The crew rode over the bridge and Rasch steered them toward Ham Bell’s corral, where they could leave their horses and their guns.
Down at the south end of the bridge, Charlie Bassett looked at Bat, who shook his head in dumb amazement. They walked across the bridge, joining Morg and Stauber.
“That was the easy part,” Wyatt told them. “Watch for trouble with the troopers.”
Mabel Riney retrieved Wyatt’s shotgun from next to her kitchen door and handed it to him. “Take care, now,” she told him.
“Yes, ma’am,” Wyatt said. “We will.”
“Damn if that don’t beat all,” John Riney said, watching him go.
Mabel said, “Don’t curse, John,” and went back inside to finish making supper.
A few yards down Bridge Street, Doc and Kate waited for Morgan to pass by. Doc took off his hat and bowed. “Achilles and his Myrmidons!” he declared in his soft-voiced way. “If your brother is wise, he will keep his heel well-armored, sir.”
Morg had no idea what that meant, but he could tell it was a compliment somehow. “I told you he was something.”
“It was neatly done,” Doc agreed.
Like everyone else in Dodge City, John Henry Holliday was still working out what he had just witnessed. There was an admirable element of sangfroid, but something else as well, visible but unspoken. A deferential civility, he decided, combined with … a physical insolence that subtly welcomed a challenge. It was an interesting approach.
“Lord,” he cried suddenly, “but I do enjoy a display of professional proficiency! You owe the gentleman money, Miss Kate. Pay up.”
Kate counted out ten dollars and handed them to Morg, who was grinning ear to ear. Kate made a mouth at him and looked away.
“Don’t sulk, darlin’,” Doc said, offering his arm. “Make him buy that Dostoevsky.”
“I can make the money back in five minutes,” she said. “Let’s go milk these Texas cows.”
Rasch’s crew left the New Famous Elephant Barn’s corral and headed for Front Street on foot. Gamblers and whores laughed and waved and dispersed to the saloons, ready to start the night shift.
As Wyatt approached Wright’s General Outfitting, Bob called, “Nice work!” Wyatt acknowledged his praise with nothing more than a slight lift of his chin, which was strong and square and chiseled, and which silently proclaimed his strength of character and moral rectitude to anyone who looked at the bastard, which was everybody in town at the moment.
How in hell does he do it? Bob wondered.
Wyatt’s brother Morgan was well liked and respected, but didn’t draw the eye the way his older brother did, even though they looked so much alike. Wyatt didn’t holler or throw his weight around like Fat Larry used to, back when he was still able to get out of the marshal’s office. Bat Masterson’s clothing account was damn near enough to keep Wright’s General Outfitting in the black all on its own, and the sheriff cut an impressive figure for a man so short he wore lifts in those high-heeled boots of his, but Wyatt dressed simply. A cheap, collarless shirt. Dark trousers. Scuffed shoes. Bob wasn’t even sure that Wyatt owned a sidearm; if he did, he rarely wore it. And yet six deputies—each of them Wyatt’s equal or better in experience—simply accepted that he was running things. And forty Texas cowboys rode into town like they were on their way to church.
As though reading Bob’s mind, Chalkie Beeson said, “Jesus, I hate that sonofabitch. Goddam. I thought they’d plug him where he stood, just for asking.”
Dog laughed. “Chalk, you’re gonna owe me fifty bucks on the Fourth.”
Bob Wright waited to comment until Wyatt was well out of earshot.
“Naw …” he said then, like he was talking himself out of thinking something. “Probably just a coincidence …”
“What?” Dog Kelley asked.
“How he got them to leave their guns at Ham’s.”
“Kickback,” Chalkie said darkly, wishing he’d thought of it before Ham.
“Well,” said Deacon Cox, always reasonable, “makes a certain amount of sense to corral the horses first thing and leave the guns at Ham’s instead of letting them come through town heeled. We should’ve written the ordinance that way in the first place.”
“Golly, Deacon,” Bob said, “you must be rolling in money. Me, I could have used the extra business when they came back to the store.”
“C’mon, Bob,” Dog groaned. “You’re pullin’ in boxcars of cash, and everybody knows it.”
“I got expenses, too,” Bob pointed out. “Why, shipping costs alone can kill a merchant out here! Anyways, I better get back to the store.”
By then the saloons were getting noisy. Bridge Street was almost clear, except for Nick Klaine, who was leaning against a hitching rail, still scribbling notes for the Dodge City Times. Bringing up the rear, Bat Masterson came even with the newspaperman and told Charlie Bassett to go on ahead and start the patrol without him. It wasn’t much of a chance to take. Rasch’s boys wouldn’t be drunk for at least twenty minutes yet, and Bat wanted to make sure Nick got the facts right—especially the part about how he and Charlie were deputized to work within city limits, but the sheriff’s office still had jurisdiction in the county. So this was not a demotion but an expansion of responsibility.
Nick listened, and nodded, and wrote a few words. When he looked up from his notes, Wyatt was already dragging a dazed and weakly protesting young Texan to the jail. “Doesn’t waste time, does he.”
“Nope,” Bat said. “He was like that even back when me and Ed and him was hunting buffalo. Size up a herd. Move downwind of the animal most likely to be a troublemaker. Drop that one first. See, now, here’s the difference between me and Wyatt and these cowboys,” Bat continued, warming up. “Drovers are tough, but if you’re with a cattle crew—why, there’s always thirty, forty other men nearby. You got a trail boss. You got Cookie driving a chuck wagon, making meals for you like he was your mamma. Each man’s got eight or ten horses at least in the remuda. Something goes wrong—say, your horse breaks a leg or you do? Why, there’s always help near. Now, buffalo hunters? That’s a different story. You hunt buffalo, you’re the only thing on two legs for four thousand square miles. Jesus! Wet, sick, thirsty, starved, trampled—you’d just handle it or die trying.”
Nick Klaine nodded, gazing at Wyatt.
“Yep. Do or die!” Bat said. “Most I ever had was a three-man crew. Just me and Ed and Wyatt—”
“Bat!” Wyatt yelled.
“Doesn’t waste words, either,” Nick observed. “Guess you better get to work.”
All that night, when Bat and Charlie weren’t settling things down before an argument turned into a fight, or backing up a faro dealer whose customers suspected fraud, or making sure a whore got paid, Bat was going over and over in his head how he’d have written the confrontation at the tollbooth if he were working for the newspaper. RASCH ACTIONS, he’d have headlined it, and he thought that was pretty clever. Or maybe NO RASCH ACTIONS. He couldn’t decide which was better. He was particularly pleased with his analysis of why cowboys weren’t near as tough as the self-reliant ex–buffalo hunters who wore the badge. That was what you called “a good angle,” and as the night went on, Bat regretted more and more that he hadn’t saved it up for D. M. Frost instead of giving it away to Nick Klaine, because the Ford County Globe reached more constituents than the Dodge City Times.
The next morning, same as always, Bat bought both papers and read them before he went to bed. Being an elected official and not an appointee like a city marshal, he believed it was important to keep up with local politics, and he was eager to see how the toll bridge story had been told.
The Globe didn’t cover it at all, which was dismaying. The Times concluded its brief account with Nick’s laconic observation: Our new deputy, Wyatt Earp, has a quiet way of taking matters in hand. He gives the impression that the city will be able to enforce her mandates and preserve her dignity this summer.