glance of strain and anxiety. This one wouldn’t be so easy.
Tree was halfway to the bed when something, maybe the legendary eyes in the back of his head, brought Wyatt Earp awake. Tree saw the tiny flicker against the eyeball and knew Earp was awake and watching him-and then, with speed startling in so big a man, Earp’s naked body was hurtling toward the chair where his guns hung.
Tree came at him on the run, cracking the sliphammer gun down with full force against Earp’s extended forearm. He could tell from the sound that he hadn’t broken any bones but it numbed Earp, probably clear to the shoulder, and the arm dropped limp, flapping, and when Earp tried to use the other arm Mordecai Gant had reached the bed and Gant’s sharp, whispered words reached starkly across the dimness:
“I’ll kill her.”
It made Earp hesitate long enough to look past Tree at Gant. The blade of Gant’s knife rested against Josie Earp’s throat, silver edge glittering against the pale skin. Josie was awake, swallowing in spasms. In the minimal light Gant’s greasy, heavy face looked hooded and satanic.
Gant whispered sibilantly, “You make one more move, friend Arp, or just speak one word loud, and she’s dead. Hear?”
Mute, barely concealing his tremendous rage, Wyatt Earp nodded his head once. He straightened up and contented himself with a glare straight against Tree’s eyes. Tree thought, If looks could kill. He took care when he tied Earp’s big hands and fitted the gag into his mouth. Gant trussed Josie, stopped her mouth with a tied bandanna, and went around the room on padding feet to gather up clothes and boots. He wadded them all into a pillowcase, stuck it under his arm and prodded the girl to her feet. Wyatt Earp was stark naked. Josie wore a robe which Gant allowed her to don: Gant’s eyes eyed her body hungrily before she put it on, and Tree noted that Gant’s lustful attention didn’t escape Wyatt Earp’s silent notice: Earp was. chalking it up.
It couldn’t be helped. Tree said to Earp, “Just do what you’re told. You know what I want. Nobody gets hurt unless you force it.” He spoke soft against Earp’s ear.
Gant went out first, tugging Josie by the arm. Tree glanced at her briefly. She was looking back at Wyatt. Tree caught on her dimly lighted features, in that briefest unguarded instant, a look of savage satisfaction. It was gone so swiftly he might have imagined it; but the thought grenaded into his mind that she was happy about this. He had seen it before in other women. It irritated a woman to see her man having too much success, having things go too much his own way; it made her uneasy, unsure of her hold over him.
It was no time to be thinking of abstractions. He prodded Wyatt Earp ahead of him and they went out onto the balcony. He kept his distance: Earp was a man of enormous physical power and there was no telling what rage might tempt him into. Tree felt a momentary regret, as he might have felt if he had been trapping a magnificent wild animal.
Tree was the last of the four in the slow, tense procession across the balconies. Progress was slow: Josie was agile enough but the flowing robe hampered her climbing. Finally Gant picked her up and slung her over his shoulder like a sack of meal.
There was a moment that formed an almost comical picture: Wyatt Earp climbing across the balconies, jaybird naked, his private parts wobbling as he spread his legs across the gap.
Tree had both guns fisted and ready to go to war but his plan had been conceived with care and it worked. There was no alarm. Gant crawled up across the plank first and then turned and held his gun in plain sight. Josie went across, reluctant and trembling with anger but boosted by a calm nod from Wyatt Earp, who went across after her. Tree crossed last. With Gant’s help he hauled in the plank. They left it there on the bank roof and walked across the building, Tree walking backwards with his guns up, seeking the rooftop sentry. The man came in sight but was looking the other way. Gant jumped down to the fire-stair landing and stood ready to receive Josie. Tree said, “Help her down,” and caught Wyatt Earp’s stinging white-hot glance of malice before Gant took the girl by the wrists and lowered her off the roof. Tree jumped down behind Earp and saw Josie look at her naked husband and giggle through the gag. She had nerve, that one. They went down the stairs and Gant led the way, after scouting the dark street, across into the opposite alley and up the block as far as the back corral of the livery stable. The corral gate was open; the only animals inside were tethered-seven saddled horses. Caroline stood among them.
When Caroline saw Wyatt Earp naked her eyebrows went up and she grinned brashly.
Tree took the pillowcase from Gant and handed it to Earp and said, “Both of you get some clothes on.”
Tree said to Gant, “Untie Mrs. Earp’s hands and watch her, I don’t want her yanking the gag off.” To Earp: “Just your pants. You’ll ride without a shirt, at least till we’re clear, of town. I’ll put your coat across your shoulders if you’re cold.”
Obie Macklin came out of the stable shadows, prodding Warren Earp ahead of him. Warren had his pants on over the nightshirt he had been wearing. Tree said, “Hurry up-let’s go, now.”
Twelve
Eight hours of hard travel brought them to a frothy stream that came slicing down out of the eastward mountains. The noon sun was brass-brilliant, its heat cut by altitude; tall crags loomed high above them against the sky. The canyon was green with lush growth, its walls upended in stark, steep tilts that climbed, tier after tier, toward the great, high Rocky Mountain passes at twelve and thirteen thousand feet. The tall timber was an admixture of lance-like conifers and silver-barked aspens. The forest floors made for silent passage across deep beds of pine needles; the trees grew so close together that even without undergrowth travel was difficult.
Gnats and dragonflies hovered above slack eddies where the stream made a bend across massive rocks. Tree called a brief halt to water the horses, remove the gags, and get proper clothes on the prisoners. Josie went with Caroline behind a pinon to protect her saddle-scraped legs with petticoats; the Earp brothers were untied one at a time and watched with alert care. When Warren said, “I got to take a leak,” Obie Macklin went with him-with a gun-and Tree stood by the horses, watching Mordecai Gant make faces at Wyatt Earp. Gant was on the prod, trying to egg Wyatt Earp into reaction, but Earp was having none of it, ignoring Gant.
Wyatt Earp had simmered soundlessly since dawn. Now he went to a tree and sat down with his back to it, lifting and bending one knee. He put his rawhide-manacled hands in his lap and stared passionately at the roaring stream.
Macklin herded Warren into sight. Tree walked over to Wyatt Earp and said, “How’re you making it?”
Earp glanced up at him; instead of answering, he said, “Where’d you pick up those two ass holes?” talking about Macklin and Gant.
Tree said, “Does it matter?”
“They’re scum.”
“That’s why they’re handy.” Tree took his pipe out of his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. He seldom lit it but the stem was tooth-scarred from chewing. He said, “If I’d been alone last night you’d have let out a bellow that would’ve brought an army on the run. But you couldn’t trust Gant not to kill Josie. You trust me too much-that’s why I needed him.”
“Trust you? That’s not the point.” Earp looked up-he was taking some strange satisfaction from this. “The point is, I couldn’t trust you to handle Gant.”
“Same thing.”
“I knew that wretch a long time ago. He used to ride for Phin Clanton. He’d carve up his own mother if he could get a good price for the pieces.”
“I expect he would,” Tree muttered, without heat. Gant and Macklin were too far away to hear but he glanced that way anyhow.
Earp said, “I’m not in the habit of making empty threats, so listen to me. If that scum lays one finger on my wife I’ll have his guts for guitar strings-and yours with them. Clear?”
Tree, surveying the camp, said in a mild, abstracted voice, “You don’t give any orders here-maybe you ought to bear that in mind.”
Warren Earp was sitting on the rocks, massaging his bare foot; he seemed to have picked up a splinter. Josie and Caroline reappeared from behind the pifton clump; Josie went directly to Wyatt, sat beside him and reached,
