Gunman's Rhapsody

Twenty-nine

“Things are looking up,” Virgil said. “Ben Sippy skedaddled, and I’m the acting city marshal.”

The two men leaned on the hitching rail outside the Oriental.

“Skedaddled?” Wyatt said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Not just away visiting for a couple of weeks?”

“Clum says there’s money missing.”

“Ahhh,” Wyatt said.

He was dressed for work in a dark suit and a starched white shirt.

“You going to be around?” Virgil said.

“Sure, I’m dealing here, doing some undercover work for Wells Fargo, me and Morgan. I’ll be around, you need a special deputy.”

Virgil nodded. Wyatt waited. He knew Virgil. There was something else. Half a dozen miners, off shift, passed them and turned into the Oriental.

“What’s going on with you and Mattie?” Virgil said.

“Hearing about it at home?” Wyatt said.

Virgil smiled.

“You’re with Josie,” Virgil said, “but you’re still living with Mattie.”

“It’s my house,” Wyatt said. “I’m not going to leave it.”

“And Mattie won’t?”

“She won’t,” Wyatt said.

“You and she still… ah, there any poontang there?”

“Hell no,” Wyatt said. “I sleep in the front room.”

Virgil nodded.

“Guess you can’t just throw her out,” Virgil said.

“No. I threatened it one night and she said if I did she’d just sit outside the house all day.”

“Wouldn’t help much, next sheriff’s election,” Virgil said.

“Nope.”

The two men looked at each other a moment.

“Sorry if it’s causing trouble with Allie,” Wyatt said.

“Can’t be helped,” Virgil said. “You can’t stay with Mattie just ’cause Allie wants you to.”

“I didn’t think Allie liked Mattie,” Wyatt said.

“She don’t.” Virgil took his hat off and fanned his face with it. “Hot as hell, ain’t it?”

“Better get used to it,” Wyatt said. “That’s where we’re all headed.”

Virgil grinned at him and put his hat back on.

“Guess I’ll walk around town,” he said. “You got them miners in there getting drunk, waiting for you to fleece ’em.”

“That’s what they were sent here for,” Wyatt said. Virgil strolled down Allen Street. Wyatt turned and went into the cooler dimness of the saloon.

At the bar Denny McCann nodded at him. Ike Clanton was there, too, with whiskey in front of him. He ignored Wyatt. Wyatt went to the faro table and sat down. Three miners came over directly, carrying their drinks, and sat down with him. Wyatt shuffled and spread the first layout of the evening. He liked dealing faro. He found it relaxing. He had good hands and calmness. The game could engage his attention without demanding it. His reputation kept most of the players in check, and he could think about Josie and the time to come. The house won, of course, and he took a percentage of the winnings.

At the bar, McCann, lean and pale in a dark suit, was talking to a thin-faced little prostitute named Fancy. Down the bar Ike Clanton had drunk enough whiskey to loosen his mouth. He sidled down the bar and put an arm around Fancy’s waist and said something. She turned away from him. He moved after her. McCann said something to Ike, and Ike shoved Fancy aside. Wyatt watched with interest while he fanned out another hand of faro. Ike and McCann stood facing each other, McCann a good three inches taller than Ike.

“You think I’m scared of you, you prettified, goddamned dandy boy,” Ike said.

His speech was slurred. McCann slapped him hard across the face and it staggered Ike. The room went quiet. One of the bartenders moved down the bar toward them. The other men at the bar moved away from them. Fancy dodged out of the way and looked over at Wyatt. McCann kept his pale-eyed stare right on Ike, and Clanton reacted as he always did.

“You sonova bitch,” he said when he got himself steadied. “Arm yourself and be ready. I’ll look for you on Allen Street.”

Then Ike pushed himself off the bar and rushed out, banging against the doorjamb with his right shoulder. McCann looked after him for a time and then leaned over the bar and put out his hand. The bartender handed him a Colt revolver with a walnut handle. McCann checked to see that it was loaded and left the bar.

At the next table Fred Dodge turned to Wyatt.

“Ike’s going for a gun,” he said.

“Go tell Virgil,” Wyatt said. “ ’Less they do it in here, it’s his job.”

Fred looked blankly at Wyatt for a moment, then stood and ran out the front door. Everyone else, including the faro players, crowded to the door after him trying to watch and stay out of the line of fire. Wyatt put the cards away, took his own Colt.45 from a drawer in the card table, stuck it in his belt, stood and pushed out through the crowd onto the boardwalk in front of the saloon. McCann waited motionless across Allen Street in front of the Wells Fargo office, his gambler’s pallor more obvious in the harsh sunlight.

Ike rounded the corner of Fourth Street a block and a half from Denny McCann. He was carrying a handgun. He arrived at Fifth at almost the same moment that Virgil emerged from the Crystal Palace downstairs from his office. Virgil fell in beside Ike and matched his stride as they approached McCann together.

The street was quiet, and the people watching from the saloons were still.

Wyatt could hear Ike saying, “Stay out of this, Earp.”

Virgil didn’t answer. He was hatless and he wore no coat in the hundred-degree heat. Wyatt could see that he was heeled.

As they passed the front door of the Oriental, Virgil said, “Wyatt, I’m naming you a special deputy as of right now.”

“Sure thing, Virg,” Wyatt said.

When Ike and Virgil beside him came to a point about five feet from McCann, Ike stopped. Virgil moved between the two men.

“Can’t have you boys shooting out here,” Virgil said. “Put the guns away or I’ll have to arrest you.”

“Sonova bitch slapped me, Virgil. No man can do that and get away with it.”

“Slap him back,” Virgil said. “But you don’t hand over that Colt, I’m going to have to take it.”

McCann let his gun hang straight down by his side. But he didn’t put it away.

“Piss on you, bluebelly,” Clanton said. “All you Earps are bluebellies. You’d never stand by a cowboy.”

He shoved Virgil. Thirty feet away on the boardwalk in front of the Oriental, Wyatt moved his coat aside and rested his right hand forward on his hip. Virgil rolled easily with the shove and slammed his left fist into Ike’s face; at the same time he brought his right hand down hard on the barrel of Ike’s gun and twisted it out of Ike’s hand. Ike staggered backward. The punch had cut his lip, and he was bleeding freely. The blood ran down his chin and soaked into his shirt. As soon as he had Ike’s gun, Virgil turned toward Denny McCann and put out his left hand.

“Give me the gun, Denny.”

Holding his left forearm against his mouth, Ike fumbled into his pocket and came out with a jackknife. McCann handed his gun to Virgil.

From the boardwalk, Wyatt said, “Ike.”

Ike turned and looked at Wyatt, still standing with his coat thrown back, his hand on his hip nearly touching his gun butt.

“Fucking bluebellies,” Ike said.

He put the knife back in his pocket.

“There’ll be another time, bluebellies,” he said.

Then he turned and rushed back down Allen Street. Wyatt went back into the Oriental and sat at the faro table. He took the gun from his belt and put it back in the drawer and closed the drawer. Then he shuffled the cards and began to put down a new layout.