Territory (22 page)

She couldn’t keep the vow, but at least she had it to remind herself of when she backslid. The Opera House was enough distraction that she didn’t need the reminder very often.

The theaters of Philadelphia were larger, grander, and brighter, but Philadelphia was very far away. She and David had been perpetually short of money, and sometimes too far from a town to spend it on the theater if they had it. Now that she was a working woman, she had money but less time—and a lady didn’t go to the theater unescorted. She’d never been in the Opera House.

In the foyer, the chandeliers and the lamps along the walls had cut-glass chimneys that scattered the light like a bright morning. The walls were hung with gold-printed paper, and gold-framed mirrors that doubled the lamps and the room and the company that filled it. Mildred struggled to keep her gloved hand light on Tom McLaury’s arm; the brilliance and heat and racket of conversation made her dizzy.

At least her evening gown—dark blue silk, a bit severe for the occasion— didn’t have a bustle. However far Tombstone was from Philadelphia, it got all the eastern magazines and newspapers; the ladies present wore the fashionable column-like silhouette with overskirts elaborately ornamented and trained. They made the room vivid as a stained-glass window, their silk and satin in scarlet, emerald, aubergine, ashes-of-roses, sapphire, daffodil, apple-green. Some ladies wore splendid jewelry, and faceted stones winked from men’s cravats. It was a reminder of how rich Tombstone could be. Mildred resisted the temptation to tug at her bodice and smooth her overskirt. That much she remembered of her debutante wisdom: dress well, then behave as if you never gave your clothes a thought.

Mildred saw the county sheriff, John Behan, near the wall, with a lovely little dark-haired woman on his arm. The woman laughed up at him, then dropped her eyes as if ashamed of her daring. But if she were uncomfortable with daring, she wouldn’t have worn that gown.

Tom guided her toward the sheriff and his companion. Behan saw them and smiled. John Behan would disappoint the eastern readers of
Gallagher’s Illustrated,
who had a very different picture of how an Arizona Territory lawman looked. He was not tall or lean or weather-beaten, though he was tall enough, and athletic. Instead of a cool, narrowed gaze squinting into some inconceivable distance, Behan’s eyes were large and dreaming and rather sad. He lacked the canonical mane of hair burnt pale by the sun; the sheriff’s high forehead was getting higher as his hair receded prematurely. He looked like a history professor who wrote poetry in secret. But as far as she could tell, he did the job in spite of his cosmetic shortcomings. She recalled John Dunbar’s assessment: “As long as the county stays quiet, it’s live and let live with Johnny.” She couldn’t fault Behan for that; it was hard work to keep Cochise County quiet.

“Good evening, Tom,” Behan said when they were in earshot. The dark-haired woman turned and smiled at Tom, then gave Mildred an evaluating stare that no smile could soften. Mildred smiled graciously back.

“Hello, Johnny. Sheriff John Behan, this is Mrs. Mildred Benjamin.”

Mildred heard a note of—was it pride?—in McLaury’s voice. Flirting she could discourage; what was she to do about this? Not to mention that by using her first name instead of David’s, Tom had suggested that she was a divorcée.

“I know the sheriff by sight and reputation, at least,” Mildred said. “I work for Harry Woods at the
Nugget.”
She held out her hand to Behan, and he clasped it. His stare was admiring.

“That’s where I’ve seen you! The
Nugget’s
a fine newspaper.”

Mildred kept her face very straight. “And we support the Democrats.”

Behan laughed. “That doesn’t hurt you with me, that’s for sure. I don’t think you’ve met Sadie Marcus, Mrs. Benjamin.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Miss Marcus said stiffly.

Mildred wondered if Sadie Marcus had caught the unconscious message in her escort’s words:
I doubt you and she move in the same circles.
Miss Marcus’s gown, low-cut and overtrimmed, had told her that. Still, her opinion of Behan sank a hair, and she smiled more warmly at Miss Marcus when she replied, “Delighted. Have you been long in Tombstone?”

Miss Marcus’s eyes widened, as if she hadn’t expected to be talked to. “Only a few months.”

“That’s nearly an old-timer in a three-year-old town.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Almost a year. I’m old as dirt.”

“Hey!” Tom protested. “Frank and I started ranching longer ago than that. What does that make me?”

Mildred shook her head and sighed. “A founding father, Mr. McLaury, and that’s an antique by definition.”

Tom looked tragic, and Sadie Marcus laughed, sweet and clear like a child.

“Good evening, Johnny,” came a voice over Mildred’s shoulder.

Mildred sometimes thought that the Earp brothers were the only people in town that everyone knew. Working on a newspaper gave one a skewed view; still, everyone seemed to have an opinion on the Earps, whether they’d met them or not. One opinion was usually considered sufficient to cover all four of them.

It was Wyatt who’d come up behind her and greeted Behan. He’d make the readers of
Gallagher’s
happy: he was the very pattern of a western lawman. Cochise County had failed to reward his appearance with the sheriff’s job, however, which just showed what happened when people didn’t read enough fiction.

She felt Tom McLaury stiffen at her side, and remembered Lucy Auster-berg’s story about a quarrel between Earp and the McLaurys over missing government mules. She glanced at Tom’s face—stern, but not fierce.

Mildred studied Earp’s profile while he shook hands with Behan. What she’d overheard at Allie and Virgil Earp’s house couldn’t be true. But why would Kate Holliday call Wyatt Earp a con man and a thief, and what were the “disguises” she’d referred to? And if there was no truth in it, why had Allie been crying?

Earp nodded to Tom. “Evening, McLaury.” Yes, there was a grudge there.

Behan stepped in quickly. “Let me make you known to the ladies. Wyatt Earp, Mrs. Mildred Benjamin and Miss Sadie Marcus.”

Earp took Mildred’s hand. His narrowed blue eyes weren’t gazing into inconceivable distance, but into her. She felt as if the blood were chilling in her veins. She blinked, and the spell was broken. Earp smiled and inclined his head over her fingers. “My pleasure, Mrs. Benjamin.”

“Likewise, Mr. Earp.” She glanced past him. “Is your wife with you this evening? I’d like to say hello.”

Earp kept smiling, but it was warm as a glacier. “Mattie isn’t comfortable in a crowd.” He turned abruptly to Miss Marcus.

Miss Marcus hadn’t liked the mention of a wife, either. Heavens, the
woman had been clutching John Behan like a hundred-dollar gold piece. Then she’d given Tom as warm a look as a woman on another man’s arm could. Now she was sparkling at Earp. If men were fish, Sadie Marcus seemed determined to catch more than she could salt.

Behan broke in smoothly with, “I appreciate the work you and your brothers did, trailing Jim Crane and Head and Leonard. That was a long, hard ride.”

Earp’s jaw worked. What made him look so speculative? Was it that the speech reminded Earp that John Behan was in charge? Or was there something about the pursuit of the stage robbers that Mildred hadn’t heard?

“It was that. Shame we couldn’t run ’em down for you.”

Behan flushed, and his smile was forced. “We can’t catch them all.”

“That’s what I hear.”

The bell chimed for the audience to take their seats, cutting off the discussion and leaving Mildred divided between relief and disappointment. She laid her hand on Tom McLaury’s offered arm. Something made her look over Behan’s shoulder to the open double doors—and into the eyes of Jesse Fox.

She jumped at a shock—but no, there was nothing she could have gotten a shock from. There was no reading Fox’s expression. Blast the man. Couldn’t he have left town when he said he would? And why should she care if he left or stayed? She felt as if she’d been caught at something underhanded.

She was sitting down in the middle of a row of chairs, and couldn’t remember getting there. Tom settled into the chair next to her. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. Just thinking.” She looked for Fox, but couldn’t see him. Then the lights went down, the little orchestra produced an overture of sentimental strings, and the curtain parted.

The play was “The Ticket-of-Leave Man.” She’d seen it years ago in Philadelphia. Her mother had thought it unsuitable for a young lady, dealing as it did with counterfeiters, drunks, jailbirds, actresses, and maidens who earned their living singing in tea gardens. But her father, surprisingly, had disagreed. “If playwrights wrote only about upright, moral people, there’d be nothing to write about. I believe the righteous triumph in the end in this story. She’ll come to no harm.”

And of course, she’d enjoyed herself immensely.

This company had modified the play for its audience. The hero’s broad Lancashire accent was replaced by a Vermont Yankee dialect, which was just as difficult to follow but more familiar. (The dialect was gone by Act Two, when Bob returned from prison. The actor was probably disappointed, but
the audience was relieved.) Currency was changed to dollars, and the whole was colored with local references and topical jokes.

The actress playing May was so small and frail that Mildred wondered if she’d get through the first scene, but when she performed May’s song, it filled the room with no apparent effort. She sang “The Cuckoo” so sweetly, sadly, that when the tea garden patrons refused to tip her, hisses rose up from the audience.

The best members of the company were the comic male and female leads. The woman, especially; her Emily St. Evremond was drily funny, and even her vulgar moments were charming. When she announced, “I call this life—the music and the company, and the singing and the trapeze. I thought the man must break his neck. It was beautiful,” the audience howled.

When Mildred had first seen the play, she’d longed to take May’s part. The character seemed bland now. But one could do worse than go through life as Emily St. Evremond, adapting with courage and humor to every change of fortune.

The final scene in the churchyard was so luridly staged that Mildred half expected ghosts to be added to the climax. But no, Bob made his heroic stand—which would have been useless if Detective Hawkshaw and young Sam hadn’t been there to back his play—and banker Gibson learned he’d misjudged his clerk, all without supernatural intervention. The applause was mighty, and when the comic male lead, at the curtain call, waved his basket and offered to sell the audience “nice boiled pig’s feet, two for a penny!” he was cheered.

When the curtain came down and the lights up, Tom McLaury asked, “Did you enjoy it?”

“Oh, so much! The actors were splendid. And I liked the changes that made it seem local.”

Tom looked dismayed. “You didn’t say you’d already seen it.”

“Years ago. It was more fun the second time, because I knew what to watch for. Don’t you ever reread a book you liked?” Once the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them; there were plenty of people who didn’t read for pleasure, let alone reread.

But Tom smiled and shook his head. “I used to, when I was a tyke. But how can you read a book you’ve already read when you know there are all those other ones out there?”

“An excellent argument, Mr. McLaury. I can only defend my position by saying that I use my old books as seasoning for the new ones—I sprinkle them lightly through my reading.”

He grinned. “Seasoning, not saleratus?”

“No, unlike biscuits, books rise by themselves.”

Tom laughed and helped her to her feet. It was pleasant to exchange nonsense with a nice-looking man. Too pleasant, perhaps: she couldn’t see herself walking out evenings with Tom McLaury, or with anyone. She’d had a husband. Now she was creating a very nice life without one, and she meant to give it a fair trial.

“Wasn’t it mighty odd,” Tom added as they passed into the foyer, “when Emily said she wanted to see the banker’s office, because she’d only ever seen an office onstage?”

“And what she was seeing was an office onstage? That made me laugh.”

“Yes, but it made me think, too. Not that you can’t tell what’s real, because you can. But that you can’t always tell the truth of a thing by looking, no matter how clear you can see it.”

“I suppose that’s one of the lessons of the play.”

“That and, ‘Don’t get drunk with fellows you don’t know.’ ”

As Mildred laughed, Sadie Marcus came up with Behan close behind. “Did you like the play, Mrs. Benjamin?” Miss Marcus asked.

“Very much. And you?”

“Oh, I always love the theater. I used to think I’d be a fine actress, if I had the chance. Johnny, wouldn’t I be a treat in the boy parts, like that Sam in the play?”

Behan’s eyes dropped as if against his will to Miss Marcus’s striking
décolletage;
he seemed dazed when he replied, “That you would, Sadie.” Mildred bit the inside of her lip to keep from laughing.

That was when Jesse Fox appeared, slipping as cleverly between the densely packed patrons in the foyer as his namesake would evade hunters. “Good evening, Mrs. Benjamin.” He looked as if he, too, was trying not to laugh. Mildred rejected the notion that he might be laughing at her. “And Tom McLaury, isn’t it? I’ve met your brother Frank.”

“I remember—you were playing cards at the Oriental.” Tom shook his hand cheerfully.

“Did you win?” Mildred asked.

“I wish people would stop asking me that,” Fox sighed. “No.”

Which didn’t mean he wasn’t a cardsharp. Then she recalled that in doing her a favor he’d involved himself in a much worse business. She felt her face go hot.

Fox’s attention had moved to Behan and Miss Marcus as Tom introduced them. Fox asked what Miss Marcus thought of the play.

“Lovely. And true, the way all the men in the story would starve if it weren’t for their wives working and being clever.” She shot a teasing glance at the men. But Mildred thought there was a kernel of something harder in the teasing.