Sliphammer

“I was always there but you never paid any attention to me. You weren’t interested in me-hell, why should you be? I was a young girl. My father’s not much older than you. You were out of my reach, Jerr, and I had to grab what I could get, and the closest thing to you was Rafe, and oh Jesus God I wish I could apologize to him.” She sank down on her knees with one arm across the iron foot of the bedstead.

He was developing a thudding headache that made it hard to think clearly. He had the taste of bile in his throat. He got up, swayed dizzily for a moment, said, “Be back,” and went down the corridor to the front desk. He asked the clerk for Seidlitz powders, got them and a filthy tumbler, and went back to the room to mix the compound. Caroline was sitting on the corner chair chewing her knuckle. He drank the bitter mixture and stood with his eyes closed until it went down into his belly and he felt it churning at work; he poured water into the commode basin and scrubbed his face.

When he toweled the water out of his eyes and looked at her, she was sitting up straight and there was fire in her eyes. She said, “All right, confession hour’s over, Jerr. We both made mistakes and Rafe suffered for them but we won’t be doing him or ourselves any good going on like this.”

“What do you suggest?” he said angrily. “A celebration?”

“No. But neither one of us is built to spend the rest of our lives wearing sackcloth and ashes over this.”

“You put him out of your mind just like that?” he said, incredulous. “He’s not even buried yet!”

“Women are tough,” she said. “My mother died when I was three. My father has outlived three wives. No, I haven’t put Rafe out of my mind. I probably never will. But we’ve got to-”

“Shut up,” he grated. “Shut up and get out. You make me sick.”

“How long do you intend to grieve? Are you going to brood over this the rest of your life?”

“That’s my business,” he snapped childishly.

She stood up. “All right, Jerr, you’ve had a rough time, that’s too bad. We’ve all had a rough time. But you’re standing on your own feet-you’re better off than you think you are. You’re not beaten-not unless you give up. Right now I think you’re trying to give up. Hell, be a man, Jerr.”

“Just who the hell do you think you’re talking to? Don’t crap all over me, Caroline, I don’t like being crapped on-I’m tired of it.”

“Sure. You’re burying yourself in self-pity. All right, have it your own way. But you’re sober enough now to listen to this. While you were out wherever you were, getting your guts pickled in rotgut whisky, that telegram you’ve been waiting for came.”

He stood bolt still and stared at her, the towel forgotten in his hands. He shook his head slowly in disbelief. “What telegram? What’d it say?”

“I don’t know what it said. It wasn’t delivered to me, or anybody else, because you couldn’t be found. But the Western Union boy spent three hours combing the town looking for you, and by the time he gave it up, everybody in town knew your message had arrived.”

Tree had tossed the towel aside and was headed for the door, reaching for his hat. Caroline said, “Never mind that. The office is closed, the telegrapher’s gone to bed and I have no idea where he lives. He said he’d have the message at the office for you when they open at eight in the morning. If Wyatt Earp can wait that long, you can too. And please don’t be forgetting, Rafe’s funeral is at nine.”

When he flung his hat away and stood with his back to her, grinding fist into palm, she said softly, “Jerr, you don’t even know what it says. Maybe it says the job’s off, the Governor refused to extradite them.”

And maybe it said to arrest the Earp brothers.

Ten

Only a handful stood on the hillside. A cold wind came down off the mountains, roughing up the aspen leaves, brushing the faces of Tree and Caroline, Sheriff McKesson, the circuit preacher, the undertaker and his two helpers, and three unshaven pilgrims drawn to the funeral by morbid curiosity. The preacher’s talk was flat, matter-of-fact, nothing beyond the words from the Book, for he had never met the deceased or even heard of Rafe Tree. When he finished his brief eulogy, Caroline sprinkled dirt on the simple pine casket and stood peering through her veil while the box was lowered by rope into the fresh grave.

The gravediggers stepped forward with their shovels. The preacher turned away, spoke softly to Caroline, shook Tree’s hand, nodded to the sheriff, and walked away down the hill toward town in the company of the undertaker.

Sheriff McKesson put his hat on-he seldom wore a hat but today he had, evidently, chosen deliberately to bring one so that he could make a point of removing it, his way of paying his respects to the deceased. Now, setting the hat firmly on his face so that the brim made a straight line across his brow, he walked ten paces downhill and stood waiting with calm patience.

Caroline seemed reluctant to move. Perhaps it was the three morbid pilgrims who refused to budge; probably they intended to stand there staring until the last shovelful of earth was in place. Tree left her standing there and walked off a little piece. He put on his hat and reached inside his coat to take out the folded telegram; he read it over for the tenth time and lifted his eyes to stare toward the rooftops of town.

McKesson walked over to him and spoke in a voice calculated to reach no farther than Tree’s ears: “Everybody in town knows what that says by now but I’d like to see it officially, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.” Tree handed it to him. “It says the Governor’s gone to Kansas on business and in his absence the Lieutenant Governor has tentatively authorized the extradition of Wyatt Earp and Warren Earp. I’m to arrest them and take them in custody to Denver.”

McKesson watched him while he spoke; then merely glanced at the telegram, nodded, and handed it back. Tree put it in his pocket.

McKesson said, “Of course, you could just walk into the Inter Ocean and tell them they’re under arrest. You could do that. If you want to commit suicide. Or get laughed at. Yes, now, think of that for a minute-what happens if you go in to arrest them and they just laugh at you? What do you do? Start filling the air with bullets? You wouldn’t get a gun out of the holster before you be whipsawed by eight different guns from eight different directions. They’ve got that whole street covered like an infantry battalion holding a strategic strong point.”

Tree murmured, “What are you trying to say to me, Sheriff?”

“I can feel it, Deputy-you’re like a keg full of blasting powder, ready to explode. There’s a lot of hate and anger in every word you’ve said this morning, no matter what you happened to be talking about at the moment. When I said it was a nice day you said yes it was and you made it sound as if what you really meant was you wanted to break every bone in my body. The size of your hate makes this valley crowded today, Deputy.”

“Maybe. Or maybe you’re reading the signs wrong. Maybe I’m just feeling frustrated and I just want to hit out at anything within reach.”

McKesson shook his head and glanced upslope at Caroline. Tree, thinking about Rafe, kept having other things intrude on him. The telegram had hit him’ like a physical blow. It made him feel like a small boy who’d made great threats against an imagined enemy giant-a small boy who’d made vast make-believe plans with the unbridled grim boldness of fantasy, only to discover with sickening helplessness that he had actually taken the step-actually moved from make-believe destructions into an impossible reality. Absurdly, he remembered how he had used to make believe, when he was a little kid, when they had locked him in the loft for some transgression or other. Was it too late to turn back? Was it done? What the hell am I doing here?