Gunman's Rhapsody - Паркер Роберт Б.. Страница 25

Thirty-four

They lay on their bed at the Cosmopolitan, with the window open so that the wind that drifted up from the west end of Allen Street played across their naked bodies.

“Your brothers like me, Wyatt?”

“Yes.”

“How come we never spend time with them together?”

“Trouble with the women,” Wyatt said. “ ’Specially Allie.”

“Virgil’s wife?”

“Uh-huh.”

“She close to Mattie?”

“Lot closer now than she was when I lived with Mattie,” Wyatt said.

“You run into Johnny at all?”

“Now and then,” Wyatt said.

“He don’t give you any trouble, does he?”

“Not straight on he don’t,” Wyatt said.

“Straight on isn’t Johnny’s way,” Josie said.

She propped herself on her left elbow and ran her right hand lightly over Wyatt’s chest and stomach, tracing the muscles of his abdomen with the tips of her fingers.

“He’s awful tight with the cowboys,” she said.

“I know.”

“What’s wrong between you and the cowboys, Wyatt? I know there’s hard feeling, but I don’t know why.”

“Not just me,” Wyatt said. “All the Earps.”

“Why? What have you done to them?”

“Not much. We fronted the McLaury boys once over some mules. Doc got into it with Ike Clanton.”

“But Doc’s not you.”

“He’s with us,” Wyatt said.

“Why?” Josie said.

“He was with us in Dodge,” Wyatt said.

“That’s no answer,” Josie said.

“Best answer I got.”

“You know Doc’s nothing but trouble. He’s drunk most of the time. He’s crazy when he’s drunk.”

“Hell, Josie, Doc’s crazy when he’s sober,” Wyatt said.

“So why is he with you?”

“Because he is. This isn’t San Francisco. It’s hard living out here, and you don’t always get to pick the people that’ll side with you. Sometimes they pick you.”

“Like Doc.”

“Doc would walk into the barrel of a cannon with me,” Wyatt said.

Josie was quiet. Wyatt raised on an elbow and looked at her. Her skin was very white. It was still hot in the desert, and her body was damp with perspiration. Wyatt bent over and kissed her gently on the mouth. She smiled at him.

“I don’t mean to be full of questions,” she said.

“You can ask me anything you wish,” Wyatt said.

“It’s complicated being a man,” Josie said.

“It’s easy enough,” Wyatt said, “knowing what to do. It’s hard sometimes to do it.”

“I don’t think it’s so hard for you.”

“Hard for everybody, Josie.” He smiled and kissed her again. “Even us.”

“I think even knowing what he should do was hard for Johnny.”

“He sure as hell doesn’t know what he shouldn’t do,” Wyatt said.

“I don’t think Johnny is a bad man,” Josie said. “He’s more a bad combination of weak and ambitious, I think.”

“Doesn’t finally matter which it is,” Wyatt said. “Comes to the same thing. It can get him killed.”

He could see the softness go out of Josie’s naked body.

“No,” she said.

“No?”

“Not by you, Wyatt.”

“I didn’t say it would be me.”

“It can’t be you. I can’t be in your bed knowing you killed the man I used to sleep with.”

“Josie, we both know he wasn’t the first.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I couldn’t.”

“And if he came at me?”

“He won’t,” Josie said.

“You know that.”

“He’s afraid of you, Wyatt.”

“But if he did,” Wyatt said.

“That would be different,” Josie said. “I’d rather you kill him than he kill you.”

“Good.”

“But only to save your life,” Josie said. “You have to promise.”

“Josie, I can’t know what will happen. Virgil being city marshal is making Johnny look bad. He doesn’t want any Earps running against him for sheriff. He’s embarrassed that Morgan knocked him on his ass. And there’s you and me.”

“He won’t try you, Wyatt.”

“Maybe not head-on,” Wyatt said. “But he’s got most of the cowboys turned against us. I think he’ll try to use Curley Bill and Ringo.”

Josie turned and pressed the full length of her nakedness against him.

With her mouth pressed hard against him she said, “Promise. Promise.”

He held her against him and kissed her back.

“Promise,” she said fiercely. “Promise.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “I promise.”

He felt her hands pressed against his back, her fingernails digging into him. He held her damp body, with all his force, against him. She groaned, and softened, and neither of them whispered again.

Virgil Earp was standing in the street outside the Grand Hotel, his back against one of the posts that held up the porch, one heel hooked over the edge of the boardwalk. It was mid-September and the soft desert fall had finally broken the summer heat. Two women wearing eastern clothes came out of the hotel and paused behind Virgil.

One of them said, “What of the Apaches, Marshal?”

Virgil took off his hat and turned toward the women.

“Haven’t seen none in Tombstone, ma’am,” Virgil said.

“We heard that General Carr’s men were slaughtered and that the Apaches are coming this way.”

Virgil smiled. Every time some buck killed a wood hauler the fear of Indian attack raged through Tombstone like dysentery.

“I don’t think so, ma’am. They had a little skirmish, I think. Apaches normally head for Mexico when the Army’s after them. They might pass by here, but they got no good reason to slow themselves down by riding into town.”

“Wasn’t there a meeting at Schieffelin Hall last night?”

“There’s a lot of meetings in Tombstone, ma’am. It’s about as meeting a town as I know,” Virgil said. “No need to worry about the White Mountain Apaches. They got enough troubles without adding in Tombstone.”

The two women hesitated and then moved on as Frank McLaury turned the corner from Fourth Street and stopped next to Virgil.

“Frank,” Virgil said. His voice was easy as it always was, as if he had few problems and all the time in the world.

“I understand that you’re raising up a vigilance committee to hang us boys,” McLaury said.

“You boys?”

“You know,” McLaury said, “us, the Clantons, Ringo, all the cowboys.”

“Remember the time Curley Bill killed White?” Virgil said.

“Everybody does.”

“Who guarded him that night,” Virgil said, “and run him up to Tucson in the morning, so’s to keep the Vigilance Committee from hangin’ him?”

“I guess it was you boys,” McLaury said.

He was staring down at the dirt of Allen Street.

“So maybe we don’t altogether belong to the Vigilance Committee,” Virgil said.

McLaury shook his head, looking at the street.

“You believe we do?” Virgil said.

“I got to believe the man told me that you do,” McLaury said.

“Who told you that we do?”

“Johnny,” McLaury said.

“Johnny Behan?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have to believe Johnny Behan about much,” Virgil said.

“He’s always been straight with us boys,” McLaury said.

“He’s not straight this time, Frank.”

“You and your brothers come for us, there’ll be shooting. I don’t intend to strangle on a rope.”

McLaury turned sharply and walked away without looking back, as if he had frightened himself a little by what he’d said. Virgil looked after him until McLaury turned into the Oriental a block up and on the other side of Allen Street.