Born to the Badge Read online

  Without complaint Henry laid down his broom and walked behind the bar, where he upended a partially full whiskey bottle above a funnel inserted into another. When the upper bottle had drained, he corked the lower one and set it on the liquor-lined shelf behind him.

  When the door opened, Wyatt glanced up to see Morgan push in from the night. Blowing against the cold and slapping flakes of snow off the sleeves of his dark overcoat, Morg spoke to Henry and nodded to every patron in the room. Wyatt watched his brother only long enough to deliver a silent message: Business is in session.

  The three men at Wyatt’s table studied their cards, one of them gnawing at his lower lip with a yellowed tooth, the other two trying to appear confident. Wyatt sipped his coffee and waited. At the gaming table he was imperturbable, his professional demeanor as fixed as the North Star. Setting down his coffee, he folded both hands over his closed cards and continued to wait.

  “Raise thirty,” he finally said, his voice clear and without inflection. From his wallet he counted out the proper bills and stacked them at the center of the table, where a few modest denominations marked the beginnings of the pot. The oil lamp sitting on the table gave the paper money a yellowish cast.

  The players frowned at him but got no reaction. Returning their attention to their own hands, they stared at their cards like would-be alchemists attempting to divine gold out of lesser metals. Wyatt leaned and set his coffee cup on the wood heater.

  Morgan hung his coat on a wall peg and moved to the stove, where he splayed the fingers of both hands to the heat and then rubbed his palms together briskly. “Cold enough out there to put out a lit cigar!” he declared. “I think maybe the river has froze solid.”

  When no one replied, Morg ambled over to the table to watch the game. Half a minute ticked by without a word or movement.

  Morg laughed. “Holdin’ a prayer session here, boys?”

  Wyatt kept his eyes on the players. One of the gamblers—a thickset man with tufts of hair spilling out from under his shirtsleeves—added a fan of bills to the loose stack. “I’ll see your thirty and . . . raise you ten.”

  The other two men folded, one gracefully and the other with an irritated slap of his cards. Both players sat back as spectators and appeared relieved to be out of the running.

  Wyatt added a ten . . . and then he counted out three additional bills. “How ’bout we take it up thirty more,” he said quietly.

  The remaining player flashed a crooked smile on his meaty face. “I believe you’re tryin’ to buy the pot, Earp.”

  Wyatt nodded at the possibility. “Cost you thirty to find out, Mr. Black,” he said.

  Black privately fanned open his cards again and held his smirk. He took in a fill of air through his nose and purged it quickly. Several seconds passed, and no one spoke or moved. Finally a log tumbled inside the stove, and a spray of sparks shot out of the vent and crackled in the air like a flurry of distant gunshots.

  “Aw, hell!” Black grumbled and threw his cards face down on the table. “I go home empty handed and my wife will tack my hide to the hotel door.” He curled his lip at the money on the table. “Take it, goddammit, but don’t tell me whether or not you got what I think you got. I’d rather not know if you skinned me.” He pushed both hands at the air toward Wyatt. “I’m done.” He looked at the men at either side. “How ’bout you boys?”

  The three men rose as a party, the same way they had come in. Wyatt nodded to each of them. Only when they moved to the bar did he begin to sort through the money, stacking the bills by denomination.

  Smiling, Morgan sat and folded his arms over his chest. Then he tilted his head to one side and widened his smile at the pile of money.

  “Well, ain’t you the fluff on the ki-yote’s tail? How much?”

  Wyatt checked the bar. The three men were deep into their shared condolences and talking over mugs of beer.

  “Little under two hundred,” Wyatt said quietly.

  Morg reached across the table to turn up the cards his brother had set down. Wyatt let him.

  Morg’s eyebrows lifted, and he hummed a sliding note of approval. “Weren’t bluffin’, were you?”

  Continuing with his count, Wyatt cut his eyes to Morgan, letting his silence be answer enough.

  Morg turned in his chair to watch the men at the bar work on their drinks. When he turned back to Wyatt, he wrinkled his nose so that his front teeth showed beneath the sandy wisp of moustaches he was grooming.

  “Ain’t that the Black who James said you threw out o’ his whore’s window?”

  Wyatt nodded. “It is.”

  Morg smiled. “Well, how the hell d’you get ’im to play poker with you?”

  Wyatt put away his money, tapped the cards together, and held up the deck next to his face as he stared at his brother. “Cards are business. When you sit down at the table, it’s all about the money. You leave everything else out of it.” He laid the deck on the table next to his watch. He could have been a parson, finished with his reading and setting down a Bible.

  Black and his two friends scuffed out of the saloon, leaving the room to the two Earps and the two railroad workers . . . and the bartender, who now cleaned the countertop with a damp rag. After the door slammed and the bar settled into a new silence, the barman began to hum a tune.

  Wyatt lifted his Colt’s revolver from his lap and set it on the table, the gun making a decisive tap on the varnished wood. Morgan frowned and stared at his brother.

  “What the hell? You had that sittin’ there all along?”

  Wyatt let his eyebrows float up a quarter inch. It was as close as he ever came to shrugging.

  “If ever I’m wrong about a man like Black,” he said, “it don’t hurt to be careful.”

  Smiling, Morg shook his head and picked up the gun. “I got to get me one o’ these. I might be the last man in Kansas slavin’ over a cap and ball.”

  “That German down at the gun shop can convert it for you,” Wyatt advised. “B’fore long, you won’t be able to buy cap and ball supplies.”

  Morgan hefted the weight of the gun and tested its balance in his hand. “Feels good, don’t it?” When Wyatt did not answer, Morg’s face turned serious as he laid the gun back down on the table. “Reckon you’ll run for the marshal’s post come spring?” he asked Wyatt.

  Wyatt pushed his fingers through his hair and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands in a grinding motion. “I been thinkin’ on it.” When his hands came down, he blinked to clear his eyes until the blur of the room returned into sharp resolution. “I guess maybe the time is right.”

  “Will Meagher run?” Morg asked.

  Wyatt thought about the question and then nodded. “Prob’ly.”

  “Will that be a problem . . . between the two o’ you, I mean.”

  Wyatt wrapped his hand with a white handkerchief and reached for his coffee. He shook his head.

  “It’s like the cards,” he explained. “It’s business. If I was to win, I’d want to have him on the force. I ’spect he’d do the same for me.” He sipped from the cup with an airy sputter, careful to avoid the burn on his lips.

  The door opened again, and John Behrens brought in a gust of wind and snow. He kicked the door shut with his boot and walked straight for the heater. His nose was ruddy red and his eyes watery. Snow clung to his hat and shoulders. When he saw the gun next to Morgan’s hand, his face pinched, and his beady eyes narrowed to slits.

  “You need help over there, Wyatt? Looks like you come up against a honest-to-God desperado.”

  Morgan laughed. “Ain’t me he’s worried ’bout. He’s been sittin’ here through a poker game keepin’ his pecker warm with this.” He picked up the pistol and waggled it in the air.

  “Hell, I’d wear it there, too, if I thought it would keep me warm tonight,” Behrens said. He hitched his thumb toward the oppressive cold of the night waiting outside the door. “You been cuttin’ the cards with Black again?”

  Wyatt no
dded and reached for his gun. “Let me have that, Morg, before you shoot someone.” Dropping the Colt’s in the side pocket of his coat, he pushed back his chair, stretched his legs beneath the table, arched his back, and flexed both arms, bending them until his fists were beside his ears. He took in a lot of air and exhaled in a rush. “Sittin’ too long,” he said and let his hands drop to the arms of the chair.

  “Hey, John,” Morg said, winking at Wyatt, “are you thinkin’ on runnin’ for marshal in April?”

  Behrens looked surprised. “Truth be told, I’m just hopin’ to still be the assistant marshal. Why?”

  Morgan couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “What would you think about Wyatt runnin’?”

  Behrens stared open-mouthed, his eyes cutting from one Earp to the other before settling on Wyatt. “You’re runnin’ against Meagher?”

  “Just thinkin’,” Wyatt said and pushed himself upright in the chair. As he started to stand, he felt the Colt’s tumble free from his coat. Before he could lower himself, the gun clattered off the seat of the chair and struck the floor.

  The gunshot filled the room. It was as if a bolt of lightning had cracked through the roof and split the floorboards into splinters. Morgan dodged partway under the table, and Behrens belatedly crouched behind the stove. The bartender stood slack-jawed staring at Wyatt, but the two rail workers had lunged for the door in tandem as if they had been shackled together. Now the two stood like statues peering toward the back of the room.

  “What the hell!” Behrens coughed dryly.

  Wyatt looked down at the gun still smoking on the plank floor. Then lifting the skirt of his coat and fanning it out to his side, he discovered a new hole where the bullet had ripped through the material just above the side pocket and below the breast.

  “Everybody all right?” the bartender volunteered.

  One of the men by the door straightened up but kept a hand on the door knob. “I ain’t sure till I know who the hell is shootin’ at who?” he said.

  “It’s all right,” Behrens announced to the room. “Just an accident.”

  Wyatt’s face was hard, his eyes like pale-blue stones set in white marble. He stood, walked to the gun, picked it up, and held it in the flat of his hand as though considering its weight. He returned Behrens’s gaze, but neither man spoke. Stuffing the pistol into his waistband, Wyatt returned to the table and picked up his coffee, his movements stiff and self-conscious. His cheeks were tinged with a rufous glow. The coffee had cooled, so he set it back down on the table.

  Smiling now, Morgan looked at the gouge in the wall where the bullet had ricocheted off the paneling and then punched a hole in the ceiling. Wyatt waited for his brother to meet his eyes.

  “Morgan,” Wyatt said in a low, firm monotone, “just shut up.”

  Morg’s face opened with youthful innocence. His shoulders rose up around his ears as he lifted both hands palms up. As he posed like that, his eyes began to twinkle with a devilish light. Then, just as quickly, he took on a solemn expression and turned to Behrens.

  “Hell, I’ll still vote for ’im, won’t you, John?”

  Before Behrens could answer, the door opened, and Marshal Meagher bustled in from the cold. He appeared at once curious and angry, his right hand clasping the butt of his holstered revolver. There was enough snow layered on the brim of his hat that he reached outside to slap it against the building before slamming the door. Even as he questioned the men at the front of the room, his eyes locked on the three men in the back.

  “Ever’thing’s dandy, Mike,” Behrens called out, rocking his hat forward and back on the top of his head. “Gun went off, is all.”

  Meagher strode to the back of the room, spread his boots, and tossed his hat on the table. Looking from one man to the next he waited for an explanation.

  “I got two deputies on the payroll,” he began in his gravelly voice, “but I couldn’t find neither one to see about a gunshot. Now it turns out you’re both down here and prob’ly the goddamn cause of it.”

  “Well, Wyatt ain’t on duty,” Behrens offered. “I am.”

  The marshal sucked something from his teeth and spat it toward the floor with a little popping sound. “Do one o’ you wanna tell me what the hell happened here?”

  Behrens took off his hat and tapped it against his leg as he studied the toes of his boots. Morgan filled his cheeks with air and let his breath slowly seep out.

  “Gun slipped out o’ my pocket,” Wyatt said, his voice even and clear. He offered nothing more.

  The wind outside rattled some loose roofing somewhere, and the vibration seemed to suck all other sounds out of the room. Meagher eyed the side of Wyatt’s coat.

  “You’ve got a damned rip in the back of your pocket.” Flashing Wyatt an impatient scowl, Meagher pushed back his coat to prop his hands on his hips. His marshal’s badge caught light from the table lamp and reflected it back like quicksilver. “You’re makin’ steady wages . . . why don’t you buy yourself a holster?”

  “Already got one,” Wyatt said. “Like John said, I’m off-duty.”

  Meagher looked away toward the men settling back at their table. The cartilage in his jaw pulsed like a heartbeat.

  “Happened to me one time, Mike,” Behrens volunteered. “In the coach from Topeka. Almost killed a shoe salesman.”

  A little twinkle showed in Morgan’s eyes, and he opened his mouth to add his story, but the look he got from Wyatt changed his mind.

  Meagher relaxed his stance, and one corner of his mouth twitched with what might have been the beginning of a smile. He slipped his hands into his coat pockets and slowly began to rock on the balls of his feet.

  “Well, hell,” he said, “I done it once, too.” Then he looked around the room at the bartender and two patrons. Turning back to Wyatt, he lowered his rough voice to a mumble. “But I weren’t wearin’ a badge at the time and didn’ have me an audience.”

  No one spoke for the time that Meagher studied the walls and the ceiling. He looked like he was searching for damage, but Wyatt knew the marshal was just going through the motions of being in charge.

  “Nobody got hurt, Mike,” Behrens said. “Forget it.”

  The marshal gave Behrens a dead-eyed stare. “Come spring, when somebody runs against me for this badge . . .” He tapped a finger to the metal shield on his chest. “I don’t wanna hear my opponent talkin’ about how one o’ my deputies let loose with a stray shot in a place of business.” He swept a hand through the air as if erasing all the plans he had made for himself. “That’s all it takes, you know. One damned little thing like that . . . and it’s over.”

  Wyatt kept his attention on Meagher, but in his peripheral vision he saw Behrens and Morgan cut their eyes to him.

  Ignoring Wyatt’s warning, Morgan smiled at the marshal with the crinkle in his eyes that endeared him to everyone. “Hell, Mike, this is the most excitement we’ve had since the cattle crews dragged out o’ Wichita. With all this shootin’ goin’ on durin’ the off-season, maybe you oughta open up another deputy slot.” Morg’s face turned thoughtful and then quickly brightened. “Hey, how ’bout me? I’m free!”

  Meagher smiled down at the floor for several seconds and nodded as though actually considering the question. When his head came back up, he was all business.

  “Come next season,” he said, “if I’m still marshal, you’ll be on my list.” Then his face softened, and he allowed a fleeting glance in Wyatt’s direction. “Just the same, check with me in a few days, and I’ll see if any of my present staff have shot their-selves by then.”

  Meagher turned and walked to the bar. “Any damages, Henry?”

  The bartender looked around as though he had not considered the possibility. “Nothing to speak of, Marshal Meagher.” He started up with the rag again, polishing the bar in big overlapping circles.

  When Meagher walked out, the railroad men followed him into the night. Wyatt marched to the coat rack, knifed his arms into the sleeves of his o
vercoat, and settled his hat on his head. As he started for the door, Morg called his name. Wyatt turned and waited.

  “Wyatt, we’ll still vote for you,” Morg said. His expression was virtuous but for his sparkling eyes. He had more ways to show mischief in those eyes than a schoolyard prankster. “Gettin’ two votes out o’ the whole town . . . that won’t be so bad.” Turning quickly to the bartender, Morg added, “Hell, you’ll vote for ’im, wouldn’ you, Henry?”

  Henry stopped his work and frowned at Wyatt. “Vote for you for what?”

  Wyatt shook his head at the bartender and then fixed his eyes on his brother. “Don’t pay no attention to my brother, Henry. He talks too much.”

  Morgan’s eyes widened with contrived umbrage. Bringing his hand up to his face, he pinched his lips together between his thumb and forefinger.

  Wyatt opened the door. “Let me know if I owe you for any repairs, Henry.”

  Shutting the door behind him, Wyatt stood in the bracing wind, the snow swirling around him like feathers from a burst down pillow. He watched through the door glass as Morgan and Behrens sat and leaned toward one another in conversation.

  “Goddamn it,” Wyatt mumbled beneath the whip of the wind.

  Heading for home, he kept close to the buildings and turned up his coat collar, gathering it tightly under his chin against his throat. When the heat of anger began to flow through his veins again, he released the collar and squared his shoulders, walking into the wind now as though it were his adversary. Six people knew about his gun going off. Word was bound to get around.

  “Goddamn it,” he murmured again, the sound of his voice barely rising above the wind.

  Over the next two days Wyatt heard nothing about the incident, not from Meagher or Behrens or any other citizen. Even Morgan knew not to press the issue. On the third day, in the late afternoon, Wyatt started his rounds at the east end of Douglas and worked his way toward the bridge. The wind was still pushy, and dust blew up from the street in big gusts that scoured the storefronts. The snow had reduced to a sparse shining glitter of sunlight as it spat through the air.