“I have no objection,” Earp said. He looked directly at Johnson.
“I have plenty of objections,” Johnson said.
“Oh? What are they?” Marsh asked.
“I’m in a hurry,” Johnson said. “And besides . . .”
“Besides?”
“There’s your father,” Emily prompted him suddenly.
“Yes, there’s my father,” Johnson said. “How much did Professor Marsh offer you for these stones, Wyatt?”
“Two hundred dollars,” Wyatt said.
“Two hundred dollars? That’s an outrage.”
“It is two hundred more than you have, I believe,” Marsh said.
“Look, Wyatt,” said Johnson. “There’s a telegraph office here in Laramie. I can cable my father for funds, and by this time tomorrow I can give you five hundred dollars for your share.”
Marsh darkened. “Mr. Earp, we have made our deal.”
“That’s so,” Earp said. “But I like the sound of five hundred dollars.”
“I’ll give you six,” Marsh said. “Now.”
“Seven fifty,” Johnson said. “Tomorrow.”
Marsh said, “Mr. Earp, I thought we had a deal.”
“It’s amazing,” Earp said, “how things keep changing in this world.”
“But you don’t even know if this young man can come up with the money.”
“I suspect he can.”
“Eight hundred,” Johnson said.
Half an hour later, Marsh pronounced himself happy to take Earp’s share of the bones, at once and without inspection, for a thousand dollars in cash. “But I want that box,” he said suddenly, spying the one with the small X on the side. “That means something.”
“No!” yelled Johnson.
Marsh drew his weapon. “It would appear that box has contents that are especially valuable. And if you believe that your life is also especially valuable, Mr. Johnson, which I do not, then I suggest you let me remove this crate without further discussion.”
Marsh had the boxes loaded onto a wagon, and he and Navy Joe Benedict headed north, toward Deadwood, to retrieve the rest of the bones.
“What does he mean, the rest of the bones?” Johnson asked, as he saw the wagon drive off into the sunset.
“I told him there was another thousand pounds we left behind in Deadwood, hidden in Chinese Town, only you didn’t want him to know about them,” Earp said.
“We better get moving,” Johnson said. “He won’t go far before he cracks open one of those cases and finds he has bought worthless granite. And he’ll be back hopping mad.”
“I’m ready to go,” Earp said, thumbing through the money. “I feel well satisfied with my return on this trip.”
“There’s one problem, of course.”
“You need crates to replace the ones you just lost,” said Earp. “I bet the army garrison has some, given their need for provisions.”
Within an hour they had procured ten crates of more or less equal size as the ones Marsh had taken. Johnson unearthed the bones from their manure bed, and packed them carefully but quickly. The box containing the dragon teeth received another X, which satisfied him more than he could say.
They left, within minutes, for Cheyenne.
Earp was up on the box with Tiny. Inside the coach, Miss Emily stared at him. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“I think I’ve been very patient.”
“I thought you might be Wyatt’s girl,” he said.
“Wyatt’s girl? Wherever would you get an idea like that?”
“Well, I thought so.”
“Wyatt Earp is a scoundrel and a drifter. The man lives for excitement, gambling, shooting, and other pursuits of no substance.”
“And me?”
“You’re different,” she said. “You’re brave, but you are also refined. I bet you kiss real refined, too.”
She was waiting.
“I learned,” Johnson wrote in his journal, “one immediate lesson, which was the unwisdom of kissing aboard a bucking stagecoach. My lip was deeply bitten and the blood flowed freely, which inhibited, but did not stop, further explorations of this nature.”
He added, “I hope she did not know I had never kissed a girl before, in the passionate French way which seemed to be to her liking. Except for that one time with Lucienne. But I will say this for Emily. If she did know, she did not say anything, and for that—and for other experiences with her in Cheyenne—I am eternally grateful.”
Cheyenne
In the unimaginable splendor of a room at the Inter-Ocean Hotel (which he had previously seen as a roach-infested dump), Johnson took his ease for several days, with Emily. But first, upon arrival and signing the hotel register, he ascertained that the Inter-Ocean maintained a steel-walled strong room, with one of the new combination time locks, developed for banks against would-be bank robbers. The boxes were carried into the room by the porters. He tipped them generously so that they would not resent him and whisper about the boxes to their less friendly colleagues.
The first day, he soaked in four baths in succession, for after each he found his body was still dirty. It seemed as though the dust of the prairie would never leave his skin.
He visited the barber, who trimmed his hair and beard. It was startling to sit in the chair and inspect his own face in the mirror. He could not get used to it; his features were unfamiliar; he had the face of a different person—leaner, harder, determination now in his features. And there was the scar over his upper lip; he rather liked it, and so did Emily. The barber stepped back, scissors in one hand, comb in the other. “How’s that look, sir?” Like everyone else in Cheyenne, the barber treated Johnson with respect. It wasn’t because he was rich—no one in Cheyenne knew he was rich—but rather because of something in his manner, his bearing. Without meaning to do so, he looked like a man who might shoot another one—because he now had.
“Sir? How does that look?” the barber asked again.
Johnson didn’t know. Finally, he said, “I like it fine.”
He took Emily to dinner in the best restaurant in town. They dined on oysters from California, and wine from France, and poulet à l’estragon. She recognized the name of the wine, he noticed. After dinner they walked arm in arm on the streets of the town. He remembered how dangerous Cheyenne had felt when he had been here before. Now it seemed a sleepy little railway junction, populated by braggarts and gamblers putting on airs. Even the toughest-looking customers stepped aside on the boardwalk when he passed.
“They see you wear a gun,” Emily said, “and you know how to use it.”
Pleased, Johnson took Emily back to the hotel early, and to bed. They stayed in bed most of the following day. He had a wonderful time, and so did she.
“Where will you go now?” she asked him on the third day.
“Back to Philadelphia,” he said.
“I’ve never been to Philadelphia,” she said.
“You’ll love it there,” he said, smiling.
She smiled back, happily. “You really want me to come?”
“Of course.”
“Really?”