Robert Parker - Gunman's Rhapsody

“Go see if we hit something,” Virgil said. And Morgan headed into the arroyo as Dr. Goodfellow rounded the corner at Allen Street and walked briskly toward them carrying his medical bag. His assistant followed, carrying a folded canvas stretcher. Morgan’s voice came from the darkness.

“Nothing here, Virg.”

Morgan came back from the arroyo, his pistol holstered. He had to push his way through the crowd that had gathered once the shooting stopped. Goodfellow arrived and dropped to his knees beside Fred White. The pool of blood under White had spread.

“Gut shot, Doc, down here.”

Goodfellow unbuttoned White’s pants and felt under White’s shirt. He shook his head. The crowd was very quiet. The sound of Goodfellow’s long inhale was loud in the silence.

“Not good, Fred.”

“I know,” White said.

A kind of audible sigh went through the crowd.

“I had five rounds left in my gun,” Curley Bill said. “The sixth round went into the marshal. So how could I have been shooting up the street?”

“Maybe you didn’t,” Virgil said. “Or maybe you reloaded.”

Someone in the crowd said, “The bastard admits he shot Fred.”

The crowd moved in closer to the small group in the center.

“You and Morgan better take the prisoner to jail,” Virgil said. “I’ll be along soon as we see to Fred.”

Wyatt nodded at Morgan and, one on each side, they walked Curley Bill through the crowd down Sixth to Toughnut Street where the jail stood on the corner. People moved out of the way sullenly, but no one impeded them. Several members of the crowd followed them silently to the jail and stood outside after they went in. Wyatt and Morgan both armed themselves with shotguns, but nothing came of the crowd, and by the time Virgil arrived it had dispersed.

It took Fred White two days to die calmly of peritonitis. Wyatt and Mattie walked alone back from the funeral in the early afternoon, on a bright fall day with no wind and the Dragoon Mountains clear and sharp against the cloudless sky northeast of Tombstone.

“They appointed a new city marshal?” Mattie said.

She rested her hand lightly on Wyatt’s crooked arm as they walked.

“Virgil, sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Made him assistant marshal,” Wyatt said, “but since there’s no marshal he’s actually the one.”

“Why not just make him city marshal, then?”

Wyatt shrugged.

“Too many Rebs in the council,” Wyatt said. “They needed someone quick, ’fore the cowboys moved in and rawhided the town, and Virgil’s the man for the job. But the Rebs don’t want to give it permanent to a Republican.”

“So they sort of half did it,” Mattie said.

“Just till the special election,” Wyatt said.

“Won’t Virgil have a head start, though?” Mattie said. “Being as he’s already in the job?”

“Maybe.”

They paused at the foot of Fremont Street and looked back at the cemetery on the top of the small rise where Fred White was.

“I’m glad you weren’t hurt,” Mattie said.

Wyatt nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “I know you are.”

“You don’t seem much to care about me anymore,” Mattie said. “But I care about you, Wyatt.”

“I know.”

“You don’t,” Mattie said, “do you?”

“Care about you?”

“Yes.”

“You use my name. I support you. I don’t embarrass you, running to the whores all the time.”

“I know. You’re good that way, Wyatt. You do your duty. But you don’t love me, do you?”

Wyatt was silent for a while, looking across at Boot Hill and at the long empty sweep of hard country beyond it.

“No, I guess I don’t,” he said.

“Then why in hell did you take up with me, if you didn’t love me?”

Again Wyatt was silent for a time, looking out at the barren land.

“God, Mattie, I don’t know. I guess it was Jim had a woman and Virgil had a woman, and it was time for me to have a woman.”

“And I was there,” she said.

Wyatt nodded slowly.

“That’s about the truth of it, Mattie.”

Mattie’s head dropped and her shoulders shook, but she made no sound.

“I’m sorry, Mattie, I really am.”

She didn’t look up or speak. She turned, with her head still down and her shoulders still shaking, and walked away from him, toward the front door of the house they shared. Wyatt watched her go. He wished he loved her. He wished he could even like her. But he didn’t love her and he couldn’t seem to like her. At best, he realized, all he could do was feel sorry.

“Goddamn,” he said out loud.

But there was no one to hear him, and so he stood alone and silent in the still day, under the high blue sky, and looked at the door that Mattie had closed behind her, and thought of Josie Marcus.

Josie wasn’t like any women he knew, Wyatt thought as he sat with her and Johnny Behan in their front room. She sat in on business. Allie was full of opinions on what Virgil ought to do. Even Mattie sometimes had suggestions and asked questions. But it was in private, at home, and when the business was to be decided the men went to a saloon and decided it. Josie acted like a man. As if business were as much hers as Behan’s. He admired it in her, though he knew that if Mattie acted that way, he would be angry. He felt a small, sad amusement at his unfairness.

“You been thinking any on what we talked about, Wyatt?” Behan said.

“No.”

“Well, damn it, Wyatt, I wish you would,” Behan said. “If you resign as deputy, Charlie will appoint me, and I can show John Fremont that I’ve got experience as a lawman when they make the new county. I get to be sheriff. I make you under sheriff. I handle the civil part. You handle the criminal part, and we split the fees.”

“ Fremont ’s a Republican,” Wyatt said. “Maybe I should try for sheriff. Put my brothers on as deputies, keep all the fees.”

“You can’t get appointed. The governor may be Republican, but the county is all mostly Democrats,” Behan said. “Ain’t a cowboy alive going to sit still for having an Earp appointed sheriff.”

When he was talking politics, Wyatt noticed, Behan’s voice was much firmer.

“Johnny makes a good point,” Josie said. “It’s pretty certain you couldn’t get the job, nor Virgil, nor Morgan.”

“But Fremont would appoint for Johnny,” Wyatt said.

“Yes. He’s close to Fremont. He’s quite close to the cowboys.”

Behan was quiet, watching Josie and Wyatt. Johnny’s not stupid, Wyatt thought. He knows she’s making more progress than he is. Johnny was a vain man, but it was interesting to see that vanity didn’t run him.

“Close to Curley Bill?”

“I got no problem with Brocius,” Behan said.

“Got a problem with him killing Fred White?”

“He was acquitted of that,” Josie said.

“Fred’s dead,” Wyatt said.

“Even Marshal White said it was an accident.”

Wyatt knew he had said that, and maybe it was. But it wasn’t an accident that Curley Bill had his gun out, and it wasn’t an accident that he pointed it at Fred White. Wyatt was looking directly into Josie’s eyes and she back at him, and he could feel them dissolve into each other like two streams merging. He held her look and felt almost as if they had coupled. He didn’t say anything.

“It’s no sin in politics,” Josie said, after what seemed to Wyatt a long silence, “to be close to all sorts of people.”

“Maybe there is no sin in politics,” Wyatt said.

“If you feel that way,” Josie said, “then you wouldn’t want to try for sheriff anyway.”