Epitaph (75 page)

Then, in December, Hitler threw everything he had left at the troops along the Rhine, hoping to beat them back before they could invade Germany.

With the titanic Battle of the Bulge in the headlines, the world did not notice the passing of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp. The
Los Angeles Times
ran a brief obituary, identifying her as “the widow of the picturesque western frontier gunfighter, United States Marshal Wyatt Earp.” The cause of death was listed as a heart attack, with dementia as a secondary factor. She was eighty-two.

No one grieved. By the end of her life, she'd worn out her welcome everywhere. William S. Hart paid for a cremation but didn't attend the brief service. John Flood was informed, but he and Edgar stayed away. Her ashes were sent to her niece, Edna, in San Francisco. Like Wyatt's, Sadie's urn was interred in the Hills of Eternity Jewish cemetery near those of her parents, her brother, Nathan, and her sister, Hattie.

“We live too long,” Wyatt said once. In Sadie's case, it was hard to argue. And yet, she got her way in the end.

Sadie always got her way.

P
EACE NEVER LASTS, BUT WARS EVENTUALLY END.
In 1945, hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines came home and began making up for lost time. Marrying in battalions, having children in brigades. Snapping up houses in brand-new suburbs. Buying cars and refrigerators. Smoking, drinking, and eating as much steak as they could pile on their plates. After fifteen years of Depression poverty and wartime rationing, Americans denied themselves nothing. It was a giddy era of fads and crazes, and television was the biggest craze of all. Broadcasters struggled to fill hours with shows that advertisers would sponsor. To everyone's surprise, the most lucrative market turned out to be that army of postwar babies, millions of whom were advancing on kindergarten like a conquering horde.

Every morning, while their weary, fecund mothers stayed in bed, grateful for an extra hour of sleep, those kids sloshed Borden's milk into bowls of Cheerios or Frosted Flakes or Sugar Pops and sat down in front of the TV, staring at the Indian-chief test pattern until the day's programming began. Quietly mesmerized by
Romper Room, Howdy Doody, Mighty Mouse
, and
Captain Kangaroo
, they sucked in hours of advertising, to the immense gratification of Madison Avenue.

From the start, cowboys were big with the kids. Gene Autry. Roy
Rogers.
The Lone Ranger, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, The Cisco Kid.
Things really took off in September '54, when Davy Crockett and Annie Oakley hit the small screen. By October, every little boy in America had to have a coonskin cap like Davy's and all the little girls needed a plastic-fringed skirt and vest for Halloween. In December, they all asked Santa for toy guns and cowboy hats. Slap a picture of Fess Parker or Gail Davis on anything at all—lunch boxes, pencil pouches, cereal boxes—and you could sell millions of them.

Once the little darlings had softened up their parents, the ad agencies went after adults directly and began to sponsor Westerns that would appeal to the whole family. Most early series were adapted from radio shows like
Death Valley Days
and
Gunsmoke
, but in 1955, ABC broke new ground by optioning Stuart Lake's book for a TV series starring Hugh O'Brian.

A reporter from
Variety
heard that the real Wyatt Earp used to hang around the back lots when movies were just getting started, so he asked around at the studios, and the rumor turned out to be true.

“Wyatt mentioned a fella named Flood was writing the true story of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral,” the old-timer remembered.

So the reporter tracked John down and showed up at the house, hoping for a quote he could use in a piece about O'Brian. “Mr. Flood, I've been told that Wyatt Earp said you were like a son to him,” the reporter began. “Do you have any comment?”

John stood in the doorway, not moving, and cleared his throat before he spoke. “It's nice to know Mr. Earp felt that way.”

“What did he tell you about the gunfight?” the reporter asked.

“I have nothing else to say.”

Edgar had retired years earlier but retained a certain sympathy for journalists grubbing up column inches. “Come on, John! Give the kid some material.”

“I have nothing else to say,” John repeated. “Mr. Earp hated talking about the gunfight, and I will respect his preference.” Then he closed the door.

“I THINK WE SHOULD GET A TELEVISION,”
Edgar announced the next morning.

“I don't want one of those ugly things in the house,” John said. “Television is nothing but game shows and fake wrestling. I'd rather listen to music.”

“It's not all claptrap,” Edgar said, scanning the new fall schedule in the newspaper. “There's that Edward R. Murrow show,
See It Now. Robert Montgomery Presents . . . Armstrong Circle Theatre
is doing plays by Paddy Chayefsky, Horton Foote, and Gore Vidal this season.” He looked up. “We never go to the theater anymore, but we could watch some terrific plays right here in the house.”

“Humph,” John said, but he tried to be enthusiastic when Edgar carried home a sixteen-inch Zenith and sat it on a little table in front of the sofa.

Bringing in a good signal was a struggle. Edgar would fuss with the antenna. Adjust the horizontal- and vertical-hold knobs. Move the antenna again. Half the time, the show was over before he got a solid picture. It drove John crazy, as did Edgar's fascination with aluminum-clad frozen meals called Swanson TV Dinners.

“They're vile,” Edgar admitted cheerfully, “but part of the experience.”

Edgar loved all this modern nonsense, and John loved Edgar. He gave in to the new rituals with as much good grace as he could muster, but it was with a sense of foreboding that he settled onto the sofa to wait for the premiere of
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.

“Are you excited?” Edgar asked, carrying in a bowl of popcorn.

“My expectations are low,” John replied. And yet . . .

Perhaps it was age. He was seventy-seven and no longer well; his feelings seemed closer to the surface these days. Perhaps time had softened his memories of the Earps' last years. Most likely, he was just getting to be a sentimental old fart.

Whatever the reason, his throat tightened when the earnest baritone
voice-over began: “This is the story of Wyatt Earp, the greatest of the old-time fighting peace officers, a real western hero!”

Edgar snorted. “Fighting peace officers? How Orwellian . . .”

“Quiet! I want to hear!” John snapped, for a manly choir had begun to sing.

I'll tell you a story, a real true-life story
,

A tale of the western frontier.

The West, it was lawless
,

but one man was flawless
,

And his is the story you'll hear.

“Flawless!” Edgar cried, stunned. “
Flawless?
John . . . She won! The old girl finally won!”

“Oh, Edgar,” John whispered. “Mrs. Earp would have loved this!”

That was true, for the series would be nice, and clean, and full of pep. Week after week, Wyatt Earp would be portrayed as a handsome, sexless, incorruptible marshal doing selfless battle with bad men who deserved to die.

And he would have a song for his epitaph.

The chorus swelled. John wiped his eyes. It's not lying, he thought. It's just remembering things the way they should have been.

Wyatt Earp! Wyatt Earp!

Brave, courageous, and bold!

Long live his fame and long live his glory

And long may his story be told!

Almost twenty-five hundred years ago, Thucydides wrote of the Peloponnesian War, “The endeavor to ascertain these facts was a laborious task. Eyewitnesses did not give the same reports about the same things. Their testimony varied according to their championship of one side or the other.”

That goes double for Tombstone.

There is hardly a sentence written or spoken about the events of 1880–82 that has not been disputed. I don't expect my version of the story to escape criticism. Careful historians will notice where I have trifled with strict fact: snugging up dates for the sake of narrative pacing or imagining elements of what is, after all, a novel. Nevertheless, I hope partisans of both sides will feel I've been fair to the men and women whose names and lives have been so often appropriated in the past.

I absorbed nineteen linear feet of background books for this novel, but to bring that research to life, I signed up for fifty-eight miles on horseback through the rugged mountains surrounding Tombstone. Led by Steve and Marcie Shaw of Great American Adventures, the five-day Earp Vendetta Ride was the hardest fun I've ever had. We ate in restaurants and slept in hotels, but it was still seven to nine hours a day in the saddle. Those hours gave me a sense of what it cost John Henry Holliday to ride with Wyatt Earp in the days after Morgan's death; I am grateful to Todd and Chris Cooper for their companionship and discreet kindness when I was struggling toward the end.

Thanks also go to the citizens of modern Tombstone for their willingness to share their knowledge of the town's history whenever I showed up. Bert Webster always made me feel welcome. Tim Fattig's encyclopedic knowledge of the gunfight was awe-inspiring. Doing shots in a biker bar with Stephen Keith in character as Doc Holliday remains a cherished memory.

Many people have been generous with their expertise: Joyce Aros (the Cochise County ranchers); Michael Bernal, Kenneth Brown, Carl Jenkins, Joel Lee Liberski, Randy Williams (billiards); Amy Cooke, Ann Hoffer, Susan McMullen, Susan Morris, Jean Lightner Norum, Dierdre Robinson, Christine Sharbrough (John Flood and Edgar Beaver research); Carey Granger (Tombstone silver mining); Dr. Judith Kaplan (concussion); Kimberly Loomis, Roberto Marino, Margaret Organ-Kean (genealogies); Dawood Ali McCallum (opiate withdrawl); Artie Nolan (Irish proverbs); Pamela Potter (the McLaury family); James Reichardt (legal issues); Vivian Singer (Yiddish); and Oscar Stregall (details of untreated tuberculosis). Special thanks go to Heike Erbarth for her kindness to Manfred Pütz in his final months.

For close and critical reading of early drafts of the manuscript, I thank Joyce Aros, Susanne Bach, Gretchen Batton, Eleanor Behr, Mary Dewing, Richard Doria Jr., Christopher Dussing, Jane Dystel, Miriam Goderich, Carey Granger, Jeff Jacobson, Pam Potter, Bob Price, Jim Reichardt, Vivian Singer, Jennifer Tucker, and David Twigg. Bonnie Thompson has copyedited my novels from the very start, and I am fortunate in being able to rely on her professionalism and attention to detail.

My superb agents, Jane Dystel and Miriam Goderich, have championed my work since 1995; this novel marked a difficult transition in my career, and their steady support kept me from throwing in the towel.
Epitaph
is my first book with Ecco, and the experience has been heartening. Special thanks go to Libby Edelson for taking a chance on the partial manuscript and for her sensitive and helpful editing of its final drafts. Thanks also to Eleanor Kriseman for her welcoming
responsiveness and to the whole Ecco production team. As ever, I am grateful to the sales forces at both Random House and HarperCollins for making bookstores aware of my novels; to the booksellers in those wonderful stores for shoving my books into the hands of readers; and to the readers themselves for their encouragement and support ever since
The Sparrow.

Don, Dan, and Jessie: It's time to head to La Fiesta for a pitcher of margaritas! You guys are the best.