Weird West 04 - The Doctor and the Dinosaurs (11 page)

Roosevelt stood, keeping his back to the warrior, stretched his arms, bade Holliday a good-night, and walked off to his tent. A moment later the canvas wall and top were illuminated by a reading lamp.

Holliday remained where he was for another half hour, then decided Roosevelt had a point and he'd prove nothing by sleeping out here. He got to his feet, faced the bushes where the Comanche was hiding, took off his hat in a sweeping motion, bowed from the waist, and walked to the outbuilding that housed the cot he'd been assigned, a smile on his face as he tried to imagine the warrior's confusion.

Y
OUNGER WAS GONE
by the time the rest of the camp awoke. Holliday began the day by coughing up blood, as usual. When he recovered, he got up—he'd slept in his clothes, like almost all the men—and looked around for Roosevelt but couldn't find him.

He saw Cody seated at a table, munching on some venison, and decided it was too damned early in the day for meat—or for eggs or any other solid or semisolid food, for that matter. He settled for his flask, refilling it when Marsh was busy studying maps of the area, and starting in on it again.

“Here he comes!” noted Cody. “A little earlier than usual. Usually he misses breakfast.”

Holliday looked in the direction indicated and saw a shirtless Roosevelt trotting toward their table, shadow-boxing all the way, his torso drenched in sweat.

“Good morning!” said Roosevelt enthusiastically. “Beautiful day, isn't it?”

“It's too damned early to tell, but I'd lay odds against it,” grumbled Holliday. “What the hell are you doing, Theodore?”

“My morning run,” answered Roosevelt. “Just keeping fit, and working up an appetite—which, for a change, it looks like I'll be able to assuage before noontime.”

Cody laughed. “Oh, come on, Theodore—I always keep a couple of pieces of bread for you.”

“Clearly our Buffalo Bill is one of Nature's noblemen,” said Holliday sardonically. “Why, I'll bet if you asked he'd be happy to share his deer with you.”

“No need to,” said Roosevelt before Cody could object. “The mess tent's open. I'll just get something there and be back to join you.”

He headed off, and Cody turned to Holliday. “You knew the mess tent was open,” he said accusingly. “Do you delight in ruining other people's digestion?”

“I never gave it any serious thought,” admitted Holliday, “but now that you mention it…”

“Damned lucky for you you're so good with
that
,” muttered Cody.

“Yeah,” agreed Holliday. “If I wasn't so good at killing men, I suppose I'd have to spend most of my time fixing their teeth.”

“I know you were a dentist,” said Cody. “Why did you stop?”

Holliday was suddenly wracked by another coughing spasm. When he finished he put his bloody handkerchief back in his pocket. “You were asking…?” he said.

“Never mind,” said Cody, looking at the blood that remained on Holliday's fingers. “I do hope you'll consider joining the
Buffalo Bill Wild West Show
when this foolishness is done.”

“You don't want me,” said Holliday. “I can't tell stories like Calamity Jane, because I'd have coughing fits in the middle of them. And I'm no sharpshooter like Annie Oakley.”

“But look at all the men you've killed!” protested Cody.

“Most men have more vital areas than you can imagine,” answered Holliday, toying with a biscuit but finally pushing it away. “Stick to your ladies; people will flock to see them.”

“Jane's a drunk,” replied Cody.

“I heard she'd killed some notorious men,” said Holliday.

“Oh, she has,” said Cody. “But not with a gun.” Holliday stared at him curiously. “With a social disease.
That's
why she's
Calamity
Jane.”

Holliday laughed at that. “Not to worry,” he responded. “The history books'll clean it up.”

“Getting back to you…”

Holliday shook his head. “I'm living on borrowed time—and the guy I borrowed it from wants it back at the end of the year.”

“I'm not quite sure what you're referring to,” said Cody. Suddenly he learned forward. “I hear you're pretty tight with Geronimo. You think he'd be interested?”

Holliday stared at him. “Are you willing to have every member of your audience check their guns at the ticket office?”

It was Cody's turn to frown. “What are you talking about, Doc?”

“You let armed white men walk into a tent where Geronimo's performing, and how many seconds do you figure it'll take before they start shooting at him? Surely not a whole minute.”

Cody considered what Holliday said, and finally shrugged. “You've got a point. I'll wait another eight or ten years. By then they'll have so many more recent enemies that they'll have forgotten why they were mad at him in the first place.”

“I suppose you have to think like that if you're going to be an entrepreneur,” said Holliday, taking another swallow of whiskey as Roosevelt, with almost a pound of venison and a pair of fried eggs on his plate, joined them.

“Lovely day!” he said enthusiastically.

Holliday looked out across the sunlit campsite and winced. “Oh, shut up, Theodore,” he muttered.

“You'll have to excuse my friend,” Roosevelt said to Cody. “He's not at his best before mid-afternoon.”

“I haven't been at my best since 1869,” growled Holliday.

“Damn!” said Roosevelt, getting up. “I forgot the coffee!”

As he trotted off to the mess tent, Cody turned to Holliday. “Does he
ever
slow down?”

“Theodore?” replied Holliday. “He even goes to sleep energetically—if he
does
sleep. Personally, I've never seen him go to bed without a book in his hands.”

“Remarkable man!” said Cody.

Holliday nodded his agreement. “That's why Geronimo chose him.”

Roosevelt trotted back with a pot of coffee and a trio of empty cups. “I thought someone else might like some too,” he announced.

“No, thanks,” said Cody.

“Too strong for me,” said Holliday, taking a swallow from his flask. “I'll stick with this weak stuff.”

“Well, what the schedule for today?” asked Roosevelt.

“This is going to come as a shock to you, Theodore,” said Holliday, “but I have a feeling that they're going to dig for fossils.”

“I meant where, and for what?” replied Roosevelt with a smile.

“You'd have to ask Professor Marsh,” said Cody.

“I think I will, once I finish my breakfast,” said Roosevelt. “As long as I'm stuck here until Tom and Ned show up, I might as well help with the digging.”

“Tom and Ned?” repeated Cody.

“A couple of friends,” said Holliday. He turned to Roosevelt. “You're really going to dig in the dirt for a bunch of bones?”

Roosevelt nodded enthusiastically. “Both Cope and Marsh think this was a prime feeding territory of the triceratops. Might as well find out sooner than later.”

“The tricera-
what
?” said Holliday.

“You know, I've heard Marsh use that term,” interjected Cody. “Recently, I think.”

“It's like a rhinoceros,” said Roosevelt. “Only bigger.
Much
bigger.”

“I've seen drawings of a rhinoceros,” allowed Holliday. “How big do they get?”

“There are three species,” answered Roosevelt. “Well, two species and one sub-species.”

“Of course,” said Holliday sardonically.

“The black rhinoceros is the most prevalent, and weighs maybe a ton and a half. The white rhinoceros goes about three tons.” A pause. “I don't know if they can interbreed.”

“Might be damnably awkward,” said Cody.

“They're actually black and white?” asked Holliday. “The few drawings and descriptions I've come across make ’em all sound kind of gray and colorless.”

Roosevelt grinned. “The big one has a square jaw and lip, which prompted the Boers to call it the
vid
rhino, for
wide
, not white.” He picked up a stick and drew the foreface of a white rhino in the dirt next to his chair. “And once the British heard its name—well,
mis
heard it, the other became the black rhino just to differentiate it.” He proceeded to draw a black rhino's foreface to demonstrate the difference.

“What's the third?” asked Cody. “The puce, or maybe the mauve?”

“The third is the Indian rhinoceros, bigger than the black, smaller than the white, and looking for all the world like it's armored.”

“How do you kill it if it's armored?” asked Holliday.

Roosevelt shook his head. “It
looks
armored, but it's not.”

“Is this all from books, or have you actually seen one?” asked Cody.

“I've seen the remains of a couple at the Smithsonian,” answered Roosevelt. “Someday I'll get to Africa and see the white and black species for myself.”

He said it with such conviction that no one challenged him.

“So how big is the tri—tricer—this rhino's uncle?” asked Holliday.

Roosevelt shrugged. “We won't know until Cope or Marsh has enough bones to identify one and reconstruct it, but from what I've read and heard, maybe eight to ten tons.”

“So you're saying that it's maybe six times bigger than the most common rhinoceros, the kind that all the hunters write about?”

Roosevelt nodded his head enthusiastically. “Thrilling, isn't it?”

“Mostly I'm thrilled that they're extinct,” answered Holliday. He paused, frowning. “What the hell could kill something like that?”

“Whatever it was,” said Cody, “just pray you never have to meet one of them.”

“Could turn a man to religion,” agreed Holliday.

“Relax,” said Roosevelt, wolfing down his breakfast. “They've been dead for a few million years, maybe more.”

“Let's just hope they
stay
dead,” said Holliday meaningfully.

“You really mean to help dig?” asked Cody, pulling out one of his pistols and making sure every chamber except the operative one had a cartridge in it—like everyone with a six-shooter, he left that empty so he didn't accidently blow his foot off—and then went through the same procedure with the other pistol.

“Might as well,” answered Roosevelt. “What else is there to do?”

“You might help me ride shotgun against the Comanche.”

“They haven't bothered you yet, and we
are
desecrating their sacred burial ground,” said Roosevelt.

“So you plan to help desecrate it further,” noted Holliday.

“There are times,” Roosevelt said, “when your sense of humor isn't as rib-tickling as you think it is.”

“So I've been told,” replied Holliday.

Roosevelt downed the last of the venison and drained his coffee cup. “All right,” he said, getting up. “I'm ready.”

“Let's go see Professor Marsh and find out what he has in mind for today,” said Cody. He turned to Holliday. “You coming along, Doc?”

“Ride a horse so I can dig in the dirt when I finally climb off him?” said Holliday. “I admire your notion of a joke, but it's a little early in the day for humor.”

Cody seemed amused. “Sorry I asked.”

He joined Roosevelt and the two walked over to what Cody called the bone building, where Marsh was plotting out the day's dig. They returned a few minutes later and approached Holliday.

“Well?” asked Holliday.

“He's got a spot about three miles from here,” answered Roosevelt. “He's found a femur bone that he thinks may have belonged to a triceratops, and he wants to continue digging in that location.”

“And you're really going to help dig?”

Roosevelt grinned. “Why not? After all, I've already got my shirt off.”

Holliday turned to Cody. “And you're going to hold off the Indians?”

“If need be,” answered Cody.

“Just out of curiosity, how many have you killed so far?”

“None. But if any of them attack us, I'm ready.” Cody paused. “I
have
killed a saboteur.”

“I saw him as I rode in here,” said Holliday.

Cody shook his head. “No, that was a different one. The one I nailed was five days ago. The one you saw was killed by Chan Lee, one of the Chinese diggers.”

“Excuse me for demonstrating my ignorance, but just what the hell does a saboteur
do
on a dinosaur dig?”

“Well, if they know we've got something
really
rare, they'll try to destroy it. But the clever ones do other things.”

“For instance?”

“About two months ago Professor Cope found a couple of leg bones that belong to a huge creature, maybe seventy-five tons, that he calls a brontosaur, and he shipped them back East, along with some vertebrae.”

“And your guy wrecked the train?” asked Holliday.

“No. He found the remains of a skull maybe two hundred miles from here. A
huge
head, but not big enough to eat what a brontosaur needs to sustain it. He had some confederates sneak the skull onto the train with the other bones. When they reconstruct it back East, Cope's going to become a laughing stock for giving them a head that couldn't possibly consume enough to support that body if it had thirty hours a day to do nothing but eat.” Cody threw back his head and laughed.

“It's creative, I'll give it that,” admitted Holliday.

“Of course, now that Theodore's heard it, he'll be the one to expose it once he goes back to New York,” said Cody.

Roosevelt shook his head. “That was privileged information,” he said. “I plan to keep it to myself. Someone else can expose it.”

“And if no one does?” asked Holliday.

“Then you're going to have the damnedest-looking dinosaur you can imagine!” laughed Cody. He turned to Roosevelt. “They're saddling the horses and getting the wagons ready. We'd better be going.”

Roosevelt nodded his agreement, then turned to Holliday. “See you at dinnertime,” he said.

“I don't think so,” answered Holliday.

Roosevelt frowned. “Why not?”

“We've got some friends who are arriving in Cheyenne in a couple of days. Someone should be waiting for them to guide them back here.”