DODGE CITY, 1878
IT WAS THE MOUNTAIN OF BONES THAT FIRST CAUGHT JOHN HENRY’S eye when the stage finally pulled into Dodge City that morning in early May.
“Looks like they’re killin’ men in Dodge faster than they can bury ‘em,” he commented to Kate as he looked out the window of the stage and got his first view of the town.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she retorted, straightening the veil of her small hat and primping one last time, preparing for her entrance. “That’s just buffalo bones left over from the big hunt. They’ll be sending them off to make bone china soon. At least the bones smell better than the carcasses used to.”
“Smells pretty bad around here, yet,” John Henry said, taking a careful breath and thinking that famous Dodge City was just as rank as any other cowtown. For all its grand reputation as the Cowboy Capital, Dodge City seemed to be an ugly little town, not much bigger than Fort Griffin Flat and without Fort Griffin’s interesting landscape of pecan-shaded river and rugged bluffs. Dodge City was as flat as the treeless prairie that surrounded it, with one wagon-wide main street and the tracks of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad running right through the middle of town. South of the tracks, the muddy Arkansas River formed the boundary between the city and the open range country. North of town, past the few short side-streets of plain family homes, the only high ground was capped by a windswept cemetery.
It was a short walk along dusty Front Street to the Dodge House Hotel and Billiard Hall, a two-storied wooden building with a wide front porch and a hitching post outside. The Dodge House was billed as the finest hotel in town, though the two billiard tables in the lobby and the gang of cowboys huddled over their cues made it look more like a saloon than a nice hostelry. The cowboys looked up with appreciative stares as Kate accompanied John Henry into the hotel, and laughed as she pretended not to notice their attentions. Even dressed in sedate traveling clothes and with her rouged face hidden behind a demure veil, Kate was an eye-catcher.
“Hey there, honey,” one of the cowboys called out with a lewd laugh, “want to play with my billiard balls?”
“Y’all settle down over there, ya hear?” the balding man at the front desk chided, looking at the cowboys over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses, then he nodded to Kate and John Henry. “Never mind them, folks. They just had a little too much sour mash last night, that’s all.”
“Sour mash?” John Henry asked. “I haven’t heard that phrase in awhile. Are you from Georgia, Sir?”
“Yessir,” the man said, putting out his hand. “The name’s Deacon Cox, and I own this fine establishment. And whereabouts are you folks from? Maybe I know y’all’s kin.”
“I don’t think so,” John Henry said quickly. “I’ve been gone awhile, and the lady is from Europe.”
“Is that right?” Cox said, giving Kate a once-over. “Why, no offense ma’am, but I could have sworn we’ve met before. You look a lot like a girl we used to have workin’ over at Tom Sherman’s Dance Hall. No offense intended, of course. She was a real looker.”
“No offense taken, Mr. Cox,” Kate replied with a silky voice and a restrained smile.
“We’re lookin’ for a room, Mr. Cox,” John Henry said. “Something nice and quiet. I generally sleep late in the mornings and don’t like to be disturbed. And I’ll be needin’ an additional room to use as a dental office, if you don’t mind my practicin’ here in your hotel.”
“A dentist at the Dodge House?” Deacon Cox said. “Hell, no, I don’t mind, be real good for business.” Then he added with an apologetic nod to Kate, “Beggin’ your pardon, Ma’am, for my language. I’m used to rougher folks, not doctors and such. I’d be happy to put you up and have your office here, too. Now, if you’ll just sign the guest register . . .” and he handed the ink pen to John Henry. “You’ll be in the room at the top of the stairs with a nice view of town.”
John Henry laughed under his breath as he signed his name to the book. From what he’d seen so far, there wasn’t any such thing as a nice view of Dodge, unless it was from the boot-end of a stage headed back out of town.
“I wonder, Mr. Cox, if you’ve heard whether Deputy Earp is back in town yet?”
“Which one?” Deacon Cox asked. “We got two Earps in Dodge.”
“Two Earps?” John Henry asked in surprise.
“Sure do, Wyatt and Morgan both. They’re brothers, you know, ‘course Wyatt’s the main one. Morgan just kind of drifts in and out as it pleases him, more of a gambler than a real lawman. Ain’t neither one of them back in Dodge yet, though they’ll probably be comin’ in soon. We got a hundred herds of cattle headed up this way from Texas. Goda-mighty, you never saw a town boom like this one does in cattle season!” then he nodded to Kate, “beggin’ your pardon again, Ma’am, for my language. Like I said, I ain’t much used to fine folks at the Dodge House. Now how ‘bout I help you carry up those bags? Stairs are kind of narrow and rickety, but hell, this ain’t Chicago! You know what they call us back there in Chicago? The Beautiful, Bibulous Babylon of the West, that’s what. Printed it in the Chicago papers! Now, I ain’t sayin’ we’re beautiful, and I ain’t never heard of bibulous, but they got the Babylon part right, I reckon. It’s a real babel around here when the cowboys hit town!”
“It means having a heavy intake of alcoholic drink,” John Henry said, growing weary of the man’s voluble conversation.
“What does?”
“Bibulous. From the Latin verb ‘bibere,’ to drink. What they’re sayin’, in a rather florid fashion, is that this is one well-distilled town.”
“Well, they got that right! Never seen liquor flow like it does around here. Hell, we got everything from Frenchy champagne to rot-gut to cold beer on ice . . .”
“And where might I find the Earp brothers when they do return to Dodge?”
“Any place there’s trouble, I reckon, but mostly they hang around the Long Branch Saloon,” then his eyes narrowed suspiciously behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Say, you’re not that fellow who’s gunnin’ for Wyatt are you?”
“Gunnin’ for Wyatt?”
“The bounty hunter. I hear there’s a thousand dollar price on his head put up by some Texas cattle-King who didn’t like Wyatt sniffin’ around his business.”
“Me? A bounty hunter?” John Henry said with a laugh. “No Sir, Mr. Cox, I am just his dentist! Now if you’ll kindly show us the way to our room . . .”
But though he laughed off the bounty hunter talk, John Henry had an uneasy feeling. Maybe Wyatt had learned something about the rustlers of Shackleford County, after all, enough to draw a bounty from the rustler-boss, John Larn. Wyatt had better watch his back if Larn’s men were after him, and keep his pistol loaded up all around as well.
Kate only waited until the bedroom door was closed behind them before venting herself on John Henry.
“You didn’t tell me Wyatt Earp was going to be here!” she said angrily.
“You didn’t ask.”
“I thought we were through with him! I thought we left him back in Texas!”
“As I recall,” John Henry replied with a yawn, “it was him who left us when he went off to Fort Worth. But he did tell me to look him up if I ever happened to be passin’ through Dodge City. Well, here I am in Dodge, and I plan to say hello. Now be a good girl and go draw the drapes. I’m gonna take a nap.” Then he took off his jacket, pulled off his leather ankle boots, and stretched himself out on the brass-framed bed, pleased to find that it had a real feather mattress and soft linen sheets. The trip from Sweetwater to Dodge City had taken five days, the trail crossing the snake-infested Canadian River and the Kiowa Indian Nation, and other than a night’s layover at Fort Supply, he hadn’t had a good bed under him in all that time.
Kate watched him for a moment in silence, then went to the window and stood staring out over the dirt streets of Dodge. “He’ll bring you nothing but trouble, you know. He’ll only break your heart one day.”
“Whatever are you talkin’ about, Kate?”
“I’m talking about Wyatt. You’re getting your heart set on the wrong friend. He’s not your kind, he’s not quality like we are . . .”
“Quality?” John Henry said with a bitter laugh. “Is that what you think we are, quality? My dear, deluded consort, you and I have not been quality for a long time. You may be a doctor’s daughter, but you are also a denizen of the lowest levels of the theatrical stage—I suppose Mr. Cox recognized you from a past sojourn in Dodge. And I, for all my fine professional education, am still a Texas outlaw. If it weren’t for Wyatt Earp’s very generous acceptance of me, in spite of my faults, I wouldn’t feel even halfway respectable anymore. The truth is, Kate, you and I have both fallen so far from grace that we may never be able to claw our way back up again. Now take off your dress and come lie down and get some rest. We’re gonna have a busy night ahead of us.”
But Kate stayed at the window, neither drawing the drapes nor readying herself for a rest.
“I don’t want to be here . . .”
“Well, it’s a fine time to tell me that,” John Henry replied irritably, “after all the effort I went through to get you here. But here is where we are, so either stop talkin’ and let me sleep or leave me be and go out street-walkin’. It makes no difference to me.”
He half expected her to fly into a rage at his cold remarks, and was surprised when she turned to him instead, her face awash with a desperate light.
“Let’s not stay here, Doc! Let’s take the train east and get away from these cowtowns once and for all! Let’s go back to St. Louis and start over again. You can open another practice there; I can find another role on the stage. Or let’s go to New York! I’ve always wanted to act on the stage there, have a real professional career . . .”
“Ah, Kate,” he said, “you really are an actress, imagining a world that can never be. I can’t go back to St. Louis. I’m too tired to go anywhere, to even think of goin’ anywhere. New York might as well be the ends of the earth . . .”
“I would go to the ends of the earth for you,” she said, her sultry voice as sincere as he had ever heard it to be. “You must know how I love you. That’s why I don’t want you throwing in with Wyatt Earp. I don’t want anything to come between us, ever.”
It was no explanation of her animosity toward the quiet-spoken lawman, but it did explain her behavior in regards to Lottie Deno. He could still see the mad look in her eyes as she had stood in that Fort Griffin whorehouse, the Hell-Bitch in hand, and ordering him out of Lottie’s bed.
“Come away or I’ll cut her open!” she had screamed, and he knew that she’d meant what she said. What would she do if she felt that his friendship with Wyatt were a threat as well? Worse: what would she do if she ever found out about Mattie? Hell would have no fury like Kate’s if she knew where his love really lay.
And fearing that she would somehow discover the direction of his thoughts, he said sleepily, “And what would we do in New York? We don’t know anyone there.”
“Who cares? As long as we’re together, we’ll make out all right. As long as you love me . . .”
He could have fought back sleep long enough to reply, but didn’t.
The Long Branch Saloon was crowded with cowboys that evening, spurs jingling on their high-heeled boots and money jangling in their jeans’ pockets as they lined up three-deep at the bar. A cattle drive had just hit town and the boys were ready to play, and Chalk Beeson, the jolly proprietor of the Long Branch, was happy to have them.
“Right this way, boys, belly up to the bar! We got plenty of booze to go around, plenty of girls, and the best games in town!”
Beeson’s Long Branch Saloon gave a nod to gentility with a six-piece orchestra on an oriental carpet at one end of the narrow room, but gave a big howdy to the Texas cowboys with the “long branched” head of a Longhorn steer mounted over the white-painted bar. And the Long Branch was only one of the Texas-themed saloons in town, along with the Lone Star, the Alamo, the Nueces, and a dozen others, all ready to help those cowboys spend their newly made trail pay.
“Make yourselves at home, boys!” Chalk Beeson said cheerfully, “just make yourselves at home!”
And the cowboys were doing just that, adding their raucous laughter to the riotous sounds of the gaming tables, where roulette wheels whirred, poker chips clicked, dice clattered, and the dealers called out the odds. “Thirty-five to one! Get your money down, folks! Eight to one on the colors! Are you all down, gentlemen? Then up she rises!” There was no place as jolly as a saloon when the games were in play.
Kate had chosen to skip the evening’s entertainments, saying that she was still tired out from the trip, though John Henry reckoned she was really just trying to avoid a reunion with Wyatt Earp. So he was on his own when he ran into an old acquaintance from Fort Griffin, a one-time buffalo hunter by the name of Jack Johnson who was just finishing off a huge plate of beef steak and fried eggs, and greeted John Henry with a belch and a smile:
“Howdy, Doc! You’re lookin’ dapper today! Gotcha a new sombrero?” he asked, nodding to John Henry’s new black Stetson.
“I do,” he answered, doffing the hat and giving it a quick brush off. Dodge was so dusty that the walk across Front Street had left him covered all over in a fine yellow powder—cow manure in the air no doubt, he thought with disgust. And though Kate said that his new hat made him look like an overdressed cowboy, her irritation made him like it even better somehow, in spite of the way it gathered dust across the wide brim and high crown. “Have you heard anything of Wyatt Earp being back in town?” he asked Jack, not bothering to make small talk.
“Not today. Only thing anybody’s interested in talkin’ about is this here writer we got amongst us,” Jack replied, and he waved his fork in the direction of the orchestra.
“What writer?”
“Some fellar named Ned Buntline. He comes in here every evenin’ when he’s not too drunk to walk over from his hotel.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!” John Henry said in amazement. “The real Ned Buntline? Why, I was weaned on his books! I must have read a hundred Buntline stories growing up, in between Shakespeare and the Bible. What’s he doin’ here in Dodge?”
“Writin’ a new book, so he claims. Says he’ll pay $50 gold to the man who can tell him a story worth puttin’ in print.”
“I don’t believe it,” John Henry scoffed. “Since when did Ned Buntline have to pay for a story?”
Ned Buntline wasn’t just some writer. He was the most famous writer of his era, making a career and a fortune out of traveling the frontier and writing dime novels about his adventures, with over four-hundred published books and hundreds of magazine articles and short stories to his credit. There wasn’t a newspaper in America that wouldn’t pay top dollar for a serialization of his latest work, and there wasn’t a reader in America who hadn’t read his stories of the exploits of the Indian scout William F. Cody, whom he’d dubbed “Buffalo Bill,” in his wildly successful plays and novels.
“Well, according to him,” Jack said, “they ain’t no more legends to write about. He says now they’s just ordinary fellars like you and me, and nothin’ much else. That’s why he’s payin’ the reward, if he can hear a story good enough to put in his new book. Too bad I ain’t never done nothin’ worth talking about,” Jack said with a shrug and a scratch at his scraggly beard. “I sure could use that $50 right about now.”
“You and me both,” John Henry admitted, as Kate’s first afternoon of shopping in Dodge had already set him back some. As they’d left Fort Griffin with only what was in their saddlebags, they’d both needed some new clothes after the journey—especially Kate, who’d had a harder time of the traveling, all things considered, and always found shopping a calming diversion.
“Hell, I can tell a story,” John Henry remarked. “My cousin Robert used to say I was all talk, anyhow, back in Georgia.”
“And what story are you gonna tell, Doc?” Jack asked skeptically. “No offense, but ain’t you just a dentist? What adventures have you had to talk about?”
He was only a little offended by Jack’s blunt remark. Though he’d had plenty of adventures along the way, they weren’t the kind to brag on. His own life, he knew, would never be worth writing about, but he was generally smarter than anyone else around and that ought to count for something, at least.
“Well, I reckon I’ll just have to make somethin’ up.”
“But Mr. Buntline’s only payin’ for true stories,” Jack cautioned. “Make believe don’t count.”
“And who’s gonna argue about my story bein’ true when you’re there to back me up with that big bowie knife of yours showin’?”
“Me?”
“It’s a two-man story,” John Henry replied with a conspiratorial smile, remembering a little bit of larceny he’d dreamed up on the long stage ride from Sweetwater to Dodge while Kate had been too uncomfortable for conversation. There’d been a rumor of stage robbers near the Cimarron crossing, which had all come to nothing, but had gotten him thinking about stage robbery in a theoretical sense and how one might make a profit without having to do the actual robbing. He’d never get to try the plan out, as it was at least unethical if not downright illegal, but it might make a good showing for the famous Ned Buntline.
But as he made his way, drink in hand and story playing in his mind, toward the crowd surrounding the great man’s table, he was disappointed to find that Ned Buntline, or Edward Zane Carroll Judson as he introduced himself, was in reality just a small man with bloodshot eyes and a red whiskey nose. After all the press about the adventurous author—Civil War soldier, political activist, husband to eight women and philanderer with many more—John Henry had expected someone a little larger than life and more like the characters he wrote about. The Ned Buntline who sat slump-shouldered at a small table, wearily judging the entrants in his so far fruitless story contest, looked like any ordinary saloon drunk.
“I did have a start on something once . . .” Ned Buntline was saying to his liquor glass and anyone else who would listen. “The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, it was going to be. I followed him all the way to Deadwood, summer of ‘76, collecting my notes. I was there when Jack McCall shot him in the back while he was playing poker, and that was the end of my story. I haven’t had the heart to write another one since. Next?” he said, looking up with sorrowful eyes at John Henry. “And what is your name?”
“Dr. J.H. Holliday,” he said, then he nodded to Jack Johnson who’d followed him along, “and this gentleman is my associate. We’re recently returned from a profitable trip to Chicago, a trip which you may find rather amusin’.”
“Doctor of what?” Ned Buntline asked, looking skeptical.
“Doctor of Philosophy,” John Henry replied breezily. “My degree came from a very reputable German institution, the Jameson Fuches Academy. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
“No,” Buntline said drearily, “and I very much doubt that it even exists. But go on, you’ve caught my attention, which is more than anyone else has done thus far.”
“My story begins on the Deadwood stage,” John Henry said, pulling up a chair and getting himself comfortable, “where my partner and I first met the Colorado bankin’ man who made us our fortune. We got to talkin’, as stage passengers do, and discovered that he had some money that needed investing—a happy coincidence, we told him, as we had just come into a certain amount of gold bars that needed to be reinvested, so to speak. The banking man was too greedy to care how we’d come into possession of the gold, and we weren’t inclined to explain, though we did mention that this was government gold which needed to be disposed of quickly. In consequence of this difficulty, we’d be willin’ to make the banker a good deal on the bars, if he’d take them off our hands discreetly. And all we asked in trade for this fortune of gold was a mere $20,000.”
“Go on,” said Buntline, pulling his liquor glass closer.
“As you can imagine, the banker was droolin’ by now. A fortune in gold for only a fraction of its real value! Whatever loyalty he may have felt to the Federal Government quickly melted away in greed, though he wasn’t quite ready to become a traitor to his country until he’d had a chance to check out the gold for himself. So we arranged to meet again at the end of our journey, where we showed him a sample brick from our stash and let him file shavings from it into a fine white silk handkerchief, which he then took to an isolated spot where he could apply acid to test the metal. The filings passed the test, of course, as along the way we’d exchanged handkerchiefs, making sure his silk was filled with the genuine metal.”
“A common ruse,” Buntline said, not overly impressed. “It’s easy enough to switch false gold for the real thing.”
John Henry nodded. “And so the banker himself said, demanding that we show him the entire stash of gold bricks. Which were, we told him, buried in the bottom of a mountain lake, but that he could watch us bring some of them up and test them again as he had tested the first brick. It wasn’t much trouble to bring him a few bricks and let him file shavings from them, then switch the handkerchiefs again. And soon enough, the banker’s greed for gold overtook his moral compunction, and he handed over the $20,000.”
As he told the tale, an audience of cowboys and dance hall girls had gathered and began applauding loudly, but John Henry held up his hand.
“No, gentlemen, the story isn’t over quite yet! You see, the banker was still bein’ cautious about the deal, and he insisted that one of us accompany him all the way to Chicago, where he could arrange for the safe deposit of the gold bricks into the vaults of his bank’s main office. My partner here kindly volunteered to be the man’s guardian for the journey, and all went along fine at first until somewhere past the Missouri River a bearded United States Marshal came on board the rail car, threatenin’ to arrest the banker as an accomplice in a theft of government gold. The banker was understandably terrified, so my partner suggested that maybe the Marshal could be bought off with a bribe. Well, of course, no United States Marshal would ever consider takin’ a bribe . . .” he stopped there long enough to let the crowd around him howl a little.
“But in the end, the Marshal was convinced that he should take $15,000 to let the banker go. So the banker got his gold bars and his freedom, and my partner and I . . .” he looked up at his rapt audience and smiled, “we got $35,000 for a pile of worthless gold-painted clay bricks. The United States Marshal being myself in disguise, of course.”
But before he could accept the ovation of the delighted audience, a voice of indignation spoke up from the doorway.
“And that’s the closest you’ll ever come to wearing a lawman’s badge. Do you think you’re funny, Holliday?”
“Sometimes,” John Henry replied, and as he turned to answer the question he looked straight into the cool-eyed face of Wyatt Earp.
“Well, I don’t,” said Wyatt, standing solemn as a preacher in his black frock coat and sober tin star. “Doesn’t Dodge have enough trouble of its own without more Texas trouble like you coming along?”
John Henry sat stunned. He hadn’t expected Wyatt to greet him warmly, exactly, but he hadn’t expected to be insulted, either. If he’d had a pistol on him, if it had been any other man who had thrown those insulting words . . .
Then a shadow behind Wyatt laughed and slapped him on the back. “Hell, Wyatt, why don’t you cut him some slack? I thought it was a damn good story, even if it was a lie!” Then, moving forward into the dim saloon light with eager, outstretched hand: “I’m Morgan Earp. And you must be Doc Holliday. Wyatt’s told me about you.”
John Henry had never seen two men who looked more alike, or more different, than Wyatt Earp and his shadow, brother Morgan. They had the same broad shoulders and squared jaws, the same sweeping russet mustaches and steel-blue eyes, the same sun-bronzed faces. But where Wyatt could hardly find a smile to soften his somber expression, Morgan had a boyish grin that matched his ready laugh. And as Morgan took off his hat and shook the yellow dust from its brim, an errant lock of hair kept falling onto his face, refusing to stay neatly in place—no part of Wyatt Earp’s disciplined person would ever dare to be so disobedient as that.
“I thought it was a good story, too,” Ned Buntline said, leaning forward to refill his well-used liquor glass. “The best story I’ve heard in a long time, though undoubtedly a fabric of lies from beginning to end, and I’m only interested in true adventures. But it was literate at least. Are you a writer yourself by any chance, Dr. Holliday? Or are you even a doctor at all?”
“I am actually a dentist by profession. It’s letters I write, mostly.” Then he added with mock formality, “And have you met Mr. Wyatt Earp? One of Dodge City’s finest, if not very sociable, peace officers. And this is his brother, Morgan.”
“Men of heroic proportions,” Buntline said, giving an appraising glance up at the two Earp brothers, both of them standing a head taller than any other men in the room. Then his eyes rested on the pistol holstered at Wyatt’s side, and he laughed. “A man as big as you needs a firearm more his size, Officer Earp! That pistol looks like a child’s toy on you!”
“Not just officer anymore,” Morgan Earp said. “Mayor Kelley’s just promoted Wyatt to Assistant Marshal, right under Charlie Bassett. That means Wyatt’s just about the top dog around here now. Ain’t that right, Wyatt?”
Wyatt shrugged his answer. “It’ll do for now. Somebody’s got to stand down these Texas boys when they cause trouble in town, show them the business end of a gun.”
“Wyatt don’t actually shoot ‘em, though,” Morgan said. “Mostly he just buffalo’s ‘em, knocks ‘em over the head with his pistol butt, then drags ‘em off to the cooler while they’re unconscious.”
“It works,” Wyatt said, as laconic as ever.
“Mind if we join you for a drink, Doc?” Morgan asked, and without waiting for an answer he pulled up a chair and spun it around, straddling it cowboy style. “Come on and grab a seat, Wyatt, and we’ll have a whiskey to celebrate your big promotion.”
“I don’t feel like celebrating,” Wyatt said. “You have one for me, Morg. I’ve got police work to do. Jack, you better check that knife at the bar before I run you in for breaking the weapons law.” Then he turned on his bootheel and walked out of the saloon and into the windy prairie night. Jack Johnson, cowed, took himself and his knife to the bar.
“What’s vexin’ him?” John Henry asked. “I know he’s not one for conversation, but that was just plain impolite.” Though it wasn’t so much Wyatt’s bad manners that bothered him, but his cool indifference.
“Give him time,” Morgan said. “We just got back to town after hearing about Ed Masterson’s shooting, and Wyatt’s taking it kind of hard. He was friends with the Mastersons from back in their buffalo hunting days. He never did think Ed was the right man for Marshal, too good-natured and all, and I guess he feels like if he’d been here to help, Ed wouldn’t have gotten killed.”
“But that was just a common saloon-shooting, wasn’t it?” Ned Buntline asked, “a drunk with a loaded firearm that went off too fast? What could he have done to prevent that?”
“Nothing, probably. But Wyatt’s like that. Thinks everything is his responsibility. He’s serious-minded, always has been. Not like me! I take things easy!”
“You said the Marshal was named Masterson?” John Henry asked. “Is that the same man who shot Corporal King down in Sweetwater?”
“Nah, that’s his younger brother, Bat Masterson—he’s our Ford County Sheriff now. It was Ed Masterson who was Town Marshal of Dodge. Wyatt was real close to both of them. That’s why we burned the breeze getting back to Dodge as soon as he heard about Ed’s death. I guess he wanted to do something to make up for it.”
“You mean revenge, retribution?” Ned Buntline said with a melodramatic flourish and a shaky smile. “Now that would make a cracker-jack story! I can see it in print already: Ned Buntline’s The Deputy’s Revenge,” and he launched into a stream of the kind of overblown prose that had made him famous. “There was a steel-eyed resolve in the lawman’s hooded eyes as he carefully drew his heavy revolver and leveled it manfully at the heartless murderer. Revenge! Retribution! Spent blood atoning for spent blood!’”
“Hell, no!” Morgan said. “Wyatt’s not that crazy! He’d never take the law into his own hands like that! He just plans on keeping the peace a little better around here, so no more lawmen have to die.”
“Ah, well!” Ned Buntline said with a sigh. Still, there may be something to it . . .” and he started scribbling on the stack of copy paper he kept beside him, whiskey stained and wrinkled.
“What about Doc’s story?” Morgan asked. “You said it was a good one.”
“It was,” Buntline agreed. “I’ll tell you what, Dr. Holliday. I’ll buy your story, pay you the prize money of $50, if you’ll promise to keep in touch with me by letter. I could use some Dodge City color to add to the Deputy’s Revenge. I think this may turn out to be something interesting. Heaven knows my career could use the help!”
“All right,” John Henry said, “as long as you don’t use my name in your book. Maybe I’ll still get a chance to try out that little gold-brick scheme . . .”
“Not as long as Wyatt is lawing in Dodge, you won’t run that blazer!” laughed Morgan. “But I sure would like to hear that story again, if you’ve got the time to tell it.”
“I’ve got all the rest of my life, such as it is.”
And Morgan let out a laugh at that, slapping John Henry on the shoulder like they were old pals. “Wyatt said you had a sour sense of humor! But I don’t mind. Hell, I don’t mind much of anything! ‘Cept for sitting around a saloon without a drink in my hand. Hey, bar dog! Send over a bottle of lightning, will you? Damn, it’s good to be back in Dodge!”
When the eastbound Santa Fe out of Pueblo rolled into Dodge City four days later, it drew more than the usual crowd of curious spectators. Rumor had it that the killer Ben Thompson was on board that train, along with Bill Tighlman and Texas Jack Vermillion, and a hundred more of the toughest gunslingers out of Texas. But though it looked like Dodge was in for more trouble than even Marshal Wyatt Earp could handle, the Marshal didn’t seem to be too alarmed.
The truth was that the Texas boys were just returning to Dodge after doing guard duty on the railroad works at Cañon City, Colorado, where the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad was battling the Denver & Rio Grande for the right-of-way through the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River. The Royal Gorge, a three-thousand-foot deep, thirty-foot wide slash through the Rocky Mountains, was the shortest passage to the silver boom camps, and both railroads claimed the right to lay track through it. The dispute was mostly a legal one, with the Colorado courts wrangling over leases and contracts, but it had turned physical when the Denver & Rio Grande sent in three-hundred armed railroad workers to take the Royal Gorge by force. Not to be outdone, the Santa Fe sent to Dodge City for an army of its own, and the cowboys were quick to rally to the cause.
“Damn, Doc! Would you look at that?” Morgan Earp exclaimed to John Henry, as they stood together on the station platform watching the train come in, along with most of the rest of the citizenry of Dodge. The saloons and gambling halls had all emptied out as soon as the train’s black chimney of smoke had appeared on the western horizon—it wasn’t often that Dodge was descended upon all at once by so many famous and infamous characters. “Did you ever see so many six-guns in your life? Which one of those boys do you think is Bill Tighlman?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Morg. I reckon one bad man looks about like any other. Where’s Wyatt, anyhow? This crowd’s gettin’ feisty.”
“Checking out the gambling joints, probably, making sure nobody’s robbing the store while the clerk’s away. You know Wyatt, duty first. He’ll be here soon enough, though. Bat’s coming in on the train, and Wyatt’s been wanting to see him.”
“You mean Masterson? What’s he doin’ riding with these cowboys? I thought he was County Sheriff.”
“He is. But he does some work for the Santa Fe, too. He recruited these Texas boys for guard duty and went along to make sure they didn’t get out of hand. Well, speak of the Devil, here’s Wyatt now!” Morgan said, pulling off his hat and waving it in the air to catch his brother’s attention. “Hey, Wyatt! Come on over here with me and the Doc!”
But Wyatt only nodded in Morgan’s direction as he shouldered his way through the crowd to where a fist-fight had broken out among the spectators by the side of the tracks. Without saying a word to the brawlers, Wyatt pulled his six-shooter from the holster at his side and slammed it butt first over the heads of two of the combatants, who just as wordlessly slid to the ground, knocked unconscious by the marshal’s heavy-handed blow.
“Like I said,” Morgan grinned, “duty first!”
The buffaloing was startlingly brutal, but it seemed to do the trick as the rest of the crowd momentarily quieted down. Clearly, it wasn’t just Wyatt Earp’s cool presence that kept the peace in Dodge City, but his swift shooting arm as well—even when he used his revolver as a bludgeon.
“And who’s that bandbox?” John Henry asked, turning his attention to where a dandy in a three-piece suit was stepping down from the train, limping as he leaned on a gold-headed walking stick. Surrounded by the denim and corduroy of the cowboys, the man looked amusingly over-dressed, with a derby hat set at a tilt and a fancy leather gunbelt carrying silver-mounted pistols.
“Why, that’s Sheriff Bat, himself!” Morgan said. “If you think that’s something, you should have seen the getup he wore when he first came to Dodge—red chaps and a fringed bolero, a big black sombrero with silver doo-dads all over it. He looked like a Mexican greaser going to a fiesta. He’s got sophisticated living in Dodge. He used to be a mule-skinner, but you couldn’t tell that by looking at him now.”
But what John Henry could tell was that Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp were fast friends, as the marshal ignored the revival of the fist-fight he’d just broken up and pushed his way through the crowd to the sheriff ’s side, taking his hand in a steady handshake. And as the two lawmen stood together, John Henry could see the shadow of a shared sorrow crossing their handsome faces.
“First time they’ve seen each other since Ed Masterson got himself killed,” Morgan said. “Guess they’ll have some commiserating to do.” And for a moment, he was uncharacteristically pensive. “I wonder if Ed saw the light at the end.”
“What light?”
“The heavenly light. My Ma says that right before you die, you see this light, the light of God reaching down to bring you home. All you have to do is follow the light to find your way to Heaven.”
“And what happens if you don’t see the light?” John Henry asked, intrigued to find a spiritual side to the otherwise worldly Morgan Earp.
“Then you end up in hell, I guess. That’s what our Ma says. She says that some folks are so bad, they can’t even see the light when it’s right there shining on them. They go to hell when they could have just opened their eyes and gone to heaven instead. Do you suppose Ed saw the light, Doc? He was too nice a fellow not to get to heaven.”
“I reckon I don’t know much about heaven. Though I have been to hell and back a couple of times.”
Morgan’s pensive moment was over, as he laughed out loud and slapped John Henry on the back, setting him off on a coughing jag.
“You’re a funny one, Doc, always kidding around! Been to hell and back!”
John Henry grabbed for the linen handkerchief in his vest pocket and quickly covered his mouth. Morgan Earp didn’t know him well enough to realize that he rarely kidded around and meant most everything he said when he wasn’t purposefully telling a lie. He had been to hell and back, as far as he was concerned.
“So what do you say we take in the show at the Varities?” Morgan said.
“Don’t you want to give your condolences to the Sheriff? Maybe invite him and Wyatt along?” Much as he enjoyed Morgan’s light-hearted company, it was still Wyatt that John Henry admired and with whom he wanted to strike up a friendship.
“Hell no! Bat’s as bad as Wyatt is about drinking and such, a real temperance man. Dull as death! Leave ‘em to their lawing, Doc. You and me can do the town plenty fine on our own!”
The June 14th edition of the Dodge City Times carried a report of the Santa Fe’s hired gunslingers, a story from the Pueblo Chieftain calling Dodge The Wicked City, a report of Wyatt Earp’s appointment as Assistant Marshal, and an advertisement for Dodge City’s first dentist:
DENTISTRY
J.H. Holliday, Dentist, very respectfully offers his professional services to the citizens of Dodge City and surrounding country during the summer.
Office at room No. 24, Dodge House.
Where satisfaction is not given money will be refunded.
And with only that one printing of the advertisement, John Henry had more patients than he had time to see. Toothache was the most common complaint; he pulled so many rotten teeth that the whole office began to smell of disease and Kate regularly complained of the awful odor. He got more satisfaction from doing the fine gold work the cattle buyers were ready to pay for and making the porcelain crowns all the ladies in town wanted.
With the money he was making, he was able to order himself some new dental equipment, including a Pocket Dentist kit like the one Dr. Judd had described back in St. Louis—a little leather-covered box about the size of a daguerreotype case and filled with tiny gold-foil tools that attached to an ivory handle. Then he used the sharpest of the tools to carve his name into the eagle-headed medallion on the brass-hinged lid: J.H. Holliday, 24 D.H., Dodge along with a set of smiling teeth and the letters au, the chemical symbol for gold.
Kate watched his painstaking work, commenting that his hands wouldn’t be so steady after the evening’s gambling and liquor, and calling him foolish for putting his office address on the kit as if he meant to stay in Dodge City permanently. She was still yearning to be away from the dust and the dirt of the cowtowns and back on the theater stage where she knew she belonged, and Dodge wasn’t her kind of theater. But John Henry was happy in Dodge, doing his professional work by day and his sporting work by night, and feeling himself almost settled again in a town where he had no bad reputation to hide.
It was his dental practice that brought Wyatt to pay him a visit at the Dodge House, much to Kate’s irritation, though it wasn’t for Wyatt, himself, that the services were needed, but for a hulking cowboy who’d taken the bad end of a brawl with the marshal.
“He tried to go across the Dead Line with his guns on,” Wyatt explained as he dragged the moaning man into the dental office and dropped him unceremoniously into the wooden arm-chair that John Henry used for examinations. “Town law doesn’t allow firearms north of the railroad tracks. I had to buffalo him to get his attention. He’s been yelping like this ever since. I figure maybe he’s got a bad tooth.”
But one look at the man, with his face bruised and bloody and his mouth hanging crooked, told John Henry that this was no simple toothache.
“This man’s got a broken jaw! What the hell did you hit him with, Wyatt? An anvil?”
“Just this,” Wyatt said as he pulled open his frock coat to show the shiny new pistol at his side. It was the longest Colt’s revolver John Henry had ever seen, ten-inches in the barrel at least, and box fit into its own custom scabbard. “Your friend Buntline sent it to me. Said I needed a bigger gun, and he appreciated the idea for The Deputy’s Revenge, whatever that means. I didn’t want to insult him by returning it.”
“So you used that—cannon—on this man’s face, just to get his attention?”
“Better to buffalo him than to shoot him.”
“Shootin’ him would have hurt less,” John Henry said, as he carefully pried open the cowboy’s disfigured mouth, making him howl in pain. “He’s got some rotten teeth, all right, but they’re the least of the trouble. I’ll have to try splinting him, see if I can stabilize this mess. You did a day’s work here, all right, Marshal Earp.”
Wyatt pulled off his flat-brimmed hat and smoothed his well-oiled hair into place. “He was breaking the law, Doc.”
“Well, he won’t be breaking anything for awhile. I’ll have to keep him here until I know he’s on the mend.”
“Keep him here? You mean you want to take custody of him?”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” he said with a bemused smile. “I used to be a wanted man myself, until I met you. Now I’m practically a lawman.”
“Now hold on, Doc. Leaving him here don’t mean I’m deputizing you. He’s still my responsibility . . .”
But John Henry shook his head. “The truth is, Wyatt, I reckon he’s a little bit my responsibility, as well.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talkin’ about your weapon of destruction there. That special pistol of yours was a payment for the story of your Dodge City exploits, provided by me.”
“My exploits?”
“Buntline asked me to keep him informed of the doin’s here in Dodge, anything colorful that would look good in print. I’ve written him a letter or two telling him how you handle the cowboys so well. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“And why would Buntline be interested in me?”
“Why, Wyatt,” John Henry drawled, “you’re our hero, don’t you know?” And though there was a sarcastic cut to his voice, he meant every word of it.
“Me? A hero?” Wyatt said, and his handsome, solemn face broke into the first real laugh that John Henry had ever seen on him. “Hell, I’m no hero! Ask Celia! Ask Morg!”
“Morg thinks you walk on water.”
“Morg’s my kid brother, he’s supposed to think like that. Isn’t that how brothers are?”
But John Henry didn’t answer, pretending to be studying his patient’s injury. It was going to take some doing to bring that dislocated mandible back into place, make the unfortunate cowboy’s teeth match up again the way they should—though it wasn’t just the dental work he was thinking of.
“I reckon I don’t know much about brothers,” he said at last, “as I never had any.”
“No brothers?” Wyatt said, as though he could hardly fathom such a misfortune. “That’s too bad, Doc. I’d be real lonely without any brothers. I’ve sure been looking forward to seeing everybody again, soon as they get to Dodge.”
“As soon as who gets to Dodge?”
“The rest of the family. My folks are headed off to California again, coming out on the Santa Fe Trail. They’ll be here any day now, I figure. Be quite a wagon train when the Earp outfit pulls into town.”
And though John Henry should have been glad for Wyatt, he only felt a stab of jealousy. Wyatt had family, and he had no one but Kate.
“So Marshal,” he said, “where do I send the bill? This is gonna be an expensive repair job.”
“I guess you better send it to me. Much as this cowboy deserved what he got, I wouldn’t want to get a bad reputation around Dodge.”
“I reckon you’ve already got a bad reputation,” John Henry said. “You know there’s a bounty on your head? A thousand dollars to the man who can fill you full of lead.”
“I heard of it.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
Wyatt shrugged his broad shoulders. “I guess I’ll shoot first and ask questions later. I’m not much for talking things out.”
“So I noticed,” John Henry commented as the broken-jawed cowboy moaned in agreement. “Maybe you ought to hire yourself a bodyguard until this bounty thing blows over.”
“Now who’d be crazy enough to want to take a bullet for me?” Wyatt said, his long mustache moving just a little over a momentary smile. “Only Morgan, maybe, and I’d never ask him to do it. My Ma’s kinda fond of that boy.” Then, the smile gone, he added quietly: “And I don’t believe I could stand to lose him the way poor Bat lost his brother Ed. No, Doc, I figure I’m alone on this one.” Then he put his hat back on, pulling it low over his eyes. “You keep track of that prisoner there. If it gets back to Charlie Bassett that I put you in charge of things, I’ll be looking for another job fast.”
But as John Henry watched Wyatt leave, the only lawman who’d ever treated him like he was worth talking to at all, he was surprised by the feeling that swept over him.
I’d be your bodyguard, Wyatt, he thought. I’d be your brother, if you’d let me.
But it was Morgan Earp who was treating him like another brother, inviting him along for evenings of drinking in the saloons and gaming in the gambling halls and spending time with the ladies. If Morgan didn’t have one lovely sitting on his lap or fetching his drinks, he was looking for one who would do, and with his sun-bronzed good looks and white hot smile, the ladies were always plenty willing. Then after a long session at the tables, Morgan liked to end his night with a visit to the red-light district, spending some of his winnings relaxing with the bawdy house girls there. Morgan was a lively character, all right, and John Henry couldn’t help being amused in his company.
Kate, however, was not so amused. She didn’t mind Morgan’s drinking and gaming, but his devoted whoring made her wary. Whenever Doc and Morgan were out late together, she was sure that Doc was following his lead and spending some of his own money in the cribs of Dodge City, and sometimes she was right. Mostly, though, she was offended because Morgan had become John Henry’s favorite poker companion instead of her.
“Damn Wyatt Earp and all his family with him!” Kate said loudly when John Henry came home too late for her liking, loud enough for Deacon Cox to hear and ask her to quiet down some. The Dodge House had traveling families rooming from time to time, who didn’t like to be woken by a marital row going on in the rooms above. “They’re nothing but whoremongers, all of them! And look at what they’re doing to you! You never sleep, you never eat . . .”
“I’d be asleep already, Kate, if you’d stop shoutin’. Now be a good girl and pour me some water. I’m feelin’ dirty all over from this damn Dodge City dust.”
“I should think you’d be feeling dirty after spending time with whores. Damn Wyatt!”
“It wasn’t Wyatt I was with, Kate. It was just Morg. You don’t hate Morg, too, do you? Sometimes I think you must hate every man in Kansas, but me.”
“And what makes you think I don’t hate you, too?”
“Then leave. There’s the door. Nobody’s stoppin’ you.”
But Kate never did walk out the door. Her tempers always passed once she and John Henry had settled their spat with a session of love-making. She just wanted to know that he still cared for her, she said, she just needed to know that it was her he wanted in his bed, and not some Dodge City floozy. She just wanted to hear that he loved her, though he never could bring himself to say it.
Wyatt disapproved of Morgan’s womanizing as much as Kate did, a fact which John Henry found immensely amusing. That Kate should agree with Wyatt on anything at all was a marvel. For although Wyatt had done his own share of whoring, he was mostly a faithful husband to Celia—mostly, as Morgan recounted, except for a slip now and then while they were on the road together and Celia wasn’t around to take care of his needs.
“But what the hell’s a man supposed to do, anyhow?” Morgan said with a laugh. “Find a friendly cow, like these cowboys do?” Though Morgan’s humor often ran to the ribald, at least he liked a good joke. John Henry rarely even saw Wyatt break a smile.
But Wyatt had a reputation to uphold, especially after he and Bat were enlisted as deacons for the new First Union Church. It wasn’t a spiritual calling, exactly, as they were both asked to wear their sidearms to church—having the law there, armed and obvious, helped to keep things reverent during services and made the congregation feel a little more comfortable during the rowdy cattle season. But Wyatt’s being made a deacon said a lot about how the people of Dodge felt about him: a brave and trustworthy lawman and a model of manly virtue. It was only the wrongdoers, and Kate, who seemed to disagree.
With the cattle season in full swing, Dodge City became an island of humanity in the middle of a sea of manure. The town was surrounded by acres of cow lots and stock-pens where thousands of head of Texas longhorns waited shipment to eastern slaughterhouses. By day, the sky was dung-colored with the dust the milling animals kicked up off the shaggy prairie. By night, the air was filled with the sound of their bawling, a mournful undertone to the rollicking clatter of saloon pianos and dance-hall fiddles that went on from dusk until dawn.
But then the rains came, spilling down from the sky so fast that the Arkansas River overflowed its banks right up to the back doors of the dance halls south of the railroad tracks, and the cattle business slowed up some. Thirty-eight herds were stuck on the far side of the Arkansas, and the cowboys who guarded them had to sleep out in the rain with the lights of Dodge just a frustrating flooded-stream away. There was sure to be trouble when those tired cowboys finally hit town, over-ready for some rest and relaxation, and Assistant Marshal Earp put out the word that he needed some extra deputies to help keep things under control.
Morgan was the first to apply for the job, and the first to be turned down. As the Marshal’s younger brother, Wyatt explained, it would look like favoritism if Morgan got a paid position on the force before all the other applicants had been interviewed. Just wait awhile, Wyatt suggested. Maybe, if there’s still room later on . . .
John Henry understood what Wyatt couldn’t explain. Much as Morgan idolized his older brother, Wyatt, in his own quiet way, loved his younger brother even more devotedly.
But Morgan wasn’t out of a law job for long. Taking Wyatt’s refusal like a challenge, Morgan applied to Bat Masterson for a position with the County Sheriff ’s office instead, and was soon wearing a Sheriff ’s Deputy badge, showing the star around the saloons of Dodge like a medal of honor.
“I guess I showed Wyatt,” Morgan bragged to John Henry, as he watched him buck the tiger at the Lone Star’s best Faro table. “Showed him good. He thinks I’m just a kid! Sheriff Bat knows better. I can shoot as straight as Wyatt if I have to, and faster. Bat Masterson knows a natural-born lawman when he sees one.”
“I thought you were a natural-born ladies’ man, Morg,” John Henry remarked, looking up from the game. “It’s damn sure you’re not a natural-born card player.”
“Faro’s too fancy,” Morgan complained. “I like simple games. Give me a pretty set of dice . . .”
“A loaded set, you mean,” John Henry said. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you play with straight dice yet.” Then, nodding to the dealer: “That looks like another winnin’ bet for me, Sir.”
“How the hell do you do that?” Morgan said, as John Henry collected his colorful stack of winning coppers: blues for the tens, reds for the fives, yellows for the ones. “It’s like you’re a mentalist or something, the way you always pick the winners like that.”
“It’s just trainin’. I’ve spent more time on the dealin’ side of the layout than I have on the playin’ side. That dealer can’t deal a card I haven’t already counted. I’ll put ten on the red queen to win, Sir,” he said, and remembered that the red queen had been Lottie Deno’s favorite card.
“Well, like I said, I guess I showed Wyatt, treating me like that. You notice he didn’t have any problem putting Virg on the force first thing. He no sooner hits town, then Wyatt’s pinning a badge on him.”
“You’re digressin’, Morg. Who the hell is Virg?”
“Virgil Earp, of course, our big brother. Didn’t I mention they got in last night? Had to wait on the far side of the Arkansas until the river come down enough to cross. Eleven wagons in the outfit, and mostly it’s all Earps: Pa and Ma, Newt and his family, Jim and Bessie and her gal, my sister Adelia, and our little brother Warren . . .”
“Another brother?”
“Ma breeds boys, that’s what Pa says. All of them big and handsome, like me!”
“And not a bit vain, of course,” John Henry commented, though if the rest of the Earp boys looked like Wyatt and Morgan, there wasn’t all that much vanity to it. They were both handsome, strapping men, the kind other men admired and all the women fawned over. It was pleasant having such good-looking acquaintances and basking in some of the reflected glory. For though he’d had plenty of ladies call him handsome and take on over the Irish blue of his eyes and the gold of his hair, he knew he didn’t have half the masculine, muscular charisma of the Earp brothers.
“So now Virg is here, and first damn thing Wyatt does as soon as he sees him is pin a badge on him, Dodge City Police. I guess it didn’t look like favoritism to hire his big brother, like it would have to hire his little brother. Damn it, Doc, when’s he going to stop thinking I’m just a kid? I’m twenty-eight years old, for hell’s sake!”
John Henry looked up at Morgan and smiled. With his unruly head of russet hair, his easy grin and ready laugh, his love of playing games and chasing the girls, Morgan did seem more like an overgrown adolescent than the full-grown man that he was, especially when he stood in the shadow of his solemn older brother. And there was that other slightly mystical side of Morgan, as well, that made him seem like a wide-eyed innocent somehow in spite of his worldly habits. Even John Henry felt a little patronizing of him, though they were nearly the same age.
“I don’t reckon he ever will stop treatin’ you that way, Morg. From what I can see, Wyatt thinks he’s your protector and he’s not gonna do anything to put you in harm’s way. He says your Mother’s kind of fond of you, too.”
“Aw, hell!” Morgan said, reddening with embarrassment. “Is that what it is? Is he still playing guardian angel? I swear, I learned how to climb years ago.”
“You are a sorry story-teller, Morg! Why don’t you start at the begin-nin’ for once?”
Morgan ran his hand through his tousled hair and gave an exasperated sigh.
“I was a little boy, not more’n four or five years old, and I tried to climb a big tree back of our house, the way I’d watched Jim and Virg doing. I climbed it pretty good, too, ‘cept I didn’t know how to get back down, so I was stuck up there and scared. I started yelling for Ma, and she came out of the house running, but she couldn’t reach up high enough to get me down. That’s when she sent Wyatt up to sit with me. ‘Just hold onto him, Wyatt!’ she says. ‘Don’t let him fall! You hold on tight and don’t let him outa your hands, no matter what. I’ll go get Pa from out in the corn to come reach little Morgan down.’
“’Yes’m,’ Wyatt says, and that’s just what he did. He shimmied up that tree and slipped his arms around me so tight I could hardly breathe, but he never did let go. Even when I got tired and started to slip, Wyatt just kept holding on, like our Ma said. And when I slid off that limb and fell all the ways down to the ground, Wyatt was still holding on. He fell right down with me, and by the time Ma come back with Pa, we were both lying on the ground with the wind knocked out of us, and Wyatt’s arms still tight around me, holding on for dear life. Ma started screaming, thinking we’d both been killed for sure, but Pa just started laughing.
“‘Well, Morgan, looks like you got yourself a guardian angel,’ Pa says, ‘but it woulda helped if he’d had himself a pair of wings!’ Ever after that, Ma liked to call Wyatt my Guardian Angel, tell him it was his bound duty to hang onto me and see I didn’t get into any more trouble. Ma had her hands full with little Adelia and baby Warren, and couldn’t watch over me all the time, and she was afraid I’d get myself hurt or killed someways. I always was the wild one of the family, I guess, always getting into mischief.”
“You remember all of that from when you were four years old?”
“I don’t have to remember it,” Morgan said, reddening again. “Ma tells that story on me every time we get together, reminds Wyatt it’s his job to watch over me. And you know Wyatt, once he takes on a job he don’t let go of it. Takes everything serious as God’s word. But dammit, Doc, I don’t need no guardian angel anymore! I wish he’d let me go on and grow up. I’d be a damn good lawman, if he’d just give me the chance.”
“You’ve got that Sheriff ’s Deputy badge. Isn’t that lawman enough?”
“You know county lawing’s not the same as city lawing, not here in Dodge. What happens out in the county, anyway? The cows get loose or the cowboys run over somebody’s crop. It’s here in Dodge where the action’s going on, right here in the gambling joints. This is where the gun-play happens,” he said, fingering the six-shooter stuck down in the waistband of his trousers, legally carried with his new badge. “What good is being able to wear a pistol if you don’t get to use it?”
John Henry let his Faro bet ride without him for a moment and gave Morgan another long look. “And that’s just what Wyatt’s afraid of, Morg. This is where the gun-play is. He doesn’t want to lose you the way Bat lost his brother. If I were you, I’d be thankful I had a brother who loved me like that. I’d be thankful to have anybody care about me like that.”
Morgan shrugged. “You got Kate, Doc. She cares a heap about you. That’s something, ain’t it?”
“Sure, Morg, that’s somethin’,” John Henry replied, turning back to his game, and feeling suddenly more alone than ever, standing on the outside of that warm circle of the Earp clan and wishing he could be one of them. “I’ve got Kate, all right. What more could I possibly want?”