Epilogue
Morning sunlight slanted down over Tombstone, clean and sharp after the storm.
The air still smelled of wet dust and mesquite, the kind of smell that made a man believe the desert could wash itself clean if given enough rain.
The fires were out, the talk had died down, and the town looked as if nothing had ever happened—though Johnny Irons knew better.
Places like Tombstone remembered, even when they pretended not to.
He rode in slow, riding the black thoroughbred he had named Black, with Meg trailing behind. Whiskey trotted close, tail swaying easily. Folks on Allen Street turned to watch the boy on the magnificent black thoroughbred.
Marshal White looked up from his desk as Johnny pushed open the door. The bandages were gone, leaving a long purple line across his temple and a tired look in his eyes. A pot of coffee steamed on the stove, black enough to float a nail.
Johnny laid a leather satchel on the desk, heavy with paper. “You’ll need this,” he said. “For your retirement.”
White’s eyebrows shot up. “Retirement? You planning mine now, Irons?”
Johnny’s mouth twitched. “That there’s Buckskin Lewis’s—money he made under a false name. Seems right that it should go back to the law.”
White studied the satchel for a long moment, then loosened the straps and peeked inside. Stacks of banknotes gleamed faintly in the light. He closed it again and sat back with a sigh. “I’ll take it. Lord knows I’m too old to chase ghosts anymore.”
Johnny leaned against the door frame, quiet.
White went on. “The town council came by this morning. They’ve hired themselves a new marshal, a fellow named Wyatt Earp. He and his brothers will be ridin’ in next week.”
Johnny’s brow creased. “Heard the name. Earp’s a good man.”
“Yeah, maybe too good. He told the council he didn’t want any remnants of the old guard. That means you’re out, Johnny.” White’s eyes lifted, steady. “No argument. No discussion.”
Johnny nodded once. “I was gonna hand in the badge anyway.”
White let out a soft grunt. “Figured as much. You look like a man with his eyes already on another horizon.”
Johnny unpinned the badge, turned it in his hand, and set it down on the desk. The little star gleamed dully in the lamplight. “Time I moved on.”
The marshal reached out and turned the badge, so the light caught its edges. “You done more for this town than it ever deserved, Irons. You see it that way?”
Johnny shrugged. “A man does what’s right, not what’s paid.”
White smiled faintly. “That’s what makes the good ones die early.”
Johnny didn’t answer.
White reached under the desk and brought out a folded note. “You plan on stopping by the Crystal Palace? Say goodbye to Autumn.”
Johnny’s head came up. “Yeah.”
“Well, I’ll save you the steps,” the marshal said. “She left this morning. She caught the eastbound stage. She said she was goin’ to Houston, then Chicago. She wants to sing in one of them music halls back there.”
Johnny looked at the floorboards, his thumb hooked in his belt. “She’ll do fine.”
White nodded. “She said she had some money Donovan had stashed away, enough to take her time and pick a place that suits her voice. She said…” He hesitated, reading from memory. “She said tell Johnny she’s sorry, but that saying goodbye would dredge up too many hurtful things.”
Johnny’s jaw worked once. “Just as well. I was never much for goodbyes.”
Neither spoke for a long moment. The wind came through the open door, carrying the faint smell of horses and wet dust. Somewhere outside, a hammer struck metal at the smithy, steady as a heartbeat.
White finally broke the silence. “When you leaving?”
“As soon as I can buy some trail supplies.”
The marshal leaned back, the chair creaking. “Where you headed?”
Johnny pushed his hat down low. “Wherever Meg and Black take me.”
“Black?”
“Buckner’s horse,” Johnny said. “Thoroughbred gelding. He’s my bounty for delivering justice to the man.”
White chuckled once. “Fitting, I reckon. You always did collect your own kind of payment.”
“Only kind worth collecting.”
The marshal stood and stretched slowly. His hand hovered over the badge for a second, then he looked back at Johnny. “So it’s goodbye, then.”
Johnny gave a slow nod. “Looks that way.”
“Hell, Johnny…” White’s voice caught. “You ever think you might come back?”
Johnny met his gaze square. “No, Marshal. A man can’t come back to what’s already burned behind him.”
White started to say something, but Johnny had already turned for the door. He snapped his fingers once. Whiskey rose from beside the desk, tail wagging, eyes bright. Johnny stepped into the light without looking back.
The door swung shut behind him with a soft click.
An hour later, Johnny swung up onto the black gelding, the animal restless and proud beneath the saddle. Meg followed on the lead rope, steady as ever. Whiskey loped behind; his paws silent in the drying mud.
He paused at the end of Allen Street and looked back once. The windows of the Crystal Palace caught the sun and threw it in his eyes. He thought of Autumn singing there—the voice that had touched him, the look she’d given him the night he’d shot Roy McLaury. Then he let it go.
He touched the brim of his hat to the empty street. “Good luck, Marshal White,” he murmured. “And good luck, Tombstone. You’ll need it. Silver mines don’t last forever.”
Then he turned the black toward the north.
The desert opened ahead—clean after the storm, full of color and quiet. The mountains stood blue and far away. The air smelled of mesquite smoke and fresh rain. Every hoof step sounded sure, like the beginning of something, not the end.
Johnny rode loose in the saddle, hat low, eyes on the horizon. He didn’t know where the road led, and he didn’t much care. A man didn’t need to see the end of the trail to know it was worth riding.
Whiskey trotted alongside, tongue lolling, glancing up now and then as if to make sure the world still moved. Behind them, Tombstone grew smaller until it was only a handful of roofs in the mirage heat.
The trail rose and fell. Meg plodded steadily behind, the black gelding blowing easy under him. Every now and then, Johnny reached down and stroked the sleek neck. “We’ll find us open country, boy,” he said. “Place where the sky’s wide and the law ain’t written in dust.”
The horse flicked an ear as if he’d heard and agreed.
Black topped a low ridge; behind him lay Tombstone—fading, already half-forgotten. Ahead, only the long line of the trail, the promise of distance, and the quiet kind of peace a man finds when he’s alone on the trail.
~*~*~
Thank you for reading Book 4 in the Johnny Irons Series.
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Chapter 1
Reb Johnson stood out like a sore thumb as he rode into Bisbee, Arizona.
No one could mistake him for one of the local range riders, working cattle on the sprawling ranches around Bisbee.
He wore a gray cavalry slouch hat with an ostrich plume stuck in the headband.
A gray Confederate jacket showed off his broad shoulders and gray pants.
Reb wore a double holster gun belt around the waist of his wool pants.
The holster held two .45 caliber Schofield revolvers.
He favored the Schofield over the Colt because he could reload the Schofield in thirty seconds, while it took over a minute to reload the Colt.
In a battle, thirty seconds could mean the difference between life or death.
Sheriff Albert Frank, in Albuquerque, had told Reb, as he handed him the wanted poster, that Dan Miller had killed the mayor in cold blood over a dispute in a poker game in front of a dozen witnesses.
The sheriff had emphasized that the $1000 reward would only be paid if Dan Miller was brought in alive.
The reward money was why Reb Johnson, also known as the Ghost Rider because of his days riding with John Mosby, had traveled to Bisbee, Arizona, from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Strands of Reb’s red hair stuck out from his under his slouch hat as he turned his head to survey the buildings and people he passed with his green eyes.
He especially took note of the horses tied to the hitch rails.
He had been tracking Dan Miller for three weeks.
The wanted poster in his pocket had Dan’s young face on it, and under his picture was printed in big black letters $1000 for his arrest and return to Albuquerque. Payable alive only.
Reb knew the outlaw rode a piebald gelding from witnesses who had seen him passing through Los Cruces, New Mexico. He’d watched carefully for the piebald as he passed each hitch rail. His diligence didn’t reward him until he reached the Desert Flower Saloon.
The piebald gelding stood between a black gelding and a brown mule at the hitch rail in front of the saloon. Rowdy music and sounds of feet stomping in time with the piano greeted Reb’s ears as he walked Major, his Appaloosa, past the saloon to the hitch rail in front of the haberdashery.
“It looks like we finally caught up with our bounty, Major,” Reb said while dismounting.
He patted the powerful horse on the shoulder.
“I’ll return shortly,” Reb added before ducking under the hitch rail.
He straightened to standing, pointed his boots toward the saloon’s porch, and took slow, measured steps.
As a bounty hunter, Reb had realized long ago that saloons posed a threat inside and out.
You never knew who you would run into smoking a quirly on the porch.
It might be a brother, son, or a friend of an outlaw you had arrested or killed.
Either would be keen on putting a bullet in the man who killed or caused their loved ones to hang.