“Safe at last,” he said.

“Don’t laugh at me, Wyatt,” Mattie said. “You know about Victorio leaving the reservation.”

“I heard,” Wyatt said. “But I didn’t see him on the road from Benson.”

“Oh, leave her be, Wyatt, you know the Apaches are real,” Allie said. “People are coming in from Dragoon.”

“That so, Virg?”

Virgil nodded. He held his coffee cup in both hands, elbows on the table, so that he had only to dip his head forward to drink some.

“Everybody in Tombstone’s worried. There’s talk they’ll attack the town,” Mattie said.

She spoke in a kind of singsong, like a girl telling someone her lesson.

Wyatt broke the shotgun, took out the shells and put them in his pocket. He closed the shotgun and leaned its muzzle up against the door frame.

“How many Apaches are out?” Wyatt said.

“Clum says ’bout fifty.”

“How many armed men we got in Tombstone?” Wyatt said.

Virgil dipped his head forward and drank some coffee.

“More ’n fifty,” he said.

Wyatt nodded absently, looking past Mattie out the back window at the scrub growth and shaled gravel that spilled down the slope behind the house.

“Well, I’m glad you’re home safe,” Mattie said and got up and walked to him and put her arms around him. He stood quietly while she did this. And when she put her face up he kissed her without much emphasis.

“Go down the Oriental, Virg? Play a couple hands?”

Virgil nodded. He put down his cup, stood up, took his hat off the table and put it on his head. Allie frowned at Virgil.

“Maybe we’ll just come along,” Allie said. “Me and Mattie. See what the high life looks like.”

“No,” Virgil said.

“Why not?”

“No place for ladies.”

“Ladies?” Allie said. “When did we get to be ladies?”