Epitaph (8 page)

His mother's folks were teetotal Missouri Baptists who considered fancy meals and store-bought clothes a sinful extravagance but owned slaves who cooked and sewed and cleaned. His father was a Kildare Catholic. “An ex-seminarian, no less, who saw no harm in a drop of whiskey of an evening,” Johnny said, briefly mimicking his father's brogue. “Being a drinker was bad enough, but my dad was an abolitionist, too. That was real trouble in Missouri back then.”

To her Baptist parents' enduring dismay, young Miss Harris defied them to marry the mick. Fourteen children attested to the couple's passionate love, but the Mason-Dixon Line ran through the middle of the Behan home: a domestic armory packed to the rafters with explosive politics, with a lit fuse concealed in every corner. And it wasn't just slavery or drinking Mr. and Mrs. Behan fought over.

“Christ, but I hated Sundays,” Johnny said, bitterness and Ireland creeping into his voice. “No matter where you went to church, you were a heretic for one parent or t'other. And you came home to more strife over the beef—roasted versus corned, y'see. Then there was the potato battle! Mashed with milk and butter or plain boiled? They even argued about how to thank heaven for the food they fought over.”

When the larger war broke out, in 1861, John Harris Behan was just nineteen. “Which side did you join?” Josie asked, and she seemed genuinely interested in his dilemma, so he was honest with her. He'd had his fill of rancor. Rather than enlist in either of the armies that
were making Missouri a bleeding battlefield, he lit out for California, and he'd done his level best to get along with people ever since.

“I can find common ground with anyone,” he told her, and he meant it, though the country was more divided after the war than before it. “There's always a way to make a deal work. Just see to it that everybody gets something and nobody gets everything.”

The stage teams were hitched to the wagons by then. Randolph Murray was herding everyone into the coaches, and Johnny helped Josie climb up. He never quite understood what finally brought her around. Whatever the reason, she kept hold of his hand after she settled onto the bench. Then she leaned over and kissed him full on the mouth.

Right there. In front of everyone.

Damn, but she was something! Wire-thin, with an energy that seemed almost . . . What? He had no words for her. Electric, maybe? A glowing face, vivid with mischief, as though she were daring him—

She
wants
it, he realized. He could see it in her. The excitement. The hunger. He sounded courteous, but he could feel his blood rising when he asked if he might visit her in Tombstone that evening after the performance.

“Maybe,” she allowed, eyes sparkling. “If no one more interesting takes my fancy.”

When he came to her room that night, she pulled him inside, shut the door, and met his need with a bright eagerness undimmed by holy virgins and the threat of everlasting torment. Ten minutes later, stunned and breathless, John Harris Behan truly believed that a lifetime of searching had ended.

At last, he thought. A girl who could go toe to toe with him. A girl who could match him, day and night, and round for round.

SEVENTY-TWO HOURS LATER,
the glorious Pauline Markham was quietly gleeful as she informed the rather grumpy Randolph Murray that rosy little Josie had resigned from the troupe in order to move in with the dashing Mr. Behan.

Her delicious news was greeted with disappointing aplomb, for it had been anticipated. During the balance of their Tombstone engagement, Mr. Murray informed her, the part of Tommy Tucker the Cabin Boy would be played by the lovely Miss May Bell, a chorus girl who had been consolingly eager to step into all of Miss Marcus's roles.

A week later, the Markham troupe concluded its triumphant Arizona tour and set out for the Pacific coast to do a series of return engagements in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara. By that time, everyone in Tombstone was talking about
H.M.S. Pinafore
, excepting only Wyatt Earp.

Wyatt never talked much, but even he had gone to see the operetta twice. Early in the run.

T
HERE WOULD COME A DAY WHEN FOLKS WOULD
find it ironic that Johnny himself made such a special point of making sure his “wife” met Wyatt Earp, but it would be a long while before that day came.

In the beginning, Johnny had a grand time of it, squiring his exotic Jewish beauty around town, introducing “Mrs. Behan” with a wink and a cocky grin. He savored the envy of other men, and Josie, too, enjoyed the admiration of every male in Tombstone. Even so, when Johnny first called out, “Wyatt! Come and meet the missus!” she had to stifle a sigh.

Johnny possessed that most fundamental of political skills: the ability to recall potential constituents by the thousands. Josie herself had given up trying to keep the names straight and found the men they belonged to nearly indistinguishable. This Wyatt person was in his middle thirties, she judged. Tall and notably well-built, though she was almost too tired to care. After several months of matching Johnny Behan—day and night, round for round—she understood why Irish girls entered the convent. Johnny's thirteen brothers and sisters meant that his mother had been pregnant for ten and a half
years.
It was a calculation that filled Josie with awe and horror, and renewed her gratitude for the existence of the French letter.

“Johnny, I've already met this one,” she murmured as Wyatt crossed the street.

“No, honey, you're thinking of Morgan Earp. He's the Wells Fargo guard,” Johnny reminded her quickly. “Wyatt's his older brother. Earps are thick on the ground in Tombstone! James is the oldest. He owns a tavern near Chinatown. Virgil's the deputy federal marshal. There's three years between Morgan and Wyatt, but they could be twins. You'll see.”

The resemblance was striking. The same handsome well-cut features, the same fair hair, the same broad shoulders, but this brother was thinner in the face and his clothes hung on him badly. Feet dragging, he looked as worn out as Josie felt, but it wasn't until they were close enough to shake hands that she noticed what made him so different from his cheerful younger brother Morgan: those joyless blue eyes.

“Wyatt, I'd like you to meet Mrs. Behan. Josie, honey, this is Deputy Sheriff Wyatt Earp. He made quite a name for himself as a peace officer in Dodge City!”

The deputy looked embarrassed and mumbled something about being pleased to meet her. She smiled prettily and returned the pleasantry. Her new role wasn't much of a speaking part. She just had to stand at Johnny's side while he made small talk about the upcoming county-wide election. Usually these conversations went on at some length, but this man hardly spoke at all and Josie gathered that Deputy Earp had just arrived back in town after transporting a prisoner to the Pima County sheriff's office up in Tucson.

“Johnny, dear,” she said, “I think Deputy Earp must be very tired. We should let him go.”

Johnny put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward him in mute approval. “You're right, honey. How's Mrs. Earp, Wyatt?” Johnny asked, his voice soft with sympathy.

The deputy's eyes slid away. “Haven't been home yet.”

“Well, you go on then, but I've got something important I'd like to discuss with you, Wyatt. I have to go up to Prescott this week.
When I get back, I'd like to meet with you and talk a few things over.”

Wyatt shrugged an assent, knuckled his hat to Josie, and trudged off.

“Be nice to him, honey,” Johnny said. “We need to befriend that man.”

“What's wrong with his wife?”

“Well . . . let's just say I'm a lucky man.”

“Why are we going to Prescott?”

“It'll just be me going, honey. I've got some business to take care of up there,” Johnny said vaguely, for no politician enjoys delivering unwelcome news, and he still hadn't mentioned his first wife, let alone the flagrant cheating that had led Victoria to divorce him. Nor had he said anything about having a son, much less the fact that Albert would be coming back to live with Johnny and Josie in Tombstone. “It's a long hard trip, and Geronimo is acting up again,” he told Josie. “You're safer here, honey. I'll be back in a few days.”

It didn't occur to her to ask for more details. Thank God, was all she thought at the time. I'll finally get some sleep.

WHICH WAS EXACTLY
what Dr. J. H. Holliday was thinking when he arrived in Tombstone a week later, after far too much time in John Behan's garrulous company.

Sitting on the uncushioned bench of a badly sprung stagecoach was like being beaten with a plank. Being talked at by the voluble Mr. Behan hour after hour had added to the strain. When the dentist finally climbed out of the stagecoach in Tombstone, he made no attempt to find Morgan Earp or his brother Wyatt. Instead, he went directly to the Cosmopolitan Hotel, checked in, and gave Mr. Bilicke exceedingly clear instructions: He was not to be disturbed—by anyone, for any reason—unless the building caught fire. And then only if the flames came within twenty feet of his room.

Exhausted, the dentist slept through his first twelve hours in Tombstone, while Johnny Behan was busy explaining to Josie why
he'd waited so long to tell her about the first Mrs. Behan and why he'd failed to mention that his son, Albert, would be living with them from now on. So it must have been another passenger on the coach who started the rumor about what happened between Doc Holliday and Johnny Behan during their shared journey.

Soon, juicy gossip about their brief stagecoach argument over the Anti-Chinese League was circulating. By the time the Earps heard the story, it ended with Doc pulling a knife on Johnny Behan and threatening to gut Albert if Johnny said another word. Knowing Doc, they figured he'd called Behan an ignorant Missouri jackass and told him to keep a civil tongue in his head, but given Doc's reputation, it wouldn't be long before somebody claimed he'd seen Holliday shoot Johnny Behan six times before eating Albert raw in the horrified presence of two Catholic nuns and a sweet little girl named Nancy.

Wyatt and Morgan searched all over town that night, hoping to find Doc before he got into more trouble. Morgan even asked about him at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, but Al Bilicke was scared of what Holliday would do to him if Morgan woke the gambler up and swore Doc wasn't there. Which meant that Wyatt was still making do with oil of clove for his toothache and felt like hell the next morning.

Johnny Behan, by contrast, had awakened full of energy and rarin' to go on his first day back from Prescott. Josie, who always got a slower start, mumbled, “Johnny, it's too early,” but he kissed the back of her neck and reached around to cup her breast and snugged in behind her, murmuring, “It's never too early for some of you, honey!” When he was done, he hopped out of bed and began telling Josie about the deal he planned to make with Wyatt Earp that morning. “It's going to mean a brilliant future for us, and a good one for Wyatt, and it'll deliver far better law enforcement to the citizens of southeastern Arizona. All of that, in one clever move,” he crowed. “God, but I do love politics!”

He shaved and dressed while Josie got pancakes and eggs going
on the stove. Albert came out of his room, blinking and still half-asleep, just as Josie was putting breakfast on the table. Johnny ate like he was stoking a furnace, and that's exactly how he felt: like a man on fire who needed fuel. When he finished his meal, he kissed his thanks to Josie and ruffled Albert's sleep-mussed hair. “Albert,” he said, “if your daddy pulls this off, you're going to be the governor's son someday!”

That was when, hand on the doorknob, he told Josie that he'd be bringing Wyatt Earp home for lunch if their meeting went well. “Bake something special,” he suggested. “And make sure Marcelita does a nice job on the house today. Wyatt likes things neat and clean. See you later, Mrs. Governor!”

Spirits soaring, he strode into town, greeting dozens of men, asking after their families or their business dealings, showing that he remembered them, one and all. It was mid-morning before he spotted Wyatt hunched over a cup of coffee in a cheap café, and it was right then and there that Johnny decided that he probably ought to marry Josie before the next election cycle. Know a good thing when you've got it, he told himself, for breakfast was still warm in his belly and he was freshly aware of how neglected Wyatt was.

The little bell above the door rang as he entered the restaurant. Sitting across from Wyatt, he leaned over the table. “I just got back from Prescott, and the rumors are true—”

Wyatt winced. “Look, I know Doc can be hard to get along with, but he's—”

Johnny frowned. “Holliday? Oh! That! Forgot all about it,” he lied. “No! What I wanted to tell you is, the rumors are right. The legislature is going to split Pima County in two, early next year. And it's because of the sheriff's office!” He paused to order a cup of coffee, putting a friendly hand on a waitress's rump while he did so, chuckling when she slapped it away. He watched her walk back to the kitchen before continuing, “This is no reflection on Sheriff Shibell, Wyatt. Charlie's competent and honest, but everybody knows he's
got an impossible job. Pima County's bigger than most states back east. Hell, it's bigger than a lot of European countries! And it's on the Mexican border, which complicates everything. Capitalists have a lot of places they can put their money, and when Mexico makes a fuss over cattle rustling across the border or when the Associated Press runs a story about a barroom shooting in Tombstone, it makes a bad impression—”