Sliphammer

Tree made a place for himself at the bar and ordered a drink. He had picked a spot from which he could appraise the Earps in the back bar mirror. Warren, the young one, wore his hair the same as Wyatt. His mustache and clothes were similar to Wyatt’s. The way he sat in his chair, trying to look muscular and easy-sprawled all at once, was a direct imitation of Wyatt’s unconscious position: chair pushed back, one knee crossed over the other, polished black boot swaying a little with easy rhythm as he talked, and one elbow on the arm of the chair supporting a half-full whisky glass held by a vertical forearm. It was significant that Wyatt held the glass in his left hand: Tree assumed that, unlike himself, Earp was right-handed. His right hand lay across his lap and it could be taken for granted a shoulder-hung gun was within six inches of his fingertips, just inside his coat lapel.

Tree’s drink came. He stood at the bar and twisted the glass on the bar surface and picked it up, observing the wet ring it left. Without looking up he knew a good many eyes were studying him from all over the room. But if he looked in the mirror he would not find Wyatt Earp looking at him. He smiled to himself, briefly; he lifted the drink to his mouth. He had a fleeting vision of Grady Jestro’s gun flaming at him from the dark corner of the hotel room. He closed his eyes momentarily and felt the whisky thunder into his blood.

He turned around, glass in hand, and hooked both elbows over the bar behind him, and stared straight at Wyatt Earp. Earp didn’t seem to notice; he was talking calmly to the man next to him-a big dark man who wore an expensive suit that did not make him look genteel. One of the overnight millionaires of Gu

Wyatt Earp had a wise, tough, worldly face. Tree felt neither disillusioned nor disappointed. Earp was long-legged, whipcord handsome, self-assured, a healthy man in his mature hard-gutted prime. He was, Tree knew, thirty-four years old, which made him an elder statesman among the righting gamblers of the Western circuit. He had a tough, sleepy look of leonine competence.

Tree wondered whether he ought to feel relieved or sorry. The job would be less disagreeable, if not less difficult, if Earp had turned out to be a buck-toothed, snarling savage.

Abruptly, Earp turned his head and looked straight at Tree. Evidently he felt he had given Tree time enough to size him up. Earp’s free hand rose gently from his lap and he beckoned with a slow nod of recognition.

Tree made a gesture with his drink and walked forward without hurry, purposefully casual. Approaching, he glanced at the two other men at the table-the big dark millionaire and the muscular blunt-jawed tough who had to be one of the thug strikebreakers.

The girl looked up at him coyly from under lowered brows. Tree reached the table, facing Earp across it; Earp said to Warren, “Bring up another chair and make a place for friend Tree. How’re you making it, Deputy? Enjoying the town?”

Three only nodded, still trying to feel out the direction Earp wanted to go. He didn’t feel anything as specific as warning currents in the air, but it was an uneasy stretch of time.

Earp said, “The Deputy goes by the name of Sliphammer Tree. From Pima County, down in Arizona. He’s going to keep an eye on our obedient servant, gentlemen.”

Warren Earp put a chair down behind Tree’s knees and went back around the table to his seat. The two men on the near side of the table shifted their chairs to make room. The big dark millionaire said, “Howdy,” and offered a thick, hard hand. “I’m Wayde Cardiff, I own the Spurlock. Fellow on your left there, that’s Reese Cooley.”

Cardiff had sweaty palms. He was a once-tough man gone soft: his breasts were womanly, his arms flaccid, his chin padded and underhung by loose flesh. But his eyes were flinty. Cardiff shook Tree’s hand, hitched his suety belly and slumped back in his chair.

Reese Cooley, thuglike, had a horseshoe fringe of hair around a glossy bald spot. His chin was dark with heavy Mediterranean stubble. He had a greasy appearance. His handshake was a childish contest, as if to tell Tree he could break every bone in Tree’s hand if he felt like it. Tree matched him for pressure, heard Cooley’s grunt and saw the surprised respect in the blunt face, and set his drink down before he sat. He noticed that Wyatt Earp had not offered to shake hands; Warren, of course, had followed suit. Earp said casually, “My brother Warren, of course-you had that figured out. And this is Josie.”

Josie gave him a mock-sweet smile. He wondered what went on behind those flirty bemused eyes.

Reese Cooley said, without preamble, “You gu

Earp said, “Don’t hold that against him, Reese.”

“I ain’t decided yet. I’m still thanking on it.”

“Jestro was a stupid pig,” said Wyatt Earp.

“He smelled terrible,” said Josie. “He smelled like horse shit.”

Wayde Cardiff said, “Jestro got what he deserved.” Tree was still staring at Josie, who began to laugh in her throat.

Wyatt Earp said, “I make no apologies, Deputy, but I’ll say this to you, just once. What Jestro tried to do was not my idea.”

“I didn’t think it was,” Tree said.

Warren Earp said, “Good thing, too. You better not.”

Tree gave him a wry glance; he went back to Wyatt: “You know why I’m here. What I may have to do.”

“We’ll talk about that,” Earp said. “Plenty of time, Deputy. Let’s get to know one another first” His smile was genuine, not false, but it was layered with ungiving steel.

Wayde Cardiff explained, “No reason why we can’t all be friends, Deputy. There’s no harm mentioning that me and my friends get along right well with Governor Pitkin. It’s our considered belief there’d be a miscarriage of justice if Wyatt got hauled back to Arizona and put on trial by a rigged Rebel-style court for the justified killing of a Rebel-style cowman. Some of my friends are up to Denver right now impressing the Governor with how we feel. So you see it ain’t likely you’ll have to do anything at all, after all.”

When Tree looked at Wyatt Earp he saw an indolent smile, a slight dip of the head in acknowledgement. Earp murmured, “I like to avoid trouble when I can, Deputy. It’ll be my pleasure if you’d be our guest here as long as you’re in town.”

Tree said, “Why?”

“To avoid any more mistakes like the one Jestro made. If it’s common knowledge you and I are friends, nobody’s going to take potshots at you.” Earp was still smiling, still holding his glance; now Earp added, “Jestro was a fool but he knew how to use a gun. You’ve earned respect from me.”

Warren said, “But don’t let it go to your head, Deputy. We’d as soon-”

“Gentle down, boy,” Wyatt said, his voice a deep, soft basso profundo that rolled effortlessly over Warren’s talk, cutting it off.

Tree watched Earp, half fascinated, half baffled. Earp took a sparing sip of whisky and said mildly, “A lot of the things you’ve heard about me are probably true.”

“How do you know what I’ve heard about you?”

“I’d be a fool not to know my own reputation. I’ve got admirers and I’ve got enemies-it always pays to know both. It’s a mistake to be uninformed. Which is to say, I know your reputation too.”

Tree said, “I didn’t know I had one.”

“A man who’s named after the gun he uses is bound to be a man worth investigating,” Earp said. “You rode scout for fifteen years, served five years under Crook and two under Mackenzie. You’ve killed three white men-four, counting Jestro. You had an Indian wife, Papago, died of smallpox in ‘seventy-six. You’re left-handed and you handle a rifle well at long range, and once you drank Al Sieber under the table.”

Secretly, childishly pleased, Tree kept his face blank, reaching for his drink to mask his confusion. He said, “You probably know what I had for breakfast three Tuesdays ago.”