Authors: Emma Bull
“I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by,” he answered. No doubt, now, about the irritation.
“Don’t bite me. It was a fair question.”
“No, it wasn’t. Go to bed. I’ll be out here if you need anything.”
“You will?”
“Go,” he said with such force that she went.
She knew she’d fallen asleep, because she woke up. Alarmed, she looked out to see what had roused her.
Fox sat in front of the tent near a little campfire; the night had turned cool after all. Heaven only knew where he’d found anything to burn. He sat cross-legged, his pistol on his knee.
The footsteps that had wakened her belonged to Virgil Earp. His coat front was tucked back to show the revolver in his waistband, and the firelight flashed on his badge. He shone a lantern over her tent and over Fox. Fox nodded to him. After a moment, Earp nodded back and walked on.
She laid her head down on the cot and went back to sleep.
15
There was a crash from the other side of the canvas wall, as if an entire lumber yard had been thrown over the edge of Heaven to land in Allen Street. Doc groaned and laid his head on his folded arms on the table.
“That’s it,” he muttered. “I am pulling up stakes and moving to a town that’s already finished.”
Morgan laughed, which resonated vilely in Doc’s skull. “You’d stand it better if you didn’t have the hangover all the time.”
“I drink to stand it. The hangover is inevitable.”
Morgan shook his head. “Raw egg and two thimbles of ground chile pepper in a glass of beer. Drink it right down, soon’s you get out of bed. Then you’ll be all right.”
Doc shuddered. “As compared to what, being stone dead?”
Morgan creased his newspaper. It sounded like a rifle volley. “You at least eat some oysters?”
“Oysters ought not be eaten more than a mile from the sea.” Though there had been grand fried oysters in Philadelphia. He and his college friends had eaten platters of them on Friday nights and washed them down with beer, playing at being working men instead of the young gentlemen with money they were the rest of the week. They’d been good fellows, for Yankees. Thank God he didn’t have to see any of them again.
Or had they all ended up drinking at ten o’clock in the morning, sitting on a nail keg at a wobbling table knocked together out of scraps, in a tent that called itself a saloon by virtue of six bottles of liquor, a barrel of beer, and the sign over the door?
“Damn!” Morgan reared back and frowned at his newspaper.
“What now?” Disaster, death, or financial ruin?
“They’ve canceled the fireworks for Fourth of July!”
Doc laughed, though it made his head throb. “Oh, Morgan, you are a treat.”
“What?” Morgan transferred his affronted expression from the paper to Doc.
“They just finished burning the place down, and you crave to do it again?”
“It won’t be the Fourth without fireworks.”
“It will, though, all over the world.”
“You know what I mean.” Morgan set the paper aside and leaned his elbows on the table. “Doc, I know I’m better off not asking—”
“Then don’t ask.”
“Now when did you know me to do what was good for me?” Morgan asked, grinning.
“When you set up housekeeping with Lou.”
Morgan was startled. “Is that so?”
“I like Lou. She has a spine. Which cannot be said of that poor little brown bird of Wyatt’s.”
“Mattie?” Morgan snorted. “You live with Lou for a while, you’ll like Mattie better.”
“I doubt it. And don’t speak ill of your woman to others. It’s ungentlemanly.”
“Oh, hell, Doc, you’re almost family.”
Heaven forfend,
Doc thought.
“What do you think of the new one?” Morgan asked with a wink.
By which he meant Wyatt’s new one. Sadie Marcus, that force of nature. “I think she’s still hanging on Johnny Behan’s arm.”
“That won’t last long. You wait ’til Wyatt crooks his finger.”
“No, thank you. Miss Sadie is one of the few things on which Wyatt and I don’t see eye to eye.”
“Jealous?” Morgan leered across the table.
“I think Wyatt believes no woman can make a fool of him. There’s no bigger fool than that.”
Morgan was silent a moment, thoughtful. Doc was pleased. He liked to think he was, ridiculous as it sounded, a good influence on Morgan. Morgan and he were nearly of an age—in fact, Morgan was a hair older—but Doc suspected that proximity to Wyatt had kept Morgan from growing up, as a tall plant might shade a smaller one and keep it spindly.
Suddenly Morgan laughed. “Hell, you almost made me forget my question. Look here, you’re a Reb and a college man, and we’re Union men who went through the schoolhouse and that’s all. Why’d you partner up with the Earps?”
It was a revealing speech, Doc thought. “We,” for Morgan, meant what it did to Wyatt: his brothers. Whatever associations they had, whatever groups they each could claim membership in, the Earp brothers were a fraternal order beyond the dreams of Masons. And like Wyatt, Morgan saw a block, one man with many bodies, where Doc saw four men. It was funny that the town seemed to accept Morgan’s and Wyatt’s version over the evidence of their own senses.
“I have not partnered up with the Earps,” Doc said. Morgan’s eyes narrowed. Before he could speak, Doc continued. “I have no use for your brother Jim. We are speaking plainly, so I’ll tell you that I think he is a damned storekeeper, and one who would put his thumb on the scales besides. And you may have noticed that Virgil and I are not bosom beaux.”
“Virgil’s a good man.”
“Perhaps that’s why. I am Wyatt’s friend, for reasons that have nothing to do with North or South, or whether he reads Latin. As for you …” Doc leaned against the tent pole behind him and hooked his thumbs in his vest pockets. “Hell, have you ever seen me kick a dog?”
“Damn it, Doc, I oughta give you one in the nose!” Morgan laughed.
“You try and see what you get for it.”
“Wyatt’ll protect me.”
“Wyatt will wipe your eye for you. Now, I answered your question. Will you answer one for me?”
Morgan’s brows drew together. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Oh, possibly because you have more sense than I give you credit for. I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ ” Doc leaned over the table, though he doubted he could be heard a foot away, given the constant racket of wrecking and rebuilding. “Why did you do it?”
Morgan was puzzling back over their conversation; Doc could see it in his face. “Do what?”
“Go out that night with Crane and his damned familiars.”
A muscle sprang up in Morgan’s jaw; for a moment his eyes were nearly cold as Wyatt’s. Then he turned his head aside. “Oh, Jesus Christ, Doc. I don’t know. You’ve done as bad or worse—why’d
you
do it?”
“Don’t believe all you hear. I never turned road agent and killed two men who didn’t raise a hand against me.”
“I didn’t! I fired over the horses, but I didn’t shoot Philpot or the other fellow, I swear.”
“In the dark? With your share of a bottle inside you? Plenty of big talk to prove?”
Morgan was gray and sweating, and not just from the heat in the tent, Doc was sure. “I don’t … it ain’t clear, all of it. I don’t think so.”
“So, led astray by false companions? That must have gone down a treat with Wyatt.”
Morgan looked down at the splintery wood of the table.
“Well, you’re right in one respect: I’ve some sympathy for ordinary human weakness, having experienced it at close range. Next time you commence to weaken, come to me first, all right?”
Morgan nodded.
Doc finished his drink and stood up. “Come on, let’s see what’s building that requires a commotion like unto the battle of Jericho.”
“It won’t be the Fourth without fireworks,” Mildred said, scanning the text in the
Epitaph
again.
“Will you hold that thing down below the rail?” scolded Harry. “What’ll folks think if they walk by the
Nugget
office and see our lady reporter reading the
Epitaph?”
“They’ll think we’re keeping an eye on the competition.” Mildred sat beside Harry’s desk. Even so, she could barely hear him for the commotion of getting the weekly edition out. She had a story in it she was particularly proud of, about the Sycamore Springs Water Company, and was hoping she could dawdle in the office until the pressmen pulled a proof of that page. It was lowering to think that Harry probably knew exactly what she was doing.
Mildred added, “I suppose we’ll have to be content with the delights of a fire company parade and a grand oration from Mr. Fitch.” She looked across at Harry, who sat with his feet on his desk. “Harry, do we call it an oration because we know if we say ‘speech,’ everyone will avoid it like smallpox?”
“There’s a ball, too,” Harry reminded her.
“Yes, there’s a ball. Which is another reason to regret the lack of fireworks.” Harry gave her a stare like a baffled hound, so she said, “One need not go partnered to a fireworks display.”
“No one says you have to go partnered to the dance.”
“It looks odd. Do you think, if it rains every day between now and then, they’ll change their minds about the fireworks?”
“Millie, if you stick at looking odd, I’ve got some mighty bad news for you. D’you want me to take you?”
“That’d be nice. Who’ll take your wife?”
“Can’t I walk into a ballroom with a handsome lady on each arm?”
“Only if one is your sister.”
“Huh. Sounds like hoity-toity eastern manners to me.”
Mildred gave up on suppressing a grin. “Harry, I’m trying to sulk, and you’re making it very difficult.”
From the open door, someone laughed; she turned and saw Jesse Fox. He took off his hat and stepped in.
Mildred sprang from the chair, her face hot. She felt as if she’d been caught at something. “Mr. Fox. You’ve met Harry Woods.” Then she remembered— they’d met over Luther King’s severed arm. She felt a sudden envy of people who never stayed long in one place: there would be so much less to keep track of.
Fox and Harry shook hands. Then Fox turned to her, and to her astonishment, flushed. It made her feel better.
She hadn’t seen him since the night of the fire. Were they friends now? Were they something she had no name for, a thing forged of danger and fear, and if so, what public behavior did it call for? It was up to her to set the tone, but she had no idea what it should be.
Meanwhile Harry’s gaze went from her to Fox, good-natured and intrusive. Newspapermen were a pack of gossipy old biddies at heart. She glared at him, and he beamed.
“This is a business call,” Fox said, waving his hat vaguely toward the type cases. “Earl and Banning’s Ice Cream Saloon opened for business this morning, and I thought the paper might want to cover the commencement of such a significant venture.”
Mildred pressed her lips together. When she thought her voice would be steady, she said, “You rehearsed that.”
“I thought you wouldn’t let me finish if I didn’t say it all at once.”
Harry took his feet off his desk. “The man’s right, Mildred. If we ignore it and the
Epitaph
covers it, we’ll look nohow.”
“It’s not quite in the same league as the county elections.”