Gunman's Rhapsody

Behan tried to hold Wyatt’s eyes and couldn’t and hesitated another moment and turned and walked away. Wyatt watched him go as he headed east on Fremont Street until he turned the corner by the post office at Fourth Street disappeared. He realized he was still holding his revolver. He could tell by the weight that it was empty. He opened the cylinder, ejected the shell casings, fished absently into his left-hand coat pocket and came out with a handful of fresh bullets. As he fed them one at a time into the cylinder, the coroner’s people were gathering up the three dead men and loading them onto the back of a wagon. Wyatt snapped the cylinder shut and put the gun in his right-hand pocket. Another hack, carrying Virgil, moved slowly past him.

“They find the slug?” Wyatt asked.

“It went on through,” Virgil said.

“Good,” Wyatt said and the hack moved on.

Fremont Street in front of the alley was crowded now. To Wyatt the crowd was a phantasmagoria, as intangible as the projections of a magic lantern. It was what followed reality, trailing in the absolute fact of the gunfight, like the wisps of gun smoke that had already disappeared, dispersed by the fresh fall air. The coroner’s wagon began to move away with the corpses of the McLaurys and Billy Clanton, and when it was gone Wyatt was the only embodiment of the facts that had transpired, alone in the insubstantial crowd of miners and cowboys that meaninglessly milled and chattered around him. People may have spoken to him. If they did he didn’t hear them. He put the leftover shells back in his left-hand coat pocket, and put the newly loaded revolver in his right-hand coat pocket. Then he turned and went to find Josie.

Forty-four

They were in her room, sitting together on the bed. Josie’s face was a white oval in the cold last light of the November day that came in through the window. A wood stove warmed the room.

“So it’s over?” Josie said.

“Hearing’s over,” Wyatt said. “You want to hear what Spicer ruled?”

“Of course.”

Wyatt’s coat hung on a chair near the bed. He reached over and took paper from his inside coat pocket and unfolded it.

“The evidence taken before me in this case,” Wyatt read, “would not, in my judgment, warrant a conviction of the defendants by a trial jury of any offense whatever.”

“Of course, he’s right,” Josie said. “No one could have ruled differently.”

Wyatt smiled a little. He put the paper back inside his coat.

“Maybe if Behan were running the hearing…” Wyatt said.

“Thank God he’s not,” she said.

Josie put her head against Wyatt’s shoulder. He held her hand. They were quiet together in the still-moonlit room.

“Do you think Johnny put them up to it?” Josie said.

“Yes.”

“Is it about me?” Josie said finally.

Wyatt thought about her question.

“It’s about you and me,” he said after a time. “There’s been a lot of push and shove between us and the cowboys. And it’d be hard to get along with both sides. Johnny tried, but after you and me turned out to be what we are, it was pretty easy for him to slide over to the cowboys. I think he stirred them up, Ike especially, because Ike’s pretty much a fool drunk and easy to stir up.”

“Is he through trying?” Josie said.

“Not likely,” Wyatt said.

“What do you think Johnny will do?” Josie said.

“He’s got the rest of the cowboys to rile. Brocius, and John Ringo, for instance, are a little different than Ike and the McLaurys.”

“Are you afraid of them?”

Wyatt shrugged.

“Thinking about that doesn’t do me much good one way or the other,” he said.

“And you have friends,” Josie said.

“I do,” Wyatt said and smiled. “And my brother Warren came in from California. He’s planning to stay awhile.”

“Is he like you?” Josie said.

“He’s more like Morgan.”

“Kind of likes trouble?” Josie said.

“Kind of.”

“If only Johnny would just come out in the open,” she said.

Wyatt shook his head.

“It’s not Johnny’s way,” Wyatt said.

“I don’t know what to wish,” Josie said. “I can’t wish that we hadn’t met.”

“No, you can’t wish that,” Wyatt said. “Whatever comes of all this, we are worth whatever it costs.”

“Then I wish someone would kill Johnny.”

“Someone would have to murder him,” Wyatt said. “He won’t come at you straight on.”

“Could you murder him?”

“No.”

“You’ve shot men before.”

“It’s not just what you do, it’s how you do it,” Wyatt said. “And I think I promised you I wouldn’t.”

“I know,” Josie said. “I know.”

“Shooting the sheriff is serious business. There’s some law out here now. Hell, I’m supposed to be part of it sometimes.”

“Maybe Doc,” Josie said.

“That’s up to Doc,” Wyatt said. “I won’t ask him to do my shooting for me… And I don’t want you asking him.”

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder.

“You know me quite well, don’t you?” she said.

“I know you’re talking different than you did when you made me promise not to shoot him.”

“I didn’t know it would get down to you or him.”

“Things do,” Wyatt said.