Epitaph (9 page)

The waitress set Johnny's coffee down in front of him, though she stayed on the far side of the table to do it. Johnny winked at her but waited until she left to speak again. “Anyways, the legislature's going to carve a big chunk of Pima County off and put a new sheriff's office right here in Tombstone. The idea is, we get a grip on the crime problem and prove Arizona is safe for investors. Make sense?”

Wyatt nodded. “So?”

“So the new county's going to need a new government. But it takes time to organize a regular election. People have to get registered to vote. You need polling places and election officials, and so on. Both parties have to come up with a slate of candidates. All that might take a year or eighteen months, maybe.” Johnny dropped his voice. “Which means the first men to hold county offices will be appointees, right? And Governor Frémont's a Republican, so he's probably going to pick Republicans, right? So when it comes time for the new sheriff of the new county to be appointed, your name is going to come up.”

“Yeah. I figured.”

“Of course!” Johnny said affably, sitting back in his chair. “You're a Republican, and you're highly thought of up in Kansas, but you were a city policeman in Dodge,” he pointed out, careful not to say
only
a city policeman. “Now, me, I'm a Democrat, and God knows that doesn't help me in Arizona! But I've had experience as sheriff up in Yavapai County, and that may count for something when we're getting the new county administration going. I've still got contacts in the territorial legislature, and from what I heard . . .” Johnny leaned
over the table again. “From what I heard, we are both in the running for that appointment. Now, frankly, Wyatt, I think either one of us would be a good choice, but I've got a proposal I'd like you to give some consideration.”

Johnny laid it out for him, and while Wyatt didn't say yes, he didn't say no, either. Which was exactly what Johnny had expected.

“Just think it over,” Johnny urged. “You haven't eaten yet, have you? Why not come on over to the house for lunch? My little Josie is quite a cook, and my son, Albert, would love to meet you.”

“I don't know,” Wyatt said. “I got a tooth kicking up . . .”

But Johnny wouldn't take no for an answer and filled Wyatt's silence with cheerful gossip about men in the legislature as they walked back to the house, smiling broadly when Wyatt said, “Smells good,” for Josie had something wonderful cooking on the stove.

Inside, everything was neat as a pin, except . . . A wash bucket sat in the middle of the floor and Josie was next to it, scrubbing on her hands and knees, her springy hair all mashed down under a kerchief.

“Josie, honey,” Johnny asked uneasily, “where's Marcelita?”

The girl sat back on her heels. “I fired her.”

“You fired
another
one? But— why?”

“Because clean means clean! It doesn't mean less dirty. It doesn't mean scrub until you're bored. It means
clean.
” Suddenly she was on her feet, balling up the scrub rag, hurling it at him, snarling about Marcelita, and you could tell she'd been rehearsing her speech all morning. “I never should have come here. There's dust all over everything, and pigs in the street, and it's noisy and filthy and it stinks! I found a rat in the flour bin, Johnny.
A rat!
I'm sick to death of this place and everyone in it. Nobody will even talk to me. Anybody who's anybody treats me like I'm a whore. And now
you
come home with your ex-wife's child—”

“Ah, Christ! Josie, I told you why he—”

“I'm not a nanny, John Behan. I'm not some governess who's paid to look after other women's children. He belongs with his mother!”

White-faced, Albert was standing in the corner like a rabbit watching a dog fight: not knowing which way to run and too scared to move.

“Maybe another time,” Wyatt mumbled, backing out the door.

“Wyatt! Wait!” Johnny pleaded, but Wyatt never looked back, and that ripped it. “God damn you, Josie, I had him! I was
so close
to making the deal, and now you pull this stunt! Albert, for Christ's sake, stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about!”

“You didn't even
ask
me, Johnny! You just show up with this boy and—”

“Josie, so help me, you say another goddam word—”

But Josie would never concede. She never quit arguing. Suddenly the manifold pressures of John Harris Behan's life seemed to concentrate in his fist and . . . Yes, he let her have it. No, he wasn't proud of that but he gave himself credit for this much, at least: He left the house before he did worse.

Sprinting down the street, hoping to make things right, he caught up with Wyatt, but before he could say anything, Virgil Earp had come around the corner and told his brother, “We've got some stolen army livestock to deal with, Wyatt. There's a lieutenant in town—”

“The army can't be involved with any criminal arrest,” Johnny warned.

Virgil turned to look down at him. All the Earps were big, but Virgil had a couple of inches and probably forty pounds on his brothers. Which gave him eight inches and seventy pounds on Johnny Behan.

“Yeah. We know, Johnny,” Virg said in that rumbling voice of his. “That's why Lieutenant Hurst is in Tombstone. He needs a civilian posse.” Virgil turned back to Wyatt. “Hurst's getting his men something to eat, but figure three o'clock, at Fred White's office.”

“You seen Doc?” Wyatt asked.

“You still ain't found him?”

Wyatt shook his head.

“Well, I'll keep an eye out,” Virg said. “See you at Fred's.”

“Wyatt, please! A word with you?” Johnny asked as Virgil set off. “Look, I'm sorry about what just happened back there. I swear, Josie's not usually like that. She must be on the rag.”

Wyatt colored up, mumbled something about his tooth, and walked away.

“All right then, I'll let you go,” Johnny called. “See you at three!”

JACKRABBIT JOHN, THE HOOKERS CALLED HIM.
Johnny Behan dropped by for a quick one the way other men might slug back a drink, or smoke a cigarette, or take a deep breath: to get his temper under control. He'd only been gone from home about twenty minutes, but when he walked in the door, Al was alone in the house and told him that Josie was real mad and said she was never coming back, and then Al started to cry because he was sure it was his fault.

Sighing, Johnny told the boy that wasn't so, but he left again, hoping to find Josie before she got into trouble downtown. When he finally found her crying in the piano room at the Cosmopolitan, he was more than ready to make peace and walked her home, explaining about how Albert was a little deaf and needed some tenderness. She pouted when he said he was needed at the marshal's office but brightened up when he promised they'd go out someplace special that night. All that took time, so it was half past three when he got to Marshal White's office. By then he'd regained some of his morning optimism.

I can still pull this off, he told himself, certain that he could salvage the deal with Wyatt. This is all going to turn out fine.

“AFTERNOON, JOHNNY,”
Fred White said. “What's the problem?”

“Just here to help out, Fred. You must be Lieutenant Hurst.” Johnny offered the trooper his hand. “John Behan. Used to be sheriff up in Yavapai County. Virg, I hope you didn't wait for me.”

“No, Johnny,” Virgil Earp rumbled with good-natured sarcasm. “We felt capable of beginning the deliberations without you. Everything all right at home?”

Behan flushed. “Yeah, well, you know what I'm up against, Virg.”

Bluff, good-humored, comfortably heavy at thirty-seven, Virgil Earp nodded and shrugged. Virg was a dozen years older than Alvira Sullivan, but he loved that little girl like a bear loves honey, and getting stung was part of the package. Behan's “wife” was even younger than Allie and apparently more of a handful.

“The mules?” Wyatt prompted, glancing at Hurst.

On the face of it, this should have been simple. Six army mules had been stolen from Camp Rucker, fifty miles east of Tombstone. Lieutenant Hurst needed a civilian posse to recover the mules for him, but jurisdiction was a tangle. The livestock had been stolen within Pima County and Wyatt was a Pima County deputy sheriff, so maybe he should form the posse. On the other hand, the mules were federal property and they'd been taken from a fort, which was federal as well, so maybe Virgil took precedence because he was a deputy federal marshal. One thing was sure: Fred White wasn't involved at all, for a town marshal's jurisdiction stopped at the town line. And Johnny Behan might have been a lawman a few years ago, but nowadays he was just tending bar at the Grand Hotel, so he had even less to do with the theft than Fred himself, who was simply letting Virgil Earp use his office.

“Where does Hurst fit?” Wyatt was asking. “They're his mules.”

“See, Wyatt, that's just what I was trying to explain,” Behan said. “The new
Posse Comitatus
law prohibits any military involvement with civilian law enforcement, so this is going to require some finesse. Now, when I was sheriff up in Yavapai . . .”

The youngest man in the room at 29, Fred White was inclined to respect his elders, and ordinarily, he did not mind folks loitering in his office. Being a town marshal was mostly a matter of sitting around, waiting for something bad to happen. Gossip, tall tales, and political speculation made idle hours pass pleasantly. But Johnny Behan could talk the paint off a wall, and no matter how loud Fred yawned, nobody seemed inclined to wrap the discussion up. Except Wyatt. He was staring out the office window, his chair tipped back on two legs,
and he didn't seem to be listening at all. Course, it was hard to tell with Wyatt. He never said much, even when he gave a shit.

Fred drifted off, elbow on the desk, cheek propped on his fist, but he snapped to when he heard Wyatt bring the front legs of his chair down with a thump.

Virgil was on his feeet now, and both of the Earps were looking out the office window, watching his younger brother Morgan cross the street.

“Well, fellas,” Virg said, “if we sit here much longer, the thieves are gonna cross them mules into Mexico and then the
federales
'll be involved, even if the U.S. Army ain't. I say we go find the damn animals while there's daylight, and sort the legalities out later.”

Hurst said, “Suits me.”

“I understand how you feel, boys,” Johnny Behan said quickly, “but you can't play fast and loose with jurisdiction that way. It's hard enough to get a conviction when you've done due diligence.”

Johnny started in on another story about blown arrests and criminals going free, but the Earps were done listening and headed out the door with Lieutenant Hurst.

Glad to see the backs of them, Fred yawned again and was about to select the least bad jail bunk for a nap when Morgan Earp stuck his head into the office.

“Fred, do you know Doc Holliday?”

“Heard of him. Gambler. Why?”

“Wyatt's got a tooth that's giving him hell, and Doc's a dentist—”

“A dentist! I didn't know that!”

“Yeah. Good one, too. Anyways, Wyatt's got a bad tooth and Doc came into town to take care of it, but we haven't run into him yet. If you see him, let him know we'll be back in a few days. And, Fred . . . look after him, willya? Doc is a friend of ours.”

MORGAN LEFT THE OFFICE
and joined his brothers outside.

“You find McMasters?” Virgil asked him quietly.

Sherman McMasters, he meant. They never said Sherm's name out loud. McMasters ran with rustlers, but he was an ex–Texas Ranger, playing both ends against the middle. That would likely get him killed one day, but in the meantime, Sherm made a tidy income selling information to lawmen.

“Old Man Clanton's youngest boy stole 'em,” Morgan said. “The mules are in Sulphur Springs Valley now. Prolly at the McLaury place.”

“All right, we'll try there first. Go home and get your gear,” Virg told his brothers. Then he called, “Hurst! We leave in twenty minutes.”

T
HE CANTEEN'S FULL,” ALLIE TOLD VIRGIL AS HE
packed. “There's apples, and I made roast beef sandwiches for you and the boys.”

Wyatt was almost thirty-three and Morg was twenty-nine. Both of them were a good deal older than Alvira Sullivan, but they were still “the boys” to her because that's what Virg always called them.

“Thanks, Pickle,” Virgil said. “Nice of you to think of them.”

“And if I don't, who will, I'd like to know!”

Morgan was batching it while his girl, Louisa, was off visiting relatives. Lou was a honey, but Wyatt's woman . . . Well, Allie felt sorry for Mattie Blaylock but had no illusions about her. Mattie was slovenly and down at the mouth most of the time, and hell would freeze before she lifted a finger for the man who put a roof over her head.