Fifteen

Allie was cooking bacon and biscuits for all of them.

“How could anybody vote for Ben Sippy ’stead of you, Virgil?” she said.

Virgil drank some coffee, and put the cup down and wiped his mustache.

“Ben Sippy’s a good man,” he said.

“Not as good as you,” she said.

Allie put a plate of biscuits on the table and began to fork thick slices of bacon out of the frying pan onto another platter. Virgil took a biscuit.

“Don’t matter whether he’s any good or not,” Wyatt said. “Vote was three hundred eleven for Ben, two hundred nine for Virgil. It’s done.”

Allie put the bacon on the table.

“And Wyatt ain’t deputy anymore, and Morgan plays pool more than he works.”

Morgan took a piece of bacon in his fingers and ate it.

“And damn it, use a fork and knife at my table,” Allie said.

Morgan grinned at her.

“You cook too good, Allie. I can’t take the time.”

She pretended to hit him with her big serving fork.

“So what are we going to do, Virgil?”

“Right now we’re going to eat breakfast,” Virgil said.

“I can see that,” Allie said. “But I want to know what we’re going to do for money.”

“Make some more biscuits, Allie.”

“You ain’t finished them.”

“But we will,” Virgil said, “and then we’ll want some more.”

Virgil’s voice didn’t change, but Allie stopped talking and began to cut flour and lard together. She knew how far Virgil could be pushed. Which was farther by her than by anyone else. She wasn’t afraid of his anger. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her. But she loved him, and she didn’t want to make him mad.

The men were quiet for a while, eating.

Then Morgan said, “So how come you resigned, Wyatt?”

Wyatt finished his coffee, and Allie brought the pot over from the stove and poured him some more. It was November and overcast. There was a wind coming off of the Dragoon Mountains to the east, and it drove a fine rattle of grit against the back windows of the kitchen.

“They’re going to break up Pima County,” Wyatt said. “Make a new county with Tombstone in the middle of it. Means there’s going to be a lot of politics going on, and I kind of wanted to stop working for a Democrat before that happened.”

“You think Bob Paul will make a run for sheriff?” Morgan asked.

“I think he will, and he’s a Republican and we should be supporting him. Won’t hurt us with John Clum either.”

Virgil nodded.

“And that quarter interest in the Oriental is bringing in some profit,” he said. “And the five hundred leasing our share of the Comstock mine to Emmanuel. And we got the north extension of the Mountain Maid claim.”

Wyatt knew all of this, and so did Morgan. They knew that was for Allie’s benefit. All three of them knew, also, that the share of the Oriental and the lease on the Comstock share were Wyatt’s. But the brothers never distinguished ownership among themselves. And all three of them knew that. And so did Allie, who appeared to be totally absorbed in rolling out the biscuits.

“Still, you being deputy sheriff might have been helpful,” Virgil said.

Wyatt said nothing.

“John Clum likes you,” Virgil said. “Says he wants a two-gun man for sheriff. I know he’s talking to Fremont about you.”

“He can talk to Fremont whether I’m deputy sheriff or not,” Wyatt said.

Virgil stirred sugar into his coffee, nodding his head slowly while he did it.

“True,” he said.

They were quiet again. Allie brought the new batch of biscuits to the table. The men ate. Virgil looked at Wyatt thoughtfully.

But all he said was, “That new woman of Behan’s is pretty good-looking.”

“Can’t say what she sees in Johnny,” Morgan said.

“From San Francisco,” Virgil said. “Heard her father’s got money. Heard he bought that house for her and Behan.”

“So what’s she see in Behan?”

“No accounting for the man a woman’ll take up with,” Virgil said.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Allie said from the stove.

And Virgil reached over and gave her a slap on the backside. He and Morgan laughed, and Wyatt smiled a little and ate another biscuit.