Gunman's Rhapsody

“It’s the cowboys,” Warren said, “that need to be careful.”

The conductor stopped in front of Wyatt.

“Trains all locked down,” he said. “ ’Cept this car. Time to go.”

Wyatt nodded and looked at his brothers.

“See you in a little while,” Wyatt said.

He looked at Virgil. Virgil nodded. He put the Colt in his lap and put out his working hand. Wyatt took it. Then he and Warren left the train and watched as the conductor bolted the door. The engine whistled and the boiler huffed faster. McMasters jumped off the rear of the last car. Turkey Creek Jack Johnson walked back toward him. Warren followed. Doc began to walk along the train toward Wyatt. Across the next set of tracks, near an empty train at rest on its siding, there was a flurry of movement. Two men disappeared behind the train, but the third man stood there and Wyatt saw him.

“Stilwell,” Wyatt said and began to move toward him. Stilwell ran. Wyatt followed. Suddenly, as he came up against the engine of the silent train, Stilwell stopped and turned. Wyatt was fifteen feet away. He kept coming. Stilwell seemed frozen. At three feet, Wyatt stopped. The shotgun was level with Stilwell’s chest. Both hammers were back.

Stilwell said, “Morg.”

And again, “Morg,” and grabbed at the shotgun. Wyatt pulled the trigger, and the right barrel pounded a near-solid cluster of shotgun pellets into Stilwell’s chest. He was probably dead before the second barrel went off. Doc Holliday came up behind Wyatt at a dead run. Wyatt was already reloading the shotgun. Doc looked down at Stilwell’s body and drew his Colt and fired five shots into it. Then he, too, began to reload.

Behind them, the wheels of the train to California began to turn. The train strained into motion. Wyatt ran alongside it, and as Virgil peered out the now moving window Wyatt held up his right hand with one finger raised. Inside the train Virgil nodded. He understood. Wyatt had gotten one of them. For Morg.

Fifty-two

They were back in the Cosmopolitan Hotel the next day. All men now. The women were gone. Wyatt and Doc and Warren. Texas Jack and Turkey Creek Jack and Sherman McMasters. They always had revolvers with them. They always carried long guns. Doc was at a table in the bar drinking whiskey when Wyatt came in. Wyatt leaned his Winchester against the table and sat down.

“Amazing,” Doc said, “how a few gunshots clear everything up.”

The barman brought Wyatt coffee.

“Now it’s all out in the open and aboveboard and right in front,” Doc said. “You against Behan. Earps against cowboys. Republicans against Democrats. The Epitaph against The Nugget. Now everybody wants to look can see what they want to see.”

Wyatt drank his coffee.

“You know Behan put Stilwell up to shooting Morgan, and you know it was because Morgan knocked him on his ass when he come bothering Josie. You know he’s in on them stage robberies, Wyatt. You know he’s getting a nice slice of the cattle rustling out of Mexico. You know him and Ringo and Curley Bill are tighter than the valve on a virgin.”

“Got a copy of the coroner’s report on Morgan,” Wyatt said.

He was holding the thick, white coffee mug in both hands and staring over the top of it through the saloon doors out at the little stretch of Allen Street that showed under them.

“Says Stilwell, Spence, Hank Swilling, Indian Charlie, and somebody named Fries are the main suspects for shooting Morgan. Gives Indian Charlie’s real name in there, Florentine Cruz. Never knew Charlie’s name was Florentine Cruz.”

“We knew the rest pretty much anyway, didn’t we?” Doc said.

He picked up the whiskey bottle and splashed a little more into his glass.

“I’m putting together a posse,” Wyatt said. “Heard that Spence and Indian Charlie are out at Spence’s wood camp.”

The steam from the coffee whispered up past his face.

“I’ll be in the street on horseback at nine this morning. I’d be pleased if you’d join me.”

“You promise me I can shoot one of ’em?” Doc said.

“ ’Less they shoot you first,” Wyatt said.

Doc drank off the newly poured whiskey. He smiled.

“No, Wyatt, I’ll shoot one of them unless they kill me first.”

“Nine o’clock,” Wyatt said. “Be ready to stay out awhile.”

At nine in the morning Wyatt was there on Allen Street up on the blue roan gelding with the sun at his back. He had a Colt.45 and a.45 Winchester rifle, and a lot of ammunition in the saddlebags. He had a blanket roll tied behind his saddle, and a pack mule on a lead. Warren was up beside him, smaller than Wyatt and dark. Doc was there mounted, as were McMasters and Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, looking too big for the small bay mare he rode. Texas Jack Vermilion had a rifle and a shotgun in saddle scabbards. Vermilion sported a flamboyant mustache.

Wyatt handed the pack mule lead line to McMasters.

“You can ride drag for a while, Sherm,” he said.

As McMasters led the mule to the back of the group, John Behan came up Allen Street. Billy Breakenridge was with him, and Dave Neagle. Wyatt nodded to Neagle.