Robert Parker - Gunman's Rhapsody

Wyatt nodded.

“What about Behan?” Virgil said.

“House belongs to Josie,” Wyatt said. “Her father paid for it.”

“So Johnny’ll have to get out?”

“Looks that way.”

“Makes him look like a fool,” Virgil said.

“Wasn’t my intention,” Wyatt said.

“It don’t help us in town to have this happen,” Virgil said. “It don’t help us to have Johnny Behan against us, either.”

“I can deal with Johnny,” Wyatt said.

“He won’t come straight at you.”

“No.”

“But it don’t mean he won’t come,” Virgil said.

“Or send somebody,” Wyatt said.

They were quiet together for a time. Listening to the saloon sounds. The click of glasses, the low murmur of the men at card games. The sound of booted feet. An occasional high laugh from one of the whores who worked the saloons.

“Whoever he sends,” Virgil said, “they got to go up against you and me and Morgan-and Holliday, I guess, if he’s sober enough to shoot.”

“Can’t recall,” Wyatt said, “Doc ever being too drunk to shoot.”

“True enough,” Virgil said. “The skinny bastard can do that, can’t he.”

“It may not come to much,” Wyatt said. “Johnny’s a pretty careful fella. Wants to get ahead.”

“Man doesn’t get ahead, around here, at least,” Virgil said. “Being made to look like a horse’s ass in public.”

“Maybe Johnny don’t know that,” Wyatt said.

Mattie sat in the kitchen in a straight chair with a water glass of whiskey in her hand and tears coming down her face. She didn’t look at Wyatt.

“Don’t you want your breakfast?”

Wyatt shook his head. He was standing in the doorway holding a rifle, its muzzle pointed at the floor.

“I had breakfast with Morgan,” he said. “I just stopped in to pick up the Winchester.”

“I cooked it special for you,” she said. “Got some fresh eggs from Vita Coleman.”

She sniffed and wiped her nose with the sleeve of her dress.

“Christ,” Wyatt said, “do you cry in your sleep?”

Mattie shook her head and drank from her glass, her eyes fixed on the front of the iron stove across the room.

“If you’re hoping for sympathy, Mattie, I haven’t got any left. I’m doing what I have to do.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Mattie said. “If you go, I’ll follow you.”

“For what?”

“I’m your wife.”

“You’re not even that, not really. We never took any vows.”

“I’m your wife,” she said.

“You’re a damned drunk,” Wyatt said. “It’s still morning and you’re already drunk.”

“I’m only doing what you make me do,” Mattie said. “I can’t bear the pain without it.”

Wyatt took in a big breath of air and let it out slowly.

“Mattie,” he said. “That’s bullshit and you know it. You been drinking most of the time, long as I knew you. It used to be sherry. Now it’s whiskey. But the drinking ain’t new.”

“I got nothing else to do,” Mattie said. “I’m alone all the time. You’re never home.”

Her face was bunched up as if trying to be smaller. She was pale except for a red flush over her cheekbones. She drank again from the whiskey glass.

“Why would I want to come home?” Wyatt said. “Watch you cry and drink whiskey.”

Mattie didn’t answer. Her eyes were squeezed nearly shut. She had slept on top of the bed in the dress she was still wearing. She looked at the stove as if to penetrate the black iron with her narrow, wet gaze.

“I won’t give you up,” she said without inflection.

“Jesus Christ,” Wyatt said and turned and went through the parlor and out the front door.

Carrying the Winchester, Wyatt walked up Fremont Street, his boots making soft sounds in the thick dirt. The morning sun was behind him and his shadow spilled out in front of him, angular and much too long. It was already warm, and the sky was high and cloudless. He turned up Fourth Street, past Spangenberg’s Gun Shop on his left, and on the other side, farther up, at the corner of Allen Street, the Can Can Restaurant where he had had breakfast with Charlie Shibell and talked of being a deputy. Long time ago, Wyatt thought. He turned right on Allen past Hafford’s. Across the street, Johnny Behan came out of the Grand Hotel; he saw Wyatt and waved. Wyatt touched his hat brim and kept going. Johnny was a genial man. Careful about giving offense. He won’t come straight at you, Virgil had said. But it don’t mean he won’t come. Hell, maybe he was glad to get away from Josie. Wyatt smiled to himself. Be goddamned glad, myself, if Mattie would run off with somebody.

The way the moonlight fell in the room, he could see Josie’s face as they lay together in her dark bedroom. Her eyes seemed very large in the pale light.

“You’re very strong,” Josie said. “I feel it when we’re doing sex.”

“We’re all strong,” Wyatt said. “James too, ’fore he got shot up.”

“In the war?”

“Yep.”

“Yankee?”

“Yep. Illinois.”

“He doesn’t seem dangerous like his brothers,” Josie said. Her voice had an affectionate teasing sound.

“Oh, James will fight if he has to, best he can with that shoulder. But he’s an easygoing boy. I think James’s done most of the shooting he wants to do already.”

“How ’bout you?” Josie said.

He loved the sound her voice made in the dark room. “I don’t mind shooting,” Wyatt said.

“The men say you are a very good shooter.”

“I practice,” Wyatt said. “Mostly in the morning, early. You don’t get good just packing a gun around. You need to work at it.”

“Can you draw very fast?”

“That’s the dime novel guff,” Wyatt said. “Fast ain’t anywhere near as important as steady.”

“I should think you’d want to get off the first shot.”

“Mostly I’d want to hit what I shot at,” Wyatt said.

“Well,” Josie said. “You’re still here. I guess the proof is in the pudding.”

“Never mind about my pudding,” Wyatt said, and they both giggled.

“I’m not sure I ever heard you laugh before,” Josie said. “I certainly never heard you laugh like that.”

“I’m a little different than usual,” Wyatt said, “when I’m with you.”

“You’re pretty different,” she said, and they both laughed again. “I heard that your friend Holliday was involved in the Benson stage holdup.”

“That’s just talk,” Wyatt said.

“I heard he was a friend of Billy Leonard’s,” Josie said.

As they talked Wyatt ran his hands lightly over her body beneath the covers.

“Doc knew him in Las Vegas,” Wyatt said.

Josie rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and shivered slightly as his hands moved over her.

“Don’t mean he helped him hold up the stage.”

“I even heard you boys did it,” Josie said.

“It’s cowboy talk,” Wyatt said.

“So who do you think did it?”

“Billy Leonard, Harry Head, and Jim Crane,” Wyatt said. “Like Len Redfield told us.”

“You know them?”

Her face was close to his. As she talked, he could feel her lips brush his very lightly.

“Uh-huh,” Wyatt said. “Rustlers. Len Redfield too, and his brother. Tight with the Clantons. They all ride with Ringo and Curley Bill.”

“I heard Curley Bill got shot,” Josie said.

“Up in Galeyville, fella named Jim Wallace, a shooter from over Lincoln County. Put one into Bill’s cheek, took out one of his teeth.”

“Oh, poor man.”

“Yes,” Wyatt said. “I was Wallace, I wouldn’t like my prospects.”