Epitaph (38 page)

It was, so they finished the coffee and got Budd loaded onto the buckboard. There was a sharp whistle from up the hill, where Frank Leslie had been cutting sign. He was beckoning now, the buckskin fringes on his sleeve fluttering.

“I make it four men,” he said, leading them to a clump of mesquite on the far side of the draw. “One stayed with the horses here. Big fella. Or fat. His prints go deepest into the sand. Three others walked up here on foot. Stood around, waiting.” He kicked at a few cigarette butts. “Got cold,” he noted, pointing at places where the men had stamped their feet. He moved on to the next site. “Spent cartridges,” he said, pointing them out in the dirt. “I found seventeen. That makes it three pistols.” He looked at Bob Paul. “Sound right?”

Bob nodded. “Sure does.”

Satisfied, Frank led them around the mesquite copse.

“No blood?” Bob asked as they walked.

“Just on the road where Budd fell. I don't guess you hit anybody.”

“Shit,” Bob said.

Frank slowed and gestured toward a trail of hoofprints that narrowed into a single file. “Moving fast. Headed for the mountains.” He took a pull on his canteen, which was probably not filled with water. “Best we catch 'em quick,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nothing but rock up there.”

THE WEATHER WAS COLD BUT WINDLESS.
The tracks were easy enough to follow, for the ground between the San Pedro River and the Whetstone Mountains was gravelly sand dotted with barrel cactus and ocotillo and yucca.

“Heavy fella's horse is starting to stumble,” Frank pointed out, and sure enough, they found the animal—head down and exhausted—abandoned in the foothills near the Wheaton ranch.

“Luther King's pinto,” Wyatt said.

“You certain?” Johnny asked.

“Saw him on her, couple of weeks ago. Hard to miss a pinto.”

They followed the trail up another hill, then dismounted and crouched down before they crested, to see what lay beyond.

The Wheaton ranch was a simple one. A brush corral, a crude shack. No animals visible. No smoke coming from the chimney.

“Well, let's go take a look,” Johnny said, remounting.

The quiet remained unbroken as they approached the ranch house. Johnny called hello but got no response. The house was as silent as the rest of the place.

They took care of the horses, helped themselves to some canned beans, and bedded down. In the morning, Buckskin Frank went back out on his own, circling wide to get beyond where the fugitives' tracks merged with those of the rancher's stock. He returned to the ranch house an hour later.

“Found sign a quarter mile out. Heavy fella's on a new animal now.”

“Add horse theft to the bill of particulars,” Virgil said.

Johnny Behan nodded. “If they killed Wheaton, it's another murder. We are trailing some very bad men.”

ON MARCH 19, THEY WERE STILL IN THE WHETSTONES.
Steep, waterless heaps of rubble.

“We're gonna lose a horse,” Wyatt warned when Roxana stumbled.

“Just as bad for them,” Frank said, but half an hour later, high on an outward-facing slope, he called for a halt and sat for a time, studying the vast valley below.

From that vantage, the San Pedro River was a green ribbon of cottonwoods winding through winter-browned grasses. Dragoon Mountains to the east. The Huachucas, far to the south.

Billy Breakenridge polished his specs and squinted. “Could be, that's their dust,” he said, gesturing. “What do you think, Frank?”

Frank uncorked his canteen. “Dirt devil.”

“Well, their horses are gonna be as thirsty and tired as ours,” Morg said. “My guess? They think they've lost us—which they have, right, Frank?”

Frank took a pull, wiped his mouth, and declined to comment.

“So they'll think it's safe to double back to the river to water the horses,” Morg pressed. “Right?”

Virgil said, “I don't see what else they could do.”

“Or us, neither,” Williams said. He wasn't complaining, but it wasn't like the company had lost a strongbox. It was too bad about Budd Philpot and that passenger, but they were Kinnear's problem. At this point in the festivities, he sincerely regretted having volunteered for this goose chase.

“Johnny?” Virg said. “Your posse. Your call.”

“All right,” Behan said. “We'll go back down and follow the riverbed. Maybe Frank can pick them up again.”

BY SUNDAY,
the horses were done in and the provisions almost gone. The weather was cold and so was the trail, but anyone passing this way was likely to get a meal and a place to sleep at the Redfield ranch.

Like all the small ranchers in the county, Len and Hank Redfield did a little pasturing for the Cow Boys, but simple hospitality would be provided to anyone—outlaw or lawman—who asked for it. So that's where the posse headed, and that's where they caught the break they needed.

“Well, now. Lookee there,” Virgil said, pulling up as the Redfield corral came into view. “Anything about that strike you boys as strange?”

It was a heavyset man milking a cow. With two pistols strapped to his waist. And a rifle, propped against a bucket, close to hand.

“Lotta artillery for a fella milking a cow,” Morg noted.

“That's Luther King,” Wyatt said.

“I believe I'd like to ask Mr. King a few questions,” Johnny murmured.

Luther saw them coming. Taking off on foot was not a good plan, but it was the best he could come up with on short notice. Though he made the mesquite barrens beyond the ranch, he was not quick, and it didn't take long to surround and disarm him.

“Luther King,” Johnny Behan said, “you are under arrest for the murder of Peter Roring and Budd Philpot.”

“And for attempted robbery of a Wells Fargo strongbox,” Williams added.

“And for an attack on a stagecoach carrying the U.S. mail,” Virgil told him, adding, “You are in a heap of trouble, son.”

“Horse theft, too,” Billy Breakenridge reminded them.

King was still staring, open-mouthed, at Johnny Behan. “Budd? Budd
Philpot
? But we didn't mean for—” King shut up then, but he'd already said too much, and he knew it.

“Who's
we
?” Wyatt asked.

Virgil caught Morgan's eye, and Morg started to chuckle.

“There he goes,” Virg said.

“Ole Wyatt . . .” Morgan agreed, for their brother was staring at Luther King with a look so hard it felt like a shove, and a man with a guilty conscience always took that as a bad sign.

Which it was. Because while the rest of the posse had filled the hours with stories and jokes and idle chatter, Wyatt Earp had been riding a little ways off on his own, thinking for days about what Bob Paul had said back at Drew's Station: “They meant to shoot the guard, not the driver.” And not just any guard—that's what Wyatt had finally figured out. They wanted the guard who was going to be the Pima County sheriff soon. A sheriff who would enforce the law. A sheriff who could not be bribed and would not be intimidated.

“It wasn't ever a robbery,” Wyatt said. “The Cow Boys wanted Bob Paul dead, and you killed Budd Philpot by mistake.”

“Now, Wyatt, let's not rush to judgment here,” Johnny Behan began.

Wyatt started to argue, but Virgil had seen Johnny Behan do
this kind of thing before and admired the way the sheriff handled interrogations. So he shook his head, and Wyatt held his tongue.

“Luther, there are two men dead,” Johnny reminded King gently, “and somebody is going to swing for that, but it might not be you.”

“I swear, Johnny! I didn't kill nobody! I always liked Budd!”

“And Curly Bill always liked Fred White,” Wyatt muttered.

“Wyatt, just hang on,” Virgil soothed, and Johnny continued, “Luther, if you can explain to us what really happened, maybe we can work this out.”

“I just held the horses!” Luther cried, looking at Buckskin Frank Leslie. “You know that, Frank! You musta seen that in the tracks!” Nobody said anything, and Luther rushed to fill the silence. “I swear, I just held the horses! Henry Head and Bill Leonard and Jim Crane went off to wait for the stage.”

Morgan murmured, “All Cow Boys.”

“And they
was
looking for somebody on it, I know that, 'cause we stopped a different stage before that one, and Henry said, ‘No, that ain't him.'”

“But they were figuring to rob the stage, too, weren't they?” Johnny suggested. “May as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, right, Luther?”

“I guess.”

“Luther, how much did they figure to take?” Johnny asked, like he was just curious. “Did they say anything about how much was on the stage?”

“No, sir. They didn't say nothing about that.”

“That's surprising.” Johnny frowned thoughtfully. He turned toward Williams, winking at him with the eye King couldn't see. “Agent Williams, what was the cargo manifest on that stage? Fifty grand in cash and bullion, was it?”

“Something like that,” Williams said, playing along.

“Fifty
grand!
” Luther squawked. “Those sonsabitches! Those dirty goddam bastards!”

“Luther, were they trying to cheat you out of a cut because you
only held the horses?” Johnny asked, like he was shocked at how unfair that was.

“They— Those bastards! Look, I lost a card game and I owed some fellas twenty bucks. Billy B., you know that's true. I lost twenty bucks to the Slopers. Johnny Tyler and Billy Allen, remember?”

“Yes, I remember that,” Billy Breakenridge confirmed.

“And Billy Allen, he said he'd shoot me if I didn't pay up, so Henry Head said they'd give me twenty dollars if I came along with them and helped them do a job. Jesus! Twenty dollars, with them sitting on fifty grand. Those bastards didn't say nothing about no fifty grand!”

“Well,
maybe
,” Johnny suggested thoughtfully, “maybe they
didn't
figure on robbing the stage at all. Maybe they wanted to kill Bob Paul before he could take office and make things hot for them.”

Luther King was looking at Wyatt now. “Mr. Earp, I swear! I don't have nothing against Bob Paul, and it wasn't me shot at that stage. It was Henry Head and Bill Leonard and Jim Crane.”

“Where're they headed?” Wyatt asked.

“They said they was gonna make for New Mexico. Cloverdale, down near the border. I didn't figure on all this hard riding! And anyways, I just held the horses! I didn't do nothing wrong, so I told them I was done running. I wouldn't have stopped running if I'd killed somebody, right?” He looked from one face to the next. “Right?”

It was Wyatt who broke the silence, quoting Proverbs: “‘The wicked flee.'”

“But the righteous don't,” Luther said, nodding vigorously, for his mother was religious and he remembered the gist of the text.

Satisfied, Johnny Behan pulled in a deep breath and let it out. “Well, Luther, we need to take you before a judge and get a deposition and so on.”

King went pale beneath his sunburned skin. “Johnny, you can't— Jesus! They'll kill me if they know I said all that!”

It was not an unrealistic concern. And if the Cow Boys didn't get
him for being a snitch, the townspeople might lynch him for killing Budd.

“Don't worry,” Johnny told him. “We'll take care of you, Luther.”

Which certainly sounded like a promise.

The plan was for Johnny Behan and Billy Breakenridge to take the prisoner to Tombstone, where Luther would be charged as an accessory to murder and horse theft. Agent Williams—a desk man who hadn't figured on all that hard riding, either—would also go back to Tombstone. Reprovisioned by the Redfield brothers, the Earps would stay on the trail with Frank Leslie, trying to catch the other three fugitives before they disappeared into the mountains or crossed into Mexico.

FROM THE START,
the posse had traveled light. Bedrolls on the ground. Whatever they could carry in their saddlebags. Nine days out, they were thirsty, hungry, filthy, sore, and bone-tired when Frank Leslie's little bay gelding crumpled up beneath him.

He stepped off as the horse went down. Everyone else just sat there staring at the animal for a while.

“Damn,” Frank said, his voice like a metal rasp. “I liked that horse.”

“Frank,” Virgil croaked, “is there a chance in hell we're gonna find these bastards?”

“No,” the tracker admitted. “Lost 'em for good.”

“Well, boys, we're done,” Virgil said. “At least we got one of 'em.”

Luther King, he meant. But he was already wrong about that.

FRANK GOT UP BEHIND VIRGIL,
and they turned back toward home. Two dry camps later, they came across an isolated ranch and stopped there, hoping to get fresh mounts. The owner gave them a meal and let them rest up and water their remaining horses, but he claimed he had no animals to lend them.

“Old Man Clanton just bought a spread near here,” he told them. “I don't want no trouble.”

They got about five miles from the ranch before Virgil's horse died, exhausted by the double burden. That left Morgan on Dick Naylor and Wyatt on Roxana. Neither animal was in good enough shape to carry two men, not even Roxana, an Arab mare bred for stamina. So they took turns. Two on foot, two riding.

Buckskin Frank was wearing moccasins. The Earp brothers were in high, slant-heeled boots. Everybody was bloody-footed before long, but there wasn't a damn thing to do except . . . keep going.