THE CANTEEN’S FULL,” ALLIE TOLD VIRGIL AS HE packed. “There’s apples, and I made roast beef sandwiches for you and the boys.”
Wyatt was almost thirty-three and Morg was twenty-nine. Both of them were a good deal older than Alvira Sullivan, but they were still “the boys” to her because that’s what Virg always called them.
“Thanks, Pickle,” Virgil said. “Nice of you to think of them.”
“And if I don’t, who will, I’d like to know!”
Morgan was batching it while his girl, Louisa, was off visiting relatives. Lou was a honey, but Wyatt’s woman . . . Well, Allie felt sorry for Mattie Blaylock but had no illusions about her. Mattie was slovenly and down at the mouth most of the time, and hell would freeze before she lifted a finger for the man who put a roof over her head.
In the beginning, Allie had blamed Wyatt for Mattie’s cheerlessness, for his silence seemed cold and mean.
“Why don’t Wyatt ever say nothing?” Allie asked Virgil one time.
“Well, now, Pickle, I’ll tell you,” Virg had said. “Wyatt’s steady in a fight and he’s got a real way with horses, but he can’t hardly read and he’s ignorant. He’s afraid if he talks, people will find out.”
Allie wasn’t much for books herself. “Lots of folks can’t read. Don’t stop ’em from talking!”
“Yeah, well, maybe it oughta,” Virg said, laughing when Allie laid into him with small fists and not entirely comic ferocity.
Wyatt was all right, Allie had decided after she got to know him. And Morgan was as sweet as men come. She liked the boys’ older brother James, too, but Alvira Sullivan was sure of one thing. She got the pick of the Earp litter.
Virgil was fitting a box of cartridges into his saddlebag.
“Don’t mash them sandwiches,” she warned. “How long’ll you be?”
“We’re pretty sure we know where the mules are. Day or two, if everything goes right.”
He finished buckling the flap and looked up. Allie was bustling around their little house. Clearing dishes off the table, wrestling bolts of tent canvas into neater stacks, wiping cotton fluff off her sewing machine. She always got extra busy when he had to ride out like this.
Pickle, he called her, because that’s what she was eating when he first laid eyes on her, up in Iowa. He was driving freight. She was a waitress at a stage stop. Not much bigger than the gherkin she downed in two bites, but damn if she didn’t hoist a heavy tray right up onto her shoulder, carrying half her weight in crockery to the kitchen. He caught her eye and he could tell she liked the looks of him, so he struck up a conversation and learned pretty quick that she was an orphan. Father gone. Mother dead. Sisters and brothers scattered. Sharp-tongued and independent, Allie had shifted for herself since she was twelve. He respected her before he loved her, and he loved her before he finished his lunch that first day.
“How’d I get to be so damn lucky?” he asked now, voice low and soft.
She came to him, and he bent almost in half to receive her wiry arms around his neck. When he straightened up, she shrieked a laugh as he lifted her off her feet. “Maybe I’ll just stick you in my saddlebag and take you along!” Virg said. “How’d you like that?”
“I’d like to see you try!”
He set her down, planted a kiss on the top of her head, threw his saddlebag over his shoulder, and grabbed his hat off a peg by the door. Allie followed him outside and stood on the porch, shading her eyes with her hand.
She’d seen two men killed by Virgil Earp in the line of duty, and she knew what every cop’s wife knows: The next time shots are fired, it could be her man staring empty-eyed at the sky.
“Be careful!” she hollered.
Virg didn’t look back, but he raised his hand in acknowledgment.
THERE WAS A TIME when Mattie Blaylock looked forward to hearing Wyatt’s footsteps on the porch. She’d been walking the streets in Dodge when he took her in, and she was grateful in the beginning. Wyatt seemed glad of her, too, for a while.
He hardly looked at her when he came in now. Mattie didn’t say anything either. She just sat there in her chair, rocking in the shadows.
He reached past her and yanked the drapes open. She turned her face from the sunlight.
“Place stinks,” he said, raising the sash to air it out. “It’s past four. Why ain’t you dressed?”
“Why do you think?” He could be so damn stupid. “Headache.”
“We got a posse,” he told her and went into the bedroom to collect what he needed.
“How’s your tooth?” she asked. Making an effort.
“Same.”
“You find Doc?”
“Not yet.”
“Huh,” she said.
Tombstone was the biggest place she’d ever lived in. Not finding a person who’d been in town for a whole day was an idea that took getting used to.
Wyatt came back into the front room, a bedroll under one arm, the rest of his gear in a saddlebag. Hand on the doorknob, he paused to look around the house, making a list of her sins. Dust. Clothes on the floor. Dishes waiting. Chamber pot unemptied.
“Clean this place up,” he said. Then he added, “Clean means clean, Mattie. It don’t just mean less dirty. It means clean.”
“Go to hell,” she muttered, but she waited until he was gone to say it.
She waited a good deal longer before she got out of the rocking chair. She tried to pick a few things off the floor, but leaning over made the migraine worse. So she poured herself another dose of laudanum, pulled the curtains closed, and went back to bed.