Epitaph (17 page)

And while they did not wish to fall to the level of “Mrs. Behan,” none of them had more than the sketchiest notion as to what constituted respectability in Tombstone, Arizona. As the wife of a tavern owner, Bessie was one step from the bottom of the social ladder, so long as no one outside the family knew about her past. Mattie Blaylock was a former hooker. It was a rare john who looked at a whore's face, but either of them might be recognized by one of thousands of men who'd used them in the old days. Lou had never turned tricks, but she was working in a dance hall when Morg met her. They were living together without the state's sanction or a clergyman's blessing—a fact Lou's father belabored in weekly letters, calling her a harlot, begging her to repent and return home. As for Allie, well, if Virgil Earp hadn't stopped by the restaurant that day, she'd have been fired for insolence soon enough. Where would she have been then? On the street, is where.

In all those months, these four women had not once breached the unseen walls of what they believed to be propriety, but a question had
been asked and lingered unanswered: Why should that Marcus woman have all the fun?

Days passed. Then weeks. Finally, the stars aligned. Wyatt was in Tucson, talking to Bob Paul about running for sheriff. Virg was up in Prescott, delivering a prisoner to the feds. Morgan was on a stage run for Wells Fargo. James would be at the tavern until three or four in the morning.

Neat in ironed shirtwaists with snug, high-buttoned jackets, the Earp women clinked chipped china mugs and drank two fingers of Dutch courage before tying bonnet bows under nice, clean faces. Gathering their nerve and their long full skirts, they set off for town with heads held high, as though they had every right to be out on their own and needed no man's permission or protection.

“Lordy! Will you look at that!” Bessie cried when they got to the corner of First and Allen. “It's like Nashville before the war!”

“Bigger than Council Bluffs, that's certain,” Allie said.

“Bigger than Topeka, too,” Mattie breathed, awed.

Buoyed by the energy and bustle of the crowds that jammed the boardwalks, they linked arms to keep from getting separated and moved down Allen Street, admiring the merchandise in each store window. They actually went into a furniture shop for a few moments, but the proprietor scared them off, chattering about “Eastlake” and “the Ee-setic movement.” Even if they'd had the cash to buy something, new furniture would have been impossible to explain when the brothers got home, so they retreated back outside.

“This sun is killing me,” Mattie muttered, squinting into the glare. Bright light seemed to bother her more and more these days, making her eyes water and nose run. Her arms were starting to itch, too, and rubbing them didn't seem to help. “I think I need to go home,” she told Lou.

“Oh, not yet!” Lou cried. “Is it a headache, Mattie? I have some laudanum in my purse.”

“You are a lifesaver! It's so hot!” Mattie complained, dabbing at her
dampening face with a hankie while Lou dug through her purse. “Is this all you have?” she asked, frowning at the little brown bottle Lou offered.

“I never use much,” Lou told her, adding in a whisper, “It binds me.”

Mattie turned away from the street and drained the contents, closing her eyes to concentrate on the warmth of the opium-infused alcohol: always a welcome sign that relief was on the way.

“Mattie's feeling a little faint,” Lou told the others. “There's an ice cream parlor over there. That'll cool us off.”

They spent a nickel each on dishes of vanilla and sat at a little table by a window, spooning in the cold, creamy treat while taking note of the new fashions. Faces were shaded by parasols, not sunbonnets. Fancy little hats perched on hair that was swept back and piled up. Sleeves were tight. Skirts were narrow across the front now, ruffled and swagged in back. Everything was decorated with tassels, bows, and lace.

“Well, I reckon we can fix our things up with doodads, too,” Bessie said. “We can tell the boys we saw it in a magazine.”

“Hell, none of 'em'll notice doodads,” Allie said.

“Wyatt wouldn't notice if I grew another arm,” Mattie grumbled.

“Feeling any better, Mattie?” Lou asked.

“Yes. Yes, I am,” Mattie said. The itching had stopped, and she wasn't perspiring anymore.

“You should be careful when you clean your hairbrush,” Allie advised. “If birds use the hair to build a nest, you'll have headaches for the whole year.”

This notion provoked a lively discussion. According to Allie, it was a well-known fact. Not being Irish, the others had never heard of such a thing.

“You can cure a headache with a piece of sheet that's touched a corpse,” Allie informed them. “Tie it just above your eyes.”

“I'd rather have the headache,” Bessie said, but Mattie told her, “If you had them like I do, you'd try anything.”

Finished with their ice cream, they returned to the boardwalk and
started back the way they came. They'd all had enough excitement for one day and were ready to go home, but Allie slowed down and stopped in front of the Occidental Hotel's restaurant. There, chalked on a blackboard out in front of the Maison Doree, was the longest menu she had ever seen, even back when she was a waitress.

“Lou, what does all that say?” she asked.

Morgan's girl was the only one among them who had more than a passing acquaintance with the alphabet, but even she had trouble reading the impressive list aloud.

Chicken Giblet and Consome, with Egg

Columbia River Salmon, au Buerre et Noir

Fillet a Boueff, a la Financier

Leg of Lamb, sauce Oysters

Corned beef and Cabbage

Lapine Domestique

Peach, Apple, Plum and Custard Pies

California Fresh Peach a la Conde

“Damn if I know what half them words mean,” Bessie said.

“There's more,” Lou told them. “At the bottom, it says, ‘We will have it or perish. This dinner will be served for fifty cents.'”

“All that for fifty cents?” Mattie wondered.

“I'm not sure,” Lou admitted.

“We could buy one dinner and all four eat parts of it,” Allie suggested.

“Or, perhaps you will do me the honor of bein' my guests.”

They turned at the sound of that soft Georgia voice and saw Doc Holliday, leaning on his cane.

“Ladies,” he said, “it would be my very great pleasure to take y'all to dinner this evenin'.”

I
NSIDE THE MAISON DOREE, GASLIGHT CHANDELIERS
gleamed and oil paintings in big gilt frames hung on wallpaper that shimmered like silk. Crystal sparkled on big round tables covered with white damask, and there was silver
everywhere.
Silver vases, silver platters, silver pitchers, silver teapots, silver coffee urns, and silver cutlery that clinked quietly against white bone china decorated with wide silver bands.

“Everybody's dressed up like it's a wedding,” Allie whispered.

“Except that one,” Bessie whispered, lifting her chin toward a man wearing a black suit with a starched white shirt who was hurrying toward the door to meet them. “He oughta be runnin' funerals.”

Doc kept a straight face as he removed his hat and requested, “A table for five, please. Toward the back.”

The man bowed and said, “Very good, sir,” and made a sweeping gesture when he said, “Follow me, ladies, if you please.”

“Well, I guess we
do
please,” Bessie said, sashaying a little, but she didn't say it real loud.

Everything seemed hushed and special as they made their way down the length of the long, narrow dining room, their steps cushioned and quieted by carpets. Over in a corner, a fiddler was playing something slow and soft, and all around them there was a murmur of conversation.

“That's Doc Holliday,” someone whispered, but only after the little
party was out of earshot. And if anyone in that room was inclined to disdain clean calico and dowdy hats, he wisely kept his remark inaudible to the thin man with the refined face who accompanied four unfashionable ladies to the far end of the room.

Doc took his place with his back to the wall, silent while he caught his breath. Exclaiming over the elegance of their surroundings, the girls had barely settled into their seats when a man with a white towel wrapped around his middle arrived at the table.

“Champagne Perrier-Jouet for the ladies,” Doc told him. “Bourbon, neat, for me.”

“Very good, sir,” the man replied, giving a little bow before he turned on his heel and swanned off toward a huge walnut bar.

“Well, I never!” Allie whispered. “A man waitress?”

“And him wearing an apron!” Mattie cried softly.

“Girls, we need to get us one of those at home!” Bessie declared. “I should think a fella like him would be awful handy to have around.”

“Look how pretty these candlesticks are!” Lou exclaimed. “Do you suppose all this silver comes from right here in Tombstone, Doc?”

He'd started to answer when the door banged open at the other end of the room. Three men sauntered in like they owned the place, and though the fiddler kept playing, conversations ended, one by one, around the room.

Allie twisted in her chair and sized up the newcomers. Drunk, all three of them, she noted with an ex-waitress's automatic disapproval of difficult customers.

The cleanest and soberest was smiling broadly and acting like everyone in the restaurant had been waiting for him to arrive so the party could begin. Black trousers were bloused into knee-high tooled boots, and his spurs dragged big brass rowels across that nice carpet. Still, he appeared to have had a bath recently. Clean black curls sprang out beneath a sombrero, which he now removed and used to knock the dust off his clothes.

Which might have been nice of him, if he'd done it outside.

The loudest and dirtiest was bearded and coatless. A red shirt, faded to pink, gray with dust where it wasn't wet with sweat stains. Battered leather vest. Filthy canvas trousers with a pistol jammed into the waistband at the small of his back. He was talking a lot but seemed nervous, too. Showing off, but not really sure of himself.

He'll probably break something before he leaves, Allie thought sourly.

The quietest stayed by the entrance, swaying slightly. Cleaner than the dirty one, drunker than the clean one. Two guns, a knife in his boot, and the look of a man who'd welcome a reason to explode.

That one's trouble, Allie thought. And Doc Holliday must have been thinking the same thing, for she heard him say, “Miss Allie, I wonder if you would move your chair a little to the left.”

With his view of the room clear, Doc unbuttoned his coat and drew a flat silver case from an inside pocket. Eyes on the quiet man at the door, he removed a slim black cigar from the case, which went back into his pocket. He left his coat open.

The loud one was at the bar now, leaning over a large brass tray, poking at odd-shaped items displayed on ice. “Waddya call
them
things?” he was asking the bartender. “Huh? Huh? Waddya call
them
?”

“Those are oysters, sir, iced and shipped in daily, direct from—”

“Oysters?
Oysters
, you call 'em? Well, damn if they don't look like elephant boogers to me!”

It was a joke his friends had heard before. The curly-haired one smiled indulgently. The quiet one looked away, bored. The nice people in the restaurant pretended not to hear him, but that just made him laugh louder at his own cleverness.

Moron, Allie thought.

He was driving business away, too. A pair of new customers took a step or two inside the restaurant and turned right around when they heard the loudmouth holler, “Just like elephant boogers! I swear!”

Just then, the waiter returned with a little table only big enough for a silver ice bucket with a heavy green bottle in it. As he pulled the
dripping bottle out of the ice and wrapped it in a white napkin, Allie jerked her head toward the three drunks and asked, “Who in hell are those idiots?”

That startled a laugh out of Doc, who'd been lighting his cigar. Smoke and amusement set off a coughing fit, but he was smiling behind his handkerchief when a second waiter arrived with four tall, narrow glasses and Doc's bourbon in a cut-glass snifter on a silver tray.

“Cow Boys. Old Man Clanton's boys,” the first waiter told Allie. “The comedian is the old man's son—Ike. The chummy one is Curly Bill Brocius.” He glanced over his shoulder and turned back toward Doc Holliday to warn, “The one by the door? That's Johnny Ringo.”

Who was staring at Doc.

While the second waiter placed a glass in front of each lady, the first one removed the little wire cage from the green bottle's cork, which he gripped and twisted. He had just about eased it out of the bottle when it suddenly came loose with a
pop!
that made Allie and the other girls jump.