Territory

Chapter One The buckskin horse walked up Allen Street just before dawn. Its head was low, its dollar-gold hide was marked with drying sweat, and its black legs were caked with dust. The man on its back was slumped forward with his face in the tangled black mane. His hat was missing, showing hair as straight and black and disarranged as his mount's. A stain spread dark on the side and skirt of his brown canvas coat. An ore wagon thundered by, murdering sleep for newcomers who weren't accustomed to the sound. A few drowsy, half-drunk miners trudged toward the shafts that rimmed the town, clutching their coats to keep out the cold spring air. Neither the miners nor the wagon driver so much as glanced at the man on the horse. A man slumped on a horse wasn't enough to make a baby stare in Tombstone. The horse stopped uncertainly at the edge of the street, outside a building tricked out in turned porch posts, raised moldings, and gold paint. Yellow light glowed in its window and through the open double doors. The murmur of men's voices and the clank of glass against glass reached the street. The buckskin seemed to expect the man to rouse himself, fling the reins around the hitching rail, and clatter across the boardwalk and through the doors. When nothing of the sort occurred, it stepped forward, once, twice. A fly bit it, and it flinched. At that, the rider slid out of the saddle like an unstrapped pack, and landed hard on his back in the dust. A man peered out the door. His face was round, blunt-nosed, and topped with a pile of sandy-red cherub curls; a moustache, an imperial, and a scowl kept it from outright childishness. He was red-eyed with liquor and smoke. His shirt was wrinkled, and sweat made dark half circles under his arms. "Hell. Some damned drunk fool fell off his God-damned horse." He stepped unsteadily to the edge of the boardwalk and frowned over the still figure. "Well, shit. Milt, Billy!" he called back over his shoulder. "Give me a hand!" Chairs scraped inside, and Milt and Billy pushed out onto the walk. Milt, the older of the two, sent an arc of tobacco juice into the street. "Just because you can't play cards worth a fart doesn't mean you can break up the game." "Help me haul this kid." Billy, taller than the other two, bony at the joints like an adolescent wolf, looked down at the boy in the street. His eyes grew wide. "Jesus, Ike," he said with the suggestion of a squeak. Then he seemed to recollect himself; he settled his face into an awkward sneer. "Better him than me." "Quit yammering and take his legs." They picked up the boy and maneuvered through the doors. They slung him, not very gently, onto the surface of the table closest to the window, scattering the components of their interrupted poker game. The bartender, nodding behind a copy of yesterday's Epitaph, ignored them. There was only one player still sitting at the game. When the three men dropped their untidy burden in front of him he sighed heavily. "I believe," he said, "I am being inconvenienced." "SorryMilt, go fetch Goodfellowbut the doc'll want the light." Ike jerked his thumb at the lamp shining down over the table. "Fellow's been shot, don't you see." The bartender looked up sharply over his newspaper. "By God, Ike, if he bleeds on that table, you'll clean it up." The seated man raised a corner of the boy's coat and extracted a glass half full of whiskey from under it. He took a swallow. "Anyone you know?" Billy answered. "He mightBull, Emma is the author of 'Territory' with ISBN 9780812548365 and ISBN 0812548361.