Epitaph (59 page)

So Frank went back to jail, and without Pete for company this time. He still wasn't worried, understand. A mail-robbery charge didn't scare Frank Stilwell, by God. He just hated all that sitting.

Before long he took to pacing the cell, and with so much time on his hands, he began to meditate on injustice and oppression. He saw patterns that had been obscure to him before and looked for explanations as to why some people had it so easy while others were sitting in jail for no good reason. Which is why Virgil Earp came to occupy Frank Stilwell's thoughts to a larger extent than all the other sonsabitches who always came along to spoil things. Because that goddam mail robbery charge was purest malice. Harassment and persecution, that's what it was, same as when Virgil's brother Wyatt kept riding by the saloon back in Charleston—all biggety and full of himself, like he was daring the Cow Boys to come out and try something.

Frank didn't have anything against Morgan Earp yet, but he was probably a biggety sonofabitch, too. Goddam Yankee sonsabitches, Frank thought as he paced his cell. Coming down here, where they weren't never wanted. Throwing their weight around. Somebody oughta take those bastards down a peg.

Then one day in late October, the jailer brought him a copy of the
Daily Nugget
and said, “Hey, Frank, looks like some friends of yours made the paper.” And there it was, in black and white, as if Lord Jesus his own self had descended on a cloud to confirm all Frank Stilwell's darkest suspicions about the Earps.

Billy Clanton, dead. Little Billy! He was just a kid. And the McLaurys, both of them dead, too! Frank McLaury . . . all right, there'd been times when Frank Stilwell had wanted to shoot that mouthy little gamecock himself. But Tommy? What in hell had Tom
McLaury ever done, except be pretty to look at? And who'd done it? Why, none other than the Earps! and that skinny lunger sonofabitch friend of theirs, Doc Holliday. First he kills Old Man Clanton, and now that bastard went and killed poor Tommy McLaury!

Those sonsabitches, Frank thought over and over. Those lousy goddam Yankee bastards. They've been gunning for us from the start! Well, they won't get away with this. I swear to God—they won't get away with this! Soon as I get out of here, the Earps are dead men. Them and that sonofabitch Holliday, too.

That's what Frank Stilwell was thinking when he finally got out of jail in late December. And that's what he kept thinking, all the way to Tombstone.

WHEN DEPUTY SHERIFF WILLIAM MILTON BREAKENRIDGE
saw Frank Stilwell lurking in an alley near the corner of Allen and Sixth, he took a few moments to think things through, for this was as unwelcome an encounter as he'd experienced since going to work for Johnny Behan. And that covered a lot of ground.

Billy B. took a lot of guff for being small and clean-shaven, for wearing specs and having a care for his clothing. The past twelve months had provided ample opportunity for the dapper little deputy to wonder if Sheriff Behan's orders weren't sometimes meant to humiliate him. It was, for example, probably some kind of joke when Johnny hired Curly Bill Brocius as an assistant tax collector last spring and then sent Deputy Breakenridge out to work with him. But Billy B. had made the strange partnership work. Together, he and Curly Bill had squeezed a great deal of tax revenue out of the ranchers of southeastern Arizona, and Billy's own cut of the collections was gratifying. So he got the last laugh that time.

There was, by contrast, nothing amusing when Johnny hired Frank Stilwell as a deputy. When Billy B. questioned the wisdom of pinning a badge on a sullen, quick-tempered thief who'd put a bullet
into a waiter's face for bringing him tea instead of coffee, Johnny Behan mumbled something about fighting fire with fire. Whose fire are we fighting? Billy wondered at the time, but he was a conscientious man who did his job as best he could. He worked with Frank Stilwell when he had to, same as he worked with the Earps when necessary. A lot of frontier lawmen had played both ends against the middle. You couldn't afford to be a stickler about such things. And anyway, the arrangement with Stilwell didn't last. Billy Breakenridge had been in charge of the posse that tracked the Bisbee stage robbers down, back in September. When Frank Stilwell turned out to be one of them, Sheriff Behan decided to consider Frank's arrest to be a letter of resignation.

Now Stilwell was out of jail again, and he was the kind to hold a grudge. Billy B. had expected the man to head for Charleston, where he had a saloon and a livery stable and friends, but here he was in Tombstone. Hanging around in an alley at dusk on the day after Christmas. Drunk, and carrying a shotgun.

Technically, this was a matter for the city police, but Deputy Sheriff Breakenridge had taken an oath to uphold the law, and that's what he did.

“Evening, Frank,” he said mildly. “On your way out of town with that gun?”

“I got no quarrel with you, Billy,” Frank declared. “I want the Earps and I want Holliday. Holliday first, by God! I saw that sonofabitch go into the Bird Cage, and when he comes back out, he's a dead man.”

“Frank, haven't you been in enough trouble lately?”

“He killed Tommy! I want the bastard dead.”

Billy Breakenridge understood, for he himself was one of the many men and women who'd been half in love with Tom McLaury. It had broken his heart to see Holliday exonerated after blowing that beautiful boy's chest to pieces, but that was the decision of the judge. Doc was free to walk the streets, just as Frank Stilwell was after killing an unarmed waiter up in Prescott. Cuts both ways, Billy thought.

“I want him dead,” Frank was muttering, tears glittering in the gaslight from the saloon across the street. “He killed Tommy, and I want him dead.”

Billy put a hand on Frank's arm. “I know how you feel—”

Stilwell jerked away. “Get away from me! You don't know a goddam thing about me, nancy boy!”

Oh, Frank, Billy thought. I know more about you than you do. But when he spoke, a moment later, his voice was neutral. “I know you're breaking the law right now,” he said. “And if the city police catch you with that shotgun, you'll be back in jail. So check that weapon or leave town. I'll give you five minutes to choose.”

Before Frank could reply, Johnny Ringo came out of the shadows. “I'll take care of him,” Ringo said, his voice friendly in the darkness. “C'mon, Frank,” Ringo said, pulling the weeping man away from the street. “Now ain't the time, and this ain't the place.”

About ten minutes later, Billy Breakenridge saw Doc Holliday leave the Bird Cage. Silently, the little deputy watched the gambler walk unmolested down Allen Street and go into the Alhambra, where he worked the night shift.

I just saved your life, Billy B. thought. How's that for irony?

IT SOUNDED LIKE THUNDER
when Alvira Sullivan heard the noise three nights later. Hope Virg don't get caught in the rain, she thought, for it would be a pity if he came down with a cold now, just when he was so close to going back to work for Marshal Dake.

Allie didn't like him going out by himself, but Virg wouldn't be babied. He took a walk around town every evening before bed to keep his bad leg limber and ward off night cramps in the damaged calf. He'd stop in wherever Wyatt had a faro table going and smoke a cigar, or drop by James's tavern for a beer. Usually he'd be back by now.

She went to the window, pulled the curtain aside, and frowned at a cloudless sky brilliant with stars. Maybe the storm's coming in from the south, she thought, but already an uneasiness was setting in.

Pulling a shawl around her shoulders, she went out on the porch, expecting to see Virg on his way home. Instead, she saw the police chief, Jimmy Flynn, running toward her on Fremont.

No, she thought. No, no, no, no.

“Allie!” Flynn called, “I'm sorry! It's Virg—”

“No!” she wailed. “No, no,
no
!”

“C'mon. He's still alive,” Flynn told her, “but we have to hurry.”

FOLKS DRESSED FOR DINNER
were standing around on the boardwalk in front of the Cosmopolitan's restaurant, talking excitedly to hotel guests wrapped in robes and blankets.

I thought it was dynamite down in one of the mines—

I was sitting on the bed, taking my stockings off—

First they attack Clum's stage, and now this! Right here in the city!

Some of the buckshot went right through my window.

They were over there by the brewery. I saw two men running—

Three! I saw three!

He was still
standing
. He was still on his feet when I got to him.

Jimmy Flynn pushed through the crowd ahead of Allie, opening a path. “Outta the way,” he kept saying. “I've got his wife.”

Inside, the gaslights were turned up high. Virg was lying on one of the tables. He grinned when he saw her and said, “There's my tough little mick! Don't worry, Pickle. I've still got one good arm to hug you with.” But his voice was so weak! She'd never heard his voice like that. Dr. Goodfellow was cutting Virgil's shirt off, and she could see it now: his back and side, peppered with buckshot. His left arm with a huge bloody hole in the middle of it.

“Virg, did you get a look at him?” Wyatt was asking.

“That sonofabitch Stilwell. I saw him just before . . .”

Her vision went white. The room seemed far away, and she closed her eyes hard, refusing to faint. She could still hear Virg, and he was weeping now.
“Don't let them take my arm! Don't let them do it.”

“Virg, if it'll save your life,” Wyatt began, but Virgil kept saying, “Don't let them do it! If I have to be buried, I want both arms on me!”

Doc Holliday was there now, too, getting ether ready like he did for Morg. “Watch my eyes, Virg,” he was saying. “Try to be calm. Breathe in—”

“Promise me, Doc!” Virg cried. “Don't let them take it while I'm under.”

“You have my word,” Doc said. “Breathe in.”

There were dozens of big lead pellets to dig out, and so much bone! Chunks of it. Long sharp shards, like pieces of a broken bud vase. The whole elbow was shattered, and at some point Allie's knees hit the ground.

When she came to, Bessie was beside her, on the carpet. “Don't you give up on him, honey,” Bess said fiercely, and Allie knew why, for Bessie had told her about how James's shoulder had been shot to kindling during the war, and how it took months and months for him to get better but he made it.

Then James himself knelt next to Allie and lifted her up—still strong on one side—and got her into a chair. “I won't tell you not to worry,” he said, “but I will tell you this, Allie: It is very damn hard to kill an Earp.”

Afterward, they carried Virg upstairs to a hotel guest room and laid him on one of those new box mattresses that were eight inches thick. People came and went. Doc, Josie, Wyatt, Lou. They told her to rest, but she would not leave Virgil's side. All night long, she sat in the chair, watching each breath, willing him to take the next one.

Sometime during the night, she heard a strange soft sound.
Pat . . . pat . . . pat . . .
That's how it sounded.
Pat . . . pat . . . pat . . .

It wasn't until morning that she knew what it was. The mattress was soaked through with Virgil's blood. Drop by drop, it was falling onto the carpet beneath the bed.
Pat. Pat. Pat.

AT DAWN THAT DAY,
Federal Marshal Crawley Dake was awakened by a messenger from Western Union. He began cursing after reading
the first four words of the telegram and continued to curse for a long time after finishing it.

               
VIRGIL EARP WAS SHOT BY CONCEALED ASSASSINS LAST NIGHT STOP HIS WOUNDS ARE FATAL STOP TELEGRAPH ME APPOINTMENT WITH POWER TO APPOINT DEPUTIES STOP LOCAL AUTHORITIES ARE DOING NOTHING STOP THE LIVES OF OTHER CITIZENS ARE THREATENED STOP WYATT EARP

“Is there a reply, sir?” the messenger asked when the marshal paused for breath.

“You're goddam right there's a reply,” Dake said. “God damn them! God damn them all to hell!”

PROTECT THE FAMILY.
Make sure nobody else gets hurt. That was the first step.

Even while the doctors were pulling bone and lead out of Virgil, Wyatt went upstairs and told Josie to stay in their room and not to come out for any reason. Then he insisted that everyone else move into the Cosmopolitan. James and Bessie. Morgan and Lou. Doc Holliday. Even Mattie Blaylock. Al Bilicke gave them the whole of the second floor. Johannes Fronk, head of the Citizens Safety Committee since John Clum left town, posted guards at every door, inside and out.

Crawley Dake's telegram arrived a little past seven. Wyatt Earp took the oath as a deputy U.S. marshal and promptly deputized Doc Holliday, Charlie Smith, Daniel Tipton, Sherman McMasters, Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, and Texas Jack Vermillion. Morgan was still laid up, but with Virgil bled white and all but dead, Wyatt swore Morgan in, too, and made sure he had a gun close to hand, in case somebody got past Fronk's guards.

Warrants next.

Billy Breakenridge came forward to say that Frank Stilwell had
made threats against Doc Holliday and the Earps a few nights earlier and that Johnny Ringo might be involved as well. Ike Clanton's hat had been found behind the brewery used as cover by the men who shot Virg. The idiot had actually written his name inside the hatband. When Wyatt appeared before the court that afternoon, he requested warrants for those three and for Peter Spence and William Brocius as well, all on suspicion of assault with intent to murder. He meant to find and arrest everyone and anyone with a grudge
now.
A judge could sort the evidence out later.

Behan's house next.

Rousting the sheriff out of bed, he told Johnny what had happened to Virgil and cut off Behan's murmurs of shock and sympathy. “I'm sending Josie home,” Wyatt said. “She'll be on the Benson stage in the morning. I want a safe conduct for her.”