The Last Woman Standing (12 page)

“Do you have anything smaller?” I asked.

“We’re not trying on boots,” Johnny said. “She’ll do fine.”

“She’s gentle as a tarantula,” John Dunbar chimed in. “Not afraid of anything . . .”

“. . . but mice,” Johnny said.

“. . . and snakes,” said Dunbar.

“. . . and scorpions,” said Johnny, slapping the horse on the rump. Sally Sue twitched her rear and backed away. Mr. Dunbar grabbed hold of her bridle and yanked her into submission. Then she stamped twice. I squealed.

My call-and-response with Sally Sue drew the attention of the idlers collected nearby. They gathered around to watch the fun. Among them was Newman H. “Old Man” Clanton, who’d just left his horse to be watered. The last time I’d seen him was atop the stairs at the Grand Hotel, buttoning his vest while the overly familiar Miss Timberline passed Johnny and me in a cloud of attar of roses. I’d wanted to run then. Now I wanted to disappear.

Old Man Clanton chewed on a cigar, an imposing grandfather from Tennessee. His spikey brows overhung deep-set eyes that had no patience for fools who weren’t related by blood. According to Johnny, Clanton had enlisted in the Confederate Home Guard out of Texas and then deserted without ever losing his antagonism to Northern intervention. Eventually, he established the Clanton Ranch nearby on the San Pedro River, where it became an unofficial hub for local cowboys.

Clanton’s eldest son, Isaac (called Ike) sidled up beside his father, laughing at the joke he’d just finished sharing with the Mexican stable boy. Ike was nearly respectable in a dark three-piece suit, a spit curl adorning his tanned forehead. With a jovial “Howdy, lads,” and an outstretched flask, he approached the handsome McLaury Brothers, Frank and Tom. The inseparable pale-eyed siblings, one clean-shaven and the other with a dandy’s goatee, stood together like a shiny pair of pistols. Beside them, Peter Spence wore a large, droopy sombrero and a shirt red enough to startle a bull.

I tried to ignore the corral rowdies, but my stage fright rose in reaction to the unwanted attention. I wanted to learn how to ride, not star in my own rodeo. My palms began to sweat, which would hamper holding the reins. I looked to Albert for moral support, but he’d slipped out of the crowd into the stable and his beloved Geronimo’s companionship. I tried to remain steady, approaching the musty-smelling bay as if I wasn’t in the least intimidated. The mare turned her head toward me and snorted, sending me flying backward into Johnny’s arms.

The men’s derisive laughter hardened my resolve. I would neither pout nor cry nor chastise these cowherds and ranchers for their bad manners; that would only worsen the situation. Getting a rise out of me was clearly part of the game. I harnessed my reserves of willpower, raising my head like those San Franciscan pony princesses and attempting some semblance of a haughty look. I tossed back my curls and gathered my skirt in one gloved hand. “Boost me up, Johnny.”

Ike Clanton stepped forward. “
I’ll
give her a boost.”

Johnny displaced Ike, laced his hands under my boot, and hoisted me onto the two-pommel sidesaddle. I perched uneasily, clasping one horn without the security of a stirrup until Johnny raised it, and raised it again when it finally reached the sole of my left boot. At his instruction, I balanced on my left foot and lifted my right leg over one pommel so that it rested in the valley between two curved leather horns. The position was awkward, but the saddle supported my right thigh and lent stability without my having to hike my skirt up and reveal my knickers.

I folded forward to pat Sally Sue, wanting to convey that we girls were in this mess together. She jerked backward and passed gas, sending a shudder through my chicken heart and a gale of laughter through our audience. The mare snorted again. I did a jump-and-squeal. The growing crowd roared again. One sour, unamused face I would later have cause to loathe floated among the merrymakers. Dunbar’s wife, a weather-beaten brunette with her hair in two Indian maiden braids, had joined the onlookers. She regarded me with a cynical look on her pinched face, as though plotting her future duplicity.

I became more angry than terrified. I would not be shamed for wanting to gain a skill many of the folks in the corral had acquired before they learned to read; I could read in two languages and swear in three. I kicked Sally Sue with my left heel, timidly at first, then harder, as much to escape the stable monkeys as to ride. Albert appeared up ahead, exiting the stables on Geronimo. To my great relief, he and his beautiful beast sidled up to us, taking my reins. He said, “Miss Josie, tighten your belly and squeeze with your thighs
.
I’ll do the rest. Only please, no more squealing. Horses never attack; they react. Miss Sue already fears that you’re a predator. If you scream like a mountain cat, she’s likely to want to toss you off before you set your claws into her back.”

“Thanks, Albert.” I tried, but failed, to match my voice to his gentle tone. My hands shook on the saddle horn as Sally Sue walked along Allen Street and then followed Geronimo up Fourth toward Fremont. Johnny caught up on his gray stallion as we passed the post office and its long line of gawkers.

“I’ll take over from here,” Johnny told his son. Albert returned my reins and faded into the side street, trotting off with a wave of his right hand.

I wiped my palms on my thighs and repositioned my hands on the reins, firmly but not tightly. We soon were at the outskirts of town, the shacks and shanties of Tombstone’s crust. Without an audience, a weight lifted. I resettled my bottom on the saddle, increased the pressure in my thighs, and felt Sally Sue submit to the inevitable and settle into an unhurried gait, following Johnny’s stallion. On the plateau, desert flowers had begun to bloom. The sky above was denim blue, the cottony cumulus clouds heavenly and brushed with pink shadows, the air clean of Tombstone’s burnt garbage smoke. I felt the freedom of distancing myself from the boomtown with its mobs of men. Only five minutes had passed since we’d crossed Safford Street, but looking cautiously back over my shoulder, Tombstone already seemed small and inconsequential, a town made of matchsticks and canvas cuttings.

Johnny rode beside me, as easy in his skin as his stallion in its curried coat, smiling slowly over at me with that twinkle. “You can do it, baby girl. Just hold on and that sweet nag won’t let you down. A big horse like Sally Sue makes for a smoother ride. I won’t let you fall. Don’t forget: she’s more afraid of you than you are of her.”

“That’s small comfort,” I said. And then I stopped talking altogether, reluctant to let my vibrato betray my nerves. My self-control returned slowly, along with an increased security on my mount—not enough to be chatty, but enough to nod at Johnny and hold on. As we cut through the chaparral on the well-worn horse path to the Dragoon Mountains, Johnny taught me how to turn left, then right, and how to pull back to a stop. He showed me how to get the mare going again with a firm kick, and how to refrain from sending mixed messages of stop and go, left and right. We repeated the actions, Johnny circling me atop his stallion, until I began to feel comfortable.

Relative to the fancy San Francisco equestriennes in their tight, tailored jackets and tall, polished boots, I had a long way to go. But at least I’d made the leap. I’d climbed on horseback. And I kept saying to myself,
I’m riding, I’m riding,
even if I was afraid that I would fall and be crushed. But between those waves of fear, I began to experience exhilaration. I forced myself to embrace the present thrill. I was on a horse. Even if she wasn’t the most beautiful, she was moving.

Above us, the sky stretched blue, and for as far as I could see there were no people other than Johnny and me. I could follow Johnny out of a walk and into a trot. I began to feel the breathless excitement of forward motion, of flight into the unknown.

As we approached the mountains, I fell behind. I watched Johnny’s hat shrink in the distance as his trot exceeded mine. Then he stopped abruptly. I assumed he was letting me catch up, but when I looked ahead to the foothills, I saw what might have been the figure of a man, a flash of white that could have been a sleeve. I trotted toward Johnny and began to see the outline of a stocky, dark-skinned native in the foothills, a red bandana on his long black hair, a rifle strapped across his chest. He was too far away for me to see his eyes or distinguish his features. Then I saw another figure, and another—rifles, bandanas, a feathered headdress, long black hair, the flash of white shirts against dull leather vests.

My fear of Sally Sue was small in comparison to the terror that these rifled men inspired. I gripped the reins too hard. The mare resisted. She shook her head from side to side, which hardly bothered me in my frightened state. I forgot to breathe and became lightheaded, but realized that now I must master this horse because my safety depended on my resisting the reactions of fear, even if what I wanted to do was scream.

Johnny wheeled around and raced toward me, his hat flying behind on the leather thong encircling his neck. “I’m going to teach you to gallop, Josie,” he called as he neared me, and then as he passed, “You are going to learn on the fly.”

I hardly had to kick my mount with my left foot for her to turn in Johnny’s wake and follow. Sally Sue knew how to gallop. We followed Johnny, flying at a pace that left me gasping and holding on with my small hands, my thighs, my hopes. And here was the odd thing: there was something glorious about it, an adrenaline high—nothing else in the world existed except rider and horse and speed. Johnny looked back to ensure I was following. He looked past me; I couldn’t tell what he saw. But I could read his lips, mouthing
Faster, faster
. We accelerated. At this speed, I couldn’t manage to look back, but in my mind’s eye, I envisioned dark-skinned riders on painted ponies, and I dug my left heel deeper. All ridiculous thoughts of Sunday San Francisco horsewomen escaped my head, replaced by my desire to survive, to hold on to Johnny again on our brass bed beneath the gingham curtains.

From this distance, Tombstone was a dirt clod dwarfed by the open spaces surrounding it. Gradually, the town grew until its tent cities and stucco shacks and gaudy facades resembled a child’s village made from matchbooks and thimbles and playing-card packets. It seemed like the domain of a spoiled child who might just as easily step on it as over it when his attention waned.

Once Johnny and I reached safety on Safford Street, he stopped, and I pulled up beside him, breathless and frazzled. “We’re safe,” he said, holding on to his saddle horn and reaching over to give me a kiss, which I returned with pleasure, and without tears. We paused for a moment at the outskirts of town. I savored the aftermath of another scrape we’d survived together, another crisis that brought us closer and widened our circle of trust. And then we walked on past the post office.

When Sally Sue saw the stables, she broke into a canter, but I held firmly, my back straight and my eyes forward, refusing to give the cowboys at Dexter’s the satisfaction of hearing me squeal again. General applause greeted Johnny and me when we entered the corral. To my confusion, I saw money changing hands. Albert later explained that bets had been placed on whether I would even get up on the horse. Others took odds on whether I’d stay on the mare beyond the town limits, where I would fall off, whether I’d cry, or if I’d return on the back of Johnny’s stallion with Sally Sue in tow. I discovered that Old Man Clanton, counting his cash, had bet the long shot: my returning in one piece still on horseback, dry-eyed. He won the day, an excellent judge of horse flesh and human character.

If only I’d put money down on myself returning in one piece. But I got my reward: satisfaction. I felt like a tougher, braver woman than the squealer who’d climbed on the mare’s back earlier that day. I was a Westerner; and the next day I had the saddle sores to prove it.

Months later, Wyatt told me those men in the foothills weren’t Apaches, but costumed cowboys pulling a prank. I was never quite sure if Johnny was complicit or not—and by then it no longer mattered.

CHAPTER 14

MAY 1881

As I settled into our new home, I surprised myself by preferring the open sky of the outdoors to the low-ceilinged shelter within. Most evenings, once Johnny returned to Allen Street, I left the dinner dishes on the sideboard and Albert with his sums, then stepped into our backyard, which was really just a square chip of scrub marked off with rope. I sat alone on an old canvas camp chair, with a tumbler of whiskey to soften the night.

Peering out, free from small talk and local politics, I watched the light change incrementally, bringing the distant Dragoons into relief. The mountains seemed almost close enough to touch in the sharper light before softening into the distance—in shades of violet, ultramarine, and smoky quartz. I shared the ever-changing view with a legion of small animals and birds that appeared once I achieved a state of quiet watchfulness. The hawks with their majestic wingspans circled above; and sadly, I heard the death cry of a rabbit plucked by its feathered predator or abducted by a coyote. I was not so soft, then, that I mourned the bunny for long. One animal feeds on another. Only the cleverest survive.

Fox eyes flashed. An owl hooted. I gazed at the stars, gradually making out the Big Dipper, the planets Venus and Mars, fat Orion’s belt. I awaited a wishing star, only to realize that this was my wish: this serenity—without Kitty’s chatter or Mama’s judgments or the pressures of an arranged marriage—was what I desired.

The rapture I experienced beneath the naked sky inspired my religious philosophy, one as passionate as my mother’s Judaism, but disconnected from its rituals and words. I never questioned my mother’s faith: she believed in right and wrong. I respected her commitment to education and betterment, her concern for the needy, and her disdain for the materialistic. My mother’s God was just and passionate. Her belief in his power to guide her toward goodness and protect her loved ones may have been tested by her voyage to America and my disobedience, but her faith did not bend or break.

I never rejected Judaism, but I did not share my mother’s orthodoxy. I had yet to light the Shabbat candles in my new home. I could roast a chicken on Friday night, I could make soup from my mother’s recipe—but I did not yearn to indoctrinate Johnny or Albert. There were no Sabbath services in Tombstone—and I doubt I would have attended them if there were—and I didn’t go to Sunday church with Johnny and Albert, either.

Mama never missed synagogue on Friday nights and Saturday mornings, joining in prayer with a larger community. The rituals and holidays, the blessing of the candles on Fridays, and the nightly prayer, “
Lieber Gott
,” while kneeling at her bedside, were a constant reminder of her devotion and gave her life meaning. These acts were archways to a higher communion. We both shared that trust in God, only I found my faith in the desert stars and lighting campfires instead of Shabbat candles.

I spent more time with Albert in our new home—not quite a mother, but more than a governess. We often rode together. One May afternoon, I met him near the schoolhouse; he was furious. After careful prodding, I chiseled out the source of his discontent: Three older boys had teased him for chewing on his pencils. I argued that there was nothing wrong with chewing on a pencil as long as he didn’t swallow it point first, but he said the trio told him it was disgusting and would cause lead poisoning.

It steamed me that boys could be so cruel over so little: What was so awful about a child chewing pencils anyway? A nervous tick: Albert was bored, plain and simple. I encouraged him to ignore his schoolmates, bolstered by the knowledge that he was cleverer and handsomer, but that didn’t help him survive the long, lonely school days. Albert was more sensitive than I had been at school—I was usually the one teasing and troublemaking. But through his eyes I understood how much their taunts stung and rankled. He thought of them over and over, which only led to more pencil chewing. He lashed out in response to their needling, which only satisfied the other boys. They egged him on until Miss McFarland—overburdened with nearly a hundred students—noticed and sent Albert to face the corner for being disruptive.

Albert hurt badly. He missed his mother (although he mentioned her less and less) and off days at school stirred up more sadness in the boy. Out of pity—and an excuse to satisfy my sweet tooth—I steered Albert to Lottie Hinkley’s Ice Cream Parlor on Allen Street. We raced each other upstairs to the second floor of the tall, narrow adobe. Our moods lifted with every step.

The sound of the tinkling bell as we crossed the threshold instantly revived us. Across the otherwise empty ice-cream parlor we spied Wyatt. He spooned vanilla ice cream from a tulip glass, his back against a mirrored wall. My heart skipped a beat and dropped toward my knees. I felt doubly guilty because I was standing beside Albert. Had he looked up from his shoes in that moment, my expression—reflected across the parlor mirrors—would have betrayed my feelings. Or could he sense my feelings by proximity?

Wyatt motioned for us to join him. I took Albert’s hand, which he immediately yanked away, and approached the lawman. “What brings you here?” I asked. Albert and I stood side by side like schoolchildren in the principal’s office.

“Ice cream,” Wyatt said.

“No law against that.”

“I’d have to arrest myself if there was.”

“Wyatt, have you met Johnny’s son, Albert Behan?”

“A pleasure, Mr. Behan.”

“I’m just plain Albert, Mr. Earp,” said Albert. “My father’s Mr. Behan.”

“I suppose you’re right, Albert. I hope you don’t take offense if we don’t shake hands; mine are sticky. Have a seat.”

Albert scraped back a chair and settled down. Before I could give Wyatt the opportunity to rescind his invitation, Lottie shuffled her wide hips over and took our order: chocolate for Albert, and cherries jubilee for me. As we waited, Wyatt scooped another bite of vanilla and let a pause rest between us. He had pale, long fingers with square-trimmed nails buffed shinier than my own. They were well-cared-for gambler hands because, according to Johnny, Wyatt dealt faro, a popular and easy-to-master game of chance, at the Oriental Saloon and Gambling Hall. It was among Tombstone’s most luxurious spots. I’d never gotten any closer than peering through the windows; Johnny told me the Oriental wasn’t a suitable place for proper women.

Lottie Hinkley’s was a safe destination, so it was funny that Albert and I now shared a table with Wyatt Earp, the man who owned the Oriental’s gambling concession. I wondered what a person could tell about a man by watching him eat ice cream. Wyatt was slow and deliberate, not wasting a motion, not rushing toward the end. He was as smooth as vanilla, but he wasn’t soft: even here he was packing pistols.

“Are those Colts?” Albert asked.

“Sure are,” Wyatt said. “You shoot?”

“Squirrels, mostly. Nothing fancy.”

“I’ve sent a few squirrels to heaven and slaughtered some tin cans. I don’t believe in fancy shooting myself. I learned most of what I know at the feet of better men in Kansas City, summer of ’71, sitting on a bench in front of Marshal Tom Speers’s office. In the quiet between buffalo shooting seasons, men like James B. Hickok—”

“Wild Bill?” Albert leaned forward on his elbows.

“The very same.” Wyatt nodded his head in confirmation. “Hickok, Jack Gallagher, the scout, and Cheyenne Jack were all there. In the lazy afternoons, they held an informal school for shooting before they made for the gambling houses and variety shows. Wild Bill could do fancy, but when he faced down a man, there was nothing tricky about his gun handling.”

“Could Wild Bill shoot two pistols at once?”

“He could, when he was showing off. He could fan his guns, shoot from the hip, and fire two pistols at once. Grandstanding was what it was. When Hickok got serious, confronting an enemy, he shunned tomfoolery.” He scooped his dessert, licking the drips off his mustache while pausing to consider the past. I could read it in his eyes, the way he shuffled through the stories, figuring which were suitable for a young boy.

Lottie, with her cotton-candy hair, returned with our ice cream. She asked Wyatt if he wanted seconds, but he ordered a coffee—black, with five sugars—and continued: “There wasn’t a man in Kansas City who knew more about hunting buffalo than Gallagher, but when you wanted shooting advice, you turned to Bill. He had a reputation for being the deadliest living pistol shot. And he was courageous, too, wouldn’t back down or slink away from a fight, whatever the odds. I didn’t say much those afternoons. I listened and learned lessons I still use today. I wasn’t much more than twenty myself that summer, not much older than Miss Josephine.”

“But a little wiser, I hope,” I said.

“I wouldn’t bet the payroll on that,” Wyatt said. He looked me straight in the eyes until I glanced away. Lottie watched us closely from behind the counter.

I looked down at my ice cream and pecked at a dainty spoonful, though I wanted a bigger bite. It was delicious, with a wicked hint of rum. Part of me was as excited as Albert to be sitting with Wyatt, buffalo hunter and Dodge City deputy. We’d witnessed this man tame a lynch mob to rescue Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce. I felt starstruck and deeply curious: What was Wyatt like when he wasn’t shooting or fighting or dealing faro at the Oriental? I also wondered whether I needed to be wary of Wyatt, sitting in Lottie Hinkley’s as if he was just waiting for us to arrive.

What I observed was that even while Wyatt ate vanilla ice cream with a little silver-plated spoon in a room with pink-striped wallpaper, he had gravity. It was as if all the rivers flowed in his direction. He could take his time because the world was coming to him and not vice versa. The man had a square-faced solidity, a powerful stillness that forced others to react to him: even me, sitting with my Medusa curls and my fiancé’s son, trying not to flirt since I couldn’t possibly impress him with my bravery. I can’t deny wanting to make a positive impression on him.

“Please, tell me more about Wild Bill,” Albert said between bites. A chocolate mustache formed at the corners of his mouth; I left it there, knowing it would be more embarrassing to Albert if I pointed it out or reached over with my napkin.

“They were a pretty woolly crew back in Kansas City. When they weren’t discussing buffalo, they were debating guns. Who shot who? Who met an untimely death and where? After a night drinking whiskey, they passed those hot afternoons target shooting, competing to prove the best aim.”

“Did you try to win?” Albert asked.

“Sometimes, but I didn’t always succeed. I grew up shooting guns. I had a keen eye and a quick hand. When I was in my teens, I crossed from Missouri to California with my folks, shooting game for the convoy. I earned respect with my rifle. My skills served me well, but a cool head served me better. By the time I turned up in Kansas City, I was a decent hand with a rifle, shotgun, and pistol, but I still had plenty to learn.”

Wyatt sipped his coffee. He took a long look my way. It embarrassed me that I was so disheveled and off balance, so casual in Albert’s company, but it didn’t seem to deter Wyatt. The intimacy of afternoon ice cream on a safe patch extended to all three of us. However, Wyatt’s gaze attached to me for long enough that Albert became impatient for more stories. The lawman swiveled toward the boy and continued his gun talk. “Sure, Gallagher and Hickok taught me about marksmanship, but also which weapons performed best, and how to wear a gun to get the quickest action in a fight. Speed and accuracy was their goal. They hadn’t lived as long as they had by being flashy. There’s a split second between life and death, and those gents knew how to make the most of it.”

“How, Mr. Earp?” Albert asked, his spoon abandoned in his ice cream, his gray eyes sharp and focused. I appreciated the way Wyatt drew Albert out, and silently thanked him. Albert was no longer worried about chewing pencils.

“Hours of practice, sure, Albert, but the wisest lesson I ever learned was that the gunman who takes his time survives. A gunfighter has to be mentally calculating, and muscularly swift. The Kansas City gang taught me that if I hoped to see twenty-five, tricky shooting was poisonous. It would get me killed in a flash of gunpowder.”

“Who knew there was so much to consider?” I asked. “I thought it was point, squint, and shoot.”

“Don’t be so girly, Josie,” Albert said.

“Get a bit older, son, and you won’t be saying that!” Wyatt told Albert with an open grin that set his eyes dancing.

I flushed, studied the dregs of my cherries jubilee—I never ate ice cream slowly—and tried to ignore Wyatt’s comment. After a beat, I slowly peeked out from under my lashes, only to get caught in Wyatt’s unapologetic stare. He smiled right at me. I may not have known how to pull a trigger, but I could flirt. I’d started at three on young David Belasco from down the street, and I’d been honing my skills ever since. I recognized that there was nothing unintentional about this man with the black Stetson. Unlike Belasco, who never succumbed to my baby charms, Wyatt was toying with me right there in front of Albert and Lottie.

“I may be as girly as they get,” I said, to get the conversation back on track, “but if I behave as if I know everything there is to know, I’ll never learn anything new!”