Gunman's Rhapsody

“You’re goddamned right I am,” Doc said. “We ain’t going to catch Billy Leonard or anybody else riding around these mountains. I’m going back and wait for them to show up.”

“He’s right,” Masterson said. “I’m a little saddle sore myself.”

“You’re getting soft, Bat,” Wyatt said.

“I’m getting smart,” Masterson said. “We’re just in the foothills and we’re low on food. You want to wander around out here, until you run out altogether, God bless you. I’m going to get a bath and a hot meal and maybe a whore.”

“We’ll resupply at Joe Hill’s ranch,” Virgil said.

“Resupply my ass,” Holliday said. “Hill’s in with the rustlers as much as Len Redfield.”

“Sure,” Wyatt said. “But he’ll sell us food.”

“I’m going back with Doc,” Masterson said and rolled over in his blankets, with his back to the fire.

“Free country,” Virgil said.

One by one, the posse dropped off to sleep, leaving only Holliday still sitting up by the fire writing in his notebook. The next morning, he and Masterson saddled up right after breakfast and rode their tired horses at an easy pace west toward Tombstone.

Two days later, Johnny Behan, with Billy Breakenridge and Buckskin Frank Leslie to track, caught up with the Earp posse in the valley of the San Simon River near the New Mexico border.

“King busted out,” Breakenridge told them, laughing, while Behan was ahead with Leslie looking for sign. “Henry Jones was drawing up a bill of sale for King’s horse to John Dunbar, and King went out the back door, mounted up and rode away.”

“Who had him?” Virgil asked.

“Harry Woods,” Breakenridge said. “Standing right there.”

“Amazing that Harry didn’t see him go,” Virgil said.

“Amazing,” Breakenridge said.

“Amazing that a horse happened to be saddled out back,” Virgil said.

“Amazing.”

“We’ll be out awhile,” Virgil said. “Somebody ought to go back and look for King.”

He looked at Breakenridge.

“Billy?”

Breakenridge shook his head.

“I’m with Johnny,” he said.

“Why not Johnny?” Morgan said. “He’s the damn sheriff.”

Virgil smiled and shook his head without saying anything.

“Johnny won’t go,” Wyatt said.

“It should be you, Wyatt,” Virgil said. “You’re the best of us anyway.”

Wyatt nodded.

“How long you planning to be out?”

Virgil shrugged.

“A week if we’re lucky, maybe more. See what Johnny says.”

“He’s talking ’bout a week,” Breakenridge said.

“Luther’s got a two-day start on me, three at least by the time I get to Tombstone.”

“What I don’t want,” Virgil said, “is for Luther to be swaggering around town making us look like a bunch of goddamned jackasses.”

Wyatt nodded.

“If he’s around town,” Wyatt said, “I’ll make sure he don’t swagger.”

He and Virgil grinned at each other. Then Wyatt turned his horse and rode slowly away, toward Tombstone, thinking about Josie Marcus. There was nothing new in that. He thought about Josie Marcus most of the time.

“A week,” he said to the chestnut gelding he was riding. The horse’s ears moved slightly. “A goddamned week.”

Twenty-two

Wearing a freshly laundered shirt, bathed and clean-shaven and smelling of bay rum, Wyatt knocked on Josie Marcus’s door on a pleasant March evening, just getting dark and lyrical with the sound of desert bird-song.

“Wyatt,” she said.

“Evening, Josie.”

“I thought you were with the posse.”

“Posse’s still out,” Wyatt said. “I came back to see about Luther King.”

Josie smiled.

“He’s not here,” she said.

“Neither is Johnny,” Wyatt said.

“Why, so he isn’t,” she said, and smiled. “May I come in?”

“Yes,” Josie said. “You may.”

She stepped aside and held the door, and he took off his hat and walked into the small living room that looked out onto Third Street.

“Would you like coffee?” she said.

“Yes, please,” Wyatt said.

He waited while she went into the kitchen and made the coffee. The room was silent. Third Street was far enough from the center of town so that there was no street sound, except the occasional sound of a horse going slowly by. There were flowers in a pottery vase on the table by the window.

Josie returned with two cups of coffee in saucers on a small wooden tray. She handed one cup and saucer to Wyatt.

“Won’t you sit?” she said, and nodded toward a straight-backed wooden chair with curved arms and an upholstered back, which must have been freighted in from San Francisco.

He sat, carefully so as not to spill the coffee.

“Have you had any luck finding Luther King?” she asked.

Wyatt smiled.

“Luther’s probably in Mexico by now,” Wyatt said.

“I see. Will you be rejoining the posse?”

Again Wyatt smiled.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think I will.”

“Do you know when they’ll be back?”

“Be out another week for sure,” Wyatt said.

This time it was Josie who smiled.

“Did you really come back to look for Luther King?” Josie said.

“If I’d seen him, I’d have collared him.”

“But you didn’t, and now you’re here,” Josie said. “Did you plan to collar me?”

Wyatt drank coffee, and put the cup back down carefully in the saucer, and looked up at her. His face was serious.

“Well, yes,” he said. “In a manner of speaking.”