Gunman's Rhapsody

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.