“I got it the first time. I want to get something straight,” Wyatt said. “Somebody breaks the law, I don’t care whose friend he is, I’m taking him in.”
“Sure, Wyatt. That’s fair,” Dog said.
“That goes for everybody,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the other men. “Not just me and Morg.”
“You bet.”
“I want Bat and Charlie sworn in as city, too.”
“I’m not sure that’s necessary,” Bat told Dog. “Dodge is inside Ford County, so I’m thinking maybe we have jurisdiction in town, too.”
Wyatt shook his head. “City police have jurisdiction inside town limits. Sheriff’s department covers unincorporated territory in the county. I don’t want somebody getting off because Bat or Charlie made the arrest.”
“I’ll swear them in as city,” Dog said, “just in case. Anything else?”
“Shotguns. One for each man. An extra, loaded, in every saloon, behind the bar.”
“Bird or buck?” Dog asked.
“Bird. I want a bang, not bodies.”
Dog nodded.
“It’s two dollars for every arrest, right?”
“That’s right, Wyatt. I tried to get you three, but—”
Wyatt turned to the other men on the force. “We work in pairs. Point and backup. Morg and Stauber, Bat and Charlie, Jack and Chuck. I’ll circle. We pool the fines. No money for dead men. End of the month, we split the cash up even.”
Nobody objected.
“All right, then.” Wyatt picked up the Bible with his left hand and raised his right. “I, Wyatt Earp, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Kansas, and that I will faithfully and honestly discharge the duties of deputy marshal of the City of Dodge during my term of office, so help me God.”
He got it word perfect, too, Morgan noticed, which was better than either Bat or Charlie did when Dog swore them in. By that time, everybody in the saloon was watching as Wyatt pinned the badge on his shirt and drew a map in the beer slops on a table.
“The river,” he said, making a wavy line. “The bridge.” A straight line over the wavy one. “Tollbooth.” A dot, and then a T-shape. “Bridge Street. Front.”
He looked up. The deputies nodded.
“Morg and Stauber: north end of the bridge, here and here. Bat and Charlie, south end. Jack and Chuck, down at the corner, second-floor windows of the Green Front and the Lady Gay. Street’s mine.”
Wyatt looked at each one of his men in turn, for that was what they were. His, and no argument about it.
“Everyone carries a shotgun, every night. You need help, fire it. Rest of us’ll come on. You see any weapon at all, bash whoever’s carrying it. Don’t argue. Don’t explain. Don’t wait.”
He looked away and then at each of them. Bat. Charlie Bassett. Chuck and Jack. John Stauber. Morgan.
“Last time I saw a lawman gunned down, the drunk who did it walked away for a twelve-dollar fine.” Wyatt fell silent. No one moved. When he spoke again, he seemed to be talking to himself. “Nobody dies tonight,” he said. “We all go home in the morning.”
In the back of the Alhambra, at a table as far from the noise and dust of the street as possible, John Henry Holliday shuffled and reshuffled a deck with absentminded precision, watching as the policemen left the saloon—all except for Morgan, who had noticed Doc and Kate there and stopped by their table briefly.
“Hey, Kate. What’re you reading?” Morg asked.
“Crime and Punishment. Translated from the Russian.”
“Sounds interesting. Can I borrow it when you’re done?”
She shrugged.
“Twenty bucks says Wyatt don’t even raise his voice,” Morg offered, “and the Texans do as they’re told.”
Doc reached over to lift Kate’s hand to his lips. “You’re on your own with this one, darlin’. I wouldn’t take that bet.”
“Make it ten,” Kate told Morgan. “We’re short.”
Third Hand
The River
Winters in Kansas could fool you, John Riney always warned newcomers.
A man would come west in the springtime, and it would be just like the newspaper said. Homesteads weren’t free anymore, but they were sure enough dirt cheap. There were no trees to clear nor swamps to drain. No rocks to dig out before you could break ground. First day you got up and ran your eyes over your land at sunrise, you’d be so glad you came to Kansas, you’d think, Damn, how’m I gonna know when I’m in heaven after living someplace this good?
Couple months later, you knew just how tough that grassland was, and how hard you and your wife and kids and the mule had to work to bust through it—and not a particle of shade for five hundred miles, sun beating on you like a hammer. Still, you’d get your crop in, and when that first summer passed, you’d have a pretty good harvest, even after the cyclone that one time and a long stretch of dry in August.
And anyways, you could get bad weather back East, too. Farming’s the biggest gamble there is. Ask the man who’s tried it.
With no trees, you wouldn’t even notice so much that it was getting to be autumn, but then nights would cool off a lot. You’d tell your wife, “Well, it’s hot as hell, summer, but when the heat breaks, the weather’s real pleasant.” There’d be cold snaps and frost in October and you’d think, Oh, Lord. Here comes the snow! But that was squaw winter, and November would surprise you. The air would turn mild and sweet, and the light was soft and golden, slanting in low as the days shortened.
The first sign of what you were in for? Just a shift in the wind. Right before Christmas, usually. Huge clouds the color of spent charcoal would pile up on the far horizon. Suddenly the temperature would drop like a rock, and the first blizzard of the season would roar across the plains and hit you like a damn train. Men would get caught outdoors—fixing a fence, maybe—no coat, just wearing what seemed sensible that morning when the sun was shining and it looked to be another pretty day. Happened so fast, you didn’t hardly know what to think.
That’s how it was the year John Riney took over a farm from a Dutch fella, out north of Dodge. The Dutchie had a run of bad luck and went bust, what with the drought and the hoppers and the depression, but John reckoned him and Mabel and the boys could make a go of it, and by December he could see his way clear to proving up on the land.
Then one day—mid-December—John was out in the shed working on a broken harness when the breeze came up. Before he even thought twice, the wind was so strong, the whole little building started to shake and the snow was coming down like nothing he ever seen in north Arkansas. Can’t last, he told himself and went back to the harness, figuring he’d wait it out, but the storm just got worse and worse, and next time he peered through a gap in the siding, he couldn’t see the house anymore, nor hear his own voice above the wind when he hollered.
Before long, it got so bad, he said to himself, “Damn if this shed ain’t gonna come down around me.” So he crawled in between a couple of bales of hay he’d used to prop up a workbench, hoping they’d break the fall of the roof.
He never knew until that day how cold a man could get. He was shaking like anything, but all he could do was wrap his arms around himself, curl up like a babe and wait for the storm to blow itself out, except it didn’t. It just went on and on like that, and then the air started crackling, and there was lightning and thunder—in a snowstorm!—which seemed against nature.
“By God, it’s the End,” John cried, and gave himself up to Jesus and prayed for salvation. Sure enough, he felt strangely warm after a while and finally stopped shivering. In the peacefulness that followed, he believed he was dying, and though he regretted leaving his family, he was happy that the Lord was coming for him.