Born to the Badge Page 13

  “Ed Masterson, Bat’s older brother, has got your old job as assistant marshal. Bat is undersheriff working for the county.” Beeson shifted in his chair and leaned forward excitedly. “And get this . . . a month ago Deger arrested Bat for interfering with an arrest. Then, when Deger arrested one of the top cattlemen, Kelley butted in and fired him.” Chalk laughed. “Fired him without a town council meeting, mind you.” Chalk waited for Wyatt to smile but gave up on that. “But you know Deger. He ignored the dismissal and arrested Kelley, his boss. The court is still trying to untangle the mess.”

  Wyatt sipped his coffee and watched Beeson’s smile broaden.

  “Now here’s the best part,” Chalk said. “Sheriff Bassett took on Deger as a deputy—Deger probably figuring on a short career on the city’s payroll.” The bartender was about to burst to get out the best part of the story. “Then Bat, as undersheriff, up and fires Deger . . . pisses off Bassett, and now everybody’s mad at everybody.”

  Morgan stood and carried his mug behind the bar to the keg tap. “Chalk, I want you to run through all that again, and I’m gonna see if another beer will help me follow it this time.”

  After finishing his coffee Wyatt left the conversation on politics and walked his mare and the gelding down the alleyway to the hotel livery. After tipping the stable boy to brush down both animals, Wyatt entered the Dodge House through the back entrance, climbed the stairs, and found his former room occupied by a lumber salesman from Kansas City. Carrying his saddlebags and bedroll downstairs to the lobby, he rang the desk bell. The manager hurried from the backroom but slowed when he saw Wyatt.

  “You’ve got a man in my room.”

  The manager’s flushed face lowered to the register book, and when he looked back at Wyatt, his eyes sagged with apology. “The room was vacated, Marshal.”

  “I left money for that room.”

  “Well, yes, you did . . . but your . . . the lady terminated the lease and took a refund.” Wyatt’s face showed nothing. The man forced a contrite smile. “I’m sorry, Marshal.”

  Wyatt nodded. “Can I get a room?”

  Now the man seemed to shrink. He pulled in his lips and took on a pained expression.

  “I’m sorry, we’re all full at the moment, Marshal.”

  Wyatt nodded, looked down at his boots, and then brought his eyes up to the clerk again. “I’m not the marshal.”

  “Well . . . all right . . . but a room should free up within the week,” the man said.

  “Can I board my horses in your livery until then?”

  “Of course. And I’ll promise you our first available room.”

  The next day Morgan breezed into the hotel livery, where Wyatt was shirtless, grooming the chestnut mare and Rilla’s gelding. Without a word of greeting, Morgan—seemingly pleased with himself—leaned against a stall divider and unfolded a newspaper. Without interrupting the rhythm of the brush on the horse’s legs, Wyatt turned his head to his brother.

  “What’re you smiling at?”

  Morgan held his grin and struck a pose as if he were reciting a poem at the Women’s Literary Club. He cleared his throat, lowered his eyebrows, and spoke in a deep, resonant tone that made Wyatt think of his father.

  “ ‘Wyatt Earp is in town again. We hope he will accept a position on the police force once more. He had a quiet way of taking the most desperate characters into custody which invariably gave one the impression that the city was able to enforce her mandates and preserve her dignity. It wasn’t considered policy to draw a gun on Wyatt unless you got the drop and meant to burn powder without any preliminary talk.’ ”

  Wyatt placed a hand on the mare’s rump, hinged around her hindquarters, and picked up a bucket of water. Morgan laughed and swatted the paper against his leg. At the sound, the mare sidestepped and nickered, and Wyatt spoke softly to calm her as he poured water down her flanks.

  “Damn, brother, you’re startin’ to sound like Wild Bill his-self.” Morgan raised the paper and shook it as if it were the conclusive evidence in a court trial. “With this . . . and Wells, Fargo wantin’ to hire you . . . a fellow might believe you’re gettin’ to be famous.”

  Morg held an expectant smile, but Wyatt did not look at him.

  “So . . . you gonna take it?” Morg prodded.

  “Take what?”

  Morg slapped the newspaper against his leg again. “The marshalin’ job! What do you think I mean?”

  Wyatt lifted the bucket over the mare’s withers and poured a steady trickle of water along the spine. “Can’t take something that ain’t offered,” he replied. He looked at his brother and nodded toward the newspaper in Morgan’s hand. “That’s the Times talking. Probably trying to shame Deger and Kelley for all their shenanigans.”

  Morg laughed with a hint of exasperation. “Well, maybe you should run for governor or somethin’.”

  Wyatt poised with the bucket as if considering laundering Morgan’s dress shirt. “Maybe I should run you out o’ here.”

  Laughing wholeheartedly now, Morgan backed up, using the newspaper as a shield. Wyatt poured water down the mare’s corded rear legs and then scraped away the trail muck with the brush. He looked back at his younger brother and straightened at the change in Morgan’s face.

  “I saw Mattie,” Morgan said quietly and squinted one eye in a wince. “She’s working for Frankie Bell.”

  The two brothers stared at one another, until Wyatt began stroking the horse’s flanks with short, brisk strokes. Morgan stepped to the mare and let his hand glide down the neck. When he spoke again, there was an uncommon gentleness in his voice.

  “Finish up and let’s go down to the Delmonico. I’ll buy you some dinner.” Then, as if hearing the heaviness in his words, Morg tried to lighten the mood. “We’ll see if anybody recognizes the celebrity in town.”

  Wyatt stroked the same place a dozen times, then stopped, staring at the horse’s smooth coat, seeing nothing but Mattie’s pitiful face the way he remembered it when he had first met her at James’s brothel. “Workin’ for Frankie Bell ain’t no damned good for her,” he said.

  “Well . . . if it weren’t for whores . . .” Morgan said and shrugged.

  “I ain’t saying nothin’ ’bout whores. I’m saying Mattie ain’t suited for it.”

  Morgan narrowed his eyes. “I kind o’ thought you were wishin’ her on her way.”

  “I was. Just not that way.”

  He poured what was left of the water over the horse’s heels and hung the bucket on a peg. The chestnut snorted and shifted her weight from one leg to the other, trying to see behind her.

  Wyatt looked into the mare’s dark eye when he spoke. “I’ll go clean up. Then we’ll eat.”

  Front Street was dominated by a slow-moving train of covered wagons—eleven of them—stretching from the train depot down to Bob Wright’s store. The migrants had come to a stop, and, because most westering bands passed through town on the south side along the old Santa Fe Trail, these travelers were drawing a crowd. One wagon had its sheets down, and there exposed to all the world was the sum total of the family’s possessions covered in a patina of gray dust: a cast iron Dutch oven and fry pan, a porcelain wash basin, canvas trunks strapped with thick leather belts and brass buckles, bolts of cloth, a chest of drawers. All of it was neatly packed and bound by tie-ropes.

  Wyatt stayed on the boardwalk as Morgan walked out into the street to get a look at the lead driver. Picking up speed Morgan turned to Wyatt with a smile and waved him to follow. From the lead wagon Wyatt heard a gritty voice that opened a floodgate of memories. Nicholas Earp barked a laugh and climbed down by way of the wheel hub to meet Morgan. Wyatt stepped down from the walkway into the hard light and took his time walking toward this unexpected revival of his past.

  The three Earp men stood together in the middle of the street, and it was clear even as they shook hands that the father believed he had repossessed his dominion over his scattered family. He spoke of menial events that had passed
since last they had been together and complained of the government’s ineptitude at controlling the last of the wild Indians. As Nicholas went on about his new journey to California, Wyatt walked to the lead wagon, where his mother watched his approach from the wagon box.

  “Going at it again, are you?” he said and took off his hat.

  She had aged in ways that made her seem more sedate, even fragile. Once she had been a woman constantly in motion, her chores never done. Now she appeared to sit back and take what came. It made the time that had passed seem more than a decade. She reached toward him, and Wyatt stepped up on the wheel hub to squeeze her hand.

  “You’re a sight to see, Ma.”

  She sighed through a feeble laugh. “For someone who once called himself a farmer, your father seems to have no notion of what roots are.”

  Her smile was unchanged by the years and took him back to Iowa. In some way that he could not define, he felt sullied standing before her.

  “You need to meet Bill Edwards, son,” she continued. “Your new brother-in-law.”

  In the street joining Morgan and Nicholas were Virgil, Warren, Adelia, two dogs, and a slim man, who nodded each time Nicholas made some point during his oration. Morgan held out a palm to hush his father and began reading the article about Wyatt from the Times.

  “Come on down, Ma,” Wyatt said. “Looks like the party’s over yonder.”

  She waved him away. “Oh, I’d just have to climb back up again. You go on. Tell Morgan to come over here and see me.”

  He started away but turned when she spoke his name. She busied her hands on the tie-cord of her bonnet and waited for him to take the few steps back. The reunion in the street grew louder, and she watched her family as she spoke.

  “Lord, but I’ve made some handsome sons. You all look so grown up in your moustaches.” Her eyes shone like smooth creek stones lifted up from clear water. “Morgan seems . . . well . . . he’s Morgan.” Her eyes lowered to Wyatt, and her mouth turned down at the corners. “But tell me how you are, son.”

  Wyatt rested a hand on the metal rim of the wheel. The warmth of it was like a symbol for movement . . . for progress. His father had always stayed on the move, looking for that next try at a successful life. Wyatt was surprised how this idea made his presence in Dodge feel like stagnation.

  “I’m good as the next fellow, I reckon,” he finally answered.

  Her expression did not alter. She was, perhaps, the one person who could outwait him, stand him before a looking glass, if only for a moment. She seemed not to breathe as she studied his face.

  “You look carved out of stone, Wyatt. Is it Aurilla?”

  Wyatt turned his head to the draft horses and watched the flies worry their eyes. The sounds of the town around him congealed into a common blur that now seemed to have little meaning for him.

  “Your father lost a wife, too, Wyatt. Newton’s mother. Then he moved on, started new.” Her voice picked up a trace of hope. “That’s how you come to be, you know.”

  Wyatt nodded but kept looking down the street. It wasn’t much of a town, built first on the skins of dull-witted buffalo and then on cattle, but he was making a go of it, especially in the gambling rooms. One thing was for certain: Aurilla would not have liked it here.

  “I was stuck on it for a time,” he said. “Took me a few places I might not ought to ’a gone. I reckon I got past it.” He looked straight into her eyes. “I’m all right, Ma.”

  Virginia nodded, but her face held a question. “Are you settling here in Dodge?”

  “Reckon I’ll just wait and see.” He began inventorying the signs hanging on the stores, cataloguing the gamut of vocations represented. He considered pointing out the marshal’s office but then thought better of it.

  “Don’t settle like that, son. Figure out the best life and then go to work on it. Do you understand what I mean?” Her voice trailed off. “It goes so fast, Wyatt. Before one day . . . you have to settle.”

  The pale sickle moon hung above the day, a washed-out blue against the deeper blue of the sky. It had been a long time—maybe a year—since the haunting face of Valenzuela Cos had risen before his eyes. As a person, she was almost a nonentity to him now. Her dark features had blurred with time. She would be grown now, different in ways he could not imagine, but even now the moon could take on the guise of her personal dispatch.

  “Find yourself somebody to share it with, Wyatt.”

  These words, like a brick hurled through glass, shattered his thoughts and brought him back to the hard light pressing down on the dusty street. Then Virgil was there, slapping him on the back and pulling him down the line of wagons.

  “Somebody I want you to meet, Wyatt,” Virgil said beaming, turning his younger brother to where Morgan was standing at the tailgate of a loaded-down Studebaker. Morg was pouring on the charm. When they rounded the back of the wagon, Wyatt faced a tiny grasshopper of a woman sitting on a stack of blankets, giggling, and repairing a torn basket with baling twine.

  “This here is Allie,” Virge introduced. “Al, this is the last of the brothers.”

  Her nose wrinkled with mischief. “Now which one are you?” she teased, pointing one bare foot at Wyatt.

  Wyatt looked at the dirt-stained foot for a moment and then back at Virgil, who was smiling as if he’d just won the grand prize at a shooting match. Morgan pinched the girl’s toe, and she laughed—a cachinnating cascade that made Virgil’s smile spread across his face.

  “This here’s the one gettin’ famous in the newspaper,” Morgan said. “But I’m the good-looking one. Hell, anybody can see that.”

  “This is Wyatt, Allie,” Virgil explained and slung an arm around Wyatt’s shoulders.

  “Where’d you find this little alley cat, Virge?” teased Morgan.

  “Plucked her right out o’ Council Bluffs,” Virgil said, then wheezed up his familiar laugh. “She’s a handful of Irish, I can tell you.” He looked from one brother to the other. “You boys got you a woman yet?”

  “I got about two dozen,” Morgan said straight faced. “I’m thinkin’ on goin’ Mormon.” Allie giggled at him. Morgan had his audience.

  “What about you, Wyatt?” Virgil said, his face intent with the question.

  “I ain’t married.”

  Warren joined the gathering, listening to the banter of his older brothers. Keeping his eyes on Wyatt, Warren tried to stand as tall as the others.

  “You three boys are like peas in a pod,” Allie declared, sweeping her index finger to include the three older brothers. “All that pretty yeller hair and moustaches.” She made a face at Warren and let her eyes rove over his dark hair. “I swan, Warren! You must’a been dropped on the doorstep by some gypsy woman.”

  “Least I weren’t dropped on my head,” Warren shot back. Trying unsuccessfully to hide his hurt pride, he turned his back to her. “Are you the marshal here, Wyatt?” Warren asked.

  Morgan rattled the newspaper. “Don’t need to be a marshal when you’re this famous.”

  Virgil leaned on the wagon, his arm resting on Allie’s knee. “I reckon we’ll have to find you a woman, Wyatt.” Virge winked at Morgan. “Can’t you free up one of yours, Morg? For your brother’s sake?”

  Morgan squinted and rubbed his chin. “Well, there’s one or two gettin’ to be a little old for me. I might could spare ’em.” They all looked to Wyatt for a rejoinder.

  “I expect there’s plenty we could talk about b’sides you planning my future for me,” Wyatt said and pushed his hat down on his head. “Let me go see Adelia and meet her husband. See if they want to run my life for me, too.”

  As Wyatt moved toward his sister and her husband in the middle of the street, Warren followed anxiously. “You were marshal here in Dodge, weren’t you, Wyatt? Did you have to kill anybody yet?”

  Wyatt looked down at his youngest brother as the two walked abreast of one another. “I was assistant marshal,” he said and slackened his stride to match Warren’s shorter stature
. “Pretty much the same as bein’ marshal, except for the pay. I ain’t had to kill anybody.” Wyatt could see the disappointment in the youngest Earp’s face. He clapped a hand on Warren’s shoulder and kept it there. “The whole point of a lawman’s job is tryin’ to prevent people from killin’. These pistoleers you hear about notchin’ their guns . . . that’s just a lot of dime novel nonsense.”

  Warren frowned, but the novelty of a notched gun handle brightened his dark eyes. “I ain’t killed nobody . . . not yet anyway.”

  Wyatt smiled. “Well, why don’t you try and hold onto that record.”

  Warren’s eyes filled with a new energy, and Wyatt realized how little he knew the boy. “Hell, I’ve known a few who needed killin’,” Warren crowed, “and if I weren’t with Ma and Pa, I might’a done it, too.”

  Wyatt squeezed his brother’s shoulder and shook him once like a gentle wake-up. “Well, don’t be killing anybody in Dodge, all right? We got laws against it.”

  Warren’s earnestness for the conversation had colored his face as if he were running a fever. “You ever need help with anybody, I’ll be ready to back you,” Warren said, his voice as hard and blustery as his father’s.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Wyatt said. “Now how ’bout you introducing me to our brother-in-law.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Summer, 1877: Dodge City, Kansas

  When the cattle season ended, Wyatt lost any chance at finding a place on the police force. He wired Wells, Fargo in San Francisco, and they, in turn, referred him to the Santa Fe Railroad, which had been robbed twice in Kansas in the last year and was looking for a detective to follow the outlaws’ trail south to Texas. He signed on, but—before he left—he felt an obligation to confront Mattie.

  Frankie Bell ran a string of whores, drifting from one establishment to the other, depending on a particular saloon’s popularity and prosperity in a given season. Wyatt found Mattie at the Lady Gay, the reigning watering hole south of the tracks and the current favorite congregating site for all Texans.