The Last Woman Standing (24 page)

“I’ve warmed up my hands,” Mollie said. “Now I’m going to compose you. I will start at the top and work down. Tell me if you ever feel uncomfortable. Just say, ‘Stop.’”

Mollie began with my hair, pulling out the strands so that they cascaded down my back, looping it in the messy braids so carefully plaited the night before. Her gentle touch relaxed me. Her soft, warm hands moved to my shoulders, straightening their alignment. She pushed my top hip toward the drapes, tucked my left knee under my thigh with two hands, tucking my left foot back so that the sole faced the camera. Her final touch was to elongate my right leg, curling my left toes around my right ankle.

I let Mollie shape me as if I were bread dough, as if I were that little flour banker with the egg-yolk hair I showed to Wyatt so long ago in Kitty’s house while baking strudel. Mollie rolled me this way and that. She started gently and, when I didn’t complain, became firmer, more matter of fact. I heard her footsteps retreat to assess her composition, and then felt the return of her warm hands, her soft coffee breath. I was not the actress at the center of the stage, not Pauline Markham, who could seduce the stoniest heart in the audience. Instead, I became the image of beauty at the center of my friend’s photograph in this game we played together while everyone else was out of the studio. This was performance, even if it was not movement.

“Now, Josephine, slowly raise yourself on the pillow and twist your face toward me. That’s not going to work. Try this: throw your left hand over the back of the chaise without arching your back. That’s it. Hold on gently. That’s good. Now bend your right elbow. Goodie. Use your right hand to position your face toward me, resting your cheek on the palm. Your hair is perfect just as it is. Leave it.”

Mollie stepped away again, and I tried to hold the position. I breathed deeply, not considering my nakedness but the puzzle piece my body had become. She said, “There’s one problem. Can you take that left breast that’s getting crushed and push it out just a smidgen? No radical movements, mind. This is a small shift. Try arching your back to release it. Now relax your back again. Your hips are still facing backward, your head forward. Perfect.

“Now,” continued Mollie, “although you might want to shed tears from the torturous twist, I want you to consider your feelings as you entered the studio this morning. Resist tears and let it flow through your gaze, your lips, or the reach of your neck. Feel it in places that you think the camera won’t see, and it will be visible elsewhere. Bring Wyatt back with your eyes, not your words.”

The pressure behind my eyes returned with full force. I projected the emotions as if my pupils were pistols. In my head I could hear my voice, and it said,
One more time, come back to bed
.
Let the Clantons run until high noon. This may be the last time, our last time
. Liquid welled beneath my eyes.
Wyatt, please, stay, but if you must go, know that this is what you are leaving behind—and let that knowledge bring you back to me.

“Beautiful,” Mollie said. “If I were Wyatt, I’d turn my horse around right now. Can we risk one more shot? I have an idea.”

“What’s that?”

“Untwist yourself and I’ll tell you,” Mollie said. “I have a prop.”

Slipping the silk kimono around me, I slid off the chaise. Mollie left the room. She returned with a gray box tied in a black ribbon. After carefully opening the box, she rounded her shoulders and seemed to pause, as if trying to decide whether to reveal its contents. Then Mollie removed a long black-net widow’s veil.

I shuddered. “What’s that?”

“I bought it from Addie when Buck stayed away longer than intended on the trail of Apaches. Have you ever bought an umbrella to keep it from raining? That’s why I purchased this veil: hope and fear.”

I fingered the fine mesh. “If it’s some kind of superstitious protection, I’ll buy in.”

“No need for your pennies. Maybe we should wait for another day. It’s getting time for customers to come knocking. I don’t want to risk it.”

“Just tell me what you want. If we hear footsteps on the porch, I’ll run behind the curtain.”

Mollie retreated behind the tripod, switching the camera back to the portrait setting. “Drop the robe and kick it aside. I don’t want it in the shot.”

I covered my head and draped the veil over my shoulders and breasts. Below my navel, I clasped my hands.

“Raise your chin, Josie. Show me a pout.”

I gazed at Mollie’s lens with a controlled intensity. In my mind, I conjured Wyatt and felt desire rise in me, driven by the memory of his passion that had washed over me again and again the night before. I felt, for a moment, triumphant. I sensed the power of my body and how it vibrated with life. It was an ecstatic moment.

But it was only a moment, a moment draped in black: it was possible that I would become Wyatt’s widow before I became his bride.

CHAPTER 28

FEBRUARY 1882

Dark days followed, accompanied by heavy snows. At Fly’s, I monitored daily dispatches. The surviving Clantons eluded Wyatt. His posse, including Morgan and Doc, scoured Charleston and the county’s farthest corners armed with shotguns, Winchester rifles, and pistols. No Ike.

A week later, I heard that the Clanton brothers surrendered to a second posse, claiming they feared for their necks in Earp custody. As if Wyatt was capable of such lawless brutality while wearing a badge! Those brutes returned to Tombstone, facing charges for Virgil’s shooting. In early February, Ike had his day in Judge Stilwell’s court. The prosecution’s evidence—his hat at the scene—was circumstantial. Seven alibi witnesses testified he was in Charleston at the time of the shooting.

Ike was acquitted. I was enraged. It got worse.

Exonerated and emboldened, Ike filed a new murder indictment—this time in Contention, not Tombstone—against the Earps and Doc for October’s gunfight. We were going to be dragged under threat of the noose again. Johnny, fulfilling the arrest warrant, first sought Wyatt at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. He took Morgan into custody there, leaving behind the wounded Virgil.

Sheriff Behan, armed and empowered, now walked door to door in all the familiar places—the Oriental, Vogan’s, the Alhambra Saloon, the tobacconist, even the ice-cream parlor—to flush out his rival in love and law. While Mollie and Buck discreetly walked to the post office, gleaning the gossip on the streets, Wyatt and I huddled at Fly’s Gallery. We had a sliver of time together before Johnny’s inevitable arrival to arrest Doc—and him.

Wyatt, pacing the boards, ignored his coffee, although Marietta brewed the best in town. Having downed mine while I waited for his arrival, I felt wide-awake and deeply anxious. I dreaded separation, whether it was jail or Wyatt scouring the territory for violent offenders at the head of a posse begging for a sniper’s bullet.

I wanted to stake my future on this beautiful man from Illinois. The feeling was mutual. Together, we had carved out time amid the chaos of clan warfare and complicated domestic arrangements. During those intimate moments, I was as closely connected to another human being as I’d ever been and, I felt, ever would be. I did not want to abandon that. And then, along came Johnny, who couldn’t value what he had, but put a price on what he lacked. His jealousy, coupled with his sheriff’s badge, terrified me. I sensed my time with Wyatt was about to end. My sadness drove a great anger: I wanted to shoot Johnny myself. I knew Wyatt wouldn’t do it. He was no killer.

That critical morning, I took comfort that Wyatt wanted to spend his last free moments with me. I tried to moderate my emotions to support him, rather than increasing the tension. Perched on the edge of the chaise, I waited for Wyatt to make his point. He’d talked to his lawyer. Ike’s filing wasn’t double jeopardy because the first go-round in Judge Spicer’s court had been a hearing, not a trial.

Observing Wyatt’s frustration, my anxiety rose. He had explained that in a dangerous situation, one’s own panic served the enemy. The adversary, whether Apache or cowboy, was waiting in the dark or behind a tree, counting on this weakness. If I could learn to control my hysteria, I became an ally, not a burden. It was the difference between fearlessness and bravery. I focused on Wyatt. He would not break. Neither would I.

Wyatt turned to me, his face somber. “Johnny is the law in Tombstone. We’ve both been fooled before, Sadie. We won’t be fooled again.”

“Amen.”

“If I’d been named sheriff, believe me, the cowboys would never have risen like this. But that’s over and done with. Mad dog Clanton won’t let go. He’s set his teeth in me.”

“He’s a slobbering bulldog, Wyatt. They’ll set you free. You said it yourself: they have no new evidence. This will blow over.”

“Sad to say, Sadie, this will not blow over. It will blow up. Ike has Johnny to do his dirty work. Nothing makes Behan happier than cuffing me and jeopardizing you.”

Wyatt was right. Danger didn’t just knock. It pounded. Now wasn’t the moment to persuade him otherwise. While I wanted to soothe him and prompt the comfort of his reassurance, I followed his lead. I stuck to the facts: “What is our plan?”

“I’m considering and sifting our options. Today, I have no choice.” Wyatt raised his forearms in mock surrender. “Johnny will find me soon enough. I’m prepared if it only means jail and justice. What disturbs me is that I’m a lawman by nature and now lack faith in the system. I’ve done my month in court, my weeks in jail. It’s cost me dearly in cash and credibility. I won’t be caged again. I’ve called in all my markers and mortgaged my house to raise attorney fees. Virgil will never regain the use of his arm. His Allie blames me as if I had loaded the shotguns. She thinks I’m impervious to her opinion, but I’m not, given that she slings it at me day after day.”

“You are brothers together. When has Allie’s carping ever affected you?”

“I’m worn down, Sadie. My hopes for making a respectable life here surrounded by my kin, with real estate and businesses and bank accounts, died in jail. Between us, I’m concerned. We ride over to Contention and we could get shot at any point along the way. These cowboys are brazen. We sit in jail there, we’re begging for the rope even if Ike’s suit is unfounded. Behind bars we’re sitting ducks, as vulnerable as Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce.”

“What can I do?” I could not bear the thought, after so much death, of adding Wyatt’s corpse to the pile. How would his strong face appear when no longer capable of expression, those lips robbed of kissing, those thick muscles slack? For a horrifying instant, I saw the image as it would appear in a C. S. Fly photograph, and then I chased it away as best I could. How do you describe premourning: the fear borne by women left behind when dispatching husbands and sons to prison or battle, that impossible agitation edged in hope that you will see them again, safe and unbroken? It was like weighing odds at the faro table, gambling on life and fearing death. I reined in my tears even though I wanted to hide Wyatt in the cupboard with the cameras. We could wait until nightfall and flee together. But, no, he wouldn’t have submitted. Instead, I steadied myself for the reason he’d called me to him. I sensed he was about to lay down the law.

Wyatt reached out his hand. I shuddered, knowing how close I was to tears as I took it. I kissed the inside of his palm, the callus at the base of his ring finger. Horses wheeled in the alley. “I am no outlaw. Sadie, this is not your fight.”

“It’s not yours anymore, either. You did not want to fight Ike. You spared his life. And now, here you are, dumped into the cowboy muck again. You will be exonerated. You will have your chance to see justice served.”

“That might be true, Sadie. It might not. But that’s irrelevant. If I am ever to get out alive, I need a reason to continue: our future together.”

I longed to kiss those lips to seal that deal, so reassured was I at his dependence, but we had so little time. The risk of separation might extend beyond weeks and months. It was unbearable, but I said, “Do what you believe is right, Wyatt. And tell me what to do.”

“Leave here now. Get out tonight. I’ll settle your debts. I booked you passage on the Benson stage and the San Francisco train under the name Joanna Brown. Forget good-byes. Send letters to your friends once you’re safe. Pack your trunks and leave them in your room for James to ship directly. Take only a carpetbag, as if you were just doing an overnight errand. Leave your parents’ address for me here. I will come and get you when this is over.”

I gulped, clutching Wyatt’s hand. “When will it be over?”

“I’m no fortune-teller. When I’m free and clear, I’ll kiss you in San Francisco.”

Boots scrambled on the gallery porch. The door banged inward, introducing wind-borne dirt and horse-crap stink, shaming the cheery jingle of the customer bell. Johnny swaggered in and muscled between us. “Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp, I arrest you for the murders of William Clanton, Frank McLaury, and Thomas McLaury.”

I felt inclined to spit, and jeer:
“Hypocrite. Whoremonger. Coward.”
I wanted to run to Wyatt and wrap myself around him so they couldn’t capture him. Instead, I respected that Wyatt wanted to take the high road as he was dragged down the low one. Without so much as a parting kiss, he disappeared in the stamping of boots and the clamping of irons. Doc’s curses came from the other room, and Kate cussed like no man I’d ever heard, in filthy English and undecipherable Hungarian, and then Doc, too, was gone.

Alone in the studio, I stood immobilized. I wanted to crumble. But that wasn’t Wyatt’s woman. I sat down at Mollie’s rolltop desk, pulled a sheet of stationery from one of the cubbies, and sat staring at the blank page embossed with the words
F
LY’S
P
HOTOGRAPHY
G
ALLERY
. Looking up at the slots in the desk, I saw, half-hidden amid the piles of photographs, the most recent intimate images of me. I took two and placed them side by side on the desk by the blotter. I was no longer the girl in too-tight braids tied in tartan ribbon.

I had my inspiration. I wrote simply:

Dearest Wyatt,

Come back to me.

The words mattered less than the photograph. It was my image in the widow’s veil. In it my chin raised to emphasize my cheekbones, and my eyes gazed out from the heavy paper with a knowing expectancy. My curves beneath the veil pleased me: I saw myself as Wyatt saw me, creamy-skinned and inviting. Mollie had captured in film what Buck had yet to do: she’d caught life on camera, not death’s stillness. This was a photo of a woman in love and lust demanding her man remain safe, if only to return to her bed. I slid the photo in the envelope addressed to Mr. Wyatt Earp from Miss Josephine Sarah Marcus above my parents’ San Francisco address, then cleared away everything else on the blotter and placed the envelope at its center where Mollie would be sure to see it.

I placed the second photograph in an envelope, put on my coat and gloves, wrapped myself in a shawl, and left through the boardinghouse. From Doc’s room, I heard crockery hit the wall and shatter. I kept walking until I arrived at the Fremont Street door. On the porch, the wind whipped up the dirt, and I paused to cover my head with the shawl, concealing my face. Without stopping at Addie Bourland’s directly across the street to cancel a dress order and bid good-bye, I hastened toward the San Jose, my mind now full of the details that amass when one is leaving a town where one has lived for over a year.

Crossing diagonally at Fourth Street, a small woman blocked my way amid the horse traffic. “You don’t remember me, do you?” Allie Earp asked.

I could hardly see Virgil’s wife with the wind whisking the dirt into my eyes and my head full of bees. I couldn’t proceed without knocking her down, so I looked at the tiny, sour-faced woman beneath her old-fashioned bonnet. I remembered her from Mrs. Clum’s funeral, although we had never been properly introduced, as many hours as I’d spent in Virgil’s company with Wyatt.

“You’re—” I began.

“Allie,” she said. “Allie Earp. Mrs. Virgil Earp.”

I applied a pleasant smile. “A pleasure; I’m in a bit of a rush.”

“I’m sure you are. But before you swan off, I have a few things to get off my chest. I hardly register in your opinion, but I remember you from the first day you stepped off that stage.”

“You have a good memory,” I said. “But I don’t think we should discuss this in the middle of the street. Getting trampled would please neither Wyatt nor Virgil.”

Allie didn’t move. She railed on. “Who are you to speak for Wyatt? Mattie is his wife, though it gives her no pleasure, and he never made it legal.”

I felt a headache coming on after hearing her refer to Mattie as Wyatt’s wife. “Now is not the time.”

“Isn’t that too bad, Miss High-and-Mighty. I have something to say, and I’m going to say it. Stay away from my kin. You’ve brought bullets and Behan down on our heads from the day you arrived.”

“I hate Johnny Behan. He just took Wyatt from me.”

“I hated you from the moment you climbed off that stagecoach. Virgil told me about you: the Jewess Johnny Behan shipped down from San Francisco. I was heading to the post office when I caught you smiling at Morgan. Then you did that double take we all do the first time we see a brother Earp. There was that cuss Wyatt, although I despise speaking ill of kin, in his black hat and coat, as neat as a pointy pin, thanks to Mattie’s hard work.”

“I don’t remember seeing you.”

“Why would you? You wouldn’t have the time of day for me. But I saw you smile at Wyatt, you man-eater. I wouldn’t let you near my Virgil. You and your airs, as if Johnny was a prince—and we all know how true that was. Behan shamed you, and then you had to get back at him with Wyatt. Wasn’t there anyone of your own kind you could cleave to and leave us alone?”

“I don’t have to listen to this.” I felt the urge to shove her and find Wyatt. The tears that I had withheld were knocking at the door of my lids crying,
Let us out!
But Wyatt had told me about Allie and her meddling ways. I remembered his words the first time he showed his hand: he had never loved Mattie. He never would. All that mattered was that we would be together.