A Handful of Dust

We round the corner and there they stand, waiting in the yard between Fly’s and Harwood’s, pistols on their hips and hands at the ready. Billy Clanton, wearing two .44 Russians and a leering grin, winks at me. Not one minute ago, Johnny Behan looked me in the eye and told me he had disarmed the whole bunch.
I hear myself say, “Son of a bitch!”
Virgil calls out, “Throw up your hands, boys! I intend to disarm you!”
I keep my eye on Frank McLaury, knowing him an experienced gun hand. He grabs for his pistol, I raise mine and shoot him in the stomach, knocking him against Fly’s clapboard. He hangs there a moment, then slides down the wall and sits in the dirt.
I snap off a shot and miss, the bullet striking a foot above his head.
Billy Clanton pulls one of his Russians and fires. Glass breaks somewhere behind me. I’m thumbing back the hammer on my Colt’s as Ike Clanton grabs my arm and my shot goes wild. While I am struggling to get the old man off me, I see Tom McLaury behind Billy’s horse and Behan pushing Billy Clairborne to cover behind Fly’s.
Virgil grunts, swears and falls to the ground.
The yard is filled with the bittersweet smell of gun smoke.
Ike is still grabbing at me, pleading for his life. I shove him away, shouting, “This fight’s commenced! Go to fightin’ or get away!”
Ike’s son Billy is shooting as fast as he can, and lead is buzzing by my head. Dust puffs off his shirt and he gasps, holding his stomach but keeping to his feet.
Morgan fires and Billy’s right hand disappears in a cloud of red mist, his pistol flipping into the dirt behind him.
Virgil shoots Billy at the belt and the boy falls.
Tom McLaury fires from behind Billy’s horse and Morgan goes down. I shoot the horse in the withers. It breaks away, dashing toward Freemont, leaving Tom off balance and without cover. As he tries to regain his footing, Doc cuts loose with Virgil’s shotgun, spinning Tom around, but not bringing him down. He starts running down Freemont and Doc, swearing, drops the shotgun, pulls his pistol, takes aim like a target shooter and hits him once between the shoulder blades, then twice more. Tom stumbles but keeps going until he reaches the telegraph pole beyond Harwood’s. He pauses, one hand on the pole, then falls and is still.
Doc starts to reload, pulling cartridges from his pocket.
Frank McLaury lifts himself off the ground and fires, putting a hole through my coattail. He shoots at Morgan and misses. I snap a shot in his direction. He turns and staggers into the street. He makes it to the far side of Fly’s, sits down in the dirt and leans over, both arms at his side, blood soaking his shirt and pooling on the ground.
A bullet from nowhere whizzes between Virgil and me. Someone shouts, “Watch it! We’re getting it from the back!” I fire at a running figure as he disappears around the corner of the Aztec House.
Frank McLaury, still sitting in the street, raises his head and points his pistol at Doc. “I’ve got you now!”
Doc is closing the gate on his pistol. “Blaze away! You’re a daisy if you have!”
Frank’s bullet blows a hole through the back of Doc’s coat and he cries, “I’m shot right through!” and shoots Frank in the chest.
Morgan, lying in the street, fires and hits McLaury in the head. Frank falls over onto his side and does not move.
“You’re dead, Earp!” One of Billy’s hands is destroyed and he’s been shot in the chest and stomach, but he’s got me square with his second Russian. I’ve nowhere to run. My gun’s empty, Virgil’s is too, and Morgan’s is silent. Doc is rolling on the ground screaming like a demon and the Wells-Fargo shotgun lies ten feet away.
Billy aims that .44 at my face and pulls the trigger...

A mockingbird practiced his variations outside my window, running up the scale and then back down, twittering, chattering, whistling and crowing. Leaves on a lemon tree fluttered in gentle breezes against a cloudless sky the color of a robin’s egg. I rubbed my eyes, half-awake. That October day from so long ago sometimes returns to me in dreams, a reminder of my great good luck. Of all the men who stood against each other in Harwood’s lumberyard, I was the one who didn’t suffer a wound and I was now, at sixty-two years of age, the only participant left alive.
Everyone knows the story. Those thirty seconds changed my life, made me famous and taught me that fame can be used when you want it to, but it also can use you, and can make you its slave. Newspaper reporters and book writers have constantly hounded me to tell them the story of that fight. If I told the tale once, I’ve told it a thousand times, as if I never did anything else in this life. Maybe I should have charged those writers money for those stories. They surely made theirs. And Josie and I could use that money now.
I was tired and hungry but could do nothing about either. We had no food and no money, and last night Josie disappeared.