Epitaph (52 page)

Still only half-awake, he marveled at Ike's capacity for drink. Why isn't that idiot passed out in an alley by now? he was wondering when Allie came in, but he snapped to when he saw her face.

“That was Bob Hatch from the billiard parlor,” she said. “Wyatt's alone and he's up against four Cow Boys out in front of Spangenberg's gun shop. Bob says they're liable to kill him before you get there.”

“Christ.” Virg grabbed his pants. “Jesus. Go tell Morg!”

“Bob went to Morgan's first, but Lou says Morg left home with Doc about twenty minutes ago. Ike has been over at Fly's, yelling about how he's going to shoot all of you.”

“Christ,” Virg said again, pushing his feet into his boots. “Jesus.”

“WYATT EARP HAULED OFF
and hit Tommy for nothing at all!” Frank McLaury was telling Willie Claiborne and Billy Clanton. “Just
hit
him, like he hit Curly Bill! Sonofabitch pulled Tom's own gun right out of his belt and hit him with it! We were on our way out of town! We've got every right to be carrying guns on the way out of town! He had no call doing that!”

Tom was on his feet, trying to understand what was going on. Everything seemed very loud, and his brother's voice made his ears ring. “I'm gonna throw up,” he warned, but nobody was listening.

“Wearing a badge don't give him the right to go around hitting people,” Frank was saying. “Assault and battery's what it is! I want that bastard arrested and prosecuted!”

“Frank, I don't feel good,” Tom mumbled. “Let's go home.”

“And then he says, ‘I oughta kill Ike,'” Frank was telling Billy Clanton. “That's just what he said: ‘I oughta kill that idiot myself!'”

“PULL A GUN,”
Ike was muttering. “You want respect? Pull a gun.”

He was already carrying a Winchester and bought a pistol when Spangenberg's opened. He was still outside Fly's Photography Studio, but in his mind he was already back at Spangenberg's. “I want another gun,” he was going to say. “Treat me like a dog! Hah. I'll fight'm all. Eye for eye!”

“Go home, Ike. You're drunk.” That's what he expected Spangenberg would tell him, because that's what everybody was saying. They were all against him. “Come back when you're sober,” Spangenberg would say.

“You're all in on it! You and the Earps. And Holliday,” Ike muttered. “You're all in on it.”

“Mr. Clanton,” Molly Fly was saying. “Dr. Holliday isn't here.”

There was another woman with her. Small and blond, with a funny accent. “He's gone. He don't live here no more,” that one said. “Go away. Leave us alone.”

“You're all in on it,” he told them. “I'll get him. You'll see.”

Scattering threats as dark as any the old man had hurled, Ike left Fly's and was out on Fremont when his brother Billy saw him and waved.

“Ike! We're over here!” Billy called. “Jesus, what happened to your head? Did Wyatt Earp hit you, too?”

“They're all in on it,” Ike told him. “All them Earps. And Holliday, too.”

BY THREE IN THE AFTERNOON,
there was a crowd in front of the police chief's office. Everyone had been expecting a brawl, but word was getting around that the Cow Boys were carrying guns in defiance of town ordinances and that the Earps were going to have it out with them.

“Ike has come by twice to threaten me,” Doc was saying. “He's frightenin' the women. I won't have it, Virgil. This has got to stop.”

“It's not just Ike,” Morgan reported. “His brother Billy's here, and both of the McLaurys. Willie Claiborne's with them, too. They've got a dozen guns among them.”

“And they've been buying more,” Wyatt said.

Virgil took a breath. The appearance of Willie Claiborne was a bad turn. The Clantons were rustlers. The McLaurys were fences. Claiborne was out on bail after shooting a blacksmith in the face, and that little shit was trouble.

Members of the Vigilance Committee were showing up now, each newcomer offering help. Which was the last thing Virgil Earp wanted: a bunch of jumpy civilians, ready to shoot. There'd be bodies all over the street.

“Chief Earp!” Mayor Clum called, pushing through the crowd. “There are five armed men in the O.K. Corral!”

And
that
was the best news Virgil had heard all day. “They got horses?”

“Yes, but—”

“Well, then, they're probably on their way out of town,” Virgil said, flooded with relief. “As long as they leave, I won't move against them.”

“Those men are defying the law, Chief. It's your duty to disarm them,” Clum insisted, and he began to work the crowd. “Just six weeks
ago, this nation lost a great man to assassination. But Tombstone has learned from the murder of President Garfield. We have beaten back anarchy. We have reestablished the rule of law in this city. The Cow Boys are threatening to kill public servants, but we shall have no Guiteaus in Tombstone! Chief Earp and his deputies will enforce every ordinance, without exception!”

Morgan was watching Johnny Behan cross the street. “What does he want?”

“Votes,” Wyatt said, but Behan was careful to address the officer in charge.

“What's the trouble, Chief?” he asked.

“Some of your constituents from Sulphur Springs are in town,” Virgil told him, “and they're looking for a fight.”

“They can have all the fight they want,” Morgan muttered.

“Shut up, Morgan,” Virgil snapped. “I don't need anybody mouthing off.”

Doc was wound up tight and Morgan was standing shoulder to shoulder with him, ready to fight. But Ike Clanton was just a drunk, talking big. Billy Clanton and Willie Claiborne could be trouble, and Frank McLaury would strut like a bantam rooster, but Wyatt had clocked Tom McLaury, and Tommy was about as inoffensive as they came. Something else was going on here, and Virgil was damned if he could put a finger on it. Which meant that Johnny Behan might just be of use.

“Ike Clanton's been making drunken threats all night,” Virg told him, trying to sound bored. “Says he's gonna shoot us and Doc Holliday on sight. He's down at the O.K. Corral with his brother Billy now, and they've got the McLaurys and Willie Claiborne with them. Wyatt had a run-in with the McLaurys this morning outside of Spangenberg's gun shop.”

Behan frowned. “So they're heeled?”

“Goddam right they're heeled,” Morgan said. “Pistols, shotguns, rifles.”

Behan glanced at Doc Holliday. “And why is this man armed?”

“Mr. Clanton says he intends to kill me,” Doc told him. “I have a right to defend myself.”

“It's legal,” Morgan said. “He's got a permit.”

“And I've deputized him,” Virg added. “Just in case.”

“All right,” Behan said, like it was his place to be satisfied or not with that explanation. “Let me try to iron this out, Virg. If you go, there's sure to be a fight. Those boys won't give up their guns to a Yankee.”

Watching the sheriff walk away, Editor Clum told Virgil quietly, “That will make Behan the hero of the story. You should've sent Wyatt.”

“This ain't a story,” Virgil snapped. “And it ain't an election, Mayor.”

I am the only veteran in this mess, Virg thought, his heart pounding against his ribs.

Wyatt and Morgan had stood up to plenty of drunks with guns and Doc was game, but he was just a dentist who played cards. None of them had ever been in combat. Virgil had. He'd seen plans go to pieces when the shooting began. He'd seen men freeze under fire, or break and run, or panic and empty their guns long before they were within range. He'd seen his brother James, shattered and bleeding. His dreams were filled with terror and chaos, and . . . And this
felt
like the war, all over again. It was politicians saying, “Let's you and him fight!” It was rebels with guns, hollering about their rights, waiting for you to come and get them, and—

Blinking hard, he got his bearings and raised his voice to cut through the noise of the crowd. “Everybody! Just
calm down
!”

“Chief, this is a city matter,” Clum insisted. “It's not in the sheriff's jurisdiction.”

Well, if Johnny Behan could damp the fuse on this, he could take all the credit he wanted. “Those boys are his friends,” Virg told the mayor. “Let's not make a war out of this.”

“NO, SIR!”
Frank McLaury was telling the sheriff. “I'm not going anywhere! Wyatt Earp assaulted my brother and nobody's got the right to tell me to go home and forget about that.”

“And he hit my brother, too,” Billy Clanton said. “Look at Ike's head!”

“I'm not telling you to forget it, Frank,” Johnny Behan soothed. “I think Tommy might well have a civil suit against Wyatt. And Ike, as well, but for now? Let's let things simmer down.”

“You're in on it,” Ike complained. “You're all in on it!”

“Frank, Billy,” Behan said, “take your brothers home, all right?”

“We have a wedding,” Tommy said to no one in particular. “Let's go. Please, Frank. I've got a headache. Let's just go.”

“I'm not going anywhere!”

Down at the corner of Fourth Street, Willie Claiborne was keeping watch.

“They're coming!” he yelled. “The Earps are coming!”

B
EHAN HAS FAILED,” JOHANNES FRONK TOLD VIRGIL.
“The Cow Boys are refusing to leave town. They are out on Fremont now, heavily armed.”

Fronk's low, calm, lightly accented voice carried the weight of experience. He sold case goods in a store near Fly's Photography Studio, but he'd had a distinguished career before settling in Tombstone. A Prussian army officer. A Secret Service agent during the Civil War. Chief of detectives in the Los Angeles Police Department. “Already you are outnumbered. Others may come. I advise you: Do not wait longer.”

Virgil took a breath. “Wyatt?”

“Nothing to do but go and make the fight,” Wyatt said finally.

“About time,” Morgan muttered. “Doc's freezing. Let's go.”

Eyes bleak, Wyatt looked at Doc directly for the first time that day. The dentist was shivering violently. It might have been the cold. The wind was raw, and it was snowing again.

“This ain't your fight, Doc,” Wyatt said. “No call for you to mix in.”

Wrapped tight in that gray woolen cloak of his, Doc stared, hard-eyed. “That is a hell of a thing for you to say to me.” You made it my fight, he meant. I am damned if I will back down now.

“If you wish my help,” Johannes Fronk was telling Virgil, “I can furnish to you ten good men.”

Virg shook his head. “This is just a misdemeanor arrest,” he reminded everyone. “Doc, gimme that cane of yours.” Handing his own shotgun to the dentist in exchange, he said, “Keep this outta sight. I don't want any more excitement than we got already.”

TOM MCLAURY WAS BENT OVER,
hands on his knees, staring wet-eyed at the puddle of puke between his boots. Usually throwing up made you feel better. Not this time. And his head hurt worse, too.

Willie Claiborne was yelling something, down at the corner. Eyes bleary, Tommy glanced up and saw four men come around Fourth, and it looked like they meant business.

“Frank?” Tom called. “I want to go home.”

Willie Claiborne was sprinting back to join Billy Clanton and Ike. Sheriff Behan passed him, going the other way, and hurried down to speak to Virgil Earp, who listened for a moment. The police chief was carrying an ebony cane with a silver top that gleamed dully in the wintry gray light. Looking angry, he pointed it toward Frank and Willie, whose pistols were in plain sight.

Leaving the sheriff behind, the Earps were striding up Fremont now. Three abreast. Trailed by someone with a limp, who could not quite keep up with them. That dentist, Tommy thought vaguely, remembering Louisa's introduction. A friend of the family, she'd called him.

The nausea hit again. He was still gasping when Frank grabbed his arm and jerked him upright, pulling him back toward a narrow vacant lot between Fly's Photography Studio and the O.K. Corral. “Stand there,” Frank ordered, pushing Tommy behind Billy Clanton's horse. “Don't move!” So that's where Tom was when a booming bass voice shouted, “I am here to disarm you. Throw up your hands! I want your guns.”

“You got no right to take our weapons!” Frank yelled.

He and Billy Clanton put their hands on their pistols, half-drawing
them in warning. From beyond Billy's horse, Tom heard two quiet clicks out on the street.

Virgil Earp shouted, “
Hold!
I don't want that!”

Firecrackers, Tommy thought, because that's what the gunfire sounded like: those strings of Chinese firecrackers that go off one after another, twenty or thirty of them in a row.