Which was why, a little at a time, Wyatt was talking himself into a plan that would let him pay James back and pay the dentist, too.
Fat Larry didn’t see any harm in city deputies working two jobs, and the saloons liked having a badge in the house. John Stauber and Chuck Trask were both dealing faro part-time, and they were making a good buck. Wyatt thought that was kind of wrong—a lawman could cheat all he wanted, bash anyone who caught him at it, and say it was for disturbing the peace. But there was no rule said you had to cheat. Drunks generally did their own losing.
With his mind just about made up, Wyatt tried to summon the gumption to fry a couple of eggs but decided to rest his eyes for a few minutes. Next thing he knew, James was back and it was full daylight.
“I took her over to China Joe’s,” James told him. “When she’s clean, she can come back here and sleep off whatever she’s using. Joe thinks it might be opium. I think laudanum, more like.”
“Thanks, James.”
“Soon as she sobers up, she’s back out on the street, Wyatt. Bessie’s not gonna let her work here. You eat anything?”
“Too tired.” He pushed himself to his feet and made himself say what he’d been thinking before he dozed off. “Listen, James. About the money I owe you—”
“Forget it.”
“No! I’m gonna pay you back. I don’t want trouble with Bessie over it. Dog Kelley’s looking for a part-time faro dealer. He offered me a job. It’s two bucks an hour, plus ten percent commission, and I won’t need a bank.” James looked at him, not saying anything. Finally, Wyatt answered the question his brother wouldn’t ask. “Just ’cause they’re serving liquor don’t mean I got to drink it.”
James shrugged with the shoulder that still worked, but his eyes were narrow. “I guess,” he said. “If you say so, Wyatt.”
Wyatt caught up with Bat Masterson a couple of nights later. The whole conversation got off on the wrong foot, and it was mostly Wyatt’s fault.
Bat was coming out of the Iowa House, where he was keeping his latest girl. Even at a distance and in a crowd like the one on Front Street, there was no mistaking the sheriff of Ford County. He looked like that Irish clown fella, the one who wore yellow pants and purple shirts and a red tie. “Bat,” Wyatt called, genuinely puzzled, “why in hell do you dress like that?”
“Jesus, Wyatt! Lower your voice,” Bat said, looking around to see who else had heard. “Just because you don’t care about clothes don’t mean the rest of us have to look bad.”
“Where’ve you been? I’ve been looking for you—”
“Well, you found me now. And anyways, I don’t answer to you anymore. What do you want?”
“I want my money,” Wyatt said bluntly, annoyed by Bat’s tone. “There’s eighteen hundred dollars—”
“
“What are you talking about? Who’s Concannon?”
“Nobody. Forget it,” Bat snapped. “So I don’t owe you eighteen hundred dollars?”
“I didn’t say you did.”
Now both of them were confused. Wyatt shook his head and held up a hand. “All right. Just listen: Johnnie Sanders might’ve been robbed the night he was murdered—”
“Who said he was murdered? He just got—”
“He was at least eighteen hundred bucks to the good and—”
“Who told you that?”
“What difference does it make? Was anybody flashing a lot of cash after the fire?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know!” Bat cried. “You know what it’s like around here, Wyatt. Somebody’s always flashing a lot of cash. Anyways, it was a long time ago.”
“Three years is a long time, Bat. Three weeks ain’t. You check his room after? Was there anything there?”
“We didn’t find any money, that’s for sure. Maybe he was carrying it and it got burned up in the fire.”
“Some of it would have been in coin.”
“Well, we didn’t find any puddles of silver, I can tell you that much! Look, Wyatt, you know yourself the Elephant Barn was a fire just waiting to happen. I told Ham and told him—”
“That’s another thing. What was Johnnie doing in that barn?”
Bat blinked. “Hell if I know.” But he was ashamed and looked it. He also knew that once Wyatt got hold of something, he wasn’t about to let it go. The best policy was to own up. “I’ll be honest with you, Wyatt. I didn’t really pay all that much attention. It was inside city limits. It was Fat Larry’s problem, not mine.”
“So what were you doing there?”
“Larry was out of town and Morg asked me. I did what I could, but it wasn’t my jurisdiction. Jesus, what’s got you all stirred up about this now?”
“That dentist said there was an
“Hell,” Bat said, dismissing this information with a wave. “Holliday’s always talking about his aunties. Half the time he don’t make any sense at all—”
“
Young Sheriff Masterson made an honest if brief effort to grasp the implications of what he’d just been told, but the effort failed to yield any conceptual breakthroughs. In 1878, Bat was, after all, just a modestly educated twenty-four-year-old kid who’d won a county-wide popularity contest by three votes. He had read one fewer law book than Wyatt himself. And, in any case, it would be nearly a century before proper police procedure for handling crimes went much beyond (1) arrest a suspect within a few hours and (2) beat a confession out of the bastard.
“Well, hell,” Bat cried. “Before? After? What difference does it make? The kid was dead when we got there. Dead is dead! And anyways, I wouldn’t believe Holliday if he told me sugar’s sweet and Kansas is flat. He is a quarrelsome drunk and a card sharp—I saw him damn near blow the head off a cattleman myself! He’s been run out of every town he ever lived in. He didn’t tell you that, I guess! Do you know why Holliday was in Texas?” Bat demanded. “Do you know why he had to leave Georgia?”
Wyatt had heard some of it before, down in Fort Griffin, but Bat’s indictment went on for some time. When he finished, the sheriff of Ford County had taken back the moral high ground.
“Half the bad men in Texas are Georgia night riders on the run,” he told Wyatt. “Why, that rebel sonofabitch probably killed Johnnie Sanders himself! That’s why he’s telling you this cock-and-bull story about robbery and eighteen hundred dollars. He’s playing you for a fool, Wyatt! He acts like he’s real polite, but he’s laughing up his sleeve at all of us. Ask him about those niggers he killed back in Georgia. Why, he’s killed so many men, he don’t even count the greasers down in Texas! Go on, Wyatt. Ask him about that!”
When Wyatt found the dentist, Holliday was sitting alone in Delmonico’s, a set of half-dealt dummy hands arrayed before him on the table. It was getting late for the supper trade. There were only a few people in the restaurant. Nora was taking an order from a salesman going over his account book in the corner. A couple of cattlemen were working some figures in the back.
Wyatt stood in front of him. “How much is true, Doc?”
Holliday looked up. “Evenin’, Wyatt.” He frowned. “How much of what is true?”
“The stories about you. The rumors. What Bat says.”
“You will have to be more specific, sir,” the dentist said peaceably. “Sheriff Masterson, in my observation, is a man much given to chat and loose talk. Who knows what lurid tales he’s spreadin’?”
“He says you’re wanted in Dallas and Denver and Atlanta for murders. He says you gutted a gambler in a knife fight out in California. He says you gunned down three Negroes back in Georgia, and that’s why you came west. He says you’ve killed so many men, you don’t even count Mexicans.”
Holliday was a poker player. His reaction might have been an elaborate pantomime, meant to throw an opponent off, though it appeared genuine enough. The dentist stared, openmouthed, and shook his head, eyes wide. He started on a laugh, but it got tangled up in a cough. He fished out a handkerchief to hold over his mouth and then just sat there, waiting to see what his lungs decided. Finally he cleared his throat and put the handkerchief back in his pocket.
“Well, now,” he said softly. “Seems that the cup of my iniquity overflows! If I am such a bad man, I wonder
