Worlds That Weren't

Josie surprised everyone by showing up in riding clothes at the O.K. Corral, her new pistol hanging from her belt. “I will go, of course,” she said.

Freddie’s heart sang in praise of her bravery, but he touched his hat and said, “I believe that Helen should remain on Ilium’s topless towers, where it is safe.”

She looked at him, and he saw the jaw muscles tauten. “Those towers burned,” she said. “And I don’t want to survive another lover.”

Freddie’s heart flooded over. He kissed her, and knew he would kiss her thus time and again, for infinity.

“Come then!” he said. “We shall meet our fate together!”

“Let slip the dogs of war,” Ringo commented wryly, and they rode out of town into a chill dawn.

They followed a pillar of smoke, a mining claim that belonged to one of the Cowboys. No one had been killed because no one was home, but the diggings had been thoroughly burned. From the mine they followed the trail north. After two days of riding they were disappointed to discover that the trail led to the Sierra Bonita, the largest ranch in the district. Ringo and his friends had been running off Sierra Bonita’s cattle for years. The place was built like a fort against Apache raids, and if the Earps and their friends were inside, then they were as safe as if they were holed in Gibraltar.

“Hic funis nihil attraxit,” Ringo muttered. This line has taken no fish. Freddie hoped he didn’t smell Brocius’s dead cat on the line.

The posse retreated from the Sierra Bonita to consider their options, but these narrowed considerably when they saw a cloud of dust on the northern horizon, a cloud that grew ever closer.

“Looks like we’ve been outposse’d,” Ringo said. “Their horses are fresh-we can’t outrun them.”

“What do we do?” Freddie gasped. Two days in the saddle, even riding moderately, had exhausted him-unlike Josie, who seemed to thrive once cast in the role of Bandit Queen.

Ringo seemed almost gay. “They have tied us to the stake, we cannot fly.” Freddie could have wished Ringo had not chosen Macbeth. “I think we’d better find a place to fort up,” Ringo said.

Their Dunsinane was a rocky hill barren of life but for cactus and scrub. They hid the horses behind rocks and dug themselves in. Within an hour the larger outfit had found them: the Earps had been reinforced by two dozen riders from the Sierra Bonita, and it looked like a small army that posted itself about the hill and sealed off every exit. The pursuers did not attempt to come within gunshot: they knew all they had to do was wait for the Cowboys’ water to run out.

Ringo’s crew had a smaller store of water than their enemies probably suspected, and one night on the hill would surely exhaust it. “We shall have to fight,” Freddie said.

“Yes.”

“Few of those people have any experience in a combat. Holliday and Virgil Earp are the only two I know of. The rest will get too excited and throw away their fire, and that will give us our chance.”

Ringo smiled. “I think we should charge. Come down off the hill first light screaming like Apaches and pitch into the nearest pack of them. If we run them off, we can take their horses and make a dash for it.”

“Agreed. I will have to follow you-otherwise I can’t see well enough to know where I’m going.”

“I’ll lead you into the hornet’s nest, don’t you worry.”

Freddie sought out Josie, lying in the shade of some rocks, and took her hand. The sun had burned her cheeks; her lips were starting to crack with thirst. “We will fight in the morning,” he said. “I want you to stay here.”

She shook her head, mouthed the word no.

“You are the only one of us they will not harm,” Freddie said. “The rest of us will charge out of the circle, and you can join us later.”

The words drove her into a fury. She was in a state of high excitement, and wanted to put her pistol practice to use.

“It is not as you think,” Freddie said. “This will not be a great battle, it will be something small and squalid. And-” He took her hands. She flailed to throw off his touch, but he held her. “Josie!” he cried. “I need someone to publish my work, if I should not survive. No one else will care. It must be you.”

She was of the People of the Book; Freddie calculated she could not refuse. At his words her look softened. “All right, then,” she said. He kissed her, but she turned her sunburned lips away. She would not speak for a while, and so Freddie wrote for an hour in his journal with a stub of pencil.

They spent a rough night together, lying cold under blankets, shivering together while Cowboys snored around them. As the eastern sky began to lighten, all rose, and the horses were saddled and led out. The last of the water was shared, and then the riders mounted.