Adobe Moon Page 10

  “He’s earned it,” someone called out. “Let ’im keep it. Besides, now we don’t have to listen to the goddamn Swede crow . . . for a while anyway.” Only a little laughter rose from the ranks.

  Wyatt watched the faces in the crowd and waited to see how this would play out. When the men went about their business, he stuffed the pistol into his waistband, its cool metal pressing reassuringly against his skin. He walked to his clothes, where Shanssey waited.

  “You look like hell, son,” the Irishman said and lifted a bucket of water.

  Wyatt dipped his hands into the bucket, bent forward, and washed his eye and face. Then he stood for applications from Shanssey’s vial of astringent.

  “There’s nothing here to be ashamed of, Wyatt.” The Irishman spoke quietly and kept his eyes on his work. “You two boyos are not in the same weight class, that’s all. And the Swede . . . he’s been at this game for a lot of years.” Shanssey set vial and cloth on the buckboard and pulled a silver flask from his hip pocket. He took a long pull and offered the bottle to Wyatt.

  Wyatt shook his head. “I ain’t ashamed. I got my money back.”

  Shanssey returned the flask to his hip and cracked the wide smile that narrowed his eyes. “Well, you throw one lively goin’-away party, I’ll give you that. Tell me, was the money worth all the trouble?”

  Wyatt looked at his friend for several seconds before answering. “It was my money.”

  “Yes, but was it—”

  “Maybe you ought to ask the Swede that question.”

  Looking back at Stefgard in the mire, Shanssey smiled and nodded. “Aye, maybe so.”

  That first night on the trail, Wyatt camped in a high meadow surrounded by tall pines. He looked up from his bedroll at the early evening stars and thought about the years of sleeping in rough camps, whore tents, and way-station bunkhouses. There was nothing undignified about raw labor, but he now felt done with that. As if he had paid the proper dues that might elevate him to a business that did not involve breaking his back. He was ready for that . . . and the money that went with it.

  The moon rose, a smoldering disk of ochre glowing behind the trees. He wondered where Valenzuela Cos might be now. What would she think of him pulling up stakes and heading east for Illinois? Being on the move at least held possibilities that were not evident in his present situation. Certainly there would be no mud houses or tents waiting for him there.

  He sold his horses in Granger and took his first journey by train to St. Louis, watching the plains move past him as if he were afloat on a swift river of grass. When he thought of the grinding pace of the wagon trek to California, this trip by rail felt like irrefutable evidence of the world opening up to uncountable opportunities. And by joining Virgil in Illinois, Wyatt calculated that a time had come for some of the Earp brothers to take a piece of the new promised land. It was time to capitalize.

  CHAPTER 11

  * * *

  Spring, 1869: Beardstown, Illinois

  He took the stage up the Illinois River to Beardstown, where the Rock Island Railroad was laying track down the main thoroughfare of the village. It was three o’clock in the afternoon when he stepped from the coach onto the street, and the cloudless sky was like a blue porcelain bowl hovering above. The citizens went about their routines, paying little notice to the rail crews. At a German gunsmith’s shop Wyatt bought balls, powder, and caps and asked the smith for directions to John Walton’s hotel. The man’s face seemed to cloud over with sudden mistrust.

  He pointed. “Go to da intersection, turn left, and keep valkin’ till you haff almost come to da edge of town. Den just follow your nose. You vill smell it before you see it.”

  The hotel was an old two-story building, neglected and barren of any adornment. The main lobby had been converted into a second-rate bar, where two patrons stood talking to a portly bartender. The three turned as one to look at Wyatt as he entered. Off to Wyatt’s right another room opened up as large as the barroom. There three women sat in open nightgowns talking casually as if they were sisters conversing in the privacy of their home.

  Wyatt stepped to the bar six paces away from the two drinkers, set his saddlebags and duffle on the floor, and waited for the ruddy-faced barkeep to approach him.

  “I’m looking for John Walton.”

  The man’s red-veined eyes hardened. “What for?”

  Wyatt showed no change of expression. “You Walton?”

  “No,” the man replied curtly and raised his chin to point at Wyatt. “You buyin’ a drink?”

  “I’m looking for Walton. I was told he owns this place.”

  Keeping himself at arm’s length, the man wiped his hands on his apron. “We can play this game all day, so you’d better tell me what you want with him. You with the law?”

  “I was told he might have some work for me.”

  He stared at Wyatt, looking him up and down as though reassessing his features. “Name?”

  Before Wyatt could answer, the heavy scuff of boots turned both their heads to a barrel-chested man just then pushing through the front door. The newcomer swaggered to the entrance of the side room, propped a hand on either side of the door frame, and leaned in to survey the women’s lounging area. He frowned, wrinkling his fleshy brow and broad nose. With his thick shoulders and narrow hips, he presented the silhouette of an ox.

  “Where’s Lilah,” he growled to the women in the side room.

  Wyatt could not hear the reply, but it did nothing to improve the man’s demeanor. He scuffed to the bar and leaned on the polished top close enough to Wyatt to bump shoulders. With the side of his boot he kicked aside Wyatt’s saddlebags.

  “Gimme a cold beer!” The bartender turned and swept down a mug from the shelf. “And it better be cold this time! If it ain’t I’ll pour it in your ear!”

  Wyatt sidestepped to remove himself from the man’s rancid scent. He waited for the barkeep to set down the drink.

  “What about Walton?” Wyatt said.

  The bartender gave Wyatt a deadpan face. “He still ain’t here.”

  “Where the hell is Lilah?” the ox interrupted. “I wanna see her . . . now!” He glared at the bartender over his mug as he downed half his beer. Slapping the mug to the bar, he belched. “What room’s she in?”

  The bartender snatched a towel from a rack and wiped at the spill around the man’s mug. “You got to pay up front before you can go up to a room. And you can’t pay till one of the girls accepts your offer. You know how it works, Pinard.”

  “Well, it ain’t workin’ too well, is it? ’Cause she ain’t down here, and she’s the one I want.” He dug into his pocket and slapped down two gold dollars under his meaty hand. He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a menacing rasp. “So just tell me which goddamn room, you big tub o’ lard.”

  “Nobody goes up before they’re told to,” the bartender said. He began folding the towel and turned around to face the back counter where the bottles and glasses were lined up. Wyatt saw the butt of a pistol protruding from a stack of folded aprons on a lower shelf.

  “Hey!” Pinard yelled. The bartender froze with the folded towel in his hands. “You turn around with that goddamn shooter in your hand, an’ I’ll blow a hole in that fat gut o’ yours.”

  Pinard leveled a Navy Colt’s revolver at the man’s back. The bartender’s forearms levitated to a horizontal position out to his sides, and he turned around slowly.

  “Mr. Pinard, we got enforcers on each end of the upstairs floor. If you go up by yourself, you’re going to have to deal with them.”

  Lowering his hands, the bartender made a smart turn to his right and began to march toward the far end of the bar. Wyatt reached out and grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop.

  “I’ve asked you twice,” Wyatt said to the side of his face. “Don’t make me ask again.”

  The bartender managed a contrite nod. “Come back at eight,” he mumbled.

  Pinard let his gun clatter on the bar top, and then
he drank the rest of his beer. Wyatt picked up his gear and walked out into the street to search for a better class of hotel.

  When Wyatt returned to Walton’s brothel after dark, a lively string of piano notes spilled into the street from the saloon. Reentering the dimly lit bar, he now found the room filled with laborers from the rail crews. A groundswell of male voices underscored the music. The same red-faced man served at the bar. A few women circulated through the crowd, and everywhere they mingled, the men grabbed at them with rough hands. The air was stale with alcohol, sweat, and cigar smoke.

  A bald man with bushy, gray eyebrows and a beer mug in his hand was trying to dance with an unwilling female partner, who tried to hold him at arm’s length to avoid the spillage of his drink. Finally she kicked at his shin, and his beer shot upward to rain on a table of drinkers behind him. One of the baptized stood up, spun the offender around, and knocked him off his feet with a blow to the side of the head with his pistol barrel. The drunken reveler dropped like a sack of bones and lay unconscious on the pinewood floor. The crowd opened a space around the fallen man, and conversation stopped. No one moved for a moment as the music rattled on with its inane momentum. Then, when the piano player became aware of the lull in the room, he lifted his fingers from the keys.

  A young man with smooth cheeks and sympathetic eyes knelt to examine the older man. “You got no call to go beatin’ on a old man,” he said, looking up at the man still holding the gun. When the bully made a snarling laugh, Wyatt recognized him and the Navy Colt’s in his hand.

  Pinard took a step forward. “You want me to ring your bell, too, sonny boy?”

  The younger man said nothing and lifted the limp body by the armpits, dragging it toward the side room where the women had lounged earlier in the day. Pinard laughed and returned to his table. Wyatt watched a man in a brown suit behind the bar raise his chin to the piano player, and the music picked up with the same rollicking tempo. The conversations picked up again to a steady murmur.

  After Pinard sat, a broad-shouldered man seated next to him leaned in close to speak into his ear. When both men rocked back in their chairs and laughed, Wyatt recognized the other man by his raucous crow and the ugly flat scar on his cheek. His cruel smile brought back the alcoholic blur of Wyatt’s initiation into the freighters’ fraternity in a Prescott saloon. It was Big George, the driver from Texas who had found sadistic pleasure in Wyatt’s drunken misery.

  Wyatt stepped to the crowded bar and waited as the bartender conferred in low tones with the brown-suited man. After seeing Wyatt’s approach, the bartender turned away, giving Wyatt his back. The other man, wearing a frown of curiosity, walked toward Wyatt, his expression opening into a smile before he had traveled half the length of the bar.

  “You’ve got to be an Earp,” he said, his words stretched melodically by a soft, Southern slur. The warmth of his smile spread upward into his slate-blue eyes. “I’m John Walton.”

  Wyatt reached across the bar to take his hand. “Virgil told me to look you up. I’m Wyatt.”

  Walton tightened his grip and let his eyes wander freely over Wyatt’s torso and arms, and then he turned their clasped hands to examine Wyatt’s knuckles. “Hell, yes. I’m glad you did.” Walton released his grip and propped both fists on his hips. This time when he smiled, he showed two rows of small teeth that matched the other small features of his face. His red-brown hair curled on his head and trailed down his jaws as bushy muttonchops that were less brown than red. “Let me buy you a drink, Wyatt.”

  “You got coffee?” Wyatt said.

  Walton narrowed his eyes as though he had just heard a sensible idea. “Hell, yeah!” he said and held up a forefinger to hold Wyatt in place.

  As Walton stepped away, Pinard wedged in next to Wyatt. On the other side of Pinard, Big George dropped his forearms onto the bar top. Both men slapped down empty beer mugs. Wyatt removed his hat and laid it on the bar.

  “Hey, tub o’ guts!” Pinard called out. “Give us a fill!”

  The bartender approached, keeping his eyes anywhere but on Pinard. When he picked up the empty mugs, Pinard grabbed for his apron, but the portly man stepped back and broke free.

  “When’s Lilah comin’ down?” Pinard growled. He grasped the edge of the bar and leaned in to glare at the bartender.

  “I don’t keep up with the girls’ schedules. I just pour the drinks.”

  Pinard and George watched Walton walk past them balancing two steaming cups. When he placed one before Wyatt, the big Texan squinted and then roared with laughter.

  “I’ll be damned! Hey . . . it’s the California boy! And you still ain’t learned to drink.”

  Walton turned to the Texan with a question on his face. Then he turned back to Wyatt, who looked straight ahead and sipped his coffee.

  “Hey! ‘California boy’! It’s me . . . Big George Peshaur. Remember?”

  Wyatt lowered his drink and spoke to the mirror. “I remember you,” he said in a flat tone.

  Pinard gave Wyatt a dismissive glance and leaned his face into Walton’s. “Hey, whore-man, go tell Lilah to get herself down here. I’m a payin’ customer, and I want some service.”

  Walton managed a politic smile. “Why don’t you choose one of the other ladies, Tom?”

  “ ’Cause I want Lilah. She ain’t supposed to be tied up this long. Now go and tell her.”

  “Well, Tom,” Walton began with a pained expression, “the fact is, she doesn’t want to be with you, see? Have a go with one of the others, all right? I’ll give you a dollar off.”

  Pinard widened his grip on the bar, and in doing so his elbow jutted outward, spilling Wyatt’s coffee. Wyatt set down his cup and faced the man.

  “Mister,” he said evenly, “that’s the third time you’ve trespassed on my space.”

  Pinard put on a look of mock wonder. “ ‘Trespassed’? What’re you . . . a preacher?”

  “That’s ‘the California boy,’ Tom,” Peshaur laughed. “Careful or he’ll puke on ya.”

  Pinard worked up a vicious smile of yellowed teeth streaked with tobacco stain. “Well, California boy, wanna see some trespassin’?” He coughed up a clot of phlegm and sucked in his cheeks. When he took in a deliberate breath through his nose and tilted backward as a prelude to spitting, Wyatt caught him with an uppercut in the chin, making the bully’s teeth click like the dry snap of a pistol. Pinard’s head snapped back as he stumbled into Peshaur and fell. He hit the floor hard, and a circle quickly opened on the floor. When the music stopped, the bystanders leaned in to see Pinard flat on his back, moaning.

  Wyatt stepped into the empty space and waited, the coffee stain on his shirtfront glistening wet in the dim lamplight. He glanced at Peshaur to see if he would take up his friend’s fight, but Walton had the Texan’s attention with a short-barreled pistol cocked in hand.

  Pinard lifted his head and gently probed inside his mouth with his fingertips. “Goth-thammit . . . my thongue.” Blood trickled from one corner of his mouth. His eyes found Wyatt and instantly filled with a white-hot fury. But before his right hand could get to the gun in his waistband, Wyatt stepped forward and brought his boot down over both wrist and abdomen. The man squealed and kicked as if he’d been stabbed. When he gripped Wyatt’s boot with his free hand, Wyatt pressed down harder, pushing the air from Pinard’s lungs, and in the same moment snatching up the revolver from the man’s waistband.

  “You goth-thammed thunovabith!” Pinard bellowed.

  Wyatt stepped back, holding the gun by its frame with the butt forward. He turned his head to the bartender and tossed the revolver to him over the bar. Pinard pushed himself up to his feet and made a show of being huffing mad. Wyatt widened his stance, letting only his expression deliver any warning.

  Pinard pretended to examine his wrist, and then suddenly he charged. His size slowed him, giving Wyatt time to sidestep and deliver a numbing blow that put Pinard on the floor again, this time with a loud crack from one of the rough boards. Th
e conversation in the room dropped away to nothing.

  When Pinard was able to sit up, Wyatt leaned down, pinched his ear with a vicious twist, and led him toward the front door, the man whining like a scolded dog. The crowd moved like a wave to the door and windows to watch Pinard be heaved into the street, where he skidded on his belly in the dirt. Wyatt waited until Pinard was able to rise to his hands and knees, but the man only hung his head and raised one hand tentatively to his ear. Blood drooled from his mouth, and a low moan issued from his lips.

  When Wyatt walked back into the saloon, the men at the door parted to make a path for him. Someone offered to buy him a drink, but he declined. Big George Peshaur remained at the bar, where Walton—his gun now put away—tried to placate the Texan with a complimentary beer. Peshaur glared at Wyatt but said nothing.

  “Wouldn’t mind trying that coffee again, John,” Wyatt said, stepping to the bar. Walton, seemingly delighted over the recent events inside his saloon, snapped his fingers to his barman and held out both cups until the man retrieved them.

  “Listen, Wyatt,” Walton said, his voice fairly singing with good spirits, “let’s you and me go back to my office and—”

  “Hey, whore-man!” Peshaur interrupted, pulling at Walton’s shoulder. “Give me Pinard’s gun, so I can get it back to him.”

  Walton pursed his lips in thought and checked Wyatt’s face for input. Wyatt’s expression remained unreadable as he watched the bartender set down fresh coffee.

  “I would prefer that Pinard cool off before he retrieves his arms,” Walton said.

  Peshaur laughed. “I don’t think you’ll want ’im coming back here for his pistol, will ya? I’ll hold it for him for a while.”