Gunman's Rhapsody

“I got no problem with Brocius,” Behan said.

“Got a problem with him killing Fred White?”

“He was acquitted of that,” Josie said.

“Fred’s dead,” Wyatt said.

“Even Marshal White said it was an accident.”

Wyatt knew he had said that, and maybe it was. But it wasn’t an accident that Curley Bill had his gun out, and it wasn’t an accident that he pointed it at Fred White. Wyatt was looking directly into Josie’s eyes and she back at him, and he could feel them dissolve into each other like two streams merging. He held her look and felt almost as if they had coupled. He didn’t say anything.

“It’s no sin in politics,” Josie said, after what seemed to Wyatt a long silence, “to be close to all sorts of people.”

“Maybe there is no sin in politics,” Wyatt said.

“If you feel that way,” Josie said, “then you wouldn’t want to try for sheriff anyway.”

Her face was intense. Intelligence flickered in her eyes like heat lightning. Behan watched them closely. Could he feel it? Wyatt wondered. Johnny didn’t miss a lot. Maybe Johnny felt it, and saw it and was trying to use it. Was she? No. She wasn’t. He found that he was smiling.

“Maybe you should try, Josie,” he said.

“If I thought I could win, I might,” Josie said. “But I can’t win, and neither can you, Wyatt. Johnny can win, and if he wins you win too. And I win. We all win. Besides, if I were sheriff, I’d have to smoke a smelly cigar and wear a big, ugly gun.”

“That’d be a sight,” Behan said.

All of them laughed.

“Do it, Wyatt,” Josie said, “step aside. For Johnny, for yourself, for me. It’s the right thing.”

She was like a terrier after a rat, he thought. And very beautiful.

“Sure,” Wyatt said. “I’ll do it today.”

“By God, Wyatt, that’s the way,” Behan said. “And you’ve got my word on the rest of it. I’ll keep my part of the bargain.”

“How about my brothers?” Wyatt said.

Behan didn’t hesitate.

“Certainly,” Behan said. “It’s going to be a big county. There will be enough for everybody.”

He put out his hand, and Wyatt, still looking at Josie, shook it briefly. Behan smiled with pleasure and thought about what he’d said, and liked it so much that he said it again.

“There will be enough for everybody. Everybody.”

Behan was probably lying, Wyatt thought, still looking at Josie. Johnny didn’t always mean what he said, and sometimes he didn’t even know he didn’t. But Wyatt didn’t care. Wyatt knew why he had agreed to it. Later that day, he wrote a one-line letter of resignation: “I have the honor herewith to resign the office of deputy sheriff of Pima County.”

Fifteen

Allie was cooking bacon and biscuits for all of them.

“How could anybody vote for Ben Sippy ’stead of you, Virgil?” she said.

Virgil drank some coffee, and put the cup down and wiped his mustache.

“Ben Sippy’s a good man,” he said.

“Not as good as you,” she said.

Allie put a plate of biscuits on the table and began to fork thick slices of bacon out of the frying pan onto another platter. Virgil took a biscuit.

“Don’t matter whether he’s any good or not,” Wyatt said. “Vote was three hundred eleven for Ben, two hundred nine for Virgil. It’s done.”

Allie put the bacon on the table.

“And Wyatt ain’t deputy anymore, and Morgan plays pool more than he works.”

Morgan took a piece of bacon in his fingers and ate it.

“And damn it, use a fork and knife at my table,” Allie said.

Morgan grinned at her.

“You cook too good, Allie. I can’t take the time.”

She pretended to hit him with her big serving fork.

“So what are we going to do, Virgil?”

“Right now we’re going to eat breakfast,” Virgil said.

“I can see that,” Allie said. “But I want to know what we’re going to do for money.”

“Make some more biscuits, Allie.”

“You ain’t finished them.”

“But we will,” Virgil said, “and then we’ll want some more.”

Virgil’s voice didn’t change, but Allie stopped talking and began to cut flour and lard together. She knew how far Virgil could be pushed. Which was farther by her than by anyone else. She wasn’t afraid of his anger. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her. But she loved him, and she didn’t want to make him mad.

The men were quiet for a while, eating.

Then Morgan said, “So how come you resigned, Wyatt?”

Wyatt finished his coffee, and Allie brought the pot over from the stove and poured him some more. It was November and overcast. There was a wind coming off of the Dragoon Mountains to the east, and it drove a fine rattle of grit against the back windows of the kitchen.

“They’re going to break up Pima County,” Wyatt said. “Make a new county with Tombstone in the middle of it. Means there’s going to be a lot of politics going on, and I kind of wanted to stop working for a Democrat before that happened.”

“You think Bob Paul will make a run for sheriff?” Morgan asked.

“I think he will, and he’s a Republican and we should be supporting him. Won’t hurt us with John Clum either.”

Virgil nodded.