Born to the Badge Page 8

  Wyatt had been kneeling with a pry bar. Now he straightened and began unrolling the sleeves of his blouse to button them at his wrists.

  “What kind of trouble?” Wyatt said.

  Hatton looked back down the street as if he might have been followed. “Some loud-mouth . . . calls himself ‘Sergeant King’ . . . claims he is a soldier, but he’s not wearing a uniform. Says our law on checking firearms is unnatural. Says he won’t give up his gun to any man. He’s daring someone on the police force to come try to take it from him.”

  “Sergeant King,” Wyatt repeated, his voice resigned, as if recalling the name from a list of miscreants.

  “You know ’im, Wyatt?” Cairns said.

  Wyatt nodded. “I heard of him. He alone?”

  Hatton frowned and pushed both hands into his trouser pockets. “Hard to tell,” he said. “He certainly has an audience, and he seems on good terms with the cattlemen.”

  “Drinking?” Wyatt asked.

  “Oh, yes,” the lawyer huffed. “Looks like he’s trying to drain the barrels dry down there.”

  Wyatt pushed his shirttails deeper into the waistband of his trousers. “Thank you, Mr. Hatton,” he said and picked up his holster and revolver from the bench under the awning. Buckling the belt, Wyatt turned to Cairns. “Jimmy, get a scattergun from the office and meet me at the Keno.” Wyatt picked up his hat and fitted it to his head.

  Cairns dropped the nails into his shirt pocket. “Shotgun? Inside a gamblin’ house?” But Wyatt was already walking away with the portly lawyer hurrying behind him. Cairns snatched up his gun belt from the bench and broke into a run for the city offices.

  Just before reaching the intersection of Douglas and Main, Wyatt could hear the laughter of an all-male crowd. When he rounded the corner, he saw two dozen men loitering on the boardwalk and street, all of them enjoying the one-man show out in the center of the thoroughfare. On the far side of the street, merchants and their customers crowded the doorways of sundry shops to observe from a safe distance.

  The lone entertainer was a strutter, grunting and gesturing with his arms as he paced a circle in long strides and delivered his oration to any and all who would listen. His bright blue blouse was the color of the summer sky and still showed crease marks where recently it had been folded on the mercantile shelf. His canvas trousers were equally new, dyed a blue-black and unmarked by dirt or stain of any kind. A broad-brimmed hat matched the trousers. Only the boots showed wear—the same boots Wyatt had seen on every soldier he had met while gambling at Fort Larned. On his left hip the man in the street wore an Army Model Colt’s stuffed into a military holster with its flap cut away. The gun sat at a diagonal angle on the belt with the butt forward.

  “Look at you!” he barked, pointing at the crowd and pivoting the outstretched arm to include everyone in front of the gambling house. “You boys call yourselves ‘Texans’?” He thrust a thumb at his chest and leaned forward to drive home a point. “Well, I ain’t gonna let some piece o’ town shit wearin’ a tin star take away my damned gun! Not in this Godforsaken dust hole in Kansas . . . not anywhere!”

  A few of the bystanders caught sight of Wyatt’s approach, and heads began to turn like a slow shuffle of cards. When Sergeant King saw the movement, he turned to face the oncoming deputy. King’s right hand reached across his midsection and clamped down on the pistol butt.

  “Pull that and I’ll kill you,” Wyatt said, his hand stopping its natural swing to take a grip on his own revolver. He kept walking steadily forward, never altering his stride, his right elbow cocked upward to accommodate the grip on his Colt’s.

  Behind him Wyatt heard the clomping of boots come to a halt in the street, but he could not afford to take his eyes off the showman before him.

  “I’m right here, Wyatt,” Cairns called out to his back. “I got the ten-gauge.” By the sound of his voice, Cairns was sidling away from the Keno for a better angle.

  Wyatt kept moving toward King. “Jimmy,” he called over his shoulder, “check that crowd for weapons from where you are. You see anybody move a hand an inch, I want you to open up on ’em.”

  Several of the men on the boardwalk straightened and stared at the shotgun. Two metallic clicks from the shotgun’s hammers stilled the group of Texans into the living likeness of a tintype. Wyatt kept walking.

  “Who the hell’re you?” King demanded. His quick, flinty eyes jumped to the dull, silver scroll pinned to Wyatt’s blouse. His hand tensed on the pistol grips, his knuckles blanching like chips of white stone embedded beneath the skin.

  Six yards away Wyatt kept coming, his stride smooth and deliberate. The sound of his boots in the street was like a clock ticking off the seconds that separated the here and now from eternity.

  “I asked you a goddamned question!” King shouted. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the man who’s gonna take that pistol from you.”

  King tried to laugh, but the sound caught in his throat like the croak of a raven. “D’you know who I am? I been—”

  “Don’t matter who you are,” Wyatt interrupted. He watched the tip of the man’s tongue dart across his upper lip as his jittery gaze settled on Wyatt’s grip on his gun. “You’re breaking the law.”

  “Son,” King bellowed, trying to conjure up some grit for his audience, “I chew up people like you for breakfast. You ever hear of Sergeant King?”

  Wyatt stopped so close to King that he could smell the factory scent of his new blouse. “Take your right hand off that gun,” he ordered, “and then you’re going to hand it to me with your left . . . two fingers only.”

  King stiffened. His eyes flicked toward Jimmy Cairns’s shotgun and then to the crowd that had backed toward the sidewalk. When he looked back at Wyatt, his upper lip curled, and his face wrinkled like the muzzle of a snarling dog.

  “Nobody takes my goddamned gun . . . ’specially no cocksure, sonovabitch lawman from Kansas.”

  Wyatt’s face showed nothing. Under the brim of his hat, his blue eyes were like ice, unwavering and set with purpose.

  “You got this one chance,” he said so quietly that King had to cock his head to put one ear forward. “I ain’t gonna ask you again.”

  King smiled and manufactured a dry, raspy laugh. “You think you can get that gun o’ yours into—”

  The stinging slap of Wyatt’s open hand could be heard half a block away. The braggart’s new hat flew off his head as if by a sudden gust of wind that affected no other person present. Wyatt had moved so fast, King’s delayed reflex to cover himself appeared comical. The surprised troublemaker reeled and came close to losing his footing. When he recovered, he crouched and tightened like a coiled spring, his right hand still wrapped around the curve of the pistol handle. Then the hostile expression on his face dissolved when he saw the Colt’s in Wyatt’s hand leveled at his chest.

  “Left hand,” Wyatt reminded him.

  As King glared back at him, Wyatt could see a strange twist of light turning in the man’s eye. He had seen it before in Ellsworth, when Ben Thompson’s little brother had killed Sheriff Whitney with a shotgun at point-blank range. There was no reasoning with people like these—half-cocked, unpredictable, well on their way to moon-howling drunk, and maybe a little crazy if the rumors about King were true. Any officer who tried using logic with men such as these, Wyatt knew, was himself a fool.

  Stepping forward, Wyatt clamped his left hand on King’s wrist and with his right swung the heavy barrel of the Colt’s into the man’s temple. King went down hard, crushing the new hat that had sailed to the dusty street, but his hand was still gripped to his holstered weapon. Wyatt swung the gun again, slashing at the wrist until the man released his hold on the revolver.

  Lying on his back now, King screamed and cradled his damaged wrist in his left hand. His eyes squeezed so tightly shut, the skin pulled taut across the bones of his face. Cursing through gritted teeth, he opened his eyes to find Wyatt standing over him.

  “Take the
damn gun then, goddamn you . . . unless you wanna break s’more of my bones for me, you sneaky sonovabitch!”

  Wyatt knelt. “No, you’re gonna give it to me,” he said quietly, “just like I said.”

  King’s face went slack, and the crazy glimmer in his irises was replaced by a dull sheen of confusion. “What?” he whispered.

  When Wyatt held out his free hand palm up, the prostrate man awkwardly shifted in the street, bent his left elbow, and pinched the pistol with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. With the gun dangling so, he raised it high enough to drop into Wyatt’s hand.

  After checking the man’s waist and boots for another weapon, Wyatt stood and faced the crowd standing on the boardwalk in front of the Keno. “Anybody else carryin’, Jimmy?”

  “Not that I can tell, Wyatt,” Cairns reported.

  Wyatt held his glare on the crowd. “How about it? Anybody else?”

  The Texans’ faces went hard and sullen, each man trying to salvage some pride with a show of insolence or resentment or indifference. Not one of them spoke.

  “You obey our laws,” Wyatt said plainly, “and you’re welcome here in Wichita.” He holstered his gun and jerked King to his feet. “Otherwise,” he continued, “you’ll be spending your celebration time inside the city jail and nursing a sore head.”

  “What kind o’ law gives you the right to crack a man’s skull like that?” said one of the drovers.

  Wyatt recognized the complainer as one of the trail bosses he had met earlier in the day. “I figure a man would rather wake up with a sore head . . . instead of in a grave.”

  The foreman seemed to be at a loss for words. Finally, he pushed his palm in front of him as if waving away an irritating insect.

  “Aw, hell . . . he wasn’t one o’ ours anyway.” Turning on his heel he walked back into the gambling house. One by one the others followed.

  Taking King by the scruff of his collar, Wyatt hauled him down the street toward the city jail. Still groggy from the blow to his head, King stumbled and did his best to keep up. All his venom was gone. An open gash on the side of his head poured a slick stream of blood down the left side of his whiskered face.

  “You broke my damn arm . . . and pro’bly my head, too,” King whimpered.

  “You dealt the hand,” Wyatt said. “I had a legal right to shoot you. Would you rather I’d done that?”

  King thought about the question for a moment. “Well, I might’ve, goddamn you!”

  When they came abreast of Cairns and Charles Hatton, the four men walked together with Cairns gripping the prisoner’s other arm. Cairns leaned in close, narrowed his eyes, and studied King’s wound.

  “He’s gonna need a doctor, Wyatt.”

  Wyatt nodded. “Jimmy, see can Doc Fabrique come down to the jail.”

  “You want me to run out to Meagher’s house and tell ’im?”

  Wyatt shook his head. “Just the doc.”

  Cairns took off at a run. Hatton hurried ahead to the city offices and opened the door for the deputy and his prisoner. Wyatt settled King into a cell and locked the door. When he returned to the marshal’s office, Hatton was waiting.

  “That may have been the nerviest thing I’ve ever seen a man do,” the lawyer said.

  Wyatt gave the man a questioning look.

  “He could have made a fight of it,” Hatton continued. “Could have shot you down.”

  Wyatt pursed his lips and began shaking his head. “Not likely,” he said and stored King’s revolver in a drawer of Meagher’s desk.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “He’s mean, but he’s not the kind who’s ready to die to prove it,” Wyatt said. “Probably the kind accustomed to bluffing other men down.”

  “And you were willing to stake your life on that?”

  Wyatt sat on the edge of the desk and met Hatton’s eyes. “What happened out there needed to happen. And everybody who witnessed it . . . they needed to see it.”

  “You mean . . . so the drovers will know we’re serious about our new ban on firearms in the town limits.” When Wyatt did not answer, the attorney pressed on. “But how did you know he wouldn’t pull on you? You yourself said he was a killer.”

  Wyatt looked down at his hands, opened and closed them, and then met Hatton’s earnest face again. “He’s killed some. But not face to face, I’ll wager. A man who has to convince ever’body else how brave he is . . . that’s a man who ain’t sure of himself. He knows he’s afraid. That’s why he’s a back-shooter.”

  Hatton started to push his argument but closed his mouth when Wyatt continued.

  “A coward like that can recognize a man who sees into ’im. Gives that man the upper hand.”

  Hatton lowered his eyebrows and frowned. He puckered his lips in a thoughtful expression and began to nod.

  “Well,” the lawyer said, “I’m in no position to argue the matter with you. You seem to know what you’re doing.”

  Wyatt pushed up from the desk as the door opened. Cairns and the doctor bustled in and moved straight to the cell block. Wyatt walked to the doorway to watch Cairns open the iron door. King was complaining about being manhandled even before the doctor could ask a question.

  “Wyatt?” Hatton said from the front door. “I still think it was the nerviest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Wyatt looked back into the dark of the cell block, where King bowed his head as the doctor probed at his wound. “I reckon it’s part o’ the job, Mr. Hatton,” Wyatt said. When he turned back to the attorney, he raised his chin toward the window and the street beyond. “Now that it’s done, I reckon things’ll run smooth enough.”

  Deep in thought, Hatton stared into the middle distance and frowned. “Yes,” he finally admitted. “I imagine they will.”

  CHAPTER 10

  January, 1876: Wichita, Kansas

  The demonstration of force exhibited in the King arrest served to set the precedent that Wyatt had intended. The cattle season ran its course, bringing in the revenue that the town had hoped for . . . without the rowdiness and gunplay that had been the norm in the past. For the lawmen there were fewer bonuses for arrests and court appearances, but the deficit was balanced somewhat by grateful merchants who afforded the police force discounts on their goods. Most of this was levied through liquor in the saloons . . . or, in Wyatt’s case, coffee. A free cup awaited him in every establishment in both Wichita and Delano.

  More importantly, Wyatt’s reputation had sunk its roots into every layer of society. He was not invited to upper-crust gatherings or to meals with the councilmen and their families, but the deference he was paid by all the citizens was apparent in the respectful glances he received on the street.

  Mike Meagher knew what he had in Deputy Earp and began to call on him more often, especially when a situation needed a quiet resolution. Behrens, the marshal knew, could handle any trouble that dragged into town, but Earp’s demeanor in instances of conflict left a calmer wake in the current of town gossip that followed. Meagher saw this as a feather in his cap that might solidify votes for him when the elections came around again.

  Wyatt thought otherwise.

  When the summer burned out and the prairie began to yellow, Morgan, Cairns, and two other deputies were laid off, leaving only Wyatt and Behrens to serve on the force with Meagher. Trading on his gambling skills and his mastery over a billiards cue, Morg divided his time between half a dozen saloons on both sides of the river. His boyish humor had won him many a friend among the sporting crowd, and—because they were brothers—this popularity seemed to leaven Wyatt’s way of handling all situations with his no-nonsense, taciturn manner.

  As Behrens put it outside the Gold Room one night, “If you two Earps could join at the hip to become one package, you could probably be the mayor, police chief, and big boss gambler of Wichita all rolled into one.”

  Wyatt barely cracked a smile and looked down at his boots. He knew Morgan would provide a comeback for both of them.

 
; “Well, John,” Morg began, “as I see it, that would present a coupl’a problems. First of all . . . ever’ time we walk into a saloon, we’d have to mix up a terrible concoction of cold beer and hot coffee to satisfy the both of us.” Morg made a face. “Sort o’ cancels out to lukewarm, don’t it? I ain’t sure I can handle that.” He traded his sour expression for one of dead earnestness. “And second . . . there’s a lot o’ frisky women in this town dependin’ on me to slake their urges, if you know what I mean.” Morg lowered his eyebrows and pressed his mouth into a hard line of regret. “I ain’t so sure I could perform with my big brother lookin’ over my shoulder.”

  “Hell!” Behrens laughed. “It’d be his pecker, too, wouldn’t it?”

  Morg’s face pinched with worry. “Well, damn . . . that won’t work either. Sounds like I’d be havin’ only half the fun.”

  Both men looked at Wyatt to see if he would laugh. Wyatt cut his eyes from one to the other and then settled on Behrens. “If I ever join at the hip with someone, it won’t be this smiling mooncalf.” He jabbed a thumb toward his brother, turned, and started slowly down the street. “I’m gonna make the rounds,” he called over his shoulder.

  Morgan smiled and winked at Behrens. “Hey, Wyatt,” he called out. “We’d be a force to be reckoned with. I might be willin’ to share some o’ those frisky women with you.”

  Wyatt did not respond. He kept walking, his eyes already scanning the merchants’ doors and windows, checking that they were secure. As soon as he finished his circuit through the business district, he had a faro game to open at Rupp’s.

  Just after the New Year, Wyatt sat in a four-hand poker game in the Custom House. The only other customers in the room were two railroad men downing beer as they argued over an unfurled map they had pinned to the table with empty mugs. The bartender slowly pushed a broom around the floor, trying to keep the stirred-up dust to a minimum.

  “Henry,” called one of the railroad men to the barman, “I been suckin’ in coal dust and cinders for two days. I was hopin’ to learn how to breathe again.”