The Last Kind Words Saloon: A Novel by Larry McMurtry

husband, who happened to be nearby.
    “It was not meant to be a comedy routine.”
    The second night went little better. Some prop man filled Doc’s gun with blanks but forgot to do the same with Wyatt’s. Doc then shot Wyatt six times while Wyatt snapped his useless pistol six times.
    The third night they finally got it right, firing a crescendo of blanks; but the crowd showed little interest. Some called for Wyatt to toss his pistol again.
    By the fifth night they were getting fairly good at the fast draw, but on the sixth night Cody came in with a desperate look on his face; he told them that Harry Tammen, the magnate who owned the show and most of Colorado, had concluded that public interest was waning, and the show closed down.
    “Closed it down—you mean we’re out of work?” Wyatt asked.
    “You’re out of work and I’m out of everything except the clothes on my back,” Cody said.
    “He’s running a sheriff’s sale tomorrow. I think he even plans to sell my horse.”
    “Why the son of a bitch,” Doc said. “What if I go shoot him?”
    Cody merely looked doleful.
    Wyatt and Doc had developed a fondness for the old showman.
    “Why Bill, that’s rotten,” Wyatt said. “What will you do?”
    “Go home and quarrel with Lulu,” Cody said. “That’s my wife, who lives in Buffalo, in the state of New York.”
    “As for you gunfighters, there are other shows.” Cody said. “Texas Jack might hire you, and there’s plenty of gambling dens here in Denver.”
    “No, I guess we’ll amble down the road,” Wyatt said. “Jessie’s getting nosebleeds from the altitude.”
    Cody gave a little wave and turned away.
    “We ought to kill that fellow Tammen,” Wyatt said. “He’s about to put Bill Cody in his grave.”
    “I don’t favor gambling much more here,” Doc said. “Competition’s too advanced. I’ve been playing steady for two weeks and I’m just up eighty dollars, and you know how dangerous I am at the poker table.”
    “I admit you’re fair,” Wyatt said. “Farther than fair I don’t go.”
    “Where will we strike next, boys?”
    He was addressing three of his brothers: Morgan, Virgil, and Warren—the latter had brought his Last Kind Words sign with him; all he needed was a saloon to hang it on.
    “Virg has been offered the sheriffing job in Tombstone,” Morgan said. “And he could hire me to deputy.”
    “So I guess me and Warren can just be left out,” Wyatt said.
    “But you don’t like sheriff work—or any work,” Virgil said.
    “True, but I have an even greater dislike of starving,” Wyatt said.
    “There’s Mobetie, it’s a damn sight closer than Tombstone,” Morgan said. “I’m told there’s no law there yet, and no order either. Wyatt wouldn’t be subjecting his lovely wife to high altitudes.”
    “Mobetie, I have no idea of such a place,” Doc admitted.
    “Oh, it’s Goodnight’s country—it’s probably somewhere on his ranch. I’m sure it’s windy,” Morgan said.
    “Ain’t you a dandy,” Wyatt said. “I suspect you know pretty much all there is to know.”
    “Far from it,” Morgan declared.
    What he did know was when his brother Wyatt was itching to start a fight—any fight. It was partly the way he hunched his shoulders when he sat, and partly the chill look in his eyes.
    On such occasions—and they were frequent—the prudent thing to do was leave, and Morgan did.
     

 
    - 24 -
    The only person who hated the high-altitude nosebleeds in Denver more than Jessie was Wyatt, who turned plenty pale at the mere sight of blood. Once while they were at it her nose began to spout blood which got on Wyatt’s chest and on his clothes.
    “Oh goddamnit!” he said, and before they were even finished Wyatt pulled out and ran off. She didn’t see him for a week. Wyatt threatened to leave her so often she thought he might have finally done it, but he hadn’t. He had just been salooning, maybe whoring, though maybe not whoring. Wyatt was not easily