Gunman's Rhapsody

Forty-one

Wyatt was glad to be outside. After the stove-tainted courthouse he liked the cold air, the smell of impending snow. The feel of a storm approaching was about right. He walked up Fourth Street, nodding to Bauer the butcher and another man whose name he did not know. Coming toward him from the corner of Allen was Tom McLaury. McLaury slowed for a moment as if he might turn and go another way. Then he seemed to right himself, and continued toward Wyatt. McLaury had the thumb of his right hand hooked into his belt.

“What have you boys done to Ike Clanton?” Tom said.

“Run him in for carrying a concealed weapon,” Wyatt said. “He whistle for you and your brother?”

“I got a right to be in town,” McLaury said.

“And I got a right to ask what you’re doing here.”

Wyatt could feel the cold fire at the center of himself. It sharpened everything for him as it always did. Every pore in McLaury’s face seemed discrete and obvious, his eyelashes individuated.

Wyatt could smell things sharply and hear things clearly. He was focused microscopically and yet intensely aware of things at the very faint periphery of his vision. He felt solid and quick.

“You got no reason to talk to me like that, Wyatt. I’m a friend of yours.”

“Not if you’re a friend of Ike’s,” Wyatt said. “You here backing Ike?”

“I never done nothing against you boys,” McLaury said. “But if you’re looking for a fight, I’ll fight.”

“You heeled?” Wyatt said.

“Maybe I am,” McLaury said.

“Then jerk your gun,” Wyatt said.

With his left hand he slapped McLaury across the face. With his right he pulled the big smooth-handled Colt that he’d once used to face down Clay Allison. McLaury staggered back from the slap, his right hand still fumbling at his belt. Wyatt slammed him across the face with the four-pound revolver and McLaury went down and stayed. Wyatt looked down at him for a moment, then stepped past him carefully and walked on toward Hafford’s Saloon at the corner of Allen Street.

Wyatt bought a cigar at Hafford’s, and got it lit and burning evenly before he went back outside and stood on the boardwalk in front of the saloon. He was halfway through the cigar when Frank McLaury rode up Allen Street on the other side with Billy Clanton and Major Frink. They dismounted, tied their horses and went into the Grand Hotel.

The smell of snow was strong. Wyatt took the cigar from his mouth and examined the glowing tip of it, turning it slightly to see that it was burning evenly. Then he put the cigar back in his mouth and leaned his back against the wall of Hafford’s and waited.

The cigar was an inch shorter when Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton came out of the Grand Hotel, crossed Allen, trailing their horses behind them, and headed down Fourth Street. If they saw Wyatt standing outside of Hafford’s, they gave no sign.

Wyatt watched them as they went and then tossed the cigar into the street and stepped off behind them. He felt strong and compact. His muscles felt easy. His breathing was easy. The cold desert air filled his lungs. Halfway down Fourth Street, there was a crowd of people outside of Spangenberg’s Gun Shop, maybe a dozen, maybe more. Frank and Billy pushed through the crowd and went in. Wyatt drifted along toward the crowd and several people moved out of his way when he got close. Frank McLaury’s white-stockinged bay horse was on the sidewalk with his head in the door of the gun shop. Past the horse, inside Spangenberg’s, Wyatt could see Ike Clanton, his head still bleeding, Tom McLaury, Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury. Wyatt took his hat off with his left hand and shooed the horse off the sidewalk and into the street. While he did it he kept his eyes on Spangenberg’s door. The four cowboys appeared in the doorway. Billy Clanton had his hand on his gun.

“I’ll take my horse,” Frank McLaury said, and took hold of the reins with his left hand.

“You’ll have to keep him off the sidewalk,” Wyatt said.

McLaury and he looked at each other.

“Watch toward Allen Street, Frank,” Tom McLaury said.

Virgil Earp had rounded the corner of Allen and Fourth, his hat pulled low against the cold, carrying a ten-gauge shotgun. He walked slowly toward them and leaned on the wall of a doorway across the street.

“Bob Hatch said you was down here, Wyatt.”

“Just clearing this horse off the sidewalk,” Wyatt said.

“Town ordinance,” Virgil said. “No horses on the sidewalk.”

Frank backed the horse off the sidewalk and into the street and wrapped the reins around the hitching rail in front of Spangenberg’s. Wyatt stood quietly watching. Virgil stayed where he was in the doorway, the shotgun over his forearm, the double-barrels aimed loosely toward the cowboys. Most of the dozen or so people who had crowded around to see what was going on when Ike had stumbled in there with his head bleeding, had backed away out of any line of fire that might develop. The McLaurys went back into the gun shop. Wyatt could see Billy Clanton feeding shells into his cartridge belt from a box that Frank McLaury was holding. Wyatt turned and walked past McLaury’s horse, across Fourth Street, and joined his brother in the doorway.

“Guess you’re still covered by that temporary marshal appointment,” Virgil said.

“Guess so,” Wyatt said.

“Seen you let crimes like that pass, though,” Virgil said.

“Horse on the sidewalk. It’s unlawful, unsanitary, and dangerous to the citizenry,” Wyatt said. “Damned horse coulda stepped on somebody’s foot.”

“You’re pushing this kind of hard,” Virgil said, still staring across the street at the gun shop.

The wind had picked up, and both men were glad to be sheltered in the doorway. An occasional spat of snow drifted in on the wind.

“It’s going to happen, Virgil. Might as well move it along.”

“Might not happen.”

“It’ll happen,” Wyatt said.

“You want it to happen,” Virgil said.

“Hell, it’s about me and Josie,” Wyatt said. “We both know that.”

“Maybe. But you think Ike knows it, or the McLaurys?”

“Nope. But Behan knows it.”

Ike Clanton came out of the gun shop with his brother, and Billy Claiborne and the McLaurys, and walked silently past, without a glance at the Earps, toward Allen Street.

“Might make less of a mess,” Virgil said as his eyes followed the cowboys, “if you and Johnny settled it between you.”

“He won’t go against me straight out,” Wyatt said.

“No,” Virgil said. “He won’t.”

“So he stirs up the cowboys and hopes they’ll do it for them.”

“He think you’ll be alone?” Virgil said. “He think you don’t have brothers?”

Wyatt looked out of the doorway at Fourth Street. Now and then an isolated snowflake drifted past.

“How about Doc?” Virgil said.

“Doc will be with us if he feels like fighting.”

“If he hasn’t got a hangover,” Virgil said.

“Or maybe if he has,” Wyatt said.

“If there’s a fight.”

“There’ll be a fight,” Wyatt said.

“You want it to come?” Virgil said.

“Time to lance this boil,” Wyatt said.

“More than that,” Virgil said.

“Maybe.”