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Wyatt were there again, together with another man who looked so much like Wyatt that Macklin decided it must be
yet another of the town's Earps. Virgil was nowhere to be seen. "Morning," Macklin said, approaching the table.
"What's happened?" "You don't know?" Holliday asked. "No. Should I?" He looked at the unintroduced Earp. "Hi. My
name's-" "Johnny Waco," the man said quietly. "Or Macklin. I know." "This here's Morgan Earp," Doc Holliday said.
"Virgil and Wyatt's brother. He deals faro here at the Oriental sometimes, and he rides shotgun for Wells Fargo. He
also gets deputized from time t'time, when there's trouble. Like now." "You mind telling us where you were last night,
Waco?" Wyatt said. His voice was low, even, and very dangerous. Macklin suddenly had the feeling that a wrong
move on his part could release something inside the man opposite him, something like a tightly coiled steel spring. "I
was at Mrs. Nevers's boardinghouse," he replied. "All night? Say ... after midnight or so?" "That's right." "Can
anybody else vouch for that?" Morgan asked. "Mrs. Nevers. She put me to bed...." He could tell by the expressions on
the other men's faces that he'd just said the wrong thing. "Oh, it's like that, is it?" Doc Holliday said. "Look, just what
is this?" Macklin demanded. He looked at Wyatt. "I rode out to the Clanton place yesterday, like you asked me to. I'm
afraid I couldn't find very much out. I talked with someone named Billy Claiborne, and someone else named Phineas.
Phineas Clanton. Learned a little about the people in the gang, but-"
"I don't care about any of that right now, Waco," Wyatt said. "Have you seen Doc Shea lately?" "Milo Shea? The guy
who fixed me up when I first came into town. That was ... what? Three days ago." "You ain't seen him since?" Doc
asked. "No. Why?" "Someone," Wyatt said, "killed Doc Shea last night. Put a bullet hole in his head big enough to
stick your finger in." He held up his own forefinger, as illustration. Then he tapped himself on the forehead, squarely
between and above his eyes. "Right there." "Three of his buddies were over there playing cards last night," Morgan
added. "They left about midnight and said Doc Shea was fine then. So someone came in after midnight and plugged
him." "Why are you telling me this?" Macklin's eyes widened . "Wait. You don't think I shot him, do you?" "Doc here
was telling us," Wyatt said, "how Shea sicced a couple of guys on you, the night you came into town. Tried to rob
you. That could be motive enough." "Doc Shea was a greedy, larcenous, thieving, drunken old coot," Doc said, "but
walking into a man's home and blowing a hole in his skull is still murder, plain and simple. And right now, you're our
number one suspect." Macklin blinked. "Why?" "You're a stranger in town. And you had a reason." "Is that a crime?"
"Not by itself," Doc said. "But this memory loss thing you claim to have is damned convenient. No way to check up
on you, who you really are, where you come from." "You call yourself Macklin," Wyatt added, "but you handle a gun
like a big-name shootist. I still think you look like Johnny Waco, and that's a man capable of almost anything , if he
thought he'd been wronged."
"I never claimed to be Waco," Macklin said. "That was your idea!" Wyatt held out his hand, palm up. "Let me have
your gun." Macklin frowned, but he surrendered the weapon, drawing it carefully between thumb and forefinger, so
the men facing him, all of them visibly tense and very, very still, wouldn't get the wrong idea. Wyatt cracked the
cylinder open and looked at the bullets ... five of them, in six chambers, the empty chamber under the hammer. He held
the weapon to his nose and sniffed. Then he looked at Morgan and shook his head. "Hasn't been fired. Not lately,
anyhow." He placed the pistol on the table and studied Macklin, an icy scrutiny. "I haven't killed anybody," Macklin
said, stubborn. "Look, I last saw Mrs. Nevers at ... I'm not sure what time it was. But it was before midnight. There were
lots of people still up at her place. I could hear laughter and talking and so on downstairs. I imagine she'll be able to tell
you what time she saw me last, and she'll tell you that I was in my room. And I don't think I could have slipped
downstairs and out the door without anyone seeing me." He'd been about to point out that Sarah had taken his
clothes to wash them. It seemed to be the perfect defense. If people in this town had been looking at him strangely
when he hadn't been wearing a hat, they would have looked at him a hell of a lot more strangely if he'd gone out in the
town streets naked ... not exactly the proper attire in which to commit a murder. But he remembered Sarah's obvious
consternation last night when he'd first asked her to help him with the salve. The way she'd been unable to even say
certain words. There were fragments of-not memories, really, but impressions -fragments that suggested that being
seen nude
or partly undressed by others was not normal for this culture , that sex was a secret and shameful thing, that people
tended to be very concerned about their reputations ... which had something to do with who they had sex with. Sarah,
he guessed, wouldn't want others to know that she'd been alone in a room with a naked man. The thought, when he
reasoned it out, seemed bizarre, even nonsensical, and he couldn't put his finger on where the impressions were
coming from. Memory? Something he'd been told? By whom? Dream fragments ... shreds of memories: a blue- glowing
city beneath a vast, ringed planet and a ruby-hued sun. A dark-haired woman in his arms, naked and beautiful. A
voice, whispering in his mind, "Let go. Let go, and let your body remember. If you stop to think, you are already dead. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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