Epitaph (68 page)

Which made Dick Naylor just about the only investment that had ever paid off for Wyatt Earp.

He sold his saddle, too, and cleared enough for train fare to San Francisco with a little left over for a room above a bar near the depot. He went to a barber and got himself cleaned up. Then he started visiting banks, asking the managers, “Do you know a banker named Marcus?”

The city was bigger than he'd expected, with a lot more banks. He was all but broke and about to give up when he was told, “Well, sir, I know a Henry Marcus, but he's a baker, not a banker.”

No, he thought, that must be a different man. Then, suddenly, it all made sense. How good she was in the kitchen. The cakes and crullers and cream puffs. The doughnuts and cookies.

He got directions to the Marcus bakery. It wasn't far. He only meant to peek in the window. He figured he'd come back in the morning with a fresh shave and a clean shirt so he'd look more respectable when he went inside to ask Mr. Marcus if he had a daughter named Josephine.

Then he saw Higgs, asleep in the pale San Francisco sun, out in front of the store. He went down on one knee to pat the dog, who woke up and jumped on him and licked his face, wriggling and whining with joy, the way dogs do when they recognize someone who's been missing for an hour, or a day. Or a couple of years.

“Well, well,” he heard Josie say. “Hello, stranger.”

She was standing in the doorway wearing an apron, her springy hair bundled into a kerchief. Not a girl anymore. Filled out more.

Still kneeling by the dog, he didn't know what to say except “I'm sorry.”

“Good,” she said, and he could see she was still pretty mad at him.

Behind her, a fat little man in his fifties flipped the bakery's sign from
OPEN
to
CLOSED
. Upstairs, a stocky older woman with a German accent was hollering from a second-floor window: “Come up already! It's almost Shabbos!”

“My parents,” Josie said.

Her father stepped out and her mother trundled down the stairs to stand at their daughter's side. Wyatt pulled off his hat and bore their scrutiny wordlessly.

“That him, Sadie?” her father asked.

Sadie. Her secret name. The name you called her if you loved her.

“Yes, Papa,” she answered, eyes steady on Wyatt's. “That's him.”

“So, Mr. Wyatt Earp,” her mother said judiciously, “are you a Christian?”

“
Mutti
!” Josie cried.

“I'm just asking!” her mother said with a shrug.

“It's all right,” Wyatt said. “I was, ma'am. Not anymore.”

This information was taken in and considered.

“You're too thin,” Mrs. Marcus informed him. “Come upstairs for supper.”

JOSIE'S SISTER, HATTIE, ARRIVED
just before sunset with her husband, Emil. Their baby, Edna, was passed around and cooed over. “Look at this child!” Mr. Marcus cried. “Soft and sweet as challah!”

Wyatt was introduced. Eyebrows rose, for his name and reputation were known to them. Even so, they welcomed him and no one remarked upon the presence of a notorious vigilante at the table.

Josie's brother, Nathan, got there last, just before the wineglasses were filled. “Count on Nate to be on time for the booze,” Hattie said dryly, and you could see that Nathan was a drinker, but Wyatt was in no position to feel superior about that. Or anything else.

There were candles and foreign prayers. There was bickering and joshing. There was a loaf of braided bread—soft and sweet as a baby girl. Brisket. Roasted carrots and parsnips. Potatoes in some kind of pudding. It was the first good meal he'd had in almost three years, and every time the surface of his plate began to show between the piles of food, Mrs. Marcus would reach over and add another serving.

“Eat!” she'd say. “You're too thin! Eat!”

For dessert, there were lemon tarts and sponge cake and molasses cookies.

“Mr. Earp, you sure you don't want a little something more?” Mrs. Marcus asked.

“Ma'am,” he said, “I couldn't eat another bite,” but he was looking at Josie—at Sadie—when he said that. And he was thinking, Yes. Yes, I do. I want more.

The baby got fussy. Emil said, “Ah! It must be time for the Exodus!”

Wyatt thought that was pretty clever, but everybody else had heard the joke before and rolled their eyes. There was a flurry of kisses and hugs, more doting over the baby, and good-byes. Wyatt had moved toward the door with the others, but he lingered a few moments longer, until he and Josie were alone.

“Suppose . . .” he began. “Suppose we went for a walk with Higgs.”

“Oh, Wyatt.” She sighed. “I thought you'd never ask.”

THE DOG RAN AHEAD.
They watched him sniff, and mark corners, and briefly chase a rat, circling back to check on them before ambling off to explore a pile of garbage. They didn't speak at first. They just strolled side by side through tatters of fog that occasionally broke apart, letting moonlight through to the street.

“You read about it, I guess,” Wyatt said finally. “In the papers.”

“I didn't believe any of it. Newspapers always lie.”

He turned so she could see his face, for he wanted no misunderstanding between them. “I am not a good man. I wanted to be. I wanted to be better than— Better than I turned out to be. I have done things . . .” He looked away but made himself say it plainly. “I have taken lives. Some of them deserved it, but . . . maybe not all of them.”

She waited. He said no more, and they began to walk again.

“I got rid of a baby,” she told him.

He stopped and looked at her, startled.

She met his eyes. “It wasn't Johnny's. It was later. When I was working.”

“I don't want children,” he said. “It has to stop with me.”

The anger. The violence.

They walked again, and she took his hand.

“I was wondering,” he said after a time. “I was wondering if I could call you Sadie.”

I love you, he meant. I always have.

IF YOU WANT A STORYBOOK ENDING,
stop—now—and remember them in that tender moment. Be content to know that they embarked on a series of adventures throughout the West and that they stayed together through thick and thin for forty-five years.

But know this as well: If their story ended here, no one would remember them at all.

Where a tale begins and where it ends
matters.
Who tells the story, and why . . . That makes all the difference.

T
HE TRUTH? HE WAS DAMAGED. SHE WAS DIFFICULT
. Tombstone would dog them wherever they went, no matter what new dream they chased.

Silver, gold, real estate, oil, gas. Another boom, another bust. There was always another place to try their luck, but even when things were going well, Wyatt could get restless and irritable. Drinking more, talking less.

She'd ask, “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” he'd snap.

Maybe he'd run into somebody from the old days who wanted to talk about Arizona. Maybe a reporter from the local newspaper had come at him with a notebook and pencil, asking a bunch of questions about the gunfight. Soon—a week or month later—he'd be lying on his back, staring at the ceiling or the stars.

“Suppose . . .” he'd begin. “Suppose we try Utah next.”

Or Idaho, or Colorado, or Texas.

And they'd move on.

JUST ONCE IN THEIR TRAVELS,
it was Sadie who ran into an old friend. They were passing through Leadville and had stayed overnight in a modest hotel. In the morning, Wyatt walked right past an elderly gentleman sitting in the corner of the lobby, but Sadie thought
there was something familiar about him and turned back to take a second look. Intent on going to the front desk to pay their bill, Wyatt didn't realize she'd left his side until he heard Sadie call, “Wyatt! Look who's here!”

“Doc?” Wyatt said, coming closer. “Is that you?”

“What's left . . . of me. Still on the sunny . . . side of the grass.”

The crooked smile was the same as always. The hollow-eyed, fleshless face looked like a Mexican death's-head with a neatly trimmed mustache.

John Henry Holliday was thirty-five. He looked sixty.

Wyatt offered his hand. Doc would not take it. Before Wyatt could bristle, he explained, “Forgive me. I must keep my distance. We know now. The disease is contagious.” He paused, breathless, chest laboring. “I am pleased,” he continued, “to see you are both well.” He looked away. A long, wordless stare. “I never meant to harm anyone,” he whispered, but his voice was stronger when he asked, “Miss Louisa?”

“She's got bad rheumatism,” Wyatt told him, “but she's getting married again. Fella name of Peters. Kate?”

“Well. Last I heard. We have not spoken in some time. My fault.” That crooked smile again. “I don't believe I shall mind bein' dead. Gettin' there has been a trial.” He sat a while, catching his breath. “I heard that Mattie Blaylock is gone.”