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  BORN TO THE BADGE

  WYATT EARP:

  AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY, BOOK 2

  BORN TO THE BADGE

  MARK WARREN

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, a Cengage Company

  Copyright © 2018 by Mark Warren

  Map: Travels of Wyatt Earp Copyright © 2018 by Mark Warren

  Stuart N. Lake Papers courtesy of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

  Five Star Publishing, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Warren, Mark, 1947– author.

  Title: Born to the badge / Mark Warren.

  Description: Farmington Hills, Mich. : Five Star, 2018. | Series: Wyatt Earp, an American odyssey ; book 2

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018014291 (print) | LCCN 2018018063 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432848866 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432848859 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432848842 (hardcover)

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-4886-6

  Subjects: LCSH: Earp, Wyatt, 1848-1929—Fiction. | Holliday, John Henry, 1851-1887—Fiction. | United States marshals—Fiction. | Frontier and pioneer life—West (U.S.)—Fiction. | Dodge City (Kan.)—Fiction. | GSAFD: Western stories. | Biographical fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3623.A86465 (ebook) | LCC PS3623.A86465 B67 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018014291

  First Edition. First Printing: November 2018

  This title is available as an e-book.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-4886-6

  Find us on Facebook—https://www.facebook.com/FiveStarCengage

  Visit our website—http://www.gale.cengage.com/fivestar/

  Contact Five Star Publishing at [email protected]

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 22 21 20 19 18

  For Susan and all the days to come

  “They were in the vanguard of law and order in the early days of Kansas . . . God bless old Wyatt Earp and men of his kind. They shot their way to heaven.”

  ~John Madden, Attorney, Dodge City, Kansas, 1928

  CHAPTER 1

  Spring, 1874: Wichita, Kansas

  Wichita, Kansas, was hell in the making. With the Wichita and South Western rail tracks now connected to the Santa Fe’s main line, commerce had been pumped into the town like a stick thrust into a hornets’ nest. The tent phase of the business district had passed. Every building on the main street was built of wood with a flashy façade intended to show off wares and lure in customers. Soon the longhorns would be driven here from Texas to be shipped east by rail. The men who herded these cattle north brought with them old Southern grievances into the more prosperous land of the Yankees. That festering wound of the war and the God-given right to blow off steam at the end of the trail drive made for a volatile mix.

  In addition to the drovers came a steady stream of bull whackers, mule skinners, buffalo runners, gamblers, and con men. Soldiers on leave from Fort Larned frequented the town and clashed with civilians in the saloons and houses of prostitution. Guns, alcohol, and hot-headed frontiersmen . . . all with something to prove. It had been the same in Ellsworth. Every railroad town on the plains had faced this double-edged sword of an economic boom. Some towns survived it; some did not. Only time would tell.

  Without a settled personality, the town reminded Wyatt Earp of his first glimpse of Omaha City, where, as a boy of sixteen crossing the country, he had been witness to two men settling an argument by the sudden explosion of revolvers not ten feet apart. The remembrance of that fight had stayed with him as a vivid image. It reminded him that—regardless of the law—the ultimate tool of survival on the frontier came down to what a man did or did not do.

  Now at twenty-five, Wyatt considered that such a budding center of commerce as this might supply the venue where his aspirations could take root. They were alike in ways, Wyatt and Wichita—both just getting their legs and wide open to possibilities. All he needed was the right deal with the right people. He had no real definition for that business opportunity, yet he knew that, whatever it was, he had the grit and lasting power to make it succeed.

  He dismounted and stretched his legs as he walked his horses down Douglas Avenue to the river. The broad, muddy Arkansas cut through the settlement like a curved saber slash from God’s judgmental hand. On the west bank it was called “Delano.” There, outnumbering all other businesses, were the brothels and saloons, bawdy and flirtatious, their ambient music tinkling carefree across the slow glide of the brown water.

  The east side, where he now stood, was showing signs of organization, sprouting from a seed of respectability. Connecting the two halves of the dichotomous community was a substantial wooden bridge that seemed appropriately long for the metaphoric crossover to sin or salvation, depending on a man’s direction of travel . . . or his particular need at a given time of the day.

  Here Wyatt sensed the same delicate balance of tensions he had witnessed in half a dozen other cow towns: the money brought in by cattlemen weighed against the politics of tolerating the sins of the drovers. When the herds came in, big money would change hands in the stockyards, but it would be Delano that would hold the drovers here long enough to support the merchants on either side of the river. At best, it was an awkward symbiosis, both delicate and dangerous. Every cattle town soaked one foot in a lukewarm bath of compromise, always trying to douse whatever spark inevitably flew loose, a pragmatic balancing of interests that Wyatt found distasteful. At the same time, it was a lively place to be, with plenty of cash flow to feed the gaming tables.

  Wyatt had begun to consider himself a professional gambler, at least until he settled on a proper vocation with a promising future. Come late spring, when the herds came in, he might position himself as a cattle buyer. The right poker game with the right people could provide that kind of capital in a single night.

  He led his saddle horse and pack horse down a ramp to the water’s edge to let them drink their fill. In the privacy below the bridge, he wet his hair in the river and combed it by raking his fingers over his scalp. Then he changed into a clean shirt and wiped his boots to a dull shine with the oil-stained, gun-cleaning rag he carried in his saddlebag.

  Only when he started up the ramp did he see someone watching him from the shadows under the bridge. A man lay sprawled out on a torn straw mattress, where the structural beams rested upon a levee of heavy wooden ties. The man was unshaven and shirtless, his suspender straps running over the bare skin and bone of his narrow shoulders. He propped on an elbow to be better seen.

  “I could use some money if you think you can spare some,” the man said in an offhand manner. “Ain’t got no kinda work at the present.”

  Wyatt looked at the hard-luck story before him, embarrassed by the utter loss of dignity in the man’s asking. “Know where I can find James Earp?” he said, nodding across the river.

  “He’s on this side.” The man raised an arm and po
inted through the bridge. “You’re ’bout standin’ ’neath ’im.”

  Wyatt dug a coin from his trouser pocket and tossed it. Snatching it out of the air, the man showed surprising agility. He touched a finger to his brow in a poor man’s salute, as Wyatt led his horses up the ramp back to the street.

  The one-story clapboard house had been slapped together from rough-sawn lumber with no attempt at adornment. Wyatt tied his horses to the gate of a spring wagon parked beside the house and picked a path through various items of trash to the front stoop. On his fourth series of knocks, the door cracked open, and the timid face of a plain-featured, dark-haired female floated into view. With homely, close-set eyes and a pouting mouth, she peered out mutely and clasped the collar of her nightgown. Behind her someone snored in the front room. A cloying mix of powdered talcum, rose water, and unwashed flesh poured past her out of the doorway.

  “I’m looking for James Earp,” Wyatt said.

  The young woman pulled in her lips, lowered her eyes, and drew back, her gauzy nightgown billowing around her. The door all but shut. When she reappeared, there was something different about her hair, and she now clasped the lapels of a faded robe to her throat.

  “He’s still asleep,” she mumbled. “And Bessie’s not up yet.”

  “I’m his brother.”

  Before she could react to this news, the girl turned to the sound of someone treading heavily across the room behind her. “We’re not open, Sally. Tell him to come back.” It was the husky voice of a woman in charge. “We got to catch our breath sometime.”

  Sally lowered her head and started to speak, but the woman cut her off by swinging the door open wider. “We’re not open, mister. Come back around dark.”

  She was imposing, with a strong, heart-shaped face that clearly brooked no debate. Her jaded eyes bore into him without any tempering of courtesy.

  “It’s Jim’s brother,” Sally whispered from behind the door.

  Bessie studied the visitor up and down. “Which one?” she said, her hardened face now a challenge.

  “Wyatt.”

  “Well, good Lord!” She stepped forward, grabbed his sleeve, and pulled him into the room. “Sally, go wake up Jim.” Bessie stepped back and propped her fists on her hips. “So how’d you turn out so tall? And handsome!”

  Wyatt had no answer for that.

  Still examining him, Bessie fussed with the back of her hair. “Well, get yourself comfortable,” she offered. “He’ll drag out of bed eventually.” And then, chuckling to herself, she disappeared into a back room, shaking her head.

  Still standing, Wyatt looked around. On a floral-print divan halfway across the room, a fair-haired woman lay snoring beneath a tattered quilt, half her face pressed into the cushion. Even so, he recognized her as the whore James had brought from Ellsworth. The perfumed warmth of the room pushed Wyatt back toward the opening in the door.

  Within a minute the girl named Sally tapped mouse-like from the back of the house and stopped at the divan, her hands clasped together beneath her small breasts and pressed into the folds of her robe. When Wyatt caught her staring at him, she quickly turned her attention to the floor.

  Then a much younger girl appeared from a back hallway and attached herself to Sally’s waist. Sally leaned and whispered into her ear, and the girl nodded. Arms wrapped around each other, they stared at Wyatt as if peering through a peephole from a secret hiding place.

  “Does James live here?” Wyatt asked.

  Sally nodded. “This is his house,” she said meekly. “Him and Bessie’s.”

  Other than the snoring coming at intervals from the tangle of blond hair on the divan, there was not another sound in the house. A bead of sweat ran down Wyatt’s back. The younger girl sucked in her lips, making her mouth thin as an incision. Wyatt wondered if she could speak.

  “You sure he knows I’m here?” Wyatt said.

  After a whispery conference with Sally, the little girl disengaged and bolted deeper into the house. “That’s Bessie’s girl, Hattie,” Sally offered. “She’ll get him up.”

  He nodded toward the back of the house. “Exactly who is Bessie?”

  They heard the kitchen sounds of a cooking pot and chinaware clanging and rattling in the back, and Sally lowered her eyes again. “Bessie is Jim’s . . . his wife.”

  The girl named “Hattie” reappeared, tiptoeing across the room, where she resumed pressing her cheek into Sally’s ribs, her eyes soaking up their visitor. Wyatt plucked at the back of his damp shirt and began sidling through the open door.

  “Have to go and see to my horses,” he said. “Tell James I’m just outside.”

  Standing by the wagon where the horses were tied, Wyatt heard the door unlatch and saw Sally peering at him through the crack. He patted the mare’s long neck muscles, then turned to the gelding to pick at seeds tangled in the bay’s mane.

  Within a minute the door scraped wide open. “Well, look what’s washed up out o’ the river,” James laughed as he picked his way through the garbage in his yard. He pulled each suspender strap over his shoulders with the hand of his good arm. “You get rich yet?”

  Wyatt took his brother’s outstretched hand and nodded back toward the house. “Didn’t tell me you got married?”

  “Hell, yes. Married to the bone. You meet Bessie?”

  Wyatt nodded and let his gaze rove over the rough carpentry of the brothel. “She in this business with you?”

  “Hell, yes,” James laughed. “She owns it.”

  Still inspecting the house, Wyatt pursed his lips and did not speak for a time.

  “That girl . . .” he finally said, “she’s little young for a whore, ain’t she?”

  “Hattie?” James coughed up a laugh. “She ain’t no whore. That’s Bessie’s daughter.” He made a grandiose sweep of his arm. “Bessie and me run this fine establishment. And I’m pour-in’ drinks at a few of the better saloons,” he added, pointing east into the proper side of town. James smiled and poked a thumb over his shoulder at the house. “But this here’s where the money is.”

  The building did little to advertise its profit. No paint. No trim work. The window shutters closed on leather hinges nailed into the frame. It appeared to be two shacks, one added to the back of the other.

  “How is it you’re on this side of the river?” Wyatt asked.

  James snorted a laugh, and the skin around his eyes fanned with lines just like brother Morgan’s. “Special arrangement, you might say. Over here, Wichita requires a license for brothels. It’s like a tax, except it ain’t on paper ’cause it ain’t really legal.” James squinted across the silvery surface of the Arkansas toward Delano. “Over yonder’s the hell-town, where there ain’t no fee, but . . .” He shrugged with his good shoulder. “I’m willin’ to pay. Puts us up a notch bein’ over here, so we can charge more.” James turned quickly to Wyatt. “Hey, you planning on stayin’?”

  “Not sure yet. I’m considering buyin’ some cattle.”

  “Hell, you can work for me right here. I could use an enforcer.”

  Wyatt hesitated so as not to insult his brother. Again he studied the building’s crude exterior and thought back to his days in Peoria when he, too, had lived in such a place, using his fists to keep the clientele in line.

  Bessie leaned out the door and called for James in a dull voice that carried the ring of insult. James’s eyes flicked her way for an instant, but he only smiled and pretended to ignore her.

  “So tell me ’bout bein’ a cattle king,” he said, leading Wyatt back to the house.

  Bessie was waiting in the doorway, her face set for battle. “We got a lingerer in the back—that hairy-ape hotel man, Black. Says he’ll leave when he damn well pleases.”

  “Who’s he with?” James said, letting a little irritation surface in his voice.

  “Kate,” Bessie snapped, as though the whore were somehow complicit in the breach of procedure.

  James led the way inside, followed by Bessie, and the
n Wyatt. “Hattie,” James instructed in a calm voice, “I need you to step out to the front porch for a spell. Will you do that, darlin’?” He moved to a cupboard against the wall and rose up on his toes to reach the top shelf. “Sally,” he said, checking the loads on a new Colt’s revolver, “get dressed and run down to the marshal’s office. See if Cairns is on duty. Get him down here quick as you can.”

  Sally appeared stricken to be assigned such a chore. “What if he’s not there?” she whispered.

  James snapped the loading gate shut and fixed his eyes on the back hallway. “Then he ain’t,” he said simply. “Just get on back here and stay with Hattie. We might have to handle it ourselves.”

  “You got no enforcer?” Wyatt asked.

  James made his wry smile. “I’m it,” he quipped, tapping his bad shoulder with the barrel of the pistol. “Half of it anyway.” He raised the gun barrel up between them. “This here’s the other half.”

  Wyatt looked past his brother at the back of the house. “Which room is it?”

  A look of gratitude crept into James’s face. “Second one on the right. He’s a mean one, Wyatt. Strong as a bull. Used to be a blacksmith. Kate’s the only one feisty enough to bed him.”

  “The door locked?” Wyatt inquired.

  “None of ’em lock,” James said.

  “There a window in that room?”

  James’s brow furrowed. “Well, sure, but—”

  Wyatt started toward the hall. “Go move your wagon away from the house and wait on me outside.”

  Holding out the Colt’s as an offer, James stopped his brother. “Like I said . . . he’s a strong sonovabitch.”

  Wyatt ignored the weapon. “Take that shooter with you,” he said and walked into the dark of the hallway.

  Stepping through the second door, Wyatt moved past the mound of flesh under the sheets and crossed the dingy room to the window. The stink of rancid flesh hung heavily in the still air. He unhooked the clasp and swung the windows open. Turning back to the room, he found the brawny customer peeling out of the sheets. The disheveled whore looked defiantly at Wyatt, though he could not be sure whether her anger was directed toward him or her customer.