Epitaph (49 page)

“And I, Excellency, must explain again that the
Posse Comitatus
legislation bars the U.S. military from any association with civilian law enforcement.”

“Then declare
martial
law!'

“If we were to do that, there would be an insurrection in Arizona and, quite likely, in Texas and New Mexico as well.”

“If you fail to do so, the consequence will be worse than insurrection.”

Mariscál paused then, to settle himself, for what he was about to say carried the immense weight of armies, of destruction and disfigurement and death, of widows and of orphans.

“I must remind you, sir, that when our nations last went to war, the pretext used by President Polk for
your
invasion of
my
country was
the killing of twelve of your nationals by Mexican soldiers on
disputed
territory. That, sir, is the legal precedent. Our case for war against the United States now is stronger than the one Polk made then.”

It was a stunning statement, and both of them knew it. Ceremonial formality fell away. They became, for the moment, merely two old men who had fought on opposite sides, three decades earlier.

“Ignacio, are you serious?”

“Philip, my friend, if the United States does not control these border gangs, there are those within my government who are urging an armed invasion of Cochise County to wipe the bandits out. Furthermore, I cannot promise that the
rurales
of the state of Sonora will be patient much longer. They are policemen, but each is a man like any other. How long do you expect them to maintain discipline when Americans abuse and murder their people with impunity? Without justice, there is only revenge.”

Ignacio Mariscál stood then and came close enough to grip Philip Morgan's arm. “You must persuade your government to do whatever is necessary to bring the border under control, whether the means to that end are legal or not.”

OVER THE NEXT FEW HOURS,
urgent messages flew from the office of Philip Morgan to that of Secretary of State James Blaine and from there to the executive mansion, now home to the amiable hack who'd just become the twenty-first president of the United States.

Chester Alan Arthur was no one's idea of a great man, not even his own. He'd been placed on the Republican presidential ticket only to appease the New York political machine. As James Garfield slowly died of iatrogenic infection, Vice President Arthur hid in his New York City apartment, refusing to exercise presidential authority while Garfield lived. Told that the president's long agony was over, Arthur wept with fear before taking the oath of office. In Washington, three days later, he had yet to rise to the occasion.

“I am inclined to defer to the local authorities,” he said when
Secretary Blaine told him of the latest communiqué from Mexico City. “This is a matter for the territorial governor, surely. Let Frémont take care of it.”

“Mr. President, I'm afraid that Governor Frémont has taken a indefinite leave of absence.” Secretary Blaine cleared his throat before adding with dry diplomacy, “For his health.”

“Well, there must be somebody in charge out there!”

“Yes, of course, sir, there is an acting governor, but John Gosper's position is somewhat analogous to your own, sir. He is new to his office.” And he's fighting out of his weight class, Blaine thought.

“Interior!” Arthur cried with sudden inspiration. “This is the Interior Department's responsibility! Get Kirkwood on it.”

Save me, he meant. I don't know what to do.

ANOTHER ROUND OF COMMUNIQUÉS FOLLOWED,
this time between Washington and Prescott. Asked by Interior Secretary Samuel Kirkwood for his assessment of the situation in southern Arizona, Acting Governor Gospers could provide no comfort.

               
EFFORTS TO CONTROL BORDER BLOCKED BY DEMOCRATIC LEGISLATURE STOP FUNDS FOR 100 MAN RANGERS FORCE DENIED STOP INFLUENTIAL AMERICAN RANCHERS PROFIT FROM STOLEN MEXICAN STOCK STOP SALOON INTERESTS BENEFIT FROM COW BOY MONEY STOP COCHISE COUNTY SHERIFF BEHAN PAID TO WINK AT CRIME STOP PARTISAN NEWSPAPERS INFLAME OPINION STOP NO PROSPECT OF IMPROVEMENT STOP RECOMMEND AMENDMENT OR REPEAL OF POSSE COMITATUS STOP

There's nothing I can do, he meant. For the love of God, send troops.

DAY BY DAY
, the list of Mexican dead grew longer. Outraged and fed up, Governor Luis Torres of the state of Sonora ordered a force of two hundred men to the border and gave their commandant a single order: Keep the Cow Boys out.

Apprised of this, American Major General Orlando B. Willcox took the precaution of requesting additional troops in order to deal with “the Indian problem” in the Dragoon Mountains, where the cavalry would also be in position to deal with a Mexican invasion.

In Prescott, U.S. Marshal Crawley Dake informed his superiors that he'd need five to ten thousand dollars to cover the expense of sending a posse after Cow Boy raiders who'd just killed four more men in Sonora. He was informed that no treaty covered cross-border law enforcement. Furthermore, since the crime was committed in another county, the Marshals Service could not arrest the perpetrators, if indeed they could be caught.

In Tombstone, Allie asked Virgil, “Do you think there'll be a war?”

“Well, now, Pickle,” Virg said, “everybody's trying to avoid that.”

Yes, he meant.

Meanwhile, the Arizona Territorial Legislature passed a bill outlawing gambling by minors.

IF IGNACIO MARISCÁL
or President Arthur or Virgil Earp had asked Newman Haynes Clanton what he thought about borders, the old man would have laughed in their faces. “Some educated goddam fool takes a ruler and a pencil to a map? Why, that boy thinks he done something! But borders don't mean
nothin'
out here.”

Old Man Clanton had, in fact, just peeled off sixty head of cattle from a herd that mooed with a Spanish accent, but pushing the animals across the imaginary line wasn't the important part. It wasn't until you had them in a high-sided gorge called Skeleton Canyon that you could make a fire and have a drink and bed down for the night.

Last job of the season, he thought, easing his bones onto the stony
ground. This'll set us up until spring. It was a gamble, pulling off a raid this late, but the summer rains had made for perfect pasturage that fall, and the old man reckoned they could fatten one last herd of scrawny Mexican stock before the snows.

Now, lying in his bedroll, listening to cattle lowing and to men snoring, with a few quiet months stretching out before him, he had begun to think about the future.

He'd just turned sixty-five, still tough enough to ride for days when there was a profit to be made, still young enough to take a certain rowdy pleasure in a dash into Mexico for a little shopping trip. Even so, it was time to consider a different angle on the business.

Why keep supplying the big bugs? he was asking himself. Why not hold on to this herd? He had three big spreads in three broad valleys. Far from any town, each ranch was ringed by mountains like castle walls. You could see for miles in any direction, and nobody could get near you without their dust giving them away a day before they arrived. Why not buy some decent breeding stock, like Henry Hooker or John Slaughter, and become a big bug himself? Or maybe work both ends . . . send Billy down to run the raids. Keep the best stock, sell the rest on.

Course, Billy was nineteen and thought he knew it all. But I'll teach him different, the old man was thinking. I'll train him up right, and then—

“EL VIEJO ES MÍO,”
a thick-bodied, dark-skinned man of middle years said softly.

He was lying belly-down along the rim of Skeleton Canyon when he said it, and his companions didn't argue. They were used to taking orders from the one who had just claimed the old man as his own, though they wore no uniform that could identify them as policemen or soldiers. They might have been . . . silver traders, perhaps. Or tequila merchants. Tobacco smugglers, maybe, who'd crossed the border to do business.

Or relatives of a boy who'd died defending his family's cattle.

Whoever he was, the middle-aged man breathed out to steady his aim, and with that sighing exhalation, he murmured,
“Vaya al diablo, pendejo.”

The old man's head jerked and lolled. An instant later, the men on the canyon rim fired down on the sleeping figures below.

Within moments, Charley Snow, Dixie Lee Gray, Billy Lang, and Jim Crane joined Old Man Clanton in hell. Billy Byers—shot in the stomach—lurched away into the desert darkness to die.

Harry Ernshaw fled as well. His nose was permanently shortened by a passing bullet, but he lived to tell the tale.

“GOOD RIDDANCE.”
That was the reaction to the Skeleton Canyon murders among mining executives, investment bankers, and the Arizona politicians who owed their appointments to Washington. Whoever cleaned out that nest of vipers had the gratitude of the entire Republican Party, the legitimate Arizona business community, and most of the editorial writers around the territory.

“Goddam greasers never woulda had the nerve to come so far north.” That was the conventional wisdom in the rougher bars of southeastern Arizona. But if not the beaners, then who
had
killed Old Man Clanton and his men?

No one speculating on this topic had anything to go on, apart from a reflexive contempt for Mexicans. Having rejected the most likely identity of the Skeleton Canyon killers, however, many men spent many hours working their way through many bottles, discussing potential suspects.

In Tombstone's Dragoon Saloon, someone pointed out that Skeleton Canyon was over in New Mexico and only a federal marshal could cross that border to make an arrest. Well, Virgil Earp was Tombstone's chief of police, somebody else said, but he was a U.S. marshal, too. Virg himself had been plenty visible since the fire, but his brothers Morgan and Wyatt hadn't been seen much recently. Neither had their friend Holliday.

It was about then that Johnny Ringo went outside to take a piss against the wall. He was buttoning up when he saw Doc Holliday gimping down Toughnut, leaning on his cane.

Alert to the possibility of getting jumped during his therapeutic walks around Tombstone's streets, Doc Holliday took note of Ringo's unblinking interest. His first thought was, He can see how sick I've been.

Ringo, he believed, was taking malicious satisfaction in a lunger's misery, for whatever reason that might be significant to the strange, hostile, vicious drunk.

Glassy-eyed with drink, Ringo simply stared from across the street at first. Then—and this was the unnerving part—malevolence was replaced by a gleeful, open-mouthed, nearly joyous smile. With the loose, unsteady gait of the very drunk, Ringo returned to the saloon, chuckling to himself and full of purpose.

It was, Doc thought, as though Eden's serpent had just thought of something wondrously amusing to lie about.

T
HE BALANCE OF THE SPINNING WORLD SHIFTS
when a beloved and benevolent father dies. The weight of a constant presence is lifted away. Unanswerable questions are asked in the middle of the night. Could I have done more? Said more? What should I have asked while there was still time? What did he mean by those last words? Beyond the questions, there are practicalities. Have his taxes been paid? What about all these bills? Is this claim on the estate legitimate? What should I do next? And next, and next, and after that? Even a devoted and competent son may falter, overwhelmed and at a loss.

But what if the father was a mean-spirited, violent, contemptuous old bastard? What if the son's education was sketchy and his brains regularly rattled in childhood? What if he often woke to the sting of a knife blade held against his throat and the smell of whiskey on the old man's breath.
I made you. You're mine. I can do anything I want to you and nobody can stop me. Nobody.
What if the son himself drank far too much whenever he escaped the old man's notice?

Daddy's dead, Ike would think. He's gone. He ain't coming back, and I'm glad.

Then he'd worry about ghosts and wonder if his father could hear his thoughts and return to harm him in some way. A dozen times a day, Ike would glance over his shoulder, cringing in anticipation of a blow,
a threat, a sneer. He would see himself with his father's missing eyes and hear that absent tongue wag all day long.
You're an idiot and everybody knows it. You're soft, like your mother. You should be wearing a dress, you worthless, sniveling little girl.

“Ike, you look like you could use a drink,” Ringo would say, and he was always right. It took a lot of whiskey to make the old man's voice shut up.

People kept showing up at the ranch. They wanted Ike to make decisions, to answer questions, to pay money the old man owed or deliver goods he'd promised to provide. But the old man had always treated Ike like a half-wit hired hand and never told him one thing about the business. So Ike would just stand there, not knowing what to say.