Doc: A Novel (29 page)

Ducking low, off balance, he raised his arms against the shower of glass. A moment later, he was spun around and knocked to the ground when thirty-some wild-eyed Texas boys boiled out of the building. He was still struggling to find his footing when he heard Eddie Foy shout, “Doc! I’m coming!”

Minnowing through the mob with lithe acrobatic dispatch, Eddie arrived at his side, hauled him onto his feet, and pulled him backward until the two of them were flattened against the wall of the theater. Once there, they had no thought except to stay out of the brawl.

The Texans were screaming for blood, a quantity of which was already streaming from the head of a limp German fiddler—and if he wasn’t already dead, he would be soon, for the cowboy on top of him was pretty clearly set on opening the fiddler’s throat. “When I tell you to play ‘Yaller Rose,’ ” the kid was yelling, “you by God play ‘Yaller Rose,’ you damn Dutch sonofabitch!”

Wyatt appeared. Calm and workmanlike, he elbowed his way toward the middle of the mob where the German lay. With a spare economy of movement, Wyatt lifted the heavy-hilted knife up and out of the Texan’s raised hand and brought the butt end down sharply on its owner’s head.

The motion was so quick and so effective that things got quiet, and everyone could hear Wyatt say, “You’re under arrest for assault and disorderly conduct,” as though he were remarking on the weather. Kinda hot today. Looks like rain.

He’d reached down to pull the assailant upright and haul him off to jail when one Texan—out of thirty
—one
approached to object.

Wyatt dropped the unconscious Texan and straightened with a look of contempt so plain and powerful, the drover took a step back.

“Hey!” the drover said, trying for bluster. “Hold it right there, law-dog!”

“Why?” Wyatt asked. “You wanna get your sister to help?”

There were snickers.

Embarrassed, the Texan stammered, “H-hey! Hey! You can’t—”

Wyatt slapped him hard. One cheek, the other.

“Yes,” he said. “I can.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Eddie whispered, pale under his freckles. “They’ll kill him sure.”

“No,” Doc said softly. “No. They won’t.”

And he had no idea why he was so certain, except … it was as though Wyatt knew something that the other man didn’t. Or maybe he knew something
about
the other man, who was ashamed of it. Yes! And whatever that
something
was, both of them were agreed as to its significance.

If there was any doubt about what would happen next, the roar of a shotgun ended it. Morgan Earp’s voice sang out nearby. Within seconds, Charlie Bassett, John Stauber, Chuck Trask, Jack Brown, and Bat Masterson arrived, running. Crouched, shotguns shouldered, they pushed through to Wyatt and wheeled to form a cordon around him, backing the mob away.

“Wanna go get your sister?” Morg laughed as he took his place next to his brother. “Jesus, Wyatt, you sounded just like Pa—”

“Shut up,” Wyatt snapped.

Morgan’s face went slack, and he looked like he’d been backhanded.

What was that about? Doc wondered.

“Sorry,” Wyatt said briefly. “See to the fiddler.”

Morgan knelt at the German’s side. “Still breathing,” he reported. “Stauber, fetch Doc McCarty!”

Drawn by the noise and the excitement, the crowd was getting bigger by the moment, and the buzz of comment became louder when people noticed which Texan Wyatt Earp had just arrested. The kid was sitting on the ground, one leg out straight in front of him, the other crumpled beneath him, a circumstance he’d lament when he sobered up. He looked like any of a thousand beardless boys in town that day, but the spur he’d landed on when Wyatt dumped him was heavy silver. His boots were custom-made, and the hat lying in the dirt nearby was an expensive Stetson.

Word got around fast. Dog Kelley and Bob Wright showed up on Doc McCarty’s heels.

“That’s Billy Driskill,” Bob said. “Wyatt, wait! You can’t—”

Wyatt had the kid by the ear, but he was looking at Dog Kelley. “I told you when I started: I don’t care who it is. He breaks the law, I’m taking him in.”

“Dog,” Bob Wright said, his voice low and urgent, “that’s Jesse Driskill’s nephew. His uncle’s worth millions to the city! You’re the mayor—do something!”

“C’mon, Wyatt,” Dog pleaded. “Be reasonable!”

“You want my badge back?” Wyatt asked.

“You’ll get mine, too,” Morg said over his shoulder.

Stauber and Charlie and all the others looked to Morg, and nodded. One by one, every man on the Dodge City police force told Dog, “Mine, too,” ready to back Wyatt’s play, even though none of them was sure yet what in hell was going on.

Doc McCarty was kneeling on the dirt by then, examining the bleeding fiddler. Dog came closer and asked, “How bad is he?”

“He’s young,” the doctor said. “He’ll live.”

“Well, then,” Dog said, clapping his hands once. “No harm done!”

Wyatt shook his head mulishly. “There’s got to be one law for everybody, Dog.”

“Yeah, but—Wyatt, he’s—”

“No, sir,” Wyatt insisted. “There can’t be one law for rich Texans and another law for broke Texans, and another law for Negroes, and another one for Chinamen, and squaws, and Irishmen, and whores, and another one for everybody else. I can’t parse it that way, Dog! I am not that smart! There’s got to be one law for everybody, or I can’t do this job. You want my badge or not?”

Dog glanced at Morgan, who acknowledged the look with a shrug and a nod and a sigh: Yeah, I know what you’re thinking …

It was boneheaded and contrary, and maybe someday Wyatt would learn the ways of the world and how to go along with things he couldn’t change, but not today. Today he was going to take that rich kid in or get fired for trying.

That was when Bob Wright—conciliatory and earnest—approached Wyatt to have a quiet word with him, except Dog Kelley stepped between them.

“Tell you what, Wyatt,” Dog said quickly. “We’ll take the kid straight to court and let him pay the fine. Everybody wins.”

“Wyatt, if it’s the arrest fee you’re thinking of,” Bob said, reaching into his own pocket, “let’s see if we can’t work something out—”

“Bad move,” Doc murmured to Eddie.

“Bob, no!” Mayor Kelley moaned. “He don’t mean it, Wyatt. Not like that—”

“Morg,” Wyatt called so everyone in the crowd could hear him. “Arrest this man. He is attempting to bribe an officer of the law.”

“Mr. Wright,” Morgan said, “I’m sorry, but I’m taking you in.”

“F’crissakes, Wyatt,” Dog cried. “Morgan, no!”

“You want my badge, Mayor?” Morg asked, fingers on his star.

Dog threw up his hands in defeat. “This will not end well,” he warned the Earps, but there was nothing more he could say. Bob Wright was standing right there, his face as blank as an egg, malice rising off him like a stink.

The boy on the ground was conscious enough now to respond to the pain in his ear when Wyatt tugged at it. Getting to his feet blearily, Billy Driskill let himself be led to jail, right behind the only man in Dodge almost as rich as his Uncle Jesse.

“Go on, now,” Bat Masterson ordered the crowd. “Show’s over. Break it up.”

Slowly the crowd dispersed, leaving Dog Kelley and China Joe standing together on the street.

Jau Dong-Sing crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head, the way any American would. “Wyatt Earp one big damn dumb son a bitch,” he muttered.

“A remark like that is a good way for a Chink to get himself lynched,” Dog warned before he walked away, “but I ain’t gonna tell you that you’re wrong.”

Ringer

S
tone-faced and determined to deliver both prisoners to a cell, Wyatt came about halfway to breaking the jaw of a tall, thin, unshaven man standing between him and the jailhouse door. Morg had time to say, “That’s Doc! Don’t hit him!” But something had already made Wyatt pull his fist back. A thoughtfulness, maybe. A look of appraisal that didn’t quite match the man’s coatless shirt and rumpled trousers.

The dentist, too, seemed distracted by events, though sheer force of habit made him say “Afternoon,” to Bob Wright, as though the merchant weren’t being hauled in on a bribery charge.

“It’s after two,” Doc told Wyatt.

Wyatt’s forehead furrowed. “Did I have an appointment today?”

“No! The race! Three o’clock?”

Wyatt glanced at the sun. “Hell. Forgot all about it.”

“Let me ride for you.”

“In the race, you mean?” Wyatt had never seen Doc Holliday ride anything. “You sure?”

“Would I make the offer if I were not capable?” Doc cried. “What does a man have to do to be taken at his word in this town? Do I have to shoot someone? Because I am makin’ a list! Yes, damn you, I am sure!”

“Well, I ain’t,” the Driskill kid mumbled, swaying a bit but watching Doc, who was coughing now. “You don’ look too good, mister.”

“Shut up. Nobody asked you,” Wyatt said, still gripping the kid’s ear. But he was inclined to agree with the boy, and Doc must have seen that.

“I can do this, Wyatt,” the dentist insisted. “It’s a short race.”

“Dick don’t know you, Doc. He’s not an easy horse—”

“Let me try! He won’t finish better if you keep him in the stall,” Doc pointed out. “And he’ll be carryin’ less than he’s used to.”

“Tha’s an a’vantage,” young Driskill agreed. Like anybody gave a shit.

“All right,” Wyatt told Doc finally, not because he thought it was a good idea but because he couldn’t make himself say no to what he saw in the skinny Georgian’s shining eyes. “If you can get him saddled, give it a try.”

Doc nodded and set off for the stable.

“Watch out!” Wyatt called. “He bites!”

Without looking back, Doc raised a hand in acknowledgment.

“Don’t hit him for it!” Wyatt yelled.

Doc turned and stared, motionless, while the crowd moved around him.

“Hell,” Wyatt sighed. He already regretted what he’d just said and expected to be told off for it. “What kinda blankety-blank idiot do you take me for?” Doc would ask him. “Are you sayin’ I’m a mean, stupid, s.o.b. who’d hit a horse for bein’ nervy?”

Instead, what Wyatt saw was the long, slow emergence of something that began in John Henry Holliday’s eyes and lifted the high, flat planes of his cheeks just before his mouth dropped open into the biggest, happiest smile Wyatt had ever seen on that boy’s face.

“I knew you’d say that!” Doc hollered back joyously and, coughing, he disappeared into the crowd.

There are many reasons a horse will bite. In the wild, stallions bite during contests for a harem. Boss mares do so to enforce discipline within a herd. Sometimes it’s just in a horse’s nature to be mouthy, the way a retrieving dog is born with the urge to carry things around. Even a good-tempered saddle horse might snap when startled by an abrupt or careless motion.
Mend your ways
, such a horse is warning, and a human had best pay heed. It’s not good judgment to pick a fight with something that can tear the muscles clean off your bones.

“Watch how he holds his head,” young Robert Holliday counseled the first time he took his little cousin to the Fayetteville stable to meet Robert’s new gelding. “See the tail? If you know what you’re lookin’ at, you can read a horse like one of your damn books.”

Standing on an upturned bucket so he could see into the stall, John Henry knew exactly what he was looking at: the homeliest pony he’d laid eyes on by the tender age of eight, and if nature had produced another who could take the title away, he had not seen evidence of the achievement in all the years since.

Snickers the little horse was unkindly named, in recognition of the response his appearance provoked. He was a dirty white with flecks of black that looked like dried mud missed by a careless groom. Against that grayish mediocrity, the gelding’s pink-rimmed eyes seemed as bloodshot as a drunkard’s. His unloveliness might have been forgiven had it not been for a protruding and slightly wobbly lower lip that made the poor animal look addled.

“Nothin’ wrong with this horse wasn’t wrong with the fool who rode him,” said Robert.

Faced with inconsistent expectations, defeated by unreasonable demands, Snickers would stand still, looking confused. He’d been beaten for his prior owner’s failures, and having learned to fear men, the gelding no longer waited for meanness to be made manifest. Walk by his stall too quickly or too slowly or too carelessly and, like as not, he’d snake his neck out at you and clamp his teeth on whatever he could catch hold of.

“Hittin’ a horse is plain stupid, John Henry. There’s no excuse for it,” Robert declared with the serene instructive confidence of a ten-year-old boy who’s made a careful study of a single subject and knows all there is to know about it. “Horses are mirrors. They’ll show you back whatever you show them. Watch a man with a horse, and you’ll see what’s inside his own self.”

What the stable hands had, inside and out, was an entirely rational eye-rolling fright. They were scared to death of Snickers. John Henry clearly remembered the worried gray-haired uncle who’d set aside a muck shovel and hurried over to warn young Marse Robert not to let his little cousin John go near that crazy damn horse. Looking back now, he realized, there was irony to be discovered. The old man knew exactly who’d be blamed and beaten if a white child was bitten. It sure as hell wasn’t Snickers.

By contrast, what Robert Holliday had inside, even at the age of ten, was a master’s unconscious self-assurance, along with a basic decency that made him patient with a small, shy cousin who still talked funny. Robert had stepped toward Snickers, speaking low and friendly, not a bit scared, even when the pony tossed his head.

“Hey, now,” Robert said, quiet and firm and kind. “Hey, now. Settle down, you.”

That was the voice John Henry Holliday heard as he approached Dick Naylor’s stall. Part of him wanted to look at his watch again, to see how much time he had to get out to the track before the race began, but he could almost feel Robert at his side, saying,
Hey, now. Settle down. Take it slow or he’ll make you pay
.

At the sound of unfamiliar footsteps in the aisle, Dick faced around and blew a wary snort, halfway between curiosity and fright. There was no answering exhalation in the barn. That would be a source of concern to the horse, who was down in the last stall, away from the corrals where the cowboys’ mounts were penned.

Standing a few yards away, John Henry let Dick take a good look at him before asking sympathetically, “Y’all by your lonesome in here? Where’d all your friends go? Off havin’ a fine time at the fair, I expect, and here you are with nobody for company.”

He reached into a bucket of carrots hanging on a hook nearby, allowing it to clank a bit against the wall so Dick would recognize the sound. He put a couple of carrots in his pocket, keeping another in the palm of his hand, and waited to see how Dick would take this turn of events.

The horse backed away, nostrils flaring, ears flicking in all directions. Tense and ready to shy, he stretched out his neck, measuring the distance to the stranger’s hand.

“That’s right: you don’t know me, but you’d like this carrot, wouldn’t you … Wyatt sends you his best, but he is fully occupied at the moment, diggin’ his political grave. Aurelius on the plains: one law for everyone!” John Henry marveled. “Your master is a stubborn, sanctimonious Republican jackass, but I admire his principles.”

Dick lifted a hoof and hit at the stall gate.

“No, sir,” John Henry said firmly. “I will not be pawed at, thank you very much! But you want what I have … You got decisions to make, son.”

Irritated by flies, a horse will shake his head, or wag it, or jerk it up and back. Irritated by humans, the same moves in rapid succession can signal equine exasperation.

“Mind your manners,” John Henry warned softly, “or I will eat this carrot myself—see if I don’t.”

At last, there was the long, low, guttural nicker he was waiting for, used by horses to greet one another, heard by humans at feeding time.

“There you go,” John Henry said warmly. He stepped closer and held his hand waist-high to make Dick lower his head and relax, letting the horse nuzzle the carrot from his palm. “That’s right,” he said, his voice low and friendly and calm. “I am not Wyatt, but I am a man with a carrot. Can’t be too bad, can I? Oh, you found that one, too, did you? No, no, no—let me take it out of the pocket. Rip the worsted, and we’ll get what-for from Mr. Jau …”

Lured with a third carrot, Dick let himself be led out into the aisle, stood still for a cross-tie, and even let the stranger examine his mouth, which was a hardened mass of scar tissue.

“Look at that,” John Henry muttered. “Some heartless goddam sonofabitch did you a disservice, and may he rot in hell for it!”

Dick shifted uneasily.

The damage was old and not superficially abraded. Wyatt must have been using a bridle without a metal bit.

“Well, Dick, you have fallen into better hands now, and that is your good fortune. What do you think, son? Ready to return the favor? Shall we go show this burg who owns the fastest quarter-miler in Ford County?”

Dick tossed his head in response, beginning to get keyed up, and just as well, for they’d be racing soon. Running his hand along the horse’s flank, John Henry retreated down the aisle toward the central tack room.

Standing in the dim and shadowy light, he scanned the racks and pegs, trying to decide which saddle was Wyatt’s. “That’s got to be it,” he murmured when he spotted one that was unadorned and worn at the edges but well cared for, with a soft-nose hackamore slung over its pommel. He had just gathered himself to hoist forty pounds of leather and iron off the rack when someone out in the aisle walked past the tack room door.

Motionless, John Henry listened.

Dick Naylor gave a low, troubled snort.

Everybody knew Dick was supposed to run today. Thousands of dollars were riding on the quarter, and there were dozens of ways to meddle with a horse and ruin his chances. It was too late for some, but others were quick. Shove a piece of sponge up the animal’s nostril to impede his breathing. Hit a shin and lame the leg before a bruise could rise. Jam something into the frog of a hoof.

Heart hammering, John Henry lowered the saddle back onto the rack, careful not to let the stirrups clank. Like anyone else in town, he could have carried guns legally that day, but he’d left Dodge House in a rush. His pistol was back at the hotel, behind the front desk. The Philadelphia Deringer in his pocket was only good at card-table distances.

Hoping he could make it through the next fifteen seconds without coughing, he slid a throwing knife out of the sheath in his left boot, stepped toward the tack room door, and leaned carefully into the aisle.

“Back away from that horse!” he ordered. “Do it!
Now!
”

Kate turned and glared, offended, over her shoulder. “How dare you speak to me like—”

Dropping the knife, he rushed at her, shoving her hard and holding her down when they crashed to the floor.

The hooves just missed their heads. Dick squealed and got ready to let fly again.

Doc grabbed Kate’s arm and dragged her backward, scrambling down the aisle, pulling her crabwise away from the horse.

“God a’mighty!” he cried when they were out of range. “Are you hurt?”

She was sitting on the floor, looking like a five-year-old smacked across the face and still too stunned to weep. “Are you crazy?” she cried. “God damn you, look what you did to my dress! Why did you—”

“Never mind the dress! You were about to be kicked halfway to Colorado.” Doc got to his feet and did his best to help Kate up, although it was not completely clear who was helping whom because he was coughing now. “Are you hurt?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know! What’re you doing in here?” she demanded, rubbing an elbow. “I been looking everywhere, and Wyatt wouldn’t tell me nothing, that stupid sonofabitch—”

Dick stamped and snorted. Doc left Kate to settle the animal down. That was when she started to cry. It was the shock. And the fall. And anger that Doc seemed more worried about the horse than about her. He understood all that, but there was so little time left!

When she saw the saddle, she figured out what he was doing, and then she was like a terrier: nipping at his heels, yapping at him, getting in his way. He paused just long enough to lean over and kiss her on the mouth, but that didn’t even slow her down.

He lost his grip trying to sling the saddle onto Dick’s back, and when he dropped it, he rounded on Kate, shouting, “For the love of God—get out of my road!”

It was a mistake. Producing that much volume set off a coughing fit so bad, it left him bent over, hands on his knees, staring at the floor and gasping like a catfish on a riverbank.