The Last Woman Standing: A Novel by Thelma Adams

Author:Thelma Adams [Adams, Thelma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503935181
Published: 2016-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

MAY 20, 1881

It was one thing to observe the notorious Curly Bill Brocius stomping down Allen Street, cursing and laughing, spitting tobacco, surrounded by his cronies in bright bibbed shirts. But it was another to invite him over to play poker like Johnny did.

I would have called Curly Bill a colorful character of the Western frontier if I was a tourist ignorant that he’d killed Marshal White the previous October. He wasn’t just wild, he was feral. Even if the judge acquitted Brocius after two months in jail, the outlaw was dangerous. Maybe that shooting was accidental. Maybe it wasn’t. But he wasn’t just a harmless public nuisance: he celebrated his freedom by shooting at the toes of a preacher, making the clergyman dance in front of his congregation to the bullets’ beat. Bill had a prankster’s sense of humor, but it wasn’t particularly funny if you were the butt of his joke. I discovered that he had neither manners nor morals—he had no respect, but a surfeit of self-regard. There were bears in the wild that were more civilized. I learned that the hard way under my own roof.

Johnny invited William Brocius, Johnny Ringo, and their ilk over for Friday-night cards, which seemed harmless enough. Since I was the woman of the house, Johnny insisted I stay and play hostess, bake oatmeal cookies a la Harris House, serve a roast—that kind of thing. Curiosity won out over caution. I was eager to throw a party in my own house for the first time in my life. That wasn’t something we did on Perry Street. I had no reason to argue since I trusted Johnny’s protection and infallibility. He was the sheriff, after all.

During pillow talk, Johnny shared his plans for a business alliance with the cowboys. They tended to be Democrats and Southerners like himself, and they were rule benders rather than makers. Johnny’s strategy put him at odds with Wyatt. The Earps disliked Brocius, even if Wyatt and his brothers inevitably drank and gambled with the cowboys in town. When balancing the two prongs of the sheriff’s office—law enforcement and tax collection—it was the latter that prevailed for Johnny. He loved money, and that’s where the biggest profits lay. Wyatt, on the other hand, would always balance the books on the side of the law.

That night, Johnny and I looked happily around our new living room, the deviled eggs I’d prepared on the sideboard. But the room that had appeared spacious suddenly seemed overrun when our guests arrived. Brocius, who was in his midthirties, was oversized in everything he did; he entered following three bangs on the front door at 10:00 p.m., flung his coat on a chair, and slung his guns on the wooden hooks. Suddenly, it was as if his bear-size personality sucked the air out of the room.

Like Curly Bill, most of the Cochise County cowboys were damaged goods. I did not approve of them in general but had never been close enough to be justifiably fearful.

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