The Last Woman Standing (5 page)

Johnny pulled out a carved walnut dining chair for me. I sat down, enchanted. He leaned close to whisper in my ear, asking if I was comfortable. I smiled, overwhelmed with joy. Never before had a man held a seat for me (although Nathan had pulled his share out from
under
me many times as a lark). Never had anyone treated me with the deference shown by the maître d’.

This royal treatment inflated my sense of my own importance. Johnny savored the moment. He strutted to his place across the table. Once seated, he unfurled his cloth napkin like a magician’s cape and fixed me with a smile that rose from his white teeth to his dancing eyes, as if no one in the room was as merry as we were. He made me feel like I was the only person there that mattered, pulling my gaze into his own with an unwavering magnetism. As I leaned in, he put his hand on my knee beneath the fancy tablecloth. I didn’t pull my leg away, but his hand felt heavy and hot, and it made me unsure of what I was supposed to do, how I was supposed to react. Was I supposed to move in closer, or retreat in a game of cat and mouse? Was this something that also happened in fancy restaurants, like having one’s chair held for you, or three crystal glasses beside your china plate? I had no idea.

A sober waiter in formal dress approached with a superior look on his clean-shaven face. He handed Johnny the menu and requested permission to give me the second one, which lacked prices. Johnny nodded gravely in assent and then winked at me, which made the waiter’s behavior less intimidating. Johnny’s easygoing, good-time nature made my jump into the unknown world of fine dining in public thrilling. I imagined that his zest for living must be how the rest of the world dined while we at home had our backs to them. In our house, dinner was the family united around the challah by candlelight, hardly talking between prayers, under the tent of tension between husband and wife, mother and daughter.

With Johnny smiling across from me, I wasn’t going to waste time worrying about my inexperience. I was going to dig in and relish the moment. So I read the hand-lettered parchment menu, deliberating between Columbia River salmon
au buerre et noir
, and
lapine domestique á la maître d
’. It wasn’t kreplach, but I’d eaten enough of them to last a lifetime.

When the waiter returned, shuffling unctuously, Johnny ordered roast loin of beef. When I chose salmon, Johnny explained we weren’t near the Columbia River, but in cattle country. He told the waiter: “Mademoiselle will have the beef, too, please, and Champagne.” As the waiter pivoted away, Johnny added, “And keep it coming.”

The waiter nodded and then headed for the bar. While we awaited his return, Johnny explained that he felt at home in the Grand. The hotel reminded him of the Harris House, owned by his grandparents back in Missouri, a state that straddled Confederate and Union in the Civil War. Located at the gateway to the Santa Fe Trail, it had served Washington Irving, Horace Greeley, and—critical to Johnny’s political ambitions—the current governor of the Arizona Territory, John C. Fremont.

And then Johnny stopped discussing his roots and stared at me as if I were Helen of Troy. His eyes crinkled with his smile, looking as if he was the luckiest man in the West and didn’t care what others thought. I eventually learned that opinions did matter to Johnny. Seating me across from him was part of his scheme to win friends and influence people. Johnny was playing to a crowd populated by influential men he knew briefly, or not at all. In that lavish dining room, Johnny possessed a valuable commodity: the most beautiful young woman (me!). His dominion would inspire other men to wonder what John Harris Behan had that they lacked, how they could acquire it, and how they could ally themselves with this charismatic Arizonan who had the means to attract such a prize.

Of course, I was ignorant then while Johnny reclined, smoking and embroidering stories about growing up in the Harris House on grits and fried chicken and his grandmother’s famed oatmeal cookies. His father was an Irish Catholic immigrant, which didn’t sit well with his mother’s staunch Southern Baptists and Confederate loyalists. The Harrises had been pioneers, born and buried in Virginia for more than a century before my parents crossed the Atlantic.

Considering my mother’s recent revelation about her rough overseas passage, I felt ashamed that I had no similar stories of family achievements to share. Ours had been an anxious struggle just to arrive. Ma wasn’t alone among Jewish immigrants in keeping those tales private and hidden from the gentiles. While Johnny had a brick-built inn bearing his family name, bureaucrats had likely Americanized our surname at Ellis Island. I thought perhaps our name had been Marcuse. Once the Champagne arrived, I ceased dwelling upon my flawed pedigree, too dazzled to realize that all families had shameful secrets.

The waiter popped the cork and filled cut crystal goblets that sparkled like rainbows in the light. Johnny toasted “To us!” Bubbles tickled my nose as I relished my first sip. It was the antithesis of the syrupy sweet kosher wine we drank on Shabbat, swallowed and set aside before it raised anyone’s spirits. After a few mouthfuls, I became light-headed, intoxicated with the liquor as well as with Johnny, so handsome and confident and good-natured. I fell into the flattery of being his chosen woman in the nation’s wildest boomtown.

Johnny entertained me with tales of his childhood pranks. Hearing that he’d once traded flour for scented dusting powder among the guests’ toiletries at the Harris House, I confessed to salting the tails of pigeons in a futile effort to capture the fowl. I only caught a
potch
, a spank, from my impatient mother. We were laughing at our mischievous younger selves when the waiter served the beef. It was more tender than any meat I’d ever consumed—once I sorted out how to wield the serrated knife big enough to slay an Apache.

After the entrée, my corset chafing, I watched the waiter exchange the dishes for demitasses and a plate of oatmeal cookies “a la Harris House.” Johnny doused his cigar. He reached across the table for my hands and stared into my eyes. “I love you, Josie,” he said, despite being in public. His voice betrayed an emotional squeak. “You’ve made a big leap this week to join me. You left the security of a loving home with nothing more than this gold ring to bind you to me. Our union is riskier for you than me. But, trust me, I will protect you. My courageous Josie, jump into my arms and I will catch you.”

I hadn’t really considered this imbalance. And even then, in my Champagne glow, I didn’t register how bold, how foolish, my actions would appear to any rational being. To me, he had made the bigger leap, choosing to love a Jewish maiden with no dowry over all the other women attracted to him, a man of real skills in the world from a fine family. I rejected what he was saying outright, although in retrospect, he was making a disclaimer as much as a declaration of affection. I
was
the one taking all the risks—alone in Tombstone, entirely dependent on his goodwill and pocketbook, with no return ticket.

CHAPTER 5

As midnight approached, Johnny rose from his chair and knelt beside me in the dining room of the Grand Hotel. I felt light-headed and desperately in love. I was both free in the world and attached to a man who adored me. Even if I couldn’t carry a tune, my life would be a song, a duet. Confidence bubbled up inside me. The words I’d never before spoken to a man besides my father flew out of my mouth: “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Josephine Marcus. You’re a gambler, and you’ve doubled down on me.”

A pause followed while I awaited the marriage proposal expected from a gentleman on his knees. It didn’t happen. I could have said “Marry me” right then and sent Johnny sprinting for the justice of the peace. But I followed Johnny’s lead as he rose with just the slightest of creaks and eased back my chair. Together, we waltzed out of the dining room under the curious stares of strangers.

In the lobby, I approached the porter who held the glass doors ajar. Beyond, Allen Street was as lively at midnight as it was at noon. Johnny caught my elbow and aimed me toward the staircase. We climbed beside the mahogany banisters. By the fourth step, I felt like a girl being jerked awake from a dream where I was flying over the city, hand in hand with a loving friend. By the seventh, my fingers had stiffened in Johnny’s grasp, his hand on my lower back less supportive than urging. I fully awoke from my dreamlike state to a figure dominating the landing above. She had a heavily powdered, pale moon face under a ruler-straight center part, her dark curls escaped and frizzed from ringlets that must have been tight as wood shavings earlier that night. Around her neck she wore five silver necklaces, some with topazes, some turquoise, and one with a large, scrolled heart-shaped locket. She stared down the remaining steps with black-flecked sapphire eyes. In Spanish-accented English, she said, “Evening, Johnny,” with a soft
J
.

“Miss Timberline.” Johnny nodded with a pleasant reserve, as if it was noon and he’d encountered the town librarian on the boardwalk.

“Ah, tonight I’m a Miss.” The woman pulled lavender gloves over ringed fingers. “Are you working the bar later?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Then I suppose I’ll see you mañana. Like you, the sun goes down and I go to work.” Miss Timberline descended two steps, kicking the pleat of her turquoise silk skirt ahead of her. It rustled like dry leaves. She stopped, adjusting her right glove as she peered down myopically at Johnny and me. I could smell the heavy attar of roses she wore. “So, this is the blushing bride.”

On cue, I reddened from my collarbones to my scalp. I looked back toward the safety of the lobby, where I saw the eager faces of the porter and the maître d’.

“Guilty as charged,” Miss Timberline said throatily. She crossed so near on the wide steps that our skirts rubbed against each other, the jewel-toned turquoise of hers making my traveling dress appear flat and worn. I watched her swish downstairs and disappear into the bar.

A door opened above. A stout old man emerged, half-hidden behind a dense white beard that floated out ahead of his chin and was of a piece with spiny sideburns. His white eyebrows extended like awnings over deep-set, canny eyes. Well into his sixties, he struggled to fasten his last vest button with rough fingers. He stopped to check his pocket watch and then descended. He nodded at Johnny conspiratorially and said with excessive ceremony, “Mr. Behan.”

“Mr. Clanton.” Johnny led me up past the man, who smelled of attar of roses mixed with cigar and sour sweat.

“Where are we going, Johnny?”

“Upstairs. I want to show you the fine suites with their Eastlake furnishings. You’ve never seen anything like them, even in San Francisco!”

“I doubt I have.” My feet turned mulish and stopped one step below the landing. I steadied myself on the banister, leaning away from my fiancé. And then it clicked: the attar of roses, the upstairs rooms, the Champagne. I was instantly sober. And furious.

My mother’s scolding dominated my thoughts:
That man just wants to take advantage.
That she might have been right stirred my rage. While I was a virgin, I was not entirely naive. Rebecca had been unpleasantly surprised on her wedding night. “He wanted to put
that thing
where?” It had been a shock. Always protective, Becca had refused to let me remain ignorant. Since Ma delivered dire warnings on the subject without adequate enlightenment, Rebecca initiated my lessons in human reproduction. Sitting me down, my sister distilled the facts of life. While she avoided the topic of pleasure (perhaps because she lacked empirical knowledge), Rebecca had explained intercourse with scientific specificity.

After the mechanics, Rebecca turned to more practical advice tailored to my reckless nature. Using a rough drawing, she outlined what I could and could not do before a wedding ceremony. I’d paid sufficient attention to know that going upstairs in a hotel with a man not your husband would not be conducive to keeping that line well drawn. I said to Johnny, my voice small and uncertain: “I cannot follow you any farther.”

Johnny stood above me on the landing. “But you are my bride.”

“Not yet, although you make me blush. I am your fiancée, and that allows certain privileges, but not carte blanche.”

“In Tombstone, we’re as good as married.”

“Tombstone is
not
the world.”

“But it’s
our
world, Josie dear.” Johnny removed a room key from his vest pocket and stretched to place it in my hand.

I refused with two open palms raised to Johnny, hands that had never slapped a man but seemed to know instinctively how it was done. “I have a ring, but no license.”

“On my honor, you have my undying love.” Johnny, smooth and gracious, stepped down to raise me up.

“If you bought a piece of land, you’d want the security of a deed,” I said. “You wouldn’t build a house on a handshake.”

“My love is your security, my heart your collateral,” Johnny said. “Let’s not discuss this here. Let’s go where it’s private.”

“No, sir, not until we wed.” Rebecca would be proud. I turned my back on Johnny and began my descent. The maître d’ and the porter hovered below. When I glanced back, Johnny smiled graciously, accepting momentary defeat as he followed in my footsteps. He gently took my bare forearm from behind and kissed it softly, slowly above the wrist, moving back the fabric ruffles of my three-quarter sleeves with his lips. Enflamed, I nearly spurned Rebecca’s advice. I almost took the key. My feet wanted to climb those stairs, to end the tension. But Johnny was already guiding me down, stepping ahead to lead me as if it was he who had second thoughts. The maître d’ scowled after him, wringing his arthritic hands.

Kitty later told me in a moment of spite that the maître d’ was among the many sporting gents in attendance who’d bet cash money on Johnny’s ability to keep me upstairs and take my virginity by morning. I won. He lost.

Johnny did not appreciate my disloyalty.

CHAPTER 6

NOVEMBER 1880

A month passed before I saw Wyatt again, well after I discovered that dinner at the Grand Hotel was a rare event on Johnny’s tight budget. Had I known that first night, I would have inhaled another glass of Champagne and gobbled those oatmeal cookies. One rainy afternoon, I was alone in the Joneses’ cottage, humming a
klezmer
melody in a minor key and baking strudel. Using dried pears, cinnamon, and a jigger of brandy I’d snuck from Harry’s decanter, I was improvising on my father’s recipe with available ingredients. When the knock at the door came, I figured it was Johnny. I ran to answer it, barefoot, my sleeves rolled up above my elbows and my hair twisted atop my head. My hand, still sticky with dough, stuck to the knob when I pulled; I puckered up to smooch Johnny before realizing it wasn’t him. There stood Wyatt, rain running off his big black Stetson, stamping his black boots with heels so high they pushed him up to six foot three—he was more like a tree than a man.

I craned my neck just to look Wyatt in the general vicinity of his eyes, and when he stared back, a shot of lightning ran from my eye sockets all the way down to my naked toes and back. Taken by surprise, I couldn’t hide my delight at his appearance. His manly confidence was as thick and heavy as that woman Timberline’s perfume. It was an aura, that’s what it was. I was both intimidated and attracted. I hated being with a man more beautiful than I was, but I’d made an exception in Wyatt’s case.

Since I’d seen Wyatt by the stagecoach the month before, the deputy sheriff had made the papers. He’d been helping Marshal Fred White disarm some rancher rowdies enjoying a midnight shooting party on Allen Street. Things got out of hand—as they frequently did, given the vast amounts of liquor consumed—when cowboy Curly Bill Brocius surrendered his pistol to the marshal, barrel first. The firearm discharged, and the bullet entered White’s groin. After the marshal collapsed, Wyatt conked Curly Bill on the head with his pistol butt and dragged him to jail, creating an enemy for life. White lingered long enough to testify that the shooting was accidental before leaving behind a stunned populace—and a job opportunity.

Marshal White was my first “man for breakfast” in Tombstone (a spot so desperate prospector Ed Schieffelin named it after a grave marker). Kitty and I read about White’s death by misadventure in the
Tombstone Daily Nugget
. Swaddled in our frontier propriety while we sipped tea from china cups, newsprint seemed like the closest Kitty and I got to any action. We may as well have been living in San Francisco for all we saw, which would have suited Kitty just fine. Me? I wanted action, the more the better.

And so, before Wyatt knocked on that stormy afternoon, I pounded strudel dough and wondered how I’d painted myself into that particular corner, an unwanted guest in another woman’s kitchen. There I was in all my Tombstone glory: standing barefoot and anything but pregnant (I was still, technically, a virgin) by Kitty’s stove. The Joneses had not anticipated that I would be bunking on the daybed in their two-room cottage for more than a night or two while Johnny and his son, Albert, kipped in an army tent five parcels down the road.

But four weeks and a general election later, there I was at the Joneses’ house. While Republican James Garfield defeated Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock, I was absorbed by domestic politics and my own new beginnings. I attempted to stay out of Kitty’s way, but I have one of those big personalities that gets underfoot. That afternoon she’d swanned off to a cribbage-and-crab session with her circle of church ladies. Since I didn’t attend Sunday worship, I was excluded from Thursday’s cards and conversation, leaving me alone with my thoughts and my strudel when Wyatt appeared.

After a long, awkward pause, the deputy sheriff said, “I’m Wyatt Earp.” I knew who he was—that voice, those shoulders—I was just stunned by his proximity.

“I reckon you are. I’m Josephine.”

“The lass that loved the sailor.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n. You know your
Pinafore
.”

Wyatt continued in songlike speech, “Sorry her lot, who loves too well, heavy the heart that hopes but vainly; sad are the sighs that own the spell . . .”

“. . . uttered by eyes that speak too plainly.” I recalled that electric shock he’d sent through me with a glance. I never did have a poker face; I looked down. I was barefoot, which made me feel naked. At home, Ma forbade me from walking barefoot, saying it was a sign of mourning and would cast a shadow over her and Papa’s lives. I wiggled my toes. I’d never been all that conscientious to begin with.

“I’m expected. Can I come in, or should I wait here and scare the crows?”

I rocked back on my naked heels and laughed. Wyatt joined in. He had a deep, warm chuckle. Maybe Mr. Dark ’n’ Stormy wasn’t as serious as I had supposed. I welcomed him over the threshold, pointing out the iron wall hooks where he could hang his sopping waxed cotton coat and Stetson. After the laughter fell away, I stood there unsure what to do next without Johnny present.

“Did I interrupt something?”

“No, I’m just baking.”

“Well, that’s something. Find me a stool near the stove and pour me some coffee. I’ll keep you company until your Johnny returns.”

That was where the trouble began: in Kitty’s kitchen with the cast-iron stove, newspaper plugging the holes in the walls to keep out the weather, and a lot of cozy silence. While we awaited Johnny, I poured fresh coffee for Wyatt and returned to work. Baking settled me; it brought me closer to my father, even if he was nearly a thousand miles away. I sprinkled drops of water on the dough to return it to the right texture, and then set to work. I kneaded and rolled, folding the dough in on itself with a satisfying slap until it was smooth and supple. I didn’t have to look up to feel Wyatt’s eyes on me.

“What’s that?”

“Strudel.”

“No, who’s the little man?” He pointed at the dough figure I’d exiled to the table’s edge.

Embarrassed, I laughed, and said, “It’s for Albert, Johnny’s son. To keep him company. He gets lonesome in that tent down the road without his mother.”

I felt ashamed for revealing the secret sadness I’d pulled from the boy so slowly and carefully. I sprinkled flour on the table and brought the little flour gent close to finish his features and give him a soul. First, I brushed egg white over his face for shine. Then I pressed dough with a fork until it oozed through the tines to make wavy hair. I painted the bread-locks with yolk to turn them gold, and then placed currant buttons down his chest, and raisins for eyes and dimpled knees.

“Does the little man have a name?”

“Not yet. Do you have one for him?”

“I reckon that’s Albert’s job. I don’t want to step on his toes.”

I turned the little fellow in the light. “He resembles a banker for all his short pants,” I said. But it was Albert I was thinking of. I’d known Johnny was a father, but it was news to me that the nine-year-old was already in Tombstone when I arrived. It was yet another detail my fiancé had neglected to share. But I’d warmed to Albert instantly. I missed Henrietta, my Hen, and Albert became more like a little brother than a son to me. I knew how to be a big sister, but I had no desire to become a mother before I was a wife.

“That’s one serious little dough boy,” said Wyatt, reviving the conversation.

“He could use a laugh.” I looked up at Wyatt with a smile, which I immediately realized was dangerous. There it was—that spark—and I couldn’t hide the way it lit up my face except by glancing down. I stretched out the dough boy’s smile with cherry juice, and rouged up his cheeks.

“That’s better. Is he edible?”

“You certainly play rough! Our banker won’t be your man for breakfast!”

“I didn’t say I would eat him, Miss Josephine, so holster your six-shooters.”

“That’s a relief. I wouldn’t want to make a bloody mess in Kitty’s kitchen. Besides, my little crusty man doesn’t taste like much except salt and flour. But with all that yeast, he’s an early riser!”

“Not me!”

The rectangular room that contained the kitchen, parlor, and dinner table was warm and dry, smelling of coffee, cinnamon, and fruit. It felt comforting, just the two of us as the wind hissed and scratched outside. We shared an easy silence. I stretched out over the table with the rolling pin and smeared pears on the flat surface; I scattered raisins and sprinkled cinnamon-sugar last, shaping it into a tidy, sweet package bound for the oven.

“Can you bake corn bread?” asked Wyatt after half a coffee cup of silence.

“No. Why?”

“It’s my favorite.” He extended his mug for more coffee.

“If there’s a recipe, I can learn.” I used two hands to steady the flow of coffee as I poured, pleased that we were getting along so well. “Corn bread is Johnny’s favorite, too, after beaten biscuits.”

I fooled myself into believing I was entertaining our guest to help Johnny achieve his local ambitions. The previous night my fiancé explained that he needed to patch fences with the former deputy sheriff, the reason as plain as black-and-white newsprint. I followed the stories in the rival papers, the
Tombstone Epitaph
and the
Tombstone Daily Nugget
,
although they diverged along political lines. Johnny, a Southern Democrat, preferred the
Nugget
. The election that made Garfield president affected the Arizona Territory, commencing a pigs-at-the-trough scramble for local political spoils that had a direct impact on me.

One election in particular concerned both Johnny and Wyatt: the race for Pima County sheriff between Republican challenger Bob Paul and Democrat incumbent Charlie Shibell. At the time, Wyatt was Shibell’s deputy, despite their political differences. Their working relationship ruptured with the sheriff’s increasing ties to the ranchers, and accusations of election fraud. According to the
Epitaph
, one district’s votes tallied 103 for Shibell and just one for Paul, even though there were only fifty eligible voters. Cowboys Ike Clanton and John Ringo served as election officials.

Wyatt found this deceit untenable. He resigned as Shibell’s deputy sheriff and joined Paul’s campaign to overturn the fraudulent election results. Wyatt’s loss was Johnny’s gain: Shibell offered him the newly vacated position. It suited Shibell fine since Johnny had ambitions to become sheriff when the territorial government created a new county with Tombstone as its seat—a job that could pay a princely $40,000 per year. But Johnny, ever the politician, didn’t want to alienate the sharpshooting Earps in the process. He’d invited Wyatt over so that they could have some privacy to negotiate.

I checked my strudel in the oven, even though I knew it was too soon. “What else do you like besides corn bread?”

“Nothing that requires cooking.” Wyatt let a pause hang in the fragrant air. It hovered while I considered his intention and what it would be like to kiss that man right under his big handlebar mustache. What would that first kiss be like: rough or soft, forceful or tentative? Or would it be sloppy and awkward? And then I remembered Johnny and scolded myself for straying. Wyatt finished his thought. “Ice cream: I’m a boy in knee breeches when it comes to ice cream.”

I laughed at the image, a little louder than the joke deserved. “That’s Albert’s favorite, too. He’s die-hard tutti-frutti.”

“I’m a strict vanilla man. And you?”

“I can’t be pinned down: peppermint one day, chocolate the next. Albert and I are regulars at Lottie Hinkley’s Ice Cream Parlor after school. These days, he needs a little extra sweetness—”

Johnny swung open the front door and stamped his wet boots on the threshold. The cold crept into the kitchen and chilled my bare toes. “What’s that heavenly smell?”

Wyatt set his coffee down in the flour dust, rising to his full, imposing height. When he picked up the mug again, it had left a wet ring above the banker’s head.

“Like a halo,” I said.

“I’ve never known a banker with a halo,” said Wyatt.

“What are you two doing over there?” Johnny asked, suspicious even though he set up the meeting with Wyatt—and arrived late. “Did my little gal put you to work, Wyatt?”

“No. I was just keeping her from setting the house on fire.”

“It was a close call,” I said. That fire had been set elsewhere.

“Well, come on over here and sit yourself down, Wyatt.” Johnny pointed to the scarlet mohair armchair Kitty had shipped from San Francisco. Johnny settled on the divan opposite, reaching for the silver tray with the decanters atop the mahogany table that separated him and Wyatt. “Pour you a snort?”

“No, thank you, John. Coffee suits me fine.”

I padded over and snuggled beside Johnny like a cat seeking the room’s warmest spot, tucking my legs up on the sofa and my feet under my skirt. I reached over to remove the pocket watch from his vest, and he said, “Women! They always want something.”

“Yes, Johnny, I want something desperately: to time the strudel.”

“That’s what
you
say, Josie girl.” Johnny pulled me close to nestle in the crook of his arm. “Wyatt, have you heard the story about the gunfight between the Englishman and the frontier widow?”