“Nobody will know,” Wyatt said. “Except my brothers.”

“Say I go over there,” Clanton said. “With Joe Hill, maybe Frank McLaury, and we get these boys to come back. And we get them out of New Mexico and bring them to, say, Frank’s ranch. Then what?”

“Then I’m waiting with a posse and we take them and you get the reward money.”

“They’ll make a fight,” Clanton said. “You’re going to have to kill them.”

Wyatt shrugged.

“How do I know Wells Fargo will pay the reward if they’re dead?”

“You got my word,” Wyatt said.

“No offense, but I don’t know if Wells Fargo will stand by your word.”

“I’ll get a telegram,” Wyatt said. “I’ll have Marshal Williams put it in writing that they pay for Leonard, Head, and Crane or their corpses.”

Ike poured more whiskey into his shot glass and drank it off, then drank the rest of his beer and motioned toward the barman that he wanted another one.

“I’d just as soon see Billy Leonard out of the way,” he said. “I got a ranch in New Mexico that he says is his and he won’t give it up.”

“So you get the reward money and settle the, ah, land dispute,” Wyatt said.

Clanton drank again. He looked at Earp over the glass rim as he did. Hard man to figure, Ike thought. His face never showed anything. He never seemed to say more than he had to. You always had the sense that he had some cards held back and that what you were talking about was only part of what he was thinking.

“How do I know you’re leveling with me?” Ike said.

“You don’t,” Earp said.

There seemed to be no change in his expression or any difference in the way he was talking, but something about the way Earp said “You don’t” made the pit of Ike’s stomach tighten. When he was scared it made him angry, and when he was angry he drank more and talked more and louder. He half knew that, but he couldn’t stop it.

“Maybe you are partners with those boys like they say,” Ike said. “Maybe you got the money and you want them to come in so you can kill them while you are arresting them. Then they can’t peach on you and you got all the cash.”

Earp was silent, looking at him without expression. It made Ike more uncomfortable. He had some more whiskey.

“That could be, couldn’t it, Wyatt? What you got to say about that?”

“You want the deal or not?” Earp said.

Ike’s stomach clenched tighter.

“I got to think on it,” he said. “Talk to Frank and Joe. Virgil know about this?”

“Yes.”

“Might want to talk to him.”

“Do that,” Earp said.

“I will,” Ike said. “I will. I can’t just do it because you say so, you know? These people are friends of mine. I got to give it some thought. I got to talk to people.”

“Not too many people, Ike.”

“I’ll talk to whoever I damn want,” Ike said.

“I expect you will,” Earp said. “Might not be a secret, though, time you get through.”

Twenty-eight

It was hot and the river was low. The green belt along the San Pedro had narrowed as the water dropped. But there was some shade and there was a small breeze that drifted off the river. Josie and Wyatt spread a blanket in the best shade the sparse cottonwoods provided and put out some food. Canned ham, cold biscuits, canned peaches. Far enough away so they wouldn’t feel it, squatting on his heels, with his sleeves rolled, Wyatt built a fire and made coffee with water dipped from the river. He wore no coat. He wore no handgun, but there was a Winchester behind the seat in the buckboard. His chest where his shirt was open was white, as were his forearms. His face and neck and hands were weathered in sharp contrast. When they had eaten, and put the dishes and leftover food in a sack in the back of the buckboard, they sat beside the river leaning against a tree trunk and drank sweet, strong black coffee from tin cups.

“You ever think about moving on?” Josie said.

“Not without you,” Wyatt said.

“No,” Josie said. “Not without me.”

Wyatt had unharnessed the horses and tethered them a little downriver at the water’s edge. The horses stayed in the shade, drinking now and then from the river, and cropping at the sparse green buffalo grass. They twitched their skin occasionally the way horses do to shake off flies, and swished their tails sporadically for the same purpose.

“Maybe someday,” Wyatt said.

“Why not now?”

“Not rich yet,” Wyatt said.

“We could go to San Francisco,” Josie said. “You could get rich there.”

Across the river a coyote stopped in a splash of sunshine and stared at them calmly, then loped on.

“It’s a city,” Wyatt said. “None of the things I’m good at will make you rich in a city.”

“You could be a policeman.”

Wyatt smiled and shook his head.

“You’re a policeman here, sometimes,” Josie said. “You’ve been a policeman in Dodge City and Wichita and… where, Ellsworth?”

“San Francisco,” Wyatt said, “the captain tells you what to do and the lieutenant tells you what to do and the sergeant tells you what to do.”

He shook his head again. Josie leaned her head against his shoulder. His shirt was damp with sweat.

“So what are you so good at here?” she said. “Doing what you want to?”

“Yes.”

“When you’re Virgil’s deputy, doesn’t he tell you what to do?”

“He’s my brother.”

“That makes it different?”

“Means he’s asking. He’s got a right to ask.”

“But no strangers.”

Wyatt shrugged and drank some of his coffee.

“What else you good at, staying here?” Josie said.

“I can shoot,” Wyatt said.

“Uh-huh.”

“And I like being where it’s not so crowded,” he said. “I’m a farm boy, you know, from Illinois.”

“Would you ever want a ranch?”

“Maybe someday. Right now I’m a town man. I got interests in saloons and mines.”

“Not a city man,” Josie said. Her voice had a happy, teasing quality to it that he liked. “And not a cowboy. A town man. Right in the middle, I guess.”

“Right in the middle,” Wyatt said.

“Then I guess that’s where I am,” Josie said. “Right in the middle.”

Wyatt smiled at her.

“How’d you get so good at shooting?” Josie said.

“We’re doing it backwards,” Wyatt said, smiling. “First we fall in love, then we learn about each other.”

“So how?” Josie said.

“Lot of men can be good at shooting, they practice enough.”

“Anybody?”

“Not anybody. You got to have sort of the feel for it. Your hand and your eye need to connect in the right way.”

“And yours do.”

“Yep. Must be in the blood. All of us do. James before he got hurt. Virgil, Morgan, Warren, too, I suspect.”

“I haven’t even met Warren.”

“He’s the baby,” Wyatt said. “I imagine he’ll be along.”

“All the Earps,” Josie said.

“You can trust family.”

“So do you practice more than most men?”

“Probably.”

“Why?”

Wyatt was quiet for a while, looking at the way the sun filtered through the overhanging trees and danced on the still surface of the barely moving river. Josie shifted slightly to be more comfortable. The place where their bodies touched was damp, but neither one cared. They were used to hot as they were used to cold, and both conditions were simply part of the natural order.

“If you come to something natural,” Wyatt said finally, “and it’s something that can be put to use, I always figured you ought to polish it up, best you can.”

She thought about that. Something rustled briefly along the riverbank and went into the water with a splash.

“Have you killed many people?”

“No.”

“But some?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind?”

Again Wyatt looked at the river. The surface of the water was smooth. Whatever had gone into the river had disappeared without a ripple. Wyatt usually did what he thought he should do, and moved on. Josie was asking questions he had not thought about. It was hard to think about them now, and harder to put them into words. But Josie wanted to know, and he would tell her.