Gunman's Rhapsody, стр. 19

“I won’t give you up,” she said without inflection.

“Jesus Christ,” Wyatt said and turned and went through the parlor and out the front door.

Carrying the Winchester, Wyatt walked up Fremont Street, his boots making soft sounds in the thick dirt. The morning sun was behind him and his shadow spilled out in front of him, angular and much too long. It was already warm, and the sky was high and cloudless. He turned up Fourth Street, past Spangenberg’s Gun Shop on his left, and on the other side, farther up, at the corner of Allen Street, the Can Can Restaurant where he had had breakfast with Charlie Shibell and talked of being a deputy. Long time ago, Wyatt thought. He turned right on Allen past Hafford’s. Across the street, Johnny Behan came out of the Grand Hotel; he saw Wyatt and waved. Wyatt touched his hat brim and kept going. Johnny was a genial man. Careful about giving offense. He won’t come straight at you, Virgil had said. But it don’t mean he won’t come. Hell, maybe he was glad to get away from Josie. Wyatt smiled to himself. Be goddamned glad, myself, if Mattie would run off with somebody.

Twenty-five

The way the moonlight fell in the room, he could see Josie’s face as they lay together in her dark bedroom. Her eyes seemed very large in the pale light.

“You’re very strong,” Josie said. “I feel it when we’re doing sex.”

“We’re all strong,” Wyatt said. “James too, ’fore he got shot up.”

“In the war?”

“Yep.”

“Yankee?”

“Yep. Illinois.”

“He doesn’t seem dangerous like his brothers,” Josie said. Her voice had an affectionate teasing sound.

“Oh, James will fight if he has to, best he can with that shoulder. But he’s an easygoing boy. I think James’s done most of the shooting he wants to do already.”

“How ’bout you?” Josie said.

He loved the sound her voice made in the dark room. “I don’t mind shooting,” Wyatt said.

“The men say you are a very good shooter.”

“I practice,” Wyatt said. “Mostly in the morning, early. You don’t get good just packing a gun around. You need to work at it.”

“Can you draw very fast?”

“That’s the dime novel guff,” Wyatt said. “Fast ain’t anywhere near as important as steady.”

“I should think you’d want to get off the first shot.”

“Mostly I’d want to hit what I shot at,” Wyatt said.

“Well,” Josie said. “You’re still here. I guess the proof is in the pudding.”

“Never mind about my pudding,” Wyatt said, and they both giggled.

“I’m not sure I ever heard you laugh before,” Josie said. “I certainly never heard you laugh like that.”

“I’m a little different than usual,” Wyatt said, “when I’m with you.”

“You’re pretty different,” she said, and they both laughed again. “I heard that your friend Holliday was involved in the Benson stage holdup.”

“That’s just talk,” Wyatt said.

“I heard he was a friend of Billy Leonard’s,” Josie said.

As they talked Wyatt ran his hands lightly over her body beneath the covers.

“Doc knew him in Las Vegas,” Wyatt said.

Josie rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and shivered slightly as his hands moved over her.

“Don’t mean he helped him hold up the stage.”

“I even heard you boys did it,” Josie said.

“It’s cowboy talk,” Wyatt said.

“So who do you think did it?”

“Billy Leonard, Harry Head, and Jim Crane,” Wyatt said. “Like Len Redfield told us.”

“You know them?”

Her face was close to his. As she talked, he could feel her lips brush his very lightly.

“Uh-huh,” Wyatt said. “Rustlers. Len Redfield too, and his brother. Tight with the Clantons. They all ride with Ringo and Curley Bill.”

“I heard Curley Bill got shot,” Josie said.

“Up in Galeyville, fella named Jim Wallace, a shooter from over Lincoln County. Put one into Bill’s cheek, took out one of his teeth.”

“Oh, poor man.”

“Yes,” Wyatt said. “I was Wallace, I wouldn’t like my prospects.”

“I meant Bill,” she said.

“Oh. Well, Bill’ll get over it, probably better than Wallace will.”

She shifted slightly against him as his hands continued to move over her.

“Lot of people think you did it, Wyatt. Say Marshal Williams tipped you to the big payload. Even on the posse, people say you and Virgil were just leading them around in circles.”

“Josie, we wasn’t doing the tracking. Billy Breakenridge was doing it first. Then Frank Leslie come out. He was doing the tracking. None of us can track like Frank.”

“I… don’t… care,” she said, trying to keep her breathing steady, “if… you… did.”

“Well,” Wyatt said, “I didn’t.”

His hands moved firmly now, and she pressed against him, squirming a little.

“You… think… Johnny… might be… spreading rumors… because…?”

“Because of us?”

Her breathing was so heavy now that it was hard for her to speak, and when she did it sounded very much like gasping.

“Yes.”

“Could be,” Wyatt said, and she arched against him and her mouth covered his and they stopped talking.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow dies… Jesse James dies… Ralph Waldo Emerson dies… Richard Wagner’s Parsifal is performed.

October 26-

At Waltham, in the Universalist Church, yesterday, was held a convention of The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union of Middlesex county. In the morning devotional exercises were engaged in, Mrs. E. T. Luce presiding. In the afternoon Mrs. Talbot of Malden was in the chair, and there was a general discussion of the temperance question. Mr. R. B. Johnson presided in the evening when Mrs. R. W. McLaughlin delivered an excellent temperance address. The gathering was a large one, most of the unions being represented.

DEFEATS THE “TECHS”

October 26-

The Harvard eleven won its second victory from the Institute of Technology team, yesterday afternoon, on Holmes field, in the presence of a fair number of spectators.

London, October 25-

At a civic dinner here last night, Lord Charles Beresford, who commanded the gunboat Condor, which took part in the bombardment of Alexandria, in describing events occurring after the bombardment, characterized the American Marines at Alexandria as brave fellows. He said they rendered valuable assistance in saving many buildings during the conflagration.

Washington, October 25-

P. H. Conger, superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park submitted his report to the Secretary of the Interior today. He says that hunting has been practically suspended, and deer and elk are no longer killed. He regards the salary paid assistant superintendents as too small. He suggests that the law dividing the responsibility of the government of the park between the War and Interior departments be changed so as to place the park under the interior department. The hotel built by Rufus Hatch amp; Co. is completed, and is represented as commodious and well kept.