Gunman's Rhapsody

“Mattie. I didn’t think I should embarrass her.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m with you,” he said.

By the time they walked back along Fremont Street it was dark. They turned up Third Street and stood for a moment on the front porch of her house. During the entire afternoon and evening they had not touched each other. They did not touch now.

“I’m not going to ask you in,” Josie said.

“All right,” Wyatt said.

“I will someday, I think. But now is too soon.”

“I have time,” Wyatt said.

“But I would like you to kiss me good night,” she said.

“That would be fine,” Wyatt said.

Eighteen

Bat Masterson walked into the Oriental with his bedroll across one shoulder, wearing two Colt revolvers and carrying a Sharps rifle, and sat down in a chair at Wyatt’s table. A big, high-shouldered horse wrangler named Bear shook his head at him.

“Don’t want no new players this game,” he said. “Break the way the cards are falling.”

Masterson paid no attention.

“Wyatt,” he said.

“Bat,” Wyatt said.

“You hear me, boy?” Bear said.

Bat glanced at him curiously for a moment and turned back toward Wyatt.

“Hear they might be hiring here,” he said.

Wyatt nodded and started to deal.

“Don’t you deal with him at the table,” Bear said.

“Friend of mine,” Wyatt said. “I’ll deal around him.”

“Don’t care if he’s a friend of the Virgin Mary,” Bear said. “I don’t want my luck changed.”

Wyatt looked almost as if he was going to smile.

“You going to change his luck, Bat?” Wyatt said.

Bat turned and looked at Bear. He was half Bear’s size. His eyes were a very pale blue.

“You want me to change your luck, cowboy?” Bat said.

Bear’s mouth opened and closed. He tried to hold Bat’s look and couldn’t.

Finally he said, “Aw shit,” and folded his hand.

No one else spoke.

“I’m out,” he said.

He picked up his chips and walked away from the table. Wyatt gestured to the other players, and they handed in their cards.

“You in?” he said to Bat.

“Sure,” he said.

Wyatt reshuffled and dealt again. By late afternoon, Bat had won four dollars, and Wyatt closed the game and took a table near the bar with Bat. Bat had a glass of whiskey. Wyatt had coffee.

“You really looking for work?” Wyatt said.

“Sure. Heard there was work here.”

“We can use you,” Wyatt said.

“I assume that some of the customers are tougher than Bear.”

“Some.”

“But not tougher than you and me,” Bat said.

“Not yet,” Wyatt said.

“Heard you and Virgil and Morg had a little standoff with a lynch mob.”

“Mob’s like a cattle herd,” Wyatt said, “you know that. All you got to do is turn ’em. What you been doing?”

“Up in Ogallala,” Bat said, “with Ben Thompson.”

“Peace officering?”

Bat laughed.

“Not exactly,” he said. “Ben’s brother Billy got himself in trouble up there. Me and Ben had to go up there and get him out ’fore they hung him.”

“Woman?”

“ ’Course,” Bat said. “Little whiskey mixed in. You know Billy.”

“Meanest loudmouthed drunken little bastard I ever ran into,” Wyatt said.

“Got Ben into a lot more trouble Ben ever got into himself,” Bat said.

Wyatt shrugged.

“Blood’s blood,” he said. “You on the run?”

“No, we got him out clean. I left him and Ben in Dodge, got a train to Trinidad, hopped a Santa Fe work train far as it went and caught the stage over to Deming.”

“Apache Country,” Wyatt said.

“Yeah, they let me ride shotgun.”

“Where they can get a clean shot at you,” Wyatt said.

Masterson laughed.

“What was that story Lincoln told, ‘Wasn’t for the honor I’d just as soon walk’? Anyway, we got to Deming and I got a train to Benson, and took the stage in.”

“Doc in town?” Masterson said.

Wyatt nodded.

“Big-Nose Kate is here with him,” he said.

“For how long?”

Wyatt shrugged.

“Half an hour be a long time with Kate,” he said.

Nineteen

Johnny’s losing his hair, Wyatt thought as he sat across from Behan at a table near the back wall of the Oriental.

“The reason I wanted to talk with you, Wyatt, is this,” Behan said.

He had a glass of beer in front of him. He put his hat down on the seat of an unused chair beside them. It was broad-brimmed like the cowboys wore. Most townsmen wore a shorter brim.

“You know,” Behan said, “that there’s a lot of conflict between the townspeople and the cowboys.”

Wyatt didn’t comment. He picked up his coffee cup in both hands and drank and held the cup in front of him as he listened.

“Lotta folks think cowboy is another word for rustler,” Behan said. “And I know there’s some rustling going on, but I figure it’s mostly Mexican stock and…” He shrugged.

Wyatt waited.

“They’d be a good source of tax revenue if you could collect from them. They come into town regularly, and spend money here. What I’m trying to do is, I’m trying to get to know the cowboys a little better, maybe smooth things out.”