The Doctor and the Rough Rider (18 page)

“That's a thoughtful offer,” said Holliday. “But we're either going to kill War Bonnet
and Hardin or they're going to kill us before the book gets here, and I think you
know it.”

“I'm an optimist,” said Roosevelt. “I think we'll both be here whether they arrive
before the book or not.”

“It'd be nice if you were right.”

“If I can just see what I'm missing, I'll be right,” answered Roosevelt.

“Have a drink,” said Holliday, pushing his bottle across the table. “Maybe it'll clarify
your thinking.”

Roosevelt hesitated a moment, then shook his head. “My thinking's fine,” he replied.
“It's my damned perceptions that are playing havoc with me. His weakness is staring
me in the face, and I'm still not seeing it.”

“I understand you've been quite a few months without a woman,” said Holliday. “Maybe
one of Ned's metal chippies will help you relax and clarify your thinking. Kate Elder
sold out when she left town, but they're still working here for the new owner.”

“No,” said Roosevelt firmly.

“You sure?”

“We have different moral codes, Doc. I don't tell you how to live, and I expect no
less from you.”

“The subject is closed,” said Holliday.

“Thank you.”

“Well,” said Holliday, pushing his chair back from the table, “I think maybe I'll
go try my luck at the poker tables.” He grimaced. “I was planning to head back to
Leadville after I introduced you to Geronimo, but if I'm going to face Hardin I might
just as well do it where the air is thick enough to breathe.”

He got to his feet, left a silver dollar on the table to pay for his
dinner and his bottle, took the bottle with him, and walked out of the restaurant,
past the front desk, and into the street, where he turned south and headed for the
Oriental.

Roosevelt finished Masterson's steak, decided he was still hungry, ordered a small
steak of his own, waited patiently for it to arrive, ate it, paid his bill, and went
up to his room.

It was a hot night, and he opened the window. It almost surprised him that there was
no bird waiting to fly in, become Geronimo or one of his warriors, and discuss yesterday's
adventure.

He took off his coat and tie, unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt, stalked
restlessly around the room for a few minutes, and finally sat down at the desk. He
picked up a pen the hotel had supplied, dipped it in the desk's inkwell, and began
writing on the hotel stationery he found in the drawer.

My Dearest Alice:

I know it is insane to write to you, who have been dead all these months, but I need
to organize my thoughts, and you were always the one who acted as the perfect sounding
board for them.

I find myself in a situation that nothing in my previous experience could have prepared
me for. I must face, and defeat, an enormous creature, some two stories high, heavily
muscled, with arms that end in flames—arms and flames that were clearly meant to engulf
his enemies. By which I mean, to engulf me, for he was created solely to kill me and
the Apache shaman Geronimo. He is invulnerable to bullets. I suspect he is equally
impervious to knives and arrows. I find it difficult to believe that water will have
any effects on his flaming extremities, nor do I know how, in this extremely dry and
primitive desert town, I could find a sufficient supply of water to douse them even
if I am mistaken.

All logic says that I should forget about confronting him. I should cut and run back
to the eastern side of the Mississippi River. I know he won't
follow me there. He was created solely to stop Geronimo and myself from coming to
an agreement.

Yet if I do
not
deal with Geronimo, the United States will be confined to the eastern side of the
Mississippi, whereas I truly believe that it is our manifest destiny to reach the
Pacific as a nation. So I cannot turn tail and run, comforting as the thought of it
might be to me when I sit here alone in the dark and realize what I must face.

Goliath did not tower over David the way this monster towers over normal men. And
yet David brought his monster down with a single stone, and I must find the equivalent
of that stone to use against my monster.

I have one advantage that David lacked: I have the greatest inventor of our age, Thomas
Alva Edison, on my side. He has partnered with the inventor, Ned Buntline, to try
to find weaknesses in the Indians' magic. He has succeeded here and there, in bits
and pieces. If he can succeed this one last time, can create for me the equivalent
of David's stone, that is the very last thing he will have to do out here in the West,
and he and I can both go back to leading our normal lives.

The frustrating thing, the thing that is driving me crazy, is that I
know
War Bonnet's weakness. I know how to go about killing him—and yet that knowledge is
buried somewhere in the back of my mind. For two days I have been trying to think
of it, and have been unable to. My friend, the notorious shootist Doc Holliday, suggested
that a drink might loosen the doors of my mind, and I am so frustrated that I briefly
considered it. Hopefully when I talk to Edison and Buntline tomorrow, they'll ask
the right question, and all will become clear.

If not, I will soon be lying beside you.

Your Theodore

R
OOSEVELT WAS UP WITH THE SUN, AS USUAL
. He went through his calisthenics, walked down to the restaurant, and ordered some
scrambled eggs and coffee. He wasn't surprised to see that Holliday wasn't in attendance,
and only mildly less surprised to note that Masterson also hadn't come down to breakfast.

He finished, left some coins on the table, and went for a brisk walk around the southern
end of town. Finally he found himself in front of Buntline's house, walked around
it until he was facing Edison's front door, and approached it.

“One moment, Theodore Roosevelt,” said a mechanical voice. A light flashed near his
eyes, and by the time he'd stopped seeing spots the door opened and Thomas Edison
was standing in the doorway.

“I'm sorry, Theodore,” he said. “I'm trying out a new security system. I'll have to
adjust the flash on that camera.” He paused. “Come on in. Can I offer you anything
to drink?”

“Some coffee.”

“Good! I happen to have a pot on. I'll get it while I summon Ned.” He stared at Roosevelt.
“I assume you do want to speak to both of us?”

“I do.”

“I thought so,” said Edison, buzzing for Buntline. “You've been hunting the monster,
haven't you?”

Roosevelt nodded, “Observing him, anyway.”

“Fascinating!” said Edison, pouring the coffee. “I want to hear all about it!”

Buntline, his apron covered with soot from his furnace, where he'd been forging his
super-hardened brass, entered the building through the connecting passageway. He greeted
Roosevelt with a happy smile, and sat down on a shabby leather chair that had seen
better days and decades.

“So, Theodore,” said Edison, bringing him his coffee and then sitting down on a couch
opposite him, "what can you tell us about War Bonnet?”

“Most especially,” added Buntline, “what can you tell us that Doc didn't tell us?”

“Everything and nothing,” said Roosevelt, frowning. “I'm sure if he's got a weakness,
I've seen it—but I haven't recognized it. That's what I'm hoping you two can do.”
He took a sip of the coffee and made a face. “Hot.”

“It's just off the stove.”

“Anyway, I was right that the medicine men control him, because when he had to make
a split-second choice between attacking me and protecting them, he chose to protect
them.”

“We've pretty much figured that out,” said Buntline. “Were you able to kill any of
them—Dull Knife or the others?”

Roosevelt shook his head. “We may have wounded one. I'm sure we didn't kill him. And
once War Bonnet got between the Rough Riders and the medicine men, he absorbed everything
they threw at them.”

“The Rough Riders,” said Buntline with a smile. “I love that name.”

“It fits them,” said Roosevelt.

“Get back to the encounter, Theodore,” said Edison impatiently. “Tell us everything
you remember.”

“He was behind a small rise when we arrived. I guess he heard us riding up in a group;
he couldn't have seen us. Anyway, he got to his feet and came right at me.”

“Impervious to the bullets of your men?”

“I told them not to waste time shooting at him, since based on Doc's experience it
wouldn't have done any good,” said Roosevelt. “Instead, I directed them to charge
the medicine men's hut.”

Edison grinned. “I'll bet he set a world record getting back there.”

Roosevelt nodded an affirmative. “He totally ignored me—he could have reached and
killed me in another ten or twelve seconds—but he raced back to get between the Rough
Riders and the hut where the medicine men were.”

“What makes you think you wounded one of them?” asked Buntline. “Did War Bonnet suddenly
become weaker, maybe even start bleeding a little?”

“Sherman McMaster, one of my men, took a blind shot through the wall of one of the
huts and we all heard a scream from within. War Bonnet screamed, too. He clutched
his shoulder, and moved to protect the hut with his body. He was still absorbing all
the bullets, so he didn't seem to be weakened at all…but from his actions, we felt
sure that we'd chosen the right hut, and from the scream it seems safe to assume that
we wounded
something
.”

“All right,” said Edison. “Once he got there, you couldn't do the inhabitants of the
hut any more harm.”

“Not
much
more,” qualified Roosevelt.

“So at some point either your men retreated or War Bonnet assumed the medicine men
were safe—”

“Or was
told
they were safe,” interjected Buntline.

Edison nodded. “Or was told they were safe.” He paused, frowning. “And then he went
after you?”

Roosevelt shook his head. “It didn't happen quite that way. It was when other warriors—
normal
warriors, not medicine men and not monsters—joined the battle that my Rough Riders
realized the medicine men were temporarily safe, and that meant I was exposed. So
they raced back to me, dismounted, and surrounded me before War Bonnet could reach
me. They knew from Doc's account, and their own battle just seconds ago, that he couldn't
hurt them, couldn't even touch them with those fiery hands, so they had me kneel down
and War Bonnet, try as he could, couldn't reach through or around them to get to me.”

“Fascinating!” said Buntline. “But of course you couldn't stay like that all day.
What changed?”

“I instructed Luke Sloan, one of my men, to mount up while the other five tightened
the circle around me, and to ride, firing his guns, toward the medicine men's hut.
War Bonnet immediately raced back to protect them, we mounted up and rode off, and
Luke caught up with us later.”

“And War Bonnet?” asked Buntline.

“Never saw him again,” answered Roosevelt. He leaned back and finished his coffee.
“And that's the whole story.”

Edison rubbed his chin with his right hand. “Interesting,” he said.

“Have you spotted something?” asked Roosevelt.

“Only the obvious, so far.”

“Nothing's obvious to me,” said Roosevelt. “What have you got?”

“He's not the brightest Indian you ever came across,” said Edison. “Consider: he's
standing almost within arm's reach of you. One of your
men rides back toward the medicine men, and he promptly ignores you and races back,
and by the time he's gotten there and scared Sloan away—I assume that's all he could
do, that he couldn't actually harm or even touch your man—you've mounted up and gone.
Right?”

“Right.”

“Well, there you have it,” said Edison.

Roosevelt frowned. “Maybe
you
have it.
I
don't.”

“Think about it, Theodore. Your six men retreated, not because War Bonnet was decimating
or even hurting them, but because
other
warriors showed up and drove them off. And suddenly he leaves you because one man
is riding back to the very spot those warriors are stationed? He left the man he was
created to kill to protect some medicine men who were in no need of his protection.”

“Damn!” exclaimed Roosevelt. “I never thought of that.”

“Don't let it bother you,” replied Edison. “It's probably of little or no use to us.
After all, we want to kill him. We already know that he's stupid.”

“And nothing you shot at him—guns, rifles,
nothing
—got any reaction?” asked Buntline.

“Nothing,” Roosevelt affirmed.

Edison rose and walked to the kitchen. “This sounds like a two-pot problem,” he said,
returning with the pot and refilling their coffee cups. “But we won't quit thinking
and planning until we've got a solution.”

“
Is
there a solution?”

“If I can electronically light the whole of Tombstone and find a way to power Ned's
horseless stagecoaches, I promise you I can find a way to kill a monster who can only
appear for a few minutes at a time and can only make physical contact with two men
in all the world,” said Edison. “Now let's go over what happened again.”

And so they did, and then a third time, and then a fourth.

“You know, Theodore,” said Edison ninety minutes later, “I'm starting to feel exactly
like you. I have a feeling that I know everything I need to know, but I just haven't
put it together yet.” He went back to the kitchen and started brewing a new pot of
coffee.

“Will you find him in the same place?” asked Buntline.

Roosevelt shrugged. “It depends. I think they're going to want more warriors to protect
the medicine men in case I come back with a bigger group of Rough Riders—or they may
want more medicine men if that'll make War Bonnet stronger. I don't imagine they'll
move any closer.”

“So you've got at least a day and a half's ride to confront him again.”

“Not necessarily,” replied Roosevelt. “Don't forget, he showed up just outside of
Tombstone when Doc faced him. I imagine if Geronimo sends the word—and he doesn't
need a runner or a telegraph to send it—that we're together and waiting for him, he'll
show up there, wherever
there
is, a couple of minutes later.”

“Does Geronimo contact him or the medicine men?”

“Beats me,” said Roosevelt. “If I was to guess, I'd say the medicine men.
They
control
him
; I'm sure it doesn't work the other way around.”

“No, that makes sense,” agreed Buntline. “If he was a fifty-foot-high gorilla, I could
build a cannon in two days' time that could put a hole in him the size of a bar stool.
But a creature that's invulnerable…” He shook his head. “It's a mystery to me.”

“We were sent out here to solve just such mysteries,” said Edison, returning to the
room with a coffee pot and three clean cups on a tray. He placed the tray on a table,
took a cup, and sat down.

“I can go over the incident again,” offered Roosevelt.

“No, Theodore,” said Edison. “Four times is enough for both of us. Now it's a matter
of finding the right way to look at the problem.”

“I'm not sure I follow you, Tom,” said Roosevelt.

“Don't let it distress you,” said Buntline. “When he starts thinking, no one can follow
him. That's why he's Thomas Alva Edison.”

“We've put enough thought into this to realize that we're examining it from the wrong
angle,” said Edison.

“I still don't follow you,” said Roosevelt.

“What have we been doing? Looking for a way to kill an invulnerable monster. Bigger
bullets? A bigger cannon? Something sharp?” He sighed deeply. “None of that will work,
and we're wasting our time trying to find a way, to put it bluntly, to puncture skin
that is protected by magic and can't be punctured.”

“Okay, I can agree with that,” said Roosevelt. “But if we can't puncture his skin,
how do we kill him?”

“We have to find a way,” answered Edison, “and at least we know what
won't
work. I don't suppose asphyxiation will work either. Doc had a feeling that even
though he has a nose and a mouth, he doesn't breathe—and even if he does, I don't
see any way to cut off his air that he can't overcome. You can't gag him—he'd rip
you apart before you got close enough.”

Roosevelt walked over to the table, poured himself a cup of coffee, and returned to
his seat.

“Too bad he doesn't eat,” he remarked. “We could save a lot of trouble by poisoning
his food.”

Suddenly Edison smiled. “Say that again, Theodore.”

“About poisoning his food?” repeated Roosevelt, frowning. “But we can't, and like
I say, even if we could, he doesn't eat, or at least no one's ever
seen
him eat.”

“I know,” said Edison, the smile growing larger. “What a stupid way to hit upon a
solution.”

Roosevelt stared at him. “Are you quite well?”

Edison chucked. “Quite.”

“Then I don't know what—”

“Give me just a second to work it out, Theodore.”

Edison closed his eyes, placed an elbow on his knee, formed a fist, and propped his
chin up with it.

“It's okay, Theodore,” said Buntline softly, so as not to disturb his partner. “I've
seen him like this before. He'll be fine in a minute. He'll sit so still you think
he's gone catatonic, and then he'll open his eyes and explain whatever he's figured
out in terms you and I can understand.” He smiled reassuringly. “You'll see.”

“It must drive you crazy,” said Roosevelt.

“The results are worth it.”

They sat in silence for almost two minutes, staring at the motionless Edison, who
finally opened his eyes and sat erect.

“Let me ask you a couple of very simple questions, Theodore,” he said.

“Go right ahead,” said Roosevelt. “I'm dying to learn what I missed.”

“Did you speak to him?”

Roosevelt frowned, trying to remember. “I don't think so,” he said at last. “He yelled
a threat or two, but I was talking to my Rough Riders. No, I don't think any of us
spoke directly to him.”

“Doesn't really matter,” said Edison. “We know Doc spoke to him. Next question: Why
did he stop coming after you and race off to protect the medicine men's hut?”

“My men were attacking it.”

“How did he know?”

“They were screaming and shooting and riding directly toward it. He couldn't have
missed that, not with all the shooting.”