Gunman's Rhapsody

“Nobody will know,” Wyatt said. “Except my brothers.”

“Say I go over there,” Clanton said. “With Joe Hill, maybe Frank McLaury, and we get these boys to come back. And we get them out of New Mexico and bring them to, say, Frank’s ranch. Then what?”

“Then I’m waiting with a posse and we take them and you get the reward money.”

“They’ll make a fight,” Clanton said. “You’re going to have to kill them.”

Wyatt shrugged.

“How do I know Wells Fargo will pay the reward if they’re dead?”

“You got my word,” Wyatt said.

“No offense, but I don’t know if Wells Fargo will stand by your word.”

“I’ll get a telegram,” Wyatt said. “I’ll have Marshal Williams put it in writing that they pay for Leonard, Head, and Crane or their corpses.”

Ike poured more whiskey into his shot glass and drank it off, then drank the rest of his beer and motioned toward the barman that he wanted another one.

“I’d just as soon see Billy Leonard out of the way,” he said. “I got a ranch in New Mexico that he says is his and he won’t give it up.”

“So you get the reward money and settle the, ah, land dispute,” Wyatt said.

Clanton drank again. He looked at Earp over the glass rim as he did. Hard man to figure, Ike thought. His face never showed anything. He never seemed to say more than he had to. You always had the sense that he had some cards held back and that what you were talking about was only part of what he was thinking.

“How do I know you’re leveling with me?” Ike said.

“You don’t,” Earp said.

There seemed to be no change in his expression or any difference in the way he was talking, but something about the way Earp said “You don’t” made the pit of Ike’s stomach tighten. When he was scared it made him angry, and when he was angry he drank more and talked more and louder. He half knew that, but he couldn’t stop it.

“Maybe you are partners with those boys like they say,” Ike said. “Maybe you got the money and you want them to come in so you can kill them while you are arresting them. Then they can’t peach on you and you got all the cash.”

Earp was silent, looking at him without expression. It made Ike more uncomfortable. He had some more whiskey.

“That could be, couldn’t it, Wyatt? What you got to say about that?”

“You want the deal or not?” Earp said.

Ike’s stomach clenched tighter.

“I got to think on it,” he said. “Talk to Frank and Joe. Virgil know about this?”

“Yes.”

“Might want to talk to him.”

“Do that,” Earp said.

“I will,” Ike said. “I will. I can’t just do it because you say so, you know? These people are friends of mine. I got to give it some thought. I got to talk to people.”

“Not too many people, Ike.”

“I’ll talk to whoever I damn want,” Ike said.

“I expect you will,” Earp said. “Might not be a secret, though, time you get through.”

Twenty-eight

It was hot and the river was low. The green belt along the San Pedro had narrowed as the water dropped. But there was some shade and there was a small breeze that drifted off the river. Josie and Wyatt spread a blanket in the best shade the sparse cottonwoods provided and put out some food. Canned ham, cold biscuits, canned peaches. Far enough away so they wouldn’t feel it, squatting on his heels, with his sleeves rolled, Wyatt built a fire and made coffee with water dipped from the river. He wore no coat. He wore no handgun, but there was a Winchester behind the seat in the buckboard. His chest where his shirt was open was white, as were his forearms. His face and neck and hands were weathered in sharp contrast. When they had eaten, and put the dishes and leftover food in a sack in the back of the buckboard, they sat beside the river leaning against a tree trunk and drank sweet, strong black coffee from tin cups.

“You ever think about moving on?” Josie said.

“Not without you,” Wyatt said.

“No,” Josie said. “Not without me.”

Wyatt had unharnessed the horses and tethered them a little downriver at the water’s edge. The horses stayed in the shade, drinking now and then from the river, and cropping at the sparse green buffalo grass. They twitched their skin occasionally the way horses do to shake off flies, and swished their tails sporadically for the same purpose.

“Maybe someday,” Wyatt said.

“Why not now?”

“Not rich yet,” Wyatt said.

“We could go to San Francisco,” Josie said. “You could get rich there.”

Across the river a coyote stopped in a splash of sunshine and stared at them calmly, then loped on.

“It’s a city,” Wyatt said. “None of the things I’m good at will make you rich in a city.”

“You could be a policeman.”

Wyatt smiled and shook his head.

“You’re a policeman here, sometimes,” Josie said. “You’ve been a policeman in Dodge City and Wichita and… where, Ellsworth?”

“ San Francisco,” Wyatt said, “the captain tells you what to do and the lieutenant tells you what to do and the sergeant tells you what to do.”

He shook his head again. Josie leaned her head against his shoulder. His shirt was damp with sweat.

“So what are you so good at here?” she said. “Doing what you want to?”

“Yes.”