Robert Parker - Gunman's Rhapsody

“Name was Josie something,” Wyatt said.

“Marcus,” Joyce said. “Josephine Marcus. Jewish. Johnny introduced me to her.”

“Nice-looking woman,” Wyatt said.

All of the Earps were there, around a table in Hatch’s Saloon. Two cowboys were drinking beer and playing pool behind them, while several of their friends drank beer and watched. The bar was lined nearly solid with a mix of cowboys, miners, and townsmen. At a table near the front four bullwhackers played cards while they waited for their wagons to be loaded. Some whores, dressed for work, were having late breakfast at another table. They looked kind of tired in the daylight, Wyatt thought.

“Be a nice foot in the door at the Oriental,” James said. “Frank Joyce is an up-and-comer.”

“You know Tyler?” Virgil said.

Wyatt nodded.

“You know his reputation?”

“Gunhand.”

Virgil nodded slowly.

“Wyatt’s a pretty fair gunhand himself,” Morgan said.

“ Tyler won’t back off,” Virgil said. “You go against him, you have to mean it.”

“I always mean it,” Wyatt said.

“Quarter interest in a place like the Oriental is worth something,” James said.

“And we can handle Tyler,” Morgan said.

“I think ‘we’ ain’t getting the quarter interest,” Virgil said.

“Oh hell, Virg. You know if one of us is in, all of us are in,” Morgan said.

As he had at the McLaury ranch, Morgan brushed his gunhand up and down his shirtfront, as if drying the tips of his fingers. Trouble’s like a carnival for Morgan, Wyatt thought.

“All of us ain’t always going to be around,” Virgil said. “You ready to go against Tyler alone, Wyatt?”

“Yes.”

“He’s a back shooter,” Virgil said.

“I’ll try to keep him in front of me,” Wyatt said.

“I say he takes the offer,” Jim said.

“Me too,” Morgan said.

“You want to do it, Wyatt?”

“Might as well.”

“Well, then I guess you will. No reason to go against Tyler alone, though, if you don’t have to. He starts trouble, send for me and Morgan.”

Wyatt nodded. His hands rested motionless on the tabletop. His eyes moving, as they always were, taking in the room: whores, pool players, drinkers, cardplayers, the sound of glassware, the clink of pool, the smell of whiskey, the economical, practiced movements of the bartender. He liked the rhythm of saloon life very much.

“You do it, Wyatt,” James said. “It’s why you got brothers.”

Wyatt smiled slowly, almost as if his mind were somewhere else and had just refocused.

“Yes,” he said. “I know.”

John Behan’s white frame house on Third Street had a slant-roofed piazza across the front. There were two straight chairs to the right of the front door. Behan opened the door.

“Wyatt,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”

Wyatt nodded and stepped into the house. The front room was papered in beige with a European landscape the featured motif. Josie Marcus stood behind Behan, and when he saw her, Wyatt took off his hat.

“This is my fiancée, Wyatt, Miss Josephine Marcus.”

“Nice to meet you,” Wyatt said. “I remember seeing you in Pinafore on Wheels a while back.”

“Well, how nice of you to remember,” she said. “It wasn’t a very big part.”

Wyatt didn’t say anything. She was aware that his gaze rested on her, and she felt its weight. She noticed at once how tall he was, taller than Johnny, who was regarded as tall, with a hard look of muscle to him, harder than Johnny, and much quieter. Johnny was a talker. This one was not. This one was quiet to his soul, she thought. And, perhaps, quite dangerous.

“Sit down, my friend,” Behan said. “Josie, maybe you could make us some coffee.”

There were four upholstered chairs with wooden arms in the front room. Josie went to the kitchen; Wyatt sat in one of the upholstered chairs. Behan sat in another one. There was a small oak table with claw-and-ball feet between them, and through the front window they could see out onto Third Street.

“Wyatt, why I wanted to talk with you was about the deputy sheriff’s job.”

Wyatt waited. A Wells Fargo stage, the horses lathered from the uphill pull into town, went by on the way to Sandy Bob’s. Morgan sat up front beside the driver, one foot cocked on top of the floor rail, the trail-issue shotgun in his lap.

“Been talking to Charlie Shibell,” Behan said. “Maybe you know this already, but they’re thinking that Pima’s too big to be one county. So they’re going to keep half of it like it is, and make the other half, including Tombstone, into Cochise County.”

“I heard that,” Wyatt said.

“Well, that will mean a new sheriff, and Charlie and I think it should be a Democrat.”

Josie Marcus came back into the front room, carrying a tray with coffee in three blue and white cups. There was also a bowl of sugar and a small pitcher full of condensed milk. She placed the tray down on the table, took a cup of coffee and seated herself on the couch. Behan looked at her, and for a moment seemed about to say something. But he didn’t. Instead he carefully measured three spoonfuls of sugar into his cup and added condensed milk.

“Do you live in town here, Mr. Earp?” Josie said.

“Yes. My brothers and I are building some houses down around the corner on Fremont.”

“Well, how nice,” she said. “We’re neighbors.”

“Josie, Wyatt and I are talking a little business.”

“Oh, Johnny, you’re always talking a little business. I like to know my neighbors. Do you live with your brothers, Mr. Earp?”

“Virgil lives across the street,” Wyatt said. “Morgan and James live on either side.”

“And who lives in your house, Mr. Earp, besides you?”

“Mattie,” Earp said.

Josie Marcus nodded slowly, her great black eyes holding on his, as if what he were saying was more interesting than she could have imagined.

“Your wife,” Josie said.

“More or less.”

“Josie, if you could just stop talking for maybe a minute or so,” Behan said. “I need to ask Wyatt a couple of things.”

Josie smiled.

“Of course,” she said.

Behan sighed.

“So we was thinking, Charlie and I, that we needed a Democrat to be sheriff of Cochise County.”

“So you said.”

“And,” Behan grinned at Wyatt, “we was thinking that it should be me.”

Behan paused for Wyatt to speak. Wyatt didn’t speak, and after a moment, Behan continued.

“Thing is, you being a Republican, and a deputy sheriff and all, it might make it a little hard.”

The room was warm and still. Wyatt could see Josie studying him as she drank coffee off to his left. She was wearing cologne, and he could smell it from where he sat.

“Can’t say as I mind,” Wyatt said to Behan.

“Well, no, ’course not. But if you could find your way clear to resigning in favor of me, it would put me in a nice position to be sheriff when the new county comes.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Well,” and again Behan smiled widely at Wyatt, “I might appoint you under sheriff, if I got appointed.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And if you resigned in favor of me, then Charlie wouldn’t have to fire you.”

Watching him, Josie saw no reaction at all. He sat quietly, holding his coffee cup in both hands. Even when he drank from his coffee cup he was looking at Johnny above the rim. At the same time she knew he was aware of her. She could feel it. His attention was like the heat of a summer afternoon out here. Not emanating from someplace, but all around, enveloping. She liked the feeling.