McKesson said, “I do like you. You size up like a man. I think you deserve a free lesson in politics-it may save your life.”
“I thought we were talking about friends.”
“We are. To a man like Wyatt Earp, friends and politics mean the same thing.”
“All right. You’re in a mood to lecture-I’ll listen.”
“Smart,” McKesson remarked again, and then he chuckled. “If you’d known me longer you’d know I’m always in a mood to lecture. Lately I haven’t had many good audiences, though, unless you count the drunks I gather into the fold every night. All right, young fellow, settle back and enjoy your coffee and try to appreciate my wisdom as much as it deserves. I’ll tell you about Gunnison and I’ll tell you about Wyatt Earp, and his politics, and his friends.”
McKesson was smiling-but his eyes were at odds with his lips. He spoke with a flat down-East accent, Tree noticed.
McKesson said, “We’ve got a tough Httle town often thousand tough people here. It’s a new mining region but it’s rich as hell. If you’ve seen the town, and you couldn’t have helped that this morning, then you’ve seen that — it’s a spectacular monument to what unlimited money and baroque bad taste can achieve. That ought to tell you something about the kind of men who built this town-the men who still own it. There are about fifty of them all told-strike-it-rich millionaires. Two years ago almost every one of them was a down-and-out prospector. They’ve got all the money in the world but they’ve got no traditions, no education, no taste, and not a hell of a lot of good sense. I’ve seen two of them sit in the lobby of the Inter Ocean Hotel during a cloudburst and bet fifty thousand dollars on which of two raindrops would first reach the bottom of a windowpane.”
The sheriff sipped coffee and cleared his throat. “Now, these old boys made their strikes just in the past couple of years, and big-money mining’s changed a good deal since the old days when they used to pan and sluice. The fortunes that are being made in these mountains are coming out of deep shafts in the ground, not out of creek-bed gravel. It takes a lot of manpower to dig a thousand-foot mine shaft and drag ore out by the thousands of tons and wagon it down into the smelters and mill it down into pure metal. A hell of a lot of manpower. For every overnight millionaire in Gunnison there are a couple of hundred hardscrab-ble miners working for day wages. Or more-some of these mines carry payrolls of six or eight hundred men. Nowadays a lot of these miners think they aren’t getting paid enough or looked after well enough. We’ve got a troublesome little bunch of loudmouthed agitators frdm back East calling themselves Knights of Labor trying to form strike unions. Maybe you’ve heard what happened in Leadville and Creede when they tried the same thing-a lot of heads were smashed.”
“I heard,” Tree murmured, lulled by the rambling run of the sheriff’s voice. “What’s this got to do with me?”
“I’m coming to that. Let’s look and see what we’ve got here. We’ve got a handful of lucky millionaires who want to stay rich and get richer, and we’ve got thousands of unhappy miners being stirred up by radical agitators, and into the middle of this comes a big man with handlebar mustaches and two revolvers and a big-gun reputation that’s made him as much of a legend as Wild Bill Hickok. This is the man who licked the Clan tons in Tombstone, the man the dime novels call the Lion of Tombstone.”
McKesson paused to see what effect his speech had taken. Tree was lighting his pipe. He was thinking about Wyatt Earp, a man he had never met, wondering how it would be, not liking the possibilities.
McKesson said, “The people who own this town gave him the key to the city.”
It made Tree look at him. “What?”
McKesson nodded. “They’re treating Wyatt Earp like visiting royalty. Given over the whole Inter Ocean Hotel to him and his wife and his brother.”
“Why?”
“Two reasons. First, these ore barons of ours are like kids when it comes to celebrated visitors-they’d do the same thing for an actress or a senator. And second, these Yankee millionaires of ours know it was the Earps who whipped hell. out of the Johnny Reb Texans in Kansas, and they respect a case-hardened man above all ethers. They’ve got a good use for Wyatt — Earp, you see. Just the fact that he’s holed up in the Inter Ocean is enough to give pause to these radical agitators. The miners know Earp’s on friendly terms with the owners, and nobody wants to get into a fracas where he may find himself staring down the wrong end of Wyatt Earp’s gunbarrels. Do you begin to see what I’m driving at?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. The point is, you’re supposed to arrest Earp and take him out of Gunnison. The millionaires aren’t going to like that. Earp’s doing them a favor by being here, and they’re doing him a favor in return.”
“What favor?”
McKesson’s smile, again, was colder than it should have been. He said, “I’d have thought you’d have figured that out by now. This is a mining state-the men who own the mines pretty much control the politics. It’s for sure they control the governor’s office. You can’t arrest Earp unless Governor Pitkin signs the extradition papers. Now do you see? Earp’s friends are trying to persuade the Governor not to sign the extradition papers.”
Tree’s pipe had gone out; he found a match and lit it. When he looked at the sheriff, the long-clawed hands were spread in a gesture that meant, So there it is. McKesson’s smile was small and almost apologetic. “Friends,” McKesson said, “and politics. Earp stays in town to intimidate the agitators, and in return, the owners protect him against extradition.”
“You think they’ll persuade the Governor not to sign?”
“Who knows? My private opinion is it’s a tossup. But whatever happens in Denver, your problem’s right here in Gunnison, and nobody here will give you any help. The only men in Gunnison who’d be tough enough to join you going up against the Earps are the owners’ hired strike-breakers. They’re a pack of thugs but they have a purpose- they help me keep the peace by keeping the lid on ten thousand miners. Point is, of course, the strikebreakers are Earp partisans because they’re all on the same side, against the miners and agitators. You won’t get any help there.”
McKesson had finished his coffee. Now he stood up. “So you see the whole city’s united against you. Regardless of what happens in Denver, you haven’t got a chance.”
Tree said, “What about you?”
“Me?”
“If the Governor signs the extradition, where does that put you?”
“In a rather uncomfortable spot, I’m afraid. I’m a county official, of course, not a state employee, so there’s some question whether I’d be bounden to obey instructions from Denver unless martial law was declared.”
Without comment, Tree stood up and knocked the bowl of his pipe into his hand. He stooped over the spittoon to dump ash into it, pocketed the pipe and rubbed his hands. He gave McKesson a dry look.
McKesson said, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m a coward.”
“What word would you prefer?”
For the first time, McKesson flushed. But he regained composure quickly; he said, “Realist. I prefer realist. I happen to know which side my job’s buttered on. I’m a hired hand, you know, and if you eat a man’s bread then you’re obliged to sing his songs.”
“Thanks,” Tree said, “for telling me where you stand.” The tone, if not the words, was without sarcasm.
“Think nothing of it.”
“I will,” Tree replied, and saw it take effect; he added, “Just one other thing.”
“Name it. I’m always anxious to be of service to a friend.”
“Aeah. If I have to arrest him will you try to stop me?”
McKesson’s pitted face was too animated ever to be blank, but he held it now in stern, guarded repose. “Probably not. I’ll have to wait and see.”
Tree tugged his hat down, feeling dismal; he said, “Listen, I’ll fight you too if I have to.”
“Will you, now. You’re talking as if you had a chance of winning.”
“No point in acting as if I’d already lost.” Tree managed a cool smile.
“You have, you know,” McKesson breathed. “You can only get killed.”
“You can’t always go by that.” Tree went outside into the morning sun and heard the screen door slap shut behind him. He squinted. The brilliant light was not in keeping with his bleak mood. Belly churning, he went up the street.
