reached back and held her hand. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a formidable woman, Lilly Chase. I’m scared to death of you.”
She pulled her hand free and lightly tapped his wound, causing him to yelp. “Two dead men on the floor and you’re trying to sweet-talk me. You’ve caused yourself a lot of trouble tonight, more than I think you know. The Bowman family won’t take kindly to one of their kin being killed tonight, much less two of them. They’ll approve of the manner of their death even less.”
Trammel took the rag from the bar and placed it on his wound himself. “I said I’ll handle it. I always have before.”
“Not against the likes of the Bowman clan, you haven’t.”
He could have used this moment to explain his life to her, to tell her more than the snippets of details he had let slip over the past year. But he chose not to do that. She had hired him when he had stepped off the stage a year ago. He had been looking for a place to lose himself for a while after his career with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency had come to an end. All she knew was that he was big, could take care of himself and had kept good order in her saloon since the day he had signed on. Most people thought twice about crossing the Big Man from Back East, as he had become known, and few people had challenged him.
Trammel had always known it would only be a matter of time before the wrong man tried to test him; to see for themselves if the big man in the lookout chair was as tough as everyone said. He hadn’t thought his test would be this bad and he certainly hadn’t counted on it coming from the likes of the Bowman clan.
He knew he should have been more concerned, frightened, even, about going up against the might of the Bowman family. But Trammel wasn’t the least bit concerned. It just wasn’t in him to be afraid of a fight.
It was the reason why he had been forced to quit the Pinkerton Agency in the first place.
“I’ll handle it however you want me to handle it, Lilly. If you want me to leave, I’ll leave.”
He looked up when a voice from the batwing doors of the saloon said, “You’re not going anywhere, Trammel. At least for a while.”
Trammel recognized the lean shape of the tall man who had just pushed through the doors of The Gilded Lilly. He wasn’t as tall as Trammel, but still taller than most men. His black, wide-brimmed hat was tipped forward just enough to shield his narrow eyes and thin nose. But there was no mistaking the man with the thick moustache for anyone else, even if he didn’t have the deputy badge pinned to his black frock coat.
“Evening, Deputy,” Trammel said. “What brings you around?”
If Deputy Wyatt Earp found any humor in Trammel’s remark, he did not show it. “Heard about what happened. Came to see it for myself.” He touched the brim of his hat. “Evening, Miss Lilly.”
“Evening, Deputy Earp. I’m sorry you aren’t here under better circumstances.”
“This is Wichita, ma’am,” Earp said as he paused to look down at the bodies. “No such a thing as better circumstances, just circumstances. I’d be obliged if you’d let me have a word with your man Trammel. Alone.”
“Of course. Can I get you something? Whiskey, coffee?”
“No, ma’am. I won’t be here that long.”
Lilly squeezed Trammel’s shoulder, as if trying to communicate something through her touch before she left. Whatever she was trying to say was lost on him. She disappeared into the back rooms, leaving him alone with the deputy.
He watched Earp stride into the saloon toward the body of Tyler Bowman. Trammel had seen Earp almost every day since he had come to Wichita and always noted the way he moved. He didn’t shuffle along or race around like other men. He moved in a manner that one of his old bosses at the Pinkerton Agency once described as “an economy of effort.” He moved neither fast nor slow, not even when there was gunplay or a fistfight to be broken up. He always moved at the same steady pace. He was as sure of himself and his movements as if he had planned and practiced every motion he would make that day before he even got out of bed that morning.
Trammel watched Earp take a knee and pull back the sheet covering Tyler Bowman’s face. The dead man’s gaze happened to fall exactly where Trammel was now sitting, as if the dead man had known exactly where the man who had taken his life would be hours after his death.
Earp cocked his head to the side as he studied the wounds. “Heard you did this, Trammel. Caved in his skull with one punch. That true?”
“It was a fair fight.”
Earp kept looking at the body. “I didn’t ask you that.”
Trammel had seen Earp in action and knew that his temper, and his ferocity, matched his own. “Yeah. I did it. But it was with two punches. First was a right that broke his jaw. The second was a left to the head. Either one could’ve killed him.”
Earp flicked the sheet back over Tyler’s face, stood and moved over to the second corpse, taking a knee and moving the sheet from Will Bowman’s body. Trammel couldn’t see it, but he could practically feel Earp’s eyes moving over the corpse. “What happened here?”
“He got into a fight with a drunk over cards. He reached back for a knife he had tucked in his britches. I stopped him. Think I broke his elbow in the process when he put up a struggle. I was about to throw him out when Tyler over there hit me with a whiskey bottle.”
Earp leaned in closer to the corpse. “Looks like his neck’s broke. How’d that happen?”
“After Tyler hit me with the bottle,” Trammel explained, “I threw Will to the side. He must’ve hit that chair as he landed.”
Earp looked at him for the first time. “You threw him. From where?”
“From right around where Tyler is now.”
Earp looked back and judged the distance. “You threw him that far?”
“That’s right.”
Trammel saw Earp’s hat flinch as he placed the sheet back over Will’s body and stood up. “You’re a strong man.”
Trammel didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. He just kept the rag against his wound.
Earp walked over to him until they were about a foot apart. Most people didn’t stand that close to Trammel, given his size, but Wyatt Earp wasn’t most people. “Take the rag away.”
Trammel complied and lowered his head so the deputy could see the wounds for himself.
Earp had obviously seen enough. “You can put the rag back on it now.”
Trammel complied again.
Earp moved and leaned against the bar next to him. “Judging by the amount of scars you’ve got back there, I can tell you’ve been hit with a bottle before.”
Trammel closed his eyes. Here come the questions. “I have.”
“You kill those men then, too?”
“Sometimes.”
“They
