Gunman's Rhapsody

“I’ll be seeing you, bitch,” Holliday said to Kate Elder as they passed her.

Behan had nothing to do but follow. And the deputies strung out behind him as they went out onto Allen Street and headed for the jail.

Thirty-two

Doc was out on bail within the hour, and in three days the county attorney dropped all charges.

“Said he couldn’t find no grounds for them, Wyatt,” Doc said, sipping whiskey and beer at the bar of the Alhambra. “I’m going to slap that bitch silly.”

“Maybe you didn’t hit her so much,” Wyatt said, “she might not say bad things about you.”

“They got her drunk,” Doc said. “Behan and his crowd. Filled her with hooch and got her to sign the complaint. She’s drunk, she’d sign a complaint against Jesus Christ.”

“Specially if he thumped her around,” Wyatt said.

Doc laughed.

“Well, she’s gone off to Globe for a while, waiting for me to cool down, I suppose.”

Wyatt was drinking coffee, even though the temperature in the street was over a hundred.

“How come you never have a drink, Wyatt?”

“Don’t like it.”

“What don’t you like?”

“Don’t like the taste. Don’t like being dull and slow and loud from drinking it.”

“Like me?”

“Ain’t seen you dull and slow yet, but you do get loud.” Doc finished his whiskey and ordered more.

“I do,” Doc said. “That’s a fact. You know why I drink so much, Wyatt?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said, “I do.”

“Being a drunk and having a temper like I do might get me killed someday.”

“Might.”

“You know I don’t care if it happens,” Doc said.

“I know.”

Doc drank some more whiskey and tipped his head back, letting the whiskey trickle down his throat. Then he swallowed and laughed and chased it with some beer.

“And I like whiskey, and beer, and,” he laughed again, “and wild, wild women.”

“Why do you suppose Behan put Kate up to that trick?” Wyatt said.

“You got his girl,” Holliday said. “Johnny figured to paint me with shit and get some on you. You and Virgil ought to bring in them boys who really done the Benson stage. Take some of the bite out of Sheriff Behind.”

“Got to locate them first,” Wyatt said.

He wasn’t looking at Holliday. He was gazing out through the saloon doors into the street.

“They’re out there with the rustlers, Wyatt.” Doc leaned back in his chair and made a wide sweeping gesture with his left hand. “Somewhere out there.”

Wyatt smiled, still looking out the door.

“You ain’t being much of a help, Doc.”

“No, I probably ain’t,” Holliday said. “Mostly I’m probably a hindrance.”

And he drank off the rest of his whiskey.

Thirty-three

The Citizens Safety Committee met in Schieffelin Hall two days after Pete Spence and Frank Stilwell had robbed the Bisbee Stage and been caught at once.

“Frank Stilwell’s a goddamned deputy sheriff,” Bill Herring said. “We can’t trust the damned law officers; who we got left but ourselves?”

Milt Clapp tried to make a motion, but the noise in the room was too much. Everyone spoke at once. On one side of the room, Virgil leaned silently against the wall with Wyatt on one side and Morgan on the other. John Behan stood up beside Clapp and gestured for silence. No one paid him any mind. He waited. Several people yelled that everyone should shut up and let Johnny talk. The noise level dropped only slightly. But Behan jumped at it.

“You people are not fighting men,” Behan said. “You can’t go up against the cowboys.”

The crowd roared that it damned well could, and was eager to do it.

“If you do this, at least get some people who know how to do it,” Behan shouted. “You’re a bank teller, Milton. Bill’s a lawyer.”

The crowd responded in a hundred tongues that it knew how to do it, and would be thrilled at the chance.

“The Earps are here,” Behan shouted. “At least get some men like that with you. Let them be the enforcers.”

The crowd liked the idea so much that it drowned any further sound that Behan might have made. The Earps were impassive against the wall.

“What’s Johnny’s game?” Morgan said.

“Putting us on the side of the vigilantes don’t do us no good with the cowboys,” Wyatt said.

“Hell, arresting Stilwell and Spence didn’t do us all that much good,” Virgil said.

“Frank McLaury’s tight with both of them,” Morgan said. “Him and the Clantons. They’ll be cussing us out for sure.”

“Give me the real rustlers anytime,” Wyatt said.

“Like Ringo?” Morgan said.

Wyatt nodded.

“And Curley Bill,” Wyatt said. “Those boys make their run, and if the law catches them at it, they expect the law to arrest them. They don’t take it like you insulted them.”

The crowd, having roared its approval of the Earps, was now roaring its disapproval of murder and robbery and ignoring the Earps entirely. There was a good deal of movement on the floor, and the Safety Committee members were jostling each other unmercifully.

“Remember we took Bill in after he shot Fred White?” Virgil said.

“That’s what I mean,” Wyatt said. “He knew we had to.”

“Bill’s a stand-up fella,” Virgil said. “John Ringo too, when he’s sober. Shame they get lumped in with people like Clanton and McLaury.”