Territory (20 page)

Jesse harnessed the colt, and tied up his left foot again. He let him feel the driving reins flapping against his back, sides, and legs. When Spark was quiet under that, Jesse freed his left foreleg and drove him around the corral, walking behind and talking to him all the while.

Jesse and Earp wheeled Earp’s two-wheeled gig into the corral, and Jesse led Spark up to it. The colt was inclined to snort and balk. “Yes, you great ninny,” Jesse told him kindly. “It’s a terrible machine that eats horses. Have a good stare at it, and take your time.”

When Spark decided it was safe to look away from the gig, Jesse walked him in an ever-wider circle that ended at the right front wheel. He led him slowly around the cart, letting him touch it with his nose whenever he liked. By the time they’d returned to the front of the gig, Spark seemed to think no more of it than he did the fence rail.

Jesse and Earp swung the gig shafts off to the left, and Jesse led Spark in front of the cart, where he would stand when hitched. Then he tied up Spark’s forefoot and rubbed his shoulder. “Last time, boyo, my word on it.

“Now,” he told Earp, “I’m going to raise the shafts and set them down with him between them. You go to his head and hold the rein and talk to him. If he wants to look behind him, don’t stop him. But if he gets fretful, tell me.”

Jesse raised the shafts and swung them over Spark’s back at a near-glacial rate. The colt’s ears went back and stayed there only once. Earp stroked his muzzle and kept up a flow of endearments, and Jesse held the shafts at half cock until Spark forgot them.

When they were in place, he and Earp fastened them to the surcingle. Jesse gave them a jiggle once they were in place, and they rattled and brushed Spark’s flanks. The colt’s ears went back. He gave a half hop, but the pull of the strap on his foreleg reminded him that the tune wasn’t his to call.

“You see?” Jesse said. “He knows this is when the Devil comes up on his heels. But he also knows he can’t win a fight with us, and when he loses, no
harm comes to him. He’s starting to think we’re so strong, we can protect him from the Devil himself. Now, lead him out slowly to the left.”

“Not straight forward?” Earp asked.

“No. If he feels the weight of the gig and stops, you won’t win a tug-of-war with him. But if you turn him left when his left foot’s up, he has to go where you lead him or lose his balance.”

“Huh,” said Earp, sounding pleased.

When Spark hopped forward, the gig rattled behind him. He threw up his head and fought the strap that held his left foot, trying to strike out with it. He could only flail with his knee.

“There now, you damned fool,” Earp said gently, stroking the colt’s neck. Spark stood still, rolling his eyes a little. “Settle down. It won’t do you any good to keep me from fatherin’ children.”

Jesse approved of his tone of voice, and the steadiness with which he led the colt out again, forward and to the left. This time when the gig rattled and squeaked behind his heels, Spark only laid his ears back. Jesse held the reins and worked his way back toward the gig. “You can let go his head,” he told Earp.

And Spark was being driven. Not from the seat of the gig, and going on only three legs. But he was pulling the cart, and being commanded by the reins.

A few circles of the corral in either direction, and Spark gave up the fight. Jesse let down his forefoot and massaged the leg. “Lead him out of the corral and drive him once ’round the block,” he said to Earp. “But only once; he’s tired. Then bring him in and make a fuss over him.”

While Earp did that, Jesse fetched the mare and the burro from the front porch railing and turned them loose in the corral. He pumped water into the trough and gave them each a handful of hay. Then he sat on the fence until Earp brought Spark back down Fremont at an easy trot. He helped Earp unhitch the colt and watched as he rubbed him down and fed him.

Then Earp joined Jesse on the outside of the fence. “And that’s it? He’s broke?”

“He might need another lesson, but I doubt it. He’s a good horse. All he needed was to understand what you wanted, and that it wouldn’t hurt him to do it.”

“Not unlike some people I know,” Earp said. It was a moment before Jesse remembered he’d said that to Earp, and realized that Earp was pulling his leg.

“Next time some drunk turns mean downtown, you could tie up his foreleg and see what happens.”

Earp laughed. “There’s more mean men than mean horses.”

Jesse splashed the dirt off himself at the pump and, dripping, followed Earp to the kitchen door. As they reached it, Mrs. Earp flung it open. “I couldn’t get a minute’s work done for watching. Where’d you learn to make a horse lay down like that?”

Jeese took the towel she held out to him. “A man named John Rarey invented the system. He figured out some of how horses think. After that it was common sense and leverage.”

Mrs. Earp hmmph’d. “It looked more like gypsy-work. I’d swear you were magicking that horse.”

“No.” It wasn’t until it came out his mouth that Jesse realized how short and sharp he sounded. He took a deep breath. “Anyone can do it. Some tamers try to pass it off as a mystery to make more money, but it’s just science.” This skill was a rational, sensible thing. Wasn’t it?

Mrs. Earp handed him his clothes. “I figure that was only ten dollars of horse-breakin’,” she said. “The other ten I would’ve paid for a ticket to watch.”

“Maybe the government could raise money that way. The cavalry uses Rarey’s method.”

“You were in the army?” Earp asked.

Jesse shook his head. “I don’t think it’d suit me. I’d rather pick my own fights.”

“We all would,” said Earp. “But sometimes that’s a luxury even civilians don’t get.”

Jesse studied his quiet face and felt a chill. Whatever Earp’s inexplicable force was, for good or bad he’d quit fighting it.

 10 

Mildred slapped the letter down on Harry’s desk. She wanted to hurl it, but even such thick, silky paper would have fluttered and dodged in the air, perhaps missing the desk and landing on the floor. Her righteous indignation was un-suited to bending over to retrieve it.

Harry unfolded it, making a rustle like new money. He raised his eyebrows at the letterhead; then his gaze passed down the rest. When he reached the bottom, he looked up. “Do they?”

“No, of course they don’t! I have the deed. It’s in a strongbox at the bank.”

“It’d be in your husband’s name.”

It sounded more like thinking aloud than argument, but Mildred wanted
someone
to argue with. “My marriage license is in the box next to it. Or does this territory not allow widows to inherit real estate?”

Harry lowered the letter and frowned at her. “Don’t rip up at me, Madam Grizzly. In fact, don’t rip up at all. You’ve got documents to prove that the Gilded Age Mining Company doesn’t own your lot, so why are you snarling and stamping?”

“Because—” Because, even knowing she had proof that the claim in the letter was a lie, it had frightened her. She was ashamed of the lurch of her heart, the catch of her breath when she’d read she was unlawfully in possession of property deeded to the Gilded Age Mining Company, and was required to quit said property immediately and surrender it to the Company.

And she was ashamed that for an instant she’d wondered if it were true. If David, who’d never had much head for business, had left her a house and land that had never really belonged to him. That shame was enough grievance to justify a little snarling.

“Because it’s outrageous,” she said. “They can’t have so much as a scrap of paper to support this claim. They’ve made it up out of whole cloth to see if I can be scared out of my own home.”

Harry nodded. “So what’s your problem?”

Mildred stared at him, her anger banging around inside her like a badger in a cage. But when it tried to escape out her mouth, it turned into something small and foolish-looking, and she couldn’t find words to turn it back into a badger. She blew out a ferocious breath and dropped into the chair beside Harry’s desk.

“That’s better,” Harry said. “Now, first off, you have your attorney answer that letter. They know they’ve got nothing, and a good knuckle-rapping lawyer’s letter will warn ’em off.”

“I don’t have an attorney.”

Harry snorted. “You’ve lived in Tombstone all this time and never had a legal ruckus with anyone? Damn, Mildred, even Saint Nellie Cashman has a lawyer.”

“I can’t imagine how you missed seeing my halo before now.”

“Tell you what—I’ll send this around to Allan English, with a note from me, and he’ll take care of it.”

Mildred had met Mr. English, with his spade beard, stage-actor’s manner, and persistent odor of bourbon. “If he’s sober.”

“You best hope not. He’s much better drunk. English’ll write you a letter that’ll singe their eyebrows off.”

The notion of singeing the eyebrows of the owners of the Gilded Age Mining Company gave her a positive thrill. But she hadn’t yet raised her second concern. “Harry, I can’t be the only lot owner to get one of these letters.”

“I wouldn’t think so, no.”

“Well, what’s to be done about it?”

Harry leaned slowly back in his chair and stared at her. She felt a prickle of alarm, and it grew when he smiled the small, sweet smile he wore when he’d got the last damning fact for an editorial. “You’d best visit your neighbors. Find out how many have gotten this letter. You’ll want a few personal details, ideally about elderly widows and orphaned children—you know the sort of thing. After that, we’ll talk about the best way for you to get a statement from the Gilded Age partners to include in the article.”

“Me? Harry, have you run mad?”

“They’re your neighbors, ain’t they? They’ll talk to you.”

“But I’m not—”

“You’re whatever you say you are, Millie. That’s the point of coming west. I thought you knew that.”

She thought,
I have to get out of this,
but nothing useful followed it.

“When you’re done, bring it to Rule. He’s city editor, after all.” Harry
pursed his lips. “Besides, I can’t say I wouldn’t recall all your corrections and take it out on your copy.”

Mildred had to laugh, but she added, “There must be an easier way to get revenge than this.”

“Hell, no. I don’t have to lift a finger, and I get a breaking story covered.”

She waited for a good rebuttal to come to her.
I’m only a typesetter.
That wouldn’t do; Harry knew that, and it weighed with him not at all.

She was startled by the pressure of his hand on her shoulder, and she realized he’d stood up. “Don’t fret, Millie. If it’s no good, Rule will rewrite it. But he might not have to.” As he started toward the pressroom, he shouted back, “Get on it, damn it! I don’t want the
Epitaph
printing this first!”

“What about today’s type?” A forlorn hope, but it had to be tried.

“Dugan wants the overtime, and I don’t mind the typos half as much as you do. The news won’t come to the office. Git!”

She was routed. She rose, straightened her shoulders, and retreated with as much dignity as haste would allow.

All her neighbors had received the letter. Everyone on the block had been told they were squatters, and some of them had believed it. White-haired Mr. Matucek, whose shack was barely more than a weather-shelter for the hole that was his mining claim, told her, “I break nothing law! Where I go, I not stay here?” Mrs. Corrigan, whose husband worked at the Gird mill in Contention, stood in her kitchen with three children hiding in her skirts and a fourth in her arms, and said, “All our savings went for this house. They’ll put my kids out on the street!”