She looked down, as if ashamed. “I was curious myself, too.”
“They really contain bones.”
“I see that, now.”
“I don’t want them—I don’t want anything to do with them—but they are my responsibility.”
“I believe you.” She frowned. “Now I must convince Dick. He is a hard man, you know.”
“I know.”
“But I will talk to him,” she said. “I will see you at dinner.”
That night in the Grand Central dining room there were two new visitors. At first glance, they seemed to be twins, so similar was their appearance: they were both tall, lean, wiry men in their twenties, with identical broad mustaches, and identical clean white shirts. They were quiet, self-contained men who emanated a forceful calmness.
“Know who those two are?” Perkins whispered to Johnson, over coffee.
“No.”
“That’s Wyatt Earp and his brother Morgan Earp. Wyatt’s taller.”
At the mention of their names, the two men looked over at Johnson’s table and nodded politely.
“This here’s Foggy Johnson, he’s a photographer from Yale College,” Perkins said.
“Howdy,” the Earp brothers said, and went back to their dinner.
Johnson didn’t recognize the names, but Perkins’s manner suggested that they were important and famous men. Johnson whispered, “Who are they?”
“They’re from Kansas,” Perkins said. “Abilene and Dodge City?”
Johnson shook his head.
“They’re famous gunfighters,” Perkins whispered. “Both of ’em.”
Johnson still had no notion of their importance, but any new visitor to Deadwood was fair game for a photograph, and after dinner he suggested it. In his journal, Johnson recorded his first conversation with the famous Earp brothers. It was not exactly a dramatic high point.
“How would you gents like a photograph?” Johnson asked.
“A photograph? Could be,” Wyatt Earp said. Seen close, he was boyish and slender. He had a steady manner, a steady gaze, an almost sleepy calmness. “What’ll it cost?”
“Four bucks,” Johnson said.
The Earp brothers exchanged a silent glance.
“No thanks,” Wyatt Earp said.
Emily’s News
“It’s no good,” she whispered to him outside on the porch of the hotel before dinner. “The Curry boys are rattled by the Earp brothers arriving. It makes them jumpy. So they’re coming for your bones tonight. They boasted about it.”
“They’re not going to get them,” Johnson said.
“I believe they’re in the habit of getting whatever they want.”
“Not this time.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“I’ll stand guard over them,” Johnson said, reaching for his gun.
“I wouldn’t.”
“What do you think I should do?”
“Best thing is step aside, let them have ’em.”
“I can’t do that, Emily.”
“They’re hard men.”
“I know that. But I must guard the bones.”
“They’re just bones.”
“No, they’re not.”
He saw her eyes light up. “They’re valuable, then?”
“They’re priceless. I told you.”
“Tell me really. What are they, really?”
“Emily, they really are bones. Like I told you.”
She looked disgusted. “If it was me, I wouldn’t risk my life for a bunch of old bones.”
“It’s not you, and these bones are important. They are historical bones and important to science.”
“The Curry boys don’t care a hoot for science, and they’d be happy to kill you in the bargain.”
“I know it. But I got to keep the bones.”
“Then you better get help, Bill.”
He found the famous gunfighter Wyatt Earp in the Melodeon Saloon, playing blackjack. Johnson drew him aside.
“Mr. Earp, could I hire your services for the night?”
“I imagine so,” Earp said. “In what capacity?”
“As a guard,” Johnson said, and explained about his fossil bones, the room, and the Curry brothers.
“That’s fine,” Earp said when he had heard it all. “I will want five dollars.”
Johnson agreed.
“In advance.”
Johnson paid him, right there in the saloon. “But I can count on you?”
“You surely can,” Wyatt Earp said. “I will meet you in your room at ten o’clock tonight. Bring ammunition and plenty of whiskey, and don’t worry any further. You have Wyatt Earp on your side now. Your problems are over.”
He had dinner with Emily, in the hotel dining room.
“I wish you would give this up,” she said.
They were exactly his sentiments. But he said, “I can’t, Emily.”
She kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“Then good luck, Bill. I hope I see you tomorrow.”
“Rest assured,” he said, and smiled bravely for her.
She went up to her room. He went to his room and locked himself in.
It was nine o’clock in the evening.
Ten o’clock passed, and ten thirty. He shook his pocket watch, wondering if it was running right. Finally, he unlocked the room, and went down into the hotel lobby.
A pimply boy was behind the desk as night clerk. “Howdy, Mr. Johnson.”
“Howdy, Edwin. You seen Mr. Earp?”
“Not tonight, I haven’t. But I know of his whereabouts.”
“What do you know?”
“He’s at the Melodeon, playing blackjack.”
“He was at the Melodeon this afternoon.”
“Well, he’s still there.”
Johnson looked at the wall clock. It, too, said ten thirty. “He was supposed to meet me here.”
“Probably forgot,” Edwin said.
“We had an arrangement.”
“Probably drinking,” Edwin said.
“Can you go over there and get him for me?”
“I wish I could. But I have to stay here. Don’t worry, Mr. Earp is a responsible sort. If he says he’ll come, I’m sure he’ll be along shortly.”
Johnson nodded and locked himself back in his room.
And waited. If they come in the door, he thought, I better be ready. He put a loaded pistol into each of his boots at the foot of the bed.
The hours dragged by. At midnight, he went out again in his wool socks to ask about Earp, but Edwin was asleep and Earp’s key was on the wall behind him, which meant he had not yet returned from the saloon.
Johnson went back to his room and waited.
All around him, the hotel was silent.
He stared at the hands of his watch. He listened to it tick, and he waited.
At two, there was a scratching on the wall. He jumped up, raising his gun.
He heard the scratching again.
“Who’s there!”
There was no reply. More scratching.
“Get away!” he said, his voice quavering.
He heard a low squeaking, and the scratching moved quickly off. He recognized the sound now.
“Rats.”
He slumped back down, tense and exhausted. He was sweating. His hands were shaking. This was not his line of business. He didn’t have the nerve for it. Where was Wyatt Earp, anyway?
“I can’t figure what you’re so hot about,” Earp said, the next day.
“We had a deal,” Johnson said. “That’s what I’m so hot about.” He had not slept at all the night before; he was angry and tired.
“Yes, we did,” Earp said. “To protect your fossils from the Curry boys.”
“And I paid you in advance.”
“Yes, you did.”
“And where were you?”
“Doing what I was hired to do,” Earp said. “I played blackjack all night. With the Curry boys.”