Doctor Who: The Gunfighters (12 page)

By one of those coincidences without which even the best fiction would be unreadable, and even a true story such as this, unconvincing, what we have here is the cool and deadly, calm and imperturbable, et cetera, high-class, professional gun-slinger, Johnny Ringo; before whom strong men would have quailed, if he’d ever given them a moment to get on with it.

A killer of the old school, in fact.

Yes, but hold on there – there weren’t no malice about it

– or not a lot, anyway. A business occupation, it was; and not just an unpleasant hobby. The way he looked at it, he was kind of working his way through college: because the one thing he’d always envied Doc Holliday – whom, in all other respects, he disliked – was his education. But, whereas Doc, as we know, was a medical man, Ringo himself had preferred to opt for the Classics, on account he considered them to be a mite more genteel. And to this end, it was his invariable habit to devote some percentage of his blood money to the purchase of such texts in the dead languages as were considered to be required reading by the folks who live on Nob Hill.

At the moment he was into Caesar’s
Gallic Wars
, and he considered this well-reviewed, ten-volume, high-tone work to be a lulu, in every respect: action, human interest, and class, in that order. O.K. – so it strained his saddle-bags some; but long as it lent his conversation that sparkle and polish so widely esteemed by the cognoscenti – what the hell? Because one day he might meet some of the latter; and then just watch his smoke! So, you will gather, that besides being one of the most efficient life-extinguishers a prospective mayor could wish to employ, he was a sure enough odd-ball. And, bearing in mind the traditional hostility between Science and the Arts, should he and Holliday ever meet face to face on their opposing paths to perdition, then any innocent by-standers in the vicinity had better watch out for themselves, that’s all!

Now, since he was dressed from head to foot in black; and since dawn, as we have already recorded, was still an hour off; and since Charlie had the shakes, and attributed the jingle of spurs to the tinkling of the ice in his breakfast

– for all these reasons, the bar-keep did not at once notice Ringo, looming in the nervous shadows as he was, like a promise of the wrath to come.

But at length the irritated tapping of a gun-butt in a bowl of the nuts you love to crunch awakened him to the fact that custom was in the offing; and he slouched gracelessly forward to inform the intruder that the bar wasn’t open yet.

‘So open it,’ suggested Ringo, pleasantly; and he leaned across the bar to light a cheroot from a match struck on Charlie’s unshaven jowl.

‘Now see here...’ Charlie was beginning, when the flaring lucifer illuminated the pale and intellectual, pock-marked physiognomy before him. And, with no pleasure at all, he recognised it.

‘And fetch me a double, straight,’ continued Ringo, completing his esteemed order.

‘Yes, sir, Mr Ringo – right away! Double, straight, coming right up, sir...’ and he busied himself about the matter, to the accompaniment of a certain amount of tooth-chattering.

‘How come you know my name?’ asked Johnny, cautiously.

‘Why, Mr Ringo, I guess near about everybody... I mean, well, I sure enough
heard
about you, sir...’

‘What have you heard?’

Careful now, Charlie, careful... Don’t tell him
that
, for God’s sake!

‘Well now, sir, seems to me it was only last night a couple of boys was askin’ after you...

’long around

midnight, it was...’

‘That so? And who was they?’

‘Far as I remember, sir, it was Ike and Billy Clanton.

Maybe you know ’em?’

‘Can’t say I do.
What
was they askin’?’

‘Well,’ – he lowered his voice – ‘they was sayin’ as their Pa would give you five hundred if you’d throw in with ’em against Wyatt Earp...’

‘Against the Marshal? Then you can tell ’em I take
seven
hundred for a law-man.’

He calculated that with the extra two, he could maybe get himself the complete Orations of Demosthenes, in genuine Morocco...

‘Surely will, Mr Ringo – it’ll be a pleasure! An’ shall I also tell ’em as you’ll be ridin’ out there? I mean, I can easy draw you a little map, showin’ you where the ranch is...’

‘In my own good time I’ll maybe go...Say I got business of my own to settle first. Personal business, with Doc Holliday.’

‘You have? Well now, excuse me, Mr Ringo – an’ of course I know it ain’t nothin’ to do with me – but I reckon that’ll suit ’em jest fine; ‘cause they’re layin’ for Holliday too!’

Ringo spat like a cobra. ‘Then here’s another thing you can tell ’em, boy: tell ’em, Holliday’s mine! I ain’t trailed him all the way from Fort Griffin, to have some bunch of uneducated hoodlums foul it up! Understand me?’

‘I certainly do, Mr Ringo – an’ I’m sure they’ll be happy to accommodate you there! Why, they missed him only yesterday, in this very bar!’

‘Holliday was here?’

‘In a pig’s ear, he was!’

‘What?’

‘Just an expression. Why, he shot down the late Seth Harper, right where you’re standin’ now! Then he lit out o’

town with his two fancy women, same as though all the devils in hell was after him!’

‘One of ’em is! So who’s his company?’

‘There was two of ’em, like I say. Pert little party, name of Dodo Dupont – who’s a singer. And an older girl, called Kate, who’s somethin’ in the same line; when she ain’t otherwise occupied, if you follow me, Mr Ringo.’

‘I hear you real fine. Mind tellin’ me if this here Kate also goes under the name of Elder?’

‘Sure does – or leastways, always has. Now I hear, she’s about to change it. She’s fixin’ to marry Holliday, she tells me.’

Uncharacteristically, Ringo slopped his drink. ‘That truly so? Fetch me another of those, an’ fast! In fact, you’ll oblige me by leavin’ the bottle.’

‘Why, certainly, Mr Ringo – and it’s on the house!’

‘Never supposed no different. What’s your name, boy?’

‘Charlie, sir...’

‘Then, here’s lookin’ at you, Charlie...’

Charlie wished he wouldn’t.

Ringo drank off a half-tumbler; and for some reason, felt better. Kate could rot in hell, for all he cared. In fact, he’d prefer it.

‘Thank you, sir. Why, I jest cain’t wait to see the Marshal’s face, when he hears
you’re
goin’ against him, Mr Ringo!’

Ringo forgot about Kate and her prospects for the moment.

‘You plannin’ to tell him, maybe?’

‘Well, of course not, Mr Ringo! I was only sayin’...’

‘Charlie, Charlie,’ sighed Ringo, sadly, ‘I know your kind. You say too much...’

‘No, sir; I won’t say nothin’ to nobody!’

‘Now, ain’t that the truth, Charlie?’ Ringo agreed – and shot him through the throat. Just like that.

And he carried his drink over to a pleasant table near the window to reread that exciting bit in Volume Two, where Caesar carves up Gaul into three parts. And he was thus engaged, when Steven and the Doctor came in.

19

They were in high, or at least somewhat elevated, spirits.

Escaping from a lynch mob will sometimes do that for you.

And now the TARDIS, with all its promise of more sophisticated disasters to come, beckoned them backwards. All that was left for them to do was to collect Dodo, tell her how brave they’d been and then fly off to health and happiness in some galactic cataclysm. Fine, and also dandy – if you care for that sort of thing!

‘Intrepid’ is the word which suits them, at this point.

Why, they were even whistling ‘The Happy Wanderer’, which just shows you...

So they approached Charlie – who, for some reason, was slumped across the reception-desk – and clearing their throats, and pleased to be able to do so, they asked for their keys.

He was quite obviously not thinking on his feet this morning, and ignored the simple request.

‘Dear me,’ said the Doctor, ‘the man is incapable of performing his duties!’ Which is one way of putting it, I suppose...

‘Asleep at his post,’ said Steven. ‘Dangerous, I’d have thought, in a place like this.’ And he shook Charlie by the shoulder.

Apart from disturbing a couple of blue-tail flies who had thought the site ripe for development, this did nothing but reveal a spreading pool of blood on the hotel register; which proceeded to find its own level, and drip into the ullage.

‘Great Heavens, he seems to be dead!’ diagnosed the Doctor.

The corpse’s lolling head appeared to nod in confirmation, as Charlie continued his interrupted journey to the grass roots.

‘Heart failure...’ suggested Ringo, from his breakfast nook. ‘High livin’ an’ hard liquor don’t pay...’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ said Steven. ‘He’s been shot! Look

– you can see where the bullet... where the bullet... Excuse me a moment...’ And he utilised the sink for his own purposes...

‘But this is outrageous!’ complained the Doctor. ‘He had no business whatever to get himself killed! He should have been guarding Dodo with his life, a man in his position!’

A man in Charlie’s position wasn’t rightly able to guard anything much, save maybe a few earthworms. But nevertheless, Ringo took the cue.

‘Looks like he already done that,’ he said: and thought he might as well hoist a little Latin up the gallows, to see if anyone would swing from it.

‘
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
’ he drawled. There was a surprised pause. Ah, well... ‘Which means,’ he sighed,

‘who’s gonna look after the goddam guards?’ (A favourite gag of Caesar’s, by all accounts.)

‘There is absolutely no need to translate,’ said the Doctor, ‘I know perfectly well what you mean. After all,
Sapientia urbs conditur
, as you may have heard.’

‘What?’ asked Steven, returning when empty.

‘A city is founded on wisdom, my boy! How pleasant to meet an educated man at last!’

‘Likewise, I’m sure,’ said Johnny, lighting up like the fourth of July in Chicago. This was it! The intellectual soulmate he’d been waiting for! Suddenly all those long hours bent over a hot vocabulary had been worth it!

‘So
requiescat in pace
, hey?’ he crowed, flipping a coin onto Charlie’s stomach. ‘Towards the funeral,’ he explained, ‘
De mortuis nil nisi bonum!
’

‘What?’ said Steven, again.

‘Nothin’s too good for a goddam corpse,’ said Ringo.

‘That’s about it, ain’t it, friend?’ he asked the Doctor.

‘Well, in a somewhat loose version of the idiomatic vernacular, I suppose...’ the Doctor agreed. ‘But surely, my dear fellow, rather than voicing such flowery exequies, we should be asking ourselves who can possibly have committed this completely unjustified homicide?’

‘Not much question about that, I’d say,’ volunteered the conscienceless Ringo, blandly. ‘Seems like that Doc Holliday won’t never mend his uncivilised, medical-school ways!’

‘Holliday?’ snapped the Doctor, not wishing much to be reminded of the man. ‘What’s he got to do with it?’

‘Only man in the territory low enough to shoot an unarmed bar-keep, I’d say. Open and shut case,’ Ringo continued. ‘Moreover, I heard he was in here last night, lookin’ fer trouble, like always; which jest about clinches it, don’t it?’

‘Then where is he now? He must be apprehended at once!’

‘Seems like he’s done taken off on his law-dodgin’

travels once more. Anxious to avoid his just retribution,’

he clarified. ‘Come to think of it, I heard tell he was keepin’ company with a couple of high-steppin’ saloon gals. Ain’t it the truth, how such women’ll drag a man to damnation?’

‘
Two
, do you say?’ enquired the Doctor, quivering with moral outrage.

‘Two,’ confirmed Ringo. ‘The man is a monster of lewdness and debauchery, an insatiable satyr, who will brook no restraint on his vile appetites!’

Some prod-nose, Cicero probably, had once applied these terms of opprobrium to Julius Caesar, he recollected; and he had always fancied they would come in useful one day.

But Steven’s mind had pounced on what it suspected was more than a coincidence.

‘Two?’ he enquired, in his turn. ‘You don’t happen to know their names, do you?’

‘Well now,’ pondered Ringo – or appeared to ponder.

‘Give me a moment, an’ maybe I’ll come up with something... Why, sure – seems like one of ’em goes under the name of Kate Elder...’

‘Holliday’s receptionist!’ the Doctor remembered.

‘Receptionist? Well, I’ve heard as she does kinda keep open house...’

‘But the other one?’ urged Steven. ‘What was
her
name?’

‘Hold on, there – let me see... Somethin’ with a flavour of frenchified dressin’ to it... Why, a Miss Dodo Dupont, I do believe!’

The time travellers reeled in consternation! This was all they needed: Dodo on the lam, with a wanted killer, and a bar-room floozie! The morning, which had tip-toed in with all the happy panache of a State Funeral, was bidding fair to remain roughly on course...

‘Oh God!’ exclaimed Steven. ‘There’s nothing for it –

we’ll just have to go and find them!’

‘You don’t say? Forgive me askin’, but this here Gallic flibbertigibbet’s a close friend o’ yours, maybe?’

‘Yes, dammit!’ admitted Steven. ‘Confound her innocent, artless little ways!’

Ringo felt much the same about Kate and thought he understood. So he expressed friendly and sympathetic interest.

‘So, if you find ’em, friends, what are you fixin’ to do?

Figure on gunnin’ Holliday down, is that it?’

‘Certainly not!’ said the Doctor. ‘He is my dentist. But it is essential that we get Dodo back; and so we shall... we shall just have to reason with him to that effect...’

‘Now that I’d truly like to see! Because, seein’ as we talk the same dead language, I’ll tell you folks somethin’...

Seems like you an’ me’s got common cause against Holliday... Same like we’re bound to have against all forces of ignorance an’ oppression, the world over! So now, jest supposin’, young feller, I was to let you ride with me?’