Adobe Moon Page 12

  “Well, for one thing, James is somewhere up in Oregon workin’ bars,” Virgil said. Then he surveyed the interior of the saloon as though he had never paid attention to it before this moment. Frowning, he blew air again. “You got any idea how much it costs to rent a place like this . . . let alone purchase it? Hell, we’d be in debt for the first ten years.”

  “We could build it,” Wyatt said. “We built the barn in Iowa.”

  Virgil made a pained expression and pushed his coffee aside. “Hell, Wyatt, we’d be just one more saloon against all these others. And the price of property in town . . .” His voice trailed off, and he shook his head. “Why don’t we just make some money bein’ hard-asses for a while?”

  “I ain’t talkin’ about here,” Wyatt said. “We can buy up some land in one o’ the new railroad towns. They’re springin’ up all across the prairie. We just got to find the next boom and get there early before the prices jump.”

  Virgil smiled and canted his head. “You always had ambition, son.” He laughed and shook his head. “I like it here right now. It suits me.” He glanced toward the upstairs landing. “Even got a woman wants to take care of me.”

  “That’d be the one from France?”

  Virgil nodded. Wyatt tilted his cup and studied the dregs of his coffee.

  “You know a woman by the name of Haspel?”

  “Jane Haspel,” Virgil said. “I worked her place before here. How d’you know her?”

  “Her daughter was on Walton’s boat.” He set down the cup and met his brother’s eyes. “Said she wasn’t even fifteen,” Wyatt added.

  “Yeah . . . well . . .” Virgil’s mouth tightened into a humorless smile. “I hear you were fourteen when you tried to run off to the war.” He shrugged, tried his coffee, and frowned. “Cold,” he said, pushed back his chair, and started to get up.

  “I shot a man in Beardstown,” Wyatt said.

  Virgil stopped and sat back down. “You kill him?” When Wyatt shook his head, Virgil stared out the window and thought for a moment. “In Beardstown . . . it prob’ly won’t amount to much.” He turned back to study Wyatt’s face. “What happened?”

  “Fellow pushed too much. He shot first.”

  Virgil’s eyes turned hard. “Well, you might not want to make a habit o’ that.”

  “What?”

  Virgil’s eyes remained cold. “Lettin’ the other’n shoot first.”

  They stared at one another for several seconds, and in that time Wyatt felt their family bond tighten like the integrated parts of a finely crafted gun. If Virgil had been there, Wyatt knew, in Walton’s saloon, there would have been two Earps for Pinard and Peshaur to deal with.

  “By the way,” Virgil said, leaning and hunching a shoulder to reach into his trouser pocket. “I wrote Ma and Pa in Missouri . . . told ’em you might be comin’ East. Pa wrote me back, and included a letter for you.” He opened an envelope and withdrew a folded paper, which he flattened on the table. Then he rose and walked his cup back to the bar.

  Wyatt spun the paper around and recognized his father’s florid script.

  Wyatt,

  I am currantly holding the office of town Constable here in Lamar and plan to take the position of Justice of the Peace. If you can see your way clear to come here and take over as Constable, I can see how it would be faverble to all us Earps. I have talked to the town council, and all you have to do is step in when I step down. I believe this job will suit you.

  I have got my hands into a few other bisnisses and all are doing well. Thare are good bisniss oportunaties here for all of us in Missouri.

  Your mother sends her kind regards and hopes you can join us. Write me soon with your anser so I can tell the council.

  Your father, Nicholas P. Earp

  “Wants you to go to Missouri,” Virgil said, settling back into his chair. He sipped from his steaming cup and set it down on the table. Virge raised his eyebrows. “I’ve been thinking of goin’ for a visit myself, maybe in the winter. I’d like to make some more money here first.” He gazed out the window at the summer day, at the trash scattered along the curb. “This place is dreary in winter.” He scowled at the street and smiled at Wyatt. “So . . . are you goin’?”

  Wyatt stared at his own hand resting on the table. He rapped his fingertips in a single sequence like a quick shuffle of cards.

  “Might,” he said and turned to the street scene outside. “Long as I’m here, I’ll look over your setup . . . see if I can find some card games. Maybe stay a coupl’a weeks. Might go see the grandparents in Monmouth and then head to Missouri from there.”

  Virgil made the quiet laugh that rumbled up from deep in his chest. “You’re a ramblin’ soul, brother. I doubt you’ll ever settle down.”

  Wyatt looked up at the dusty spiderwebs hanging from the exposed floor joists of the landing. “If I do, it won’t be in Peoria.”

  CHAPTER 13

  * * *

  Early fall, 1869: Lamar, Missouri

  In the window of the Lamar Mercantile, a mannequin gazed blindly out into the main street and stopped Wyatt cold. Sitting the fine chestnut blaze he had purchased in Monmouth, he considered that he might be staring at some image of his own future. He reined his horse to the edge of the boardwalk and stared through the glass. The nut-brown shade of the mannequin and the span of the shoulders could have been his own. He dismounted and studied the rich black color of the outfit. The shirt beneath was royal blue with widely spaced stripes and bands of gray that crisscrossed in a pleasing pattern. He cupped his hand to the glass to read the price tags. All told, the suit and its accoutrements cost more than a new pistol and Sharps rifle combined.

  He let his focus adjust to his reflection in the glass. The Illinois-to-Missouri beard showed a reddish tint and a hint of wildness that he deemed inappropriate for his new job. The door opened, and the storekeeper emerged like an old friend, inviting him inside.

  “Where can I get a shave?” Wyatt said. The man pointed out the tonsorial parlor, and Wyatt nodded his thanks.

  An hour later he returned to the mercantile smelling of rose water. After an awkward moment of narrow-eyed scrutiny, the storekeeper’s face dawned with recognition.

  “Oh, yes . . . the gentleman looking for the barber. May I say, sir, the moustache is most becoming.”

  Wyatt looked around the store. “Wouldn’ mind trying on that black coat in your window.”

  “That’s straight from Chicago, sir, and those lapels are the newest fashion.” Wyatt waited for the man to sort through a rack of half a dozen identical coats. “Would you like to try the matching trousers and vest, too?”

  Wyatt removed his hat and set it upon a stack of dungarees. “Won’t hurt to try.”

  “And the shoes?” The man held up a pair of walnut-brown Brogans polished to a high sheen. Wyatt shook his head and glanced back at the mannequin.

  “Maybe the hat.”

  Until today he had never thought of spending money like this on clothes. Now he saw the haberdashery as a tool as valuable to his ambitions as to his personal liking. Like purchasing a finely crafted gun, there was purpose to it.

  “I have a room in back where you can change, sir,” the man offered and handed over the stack of folded goods as though it was the finest hour of his day.

  Wyatt held the material as if he’d been handed a baby. “What about the hat?”

  From his vest the storekeeper produced a cloth tape. “If I may, sir,” he said and rose up on his toes to measure Wyatt’s head. “I’ll get the hat from stock for you.”

  Fully dressed in the storekeeper’s goods, Wyatt stood before a long mirror and saw in his reflection an unexpected persona: a figure worthy of wearing a constable badge. The deep black of the cloth appealed to him, dignified but not showy. He had seen bankers and land investors similarly dressed and had noted how they handled themselves. Wyatt could see a successful man dressed this way only becoming more successful. Or a man just setting out with an ambition mor
e likely to make his mark.

  The clerk lifted a new hat from its box and tried to settle it on Wyatt’s head, but Wyatt took it from him and mounted it himself. One look in the mirror, and the dark mantle of a man stepping boldly into his future was complete.

  When he walked from the store with his trail clothes bundled under his arm, he felt the town of Lamar condense into a manageable domain. He had made the right decision in coming here. He could sense the money. Lamar did not exhibit the spark of the western boomtowns, where there was the constant sound of new construction and lively piano music filling the streets from the gambling houses and saloons. Here in Lamar there was a quieter momentum, a solidity of community, where businesses could burgeon behind closed doors on the foundations of family traditions in place for generations. And, unlike Peoria, it was a clean place without a darker side of the town hidden at the fringes. He mounted and walked his horse through the late afternoon to the house where he had been told the Earps lived.

  For a moment his mother stood speechless in the doorway and then, shedding her stoic inspection of him, she stepped forward and buried her face in his shoulder. When finally she pushed away from him she could not speak until she had wiped her tears from his new coat.

  “Lord, just look at you.” That was all she could get out before the tears welled again.

  Nicholas stopped in the doorway, his face flushed. “Well . . . you look tougher’n a plowshare . . . even in that banker’s suit.” He opened the door wider and stood in his commanding pose. His vest parted, unbuttoned, and his starched shirt hung outside his dark trousers. The shirt was wrinkled where the waistband had pinched the material into a watershed of creases. Even so, with a silver constable scroll shining at his breast, he was ever the man in charge.

  At the sight of Wyatt, Morgan and Warren whooped, but when they shook his hand, each studied his face as though trying to recognize something familiar in his eyes. Morg had shot up lean and straight, his good humor still showing in his crinkled eyes. If unsmiling, he looked more like Wyatt than even Virgil did. Warren’s excitement seemed to surface as a temporary interruption on his rebellious face. He was constantly in motion, his dark eyes cutting back and forth between father and older brothers as though stitching together patches of the family quilt.

  Adelia hid behind her mother until Wyatt offered his hand. She buried her face in the folds of her mother’s dress and then as quickly spun and threw her arms around Wyatt’s legs. When she let go, she stepped back and bit her lip.

  “Are you a preacher now?” she said. Virginia and Morgan laughed, but Warren scowled.

  “Not hardly,” Wyatt said. “But I will be a constable.”

  Nicholas finally gripped Wyatt’s hand and pumped it. “Might have to change the name of this town to ‘Earp,’ ” he crowed, his teeth flashing white against the tangle of grizzled beard.

  “Man at the barber shop told me you’re runnin’ a bakery,” Wyatt said. “You’re gonna be justice of the peace and a baker, too?”

  “Got to have your hand into more’n one piece o’ the pie,” Nicholas said. “Easier to do when you got family. Have you been by the bakery shop?”

  When Wyatt shook his head, Nicholas fingered his watch from his vest pocket and opened the face. “Mother,” he announced, pushing his shirttails down into his waistband, “we’ll want to hold supper till we get back.” He began buttoning his vest, and Wyatt watched the way the old man could still display authority in the simple motion of his hands. “Baxter Warren, get my coat from the bedroom.”

  “Morg and me’ll go with you,” Warren said.

  “You boys will get back to your studies,” the old man ordained.

  Warren leveled dead eyes on his father, but Nicholas remained oblivious to the surly stare. The room went painfully quiet until Warren scuffed off to the back of the house, his narrow shoulders seesawing with a parting message that brought a smile to Morgan’s face.

  Inside the bakery Nicholas slapped the front counter and yelled to the backroom, where the clatter of metal pans and baking sheets spilled out like the jolting of a tinker’s wagon. “Who’s running the store here?” Nicholas barked. The racket ceased, and the old man turned his head to watch Wyatt’s face.

  Through the connecting doorway came a thin, dark-bearded man wearing a soiled, white apron cinched at his waist. He stopped, his gaze piercing and curious as it settled on Wyatt. A gentle smile broke across his narrow face.

  “Wyatt,” he said simply, his voice as unexcitable as a man who had seen most of what there was to see.

  Wyatt knew the voice of his half-brother before he recognized the face. They gripped hands across the counter, Wyatt nodding with gratitude for another Earp who had come back from the war.

  “Nobody told me you were here, Newton,” Wyatt said. “You look . . . different.”

  “Well, Wyatt,” Newton said quietly, “it’s been what? Nine years? I’m married with a family now. Got a little girl pretty as a prairie flower.” He carried his grin down to his apron. “And I’m covered with sweat and flour.” He hitched a thumb to the room behind him. “These ovens are beginning to feel like purgatory.”

  Right away the easy manner of their talk bridged the gap of time that had passed, and Wyatt felt his respect for his oldest brother revived as if not a month had gone by since seeing him. It had been Newton who had taught him how to shoot and clean a rifle, how to field dress a deer, and how to harness a team of horses for plowing.

  Nicholas tapped a knuckle against the glass of the bread display cases. “Give ’im a sample.”

  Newton bent and looked over the selections, finally choosing a fist-sized roll with a dark glazed crust. He tore a piece of newsprint and wrapped the bread, just as if Wyatt were a customer. Wyatt peeled away the paper, smelled it, and tasted. Nicholas wore a wide grin as though he himself had done the kneading and the baking.

  Wyatt began nodding as he chewed, and Newton’s easy smile spread up into his face to squeeze his eyes to crescents. “Ma is a good teacher,” Newton said, stepping around the counter to join them.

  Wyatt had always considered his half-brother less wild than the other Earp boys. It was to Newton Wyatt had entrusted many a private matter before the war. Newton held a quiet pride and lacked the stubborn streak Wyatt saw especially in Virgil and Warren. People had always liked and respected him, because there was nothing hidden about him. He was smart. And he was personable without being too talkative. When Old Nick stepped back into the kitchen, the two brothers strolled out to the walkway that overlooked the town square.

  “What about your wife?” Wyatt asked. “Does she work here with you?”

  Newton crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the awning post, and shook his head. “Jennie . . . she’s got her hands full at home . . . bein’ a mother and all.”

  Wyatt rewrapped the roll and studied the contented smile on Newton’s face. “I’d say that just about suits you fine. Easy to figure you for a husband and a father.”

  Newton gazed out at the picket fence around the courthouse and began to nod. When he finally looked back at Wyatt he said, “Suits me down to the bone.” He waited, expecting Wyatt to say more, but now Wyatt was surveying the town. Newton pushed himself from the pole and squeezed his brother’s arm. “So, you were freight hauling . . . and then grading for the railroad. You look strong.” He slapped Wyatt’s shoulder. “You ready to be the law in this town?”

  Wyatt looked up and down the square at the orderly flanks of business establishments and at the peaceable nature of the pedestrians moving through the commercial district. The main roads had been recently graded. Scant horse droppings dotted the thoroughfare. Wyatt felt a long way from the sprawl of canvas tents and slipshod shacks slapped together in the rail camps.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  CHAPTER 14

  * * *

  Late fall, 1869: Lamar, Missouri

  Wyatt received his badge from the mayor in the presence of the city coun
cil and the leading merchants of the community, some of whom had brought their families. All the Earps were there to see father and son accept their appointments. The ceremony was informal in the town hall, yet Wyatt never smiled, not even when the newspaperman approached him with notepad in hand.

  “Have you worked in the law before, Mr. Earp?”

  Wyatt shook his head. “Reckon I’ll be learning as I go along. I expect the job will suit me.”

  “How is that?” The reporter kept writing as he asked the question. When he looked up, he followed Wyatt’s gaze across the room. “Oh, that’s Sutherland’s daughter,” he offered. “He runs the hotel, and she runs the desk sometimes. You have an eye for aesthetics.” Wyatt frowned at the word, and the man leaned in closer. “Beauty,” he amended.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Rilla, I think . . . or Aurilla.” The reporter made a point of poising his pencil at the ready over his notepad. “Mr. Earp, I’m curious what you think you can offer to the position without any real experience. You are young to comprise Lamar’s complete law enforcement.”

  Wyatt nodded at a fair question. “The job requires some grit and probably some political know-how. I reckon I’m lacking in one, so till I learn it, I’ll concentrate on the other.”

  The writer opened his mouth then closed it. The look Wyatt gave him was sufficient to answer his question about which attribute Wyatt already possessed.

  “If I may be candid, some wonder if you are going to be a repeat performance of your father.” The man made a nervous laugh. “Old Nick could be . . . well . . . gruff.”

  “I ain’t my father, if that’s what you mean. I learned from him both ways: what to be, what not to be. I believe I can do the job. I reckon you’ll be the judge of that in the long run.”

  Wyatt slipped his hands into his pockets and looked over the man’s head at the town’s elite. “ ’Course, if you print that, you’ll have to deal with my father.” Wyatt looked at the reporter. “And me.”