The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories (17 page)

"And that makes a pair. And the pair of aces bets fifty." Freddie pushed the money out to the center of the table.

Brocius looked at his hole card, then threw it down.

"I reckon I fold," he said.

 

"Oh, they have bungled it!" Freddie stormed. "They have shot the wrong Earp!"

He paced madly in Behan's parlor, while Josie watched from her chair. "The assassin was to shoot Virgil!" Freddie said. "He mistook his man and shot Morgan instead—and he didn't even kill him!"

"Who did the shooting?" Josie said.

"I don't know. Some fool." Freddie paused in his pacing to furiously polish his spectacles. "And I will be blamed. This was supposed to occur when I was in the saloon, playing cards in front of witnesses. Instead it occurred when I was in bed with you."

She looked at him in surprise. "Ain't I a witness, Freddie?" she said in her mocking New York voice.

Freddie laughed bitterly. "They might calculate that you are prejudiced in my favor."

"They would be right." She rose, took Freddie's hands. "Perhaps you should leave Tombstone."

"And go where?" He put his arms around her. The scent of her French perfume drifted delicately through his senses.

"There are plenty of mining towns in the West," she said. "Plenty of places to play poker. And almost all have theaters, and will need someone to play the ingenue."

He looked at her. "My friends are here, Josie. And it is here that you are queen."

"
Amor fati,
" she murmured. He felt her shoulders fall slightly in acknowledgment of the defeat, and then she straightened. "I had better learn to shoot, then," she said. "Will you teach me?"

"I will. But I'm not a very good shot—my eyesight, you know."

"But you're a—" She hesitated.

"A killer? A gunman?" He smiled. "Certainly. But all my fights took place at a range of less than five meters—one was in a small room, three meters square. But still—yes—why not? It can do us no harm to be seen practicing."

"What is the best way to become a gunman?" Josie said.

"Not to care if you die," Freddie said promptly. "You must not fear death. I was deadly because I knew I was dying. John Holliday is dangerous for the same reason—he knows he must in any case die soon, so why not now? And John Ringo—he does not value his own life, clearly."

She tilted her head, looked at him carefully. "But you weren't dying at all. You may live as long as any of us. Does that make a fight more dangerous for you?"

Freddie considered this notion in some surprise. He wondered if he now truly had reasons to live, and whether the chief one was now in his arms.

"I am at least experienced in a fight," he said. "I'll keep my head, and kill or die as a man. It is important, in any case, to die at the right time."

Small comfort: he felt her tremble. Treasure this while you may, he thought; and know that you have treasured it before, and will again.

 

In the event it was not Freddie who died first. Three days after James Earp was appointed sheriff, Curly Bill Brocius was found dead on the road between Tombstone and Charleston. Two friends lay with him, all riddled with bullets. The only Earp not a suspect was Morgan, with a near-mortal wound in his spine, who had been carried into the county jail, where he was guarded by a half-dozen of the Earp's newly deputized supporters.

The other three Earp brothers, and a number of their friends, were not to be found in town. For several days the sound of volleys boomed off the blue Dragoon Mountains, echoed over the dry hills. Apparently they were not all fired in anger: most were signals from the Earps to their friends, who were bringing them supplies. But still three Cowboys were found dead, shot near their homes; and the Clanton spread was burned. A day later John Ringo rode into town on a lathered horse, claiming he'd been chased by a half-dozen gunmen.

"And Holliday's with them," Ringo said. "I saw the bastard, big as life."

Freddie's heart sank. "I was afraid of that."

"His hip's still bothering him, and Virgil's leg. Otherwise they would have caught me." He blew dust from his mustache and looked at Freddie. "We need a posse of our own, friend."

"So we do."

They called out their friends, but a surprising number had made themselves scarce. Freddie and Ringo assembled a dozen riders, all that remained of Brocius' mighty outlaw army, and hoped to pick up more as they rode.

Josie surprised everyone by showing up in riding clothes at the O.K. Corral, her new pistol hanging from her belt. "I will go, of course," she said.

Freddie's heart sang in praise of her bravery, but he touched his hat and said, "I believe that Helen should remain on Ilium's topless towers, where it is safe."

She looked at him, and he saw the jaw muscles tauten. "Those towers burned," she said. "And I don't want to survive another lover."

Freddie's heart flooded over. He kissed her, and knew he would kiss her thus time and again, for infinity.

"Come then!" he said. "We shall meet our fate together!"

"Let slip the dogs of war," Ringo commented wryly, and they rode out of town into a chill dawn.

They followed a pillar of smoke, a mining claim that belonged to one of the Cowboys. No one had been killed because no one was home, but the diggings had been thoroughly burned. From the mine they followed the trail north. After two days of riding they were disappointed to discover that the trail led to the Sierra Bonita, the largest ranch in the district. Ringo and his friends had been running off Sierra Bonita's cattle for years. The place was built like a fort against Apache raids, and if the Earps and their friends were inside, then they were as safe as if they were holed up in Gibraltar.

"
Hic funis nihil attraxit,
" Ringo muttered, this line has taken no fish. Freddie hoped he didn't smell Brocius' dead cat on the line.

The posse retreated from the Sierra Bonita to consider their options, but these narrowed considerably when they saw a cloud of dust on the northern horizon, a cloud that grew ever closer.

"Looks like we've been out-posse'd," Ringo said. "Their horses are fresh—we can't outrun them."

"What do we do?" Freddie gasped. Two days in the saddle, even riding moderately, had exhausted him—unlike Josie, who seemed to thrive once cast in the role of Bandit Queen.

Ringo seemed almost gay. "They have tied us to the stake, we cannot fly." Freddie could have wished Ringo had not chosen
Macbeth.
"I think we'd better find a place to fort up," Ringo said.

Their Dunsinane was a rocky hill barren of life but for cactus and scrub. They hid the horses behind rocks and dug themselves in. Within an hour the larger outfit had found them: the Earps had been reinforced by two dozen riders from the Sierra Bonita, and it looked like a small army that posted itself about the hill and sealed off every exit. The pursuers did not attempt to come within gunshot: they knew all they had to do was wait for the Cowboys' water to run out.

Ringo's crew had a smaller store of water than their enemies probably suspected, and one night on the hill would surely exhaust it. "We shall have to fight," Freddie said.

"Yes."

"Few of those people have any experience in a combat. Holliday and Virgil Earp are the only two I know of. The rest will get too excited and throw away their fire, and that will give us our chance."

Ringo smiled. "I think we should charge. Come down off the hill at first light screaming like Apaches and pitch into the nearest pack of them. If we run them off, we can take their horses and make a dash for it."

"Agreed. I will have to follow you—otherwise I can't see well enough to know where I'm going."

"I'll lead you into the hornet's nest, don't you worry."

Freddie sought out Josie, lying in the shade of some rocks, and took her hand. The sun had burned her cheeks; her lips were starting to crack with thirst. "We will fight in the morning," he said. "I want you to stay here."

She shook her head, mouthed the word "No."

"You are the one of us they will not harm," Freddie said. "The rest of us will charge out of the circle, and you can join us later."

The words drove her into fury. She was in a state of high excitement, and wanted to put her pistol practice to use.

"It is not as you think," Freddie said. "This will not be a great battle, it will be something small and squalid. And—" He took her hands. She flailed to throw off his touch, but he held her. "Josie!" he cried. "I need someone to publish my work, if I should not survive. No one else will care. It must be you."

She was of the People of the Book; Freddie calculated she could not refuse. At his words her look softened. "All right, then," she said. He kissed her, but she turned her sunburned lips away. She would not speak for a while, and so Freddie wrote for an hour in his journal with a stub of pencil.

They spent a rough night together, lying cold under blankets, shivering together while Cowboys snored around them. As the eastern sky began to lighten all rose, the horses were saddled and led out. The last of the water was shared, and then the riders mounted.

Ringo seemed in good cheer. Freddie half-expected him to give the Crispin's Day Speech from
Henry V,
but Ringo contented himself with nodding, clicking to his horse, and leading the beast between the tall rocks, down the hill toward the dying fires of the Earps' camp. Freddie pulled his bandanna over his nose, less to conceal his identity than to avoid eating Ringo's dust, then followed Ringo's horse down into the gloom.

The horsemen cleared the rocks, then broke into a canter. They covered half the distance to the Earp outfit's camp before the first shot rang out; then Ringo gave a whoop and the Cowboys answered, the high-pitched yells ringing over the dusty ground.

Freddie was too busy staying atop his horse to add to the clamor. His teeth rattled with every hoofbeat. He wanted a calm place to stand.

Other, better horsemen, half-seen in the pre-dawn light, passed him as he rode. A flurry of shots crackled out. Freddie clutched Zarathustra tighter. Startled men on foot dodged out of his way.

Abruptly the horse stumbled—Freddie tried to check it but somehow made things worse—and then there was a staggering blow to his shoulder as he was flung to the ground. He rolled, and in great surprise at his own agility rose with his pistol still in his hand. A figure loomed up—with dust coating his spectacles Freddie could not make it out—but he shot it anyway, twice, and it groaned and fell.

The yells of the Cowboys were receding southward amid a great boil of dust. Freddie ran after. Bullets made whirring noises about his head.

Then out of the dust came a horse. Freddie half-raised his pistol, but recognized Ringo before he pulled trigger. "Take my hand, Freddie," Ringo said with a great grin, "and we're free." But then one of the whizzing bullets came to a stop with a horrible smack, and Ringo toppled from the horse. Freddie stared in sudden shock at his friend's brains laid out at his feet—Ringo was beyond all noble gestures now, that was clear, there was nothing to be done for him—Freddie reached for the saddle horn. The beast was frightened and began to run before Freddie could mount; Freddie ran alongside, trying to get a foot in the stirrup, and then the horse put on a burst of terrified speed and left Freddie behind.

Rage and frustration boomed in his heart. He swiped at his spectacles to get a better view, then ran back toward the sound of shooting. A man ran across his field of vision and Zarathustra boomed. The man kept running.

Freddie neared a bush and ducked behind it, polished his spectacles quickly on his bandanna, and stuck them back on his face. The added clarity was not great. The Earps' camp was in a great turmoil in the dust and the half-light, and people were shouting and shooting and running about without any apparent purpose.

Fools! Freddie wanted to shriek. You do not even know how to live, let alone how to die!

He approached the nearest man at a walk, put Zarathustra to the stranger's breast, and pulled the trigger. When the man fell, Freddie took the other's gun in his left hand, then stalked on. He fired a shot at a startled stranger, who ran.

"Stop, Freddie!" came a shout. "Throw up your hands!"

It was Holliday's voice. Freddie froze in his tracks, panting for breath in the cold morning air. Holliday was somewhere to his right—a shift of stance and Freddie could fire—but Holliday would kill him before that, he knew.

Troy is burning, he thought. You have killed as a human being. Now die as one. Freely, and at the right moment.

"Throw up your hands!" Holliday called again, and then from the effort of the shout gave a little cough.

Wild exhilaration flooded Freddie's veins—Holliday's cough had surely spoiled his aim. Freddie swung right as he thumbed the hammer back on each of the two revolvers. And, for the last time, Zarathustra spoke.

 

The Earp posse caught up with Josie a few hours later as she rode her solitary way to Tombstone. John Holliday shivered atop his horse, trembling as if the morning chill had not yet left his bones. He touched his hat to her, but she ignored him, just kept her plug walking south.

"This was Freddie's, ma'am," Holliday said in his polite Southern way, and held out a book bound between cardboard covers, Freddie's journal. "You figure in his thoughts," Holliday said. "You may wish to have it."

Coldly, without a word, she took the worn volume from his hand. Holliday kicked his horse and the posse rode on, moving swiftly past her into the bright morning.

Josie tried not to look at the bodies that tossed and dangled over the saddles.

 

What have I found to cherish in this detestable land? Josie read when she returned to Tombstone. Comrades, and valor, and the woman of my heart. Who came to me
because she was free!
And for whom—
because she is free
—Troy will burn, and men will spill their lives into the dust. Every free woman may kill a world.

She will not chain herself; she despises the slavery that is modern life. That is freedom indeed, the freedom to topple towers and destroy without regard. Not from petulance or fear, but from greatness of heart! She does not
seek
power, she simply wields it, as a part of her nature.