A quick cramp, more spasm than agony, made him bend over. It felt like the aftereffect of a big meal spiced with hot chili peppers and coarse tequila-pressure of belly gas, a little pain beginning now, starting to spread through his abdomen, and he thought he would just sit here a moment longer until he felt alittlestronger, and then he would go find a doctor to patch him up so he could help Jeremy arrest those Earp bastards and collect the reward.
Caroline beat a path through the lunchroom, screaming, knocking people aside. She pummeled her way to the door-people were crowding forward to find out what was going on. She elbowed past two men at the door, wrenched it open, and plunged outside.
She took it all in with one glance. The little Knights of Labor agitator-Sparrow-running away down the street with a scuttling, scrambling gait, following the big miners who ran hard, two of them obviously wounded, their clumsy jackboots pounding the boardwalk; big Reese Cooley standing slumped under the veranda against the wall of the Inter Ocean, his face bleeding; Warren Earp and the two thugs with him, watching the miners run away, holding their guns ready but silent; and tall Wyatt Earp stepping down off the Inter Ocean veranda and dogtrotting forward toward the crouching man in the street-Rafe.
An involuntary sound gurgled in Caroline’s throat. She started forward with numb steps. Earp crouched down by Rafe just as Rafe tipped over and fell on his shoulder. Caroline’s hand rose to her mouth. She saw Earp reach out to feel for a pulse; she said with a little cry, “How bad… how bad is it?”
Earp looked up slowly, his eyes hooded by heavy over-hanging brows. “As bad as he can get.”
She closed her eyes tight. Slowly her shoulders slumped. She dropped her face into her hands. After a moment she felt a hand on her arm and she looked up to see Wyatt Earp beside her.
She said in a very small voice, “If you don’t take your hand off me right now I swear to God I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”
Wyatt Earp dropped his hands to his sides and turned away and walked over to the Inter Ocean. Caroline watched him until he disappeared inside. Then, strength gone, she fell to her knees beside Rafe. A man was running forward, summoned somehow, carrying a black? ctor’s bag. It was too late for that. Caroline’s eyes misted and she began to speak with numb monotonous repetition: “Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God…”
Nine
The angry sun stood straight overhead; the undertaker’s wagon creaked past and Jeremiah Tree stepped off the walk to cross the street to the Inter Ocean. His face was a twisted, ugly mask of fury.
McKesson came out onto the veranda when Tree was halfway to the place. The sheriff opened his mouth to speak but Tree didn’t even-look at him, just went straight for the door, and so McKesson planted himself in front of the door and stiff-armed him to a halt.
Tree’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “Stick it up your ass, Sheriff.”
“Walk through that door the way you are now and you’re dead,” McKesson said flatly, staring him in the eye. “Just stand still and wait for your brain to start functioning, Deputy. Right now you’re no good to anybody-least of all yourself.”
“I’m going to do your job for you,” Tree snarled.
“What job is that? Arresting Reese Cooley? I already did that. The Judge turned him loose on his own recognizance after Cardiff’s lawyer got a writ.”
“Pretty damn fast work,” Tree said icily.
“Yes, well, it happens like that when you’ve got powerful friends. Cooley will face a preliminary hearing and if he’s bound over he’ll go to trial.”
“A trial, Sheriff-or a farce?”
Tree was facing McKesson, his eyes at the level of McKesson’s white thatch of hair; he was still feeling the shortness of breath, the debilitating massive rage that flooded through all the tissues of his body. His hands were formed into tight fists and he lifted one of them to the level of his waist. He was about to tell McKesson to get out of the way when a new voice slapped at him from just inside the door: “All right, Ollie, thanks. I’ll take over.”
It was Wyatt Earp. In his rage Tree had lost all alertness; Earp had come within six feet of him without his even knowing.
Earp was in his shirt sleeves, probably to eliminate any flowing coat cloth that might get between hand and gun. His shoulder-holstered guns hung heavy under his arms and his hands were held in front of his chest as if he were holding poker cards, only there were no cards; he was two inches from drawing his guns.
Earp said, “Now don’t say anything and don’t get stupid notions until you’ve heard me out. You’re in no shape to try me with a gun. Are you listening?”
With stubborn muteness Tree looked straight at him. Earp’s sleeves were rolled up; his golden-haired forearms were powerful and sleek. Tree hadn’t seen him angry before; now it was strong enough to reach through his own rage: it chilled him, a bleak coldness that came off Wyatt Earp like death.
“Now hear me,” Earp said. “You see men all the time who go around begging to get killed. They take a swing at you if you even brush by their sleeve without meaning to. They pick a fight over nothing, they accuse you of cheating at cards-anything. They go out of their way to make enemies of dangerous men when they know they haven’t got a chance of winning a fight with them. They beg to get hurt. And sooner or later they always find somebody to oblige them.”
“If you’re talking about Rafe-”
“I am.” Earp cut him off roughly and went on: “Your brother was begging for it. Making brags he knew he couldn’t keep. Talking it up in saloons, telling everybody in earshot what he’d do to me and my so-called gang if he ever got an excuse. I heard him and Cooley heard him. Maybe you heard him too.”
“It was just talk. Kid talk. Cooley’s going to pay-”
“Cooley will pay,” Earp grunted, “sooner or later, but not here, not now, and not for this. Listen to me, amigo. Your brother came boiling out that door over there at a time when guns were going off on this street. He didn’t just stick his head out for a look. He came running. When you’re in the middle of a gun battle and you see a man running at you and it’s a man who’s made threats against your life, you don’t stop to ask the bastard if his intentions are peaceable. I told you before, I wouldn’t wait to find out if he was bluffing. I told you to hpbble him. You didn’t, and he’s dead, and now you want to blame your own mistake on Cooley. Cooley had no choice.”
“No choice! Are you trying to tell me he forced Cooley to kill him when he didn’t even have a gun in his hand?”
“He was armed. He came ramming into a fight that was none of his business and it was his own stupid fault he got shot. We didn’t have time to wait to see whether he was going to start shooting at us. By God, how do I make you understand? There were guns going off!”
McKesson, at Tree’s shoulder, said in a strict voice, “Your brother was the one who had the choice to make, Deputy. He could have chosen not to come out on the street. When a man deliberately steps into the line of fire you’ve got to assume he means to take a hand in the fighting. He could hear what was happening-he wasn’t deaf, was he? — if he’d had any sense at all he’d have stuck to cover.”
Wyatt Earp said, “Just one more thing. You can come inside and try to take Cooley away from us, but I don’t recommend it. You’ll want better odds. Go home and think about it. Give yourself a chance, for the love of God.”
Abruptly, Earp backed inside and disappeared beyond the door.
McKesson reached for his arm; Tree shook him off. He stood staring at the closed door as if Earp were still there.
Finally he said in a low, throbbing voice, “What really happened here? I can’t get a straight story out of anybody.”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t here either. Don’t you believe him?”
“Why should I?”
McKesson said, “I was beginning to think you liked Earp.”
“I was beginning to think he believed in justice,” Tree answered darkly.
“How do you know he doesn’t?”
