to knock, like a breath of foul air. “What’s
she
doing here?”

“She’s jumping to the winning side,” Johnny said with a smirk.

“She’s too rich for my taste,” Ike said. “Besides, I don’t trust her. She’s Wyatt’s damn spy. Soon that sonofabitch will hang with Doc. My only regret is that I didn’t shoot them myself when I had the chance.”

“You had the chance but ran like the coward you are,” I shrilled. Ike grabbed his head like my voice cut him.

“Josie, leave off now,” Johnny said. “You’re upsetting our guest. Ike, tomorrow you will testify to the aggression of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday that cost you your brother. We will dispatch that lot like the garbage they are, and we will do so legally,” said Johnny. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m getting one of my headaches,” said Ike.

“Did you run out of your cocaine drops? I can get Claiborne to stop by the pharmacy tomorrow. Have a drink for now and see if that dulls the pain.” As Johnny walked toward the decanters, I saw my opportunity to escape. As I rushed out the door, the last thing I heard was Johnny saying, “Tomorrow, Ike, you will have your day in court.”

And Ike did, many days. On November 9 and 10, his statement for the prosecution dovetailed Johnny’s. Ike appeared the grieving brother marshaling his facts. He denied ever threatening the Earps or Doc. He claimed he had no stomach for a fight and tried to drag Wyatt bodily out of the line of fire into Fly’s. Then, on the third day, a recess had to be called; Ike’s neuralgia had flared up again. A day later, when he returned to the stand to face the defense, he was manic and arrogant, possibly due to the effects of cocaine drops commonly used to treat neuralgia of the head. Inconsistencies, lies, and tall tales riddled his testimony. The prosecution witness became the defense’s star, and the team pursuing Wyatt and Doc never recovered their advantage.

The hearings persisted until the end of November, with a short break for Thanksgiving. When both sides rested, Judge Spicer exonerated Wyatt and Doc. He set them free, but they were never safe in Tombstone again.

CHAPTER 26

DECEMBER 1881

While behind bars, Wyatt had ample time to wonder about the nature of right and wrong, law and order—and whether he would live or die in Tombstone.

After Judge Spicer liberated Wyatt, he was not free as he had been before the gunfight. The anticipation that enemies could target him on the street at any moment restricted his movements. Typically, he and his brothers traveled in pairs (which cramped our romantic life). The Earps were always heeled, a pistol on each hip and a rifle stashed somewhere in town with easy access. Doc returned to Fly’s, but the Earp family, Mattie included, exchanged their unprotected casitas on Fremont for the Cosmopolitan Hotel. I avoided what had become “our place.” Although I wasn’t happy about it, I refused to add to Wyatt’s worries.

December was the long pause between beats. While Wyatt assured me that life would settle down again, his eyes said otherwise. He was unconvinced. I tried to be strong for him, to provide a haven within my arms and not burden him with my fears. I understood Wyatt’s love life was the least of his concerns. I struggled to believe that we had a future together where every night would be ours alone, whether in fancy hotels or under the stars; it didn’t matter which. That month Wyatt and I developed trust like a muscle and exercised it. It wasn’t always easy, but we were gentle with each other, and patient, forging a bond in adversity that transcended the bedroom and grew into a deep sense of mutual support and companionship that neither of us ever found elsewhere.

Wyatt was as steady as ever, but the town remained jittery and divided, jumping at every gunshot, fearing a fusillade. The long hearing had exonerated the Earp faction but failed to assuage the hunger for revenge among the cowboys. The conflict struck an old nerve, according to Wyatt, whose older brothers had fought for the Union. To the rural cattlemen on the range—many of whom had fought with the Confederates or lost kin in the War Between the States—the Earps represented the Yankees coming all over again to pass judgment and steal their lands. This was just what they had traveled west to escape. The Clantons and such had lost one war. They would not surrender easily. They craved blood for blood.

Having lived through rough times in Dodge City and Wichita, Wyatt knew that the surviving Clanton and McLaury brothers would not rest until they had avenged their kin. Kill one brother and you might as well kill the lot—but Wyatt was not that kind of man, not yet. He still had all his brothers. The law disappointed him. His arrest and time before the judge had disgusted him. But he still believed, like the true Lincoln Republican he was, in justice.

That changed shortly after Christmas, a holiday I tried unsuccessfully to ignore.

In the early-morning hours of December 29, the porter rapped at my door at the San Jose. I awoke with immediate foreboding: there was no good knock at 5:00 a.m. Who had died now? It had to be Wyatt. I wrapped myself in a robe and pushed my feet into slippers, banging my head on the door in my haste. I rushed downstairs, expecting James or Morgan. I could hear the cook in the kitchen battling the stove to get the biscuits started, and the clink of milk bottles on the porch as they were delivered. I turned into the parlor expecting the worst, feeling an egg rise on my forehead where I’d bashed it.

Wyatt dominated the room with his hat in one hand, his vest unbuttoned, and his coat dusty. His nails were filthy. Blood soaked his cuffs. His raw, red eyes signaled that he’d been up all night. Deep pockets of gray skin sagged below. The first look I saw was one of despair, fatigue. There was no light of love or affection. Yet I had never been so happy to see another person, all six feet of Wyatt, long arms dangling, high-waisted, and all man. I ran to embrace him, but he held me back.

“You don’t want to get blood on you.”

“Is it yours?” I said, searching his arms with my eyes and dreading his answer. Panicked and desperate, I had feared Wyatt’s wounding from that day of the attempted lynching of Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce in front of Vogan’s. He could not evade his enemies’ bullets forever.

“No. It’s Virgil’s.”

A momentary wave of relief crashed against a new horror: “No! Not Virgil!”

Wyatt collapsed onto the settee, his hands between his knees, his head bowed. I threw myself beside him, arching my arm around his slumped shoulders, and kissed his neck, salty with sweat, his chin stubble. He shook his head like a tired old nag responding to a fly but did not rebuke me.

“There’s no justice. There’s no law. There’s just blood and piss.”

“What happened?”

“Assassins shot him in cold blood.”

“Is he alive? Tell me he survived.”

“He’s alive. He’s conscious. But it’s touch-and-go. The shooters blasted his shoulder with heavy-gauge buckshot. They wounded his thigh but missed his spine. I didn’t quit his side to come here until I was sure he was going to make it through the night. He may lose his arm. I left him and Allie battling the doctor not to cut it off. She said she’d sooner slice off my arm. The sound of Allie cursing me for every rotten thing that ever happened to Virgil drove me out of the room just to give my brother a moment of peace. That woman has the personality of a porcupine.”

“How did it happen?”

“Virgil left me at the Oriental for the Cosmopolitan a half hour before midnight, and the villains ambushed him. He says two or three snipers fired double-barreled shotguns from behind the adobe walls at the Huachuca Water Company. Damn cowards shooting to kill in cold blood. It was Ike and that cowboy vermin, maybe Curly Bill or Johnny Ringo, Frank Stillwell or Joe Hill. They’ve been threatening to kill us for months, and the hope of a hanging must have whetted their appetite. I heard the shots and was heading for the door when Virgil fell back through the doors of the Oriental and into my arms. Over his squalls, I heard cries in the street of ‘There they go’ and ‘Head them off,’ but I wasn’t giving chase. I’ll have time to figure out who pulled the triggers, but first I had to see to Virg. We sent for the doctor and carried him to the Cosmopolitan where we could guard him.”

“So he’s safe now?”

“As safe as any of us—that is, not safe at all.”

We sat through a long silence, as I studied the bowed head of the man who always sat upright, with his eyes facing forward. This Wyatt whom I loved was now shattered and grief stricken, neither hero nor villain, just a man who’d witnessed more carnage than he could stomach. Yet, he forever felt an obligation to shoulder the load, to make things right, even if they were unrightable, unfightable wrongs.

“Tell me what’s in that hard head of yours, Wyatt.” I placed a hand on his nape, the other on his knee, my touch softening my words. He remained still, silent. “You can bottle it up. I understand. I won’t force you to talk, or to listen, but I’ll speak until you cry ‘enough’!”

“Go on, Sadie, I’m listening.”

“Maintain a tough front with your brothers. I understand. You aren’t the oldest, but you are the fiercest among strong men. You are their leader, their anchor. That’s clear to everyone. But you don’t always have to be tough with me. You rushed to protect me, and warn me, as soon as you could get free. I hope you also came for another reason, whether you accept it or not: you came to unburden yourself. Wyatt, you cannot carry this weight on your shoulders all day, all the time, behind bars and on the street, heeled or not. You are not a pack animal. There was no joy for you in the deaths of the McLaury boys and Billy Clanton, no satisfaction.”

“Lord have mercy, no,” he whispered.

“I know this. Your brothers do, too. The guilt will kill you. It will sap your strength. You cannot preserve people that do not want to be shielded. Wyatt, you cannot even protect people from themselves. The fiends tried to assassinate Virgil, unarmed, unwarned. They’re animals.”

“Cow-thieving bastards.”

“Virgil may die. He may not. He may be crippled. But
you
did not shoot him. He called you to Arizona for the opportunities he saw. He wore the deputy US Marshal badge as well as the name of Earp.”

“He
wears
the badge and
bears
our name. He is not yet dead.”

“He will not die, Wyatt. Look at me.
Really
look at me.” Wyatt gazed up, balefully, without raising a wall of strength, without smiling to make me smile. I took in those sad, tired eyes and stared back, radiating love and light. “This is who I am for you. Talk to me, tell me your troubles. I may flinch at a gunshot, but I will not flinch at anything you tell me. Good, bad, or indifferent. I will hear you out. I know down deep you are a good man. You can parse right from wrong. But, please, do not feel obligated to be an angel in my eyes. You are a caretaker and a lawmaker, but you are no good for nobody a broken-down heap.”

I held my breath then, wondering if I had gone too far, pushing a man already down too hard, when all he wanted was a bit of soft shoulder and a place to rest. Then he spoke: “You don’t know what it’s like to see Virgil broken again after all that time in bed with his leg. There was so much blood, and his arm just hanging like a bent branch. No way I could lie and say it was a stitch away from being fixed. Virgil survived the war without seeing a bullet, only to be wounded leaving a saloon. I never wore a uniform. Now I’m shooting men on the street. And, look, this blood on my sleeves is all his, not mine.”

“You can’t blame yourself for being lucky, baby.”

“But I do, Sadie. Every day while I’m walking and my brothers carry the bullet scars that ache when the weather turns. Now, tonight, Virgil took buckshot in cold blood—not a fair fight by any reckoning. I have hunted buffalo to forget my sorrows over Willa, one falling after the other, without remorse. Now cowboys hunt my brothers and me as if we were beasts. There is more than enough silver in these mountains, and gold in these saloons, to satisfy. It’s just the gamble: some win, some lose. Apaches aren’t our foes; they fight for their territory just like we would. Rattle a hive and hornets sting. The braves do not enter our saloons, get drunk, and shoot up the town, dropping an enemy in the dark from behind a blind. This is white men gone wild. This is evil. And when the cowboys control the local sheriff, that smooth-talking ass-licker Behan, it is a dangerous world. Damn that fool Ike, he dropped his hat running from the scene tonight—with
his name
in it. His whining and threatening whipped up that damn gunfight that got his brother killed—that got my brother killed tonight, or close to. Now, I’ve killed men, too. How am I different from Ike in the eyes of the law, and how can I prove myself a better man?”

“Are you a drunk, Wyatt? Are you a fool? No.”

“No, Sadie, I’m not.”

“You are a true man, but now may not be the time to act. Standing against the cowboy crew is a big and, perhaps, impossible job. Consider your kin: Virgil’s life is hanging by a thread. You are that thread. Stand beside Virgil now and tell him what he means to you while you still can; he needs you. He
will
be avenged. But what good does that do him now?”

“It has been so long since I could rest, since I could just lie back in a field and watch the clouds pass overhead. It has been duty and responsibility, burying the dead. I have the strength to stand off a lynch mob, Sadie. I do. I can pull my gun in a vacant lot and shoot faster than the man whose gun is pointing at my heart. But there is a toll on me. A man doesn’t see the light go out in another man’s eyes during a senseless squabble without knowing that death comes to us all, to his brothers and mine. And,” his voiced cracked, “I cannot bear to leave you, or lose you.”

“Hush,” I said, deeply moved. He had so often been strong for me, and here I was protecting him without a pistol. “I am not going anywhere, and neither are you. I cannot pull you on my lap, but come, rest your head.”

I took Wyatt’s hat and tossed it on the empty chair, lowering his head gently onto my thighs. I combed my fingers through his hair, finding the tangles and running them through. I smoothed his thick eyebrows, lightly, gently. I circled the depressions above his ears with my fingertips, and felt his shoulders relax. I rubbed his temples. His legs extended. His right arm fell over my knees, his hand opened, callused palm up.

While I wanted to beg Wyatt to leave Tombstone with me immediately, I knew that was impossible. I stroked his head, letting the love I felt for him flow through my hands. My needs were nothing in comparison to his: I was all for Wyatt.

We shared the settee for a long time, until the clattering in the dining room increased. The maid set the table. The cook barked that the toast had burnt. A gentleman in pressed pinstripes and a pocket handkerchief blundered into the parlor and then retreated as if he were on fire.

I did not stay my hand until Wyatt stirred beneath it. “I have to go back, Sadie.”

“I know,” I said, in the peace between gunshots. “I’m here. I love you.”

“I love you, too. I just want to be free to love you all the time, always.”